MARTINIQUE 



3668 



MARTYR 



return year after year to prove its gratitude, 

 and is usually a welcome guest on account of 

 its services in driving away hawks and crows. 

 Its flight is swift, easy and graceful. The eggs, 

 four to six in number, are white and glossy, 

 and two broods are reared in the season; it 

 feeds on wasps, bees and beetles, which are 

 swallowed whole. Several pairs will dwell in 

 harmony in the same nest. There are other 

 species of martin; among these are the house 

 martin and the sand martin, both of which are 

 smaller and less conspicuous in color than the 

 purple martin. See SWALLOW. 



MARTINIQUE, mahrtineek', a French 

 island belonging to the Lesser Antilles of the 

 West Indies and lying almost midway between 

 the two British islands of Dominica and Saint 

 Lucia. The former is twenty-five miles to the 

 north; the latter, twenty miles to the south. 

 Martinique is roughly oval in shape ; it is forty 

 miles long and about twelve miles wide, and 

 has an area of 380 square miles. From its 

 rocky surface rise numerous volcanic moun- 

 tains, the loftiest of which is Mount Pelee 

 (4,430 feet), in the northwest. This mountain 

 has become famous through its appalling erup- 

 tion of 1902, which destroyed Saint Pierre, th'en 

 the largest city on the island, and caused the 

 death of over 30,000 persons. Over a third of 

 the island is under cultivation, the principal 

 crop being sugar cane; coffee, cocoa, tobacco 

 and cotton are grown to a limited extent. 



Martinique was discovered by Columbus, 

 some authorities placing the date at 1493, and 

 others at 1502. Later it came into the pos- 

 session of the French, who began to colonize 

 it in 1635. The island was the birthplace of 

 the Empress Josephine, wife of Napoleon Bona- 

 parte. At the present time it is a French 

 colony, and represented in the French Parlia- 

 ment by one senator and two deputies. Fort 

 de France, capital of the colony of Martinique* 

 has a population of about 27,000. Population 

 of the entire island, 1913, 185,400. 



MAR'TINSBURG, W. VA., is the county 

 seat of Berkeley County, in the extreme north- 

 eastern part of the state. It is seventy-eight 

 miles northwest of Washington, D. C., and 

 seven miles west of the Potomac River, and is 

 on the Baltimore & Ohio and the Cumberland 

 Valley railroads. The area is nearly three 

 square miles. The population, which in 1910 

 was 10,698, was 12,666 in 1916 (Federal esti- 

 mate) . 



The city is situated in the lower Shenandoah 

 Valley, protected by the Blue Ridge Moun- 



tains. In this fertile section are grown fruits, 

 especially apples and peaches, and grains and 

 garden truck. Horses, cattle, sheep, hogs and 

 poultry are raised for the markets. The work- 

 ing of immense limestone and shale deposits is 

 a growing industry. There are manufactures 

 of flour, woolens and worsteds, hosiery, lumber, 

 lime and wagons; canning factories, automobile 

 works, cement plants and railroad repair shops 

 are the chief industrial enterprises. 



Martinsburg was settled before the War of 

 Independence; it contains a Federal building, 

 county courthouse, Y. M. C. A. and a city hos- 

 pital and nurses' training school. D.H.R. 



MAR 'TIN'S FERRY, OHIO, a city of Bel- 

 mont County, almost directly across the Ohio 

 River from Wheeling, W. Va. It has steam- 

 boat and barge lines, and is on the Wheeling & 

 Lake Erie, the Baltimore & Ohio and the 

 Pennsylvania railroads and electric interurban 

 lines. The population, nearly one-fourth for- 

 eign, in 1910 was 9,133; in 1916 it was 9,996 

 (Federal estimate). 



Martin's Ferry is attractively located and 

 has a Federal building erected in 1916 at a cost 

 of $85,000, a public library and a hospital. 

 There are iron and coal mines and limestone 

 quarries in the vicinity. The industries of the 

 city are steel mills, tin mills, a blast furnace, 

 glass factory, sheet-steel rolling mills, metal- 

 ware manufacturing plants, box and barrel fac- 

 tories, novelty mold works and a stove foundry 

 and heater works. One . of these concerns, 

 among the largest of galvanized ware plants 

 in the United States, employs 7,500 men. 



A settlement, called Martinsville, was in- 

 corporated as a village in 1865. The name was 

 later changed to Martin's Ferry, and the place 

 became a city in 1885. A.J.F. 



MARTYR, mahr'tir, the name applied to 

 early Christians who suffered great persecution 

 and even death rather than renounce their faith 

 and trust in Christ. The number of martyrs 

 reached into the thousands during the many 

 periods when upheavals in the Church com- 

 pletely destroyed religious toleration. Stephen 

 is regarded as the first Christian martyr, for he 

 was seized and stoned to death by his fellow 

 citizens for denouncing their wicked deeds 

 (Acts VII, 59-60). Festivals in honor of mar- 

 tyrs were given as early as the second century, 

 for they were greatly venerated by fellow be- 

 lievers, who often offered prayers at their tombs 

 and thanked God for the example which they 

 had given the world. In the old Roman calen- 

 dar there was a feast in honor of all the mar- 



