M O S 
may land at every part of the bay; and the adjacent coun¬ 
try would eallly afford fupplies for about five hundred 
men. The mouths of the rivers that fall into the bay are 
generally blocked up with fand; they abound with va¬ 
rious kinds of filh ; and, at the rocky parts of the coaft, 
mufcles and excellent oyfters are plentiful. 
MoJ/el-bai / gives name to a divificn of the diftrift of 
Zwellendam, adjoining to it ; and it is fometimes called 
Droogevcldt, or Dry Country, extending from the Gau- 
ritz-river to the Great Brakka-river that falls into Model- 
bay. The lurface is hilly, and cotnpofed of a light fandy 
foil, which, when the rains are favourable, is liifiiciently 
fertile in corn. The only natural product in the vegeta¬ 
ble kingdom, that is ufeful as an article of commerce, is 
the aloe ; but the heathy plants along the fouthern are 
more favourable for (heep than in the other parts ot this 
divifion. Befides the filheries, the aloe and barilla might 
employ the Hottentots to advantage. As the former 
grows in every part of the diftrift that furrounds the bay, 
that from the alhes of which the latter is procured is 
equally abundant in the plain through which the Olifant- 
river flows at no great diftance from the bay. Here alfo 
the cultivation of grain and pulfe might be greatly ex¬ 
tended. Bavrotu's Africa, vol. ii. 
M6Jfel-bay is the fame to which Vafco de Gama gave 
the name of the Bay of St. Blaife, when he landed there 
in December 1497. Near a cape which ftill retains the 
name of St. Blaife, is a cave in a high cliff", the foot of 
which is walked by the fea, which, though four hundred 
feet above the high-water mark, is entirely overfpread 
with a thick layer of mufcle-fhells. Lichtenftein vilited 
it in 1805; and makes the breadth about twenty paces, 
the depth half as much, and the height about fifty. The 
mouth of the cave fronts the north-eaft. In another cave, 
about fifty feet higher, there are no fhells. It is certainly 
a curious queftion, how thefe fhells came into the place 
where they are now found. Barrow l'uppofes that they 
were brought by the birds ; Lichtenftein, that they were 
brought by the Hottentots, who are fuppofed to have for¬ 
merly reforted to this place, and to have lived much 
on fhell-fifh : this is alfo the common opinion in the 
neighbourhood. The fhells are none of them frefli, and 
are half buried in fand and earth. This phenomenon, it 
feems, is very common on that coaft. Barrow fays that 
many thoufand waggon-loads may be met with in various 
places along the eaitern coaft, in fituations which are fe- 
veral hundred feet above the level of the fea. If the tra¬ 
vellers juft named had informed us of the nature of the 
rock, of the kind of excavations which the fea has made 
in it, how high the obvious marks of the wafhings of the 
fea extend, to what height gravel and other fubftances are 
ever thrown up by the wind or waves, we fhould have had 
fome data for deciding whether the fea itfelf, without any 
other agent, can be fuppofed to have depofited the fhells 
where they are now found. As the matter Hands, the 
fuppofition pf Lichtenftein may be accounted the molt 
probable. What Barrow afihrts, that in Lowenberg, near 
the Cape Town, wherever like caves have been dil'co- 
vered, abundance of live fhell-fifh are always found, is 
denied by Lichtenftein, after having, as he tells us, exa¬ 
mined many of thole caves very particularly, in order to 
fatisfy himfelf of the truth. Edinburgh Review of Lich- 
tenftein's Travels. 
MOSSELPAT'TY, a town of the ifland of Ceylon : 
fixty-five miles weft-north-weft of Trincomalee. 
MOSSENI'GA, a town of European Turkey, in the 
Morea : twenty miles eaft of Navarin. 
MQSSEQUE'JOS, a people and country of Africa, on 
the coaft of Zanguebar, on the banks of the Quilamanca, 
About one hundred miles from the Indian Sea. 
MOSS'ET, a town of France, in the department of the 
Eaftem Pyrenees: twenty-four miles weft of Perpignan, 
and fix north-weft of Prades. 
MO.SSIMPOU'R, a town of Hindooftan, in Bahar; 
twenty-three miles fouth-eaft of Ifajypour. 
V-OL. XVI. No. 1094. 
