certain to meet with many more species, some, as Ossifraga gigantea, as large as Albatrosses, and several of them called by sailors by a variety of choice names, generally having reference to the strong smell of musk emitted by the birds, among which that of “Stink-pot” is not the most opprobrious. None of the Petrels are endowed with any brilliant colouring—sooty-black, grey of various tints (one of which is often called “blue”), and white being the only hues the plumage exhibits.
The distribution of the several species of Petrels in the Southern Ocean has been treated by A. Milne-Edwards in the Annales des sciences naturelles for 1882 (6th series Zoologie, vol. xiii. art. 4, pp. 1–22). (A. N.)
PETRIE, GEORGE (1790–1866), Irish antiquary, was the son
of James Petrie, a native of Aberdeen, who had settled in Dublin
as a portrait and miniature painter. He was born in Dublin in
January 1790, and was educated as an artist. Besides attaining
considerable reputation as a painter of Irish landscape, he
devoted much time to the illustration of the antiquities of the
country. In 1828 he was appointed to conduct the antiquarian
and historical section of the ordnance survey of Ireland. In
1832 he became editor of the Dublin Penny Journal, a periodical
designed to disseminate information among the masses, to which
he contributed numerous articles on the history of the fine arts
in Ireland. Petrie may be regarded as the first scientific investigator
of Irish archaeology, his contributions to which are
also in themselves of much importance. His Essay on Round
Towers, for which in 1830 he received the prize of the Irish
Academy, still ranks as a standard work. Among his other
contributions to Irish archaeology are his Essay on the Military
Architecture of Ireland and his History and Antiquities of Tara
Hill. He died on the 17th of January 1866.
See the Life and Labours in Art and Archaeology of George Petrie, by William Stokes (1868).
PETRIE, WILLIAM MATTHEW FLINDERS (1853–),
English egyptologist, was born at Charlton on the 3rd of June
1853, being the son of William Petrie, C.E. His mother was the
daughter of Captain Matthew Flinders, the Australian explorer.
He took an early interest in archaeological research, and between
1875 and 1880 was busily engaged in studying ancient British
remains at Stonehenge and elsewhere; in 1880 he published his
book on Stonehenge, with an account of his theories on this
subject. He was also much interested in ancient weights and
measures, and in 1875 published a work on Inductive Metrology.
In 1881 he began a long series of important surveys and excavations
in Egypt, beginning with the pyramids at Giza, and following
up his work there by excavations at the great temple at Tanis
(1884), and discovering and exploring the long-lost Greek city of
Naucratis in the Delta (1885), and the towns of Am and Daphnae
(1886), where he found important remains of the time when they
were inhabited by the Pharaohs. Between 1888 and 1890 he
was at work in the Fayum, opening up Hawara, Kahun and
Lachish; and in 1891 he discovered the ancient temple at Medum.
Much of this work was done in connexion with the Palestine
Exploration Fund. By this time his reputation was established.
He published in 1893 his Ten Years’ Diggings in Egypt,
was given the honorary degree of D.C.L. by Oxford, and was
appointed Edwards Professor of Egyptology at University
College, London. In 1894 he founded the Egyptian Research
Account, which in 1905 was reconstituted as the British School
of Archaeology in Egypt (not to be confused with the Egypt
Exploration Fund, founded 1892). Perhaps the most important
work which the School has accomplished has been the investigation
of the site of Memphis (q.v.)
The extent as well as the chronological order of Professor Petrie’s excavations may best be shown by a list of his works.
Works.—His chief general works on Egyptian subjects are, Ten Years’ Diggings in Egypt (1893); History of Egypt (1894–1905): Egyptian Tales (1895); Religion and Conscience in Ancient Egypt (1898); Syria and Egypt (1898); Royal Tombs of the First Dynasty (1900); Royal Tombs of the Earliest Dynasties (1901); Hyksos and Israelite Cities (1906); Religion of Ancient Egypt (1906); Personal Religion in Egypt (1908). On particular sites, Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh (1883); Tanis I. (1885); Naukratis I. (1886); Hawara (1889); Kahun (1890); Illahun (1891); Medum (1892); Tell el Amarna (1895): Koptos (1896); Nogada (1896); Six Temples at Thebes (1897); Deshasheh (1897); Dendereh (1900), Diospolis (1901); Abydos I. (1902), Abydos II. (1903); Ehnasya (1904); Egyptians in Sinai and Researches in Sinai (1906); Gizeh and Rifeh (1907); Athribis (1908); Memphis and Qurneh (1909).
