Page:EB1911 - Volume 18.djvu/971

 Conway explored the Karakoram Himalayas, and climbed a peak of 23,000 ft. In 1895 A. F. Mummery made a fatal attempt to ascend Nanga Parbat, whilst in 1899 D. W. Freshfield took an expedition to the snowy regions of Sikkim. In 1899, 1903, 1906 and 1908 Mrs Fannie Bullock Workman made ascents in the Himalayas, including one of the Nun Kun peaks (23,300 ft.). A body of Gurkha sepoys were trained as expert mountaineers by Major the Hon. C. G. Bruce, and a good deal of exploration has been accomplished by them. The only mountains of the northern polar region that have been explored are those of Spitzbergen by Sir Martin Conway’s expeditions in 1896 and 1897, and the peaks in the north of Norway and the Lofotens by various Alpine Club and Norwegian parties.

MOUNT BARKER, a town of Hindmarsh county, South Australia, at the foot of the mountain of the same name, 34 m. by rail E. of Adelaide. It has an extremely fine climate and is much frequented as a health resort in summer. It is the centre of a populous and fertile district producing quantities of fruit, wheat and dairy produce; important cattle sales are held weekly, and there are several engineering works, flour mills and tanneries in the town, which also is the seat of a wattle-bark industry. Pop. about 2000; but the inhabitants of the Mount Barker district number over 34,000.

MOUNT CARMEL, a borough of Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., at the head of Shamokin Creek, about 50 m. N.N.E. of Harrisburg. Pop. (1890), 8254; (1900), 13,179, of whom 3772 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 17,532. It is served by the Lehigh Valley, the Philadelphia & Reading, and the Shamokin Division of the Northern Central (Pennsylvania system) railways. Anthracite coal abounds here, and the mining and shipping of it, together with the manufacture of mining machinery and miners’ supplies are the borough’s principal industries. This locality was settled late in the 18th century. About 1848 Mount Carmel was laid out as a town, and in 1862 was chartered as a borough.

MOUNT CLEMENS, a city and the county seat of Macomb county, Michigan, U.S.A., on Clinton river, about 5 m. (about 2 m. in direct line) from its entrance into Lake Saint Clair, and 20 m. N. by E. of Detroit. Pop. (1890) 4748; (1900) 6576 (1194 foreign-born); (1904, state census) 7108; (1910) 7707. It is served by the Grand Trunk railway and by two electric lines to Detroit. The mineral waters of Mount Clemens are beneficial to patients suffering from rheumatism, blood diseases and nervous disorders. The city’s principal manufactures are beet sugar, barrels and other cooperage products, wagons, carriages, sleighs and agricultural implements. Mount Clemens was settled in 1802, was incorporated as a village in 1837, and was chartered as a city in 1879.

MOUNT DESERT, an island in Hancock county, Maine, U.S.A. It is about 16 m. long and 10 m. wide in its widest part, with an approximate area of 100 sq. m. and a population (1910) of 8014. The Maine Central railroad runs a ferry from its nearest station on the mainland (Mount Desert Ferry), and the island is also accessible during the warmer months by steamship lines from New York, Boston, Portland, and several other ports. On the north across Mount Desert Narrows, a bridge connects the island with the mainland. Eagle Lake, at the north-east base of Green Mountain, is a beautiful sheet of water about 2 m. long, and m. wide, and Great Pond, 4 m. long, lies near Somesville between Beech Hill and Western Mountain. There are numerous outlying rocky islets. The surface of Mount Desert is generally so rocky that the greater part of it has never been inhabited or cultivated, but wherever there is a thin soil the hills are wooded with spruce, alder, birch, maple and mountain ash. The hilly scenery, the cool summer climate, and the facilities for boating and fishing attract many thousands of visitors each summer, and the maintenance of the permanent population is derived very largely from the summer residents. The Penobscot and Passamaquoddy Indians come here in the season to sell their basket-work, toy canoes, moccasins, bows and arrows, &c. The villages most frequented by summer visitors are (q.v.) on the north-east coast; Northeast Harbor, Southwest Harbor and Seal Harbor on the south coast; and Somesville, at the head of Somes Sound. Along the western shore are several quaint old hamlets.

Mount Desert Island was discovered and named by Samuel de Champlain on the 5th of September 1604. French Jesuits established a settlement, St Sauveur, at the entrance to Somes Sound in 1609, but this was destroyed four years later by Samuel Argall. In 1688 the island was granted by Louis XIV. to Sieur de la Mothe Cadillac, but no permanent settlement was established until 1762, when the general court of Massachusetts granted one-half of the island to Governor Francis Bernard and under his encouragement a settlement was begun at Southwest Harbor. During the War of Independence all the American estates of Bernard were confiscated, but in 1785 his former interest in Mount Desert was conveyed to his son, John, and two years later heirs of Cadillac, among them his granddaughter, Mme de Gregoire, who had come to Maine in 1786, received from the general court a grant for the remaining portion. Until the summer visitors came, the settlers gained only a scanty livelihood, chiefly by fishing, lumbering, boat building and farming. Practically all of them lived along the shore; they had boats, but few horses, and the roads were only rough trails. There is no record of any mail service until 1820, and as late as 1870 the only means of reaching the island was by stage from Bangor or by steamboat twice a week from Portland.

MOUNTEBANK (Ital. montambanco, montimbanco, from montare, to climb up on, mount, and banco, bench, cf. saltimbanco, an acrobat or dancer, one who dances or leaps on a bench), a wandering juggler, story-teller, seller of quack medicines, &c., who performs his entertainment on a platform or raised bench, hence any charlatan or quack.

 MOUNTED INFANTRY, infantry soldiers who ride instead of marching on foot from one place to another. As combatants they are infantry pure and simple, being neither armed nor trained to fight on horseback, and their special characteristic is the power to move from one point to another with great rapidity. They are therefore useful (a) in wars, such as colonial wars, in which cavalry proper finds no scope for its activity, and (b) in performing duties for which mounted troops, but not necessarily troops that can fight mounted, are required. In these two roles mounted infantry is obviously a substitute for cavalry. As cavalry is both a most expensive arm and one which cannot be improvised, there is an ever-recurring tendency in all armies to consider it as being more ornamental than useful, and in consequence to substitute mounted infantry under one name or another (the original dragoons for example were mounted infantry) for “shock action” cavalry. In recent times, owing to the development of the long-ranging magazine rifle, this tendency has been intensified to such a degree that Russia, for example, converted the whole of her cavalry into dragoons—the term being used in its old sense—and trained it to act dismounted in large bodies. It is however significant of the failure of this wholesale conversion that after the Russo-Japanese War the regiments that were formerly hussars and lancers were reorganized as such and ceased to be styled and trained as dragoons.

It is difficult, but at the same time important, to differentiate between dragoons or “mounted rifles,” as they are often called to-day, and mounted infantry in a narrower sense of the word.