610 



MADEIRA MADRAS. 



washed with several cold waters. The ordinary 

 madder-red dye is given in the following way : the 

 yarn or cloth is put into a very weak alkaline bath, 

 at the boiling temperature ; then washed, dried, and 

 galled ; or, when the calico is to be printed, for this 

 iiath may be substituted one of cow-dung, subsequent 

 exposure to the air for a day or two, and immersion 

 in very dilute sulphuric acid. In this way the stuff 

 becomes opened, and takes and retains the colour 

 better. After the galling, the goods are dried, and 

 alurned twice; then dried, rinsed and passed through 

 the madder bath. This is composed of three-fourths 

 of a pound of good madder for every pound weight 

 of the goods. The bath is slowly raised to the boil- 

 ing point in the course of fifty or sixty minutes, more 

 or less, according to the shade of colour wished for. 

 When the boiling has continued for a few minutes, the 

 stuff is taken out, washed slightly, dried, and treated 

 a second time in the same manner, and with as much 

 madder. It is then washed and dried, or passed 

 through a hot soap bath, which carries off the fawn- 

 coloured particles. Other dyes likewise are added to 

 the madder bath, to obtain other shades of colour ; 

 for instance, a decoction of fustic, weld, logwood, 

 quercitron, knoppern, the mordants being modified 

 accordingly. Hoelterhoff prescribes for ordinary 

 madder-red, the following proportions: twenty 

 pounds of cotton yarn, fourteen pounds of Dutch 

 madder, three pounds of gallnuts, five pounds of 

 alum ; to which are added, first, one pound and a half 

 of acetate of lead, and, subsequently, a quarter pound 

 of chalk. When bran is added to the madder bath, 

 the colour becomes much lighter, and of a more 

 agreeable tint. 



Adrianople madder-red is given by many distinct 

 operations. The first consists in cleansing or scour- 

 ing the goods by alkaline baths, after which they are 

 steeped in oily liquors, brought to a creamy state by a 

 little carbonate of soda in solution. Infusion of sheep's 

 dung is often used as an intermediate or secondary 

 steep. The operation of oiling, with much manual 

 labour, and then removing the superfluous or loosely 

 adhering oil with an alkaline bath, is repeated two or 

 three times, taking care to dry hard, after each pro- 

 cess. Then follows the galling, aluming, maddering, 

 and brightening, for removing the dun-coloured prin- 

 ciple, by boiling at an elevated temperature, with 

 alkaline liquids and soap. The whole is often con- 

 cluded with a rosing by salt of tin. 



MADEIRA ; an island off the western coast of 

 Africa, belonging to Portugal ; Ion. 17 W. ; lat. 32 

 30' N. ; square miles 407 ; population estimated at 

 100,000. The body of the people are of Portuguese 

 descent, negro slavery not being permitted. The 

 peasants are very poor, rude, and ignorant ; the 

 hardest labour is performed by females. The religion 

 is Catholic. The island consists of a collection of 

 mountains, the most elevated of which is 5068 feet 

 high. The lower slopes are covered with vines, the 

 loftier summits with forests of pine and chestnut. A 

 great part of the sides of the hills consists of abrupt 

 precipitous rocks, supposed to be of volcanic forma- 

 tion. Most of the rocks along the coast are composed 

 of a white lava. The productions, besides wine, are 

 wheat, rye, sugar, coffee, maize, kidney-beans, arrow- 

 root, pine-apples, &c. The great production is wine, 

 of well-known excellence. The quantity annually 

 made is about 20,000 pipes, of which two-thirds are 

 exported principally to Great Britain and the British 

 colonies. The best vines grow on the south side of 

 the island. There are several varieties of wines ; 

 the best is called London particular. The tax-gath- 

 erer takes the tenth part of the must : the rest is 

 divided between the proprietor and the farmer. 

 Goats abound, and still more hogs, which, being 



allowed to run wild, acquire a taste of venison ; th& 

 rabbit also is very common in the mountainous 

 listricts. 1 ices are very common, and the honey they 

 produce is very delicate. Beggary is common among 

 the peasants, and is considered no disgrace. The 

 Portuguese gentry live in a proud and retired man- 

 ner, associating little with strangers. In the city, 

 the most opulent part of the inhabitants consists of 

 British merchants, established there for the wine 

 trade. The commerce of the island consists almost 

 entirely in the export of its wine. For vessels stop- 

 ping at Madeira, provisions and refreshments are 

 exorbitantly dear. Adjacent to Madeira is Porto 

 Santo, a small island, and the Desertas, which, with 

 Madeira itself, compose the group of the Madeiras. 

 Funchal, the capital, with 20,000 inhabitants, is in 

 Ion. 17 6' W.; lat. 32 37' N. Porto Santo was dis- 

 covered by Zarco, a Portuguese navigator, in 1416, 

 unless we may believe the romantic story of Macham, 

 an Englishman of obscure condition, who is said to 

 have eloped with a young lady of noble birth, and set 

 sail for France, but was driven to this region. The 

 lady is said to have died in consequence of her suffer- 

 ings, and Macham did not long survive. (See the 

 Voyage of Robert Macham in Hakluyt,!!.) In 1419, 

 Zarco discovered the island which he called Madeira, 

 or the Wood, on account of the magnitude and num- 

 ber of the trees that covered it, and which have since 

 almost entirely disappeared. For the history of the 

 recent events in Madeira, see Portugal. Barrow, 

 Staunton, and Bowdich's voyages contain informa- 

 tion relative to this island. For information respect- 

 ing the wines, see Henderson's History of JVines. 



MADEIRA; a river in South America, large, 

 abundant, and navigable; about 1100 miles long, 

 rising in the mountains of Chuquisaca, in the repub- 

 lic of Peru. It runs an easterly course to San!;i 

 Cruz de la Sierra, with the names of La Plata, Chu- 

 quisca, Cachimayo, and Qua pay; and, turning to the 

 north, enters the Amazon river, with the name of La 

 Madeira (Portuguese for wood), on account of the 

 vast quantity of wood which it carries down with its 

 current. It abounds in excellent fish. 



MADNESS. See Mental Derangement. 



MADOC ; according to a Welsh tradition, a 

 Welsh prince, who, in consequence of some domestic 

 dissensions, went to sea with ten ships and 300 men, 

 in the twelfth century, and discovered land in the 

 ocean far to the west. He made several voyages to 

 and from this unknown land, but finally was lost to 

 the knowledge of his countrymen. The story is to 

 be found in the Welsh Triads, and Hakluyt gives an 

 account of the voyages in his collection. Later tra- 

 vellers have imagined that they had discovered traces 

 of these early emigrants in different parts of the 

 country, and we have had stories of white Indians 

 and Welsh Indians, &c. See Humboldt's Personal 

 Narrative, book ix., note A. 



MADONNA (Italian}; properly, my lady : thus 

 Petrarch often calls Laura madonna ; but now it is 

 more particularly applied to the Virgin Mary, as she is 

 called in other languages, our lady. Many celebrated 

 pictures are known under the name of Madonna, as 

 the famous Madonna di Sisto of Raphael, in the gal- 

 lery of Dresden. 



MADRAS, PRESIDENCY OF ; part of the British 

 possessions in llindoostan, comprehending the whole 

 of the country south of the Krishna, excepting a nar- 

 row strip on the western coast and the Northern dr- 

 ears. A considerable portion of it is governed by 

 native princes subordinate to the British, and pro- 

 tected by a subsidiary force; the rest is under the 

 immediate direction of the governor and council of 

 Madras, and, in 1822, was subdivided into twenty- 

 four districts, with an area of 166,000 square miles 



