Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/368

Rh 340 M A L - M A M bodies. It seems natural to suppose that the investigation of the laws of the internal reflexion of light at the second surface of the crystals must have led him to the discovery of the effects of oblique reflexion in other circumstances ; but, according to Biot, Malus s first observation of polariza tion by reflexion was due to the accident that he chanced to look through a quartz crystal at the image of the sun reflected from the windows of the Luxembourg. The value of his discovery was acknowledged by his election n,s a member of the Institute, by the award of the Rum- ford medal of the Royal Society of London, and by military promotion. Malus died on the 24th of February 1812, universally regretted by the lovers of science in all countries, and deeply lamented by his colleagues, who said of him, as Newton did of Cotes, that if his life had V&amp;gt;?,en prolonged we should at last &quot;have known some thing &quot; of the laws of nature. Malus s first publication appears to have been a paper &quot;On an unknown Branch of the Nile,&quot; in the first volume of the Decade Kgyptienne. A mathematical &quot; Traite d Optique,&quot; presented to the Institute before the completion of his experiments on double refrac tion, was published in the M6moires pr. a T Institut, vol. ii. , Paris, 1810. His more important discoveries were first made known in the second volume of the Memoires d Arcueil, Paris, 1809, 8vo ; and again, in the &quot;Theory of Double Refraction,&quot; Mem. pr. a TInst., vol. ii., a paper which obtained a prize on the 2d of January 1810. flee Delambre, M. Inst., 1816, p. xxvii. ; Biot, in Biographic Universelle, xxvi., Paris 1820. MALVASIA (from the Greek Monembasia, i.e., the city of the single approach or entrance ; the Italian Napoli di Malvasia, the Turkish Mengeshe or Beneshe], one of the principal fortresses and commercial centres of the Levant during the Middle Ages, still represented by a considerable mass of ruins and a town of about 1000 inhabitants, stood on the east coast of the Morea, contigu ous to the site of the ancient Epidaurns Limera, of which it took the place. So extensive was its trade in wine that the name of the place became familiar throughout Europe as the distinctive appellation of a special kind the Italian Malvasia, Spanish Malvagia, French Malvoisie, English Malvesie or Malmsey. The wine was not of local growth, but came for the most part from Tenos and others of the Cyclades. As a fortress Malvasia played an important part in the struggles between Byzantium, Venice, and Turkey. The Byzantine emperors considered it one of their most valuable posts in the Morea, and rewarded its inhabitants for their fidelity by unusual privileges. Phrantzes (lib. iv. cap. xvi. ) tells how Mauricius Tiberius made the city (previously dependent in ecclesiastical matters on Corinth) a metropolis or archbishop s see, and how Alexius Comnenus, and more especially Andronicus Palffiologus, gave the Monembasiotes freedom from all sorts of exactions throughout the empire. In 1147 Malvasia bade defiance to the Normans, and in 1205 obliged Yillehardouin, after a four years siege, to swear to preserve its liberties and privileges (Fallmerayer, i. pp. 408-409). It was defended against the Turks by Manuel Palaeologus in 1460. In 1689 it was the only town of the Morea which held out against Morosini, and Cornaro his successor only succeeded in reducing it by famine. Iti 1715 it capitulated to the Turks, and on the failure of the insurrection of 1770 the leading families were scattered abroad. As the first fortress which fell into the hands of the Greeks in 1821, it became in the following year the seat of the (irst national assembly. See Curtius, Peloponncsvs, ii. pp 290 and 328; Castellan, Let/res sur la Moree (ISOS)f ir a plan; and Valicro, Hist, delta guerra di Candid (Venice, 1079) for details as to the fortress. MALVERN, GREAT, a watering-place of Worcestershire, England, beautifully situated on the eastern slope of the Malvern hills, 8 miles south-west by south of Worcester, and 120 north-west by west of London. The town is i -regularly built, but there are many villas, and on account of its fine situation in the centre of the Chase of Malvern, its pure air, and its chalybeate and bituminous springs, it is much frequented by summer visitors. At Malvern a hermitage was endowed by Edward the Confessor, which after the Conquest was changed into a Bene dictine priory. Of the buildings, which date from 1083, there still remain the abbey gate, and also the church (partly rebuilt in the reign of Henry VII., and restored since 18G1), a very fine structure, Norman and Perpen- 3 miles south of Great Malvern, there was a Benedictine priory, founded in 1171, upon the site of which the dwell ing-house of Malvern Court has been erected, preserving the tower and chancel of the old priory church. At Mal vern Wells, 2 miles south of Malvern, is the celebrated i &quot; Holy Well,&quot; the water of which is of perfect purity. I The population of Malvern in 1871 was 5693, and in 1881 it was 5847. MALWA, an historical province of Central India, roughly coextensive with the western portion of the Central India agency, is bounded on the N. by Hindustan Proper, on the E. by Bundelkhand, on the S. by the Deccan, and on the W. by Rajputana. It consists of an upland region, with many fertile valleys, included within the main rivers of the Ganges, the Son, the Chambal, and the Nerbudda. In prehistoric times the capital was the ancient city of Ujain (Oojein), associated in Hindu legend with the great king Vikramaditya, the date of whose accession (57 B.C.) has given the &quot; Samvat &quot; era to all India. The Mohammedan chronicler Ferishta describes Malwa as the kingdom of an independent raja, when Mahmud of Ghazni invaded India in the beginning of the 1 1th century. Ic appears to have first fallen into the hands of the Moslems about 1309, during the reign of the Delhi emperor Ala-ud-din. When the Tughlak dynasty was v, r eakened by the repeated attacks of the Mughals, their viceroy in Malwa succeeded in establishing his independ- I ence. The first Moslem king of Malwa was Dilawar
 * dicular, with square embattled tower. There is a proprie-
 * tary college, founded in 1863. At Little Malvern, about
 * Khan Ghori, of Afghan origin, who ruled from 1387 to

1405, and placed his capital at Mandu. He was succeeded by his son Hoshang Ghori, to whom are attributed most of the magnificent ruins still to be seen at Mandu. In 1526 the Ghori dynasty came to an end, being overthrown by Bahadur Shah of Guzerat ; and in 1570 Malwa was, on the conquest of Guzerat by the emperor Akbar, incor porated in the Mughal dominions. On the decay of the Delhi empire in the 18th century, Malwa was one of the first provinces to be overrun by the Mahrattas. In 1737 the peshwa exacted chauth or one-fourth of the revenue, and at a later date the two great military chiefs Sindhia and Holkar carved out for themselves kingdoms, which their descendants still retain, But the Mahrattas set up no organized government, so that Malwa, besides its native population of predatory Bhils, became the refuge of all the mercenary bandits of the peninsula. In the beginning of the present century, the depredations of these bandits or Pindaris led to what is sometimes known as the fourth Mahratta war of 1817, under the governor-generalship of Lord Hastings. As the result, the Pindaris were extirpated ; and under the rule of Sir John Malcolm the Bhils were tamed, and the jungles were cleared of wild beasts. Many of the Bhils have been enlisted as British soldiers ; and the headquarters of the Malwa Bhil corps is at Sardarpur. At the present day Malwa is best known as giving its name to the opium which is annually exported from Bombay to the amount of about 37,000 chests. MAMELUKE, a corruption of the Arabic Mamluk (Memlook), a slave. The name of Mamelukes has passed into history from the body-guard of Turkish slaves first formed in Egypt under the successors of Saladin, who ultimately usurped the supreme power. For the history of the Mameluke sultans and Mameluke beys, see EGYPT, 1 vol. vii. p. 755 sq.