some chemical substance, but in the living body the muscular fibers are in most cases made to contract by nerves scattered through them, which are, therefore, called motor nerves, and are under the influence of the will. By willing, we can contract more or fewer muscles at once, and to any degree, within certain limits, and there is hardly any movement made in which several muscles are not called into play. But every voluntary muscle is also subject to other influences more powerful than the will. The movement of the features by passion and emotion is more or less involuntary, as is shown by the very partial power the will has of restraining them, and of the great difficulty of imitating them. Muscovy. See RUSSIA. Muses, in Greek myth, goddesses included in the first place among the nymphs, but afterwards held to be quite distinct from them. They had the power of inspiring song, and so poets and musicians were considered their pupils and favorites. They were first honored by the Thracians, and as this people first lived in Pieria around Mt. Olympus, the Muses were called Pierides. There were first three, though Homer sometimes speaks of a single Muse, and at least once refers to nine. This last is the number given by the poet Hesiod, who also gives their names-Clio, the muse of history; Euterpe, of lyric poetry; Thalia, of comedy; Melpomene, of tragedy; Terpsichore, of choral dance and song: Erato, of poetry of passion; Polyhymnia, of hymns; Urania, of astronomy, and Calliope of epic poetry. They were usually said to be the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne. Homer speaks of them as the goddesses of song, and as dwelling on the top of Mt. Olympus. They were also called the companions of Apollo, singing while he played on the lyre at the banquets of the gods. They were said to have victories over the sirens in musical tournaments. Their worship among the Romans was merely copied from the Greeks, and never became truly national or popular. The fountains of Aganippe and Hippocrene on Mount Helicon, and the Castalian spring on Mount Parnassus were the most famous places sacred to the nine Muses. Mushroom. The name of several classes of fungi. The best known is the common mushroom. It has a fleshy head, smooth or scaly on the upper surface, varying from white to tawny MUSHROOM shades or brown. The gills on the under side of the head are at first pallid, changing slowly with the plant's growth to pink, purple and brown-black. The stem is white, full, firm, and with a white ring near the top. The common mushroom is widely scattered in most temperate regions. The horse mushroom, very common in America, and called snowball in the South, is often found growing in company with the common mushroom. It is coarser and larger and is not used much for cooking, except in making ketchup. The St. George's mushroom is so called from its appearing in England about St. George's Day (April 23). Its head is thick and fleshy. It is the most prized of all mushrooms for food in Europe and at Rome a dish of it is thought the most fitting present to anyone whose favor is to be secured. The fairy ring mushroom, the champignon of the French, has a small, smooth head, with a tough, leathery boss in the center. It has a fine flavor. Besides being cooked whole, it is often dried and used in the form of powder as a flavoring. Its name comes from its growing in rings or round patches, which leads to the risk of a poisonous kind; the false champignon, which also grows in rings, being mistaken for it. However, the false champignon has a flat top and no boss. Other kinds are the parasol mushroom, the maned, the clouded, and the highly prized orange milk mushroom. Growing mushrooms for the market is becoming an importan. branch of gardening. It is carried on on the largest scale near Paris, where the catacombs are used for this purpose. Elsewhere in France caves are used, and at Edinburgh, the no longer used Scotland street tunnel was lately bought by a mushroom grower. See W. Robinson's Mushroom Culture, and Dr. Badman's Esculent Funguses. Musk, used in making costly perfumes, is a substance obtained from the muskdeer, a hornless family of deer living in the mountain regions of central Asia. These deer are much hunted for their musk, which was first brought to western Europe by the Arabs. It was used in embalming bodies as early as the 14th century. Chinese musk imported from Tonquin is the best. Other kinds are the Indian and Siberian. Muskegon (mus-kee'-gon), MICHIGAN, is on the Muskegon river, four miles from its mouth in Lake Michigan. The