and Chinese, may be said to converge. Careful investigations have
supported the theory that Micronesia was peopled largely from the
Philippines or some portion of the Malay Archipelago at a much
later period than the Polynesian migration. The Micronesians
then are probably of Malay stock much modified by early Polynesian
crossings, and probably, within historic times, by Papuan and
even Japanese and Chinese migrations. While their general physique
approximates to the Polynesian type, they are often characterized
by a stunted form and a dark complexion.
In this review of the inhabitants of the Pacific islands an imaginary ethnological line has been drawn round it so as to include none but the branches of the two great divisions. But on the borders of the region, often without real boundary lines, are grouped other peoples, the true Malays, the Indonesians or pre-Malays with the Negritos to the westward and the Australians, who are generally admitted to be a distinct race. Of these races detailed information will be found under their several headings.
Prehistoric Remains.—One of the most obscure questions with which the ethnologist has to deal is that of the prehistoric remains which occur in different and widely separated parts of the oceanic region. The most remarkable of these are on Easter Island, where immense platforms built of dressed stone without mortar are found, together with stone images. Similar remains have been found on Pitcairn Island. On the island of Tongatabu in the Tonga group, there is a monument of great stone blocks which must have been brought thither by sea. In some of the Caroline Islands, again, there are extensive remains of stone buildings, and in the Marianas stone monuments occur. No native traditions assign origin to these remains, nor has any complete explanation of their existence been offered.
Bibliography.—For the results of the various voyages of explorers see their narratives, especially those of Captain Cook, and among the earlier Collections of voyages see especially Captain James Burney, Chronological History of the Discoveries in the South Sea or Pacific Ocean—from the earliest navigators to 1764—(London, 1803–1817). Of general works (which are few) see C. E. Mcinicke, Die Inseln des Stillen Oceans (Leipzig, 1875); F. H. H. Guillemard, Australasia, vol. ii., revised by A. H. Keanc, in Stanford’s Compendium of Geography and Travel (London, 1908); and W. T. Brigham, Index to the Islands of the Pacific (Honolulu, 1900). Among other works (the majority of which deal only with parts of the region known to the writers from travel), see J. A. Moerenhout, Voyages aux Iles du Grand Ocean (1837); W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches (London, 1853); G. Turner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia (London, 1861); T. West, Ten Years in South Central Polynesia (London, 1865); J. Brenchley, Cruise of the “Curaçoa” among the South Sea Islands during 1865 (London, 1873); W. Coote, Western Pacific Islands (London, 1883); H. H. Romilly, The Western Pacific and New Guinea (London, 1887); H. Stonehewer Cooper, The Islands of the Pacific (London, 1888; earlier editions, 1880, &c., were under the title Coral Lands); F. J. Moss, Through Atolls and Islands (London, 1889); W. T. Wawn, The South Sea Islanders and the Queensland Labour Trade (1889); G. Haurigot, Les Établissements français en Océania (Paris, 1891); B. F. S. B. Powell, In Savage Isles and Settled Lands (London, 1892); “Sundowner,” Rambles in Polynesia (London, 1897); M. M. Shoemaker, Islands of the Southern Seas (New York, 1898); Joachim Graf Pfeil, Studien . . . aus der Südsee (Brunswick, 1899); Robert Louis Stevenson, In the South Seas (London, 1900); A. R. Colquhoun, The Mastery of the Pacific (London, 1902); G. Wegener, Deutschland in der Südsee (Bielefeld, 1903); A. Kramer, Hawaii, Ostmikronesien, und Samoa (Stuttgart, 1906); J. D. Rogers, Australasia, vol. vi. of the Historical Geography of the British Colonies, edited by Sir C. P. Lucas (Oxford, 1907); T. A. Coghlan, Statistical Account of the Seven Colonies of Australasia (Sydney). With especial reference to the natives and their languages see Sir G. Grey, Polynesian Mythology (London, 1855); W. Gill, Myths and Songs of the South Pacific (London, 1876); J. D. Lang, Origin and Migrations of the Polynesian Nation (Sydney, 1877); A. Lesson, Les Polynésiens (Paris, 1880 seq.); R. H. Codrington, The Melanesian Languages (Oxford, 1885); E. Reeves, Brown Men and Women (London, 1898); J. Gaggin, Among the Man-Eaters (London, 1899); A. C. Haddon, Head-hunters, Black, White and Brown (London, 1902); D.Macdonald, The Oceanic Languages: their Grammatical Structure, Vocabulary and Origin (London, 1907); J. Macmillan Brown, Maori and Polynesian (London, 1907), and the articles Polynesia; Melanesia. And with especial reference to natural history, J. D. Hooker, A Lecture on Insular Floras (London, 1868); E. Drake del Castillo, Remarques sur la flore de la Polynésie (Paris, 1890); H. B. Guppy, Observations of a Naturalist in the Pacific, 1896–1899 (London, 1903 seq.).
