294 PfiRIGORD PERIODICAL LITERATURE PERIGORD, an ancient division of S. W. France, in Guienne, mainly included in the modern department of Dordogne. It was divided into Upper and Lower P6rigord, of which Perigueux and Sarlat were the capitals. It became a county in the 8th century, and was^united to the crown by Henry IV. PERIGUEUX (anc. Vesunna), a town of France, capital of the department of Dordogne, and for- merly of the county of Perigord, on the right bank of the Isle, which is here crossed by a magnificent bridge, 67m. E. N". E. of Bordeaux ; pop. in 1872, 21,864. It is composed of the old town and Le Puy St. Front, which until 1240 was a separate town. It is the seat of a bishop, of a civil and commercial tribunal, and of a so- ciety of agriculture and fine arts. It has four churches, four religious communities of men and six of women, a primary normal school, a communal college, a museum for antiquities and mineralogy, and a library of about 16,000 vol- umes. There are manufactures of cutlery and nails, woollens, and leather, and a brisk trade in wood, iron, paper, and liqueurs. The an- cient Vesunna was originally the capital of the Gallic tribe of Petrocorii, from which the modern name is derived. There are numerous and remarkable Roman remains. PERIHELION (Gr. Kepi, about, and ijhios , sun), that point of the orbit of a planet or a comet where it is nearest to the sun. The distance of this point from the sun is called the peri- helion distance of the body. It is opposed to aphelion. PERIM (Arab. Mehuri), an island belonging to Great Britain, in the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, at the entrance of the Red sea, about 90 m. W. of Aden ; area, 7 sq. m. ; pop. in 1871, 211. It divides the strait into two channels, called respectively the Great and the Little strait. The former, between Perim and the coast of Africa, is about 13 m. wide, but its navigation is made dangerous by a group of volcanic islets called the Eight Brothers. Vessels to and from the Red sea usually pass through the smaller strait between the island and Cape Bab-el-Man- deb on. the coast of Yemen, which is 1 m - wide. Perim is a rocky truncated cone of vol- canic origin, about 230 ft. above the level of the sea in its highest part, and is almost destitute of vegetation and without water. On the S. W. side is an excellent harbor with a depth of seven fathoms, capable of holding 40 men-of- war. On the highest part of the island is a lighthouse, erected in 1861, and on Straits point are fortifications which command the narrow channel. Perim was anciently called Diodori Insula. It was first occupied by the British in 1799, under the belief that Napoleon, who was then in Egypt, contemplated a descent on India, but it was abandoned in 1801. The project of the Suez canal again brought it into importance as commanding the new route to India, and it was again occupied formally on Feb. 14, 1857. It is under the jurisdiction of the governor of Aden. PERIODICAL LITERATURE, as the term is usu- ally applied, comprises those serial publications the principal object of which is not the con- veyance of news, but the circulation of inter- esting essays, tales, poems, and literary, scien- tific, or artistic information. Periodical litera- ture embraces two classes of publications, the first devoted to literature or criticism, and the second to the sciences, the arts, or special branches of knowledge. Many present charac- teristics which would place them in both of these divisions. The multiplication of book* rendered it impossible for the scholar to pur- chase or peruse more than a small portion of the works issued from the press; hence the necessity for critical journals. This want was. first met in France. In January, 1665, Denis de Sallo, assuming the name of the sieur d'H6- douville, issued at Paris the first number of the Journal des Savants. He was succeeded in the following year by the abbe Jean Gallois, under whose supervision the journal was pub- lished at irregular intervals till 1672. Its pub- lication was resumed by the abbe J. P. de la Roque in 1675, who was followed by L. Cou- sin in 1687. In 1701 it was placed under the protection of the chancellor of France, and a commission of learned men appointed to con- duct it. It was interrupted by the revolution at the close of 1792, and an effort to revive it in 1797 was only so far successful that a vol- ume of 394 pages was published ; it was per- manently reestablished in 1816, and still contin- ues. J. Doneau de Vise founded in 1672 the second literary periodical in France, the Mer- cure galant, which gave reviews of poetry and the drama. Its title was changed in 1717 to the Mercure de France, and it was conducted with ability by Marmontel and others till 1813. It has since been revived for brief periods as the Minerve francaise (1818-'20) and the Mercure du XI X e siecle. In 1701 a society of Jesuits at Trevoux began the Memoires pour sermr & Vhistoire des sciences et des beaux-arts, more commonly known as the Memoires de Trevoux. It was characterized by the excellence of its critical judgments, and by the zeal with which it combated anti-Jesuitical opinions; it lasted till 1767. A virtual successor of the Memoires is the existing periodical of the society of Jesu- its, the fitudes de theologie, philosophie et Jiis- toire, at first published annually (1857 and later), then semi-annually, afterward quarterly, and since 1863 fortnightly. It is conducted by Gagarin, David, and De Guilhermy. The other noteworthy literary journals of France in the last century were the Annee litteraire (1754- '91) of Freron ; the Decade (afterward Revue) philosopJiiq ue (1794-1807), by Ginguene; and the Magasin encyclopedique (1795), by Millin, the second series of which was styled Annales encyclopediques, and the third Revue encyclo- pedique. It was suspended in 1832, when it was succeeded by the Revue francaise et etran- gere, by Jullien, of which only a few volumes were issued ; and a second attempt by Didot to-