river here widens into Muskegon lake, the best harbor on the east side of Lake Michigan. Muskegon is 40 miles northwest of Grand Rapids, and saws and ships great quantities of lumber. It has also a number of foundries, machine shops, boiler works, and toy, wooden ware and piano factories. Muskegon is the fifth largest city in the state, and has a population of 22,702. Musk Ox, lives at present in the most northern parts of America. Rock MUSSEL many Arctic animals, the Arctic fox for example, its hair does not become white as winter draws near. Muskrat. A name given to several distinct animals. (1) The desman, a class of insect-eating four-footed animals, very much like shrews. The muzzle is lengthened into a small flexible snout, which is all the time moving. The eyes are very small; there are no external ears; the fur is long and straight; the tail long, scaly, and flattened on the sides. It is a webfooted water animal, living in lakes and rivers, and making holes in the banks, with the entrance under water. Only two kinds are known, one, eight inches long, a native of the streams of the Pyrenees; another larger kind, common in the Volga and other rivers and lakes of Southern Russia, about as big as the common hedge-hog. Russian desman is blackish above and whitish beneath. It has long silky hair, but its skin is chiefly valuable on account of its musky odor. The desman feeds on leeches, etc., which its snout searches out in the mud. The (2) The name muskrat is also given to an Indian kind of shrew about as large as a common brown rat, and remarkable for its powerful musky smell. (3) The name is most commonly given to the musquash, a native of North America, from the Rio Grande to the Arctic. Its shape is about that of the brown rat; the head and body are some 15 inches long, the tail 10 inches. The whole body is covered with a short downy, dark-brown fur, mixed with longer and coarser hairs. It is mostly a water animal, seldom wandering from the rivers, lakes, or marshes where it makes its home. It mainly feeds on vegetables, but will sometimes eat mollusks and other animal food. The fur is in demand and is an article of trade, large numbers of skins being exported to Europe. The musquash burrows in the banks of streams and remains of the animal have been found ponds, the entrances to its burrows bein Europe and Siberia, showing that it ing always under water. In marshes once had a much wider range. Its the musquash builds a kind of hut of hair is brownish, and long, to protect coarse grasses and mud, which reaches it from the cold. It is five and a half from two to four feet above the water. feet long from the tip of the nose to The Indians are fond of its flesh at the root of the tail. The animals go in those seasons when it is fat. herds of eighty or a hundred, in which there will be only one or two males. They feed on grass, reindeer moss, willow shoots, the Labrador tea plant, and crowberry bushes. The flesh of the calves and cows is good eating. Unlike MUSK OX. Mussel, the name of several common bivalves. The common sea mussel is widely scattered in crowded beds between high and low water mark. It is usually motionless and firmly anchored by a tuft of yellowish silken filaments called byssus, but it is also able to shift its quarters, and even to climb, by slowly lengthening the thread of the byssus, which is spun from its body. The common mussel abounds on the Atlantic seaboard of the United States, but is used neither as food nor as bait. In England it is a popular food. In Scotland it is not eaten but great quantities are used for bait, especially by haddock fishers. Since 1840 100,000 tons have been taken from the mouth of the Clyde alone. Mussels, especially when unhealthy or dead, are apt to contain a dangerous poison, and this is the main objection to their use as food. The poison is caused by a microbe which is only found in mussels growing in stagnant and polluted water. Mussels are cultivated for the market on the coasts of Great Britain, France, Holland and Germany. The horse mussel is nearly twice as large as the sea mussel and lives a more active burrowing life below low-water mark. It is never used for food or bait. Fresh-water mussels are widely scattered in lakes and rivers, where they slowly plow their way along the bottom from one resting place to another. Among the different kinds are the pond mussel, the painter's mussel, whose shells were once used to hold water-color paints, and the pearl mussel. Musset (mu-sa'), ALFRED DE, was born at Paris, Dec. 11, 1810, the son of an officer of the war