MINNESOTA RIVER 



3836 



MINOTAUR 



and with its endowment of $2,000,000, to be 

 used for medical and scientific instruction and 

 investigation, under the direction of the gradu- 

 ate school of the university. The University 

 of Minnesota belongs in a very intimate way to 

 the people of the state. Every effort is made 

 to bring to all citizens who desire it the oppor- 

 tunity to secure educational dividends on their 

 investment. G.E.V. 



MINNESOTA RIVER, a river of the United 

 States which joins the Mississippi between the 

 cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, in the state 

 of Minnesota. It rises in foothills of South Da- 

 kota known as the Coteau des Prairies, and 

 flows southeastward to Big Stone Lake on the 

 boundary between Dakota and Minnesota. 

 At Ortonville the river leaves the lake, which 

 is twenty-six miles long, and flows southeast 

 to Mankato, Minn., where it abruptly bends 

 towards the north, entering the "Father of 

 Waters" a few miles below the Falls of Saint 

 Anthony. Its total length is about 470 miles 

 and its drainage area covers about 16,600 square 

 miles. The chief affluents are the Chippewa, 

 Pomme de Terre, Redwood, Cottonwood and 

 Blue Earth rivers. It traverses a fertile prairie 

 country, and during high water small vessels as- 

 cend it about 295 miles from its mouth. Large 

 steamers traverse the first forty-five miles of its 

 course. 



MI 'NOR, a musical term, for explanation of 

 which see Music ; SCALE. 



MINORCA, minawr'ka, the second largest 

 and most easterly of the Balearic Islands, owned 

 by Spain and lying east of that country, in the 

 Mediterranean Sea. The area, including adja- 

 cent islets, is 293 square miles, nearly one-fourth 

 that of Rhode Island. The surface is rough 

 and mountainous and the coast very rugged. 

 There are several good harbors; on the best of 

 these is Port Mahon, the capital. The island 

 contains a quantity of valuable minerals, in- 

 cluding iron, copper, lead, marble, porphyry and 

 alabaster. The chief products are oil, wine, 

 hemp, flax, oranges, lemons, cheese and honey. 

 The natives are good sailors, but are not in- 

 dustrious, and are quite illiterate. The island 

 has been owned by the Carthaginians, Romans. 

 Vandals and Moors, and in recent times has be- 

 longed to England and to Spain. At the Peace 

 of Amiens, in 1802, it was ceded by Great Brit- 

 ain to Spain in exchange for Gibraltar. Popu- 

 lation, 1910, 42,000. 



MI'NOS. For more than two thousand 

 years boys and girls have read or have been 

 told the story of King Minos of Crete, who 



sacrificed Athenian youths and maidens to the 

 Minotaur, a creature half man and half bull, in 

 his labyrinth, and when the boys and girls have 

 asked, "Is the story true?" they have been told, 

 "It is only a myth, a made-up story of the an- 

 cient Greeks." In this twentieth century they 

 can be told for the first time that Minos really 

 did exist, that he really had a labyrinth, and 

 that he held bullfights in which girls as well as 

 boys faced the bull weaponless. All this has 

 been discovered since 1900, through the exca- 

 vations in Crete by Sir Arthur Evans. 



There are many more legends of Minos, and 

 it now seems probable that this name, like 

 Pharaoh in Egypt, or Caesar in Rome, was 

 given to each member of a long series of Cre- 

 tan kings who swayed the Eastern Mediterra- 

 nean from perhaps 2500 B. c. to about 1500 B.C. 

 In mythology the legends all concern one man. 

 He was the son of Zeus and Europa, and once 

 in nine years he consulted with his father in a 

 cave still to be seen on the mountain side. 

 After his death he was made judge in the un- 

 derworld. See CRETE; MINOTAUR. 



A very interesting book about the modern dis- 

 coveries is Baikie's Sea Kings of Crete. 



MI 'NOT, N. D., the county seat of Ward 

 County, situated northwest of the geographical 

 center of the state and on the Mouse River. 

 Grand Forks is 206 miles east and south. Minot 

 is the distributing center for a large territory, 

 having the service of the Great Northern and 

 the Minneapolis, Saint Paul & Sault Sainte 

 Marie railroads. Its industry is centered chiefly 

 in the mining of lignite coal and in making 

 flour and briquettes; ample water power for 

 manufacture is derived from the river, which 

 at this point has a fall of ten feet. The city 

 has a Federal building, a post office, the state 

 normal school, a fine courthouse, a public li- 

 brary, and a large park through which the river 

 winds its course. The government is adminis- 

 tered on the commission plan. Population, 1910, 

 6,188. 



MINOTAUR, min'o tawr, or MINOS'S 

 BULL, was the monster with the head of a 

 bull and the body of a man which, according 

 to Greek mythology, belonged to King Minos. 

 Once every nine years seven youths and seven 

 maidens from Athens were sacrificed to it, but 

 on the third occasion the hero Theseus killed 

 the Minotaur and found his way out of the 

 labyrinth by following a thread which Ariadne, 

 the king's daughter, had given him. Thanks to 

 the wonderful excavations begun in 1900 by Sir 

 Arthur Evans, it is now known that there is an 



