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LEFT ]!ii:OBTAR 815 MORTIFICATION natural philosophy; but in 1811 went to England to study painting under West. In 1813 he was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Academy, Returning to the United States in 1826 he established the National Academy of Design, of which he was first president. About 1832 he SAMUEL F. B. MORSE worked on a plan to use electro-magnet- ism in telegraphy, and in 1835 exhibited a workable instrument. By July, 1837, this instrument was perfected, and ulti- mately in 1843 Congress granted him means to construct an experimental line between Washington and Baltimore. From that time Morse's instrument came into general use in the United States and Europe. ^ In 1857 the representatives of 10 countries met at Paris, and voted him $80,000. He died in New York City, April 2, 1872. MORTAR, or MORTER, a vessel, gen- erally in the form of a bell or conical frustrum, in which substances are pounded by a pestle. When large, they are made of cast-iron; a smaller size is made of bronze, and those for more delicate pharmaceutical operations are of marble, pottery, porphyry, or agate. They are used in connection with a pestle, which in the larger mortars is of iron, and in the smaller is of porcelain or agate. Also a calcareous cement. Hy- draulic mortar is made from certain limestones which include in their com- position so large a proportion of iron and clay as to enable them to form cements which have the property of hardening under water, and are called hydraulic limestones. Short pieces of ordnance used to force shells at high angles, generally 45°, the charge varying with the range required. They are distinguished by the diameter of the bore, such as 13-inch, 10-inch, and 8-inch, which are commonest, forms of smooth-bore mortars. They are made of cast iron or bronze; but rifled mortars, resembling short howitzers, are of wrought iron or steel. The bronze mor- tars are usually of small caliber. MORTE D" ARTHUR (mort dar'thur), a famous compilation of romances relat- ing to the life and death of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, made by Sir Thomas Malory and printed by Caxton (1485). It is in prose, and was translated from the French prose romances. See Malory, Thomas. MORTGAGE, in law, the conveyance of property as security for the payment of a debt or performance of a promise, and on the condition that if the debt be duly paid or the promises fulfilled the conveyance shall be void. The term is applied: (1) To the act of making such a conveyance; (2) to the deed by which such conveyance is made; (3) to the rights thereby conferred on the mort- gagee. He who makes the mortgage is the mortgagor; he for whose benefit it is made is the mortgagee. Whatever may be sold may be mortgaged. Mort- gages may therefore cover chattels or real estate. Mortgages must be in writ- ing, either in one single instrument con- taining the whole case, or in two, one containing the conveyance, the other the condition of the conveyance, this last document being the "defeasance." A de- posit of title-deeds, with a verbal agree- ment, creates an equitable mortgage in some States which recognize this pro- ceeding as a mode of securing a debt. The different States regulate the time in which mortgages are to be recorded, in order to protect innocent purchasers, but an unrecorded mortgage is good as against the mortgagor, or any purchaser knowing of its existence at the time of his purchase. In those States which rec- ognize chattel mortgages (or mortgages of personal property), a record o? the same within a specified time is required, to i-ender them valid as against other claimants. MORTIFICATION, the complete death of part of the body. It is generally the result of acute inflammation, but may be also an idiopathic disease. In Scots