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 preliminary schools and has been appointed to a ship. The French equivalent is aspirant, and other European navies use that name, or cadet.

MIDSOMER NORTON, an urban district in the northern parliamentary division of Somersetshire, England, m. S.S.W. of Bath. on the Somerset & Dorset and the Great Western railways. Pop. (1901), 5809. The town is pleasantly situated in a hilly district, between two branches of the small river Somer. The church of St John the Baptist, principally Perpendicular, has in its tower three bells presented by Charles II. Both this town and the adjacent urban district of (pop. 3355) have a considerable trade in coal, which is mined in the vicinity. The coalfield extends northwestward towards Bristol, and is of great importance to the manufactures of that city.

MIDWIFE (Mid. Eng. midwif, mydwyf or medewife, from preposition mid, with, and wife, i.e. woman, in the sense of one who is with the mother, or from adjective mid, one who is the means of delivering the mother, a woman who assists other women in childbirth). As a class, midwives were recognized in Egypt in the time of the Jewish captivity. It was the universal practice in Europe until the middle of the 16th century, as it is to-day in the East, that women should be attended in confinement only by those of their own sex. From that period more attention was given to the practice of midwifery by the medical profession (see ), while in continental Europe, towards the close of the 17th century, special schools were instituted for the proper training of midwives. But it was not until well on in the 19th century that any supervision or regulation was imposed on those who acted as midwives. Now in practically every European country midwives are under strict state control, they are required to undergo a course of thorough training, and their practice is carefully regulated by legislation.

MIERES, a town of northern Spain, in the province of Oviedo, 12 m. by rail S.E. of Oviedo, on the river Caudal, a tributary of the Nalon. Pop. (1900), 18,083. Mieres is the chief town of a mountainous, fertile and well-wooded region in which coal, iron, and copper are extensively mined and sulphur and cinnabar are obtained in smaller quantities. The town contains large iron foundries and chemical works, and has an active trade in fruit, cider, timber and live stock.

MIEREVELT (, or ), MICHIEL JANSZ VAN (1567–1641), Dutch painter, was born at Delft, the son of a goldsmith, who apprenticed him to the copperplate engraver J. Wierix. He subsequently became a pupil of Willem Willemz and Augusteyn of Delft, until Anthonie van Montfoort (Blocklandt), who had seen and admired two of Mierevelt’s early engravings, “Christ and the Samaritan” and “Judith and Holofernes,” invited him to enter his school at Utrecht. Devoting himself first to still life, he eventually took up portraiture, in which he achieved such success that the many commissions entrusted to him necessitated the employment of numerous assistants, by whom hundreds of portraits were turned out in factory fashion. The works that can with certainty be ascribed to his own brush are remarkable for their sincerity, severe drawing and harmonious colour, but comparatively few of the two thousand or more portraits that bear