MAETERLINCK 



3589 



MAGDALEN ISLANDS 



of the Lofoten group, lying off the northwest- 

 ern coast of Norway. Between the tide level 

 in the ocean and that in the West Fiord, which 

 lies between Lofoten and the mainland, there 

 is a very great difference, and every twelve 

 hours a huge mass of water, moved from the 

 fiord to the ocean and back again, runs with 

 great swiftness through the many narrow island 

 channels. Dangerous currents, therefore, de- 

 velop, the swiftest being the famous Mael- 

 strom, between the islands of Vaero and Mos- 

 kenaeso. This current becomes very dangerous 

 when the wind blows against it between high 

 and low tide; the sea then is whipped into a 

 seething mass that would swallow up any small 

 vessel venturing upon its waters. 



Of the many stories woven about this cur- 

 rent, none is more graphic than Edgar Allan 

 Poe's A Descent into the Maelstrom. He de- 

 scribes it in these words: 



The vast bed of the waters, seamed and 

 scarred into a thousand conflicting channels, 

 burst suddenly into frenzied convulsion heaving, 

 boiling, hissing gyrating in gigantic and in- 

 numerable vortices, and all whirling and plung- 

 ing on to the eastward with a rapidity which 

 water never elsewhere assumes, except in pre- 

 cipitous descents. 



As a figure of speech the word is found in all 

 modern literatures, and refers to any violent, 

 overpowering force. 



MAETERLINCK, mah'terlingk, MAURICE 

 (1864- ), a Belgian poet, dramatist, natural- 

 ist, idealist and story-teller, the winner of the 

 Nobel Prize for literature in 1911. His dramas, 

 upon which his fame largely rests, include The 

 Blue Bird, Monna Vanna, Pelleas et Melisande, 

 The Intruder, The Blind and Home. Though 

 most of his plays are mystical and symbolic, 

 and therefore not well adapted for stage presen- 

 tation, his Blue Bird met with deserved favor 

 when played in the United States. Whether as 

 philosopher, dramatist, poet or essayist, Mae- 

 terlinck's subjects concern themselves chiefly 

 with his views of life and death. He is a mod- 

 ern hermit, living with his own dreams. He pre- 

 fers bees, of which he has written so charm- 

 ingly in The Life of the Bees, and his dogs, 

 eulogized in his Our Friend the Dog, to the 

 companionship of friends. His wife, Georgette 

 Le Blanc, is a gifted musician. 



MAFIA, mah'fia, a secret society in Sicily, 

 more powerful than the Camorra of Naples, 

 which protects its members from punishment 

 for any crime they may commit. There is a 

 higher and a lower Mafia, the latter carrying 

 on the work of blackmail and robberies for the 



organization, confident that it can rely upon 

 the more influential Mafiosi for protection 

 when involved in difficulty with the authorities. 

 The Mafia controls elections, assists smugglers, 

 directs strikes, and even fixes the hire of work- 

 men. The Italian government's efforts to stamp 

 out the society have not succeeded; however, 

 numbers of its members have been driven from 

 the country, and many of these have organized 

 branches of the Mafia in various cities of the 

 United States, notably in New York and New 

 Orleans, fostering lawlessness and swelling the 

 criminal classes wherever they locate. See 

 CAMORRA. 



MAGAZINE, mag'azeen, a military and 

 naval term specifying a protected building or 

 room for the storage of explosives and ammuni- 

 tion. The word is derived from an Arabic 

 word meaning storehouse, and is used as maga- 

 sin in France, meaning a store or shop. The 

 name is also applied to the chamber of a re- 

 peating rifle or machine gun holding a supply 

 of ammunition. 



Magazines for explosives and ammunition 

 are generally built underground, or with shell- 

 proof protection. On board ship magazines 

 are placed as far from the engines and fireroom 

 and as far below the water line as possible. 

 They are usually watertight compartments, 

 with walls of steel, lined with asbestos board. 

 In the tropics artificial cooling of the maga- 

 zine is necessary, and this is accomplished by a 

 ventilating system with pipes to bring cool air 

 from the refrigerator and other pipes for the 

 escape of the hot air. Magazines are also fit- 

 ted with water pipes by means of which they 

 can be flooded in case of fire. Men working 

 in the magazines wear shoes without nails, and 

 no iron or steel fittings on tools are allowed 

 inside. Ammunition is hoisted through small 

 openings and is taken on small cars to the guns. 



Still another use of the word magazine is 

 found in its application to a periodical publica- 

 tion bound in book form, usually issued once a 

 month. 



MAG'DALEN. See MARY MAGDALEN. 



MAGDALEN, mag'dahlen, ISLANDS, a 

 group of islands, politically under the control 

 of the Canadian government, and forming a 

 part of Gaspe County, Quebec. They are situ- 

 ated near the center of the Gulf of Saint Law- 

 rence, fifty-four miles northwest of Cape Bre- 

 ton and about a hundred miles southwest of 

 Newfoundland. The inhabitants, principally 

 French-Canadians, get their living through the j, 

 fisheries of the adjacent waters, in which lob- 