office. He was very impulsive from his childhood, and grew up handsome and fascinating, though he kept something of the spoilt child all his life. He thought first of law, next of medicine, then of art, but at 18 discovered himself to be a poet, and hardly a year later published his Tales of Spain and Italy, a volume of unequal poems. He was now a brilliant youth, was warmly received by the circle that swung around Victor Hugo, and was flattered by society. In 1833 came out two of his greatest works, the tragical comedies, André del Sarto and Marianne's Caprices. It was of Marianne that De Musset answered, when asked where he had found her character, "Nowhere and everywhere; she is not a woman, she is woman." Next followed the famous poem of Rolla. He first met George Sand in the summer of 1833, soon fell in love with her, and the next spring the two made a tour of Italy, where De Musset came near dying from brain fever. Ever after he MYCENE had times of deep depression. The patronage of the duke of Orleans, the warm friendship of a small circle of friends, and his appointment in 1838 to be librarian at the home office did something to take him out of himself, but he was always as unsteady in character as in genius, and the feverish activity that sometimes seized him spent itself in splendid plans and unfinished poems. In 1840 his health broke down and he wrote but little. As Heine said he was a young man with a splendid past"; he felt himself an old man at 30. The success of his play A Caprice in 1847, put life into him for a short time. He died of heart disease May 1, 1857. 66 The Night of May and The Night of October are perfect and undying lyrics. As a poet of passion he comes close to Byron in power. His plays have not their equals in 19th century literature for originality, wit and real dramatic genius. His largest prose work was the famous Confession of a Child of the Age; but greater are his short stories and tales, such as Emmeline, Pierre and Camille, Mademoiselle Mimi Pinson and Margot. De Musset's whole work fills but ten small volumes, but it is not too much to say that they include some of the finest poetry, greatest plays, and best short stories of French literature. Mustard. White mustard is a native of southern Europe and western Asia, and is now naturalized in the United States. The whole plant is more or less hairy. The flowers are large, the pods about an inch long, and the seeds are pale-yellow. Black mustard is a native of middle and south Europe. It is a rather coarse plant, two or more feet high. The flowers are yellow and the pods about half an inch long. The wild mustard, also called charlock, is a weed growing in cornfields in Great Britian and America, Table mustard is mostly the ground seeds of the two first kinds, but wild mustard is also used. Mycena (my-se'-nee), a very old city in the northeastern part of Argolis, in the Peloponnesus, built upon a high crag, and said to have been founded by Perseus. It was the capital of Agamemnon's kingdom, and at that time the chief town of Greece. It was destroyed by the people of Argos, and though rebuilt, never afterwards prospered. Its ruins are still to be seen. The most celebrated of them are the "Gate of Lions" and the "Treasury of MYRMIDONS 852 MYTILENE in very early times. It was among the presents which the wise men from the east brought to the child Jesus. Myrrh is sold in tears and grains, or in irregular shaped and various sized pieces, yellow, red or reddish-brown in color. It was used by the Egyptians in embalming, and is employed now in medicine. All myrrh comes either from Aden or Bombay. Atreus." Excavations carried out by | Myrrh was known and highly valued Dr. Henry Schliemann brought to light in 1876 another underground treasury and several ancient tombs, vases, weapons, gold death masks and other ornaments of hammered gold. These objects seem to show a type of art coming from Mesopotamia through Phoenicia and Asia Minor, and showing little or no trace of Greek tastes or customs. Their date seems to be about that of the Doric invasion of the Peloponnesus. Myrtle, a beautiful evergreen shrub or moderate sized tree, with glossy Myrmidons, the famous followers leaves, black berries having a pleasant, of Achilles in the Trojan war. They spicy odor, and white flowers. This is were an old Thessalian race who colo- the common myrtle, which is native in nized the Island of Egina. According the countries of the Mediterranean. to Greek story Zeus peopled Thessaly Among the ancient Greeks the myrtle by changing the ants into men; hence was sacred