74 MAD 
heat. Some of the houfes are of brick; the others are 
mean cottages. The abbe Raynal reckons the whole 
number of inhabitants of Madras at 300,000. 
The town is in general very populous, each of the cot¬ 
tages containing a family of feven, eight, or nine, perfons ; 
and yet, numerous as they are, and mean in their appear¬ 
ance, the place abounds with wealth. The bazar, or mar¬ 
ket, is every day crowded, and exchanges of property are 
made to a great amount, which they transfer with as much 
facility as it is done on the Exchange of London. In the 
Black Town is an Armenian church, with feveral little 
pagodas or Indian temples, to which belong a number of 
pvielts and female chorifters. From the beginning of 
March 1777 to the end of February 1778, the temperature 
of this coalt was upon a mean 8i°; the greatest heat was 
102 0 , the lead 64°. Lat. 13. 5. N. Ion. 80. 25. E. 
“ I do not know,” fays Maria Graham, “ any thing 
■more (hiking than the firlt approach to Madras. The low 
flat fandy fliore extending for miles to the north and fouth, 
for the few hills there are appear far inland, feems to pro- 
mife nothing but barren nakednefs, when, on arriving in 
the roads, the town and fort are like a vifion of enchant¬ 
ment. The beach is crowded with people of all colours, 
■whore bufy motions at that diftance make the earth itfelf 
feem alive. The public offices and ttorehoufes, which line 
the beach, are fine buildings, with colonnades to the up¬ 
per dories, fupported by rudic bales arched, all of the fine 
Madras chunam, fmooth, hard, and polilhed as marble. 
At a (hort didance, Fort St. George, with its lines and 
badions, the government-houfe and gardens, backed by 
St. Thomas’s Mount, form an intereding part of the pic¬ 
ture, while here and there, in the diftance, minarets and 
pagodas are feen rifing from among the gardens.” Mount 
St. Thomas is, however, about ten miles from Madras : it 
3s the place of retreat of the mod opulent inhabitants of 
Madras from the heats and other inconveniences of fitua- 
tion. On the fummit is a chapel belonging to the catho¬ 
lics, accedible by a hundred and twenty-feven deps, and 
dedicated to this great apodle ; but his miracles have long 
fince ceafed. The air about this mount is peculiarly 
wholefome and redorative 5 it is edeemed the Montpellier 
of India. Invalids who have laboured under the dread¬ 
ful intermittents of Bengal, and through weaknefs been 
obliged to be carried to this place from Madras, have, in 
a few days, recovered drength fufficient to walk to the 
top without any adidance. Thefe country feats are com¬ 
monly called gar den-houfes : they are generally of only one 
dory; they are of a pretty dyle of architecture, having 
their porticos and virandas fupported by pillars of chu¬ 
nam 5 the walls are of the fame material, either white or 
coloured, and the floors are covered with ratan mats, fo 
that it is impoflible to be more cool. The houfes are 
ufually furrounded by a field or compound , with a few trees 
and flirubs; but it is with incredible pains that flowers or 
fruits are raifed. During the hot winds, tats (a kind of 
mat), made of the root of the cufa-grafs, which has an 
agreeable fmell, are placed againfl the doors and windows, 
and condantly watered, fo that, as the air blows through 
them, it fpreads a>n agreeable feent and frefhnefs through 
the houfe. 
The company’s lands, or jaghire, extend from Madras 
to the Pulicat lake, northward ; and to Alemparve, fouth- 
wards ; and weltward, beyond Conjeveram; that is, about 
108 Britilh miles along fliore, and forty-feven inland in 
the wideft part. This jaghire is underftood to be held in 
perpetuity. It contains about 2440 fquare miles, and its 
revenue is reckoned at about 150,0001. per annum. 
