615 



MIDHEAVEN. 



MILE. 



616 



as a peculiar tense, and the term middle voice might be got rid of 

 altogether. 



MIDHEAVEN (Astronomy), a technical term for the point of the 

 ecliptic which is on the meridian at any given moment. 



MIDIANITES (Sl^ia, MoJiaviVoj, MaSirjTOioi), the descendants 



of Midian, the son of Abraham by Keturah (Gen. xxv. 2, 4), who, with 

 the other sons of Abraham's concubines, migrated eastward from Canaan 

 during Abraham's life (Gen. xxv. 6). In the time of Jacob their mer- 

 chants had caravans from Gilead through Palestine to Egypt (Gen. 

 xxxvii. 28, 38). In the time of Moses we find them in Arabia Petrsea, 

 under the government of a high-priest (Exod. ii. 15), and leading their 

 flocks as far as Mount Sinai (Exod. iii. 1) ; but they did not extend to 

 the west of this mountain, for the Israelites did not come in contact 

 with them in their march from Egypt, but, on the contrary, Jethro, 

 their high- priest, came out of his country to visit Moses, when the 

 Israelites were encamped at the foot of Sinai (Exod. xviii. 1-5 ; Numb. 

 x. 29). They subsequently frequently harassed the Israelites till 

 Gideon defeated them and the Amalekites in the plain of Jezreel, and 

 pursued them beyond the Jordan. They were still known, however, in 

 the time of Isaiah (be. 6) as a commercial tribe. 



The exact country of the Midianites is not determined with certainty. 

 Some, indeed, suppose that those in Arabia Petnea, mentioned in 

 Exodus (ii. 15) were quite a different nation from those on the east of 

 Palestine, the former being related to the descendants of Gush, the son 

 of Ham (Numb. xii. 1 ; Uab. iii. 7). But the more common and more 

 probable opinion is, that the Midianites were all descended from the 

 same stock, and those on the vElanitic Gulf were sometimes called 

 Ethiopians, while those near the Dead Sea are occasionally called 

 Ishmaelites ; and there may have been other bodies of them in the 

 western part of Arabia (1 Kings, xi. 18). The Arabian geographers 

 Abulfeda and Edrisi mention a town, Madian, on the eastern side of 

 the vEianitic Gulf of the Red Sea, somewhat to the north of the 

 modern Moilah, which is probably the MrjSiaca of Ptolemy (v. 17) and 

 the Maiiarli of Josephus (' Ant.' xii 11,1), and of which the ruins were 

 to be seen in the time of Eusebius and Jerome. 



The Midianites were governed by their elders (Numb. xxii. 4), and 

 by chiefs or kings (Numb. xxv. 15, 18; xxxi. 8; Judges, vii. 25; 

 viii. 3, 5). They possessed many camels, and had acquired great 

 wealth, probably by commerce (Judges, vi. 5 ; vii. 12 ; viii. 10, 24 ; Is. 

 Ix. 6). Their religion was the worship of Baal-peor. 



MIDSHIPMEN are young gentlemen ranking as intermediate 

 between 1 st class petty officers and warrant officers on board a ship of 

 war. Their duty is to pass to the seamen the orders of the captain or 

 other superior officer, and to superintend the performance of the duties 

 so commanded. They are educated for their profession at the Royal 

 Naval College, and commence their career in the service as naval cadets 

 between the ages of 12 and 14. The whole system of entering, edu- 

 cating, and promoting junior officers in the navy has recently under- 

 gone complete revision. To qualify them for promotion as lieutenants, 

 they must be able to pass a proper examination in seamanship and 

 navigation, be of the full age of 19, and have passed a period of 5J years 

 in her Majesty's navy. 



The monthly pay of an officer of this class is 21. 14s. Sd. in ships of 

 all rates. 



MIDSUMMER EVE. On the eve of the feast of the Nativity of 

 St. John the Baptist, or Midsummer-day, it was long the custom in 

 England to kindle fires at midnight, sometimes upon the hills, in 

 honour of the summer solstice ; a practice which Gebelin, in his 

 ' Allegories Orientates,' says was followed among the ancient nations. 

 The same practice has prevailed in many other countries, accompanied 

 with superstitious observances, evidently the relics of some very ancient 

 time, and now generally fallen into desuetude. (Brand's Popular 

 Antiquity, Sir H. Ellis's edit., vol. i., 1841.) 



MIGNONETTE (Reeda odorata) is a common garden flower, with 

 lanceolate bluutish entire or trifid leaves, and a 6-parted calyx equal in 

 length to the petals, which are finely cleft into many club-shaped 

 divisions, the two lowest simple, the capsules 3-toothed. It is a native 

 of the north of Africa and Egypt, but its delicious fragrance has caused 

 it to be cultivated all over the world. It is naturally an herb, but when 

 trained in the greenhouse it becomes shrubby. This plant is in great 

 demand in the London markets, and is very extensively cultivated. 

