MELODRAMA 



3726 



MELVILLE ISLAND 



The blue melilot, native to Northern Africa, 

 is cultivated in Switzerland and the Tyrol and 

 is used for medicinal purposes. Its flavor is 

 also imparted to the Chapzieger cheese of 

 Switzerland, and when the cheese is made in 

 large quantities the odor of melilot can be 

 discerned even at a distance. Sometimes the 

 herbage is fed to cattle, but the plant is gen- 

 erally considered a troublesome weed. 



MELODRAMA, mel o drah ' ma, originally a 

 dramatic performance alternated with vocal and 

 instrumental music, the name being a combina- 

 tion of the Greek melos, meaning song, and 

 drama, meaning play or action. The term is 

 now used to designate a romantic play which 

 depends on unnatural situations and sensational 

 incidents for its interest, and is applied very 

 commonly to plays that find favor in theaters 

 of the cheaper class, whose audiences enjoy 

 thrilling episodes involving persecuted hero- 

 ines, wicked villains and hairbreadth escapes. 

 Dramas of tense action which possess real merit, 

 such as William Gillette's dramatization of the 

 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, may be classed 

 as melodrama of a higher order. 



MELON, mel'un, the. name applied to the 

 fruit of several varieties of plants belonging to 

 the gourd family, all of which have climbing or 

 trailing vines and large leaves. The best- 

 known melons are the muskmelon (including 

 the cantaloupe) and the watermelon. 



Related Subjects. The reader is referred to 

 the following articles in these volumes : 

 Casaba Muskmelon 



Gourd Watermelon 



ME 'LOS, or MILO, me'lo, an island pos- 

 session of Greece, situated in the southwestern 

 part of the Aegean Sea, and famed as the place 

 where the statue of Venus of Melos was found 

 in 1820 by a peasant. The island is thirteen 

 miles long and eight miles wide, and has an 

 area of about sixty square miles. It was set- 

 tled by the Dorians at an early date and taken 

 by the Athenians in 416 B.C. The present 

 population is 4,864. See VENUS DE MILO. 



MEL 'ROSE, MASS., a suburb of Boston, 

 situated seven miles north of that city, in 

 Middlesex County, and on the Boston & Maine 

 Railroad. Interurban lines connect with Bos- 

 ton and with cities and towns in the northeast- 

 ern part of the state. The city has a location 

 adjoining Middlesex Fells, a state reservation 

 of 1,800 acres, famous for its natural beauty. 

 Although it is a residential suburb, the city has 

 manufacturing establishments, the most impor- 

 tant of which are devoted to the making of 



boots, shoes and rubbers. Melrose, which in- 

 cludes the villages of Melrose Highlands, Fells 

 and Wyoming, was settled as early as 1633. 

 Until 1649 it was a part of Charlestown, and 

 from th#t time until 1850, when it was incor- 

 porated as Melrose, it was a part of- Maiden. 

 In 1900 it received the city charter. The popu- 

 lation increased from 15,715 in 1910 to 17,445 in 

 1916 (Federal estimate). The area is nearly 

 five square miles. 



MELT 'ING POINT, or FUSING, fuze 'ing, 

 POINT, in physics, is the temperature at which 

 a solid substance melts or becomes liquid. The 

 required temperature is hardly the same for 

 any two substances, and varies from 32 F. 

 for ice to 3231 F. for platinum. In metals it 

 is found that the greater the purity the higher 

 the temperature of the melting point. Pure 

 iron melts at 3099 F., gold at 1072, zinc at 

 418, tin at 320, lead at 324, silver at 1174, 

 aluminum at 1341. Mercury when solidified 

 melts at a temperature of forty degrees below 

 zero. 



MEL'VILLE, a town in southeastern Sas- 

 katchewan. It is a passenger and freight divi- 

 sional point on the main line of the Grand 

 Trunk Pacific Railway and also on the Regina- 

 Melville branch, which is projected to connect 

 with the Hudson Bay Railway at Pas. It is 

 279 miles northwest of Winnipeg, 188 miles 

 southeast of Saskatoon and ninety-eight miles 

 northeast of Regina. Melville is the center of 

 a prosperous farming region, and with the ex- 

 ception of the railway shops all its important 

 business interests are dependent on agriculture. 



The town owns and operates a hospital and 

 a skating and curling rink as well as its water- 

 works and electric-light system. It is the seat 

 of a judicial district and of a Lutheran Col- 

 lege. The town hall, which was completed in 

 1912, cost $75,000. Melville is the nearest 

 point on the Grand Trunk Pacific's main line 

 for the Qu'Appelle Valley, where there is good 

 fishing and hunting. The town was founded in 

 1907, and was named for Charles Melville 

 Hays, then president of the Grand Trunk Pa- 

 cific. Population in 1911 was 1,816; in 1916 it 

 was 2,100. F.H.C. 



MELVILLE, mel'vil, ISLAND, an island in 

 the Arctic seas north of the American continent, 

 belonging to the group discovered in 1819 by 

 Captain William Parry, a British navigator. It 

 lies north of Melville Sound and between 

 Prince Patrick and Bathurst islands. It is very 

 irregular in shape, about 200 miles long and 100 

 miles wide. From April to the end of July 



