KABK 



MAHSHES. 



50 



lU bulk U -ISM of tht of the earth, and iU mass U -0000008927 of 

 thai of the tun, or about the 2546000th part. 



Tha planet revolves on iU axis in 24 k 89- 21-3, and the axil U 

 iwl to the ecliptic SO* 18' lO'-S. IU light and heat are 43 per 

 . of thon of the earth. 



of the Orbit of .Van. 



Epoch 1799, December 31, 12* mean astronomical time at Seeberg. 



Rn.i.Ti major 1 '5236923, that of the earth being assumed as the 

 unit. 



Excentricity -0933070; iU secular increase (or increase in 100 

 yean) -0000901 76. 



Inclination of the orbit to the ecliptic 1 SI' 6"-2 ; iU secular 



Longitudes from the mean equinox of the epoch (1.) of the 

 tt~wling node 47* 59' 38"-4 ; its .secular increase (combined with the 

 precession) 2500" ; (2.) of the perihelion 332* 22' 51" ; its secular 

 increase (combined with the precession) 6582"; (3.) of the planet (mean) 

 232* 33' 23-2. 



Mean sidereal motion in one mean solar day, 31' 26"-655 ; in 365} 

 days 689100"-739 ; sidereal revolution 686-9796458 mean solar days. 



MARS, or MAYORS. [ARES.] 



MAKSH GAS. (MiTHTL, Hydride of.} 



MARSH'S TEST FOR ARSENIC. [ABSEKIC, DETECTION OF; 

 Mar*; Tat.} 



MARSHAL, a term which in its origin meant simply a groom or 

 manager of horses ; but from the importance of such an employment 

 in a rude warlike nation, the office of marshal became invested with 

 great military authority, which, according to the usage of the times, 

 drew to itself a considerable civil jurisdiction. One of the principal 

 officers of state is the king's marshal, which office is now held here- 

 ditarily by the Duke of Norfolk, who is said to have the office of 

 mrJi.l of England, and also an honour in respect of which he is earl 

 iMih*l This office was executed in time of war in the king's host, or 

 army ; in time of peace, in the aula regis, or king's great court Upon 

 the division of the aula regis, the marshal appointed deputies in the 

 new courts. In the King's Bench the marshal's deputy was called the 

 mThl of the manhalaea of the king's court, or marshal of the King's 

 Bench. In the Exchequer, the deputy was marshal of the Exchequer, 

 or clerk of the manhalaea of the Exchequer. The duty of the acting 

 m.r.h.1 if regularly to attend the court, and to take into his custody 

 all persons committed to his custody by the court. 



The lord high constable, when there was one, and the earl marshal, 

 were the judges before whom the court of chivalry or court martial 

 was held. This court had cognisance of contracts touching deeds of 

 arms and of war arising out of the realm, and of all appeals [APPEAL] 

 of offences committed out of the realm, and of matters within the 

 realm relating to war, in cases which the courts of common law were 

 incompetent to decide. Its proceedings were according to the course 

 of the Roman or civil law. The earl marshal cannot hold this court 

 alone, and there has been no hereditary or permanent high constable 

 since the forfeiture of the Duke of Buckingham "poor Edward 

 Bohun " in the time of Henry VIII. In the few cases in which the 

 court of chivalry has been since held, a high constable has been 

 appointed for the occasion. In the case of an appeal of death brought 

 in 1583 against Sir Francis Drake by the heir of one Dough tic, whose 

 bawl Drake had struck off in parts beyond sea, Queen Elizabeth 

 refused to appoint a high constable ; and thus, says Lord Coke, the 

 appeal slept The minor duties of the earl marshal are set out with 

 great minuteness of details in a document preserved in Spelman's 

 "Glossary.' 



MARSHALSEA. In the manhalse* of the king's household there 

 were two courts of record. 1. The original court of the marshalsea 

 was to hear and determine causes between the servants of the king's 

 household and others within the verge ; that is, within a circle of 

 twelve miles round the king's palace. 2. The palace court was erected 

 by Charles I., confirmed by Charles II., and had authority to try all 

 personal actions between party and party, though neither of them were 

 of the king's household, provided the cause of action arose within twelve 

 miles round Whitehall. 



The court of the marshalsea and the palace court were abolished by 

 the statute 12 & 13 Viet c. 101, as was also the old Marahalsfla prison. 



(Blackstone's Comm., vol. iii., R M. Kerr's edit) 



MARSHES an those places of greater or less extent on the earth's 

 surface, where the soil is almost constantly soaked with water. The 

 swamp, the bog, the fen, and the morass, are so many different names 

 for the same thing, or modifications which have not yet been defined. 