M O S 73 
MOSS'INESS, ft The ftate of being covered or over¬ 
grown with rnofs.—The herbs withered at the top, fheweth 
the earth to be very cold, and fo doth the mo/finefs of trees. 
Bacon. 
MOSS'ING, or Massing, a town of Bavaria: twelve 
miles fouth of Dingelfingen, and eight north-north-weft; 
of New Oetting. 
MOSS'KIRCII. See Moeskirch, vol. xv. p. 6ro. 
MOSS'O, a town of France, in the department of the 
Sefia : two miles north of Bieila. 
MOSS'ULA, or Marsoula, a town of Africa, in the 
kingdom of Congo, at the mouth of the Onzo. Lat. 8. 
10. S. 
MOSSUM'BO, a town of Congo : twenty miles fouth 
of Banza. 
MOSS'Y, adj. Overgrown with mofs; covered with 
mofs.—Old trees are more mojfy far than young; for that 
the fap is not fo frank as to rife all to the boughs, but 
tireth by the way, and putteth out mofs. Bacon's Nat. Hijt. 
About the mojfy brooks and fprings, 
And all inferiour beauteous things. Cowley . 
The mojfy fountains and the fylvan (hades 
Delight no more. Pope's Mcjftah. 
MO'ST, adj. the fuperlative of more; [maspr, Sax. 
mcej't, Dut. Dr. Jo/mfon. —Mr. Tooke has charged Junius 
with laying untruly that mojl is formed from the pofitive 
maepe, having maeppe as the comparative, and msepepr, 
by contra&ion nnept, as the fuperlative. But candour 
required that-this fingularity in the Saxon fhould have 
been mentioned, that maepe is ufed both as a pofitive, 
magnus , and a comparative, major; while maepepr is the 
fuperlative. Tocld.'] Confiding of the greateft number; 
confifting of the greateft quantity.—Garden-fruits which 
have any acrimony in them, and mojl forts of berries, will 
produce diarrhoeas. Arbutlniot. —Greateft. ObJ'olete. —They 
all repair’d both moft and leaft. Spenfer. 
MO'ST, adv. [rndifts, Goth, maspt, Sax. meeft, Dut. 
meft , Dan.] In the greateft degree.—That which will mojl 
influence their carriage will be the company they converfe 
with, and the falhion of thofe about them. Loche on Edu¬ 
cation. 
Coward dogs 
Moft fpend their mouths, when what theyfeem to threaten 
Runs far before them. Shahefpcare. 
The particle noting the fuperlative degree.—Competency 
of all other proportions is the mojl incentive to induftry ; 
too little ntakes men delperate, and too much carelefs. 
Decay of C/ir. Piety.— The faculties of the fupreme fpirit 
moft certainly may be enlarged without bounds. C/ieync. 
MO'ST ; [this is a kind of fubftantive, being, accord¬ 
ing to its fignification, Angular or plural.] The greateft 
number: in this fenfe it is plural. —Many of the apoftles’ 
immediate difciples fent or carried the books of the four 
evangelifts to mojl of the churches they had planted. Ad - 
difon on the Chr. Relig. —Gravitation, not being effentia! 
to matter, ought not to be reckoned among thofe laws 
which arife from the difpofition of bodies, fuch as moft of 
the laws of motion are. Cheyne. —The greateft value : in 
this fenfe ftngular. —A covetous man makes the moft of 
what he has, and can get, without regard to Providence or 
Nature. L'Eftrange. —The greateft degree ; the greateft 
quantity; the utmoft. — A Spaniard will live in Irifti 
ground a quarter of a year, or fome months at the mojL 
Bacon. 
Most an End. Moft commonly. A vulgar phrafe, 
MOS'T, or Bri'ex, a town of Bohemia, in the circle of 
Saatz, on the Bila. It is a royal town, and contains three 
cloifters: twelve miles north of Saatz, and thirty-eight 
north-weft of Frague. Lat. jo. 30. N. Ion. 13. 40. E. 
MOS'TA, or Bili'na, a river of Bohemia, which runs 
into the Elbe near Auftig. 
MOSTAGAN', a town of Algiers; fifty miles eaft- 
north-eaft of Oran. 
U MOSTAR, 
