Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 06.djvu/227

LEFT MELVILLE 185 MEMPHIS byterianism in Scotland. In 1582, being then the principal of St, Mary's College, St. Andrew's, Melville was the first to sign the well-known Remonstrance of the Presbyterian clergy against the royal policy in ecclesiastical affairs. He was then summoned before the Privy Council on a charge of treason, and sentenced to imprisonment. He evaded the latter, however, by escaping into England, re- turning to Scotland, eventually, in 1585. In 1595, Melville was elected Lord Rector of St. Andrew's University. Expatriated to France for political offenses, Melville was made Professor of Theology at the University of Sedan, He died in Sedan, France, in 1622. MELVILLE, GEOBGE WALLACE, an American naval officer; bom in New York City, Jan. 10, 1841. He entered the United States navy in 1861, rising through the various grades to that of Chief of the Bureau of Steam Engineer- ing. He accompanied the unfortunate "Jeannette" polar expedition in 1878; also that of the Hall relief expedition in the United States steamer "Tigress"; also the Greely relief expedition in 1884. In the "Jeannette" expedition he imderwent the severest sufferings and hardships, but reached Irkutsk in safety. He became a rear-admiral in 1899. and retired in 1903. He died March, 17, 1912. MELVILLE, HERMAN, an American author; born in New York, Aug. 1, 1819. Going to sea as a cabin boy, he spent a number of years in travel. His most famous books were "Typee" (1846), and "Omoo" "(1847), narrating his adventures in the Marquesas Islands; others were "White Jacket" (1850), "Moby Dick" (1851), and a number of other stories, and three volumes of poems. He died in New York, Sept. 28, 1891. MEMBRANE, an expansion of any tissues in a thin and wide layer. Bichat divides them into ^rous. mucous, and fibrous membranes. Among the most im- portant membranes in the body are those of the brain: viz., the dura mater, the arachnoid, the pia mater and the falx. Undulating membranes, simple mem- branous bands, one margin only of which is attached, the other being free and ex- hibiting an undulatory motion. They are allied to and answer the same purpose as cilia. They are stated to occur on the spermatozoa of salamanders and tritons, and in the water vessels of some Anne- lids, Infusoria, and Rotatoria. MEMEL (ma'mel), a Prussian sea- port, defended by a citadel and two forts on the sea side; at the N. extremity of the Kurisches Haff, at its opening into the Baltic. 70 miles N. N. E. of Danzig; has a large harbor, and exports from Lithu- ania and Russia timber, flax and linseed, coal, manure, grain, and herrings; has also manufactories of brandy, soap and chemicals, sawmills, iron foundries, brew- eries, and shipbuilding yards. Memel was founded in 1252 by the Livonian order, who gave it to the Teutonic Knights. l)y whom it was fortified in 1404. It suf- fered severely m the Lithuanian wars (13th to 15th centuries). Here in 1807 Frederick-William III. of Prussia took refuge, and a treaty with England was signed. Having been almost wholly de- stroyed by fire in 1854, it was rebuilt in modern style. The city was captured by the Russians in 1914, but the German armies soon regained it and retained pos- session. Pop. about 25,000. MEMNON, in Greek mythology, a son of Eos (the morning) and Tithonis (= Titan, a name for the sun), represented in the legend as a son of Laomedon and brother of Priam. The famous statue called by the Greeks Memmon, in the se- pulchral quarter of Thebes called Mem- noneia, possessed the real or imaginary property of emitting a sound like that of a harp at the rising of the sun. MEMORY, the mental faculty or power which causes the impressions of bygone events, at ordinary times latent in the mind, to affect it anew or to be repro- duced by an effort for the purpose. The art which furnishes aid to memory is called Mnemonics {q. v.). In physiology, memory is the property of the cerebral organs only, not of the organ of sense, and is never entirely lost except through disease or accident. It depends entirely on association, and is one of the first faculties aroused in the infant mind, traces of it also occurring in the lower animals. MEMPHIS, a celebrated city of Egypt, on the W. bank of the Nile, 10 miles S. of the modern city of Cairo. Herodotus as- cribes the foundation of this place, the Moph of the Old Testament, to Menes, first king of Egypt; the dates have been assigned from 3892 B. C. to 2100 B. C. Memphis was taken by the Persians un- der Cambyses 525 B. c, when many of its temples and palaces were destroyed. Alexander III. (the Great), who wintered here 332 B. c, did it much injury by founding Alexandria. Memphis, made capital 272 B. c, was taken by Antiochus Epiphanes 171 B. c, and was visited and restored by Septimius Severus, in 202. In the 7th century it passed under the dominion of the Arabs, and gradually fell into decay, Cairo being built from its