 Whether marshes be considered with regard to their advantages or 

 disadvantages, they are equally interesting, and are objects that call 

 for the attention of individuals sod sometimes of states. The advan- 

 tages which they ofler are of limited extent, and may be divided into 

 spontaneous and artificial. The former consist in the natural pro- 

 ductions which are furnished by some of them, of which peat is 

 unquestionably the most important (Ireland, Holland.) [Boo, in 

 NAT. HIST. Div.] Some furnish iron-ore in considerable quantity 

 bog iron-ore which is formed in them by the action of decomposing 

 vegetable matter on water holding salts of iron hi solution, arising from 

 'loo of other iron ores; and, though generally of a bad 



kind, owing to the phosphorus it contains, it is sometimes very good, 

 and worked with advantage (Siberia) ; others supply aquatic game in 

 abundance, which is a great resource to the neighbouring inhabitants, 

 either for consumption or as an article of commerce (the marshes of 

 Tuscany) ; others again abound in eels and other fish ; and some, as 

 those of the Sadne in France, and those of Poland, the Ukraine, and 

 Bohemia, are valuable for the myriads of leeches which they furnish, 

 and which are sent to distant parts. The soil itself, dug up from the 

 marshes, which is called bog-earth, and the upper surface of the peat 

 bogs, burnt or unburnt, are in many cases considered an excellent 

 manure, and employed as such. (Poland, France.) The reeds, rushes, 

 willows, tc., which grow so abundantly in certain marshy lands, are in 

 many places objects of considerable importance. (Italy, Holland.) 

 The artificial advantages to which marshes may be turned are confined 

 chiefly to the cultivation of rice, where climate and other circumstances 

 are favourable to the growth of this grain. (North America, Hungary.) 

 The disadvantages of marshes are great : they are in general fatal to 

 health, and agriculture suffers by the loss of all the marshy land. 

 That health is materially injured by the pestilential air of marshes is 

 evident from the fact that the ordinary mean length of life in their 

 neighbourhood is very low. Cattle are also great sufferers from the 

 influence of marshy grounds. The engineer Rauch says, " Marshes are 

 the ulcers of the earth, which blur the fair face of nature, where all 

 should be beauty ; and from these infectious gores the languor of death 

 extends far and wide over all that should live and flourish ; " but the 

 details of their baleful influence are nowhere more strikingly set forth 

 than in the prize essay on this subject, by M. Ramel, of Paris. 



A particular case, on a part of the Italian coast, derived however 

 from another authority, will well illustrate this subject, so far as 

 regards maritime marshes. Both ancient and modem authors have 

 announced the fatal effects produced in the neighbourhood of marshes 

 by the admixture of their waters with that of the sea, and a local 

 belief of the same thing is very common and strong on the borders of 

 the Mediterranean in Italy. On the south of the Ligurian Apennines 

 is a marshy shore, bounded on the west for twelve miles by that sea, 

 on the south by the river Serchio, and on the north by tin- Krigido, a 

 torrent commencing at the foot of the mountains, in the state of 

 Massa di Carrara, running three or four miles over the land, and theu 

 falling into the sea. The plain is from two to four miles wide, and is 

 traversed by a few short streams, two of which divide it into three 

 separate basins. The rain and spring waters which flow into these are 

 slowly discharged into the sea by natural or artificial canals, penetrating 

 the sand-banks on the sea-side. The level of these stagnant waters is 

 between the levels of high and low tide in the sea, there being but 

 little difference between these two points in this part of the Mediter- 

 ranean, la this state of things, when the waters of the sea arose from 

 any circumstance (unless the waters of the marshes were very high), 

 they used to return up the ditches, fill the basins, and inundate the 

 country to the foot of the mountains ; and with a north-west wind, 

 the waves used to penetrate with force to the interior. The mixture 

 of fresh and salt-water thus formed, and which in summer was rarely 

 changed, became corrupt, and spread infection of the most destructive 

 kind over the neighbourhood. In this way the effects of the malaria 

 were reproduced annually ; the population, though small, presented 

 feeble infants and diseased men, old age being unknown there. All 

 attempts to avoid the scourge by living on the hills, or in the interior, 

 and frequenting the plain only when the business of cultivation 

 required, were vain; the inhabitants fell victims to the extensive 

 influence, and much more rapidly did a stranger sutler from tho 

 deleterious atmosphere : a sojourn for one single night, in the months 

 of August and September, causing inevitable death to the incautious 

 traveller. 



Such had been the state of things from time immemorial until 1740- 

 1741, when, after the necessity of excluding the sea from these marshes 

 had been insisted upon by many experienced persons, a sluice, with 

 folding gates, competent to give emission to the waters of the marsh, 

 but prevent the sea from entering, was constructed at the mouth of 

 the liurlamacca. The most complete and unexpected success imme- 

 diately followed upon and continued with this work. The year after 

 its completion there were no appearances of the terrible maladies which 

 previously appeared every year. The inhabitants soon recovered 

 health, and the land being very fertile, the population rapidly in- 

 creased. But the neighbouring parts were long left a prey to the 

 destroying influence of the mixed marsh- waters. The 19th century 

 had been some years entered upon before the inhabitants around other 

 basins were considered ; and it was not until so late a period as 1821, 

 that the guarding with sluices of the remaining outlets from tho 

 marshes was complete. " Since that time," says Sig. O. Giorgini, whoso 

 account of these proceedings is here abridged, " the diseases of malaria 

 have ceased so entirely at all points, that no other dangers are now 

 incurred regarding the insalubrity of the atmosphere, than such as 

 may arise from neglect of these sluices, which the inhabitants of the 

 country should regard as their palladium." 'Ann. de China, et de 

 Phys.,' 1825, voL xxix., pp. 225-240. 



The causes of the malarious condition of the atmosphere occasioned 

 by the mingling of the marsh-waters with those of the sea, constitute 

 too extensive a subject of investigation to be entered upon at any 

 length in this place. It may be stated, however, that by the mutual 



