MITRAILLEUSE 



MXEMONICS 



239 



Mitiv. 



the war had lingered for some time, Pompey com- 

 pleted the work of Lucullus (60 B.C.), defeating 

 Mithridates on the Euphrates, and compelling him 

 to tiee to his territories on the Cimmerian Bosporus. 

 Here his indomitable spirit prompted him to form a 

 new scheme of vengeance, which was, however, 

 frustrated by the rebellion of his son, Pharnaces, 

 who besieged him in Panticapauim. Deeming his 

 cause hopeless, Mithridates put tin end to his own 

 life (63 B.C.). Mithridates was a specimen of the 

 true eastern despot, possessing great ability and 

 extraordinary energy and perseverance. He had 

 received a Greek education at Sinope, is said 

 to have spoken the twenty-two languages and 

 dialects of his subject-peoples, and made a great 

 collection of pictures, statues, and engraved gems. 

 Mitrailleuse. See MACHINE GUNS 

 .Mitral Valve. See HEART. 

 Mitre (Lat. mitra, also inftila), the head-dress 

 worn by bishops in solemn church services. The 

 name, as probably the ornament itself, is bnrroweil 

 from the orientals, although, in its present form, 

 it is not in use in the Greek Church, or in 

 any other of the churches of the various eastern 

 rites. The western mitre is a tall, tongue-shaped 

 cap, terminating in a twofold point, which is sup- 

 posed to symbolise the 

 ' cloven tongues,' in the 

 form of which the Holy 

 Ghost was imparted to 

 the apostles, and is fur- 

 nished with two (laps, 

 which fall behind over the 

 shoulders. Opinion is 

 much divided as to the 

 date at which the mitre 

 first came into use. 

 Eusebins, Gregory of 

 Nazianzus, Epiphanius, 

 and others speak of an ornamented head-dress, 

 worn in the church ; but the cleft mitre does not 

 deem to have lieen known till the 12th century. 

 The material used in the manufacture of the mitre 

 is very various, often consisting of most costly 

 staffs, studded with gold and precious stones. 

 The mitre of the pope is of quite a different form, 

 and is called by the name Tiara (q.v. ). Although 

 the mitre properly belongs to bishops only, its use 

 has been permitted by special privilege to certain 

 abbots, to provosts of some distinguished cathedral 

 chapters, and to a few other dignitaries. 



In the English Church, since the Reformation, 

 the mitre was no longer a part of the episcopal 

 costume till 1885, when it was resumed by the 

 Bishop of Lincoln ; but it is placed over the shield 

 of an archbishop or bishop, instead of a crest. The 

 Bishops of Durham surround their mitre with a 

 ducal coronet, in consequence of their having been 

 till 1836 Counts Palatine of Durham. 



Mitscherllrll. EII.HARD, chemist, was horn at 

 Neuende, near Jever in Oldenburg, Germany, on 

 7th January 1794, and died at Schonelierg near 

 Berlin on 28th August 1863. At the university of 

 HitidelWg (1811-13) he devoted himself to p'hil- 

 ology, especially to Persian. At this time of his 

 life his ambition was to go to Persia, and for this 

 end he visited Paris and l>egan to study medicine 

 in Grittingen after 1814. But whilst studying 

 medicine, his deepest interest was arrested by the 

 sciences of geology and mineralogy, chemistry and 

 physics. Work in the Berlin laboratory in 1819 

 lea him to discover the law of Isomorphism (q.v.). 

 Berzelius invited the young chemist to Stockholm 

 (1820), from which city he returned (1822) to fill 

 the chair of Chemistry at Berlin. One of his 

 earliest discoveries after his appointment was that 

 of the double crystalline form of sulphur, one of 



the first observed cases of Dimorphism (q.v.). His 

 investigations regarding the production of artificial 

 minerals, and bis memoirs on benzene and the 

 formation of ether, must also be noted. His princi- 

 pal work is Lelirbiich tier Chemie (2 vols. 1829-35; 

 4th ed. 184CM8 ; 5th begun in 1855, but not com- 

 pleted). See Memoir by Rose (Berlin, 1864). 



Mittweida. a town of Saxony, 1 1 miles by rail 

 N. by E. of Chemnitz, has an engineers' and a 

 weavers' school, and manufactures linen, woollen, 

 and cotton goods. Pop. (1890) 11,2118. 



Mitylene. See LESBOS. 



Mivart. ST GEORGE, F.R.S., born 1827, was 

 educated for the bar, but devoted himself to 

 the biological sciences. In 1874-84 he acted aa 

 professor of Zoology and Biology at the Roman 

 Catholic University College in Kensington, and in 

 1890 was appointed to the chair of Philosophy of 

 Natural History at Louvain. He was an able and 

 zealous opponent of the 'Natural Selection' theory. 

 Among his works are The Genesis of Species ( 1871 ), 

 ManandApes( 1873), Crmtempnran/Emlufum( 1874), 

 Lesson* from Nature (1876), The Vat( 1881 ), Nature 

 and Thought ( 1883), The Origin of Unman Reason 

 ( 1889), Birds ( 1892), Types of Animal Life, ( 1893), 

 Introduction to the Elements of Science ( 1894). He 

 died 1st April 1900. 



Mixed Marriages. See MARRIAGE, p. 58. 



Mizen, the sternmost of the masts in a three- 

 masted vessel. See SHIPBUILDING. 



Mnemonics (Gk. mnemun-, ' mindful'), the art 

 of assisting the memory. Even ordinary recollec- 

 tion, according to Cicero, is not purely spontaneous 

 or natural, but has some element of artilicial sug- 

 gestion, something to prompt the mind. To recall 

 in the future a fact or figure, we associate it now 

 with something else which is more to our hand ; 

 and afterwards the mental reproduction or actual 

 presentation of the latter will give a suggestion of 

 the former, in accordance with the psychological 

 'law of contiguity' The number 3 : 1415926536 

 seems to a schoolboy hard of recollection till he is 

 shown its importance in connection with certain 

 ratios when measuring a circle, ellipse, sphere, 

 or cone, &c. and then taught the phrase But I 

 must a white endeavour to reckon right the ratios. 

 Each word in that mnemonic sentence supplies, 

 bv the number of its letters, a corresponding figure 

 of the ratio to be remembered. What association 

 has the date 871 with King Alfred ? None what- 

 ever, directly ; but if those digits immediately 

 appear as ami by a scheme which the pupil has 

 already accepted or invented, then a clue or link- 

 word is furnished to serve for a lifetime : a = 8, 

 m = 7, t = 1. Of the surface of our globe 734 

 thousandths are water, and by the same mnemo- 

 techny 734 becomes mer, so that the fact is per- 

 manently registered for ready use. The earth's 

 diameter and circumference measure 7926 and 

 24,900 respectively, which numbers to that mnenio- 

 technist read mtits and trn, suggesting the phrase 

 ' minutes turn ' and the association that time is 

 measured by the earth's rotation. The list 

 bijou, joujou, chott, genou, caillou, hibott, in 

 French grammars, gives another familiar instance 

 where recollection would to many be impossible 

 without some artificial association. The following 

 serves that purpose by stringing the words to- 

 gether ' Finding a Jewel in the garden, he made a 

 toy of it, and jumping about he tripped against a 

 cabbat/e and hurt his knee on a flint, whilst the owl 

 overhead hooted derisively.' Some rhythmical 

 mnemotechnic contrivances have been used for 

 ages : one, for example, which, notwithstanding the 

 enormous multiplication of printed calendars, still 

 survives is ' Thirty days hath September,' &c. 



