2. P with m, somewhat rare. Thus the Greek preposition IzeTa is in the iEolic dialect 'Trek. Again, the Greek µoaus3os is essentially the same word with the Latin plumbutt. Allied to this change is the insertion of a p between either in and a or m and 1, as in the Latin sumpsi, samples, for sumai, aumtua, and temptare for tentare.
3. P with v. This change is more particularly to be observed in the derivation of French from Latin. Thus, from eapillus, hair, epiacopua, a bishop, decipere, deceive, &c., aperire, open, opera, work, &pus, hare, pauper, poor, piper, pepper, A prilia, April, the French have deduced their ehereu, ereque, deceroir, &c., ourrir, oeuvre, lierre, paurre, poirre, Arril.
4. P with f. Two or three examples are given under F. To these may be added pro, for ; pater, father ; piscis, fish ; pauci, few ; lupus, wolf. So the Greek Topqmpa, lauvoXn, tounZ, have the aspirate, while the Latin, as usual, prefers the tennis in purpura, pamula, Poen us.
5. P with pf. The latter form is often preferred by the German, where our own tongue has the single letter. Thus the English words pound, peach, pepper, pea-cock, penny, azple, are written by the Germans pfund. pfirache, pfeffer, plc u, pfennig, apfcl.
6. P with c, k, or q. See C.
7. P with t, as rams, in Latin paro. The Greek interrogative words beginning with a r, as roe, up, To-repot, &c., are related on the one hand to the Ionic forms sou, Kortpos, and on the other to the demon stratives that commonly take a T at the beginning. And in fact the latter are often used as relatives.
8. P with pt. The latter is common in Greek, as in Tuwrw, mrrceue, &c., which form their other tenses for the most part without a v. So too at the beginning of words. Thus frrosas and 7rroXelLos coexist with weSis and Toateos; and it seems probable that it was an unsuccessful attempt to pronounce the initial pt which led to the formation of the Latin words populus, a state, and populari, to devastate with war.
9. Ps with sp. This change it will be inure convenient to consider under the letter S.
10. Pi before a vowel with eh. Thus aapiam, in Latin, becomes sache in French. The word roche, too, was probably formed from a barbarous Latin word rapid; and Rutupium, in the county of Kent, appears upon this principle to have changed its named to Rich borough.
PACE (Posses), a measure of the Roman system, being in fact their unit of itinerary measure, to which the milk passus, or MILE, was referred. The word paasus is connected with the root of pandere, to extend, and Paucton curiously enough derives it It possis manibus, from the length between the extended hands, instead of It patois pedibus. There is however reason to believe that the mille paeaus came into use from the practice of measuring distances in new countries from the number of pales marched by the soldiery, of which a rough reckoning was kept, but whether by actually counting the paces, or by the time of marching compared with the previously known number of paces in a given time, is not known. It is well known that with disciplined soldiers either method would give very good practical results. Vitru vius describes a machine to be fastened to the wheel of a chariot (an invention revived in our own day), by which its number of revolutions was registered ; but this was probably a late invention.
The pace was nut, as persons in general suppose, the step or the distance from heel to heel when the feet are at their utmost ordinary extension ; this, which the French metrologists call pas simple, was the ;media or pruritus. The passue, or pas double of the same writers, was two gradus, or the distance from the point which the heel leaves to that on which it is set down. Assuming the Roman foot at 11'62 English inches, the pace, which was five feet, must have been 58'1 inches or 4'84 English feet.
Here we might have stopped, if it had not been necessary to explain something relative to what it pleased the writers of the middle ages to call the geometrical pace, composed of five geometrical feet. What they meant by this measure is not easily understood, except by the suppo sition (which some of their writings confirm) that they imagined a fixed and universal measure of length to exist in nature, and to have been actually obtained. At the beginning of the 16th century the Roman mile, at least the mile of 5000 feet or 1000 paces, was generally used by writers [Max], and itinerary measures were more often written about than verified. The stadium, or eighth part of this mile, had also been introduced (into books) from the Greek system, and it was the common opinion, derived from Ptolemy, that the degree of latitude was exactly 500 stadia, or 624 miles. This made the pace, or the 125th part of tho stadium, stand forward as a proper universal measure, being the 62500th part of that which all believed the degree of latitude to be. But though this may be a probable origin of the geometrical pace, it is certain that writers did not adhere uniformly to it, so that the later metrologists have formed different notions of its length. We shall give the accounts of several modern writers.
Dr. Bernard makes the geometrical pace (which he also calls the land-surveyor's pace) to be five English feet. Greaves supposes that a pace of upwards of 69 inches was once in use in England. Ozanam makes the geometrical pace to be the same as the Roman pace. Eysen achmidt does not mention the measure at all. Paucton (who has a theory about the derivation of measures from parts of the human body) makes it only 44 Roman feet. Rom6 de L'Isle, who contends that Paucton has several times confounded the Greek Olympic foot with the Roman foot, makes it 44 Olympic feet, that is, 44 English feet very nearly. An old writer, Samson d'Abbeville, cited by Paucton, lays down the geometrical pace at 5 French feet, and never theless makes the Roman mile to contain a thousand such paces. The conclusion is, that the geometrical pace was an invention of the old writers, a needless addition to the confusion in which their accounts of ancient measures were already enveloped.
There is a pace mentioned in ecclesiastical writers called passes ecclesiastieua, or dexter (see Ducango, at the word Dextri), which Dr. Bernard, without stating any authority, makes of the same length as the English yard.