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 hymn-singing, Calvinism, Roman Catholicism, and the Evangelical movement as represented by Charles Simeon and the Bible Society. Among his writings are Lectures on the Criticism and Interpretation of the Bible (1828), A Comparative View of the Churches of England and Rome (1814), and Horae Pelasgicae (1815). He died at Peterborough on the 1st of May 1839.

MARSH, NARCISSUS (1638–1713), archbishop of Dublin and Armagh, was born at Hannington, Wiltshire, and educated at Oxford. He became a fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, in 1658. In 1662 he was ordained, and presented to the living of Swindon, which he resigned in the following year. After acting as chaplain to Seth Ward, bishop of Exeter and Salisbury, and Lord Chancellor Clarendon, he was elected principal of St Alban Hall, Oxford, in 1673. In 1679 he was appointed provost of Trinity College, Dublin, where he did much to encourage the study of the Irish language. He helped to found the Royal Dublin Society, and contributed to it a paper entitled “Introductory Essay to the Doctrine of Sounds” (printed in Philosophical Transactions, No. 156, Oxford, 1684). In 1683 he was consecrated bishop of Ferns and Leighlin, but after the accession of James II. he was compelled by the turbulent soldiery to flee to England (1689), where he became vicar of Gresford, Flint, and canon of St Asaph. Returning to Ireland in 1691 after the battle of the Boyne, he was made archbishop of Cashel, and three years later he became archbishop of Dublin. About this time he founded the Marsh Library in Dublin. He became archbishop of Armagh in 1703. Between 1699 and 1711 he was six times a lord justice of Ireland. He died on the 2nd of November 1713.

MARSH, OTHNIEL CHARLES (1831–1899), American palaeontologist, was born in Lockport, New York, on the 29th of October 1831. He graduated at Yale College in 1860, and studied geology and mineralogy in the Sheffield scientific school, New Haven, and afterwards palaeontology and anatomy in Berlin, Heidelberg and Breslau. Returning to America in 1866 he was appointed professor of vertebrate palaeontology at Yale College, and there began the researches of the fossil vertebrata of the western states, whereby he established his reputation. He was aided by a private fortune from his uncle, George Peabody, whom he induced to establish the Peabody Museum of Natural History (especially devoted to zoology, geology and mineralogy) in the college. In May 1871 he discovered the first pterodactyl remains found in America, and in subsequent years he brought to light from Wyoming and other regions many new genera and families, and some entirely new orders of extinct vertebrata, which he described in monographs or periodical articles. These included remains of the Cretaceous toothed birds Hesperornis and Ichthyornis, the Cretaceous flying-reptiles (Pteranodon), the swimming reptiles or Mosasauria, and the Cretaceous and Jurassic land reptiles (Dinosauria) among which were the Brontosaurus and Atlantosaurus. The remarkable mammals which he termed Brontotheria (now grouped as Titanotheriidae), and the huge Dinocerata, one being the Uintatherium, were also brought to light by him. Among his later discoveries were remains of early ancestors of horses in America. On becoming vice-president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1875 he gave an address on the “Introduction and Succession of Vertebrate Life in America,” summarizing his conclusions to that date. He repeatedly organized and often accompanied scientific exploring expeditions in the Rocky Mountains, and their results tended in an important degree to support the doctrines of natural selection and evolution. He published many papers on these, and found time—besides that necessarily given to the accumulation and care of the most extensive collection of fossils in the world—to write Odontornithes: A Monograph on the Extinct Toothed Birds of North America (1880); Dinocerata: A Monograph on an Extinct Order of Gigantic Mammals (1884); and The Dinosaurs of North America (1896). His work is full of accurately recorded facts of permanent value. He was long in charge of the division of vertebrate palaeontology in the United States Geological Survey, and received many scientific honours, medals and degrees, American and foreign. He died in New Haven on the 18th of March 1899.

See obituary by Dr Henry Woodward (with portrait) in Geol. Mag. (1899), p. 237.

MARSH (O. F. mersc, for merisc, a place full of “meres” or pools; cf. Ger. Meer, sea, Lat. mare), an area of low-lying watery land. The significance of a marsh area is not so much in the manner of its formation as in the peculiar chemical and physical results that accompany it, and its relation to the ecology of plant and animal life. Chemically it is productive of such gases as arise from decomposing vegetation and are transitory in their effects, and in the production of hydrated iron oxide, which may be seen floating as an iridescent scum at the edge of rusty, marshy pools. This sinks into the soil and forms a powerful iron cement to many sandstones, binding them into a hard local mass, while the surrounding sandstones are loose and friable. A curious morphological inversion follows in a later geological period, the marsh area forming the hard cap of a hill (see ) while the surrounding sandstones are weathered away. Salt marshes are a feature of many low-lying sea-coasts and areas of inland drainage.

MARSHAL (med. Lat. marescalcus, from O.H.Ger. marah, horse, and scalc, servant), a title given in various countries to certain military and civil officers, usually of high rank. The origin and development of the meaning of the designation is closely analogous with that of (q.v.). Just as the title of constable, in all its medieval and modern uses, is traceable to the style and functions of the Byzantine count of the stable, so that of marshal was evolved from the title of the marescalci, or masters of the horse, of the early Frankish kings. In this original sense the word survived down to the close of the Holy Roman empire in the titular office of Erz-Marschalk (arch-marshal), borne by the electors of Saxony. Elsewhere the meaning of office and title was modified. The importance of cavalry in medieval warfare led to the marshalship being associated with military command; this again led to the duty of keeping order in court and camp, of deciding questions of chivalry, and to the assumption of judicial and executive functions. The marshal, as a military leader, was originally a subordinate officer, the chief command under the king being held by the constable; but in the 12th century, though still nominally second to the constable, the marshal has come to the forefront as commander of the royal forces and a great officer of state. In England after the Conquest the marshalship was hereditary in the family which derived its surname from the office, and the hereditary title of earl-marshal originated in the marriage of William Marshal with the heiress of the earldom of Pembroke (see ). Similarly, in Scotland, the office of marischal (from the French maréchal), probably introduced under David I., became in the 14th century hereditary in the house of Keith. In 1485 the Scottish marischal became an earl under the designation of earl-marischal, the dignity coming to an end by the attainder of George, 10th earl-marischal, in 1716. In France, on the other hand, though under Philip Augustus the marshal of France (marescalcus Franciae) appears as commander-in-chief of the forces, care was taken not to allow the office to become descendible; under Francis I. the number of marshals of France was raised to two, under Henry III. to four, and under Louis XIV. to twenty. Revived by Napoleon, the title fell into abeyance with the downfall of the Second empire.

In England the use of the word marshal in the sense of commander of an army appears very early; so Matthew Paris records that in 1214 King John constituted William, earl of Salisbury, marescalcus of his forces. The modern military title of field marshal, imported from Germany by King George II. in 1736, is derived from the high dignity of the marescalcus in a roundabout way. The marescalcus campi, or maréchal des champs, was originally one of a number of officials to whom the name, with certain of the functions, of the marshal was given. The marshal, being responsible for order in court and camp, had to employ subordinates, who developed into officials often but nominally dependent upon him. On military expeditions it was usual for two such marshals to precede the army, select the site of the camp and assign to the lords and knights their places in it. In