MINTO 



MIOCENE 



223 



In the United States there are five mints at 

 Philadelphia (since 1793), New Orleans (1835), 

 San Francisco ( 1854), Carson City, and Denver 

 all under the charge of the Bureau of the Mint 

 of the U.S. Treasury Department, and presided 

 over by the Director of the Mint. Only the first 

 three are in active operation, the other two are 

 really assay offices ; and at Philadelphia alone all 

 the authorised coins are struck. The United States 

 coins and their weights are as follows, those marked 

 with an asterisk having been discontinued : 



Weight In 



Weight In 

 Gnuni. 



DeuoaiinAtiun. 



GOLD. 



Double eagle 518 



Eagle 2M 



Half-eagle 129 



Qiiartrr-eaxle W'S 



S-iIollar piece 77'4 



Dollar 238 



SILVER. 



Dollar 4125 



Track-dollar" 4:20 



-Hair-dollar ITJfl 



Quarter-dollar KO-4S 



Denomination. 



20-cent* 77-l 



Dime 88-58 



Half-dfoW 192 



3-cent* 11-62 



MINOR COINS. 



5-cent (nickel) 77'16 



S-ceiit (niKkel) 30 



3-cent ( bronze)* 06 



Cent ( copper ) 168 



Cent (nickel)* 72 



Cent (bronze) 48 



Hall-cent (copper)'. 84 



The total amount of gold coinage minted from 

 1793 to the end of 1885 was 1,389,981,508-50; 

 silver, 434,224, 610-00; minor coin, S17,463,608'44. 



Minto. SIR CILBERT ELLIOT, first EARL OF, 

 was born at Edinburgh, April 23, 1751. As a boy 

 he spent two years at a school at Fontainebleau 

 under the eye of David Hume, and, after passing 

 through the universities of Edinourgli and Oxford, 

 in 1789 entered Lincoln's Inn, and was called to 

 the bar in 1774. Two years later he entered parlia- 

 ment sis a supporter of Lord North, but from 1782 

 attached himself to Fox and Burke. In 1794-96 

 he was viceroy of Corsica. He was created Baron 

 Minto in 1797, and went out to India as governor- 

 general in 1806. He showed great vigour in his 

 Hi-Moires for establishing order and securing the 

 frontiers by treaties, like that of Amritsar with 

 Kanjit Sing. He next captured Mauritius and 

 Bourbon, the Spice Islands and Java, but returned 

 to England as Earl of Minto and Viscount Melgund 

 in May 1814, to die on June 21st. See his Life 

 and Letterg, edited by his great-niece, the Countess 

 of Minto (4 vols. 1874-80). 



Milllirilis Felix, an early Latin apologist, of 



v.l hi-tory nothing is known with certainty. 



His name survives through his (Ji'tiiriim, a dialogue 

 held on the beach at Ostia, between the pagan 

 Ciecilius Natalis and the Christian Octavius Janu- 

 ariu~. The latter succeeds in convincing his 

 op|Kincnt, although his Christianity shows no 

 trace of such distinctive dogmas as that of the 

 resurrection. Cyprian's De Idolarum Vanitate 

 borrows from Ortiwiut ; as also does Tertullian's 

 A/'iiliiyeticut, according to Ebert, Teuffel, Keim, 

 Kiilin. and most scholars ; the opposite view, how- 

 ev.-i, is argued by Salmon. 



See Holden's edition (Cainb. 1853), Halm's edition in 

 the Corpui Seriptor. Ecrl. Lnt. ( Vienna, 1867), and 

 Kiihn. Der Octauiiu del Hfinucitui Felix ( 1882 ). 



Minuet, the air of a graceful dance, originally 

 from Poitou, in France, and performed in a slow 

 tempo. The music is in j-time. 



.Millllte, the 60tli part of an hour; also the 60th 

 part of a degree of a circle. See DAY, DEGREE. 



MilllltC Men, in the American Revolution, 

 were the militia, who were prepared for service at a 

 :..iiiiite's notice. 