PETRIOU (also called Cha-chang-sao), a town and port of Siam, in the division of Pachim, about 45 m. E. of Bangkok.
It is the centre of that part of southern Siam which is watered
by the Bang Pakong River. It is built on low-lying, swampy
ground, about 10 m. from the mouth of the above river. The
population is about 10,000, mixed Siamese and Chinese, the
latter slightly predominating. Rice-mills give employment to
a large number of indentured Chinese coolies, but the inhabitants
are chiefly engaged in agriculture. A railway connecting
with Bangkok was opened in the spring of 1908.
PETROLEA, a town and port of entry in Lambton county,
Ontario, Canada, situated 42 m. W. of London on Bear Creek,
an affluent of Sydenham River, and on the Grand Trunk and
Michigan Central railways. Pop. (1901), 4135. It is in the
midst of the oil region of Canada, and numerous wells in the
vicinity have an aggregate output of about 30,000,000 gallons
of crude oil per annum, much of which is refined in the town.
PETROLEUM (Lat. petra, rock, and oleum, oil), a term which, in its widest sense, embraces the whole of the hydrocarbons,
gaseous, liquid and solid, occurring in nature (see Bitumen).
Here the application of the term is limited to the liquid which
is so important an article of commerce, though references will
also be made to natural gas which accompanies petroleum.
Descriptions of the solid forms will be found in the articles on
asphalt or asphaltum, albertite, elaterite, gilsonite, hatchettite
and ozokerite. Particulars of the shales which yield oil on
destructive distillation are given in the article on paraffin.
Ancient History.—Petroleum was collected for use in the most remote ages of which we have any records. Herodotus describes the oil pits near Ardericca (near Babylon), and the pitch spring of Zacynthus (Zante), whilst Strabo, Dioscorides and Pliny mention the use of the oil of Agrigentum, in Sicily, for illumination, and Plutarch refers to the petroleum found near Ecbatana (Kerkuk). The ancient records of China and Japan are said to contain many allusions to the use of natural gas for lighting and heating. Petroleum (“burning water”) was known in Japan in the 7th century, whilst in Europe the gas springs of the north of Italy led to the adoption in 1226 by the municipality of Salsomaggiore of a salamander surrounded by flames as its emblem. Marco Polo refers to the oil springs of Baku towards the end of the 13th century; the medicinal properties of the oil of Tegernsee in Bavaria gave it the name of “St Quirinus’s Oil” in 1436; the oil of Pechelbronn, Elsass, was discovered in 1498, and the “earth balsam” of Galicia was known in 1506. The earliest mention of American petroleum occurs in Sir Walter Raleigh’s account of the Trinidad pitch-lake in 1595; whilst thirty-seven years later, the account of a visit of a Franciscan, Joseph de la Roche d’Allion, to the oil springs of New York was published in Sagard’s Histoire du Canada. In the 17th century, Thomas Shirley brought the natural gas of Wigan, in Shropshire, to the notice of the Royal Society. In 1724 Hermann Boernaave referred to the oleum terrae of Burma, and “Barbados tar” was then well known as a medicinal agent. A Russian traveller, Peter Kalm, in his work on America, published in 1748, showed on a map the oil springs of Pennsylvania, and about the same time Raicevich referred to the “liquid bitumen” of Rumania.
Modern Development and Industrial Progress.—The first commercial exploitation of importance appears to have been the distillation of the oil at Alfreton in Derbyshire by James Young, who patented his process for the manufacture of paraffin in 1850. In 1853 and 1854 patents for the preparation of this substance from petroleum were obtained by Warren de la Rue, and the process was applied to the “Rangoon oil” brought to Great Britain from Yenangyaung in Upper Burma. The active growth of the petroleum industry of the United States began in 1859, though in the early part of the century the petroleum of Lake Seneca, N.Y., was used as an embrocation under the
