MERRIMAC RIVER 



3748 



MERV 



authority was forever destroyed in that region. 

 Clovis then extended his authority and brought 

 under his power the various Teutonic tribes 

 who inhabited Gaul. His dominions were di- 

 vided among his four sons on his death in A. D. 

 511. The Merovingian rulers ultimately be- 

 came so enfeebled that they were called the 

 "do-nothing" kings, and after a century and a 

 half of government they were pushed aside by 

 an ambitious officer of the Crown, and a new 

 royal line called the Carolingian was estab- 

 lished. See CLOVIS ; CAROLINGIANS. 



MERRIMAC, mer'imak, RIVER, a river in 

 New Hampshire and Massachusetts, the great 

 water power of which has caused the develop- 

 ment of four manufacturing centers, Lowell and 

 Lawrence in Massachusetts, and Manchester 

 and Concord in New Hampshire. The Merri- 

 mac, whose name is an Indian word meaning 

 swijt water, is formed by the union of two 

 streams, the Winnepesaukee and Pemigewasset, 

 which flow together at Franklin, N. H. For 

 sixty miles through New Hampshire the river 

 follows a southward course; then, just south of 

 the Massachusetts boundary, it turns to the 

 east, emptying into the Atlantic Ocean at New- 

 buryport, about 110 miles from Franklin. ' In 

 this distance it falls 269 feet, and there are steep 

 waterfalls at six points on its course. It drains 

 an area of about 4,550 square miles, and is 

 navigable from Haverhill, Mass., about seven- 

 teen miles above its mouth. 



MERRY DEL VAL, mer're del vahl' , RAFAEL 

 (1865- ), a Roman Catholic cardinal and 

 secretary of the congregation of the Holy Of- 

 fice. He was born of Spanish parents in Lon- 

 don and educated at Ushaw College in Durham, 

 and also in Rome. He took orders in 1888 and 

 became a favorite of Pope Leo XIII, who made 

 him prelate of the Papal household in 1897. 

 He visited England on the occasions of Queen 

 Victoria's jubilee and King Edward's coronation 

 as Papal envoy or representative, and was also 

 sent to Canada on an educational mission. In 

 1903 he succeeded Cardinal Rampolla as Papal 

 secretary of state, and while holding this office 

 was criticized for adopting a strong policy of 

 aggression. He was created cardinal in Novem- 

 ber, 1903. Upon the accession of Pope Benedict 

 XV in September, 1914, Cardinal Ferrata suc- 

 ceeded him as secretary of state, and a month 

 later he was appointed as secretary of the con- 

 gregation of the Holy Office, now chiefly occu- 

 pied in the suppression of heretical books. His 

 book on The Truth of the Papal Claims ap- 

 peared in 1909. 



MERSEY, mer'si, a river in the northwest- 

 ern part of England which is one of the world's 

 most important commercial waterways. It is 

 formed by the junction of the Goyt and the 

 Etherow, and in its length of seventy miles 

 drains an area of 1,600 square miles. Its gen- 

 eral direction is southwest, to Runcorn, where 

 it expands into an estuary three miles in width. 

 The great city of Liverpool developed here, 

 and now has a water area of docks and ba- 

 sins of over 400 acres, while the Birkenhead 

 docks, opposite Liverpool, cover 165 acres. 

 Great warehouses are built for storing mer- 

 chandise, and an immense revenue is derived 

 from tonnage rates on ships. There is some 

 shipbuilding, and the Birkenhead docks are an 

 important center for corn-milling, importation 

 of cattle and export trade to the East. The 

 Manchester Ship Canal, which practically con- 

 verted that city into a seaport, joins the Mer- 

 sey at Eastman Locks. Since 1886 a railway 

 tunnel under the river has afforded added com- 

 munication between the cities of Birkenhead 

 and Liverpool. See LIVERPOOL. 



MERTHYR TYDFIL, mur'thur tid'vil, a 

 city in the southern part of Wales, on the River 

 Taff, the center of the iron trade of South 

 Wales. It gets its name from Saint Tydfil, who 

 was martyred by the Saxons, Merthyr being 

 Welsh for martyr. Although it is very old, 

 having been a village on the Roman highway 

 from Cardiff, Merthyr Tydfil was of no especial 

 importance till 1850. Since then its iron and 

 steel industry has made such rapid advance 

 that the town has developed from a country 

 village into a modern commercial city. Be- 

 sides iron ore, the region produces coal, and 

 Merthyr Tydfil has the largest coal-mining es- 

 tablishments in Wales. Population, 1911, 80,- 

 990. 



MERV, mcrj, an oasis about 2,000 square 

 miles in area, in the vast plateau desert of 

 Central Asia. Shut in by the Hindu Kush and 

 Herat mountains, on the edge of the desert of 

 Karakoram, Merv has been for centuries the 

 center of industry and population in the plateau 

 region. It is said by the Persians to have been 

 the cradle of the human race. The ruins of an 

 old town, rebuilt by Alexander the Great, the 

 center of Arabic culture in the tenth and elev- 

 enth centuries, can still be seen; but the mod- 

 ern town, called New Merv, was founded by 

 the Russians about twenty-five miles west of 

 the old site, after they had captured the oasis 

 from the Turkomans in 1881. Its population 

 is about 12,000; that of the entire oasis, about 