PACK, OTTO VON (c. 1480–1537), German conspirator, studied at the university of Leipzig, and obtained a responsible position under George, duke of Saxony, which he lost owing to his dishonesty. In 1528 he revealed to Philip, landgrave of Hesse, the details of a scheme agreed upon in Breslau by the archduke Ferdinand, afterwards the emperor Ferdinand I., and other influential princes, to conquer Hungary for Ferdinand and then to attack the reformers in Germany. Pack was sent to Hungary to concert joint measures with John Zapolya, the opponent of Ferdinand in that country; but John, elector of Saxony, advised that the associates of Ferdinand should be asked to explain their conduct, and Pack’s revelations were discovered to be false, the copy of the treaty which he had shown to Philip proving to be a forgery. For some time Pack lived the life of a fugitive, finally reaching the Netherlands, where he was seized at the request of Duke George. Examined under torture he admitted the forgery, and the government of the Netherlands passed sentence of death, which was carried out on the 8th of February 1537. This affair has given rise to an acute controversy as to whether Philip of Hesse was himself deceived by Pack, or was his assistant in concocting the scheme.
See W. Schomburgk, Die Packschen Händel (Leipzig, 1882); H. Schwarz, Landgraf Philipp von Hessen und die Packschen Händel (Leipzig, 1881); St Ehses, Geschichte der Packschen Händel (Freiburg, 1880 and Landgraf Philipp von Hessen und Otto von Pack (Freiburg, 1886); and L. von Ranke, Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation (Leipzig, 1882).
PACK (apparently from the root pak-, paq-, seen in Lat. pangere, to fasten; cf. “compact”), primarily a bundle or parcel of goods securely wrapped and fastened for transport. The word, in this sense, is chiefly used of the bundles carried by pedlars. It was in early use, according to the New English Dictionary, in the wool trade, and may have been introduced from the Netherlands. As a measure of weight or quantity the term has been in use, chiefly locally, for various commodities, e.g. of wool, 240 ℔, of gold-leaf 20 books of 25 leaves each. In
a transferred sense, a “pack” is a collection or gathering of
persons, animals or things; and the verb means generally to
gather together in a compact body. “Pack-ice” is the floating
ice which covers wide areas in the polar seas, broken into large
pieces which are driven (packed) together by wind and current
so as to form practically a continuous sheet. “Packet,” a
small parcel, a diminutive of “pack,” was first confined in
meaning to a parcel of dispatches carried by a post, especially
the state dispatches or “mail”; and “packet” properly
“packet-boat,” was the name given to the vessels which carried
these state dispatches.
PACKER, ASA (1805–1879), American capitalist, was born in Mystic, Connecticut, on the 29th of December 1805. In 1822 he became a carpenter’s apprentice at Brooklyn, Susquehanna county, Pennsylvania. He worked as a carpenter in New York City for a time and then in Springville, Pennsylvania, but in 1833 settled at Mauch Chunk, in the Lehigh Valley, where he became the owner of a canal-boat (carrying coal to Philadelphia), and then established the firm of A. & R. W. Packer, which built
canal-boats and locks for the Lehigh Coal & Navigation
Company, probably the first through shippers to New York.
He urged upon the Coal & Navigation Company the advantage
of a steam railway as a coal carrier, but the project was not then considered feasible. In 1851 the majority of the stock of the Delaware, Lehigh, Schuylkill & Susquehanna Railroad Company (incorporated in 1846), which became the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company in January 1853, came into his control, and between November 1852 and September 1855 a railway line was built for the Company, largely by Packer’s personal credit, from Mauch Chunk to Easton. He built railways connecting the main line with coal-mines in Luzerne and Schuylkill counties; and he planned and built the extension (completed in 1868) of the line into the Susquehanna Valley and thence into New York state to connect at Waverly with the Erie railway. Packer also took an active part in politics. In 1841 and 1842 he was a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives; in 1843–1848 was county judge of Carbon county; in 1853–1857 was a Democratic member of the national House of Representatives; and in 1869 was the Democratic candidate for the governorship of Pennsylvania. In 1865 he gave $500,000 and 60 acres (afterwards increased to 115 acres) in South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, for a technical school for the professions represented in the development of the Lehigh Valley; Lehigh University was chartered in 1866, and its main building, Packer Hall, was completed in 1869; he erected a library building in 1877 as a