 The seeds should be sown in the ground in April, on a bed well 

 manured with rotten dung. As the plants rise they should be thinned 

 by degrees, so as to leave them from 9 to 12 inches apart. They must 

 be well watered, and require abundance of sun and air. Before they 

 come into bloom nip off the centre shoots, after which the side shoots 

 will fill the vacant spaces, and form a full and very pretty bed. If 

 sown in pots or boxes, a mixture of rotten turf and cow-dung, of which 

 the larger portion should be of the turf, must be placed for the reception 

 of the seed, and the plants should be treated as above. Transplanting 

 seldom succeeds. This is the common garden culture, and the plants 

 flower in June. In a forced culture, for flowering from December to 

 February, a sowing should be made in July, in the open ground, and 

 the plants potted in September and removed in-doors. The crop for 

 March, April, and May should be sown in pots not later than the 25th 

 of August. The plants from this sowing will not suffer from exposure 

 to rain whilst they are young ; they must however be protected from 



early frosts, and are to be thinned in November. At the same time 

 the pots should be sunk 3 or 4 inches in some old tan or coal-ashes and 

 should be covered with a frame, which it is best to place fronting the 

 west, for then the lights may be left open in the evening, to catch the 

 sun whenever it sets clear. The third or spring crop should be sown 

 in pots not later than the 25th of February. These must be placed in 

 a frame on a gentle heat ; and as the heat declines, the pots must be 

 let down 3 or 4 inches into the dung-bed, which will keep the roots 

 moist, and prevent their leaves turning brown from the heat of the sun 

 in April and May. The plants thus obtained will be in perfection by 

 the end of May. 



The arborescent plant is often called Tree-Mignonette. It may be 

 propagated by seeds or by cuttings, which readily strike root. The 

 young plants should be potted singly, and brought forward by heat. 

 As they grow they should be tied to a stick, and all side shoots should 

 be pinched off. As the plants attain a greater size they should be 

 shifted progressively into larger pots. 



MILE. This word is derived from miliare, the mille pctssus, or 

 thousand paces, of the Romans. Each pace was 5 feet, and each foot 

 certainly contained between 1T60 and 11-64 modern English inches. 

 [WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.] Taking the Roman foot at 1T62 English 

 inches, the original Roman mile was therefore 1614 yards, or nine- 

 tenths and one-sixtieth of an English statute mile, very nearly; 

 while the English mile is a Roman mile and nine-hundredths of a 

 Roman mile, very nearly. 



The English statute mile is 8 furlongs, each of 220 yards, or 

 40 poles of 54 yards or 16 4 feet each. It is also 80 surveying chains of 

 22 yards each. It is therefore 1760 yards, or 5280 feet. The square 

 mile is 6400 square chains, or 640 acres. 



The remains of the Roman mile and the Gallic or Celtic league 

 [LEAGUE] are found in the itinerary measures of most European 

 countries. The following list (taken from Kelly's ' Cambist," except 

 the statement of the Koman mile) will show the itinerary measures of 

 various countries, as they are usually reputed in English yards and 

 statute miles. We have placed them in order of magnitude. The 

 last column shows in round numbers how many of each make 1000 

 statute miles : 



The metrical mile of 1000 French metres, or one kilometre, or 1093 

 English yards, is put down among the measures of Frauce, Italy, and 

 the Netherlands ; the geographical mile, or the sixtieth of a degree of 

 latitude, or about 2025 yards, is used in England and Italy; the geo- 

 graphical league of three such miles, or 6075 yards, is used in Eugland 

 and France ; the German geographical mile is four English , geogra- 

 phical miles, or 8100 yards ; the short mile used in Poland (which is 

 also the league of Brabant) is the geographical league (6076 yards), 

 and the long mile of the same country is the German geographical 

 mile (8101 yards), which is also the length of the mile in Holland. 

 The Arabian mile is 2148 yards; the Chinese Ii 632 yards ; the Persian 

 parasang 6086 yards ; the Russian werst 1167 yards ; and the Turkish 

 berri 1826 yards. All the preceding statements relative to modern 

 measures rest on the authority of the work cited. 



This diversity of itinerary measures, particularly as observable in 

 countries which were formerly under Roman sway, can only be con- 

 jecturally explained ; partly by supposing that the mile (Roman) and 

 the league ( Celtic ) were in process of time confounded with each 

 other (as Ingulphus asserts to have been the case in England), partly 

 by recurring to the well-known tendency to give the same name to 

 measures which were multiples one of the other. [LEAGUE.] It would 

 be much beyond us to attempt any derivation of the preceding 

 anomalous measures, either from the mile or the league, and we 

 shall in the present article confine ourselves to the history of the 

 English mile. 



It will be necessary to treat this subject at some length, on 

 account of the manner in which our metrologists and antiquaries 

 have passed it over. The legal history is simply this ; that pre- 

 viously to the reign of Elizabeth the statutes on weights and 



