PODOCARPUS. 148 POE. Fijians, is ppciiliaily clasuc. It abounds in Queenslniui ami New Soutli Wales, where it be- comes 100 feel ill height and two to three feet in diameter. The timber is free from knots, soft, elose-graine<i, and easily worked, and is much used for caliinot and joiners' work. A shrubby species, Podocarjnis spiniilosa, also a na- tive of Australia, produces an edible fruit. See Dacrydu M. PODOLIA, pi'-do'lya. A government of South- westirn Kiissia. Imnnded by the Government of V'olhynia on the north, Kiev on the east. Kher- son and Bessarabia on the south, and the Aus- trian Crownland of Oalieia on the west (Jlap: Kussia, C 5). .rea. 10.240 square miles. The region is traversed from northwest to southeast by two ranges of hills separated from each other by the valley of the Bug. The Dnieper flows along the .southwestern boundary. The cli- mate is moderate, the annual temperature at Kamenetz-Podolsk. the capital, averaging 48.4". Podolia has a rich black soil yielding consider- able quantities of grain for export. Besides cereaU there are raised tobacco and large quan- tities of sugar beets for the local sugar mills. The chief products of the lioiise industry are tex- tiles. In 1800 there were in Podolia about ."j-ZOO manufacturing establishments, with 28,500 em- ployees and an output valued at more than $10.- 000,000. The prineipal manufactured products are sugar (in the production of which Podolia is exceeded only by the (Jovcrnment of Kiev), spirits. Hour, ami tobacco. Population, in 1S!)7. 3,0.31. ."lOO. including over 240.000 Roman Catho- lics, and marly 400.000 Jews. PODOPHYL'LIN (from Neo-Lat. Podoph;/!- Uini, from Gk. irous, pous. foot -|- ^i/XXoi', phyl- Ion, leaf, so called because the five or seven divi- sions of the leaf bore a fancied resemblance to the foot of some animal). The name ccmimonly given to the resin obtained by means of rectified spirit from the root of PodojihijUum peltotiim. or Maj--apple. a plant common throughout the United States. This resin, which occurs as a pale greenish amorphous powder, has (as well as the root from which it is derived) been introduced into the I'nited States pharmacopieia. It is an active purgative, and seems to have the power of relieving the liver by exciting copious bilious dis- charges. As its activity seems to vary in dif- ferent patients, it is better to begin with a small dose of half a grain, which may be combined with extract of henliane (hyosc.vamus) to prevent griping. Podophyllin is very soluble in alcohol and moderately so in ether. Picrnporlophyllin is said to be the constituent to which the purgative properties of Hie resin are due. POB'OPHYL1,UM (Neo-Lat., from Gk. xoiis,
- )oi(.s, foot + <pvof, plii/llon. leaf). A genus of
plants of the natural order Berberidacese. Pod- ophyllum pellatiim, called ^May-apple, mandrake (q.v. ). hog-apple, and wild lemon, is a common perennial plant in moist woods of North America. Its solitary white flower in the axil of the two leaves is followed by an oval, smooth, yellowish, succulent, mawkishly sweet, subacid fruit, which is not generally considered agreeable. PODSNAP, Mr. A character in Dickens's Otir Miiliinl Friend, a type of a hea^y British gentleman, perfectly satisfie<l with the ways of Providence, which represented exactly his o^vn views. His wife was a bony, hard-featured woman in a majestic headdress, and his daugh- ter, whom lie called 'the young person,' was a quiet, inoll'ensive girl. POE, Edgar Allan (1809-49). An American poet and prose writer, liorn in Uoston, .January 19, 1809. The grandson of a prominent patriot during the War of the Kcvolution, the son of an actor whose wife was his superior in charm if not in power on the stage, Poe shared for several years the wandering life and vicissitudes of his parents, but after liis mother's early deatli was adopted by Mrs. .John Allan, the wife of a busi- ness man of Richmoml, Va. Te boy's ])er- sonality gave promise of fascinating qualities, anil he was given the best educational opportuni- ties within the reach of his adojited parents. He was sent to a good school in Richmond: was taken to England in 181.5 and placed in the Manor House School in the neigliborhood of Lon- don, amid surroundings which made a deep im- pression on his sensitive imagination. In one of J his most striking sketches, "William Wilson, hei recalled in vivid description the school, thej village, and the old church to which the boysl were paraded twice on Sunda.y. In 1820 the] Allans returned to Richiiioiid and Edgar read thej classics and studied French under a pedantic Irish teacher, learning with great quickness, versatile, fond of reading, somewhat given to satirical comment on his fellows, agile and vig: orous in movement and courteous in manner. In 1820 Poe entered the University of Virginia, which had just been established by Thomas Jefferson at Charlottesville on new and promising lines'of organization and methods of work. In the schools of ancient and modern lan- guages in which he studied. Poe gave his atten- tion chiefly to Latin, Greek, Spanish, French, and Italian. Heavy drinking and card-playing for money were pojiular forms of dissipation among students, and Poe's life was not free from ex- cesses. There is, however, no foundation for the reports of excessive indulgence in these vices ; he seems to have been neither better nor worse than many of his contemporaries. At the end of the first session he won honors in Latin and French, but his irregularities offended Mr. Allan, and Poe was placed in his adopted father's counting- room. The work was very distasteful to him, and he soon made his escape from its drudgery to reappear in Boston, where his earliest volume, Tamn'hnie, and Othrr Poems, was brought out by an amateur publisher in 1827. The influence of Byron was then at its height, and Poe's work showed how sympathetically he had studied the English poet whose mastery of the lyric form has given him a foremost place among the sing- ing poets. The verse in the little volume was notable neither for power nor promise of original thought, but it was full of poetic feeling, of sensi- tiveness to the melody of words, and of rich imagery. In May, 1827. Poe enlisted in the United States Army as a ])rivate soldier, served two years with fidelity, was honorably discharged, secured a reconciliation with Mr. Allan, and fur- nished more substantial evidence of his posses- sion of original power by the publication of "AI Aaraaf" and other minor poems in Baltimore in 1829. Mr. Allan married a, second time in Octo- ber, 18.30, having previously, by way of set- tling his way^vard ward in life, secured for him an appointment to the Military Academy at West Point. Poe was then twenty-one