to Venus, as the symbol of the name myrmidons,which means ants. youth and beauty. Victors in the Myrrh, a gum resin produced by a Olympian games were crowned with tree growing in Arabia, and also in So-wreaths of its leaves. The myrtle of mali Land in Africa. The myrrh tree is small and scrubby, spiny, with whitish-gray bark, with smooth brown fruit about as big as a pea. The myrrh flows from the pores of the bark in oily, yellowish drops, which slowly thicken, harden, and become darker colored. Peru and Chile has red berries and smaller leaves. The berries have a pleasant flavor and are eaten. The periwinkle, which is a very common running plant in the United States, is often improperly called myrtle. Mytilene. See LESBOS. N NACHTIGAL-NAHUM. 1859 it became one of the five open ports. Its harbor is a beautiful inlet of over three miles, having, near its head, the Island of Deshima, which from 1637 to 1859 was the trading post and prison house of the Dutch traders. The great Takashima coal mine on an island of eight miles seaward makes Nagasaki an important coaling station. The foreign settlement is on the east side of the harbor. The city has English, American and Dutch missionary societies and a community of native Christians. Population (1889), 38, 229. Nachtigal, GUSTAV, a German | the only harbor open to the world. In traveler, was born in Eichstadt, Feb. 23, 1834, studied medicine and served as surgeon in the army until 1863, when he went to North Africa. In 1868 he was selected to carry presents from the king of Prussia to the sultan of Bornu, and starting from Tripoli in 1869 he went through Fezzan, Tibesti, Wadai, Dar-Fur, Kordofan, and from Cairo home, arriving Nov. 22, 1874. Being one of the first Europeans to visit these states it placed him among the foremost of modern travelers. His collection of information is recorded in the three volumes of Sahara and Soudan. In 1884 he was sent to annex Togoland, Cameroons and Lüderitzland for Germany and died on his return journey, off Cape Tolmas on April 19, 1885. See Dorothea Berlin's Erinner ungen an Nachtigal. Nadir, shah of Persia, belonged to a Turkish tribe and was born in Khorassan in 1688. After entering the service of the governor, he was degraded for some offense and entered a life of lawlessness, becoming the head of a robber band of three thousand. Persia being at that time under the tyrannical rule of an Afghan, Nadir undertook to overthrow him. Persians enlisted under him and after the fall of the Afghan, and the accession of the rightful heir, Tamasp, to the throne, Nadir was made governor of the provinces of Khorassan, Mazanderan, Seistan and Kerman. He was sent against and defeated the Turks in 1731, and in 1732 dethroned Tamasp and placed the infant Abbas III. thereon. On his death in 1736 Nadir was crowned Nadir Shah, and resumed the war against the Turks. He conquered Afghanistan, ravaged the northwest provinces and took Delhi with booty of $100,000,000, including the great Koh-i-noor diamond. Then he became suspicious and tyrannical and was assassinated June 20, 1747. See H. Maynard's Nadir Shah (Stanhope Essay, 1885). Nagasaki ( nä-ga-sä’-ke ), a seaport town of Japan, was for two centuries Nagoya, one of the largest and most active cities of Japan, the chief town of the province of Owari, lies at the head of the shallow Owari Bay about 30 miles from its port, with which it communicates by means of light draught streamers. It is one of the largest seats for pottery works and turns out large amounts of fans and enamels. Nagoya Castle, in about 400 acres of grounds, to the north of the city, was built in 1610 and is now the headquarters of the Nagoya military district. A superior court, middle school, girls school, normal school, hospital, prefecture, telegraph and post offices are the buildings of foreign style. Population, 325,000. Nagpur (näg-poor'), a British Indian city and capital of the Central Provinces. It is a beautiful city, well wooded, having gardens and suburbs, but its high temperature makes it unhealthy. It manufactures fine cloth fabrics and has a good trade in wheat, salt, spices and European goods. Here it was that 1,350 British under Colonel Scott defeated 18,000 Mahrattas on Nov. 27, 1817. Population, about 100,000. Nahum, the seventh of the minor prophets of the Old Testament. His book is inscribed The Burden of Nineveh, the book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite. It speaks of the infallibility of divine judgment against enemies of God and goodness toward believers, and predicts the destruction of Nineveh. |