in commerce, denotes a quantity of goods, made up in loads, or bales, for carriage.

A pack of wool is 17 stone and 2 pounds, or a horse's load.

PACKET, or PACKET-BOAT, a vessel appointed by the government to carry the mail of letters, packets, and expresses, from one kingdom to another by sea, in the most expeditious manner. Thus, the packet-boats, under the direction of the post-master-general of Great Britain, carry the mails from Dover to Calais, from Falmouth to Lisbon, from Harwich to Helvoetfluyt, and from Parkgate to Dublin.

PACTOLUS (anc. geogr.), a river of Lydia, called Chrysaorhoas, from its rolling down golden sand, according to Herodotus, Plutarch, Pliny, and Strabo; rising in mount Tmolus, (Strabo). From this river Croesus is thought to have had all his riches. In Strabo's time it ceased to roll down any. It ran thro' Sardes; after which it fell into the Hermus, and both together into the Ægean Sea at Phocæa in Ionia. A river celebrated by Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, Lycophron, Horace, Apollonius.