Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 06.djvu/323

LEFT MITFORD 263 MITYLENE inhabitants of Asia Minor; a head-band. In the Jewish religion, the divinely-ap- pointed head-dress of the Jewish high priest. In the Christian religion, the head-dress of a bishop. Miters are sup- posed to have been first worn between the 7th century and the 10th. MITFORD, MARY RUSSELL, an English writer; born in Alresford, Hampshire, England, Dec. 16, 1787; when 10 years old she drew a lottery prize of $100,000. Her father (a physician), hav- ing dissipated several fortunes, she adopted literature. Her most famous works were: "Our Village" (5 vols. 1824-1832) ; and "Recollections of a Lit- erary Life" (1852-1854). Other works were the tragedies "Julian" (1823), "The Foscari" (1826), and "Rienzi" (1828), all produced by Macready or Clharles Kemble; "Belford Regis" (1835), o. novel; poems, short stories, juvenile stories, etc. She died in Swallowfield, Jan. 10, 1855. MITHRIDATES (-da'tez), surnamed EuPATOR, and The Great, King of Pon- tus, and the 16th of the name ; born about 131 B. C. He was the son of Mithridates Euergetes, was brought up at Sinope, and displayed in his youth extraordinary daring and tact. He succeeded his father, 120 b. C, and his first acts were the murder of his mother and his brother. He then began his career of conquest by making himself master of Colchis and the Tauric Chersonese. The kingdoms of Bosporus, Cappadocia and Bithynia were successively added to his dominion; took Phrygia and Galatia, almost all Asia Minor, and occupied Thrace and Athens. All hope of reconciliation with Rome was taken away by the massacre of all the Romans found in Asia. After four years of war, Mithridates was compelled to give up his conquest and his fleet, and pay a heavy contribution to the Romans. Mithridates invaded Bithynia, defeated the Romans at Chalcedon, and besieged Cyzicus. LucuUus soon compelled him to raise the siege, defeated him in Pontus, and drove him into Armenia. Again the tide turned, and Mithridates recovered a large part of his dominions. In 66, Pom- pey was sent to carry on the war, and defeated him near the Euphrates, so that he had no choice but to retire into the kingdom of Bosporus. His spirit was still unbroken, and he formed the bold plan of invading Italy from the N.; but eventually his son Pharnaces was pro- claimed king by the soldiers. He took poison, which proved ineffectual, and was put to death by a faithful slave in his service, 63 B. C. MITLA (met'la), a ruined city of Mexico, 15 miles S. E. of Oaxaea, with extensive remains of a prehistoric race. MITO, a city of Cochin-China, on an arm of the Mekong river. It has im- portant trade interest, and has a college and hospital. Pop., about 30,000. MITOSIS, the phenomena of indirect nuclear division of the cells that are growing, or undergoing the changes in the egg which result in the development of the embryo. The first processes are marked by a rearrangement of the nu- clear network into a series of loops on V-shaped bodies. During these changes a minute body in the cytoplasm divides in half, forming two cells at opposite poles, the nucleus between. Each con- sists of a centrosome with a radiating mass. The chromosomes of the nucleus are arranged with ends opening outward and closed ends near the center, and they divide along the contact plane, half joining and being incorporated with each centrosome. As the cell is contracted be- tween the centrosomes a new nucleus is developed in each of the two portions by a process practically the reverse of that just given. The result is the for- mation of daughter cells, from the mother cell, each containing half of the chroma- tin elements of equal weight and qual- ity. Chromatin particles are generally believed to be the carriers of heredity. MITRAILLEUSE (me-tra-yuhz' ), orig- inally the French term for a weapon designed to fire a number of cartridges in a short time, but now used generally for all machine guns. A Belgian inven- tion, it was first used on a large scale in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The weapon consisted of a group of combined rifle barrels with breech-action mecha- nism. The cartridges in steel blocks, were successively dropped into a breech slot, and replaced on discharge by a fresh plate. See Machine Gun. MITYLENE, or MYTILENE (mit-i- le'ne), an island of the Grecian Archi- pelago of Asia Minor; between lat. 39° and 39° 20' N., Ion. 25° 50' and 26° 35' E.; area, 276 square miles. Products, corn, wine, oil, cotton, pitch, and fruits. Chief towns, Castro, or Mitylene, Molivo, and Culoni. Lesbos is said to have been peopled by the Pelasgians, who were fol- lowed by the lonians and the ^Eolians. It was made a Roman province about 48 B. c; and during the Middle Ages received the name of Mitylene from its chief city. Mohammed II. conquered^ it, and annexed it to the Turkish empire, in 1462. During the War of Independ- ence, the Turkish and Greek squadrons