352 



MURRAY 



MUSOiE VOLITANTES 



systematic study of the English language had been, 

 until recent years, neglected l>y MboUn tlmn the 

 fact lliat Muiiay's Grammar was for liiilf a century 

 the standard text-book throughout Britain and 

 America. Murray wrote, an ntobiograpby '" l1 "' 

 mar Is"'. which* wax pul'li-n. i .ui.-i hi- OMWi 

 February 16, 1826. 



Murray, THE REGKXT. See MORAY. 



Murray Rivrr. the principal river of Australia. 

 It rises in the Australian Alps, Mow> ninth-west 

 along the frontiers of New South Wales and 

 Yietoria. ami in South Australia passes southward 

 through tin- shallow Lake Alexandrina toward* the 

 sea at Encounter I Jay. In ite 1120 miles' length 

 it drains 270,000 so,. in. ; it is nartaable for small 

 steamers as far as All.ury, 190 mile? NE. of Mel- 

 bourne, but its mouth cannot lie entered by shins of 

 any size. The chief tributaries are the Lachlan 

 and Murriimhidget! an<l the Darling (q.v.), them- 

 selves large rivers. See also AUSTRALIA, NEW 

 Sorm WALES, VICTORIA. 



Mursllidabad. a town of India, situated on 

 the left bank of the Bhagirathi, a branch of the 

 Ganges, 124 miles N. of Calcutta. Dining the Isih 

 century it was the capital of Bengal and a very 

 populous city; but about the time (1790) the 

 British made Calcutta their headquarters Mur- 

 ghidabad liegau to decline. Pop. ( 1881 ) 39,231 ; 

 (1891) 35,57d The chief buildings of note are 

 the palace of the Nawab (1837), the Imnmhara 

 ( 'house of prayer'), and a mosque. Two miles south 

 of the city is Motijhil or Pearl Lake ; on its bank 

 stood the palace of Snraj-nd Dowlah, in which Clive 

 enthroned Mir Jafar, and the English Residents 

 Warren Hastings the first dwelt. On the op|>o- 

 site side of the river i the old cemetery of the 

 Nawabs, containing a mausoleum, mosque, \c. 

 The city is noted for its ivory-carving, ite em- 

 broidery in gold and silver lace, silk- weaving, and 

 tin- manufacture of hookah pi]>es and musical in- 

 struments. It is moreover a busy centre of trade. 

 The district has an area of 2144 sq. m., and a pop. 

 ( 1881 ) of 1,226,790 ; ( 1891 ) 1,230,946. 



Murten, battle. See MORAT. 



Murvicdro, a town of Spain, 18 miles N\K. 

 of Yalcuria, stands on the site of the ancient 

 Saguntum, a Greek colony, the siege of which by 

 Hanniluil (q.v.) was the beginning of the second 

 Punic war. Pop. 6287. 



Murzuk. See FEZZAN. 



. a natural order comprising the 

 largest of herbaceous plants, generally destitute or 

 almost destitute of true stems, yet resembling trees 

 in appearance, and sometimes rivalling palms in 

 statehncss. the long sheathing bases of the leaf- 

 stalks combining to form a false stem. The blade 

 of the leaf has many line parallel veins proceeding 

 from the mid-rib to the margin. The flowers are 

 congregated on spadices, which are protected by 

 snathes. The fruit is either a 3-valved capsule or 

 Meshy. The species arc not numerous ; they are 

 natives of warm climates, in which they are widely 

 distributed, and are of great value to the inhabit- 

 ants of tropical countries ; the fruit of some, 

 particularly of the genus Mima, being much used 

 for food, whilst the fibres of the leaves are em- 

 ployed for cordage and for textile purposes (see 

 BANANA, ABACA, FIBROUS SUBSTANCES). A very 

 interesting plant of the order Musacete is the 

 Traveller's Tree (q.v.) of Madagascar. 



