PSALTER 371 PSYCHICAL BESEARCH name for the Supreme Being in this book is Elohim {q. v.). Book 3 ascribes Psalms to David, to Korah, to Asaph, to Ethan, and to Heman the Ezrahite. Elohim and Jehovah are about equally common in the book, the former, how- ever, being apparently preferred. Book 4 ascribes Psalm xc. to Moses, the others not anonymous to David. Book 5 leaves many psalms anonymous, attributing others to David. The Hebrew Bible, but not the Septuagint, assigns Ps. cxxvii. to Solomon. This volume contains the Songs of Degrees. The book was evi- dently brought together from many sources. The book of Psalms is quoted or alluded to as an inspired composition by Our Saviour and His apostles at least 70 times; no Old Testament book is more frequently quoted. Its canonical au- thority has never been seriously doubted. It has become the psalter of the Chris- tian Church. PSALTER, the Book of Psalms; also a book containing the Psalms separately printed, and with musical accompani- ment adapted to each; also specifically, the version of the Psalms in the English Book of Common Prayer. In the Ro- man ritual, the daily office in the Brev- iary. Our Lady's Psalter is the Little Office. PSALTERY, a stringed instrument of music used by the ancient Jews, the form of which is not known. That which is now used is in the form of a trape- zium or triangle truncated at the top, having 13 strings of wire, mounted on two bridges at the sides, and is struck with a plectrum. PSAMMETICHUS, a king of Egypt who died about 617 B. C. He was one of the 12 kings who reigned simultaneously in Egypt for 15 years after the expul- sion of the .Ethiopian dynasty; but be- ing suspected by the other kings of aim- ing at sole sovereigTity, he was driven into banishment. With the aid of some Greek mercenaries, however, he defeated the other kings in a battle fought at Momemphis, on the E. side of Lake Mareotis, after which he became the sole King of Egypt (671 or 670 B. c), and the founder of a new dynasty. PSARA, or IPSARA, an island of Greece, in the Grecian Archipelago, 7 miles N. W. of Scio, about 5V2 miles in length, and as many in breadth. PSEUDOMORPH, a mineral which has replaced another, or which appears in crystal forms which are foreign to its original formation. _ PSETJDONYM, a false, feigned, or fic- titious name; a pen-name. PSEUDOPODIA, organs of locomotion and prehension in the lower Protozoa. PSETJDOSCOPE, in optics, an instru- ment, invented by Wheatstone, for pro- ducing an apparent reversion of the re- lief of an object to which it is directed, by the transposition of the distances of the points which compose it. A false impression is thus conveyed to the eye, a globe becoming apparently concave and a hollow body assuming a convex form. PSITTACID.ffi, the parrot tribe, a family of scansorial birds, comprising over 300 species, of which the genus Psit' tacus is the type. PSKOV, a city in Russia, on the right bank of the Velikaya, 165 miles S. S. W. from Petrograd. It is the center of a considerable trade in flax, hemp, hides, tallow and contains a large number of small leather goods factories. For nearly 300 years, during the Middle Ages, it was a free republic, but became subject to Moscow in 1509. During the World War, it was the center of much activity behind the lines, and after the disastrous Brest-Litovsk Peace Confer- ence, in the winter of 1917-1918, was in- vaded by the Germans. Pop., in 1920, estimated at 30,300. PSOAS, in anatomy, two muscles; the psoas magnus and psoas parvus, con- nected with the lumbar vertebrae. In entomology, a genua of beetles allied to Bostrichus. PSORALEA, in botany, the typical genus of Psoralieee. P. cory folia is con- sidered by Indian doctors to be stomachic and deobstruent. An extract from it, prepared with oil or ointment, is used externally in leprosy. Camels are fond of P. plicata. PSORIASIS, a cutaneous disease — the scaly tetter. It is often hereditary, and is akin to lepra. PSYCHE. In the later Greek writ- ings the word psyche occurs as a person- ification of the human soul. PSYCHICAL RESEARCH, a term ap- plied to the process of inquiry into the "phenomena designated by such terms as mesmeric, psychical, and spiritualis- tic," to use the words of the programme of the British Society for Psychical Re- search. The object of the inquiry, as described by this society, was to deter- mine the nature and extent of any in- fluence which might be exerted by one mind upon another apart from any gen- erally recognized mode of perception. Inquiry had to be made into hypnotism, the so-called mesmeric trance, tSirvoy*