At the extremity of the jaghire of Madras ftands Puli¬ 
cat, a fmall Dutch fettlement, feated on the fouthern end 
of the narrow beach or land which feparates the lake of 
the fame name from the fea, like that of the Chefil-bank, 
near Weymouth, in our ifland; it is thirty-three miles 
long and eleven broad, and has on it feveral iflands. The 
difeharges to the fea are very fmall, like the mouths of To 
many rivers; it is therefore probable that the lake was 
MAD 
originally formed by the overflowing of the fea on fire 
low lands. Much of the neighbouring country is covered 
with vaft forelts of bamboos. Into the weitern fide of the 
lake falls a fmall namelels river, not worthy of mention, 
did it not lead to the famous pagoda Tripetti, the molt 
celebrated in the Deccan, feated on the top of a moun¬ 
tain. The feaft of the deity to whom it is dedicated, is 
annually celebrated in September; and the offerings made 
by the concoUrfe of pilgrims is fo great, that the brahmins 
pay to government an annual revenue of fixty thoufahd 
pagodas, which the nabob of Arcot alfigned to the Eng¬ 
lish as a reimburfement of part of the expenfes of the war. 
The.land from Madras bends with a flight curvature for 
a confiderable way, and then finifhes in a fickle-form, 
with its point at the Kiflina headland, pofiibly the Palura 
proniontorium of Ptolemy. Pennant's Hindoo/}an. Maria Gra¬ 
ham's Journal of a Rfdence in India. Rennell's Memoir. Gib- 
fon’s Geography, vol. i. 
MA'DRE DE DI'OS, an ifland in the South Pacific 
Ocean, near the coalt of Patagonia, 180 miles in circum¬ 
ference. Lat. 51. S. Ion. 77. 46. W. 
MA'DRE DE PO'PA, a town of South America, in. 
the government of New Grenada, with a celebrated con¬ 
vent. The pilgrims of South America refort in great num¬ 
bers to this religious foundation, which is there in almofl 
as great reputation as the Santa Cafa, or holy houfe of 
Loretto, is in Europe ; great numbers of miracles being 
Laid to have been wrought here by the holy virgin in fa¬ 
vour of the Spanilh fleets and their failors, who are there¬ 
fore very liberal in their donations at her flirine : fifty 
miles eaft of Carthagena. 
MADREP'OR A, f the Madrepore, or White Co¬ 
ral ; in helminthology, a genus of zoophytes, or pland- 
like worms. Generic characters—The animal refembles a 
medufa ; the coral, or (hell, is lamellate, with Itar-lhaped 
cavities. 
The madrepore is an animal fometimes Angle, fome- 
times fending forth its progeny in the form of branches. 
The ftem or mafs is of a ftony nature, (coral,) often grow¬ 
ing in the form of a plant, full of cells, which are either 
on the top or on the furface, and end in lamellated cavi¬ 
ties, to which their polype-like animals belong. 
Imperatus was the firlt who had any idea of the madre- 
porae belonging to the animal kingdom ; this hint he took 
from the oblervations he had made at feveral times on 
the Madrepora ramea, or great branched cinnamon-coral, 
which at length fully confirmed his opinion. Rumphius 
deferibes the animal of the Fungus faxeus, or Madrepora 
fungites Linn, fo diltinCtly, that there remains no doubt 
but that he faw it very clearly. He fays, while it is alive 
in the fea, it is covered with a thick vifeid matter, like 
ftarc-h ; that the more elevated folds or plaits have borders 
like the denticulated edges of needlework-lace ; that thefe 
are covered with innumerable oblong veficles, formed of 
the fame gelatinous fubltance, which appear alive under 
water, and may be obferved to move like an infeCt; that, 
as foon as the coral was taken out of the fea, and expofed 
to the air, all the mucous part, with the little veficles, 
flirunk in between the ereCt little plates, or lamellae, and 
difappeared ; and, in a fhort time, like the Medufe, or 
fea-jellies, melted away, leaving behind them a dilagreei- 
ble fetid fmell; hence it is clear that he, before any of 
the late difeoveries, was acquainted with the animal na¬ 
ture of the madrepores. Befides, he has plainly told us, 
that not only the feveral corals of the Eafl Indies, but al/o 
all the other zoophytes there, when they are frefli, are 
poflefled by a gelatinous animal of a fifliy nature. Dr. 
Donati firlt clearly explained the nature and formation of 
one of the genus of madrepores by deferibing and deli¬ 
neating the animal, as we find it in Fhil. Tran!, vol. xlvn. 
p. 105. tab. 4. The following is the fubltance of his 
communication. Its feet are numerous, and terminate 
externally in two conical productions, which, being placed 
on each fide of every one of the lamellee that give the ltel- 
lular form to the cavity of the coral, ferve to fix the ani- 
3 rnal 
