Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 06.djvu/304

MISSISSIPPI the missionaries to India changed their views in regard to baptism and this led to the formation of the American Baptist Missionary Union in May, 1814. The Ceylon mission was begun in 1816 and a foreign mission school was founded at Cornwall, Conn., in the same year, but the school was abandoned in 1826. Missions were opened among the Cherokee Indians in 1817 and among the Choctaws in 1819. The first mission in the Hawaiian Islands was established in 1819. The first missionary to China went out in 1829. In 1830 missions were established in Asia Minor and Persia and in 1831 in Athens. The Gabun mission in west Africa was sent out in 1834 and that to the Zulus in south Africa in 1835; that in Japan in 1869.

The first mission work of the Presbyterian Church was directed to the evangelization of India. The Western Missionary Society was organized in Fitchburg about the close of the 18th century. In 1818 the United Foreign Missionary Society was formed but did not enter the foreign field. The Presbyterians worked through the American Board till 1870. In 1870 the Presbyterian Board of Missions was formed and took charge of the Persian, Syrian, and Gabun missions. The missionary society of the Methodist Church was organized in 1819. In 1835 they established the Brazil Mission. The first Methodist missionaries to China sailed in 1847, to Bulgaria in 1852, to India in 1856, to Japan in 1872, to Mexico in 1873, to Korea in 1885 and to Malaysia in 1889.

A Domestic Foreign Missionary Society of the Episcopal Church was founded in 1835, occupying China in the same year, Japan in 1859, and Haiti in 1861.

The World War checked missionary advance, but great progress has since been made. At the Foreign Missionary Conference of North America held in New York the annual income was stated to be $20,400,000 as compared with $16,935,741 in 1915.  MISSISSIPPI, a State in the South Central Division of the United States, bounded by Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, and the Gulf of Mexico; admitted to the Union, Dec. 10, 1817; area. 46,340 square miles; pop. (1900) 1,551,270; (1910) 1,797,114; (1920) 1,790,618; capital, Jackson.

Topography.—The State is divided into two portions by a low broad watershed between, the rivers flowing toward the Atlantic, and the streams emptying into the Mississippi. A lateral branch of this ridge terminates in the bluff of

Vicksburg. E. of this ridge, the surface of the State consists of broad rolling prairies, while to the W. the land is broken into valleys and ridges. The State is very low, the highest altitude being but 800 feet. Mississippi is well watered. Flowing W. from the central watershed are the Homochitto, Big Black, Yazoo, Sunflower, and Tallahatchie rivers, all emptying into the Mississippi, which forms the entire W. boundary line. On the E. of the ridge are Pearl river, the Pascagoula, and Tombigbee, all emptying into the Gulf of Mexico. A chain of islands extends along the coast, separated from it by Mississippi sound, the largest being the Cat Islands, Petit Bois, Horse, and Ship Islands. There is but one good harbor on the Gulf coast. Ship Harbor, the mouths of all the rivers being swampy. The principal ports on the Mississippi river are Vicksburg and Natchez. Mississippi is often called the Bayou State.

Geology.—The geological formations of Mississippi are principally of the Carboniferous, Cretaceous, Tertiary, and post-Tertiary periods. In the N. the Carboniferous is represented by the limestones and sandstones along the Tennessee river. S. of this are four groups of Cretaceous limestone, bounded on the W. by silicious deposits of Tertiary formations. This region abounds in brown coal, pipe and fire clay, and mineral fertilizers. The alluvial or Quaternary period is represented in the bottom lands of the Mississippi river. An orange sand of post-Tertiary formation is found over the entire S. portion of the State. Fossil remains of a gigantic marine animal resembling the alligator are found in the prairie regions.

Mineral Production.—The only mineral products of the State are clay, sand and gravel and mineral water. The total value of this is about $1,000,000.

Soil.—In the N. section and the uplands of the central portion the soil is very fertile, but the land in the Mississippi bottoms, though of exceeding fertility in places, contains much clayey and wet ground. The prairie lands are, as a rule, quite fertile. The most fertile land in the State is in the Yazoo delta, in the extreme W. part of the State, N. of Vicksburg. Mississippi has still a vast area covered by virgin forests. The principal trees are the oak, willow, chestnut, wateroak, walnut, butternut, dogwood, black gum, sweet gum, beech, cottonwood, sycamore, magnolia, locust, mulberry, hickory, pine, cypress, and live oak.

Agriculture.—The prairie region in the N. W. of the State has always been noted