Mllsjl'HS, one of the ancient mythical poets, 

 seers, and priests of the Greeks, is said to have 

 been the son of Eumolpus ami Selene, or, accord- 

 ing to others, the son and pupil of < irphena. He 

 was the reputed author of a nnmlier of poems, 

 oracles, purificatory verses, hymns, &c., of which 



we possess but a few fragments, anil those of 

 doubtful authenticity. A later Mu-a-u.-. who 

 flourished about the end of the 5th century, was 

 the author of a lautiful little pot-in in Greek, 

 entitled Hero niul I.Kiiulir (ed. by Aldus Manutius 

 . 1494; by Dilthcy, Bonn, 1874).' See HERO. 



Mlisa Ibn Xosalr (Wn 640), the Arab ron- 

 qneror of northern Africa (C99-709) and of Spain 

 (712), fell under the displeasure of the Calif of 

 Damascus, and died in jioverty in Hedjaz in 717. 



Muslims. JOHANX KAIIL ArcrsT, a German 

 writer, born on 29th March 1735, at Jena, where he 

 studied theology. In 17C3 he was appointed tutor 

 to the pages at the ducal court of Weimar, and in 

 1770 became professor at the gymnasium. His lirst 

 production in 1700 was a parody of Richardson's 

 Sir Charles Granilison, a book at that time extra- 

 vagantly admired in Germany. Eighteen years 

 biter he satirised Lauitcr in Pkytiognomitekt 

 Reisen. But his literary fame rests 'upon his ver- 

 sion of Volksmiirchen tier licutsclirn, which pro- 

 fessed to be a collection of popular tales noted 

 down from the lips of old people ; but such is not 

 exactly the case : their chief note is an artificial 

 naivete. Nevertheless, they are tinctured with 

 such a blending of satirical liumour, quaint fancy, 

 and graceful writing that they have become a 

 classic of their kind. He continued to work the 

 satirical vein in FrtVOtd Hi-ins Erscheiniitxjcn in 

 Holbein* Manier (1785), and began a course of 

 tales, Strmissfedern (1787), which he did not live 

 to complete, dying at Weimar, 28th October 1787. 

 See Life by M. Miiller (1807) and Ad. Stern in 

 Literatur-fragmenle ( 1893). 



MnsCJP Volitantcs is the term applied to 

 ocular spectra, which appear like flies on the wing, 

 or floating black spots before the eyes. There are 

 two kinds of musca 1 volitantes the one a perfectly 

 harmless kind, while the other is symptomatic of 

 serious disease of the eves. Whoever will look 

 .through a minute pin-hole in a can! at the clear 

 sky may see floating before his sight a number of 

 translucent tabes or fibre*, and many little beads, 

 of which some are separate, some attached to the 

 tubes, and some apparently within them. Some 

 of the tubes or fibres are straight, others looped or 

 twisted, and others again forked. All these ob- 

 jects are bright in the middle, and liounded by fine 

 black lines, beyond and parallel to which may lie 

 seen an appearance of coloured lines or fringes. 

 The doublings and crossings of the loops or knots 

 in the twisted fibres appear as black points. 

 Though the eye be fixed, the-e liodies change their 

 position with greater or less rapidity. These 

 appearances are produced by the sliadows of 

 minute corpuscles and fibres present in the vitreous 

 liumour. They are not generally noticed under 

 ordinary conditions ; bnt some persons, especially 

 those who have small pupils or who are short- 

 sighted, readily see them, especially on looking at 

 a 1. right surface, such as a white cloud or a brightly- 

 illuminated sheet of paper. If attended to and 

 watched they liecome more prominent, and may 

 cause a good deal of annoyance. When they be- 

 come visible and troublesome under ordinary con- 

 ditions they generally indicate some defective state 

 of health, "particularly of the digestive organs. 

 The appearance of dark spots before the eyes not 

 answering to the alxive description generally points 

 to the existence of a diseased condition of the 

 deeper parts of the eye, vitreous humour, retina 

 or choroid : and as these, or the morbid conditions 

 causing them, are almost alw-ays visible with the 

 ophthalmoscope, the eyes should lie thoroughly 

 examined in any doubtful case (see EYE, OPHTHAL- 

 MOSCOPE). For further information on the differ- 

 ence* between the innocent and the dangerous 