M illy as, in Greek Mythology, the son of Chryses, 

 the eponymous hero of the Mini/re, from whom 

 were descended most of the Argonauts. He built 

 the city of Orchomenus. His three daughters, 

 Clymene, Iris, ami Alcithoe, or Leiiconoe, Leucippe, 

 Alcithoe, were changed into bats for having made 

 li^ht of the mysteries of Dionysus. 



Miocene System (Gr., 'less recent'). The 

 name was applied by Lyell to that division of the 

 Tertiary strata which contains a smaller proportion 

 of recent species of Mollusca than the Pliocene 

 System (q.v. ), and a larger proportion than the 

 Eocene. Of late years the lower part of the 

 Miocene has been separated from that system, and 

 now ranks as a separate system (see OLIGOCENE). 

 No true Miocene deposits occur in Britain. Marine 

 accumulations of this age are sparingly developed 

 in Belgium (Black Crag), and cover considerable 

 areas in the low grounds of Touraine ( Faluns de la 

 Toitmine) in the west of France. In the Rhine 

 valley Miocene beds extend from the Taunus south- 

 wards ( Mainz Basin ). These beds are chiefly of 

 fresh-water origin the lower portion being marine. 

 A more important Miocene area is met with in the 

 Vienna Basin. Here the lower series of beds is 

 marine, while the overlying strata are less dis- 

 tinctly so, many of the fossils indicating brackish- 

 water conditions. Another interesting develop- 

 ment of Miocene occurs in Switzerland and South 

 Bavaria the beds being partly marine and partly 

 of fresh-water origin. These are the more import- 

 ant European areas. In North America marine 

 Miocene strata occur sparingly on the Atlantic 

 borders of the eastern states ; while fresh-water 

 deposits of the same age are widely spread in the 

 western states and territories. Miocene beds have 

 lieen met with far within the Arctic Circle, in 

 Greenland and Spitzbergen. 



Life of the Period. The flora of the earlier stages 

 of the Miocene of central Europe is indicative of 

 somewhat tropical conditions, the nearest repre- 

 sentatives of many of the more characteristic 

 plants l>eing now confined to India and Australia. 

 Palm* seem at that time to have flourished over a 

 large part of Europe, and with these were associated 

 conifers ( Sequoia, Libocedrus), evergreen oak, fig, 

 laurel, cinnamon, various proteaceous plants 

 (Banksia, Dryandra), olive, magnolia, maple, 

 myrtle, mimosa, acacia, &c. Later on the climate 

 becaBM more temperate, for we meet with species 

 of birch, alder, oak, beech, chestnut, plum, willow, 

 poplar, &c. Among the more notable terrestrial 

 animals of the Miocene were Dinotherium, Masto- 

 don, Anchitherium, Hyotherium, species of rhin- 

 oceros, tapir, fox ; a gigantic form of ant-eater 

 ( Macrotherium ) ; Helladotherium, allied to the 

 giraffe ; Machairodus, a lion-like, sabre-toothed 

 carnivore ; various antelopes and deer with small 

 horns and antlers ; opossums, apes, and monkeys. 

 The molluscs of the marine Miocene are all modern 

 types those of the older strata having a tropical 

 or subtropical facies, while the shells in the 

 younger strata seem, like the plants, to indicate 

 milder climatic conditions. 



In Miocene times the British area was probably 

 dry land, and the same appears to have been the 

 case with all northern Europe. The sea, however, 

 overflowed the low grounds of Belgium and ex- 

 tended into north-west Germany. It is not unlikely, 

 indeed, that most of the Low Countries, Hanover, 

 and Sleswick-Holstein, were at that time sub- 

 merged. In like manner the sea covered wide 

 areas in the north-west and west of France, extend- 

 ing into the heart of the country now drained by 

 the Loire and its affluents the Cher and the Indre, 

 and stretching across the old district of Aquitania 

 to the Mediterranean. Spain and Portugal then 

 formed an island, considerable tracts in the south 

 and east of Spain being submerged. From the 

 Gulf of Lions a long arm of the sea passed up the 

 valley of the Uhone, and swept north-east through 

 northern Switzerland, sending a branch into the 

 Mainz basin, and then traversing Bavaria, across 

 which it continued to the wide sea which then 

 occupied all the great plains of Hungary. Northern 



