MITCHELSTOWN 



5456 



MITHRADATES VI 



Jarrow, 1889-91, where he super- 

 intended the building of the Reso- 

 lution and the Revenge ; con- 

 structor at Hong Kong, 1891-95 ; 

 senior constructor at the Devon- 

 port dockyard, 1895-99; and chiet 

 constructor at Bermuda, 1899- 

 1902 ; and at Sheerness, 1902-3. His 

 last post was that of manager of the 

 constructive department, Ports- 

 mouth, from which he retired in 

 1907. Under his supervision, during 

 that period, the Dreadnought 

 (q.v.) and the Bellerophon were 

 built. He was knighted in 1906, 

 and died March 31, 1919. 



Mitchelstown. Market town, 

 co. Cork, Ireland. It is 11 m. N. of 

 Fermoy on the G.S & W. Rly. 

 There are remarkable stalactite 

 caves about 6 m. N.E. of the 

 town. Serious rioting occurred 

 here in 1887. The castle is a seat 

 of the earl of Kingston. Market 

 day, Thurs. Pop. 2,300. 



Mite. Small creatures, belonging 

 to the class Arachnida and order 

 Acarina. Most of them are very 

 small, and some 

 j resemble minia- 

 ture s p i de r s . 

 They have 

 no "waist," 

 the thorax 

 and abdomen 

 being fused 

 _______________ together, and 



Mite. Highly magni" the latter is 

 fled specimen of red entirely unseg- 

 earth mite mented. Many 



are parasitic on animals and plants 

 and do considerable damage, some 

 being the cause or vehicle of serious 

 disease. Thus the diseases known as 

 itch and mange (q.v.) are caused by 

 mites that attack the skin. An- 

 other species, commonly known as 

 the harvest bug, bores, during its 

 larval stage, into the human skin, 

 causing great irritation. A red 

 mite is a parasitic pest of poultry 

 and cage birds. Another mite. 



Mitchelstown, Ireland. Main entrance to the modern 

 castle, seat of the earl of Kingston 



sucking the juices of plants. A 

 wormlike mite of the genus Demo- 

 dex inhabits the sebaceous follicles 

 of the human skin. Others infest 

 cheese, flour, etc. See Insects. 



Mitford, MARY RUSSELL (1787- 

 1855). British novelist and drama- 

 tist. She was born at Alresford in 

 H a m p s h i re, 

 Dec. 16, 1787, 

 the daughter of 

 a doctor, whose 

 e x t ravagances 

 kept her poor 

 all her life. Her 

 tragedies, 

 Julian, 1823; 

 The F o s c a r i, 



William Mitford, 

 British historian 



1826; Rienzi, 1828; and Charles 

 I, 1834, met with tolerable success, 

 though none of them is now acted. 

 Her fame rests more surely on her 

 sketches of country life and char- 

 acter, contributed in the first in- 

 stance to The Lady's Magazine 

 and republished as Our Village. 

 In 1852 appeared Recollections of 

 Literary Life. Mary Mitford died 

 at Swaiiowfield, near Reading, Jan. 

 10, 1855. See Life and Letters, 

 ed. A. G. L' Estrange. 1870. 



Mite. Left, specimens of Rhizoglyphus echinopus, mites which live between 



the scales of bulbs. Right, Big Bud mites, Eriophyes ribis, which infest 



currant buds. All highly magnified 



commonly known as the red spider, 

 invades hop gardens and does 

 much damage in greenhouses by 



Mitford, WILLIAM (1744-1827). 

 British historian. Born Feb. 10, 

 1744, and educated at Queen's 



College, Oxford, 

 he inherited his 

 father's estate at 

 Ex bury, Hamp- 

 shire, in 1761, and 

 devoted himself 

 to the study of 

 Greek. At the sug- 

 gestion of Gibbon, 

 whose fellow officer 

 he was in the 

 Hampshire Militia, 

 he wrote a History 

 of Greece, 1784- 

 1810,which,though 

 painstaking and 

 accurate so far as 

 it goes, is vitiated 

 by the author's 

 dislike of democratic institutions. 

 Between 1785 and 1818 Mitford 

 represented Newport, Cornwall, 

 Beeralston, 

 and New 

 Romney in 

 Parliament. He 

 died at Ex- 

 bury, Feb. 10, 

 1827. 



Mitho OR 

 MYTHO. Town 

 and river port 

 of French 

 I nd o-China, 

 Cochin China. It is 23 m. from the 

 sea on the chief distributary of the 

 Mekong delta, and is the terminus of 

 a rly. through Saigon to Nha Trang. 



Mithradates VI OR MITHRI- 

 DATES (131-63 B.C.). King of 

 Pontus. On the murder of his father, 

 ^^^^^ Mithradates V, 



in 120 B.C., he 

 became king, 

 and on reach- 

 i n g man's 

 estate extend- 

 ed his con- 

 quests to the 

 Crimea and 

 parts of Ar- 

 menia. Ordered 

 by the Romans 

 to give up Cappadocia, which he 

 had annexed, he defeated all efforts 

 to oust him, and eventually overran 

 the whole of the Roman province of 

 Asia. No fewer than 80,000 Roman 

 citizens resident in various towns of 

 the province were put to death by 

 his orders. In 87 B.C. Sulla arrived 

 in Greece, into which Mithradates 

 had thrown an army, and signally 

 defeated the king at Chaeronea and 

 Orchomenos in 86, while another 

 Roman army under Fimbria de- 

 feated him in Asia, and the king 

 was forced to conclude peace. 



Fighting was renewed again in 

 83 and 82 B.C., but was not of long 

 duration. The third Mithradatic 

 War began in 74, and lasted till 63. 

 Lucullus, the Roman general in 

 command, was at first successful, 



Mithradates VI, 

 King of Pontus 



from a coin 



