PARAKLETE, the Holy Spirit which Christ promised to His disciples would take His place as their teacher and guide after He left them.  Also the name of the monastery founded by Abelard near Nogent-sur-Seine, and of which HELOISE (q. v.) was abbess.

PARALLAX, an astronomical term to denote an apparent change in the position of a heavenly body due to a change in the position or assumed position of the observer.

PARAMAR`IBO (24), the capital of Dutch Guiana, on the Surinam, 10 m. from the sea, and the centre of the trade of the colony.

PARAMO, the name given to an elevated track of desert on the Andes.

PARANA RIVER, a great river of South America, formed by the confluence of the Rio Grande and the Paranahyba, in SE.  Brazil, flows SW. through Brazil and round the SE. border of Paraguay, then receiving the Paraguay River, turns S. through the Argentine, then E. till the junction of the Uruguay forms the estuary of the Plate.  The river is broad and rapid, 2000 m. long, more than half of it navigable from the sea; at the confluence of the Yguassu it enters a narrow gorge, and for 100 m. forms one of the most remarkable rapids in the world; the chief towns on its banks are in the Argentine, viz.  Corrientes, Santa Fe, and Rosario.

PARCAE, the Roman name of the THREE FATES (q. v.), derived from “pars,” a part, as apportioning to every individual his destiny.

PARCHMENT consists of skins specially prepared for writing on, and is so called from a king of Pergamos, who introduced it when the export of papyrus from Egypt was stopped; the skins used are of sheep, for fine parchment or vellum, of calves, goats, and lambs; parchment for drumheads is made from calves’ and asses’ skins.

PARCS-AUX-CERFS, the French name for clearings to provide hunting fields for the French aristocracy prior to the Revolution.

PARE, AMBROISE, great French surgeon, born at Laval; was from the improved methods he introduced in the treatment of surgical cases entitled to be called, as he has been, the father of modern surgery, for his success as an operator, in particular the tying of divided arteries and the treatment of gunshot wounds; he was in the habit of saying of any patient he had successfully operated upon, “I cared for him; God healed him”; his writings exercised a beneficent influence on the treatment of surgical cases in all lands (1517-1590).

PARIAH, a Hindu of the lowest class, and of no caste; of the class they are of various grades, but all are outcast, and treated as such.

PARIS (2,448), the capital of France, in the centre of the northern half of the country, on both banks of the Seine, and on two islands (La Cite and St. Louis) in the middle, 110 m. from the sea; is the largest city on the Continent, and one of the most beautiful in the world.  No city has finer or gayer streets, or so many noble buildings.  The Hotel de Cluny and the Hotel de Sens are rare specimens of 15th-century