Paine, Robert Treat, an American statesman, was born at Boston, March 11, 1731. He was a graduate of Harvard and a student of theology and law. He was chaplain in 1755 of the provincial army of the northern border, and became prominent in the contests preceding the Revolution, being a delegate of the convention called in 1768 at Boston and in 1770 managing the prosecution of Captain Preston for firing on the people. He was a member of the General assembly of Massachusetts in 1773 and 1774 and of the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1778, and also signed the Declaration of Independence. He was judge of the supreme court of Massachusetts and attorney-general for ten years He died at Boston, May 11, 1814.
Paine, Thomas, an English writer and free thinker, was born in Norfolk, Jan. 29, 1737, and became staymaker, marine, schoolmaster, exciseman and tobacconist in turn. In 1774 he sailed for America. In 1776 his pamphlet Common Sense appeared, followed a year later by The Crisis. While he was serving as a private at Trenton, Congress gave him the position of secretary of the committee of foreign affairs, but he lost the post in 1779 and was appointed clerk of the Pennsylvania legislature. In 1785 he was given $3,000 and the New Rochelle farm by Congress. He returned to England in 1787, and in 1791-92 published his Rights of Man and the famous reply to Burke's Reflections upon the French Revolution. This work caused much trouble and he fled to Paris, where he was elected to the national convention which tried Louis XVI. Favoring the king, he offended Robespierre and was imprisoned eleven months. Before his arrest he had written Part One of The Age of Reason, and Parts Two and Three appeared in 1795 and 1807. In this he decried atheism and Christianity and advocated deism. He returned to America in 1802, became a drunkard, and died at New York, June 8, 1809. See Leslie Stephen's History of English Thought in the 18th Century.
Pais′ley, a city in Renfrewshire, Scotland, is situated on the White Cart, three miles above the Clyde and six from Glasgow. It was first heard of in 1157, was burned by the English in 1307, and suffered in the Reformation in 1561. It was made a free burgh in 1488. The chief public edifices are the municipal buildings, courthouse, the county buildings and library and museum. The manufacture of Paisley shawls has become extinct, but the works of cotton thread, dyeing, bleaching, tartans, woolen shawls, chemicals, starch, corn flour, carpets, and distilling and brewing flourish. Population 84,477.
Palatinate (pȧ-lăt′ĭn-ât), the name of two German states united before 1623. They were called the Upper and the Lower Palatinate, the Upper being what now is the kingdom of Bavaria, and the Lower lying on both sides of the Rhine and bounded by Mainz, Treves, Lorraine, Alsace, Baden and Württemberg. The capital was Heidelberg. The Rhenish Palatinate was established as an hereditary possession as early as the 11th century, and in 1216 it was granted to the duke of Bavaria, and this and the Bavarian territory were held by the Bavarian house. In 1559 the Rhenish territory and the electoral vote passed to Frederick III; afterward to Frederick V; and finally to his son. In 1801 France took possession of the western part and gave the eastern to Bavaria, Nassau and Hesse-Darmstadt. The left bank was restored to Germany in 1815, the larger part going to Bavaria, the rest being divided among other provinces. Today two districts of Bavaria are known as the Palatinate proper (Rheinpfalz) with an area of 2,372 square miles (population 937,085) and Upper Palatinate (Oberpfalz), with an area of 3,862 square miles (population 600,284). The capital of the latter is Ratisbon (Regensburg) on the Danube, population 52,624.
Pal′atine Hill. See Rome.
Pa′leobot′any, the science which deals with fossil plants. It is the correlative of paleontology, which deals with fossil animals. It is the function of paleobotany to work out the history of plant-life on the earth. This involves the determination, as far as possible, of plants which have lived in successive ages and the relations of those of one age to those of previous and succeeding ages. The science is as yet but poorly developed.
Pa′leontol′ogy, the science which deals with fossils. Vertebrate paleontology deals with the fossils of vertebrates; invertebrate paleontology with the fossils of invertebrates; paleobotany with the fossils of plants. All system of rocks younger than the archean contain fossils. Roughly speaking, they are more abundant in the later systems than in the earlier, and but few have been found in the Algonkian. The animal and plant fossils of a given system of rocks represent the fauna and flora, respectively, of the period when the system was formed. It is customary to speak of the fossils themselves as the fauna and flora; the cambrian fauna consists of the fossils of the cambrian system; the lower cambrian fauna of the fossils of the lower division of the cambrian system; the middle cambrian fauna of the fossils of the middle division of the cambrian system; and so on. It is the province of paleontology to determine (1) what fossil forms occur in the rocks of each system and in the rocks of each part of each system; (2) the origin of each fauna; and (3) the relations of each fauna to its successor. The first point mentioned above involves a knowledge of the geographic diversity of ani-
