Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/514

Rh 490 M A N M A N but little communication between the two countries took place until 1824, on the outbreak of the first British Burmese war. British assistance was again invoked by the raja, and the Burmese were finally expelled both from the Assam and Manipur valleys. A political agent acts as a means of communication between the state and the British Government. Manipur valley appears to have been originally occupied by several tribes which came from different directions. Although their general facial characteristics are Mongolian, there is a great diversity of feature among the Manipuris, some of them showing a regularity approach ing the Aryan type. In the valley the people are chiefly Hindus, that religion being apparently of recent introduction. They have a caste system of their own, different from that of India, and chiefly founded on what is known as the system of lallup or forced labour. Every male between the ages of seventeen and sixty is obliged to place his services at the disposal of the state for a certain number of days each year, and to different classes of the people different employments are assigned. About four hundred Mohammedan families, descendants of settlers from Bengal, reside to the east of the capital. The aboriginal hill-men belong to one of the two great divisions of Nagas and Kukis, and are sub divided into innumerable clans and sections with slight differences in language, customs, or dress. The state is noted for the excellence of its breed of ponies. The now popular English game of polo was introduced from Manipur, where it forms a great national pastime. The trade is but small, owing chiefly to the want of means of transport, none of the roads being available for wheeled carts. MANIS. See PANGOLIN. MANISA, or MANISSA, a town of Asia Minor or Anatolia, situated on the north side of Mount Sipylus, 28 miles north east of Smyrna. This town was anciently called Magnesia ad Sipylum (see MAGNESIA). It is situated on the banks of the Hermus, and is noted as being one of the neatest and cleanest cities in Asia Minor. It contains above twenty mosques, two of which are adorned on the exterior with double minarets, and in the inside with paintings and other articles. The Armenians, Greeks, and Jews have also their respective places of worship. There is also a fine khan, and a citadel, which stands on a lofty rock, and commands an extensive view. The surrounding country is rich and productive, especially of saffron, which is ex ported. The town is the seat of some considerable trade, and many of the inhabitants are employed in the manufac ture of cotton and silk goods and goats hair shawls. Population about 40,000. The town is now connected with Smyrna by a railway, which is continued on to Ala- Shehr (Philadelphia). A few miles from Manisa is a colossal statue cut in the rock, which is generally supposed to be the figure of Niobe, alluded to by ancient authors. MANISTEE, a city of the United States, the county seat of Manistee county, Michigan, is situated 135 miles north-west of Lansing, on the east side of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the Manistee river, which is navigable for vessels drawing 10 to 12 feet of water for the distance of 1| miles to Manistee Lake. It is a great seat of the lumber trade, shipping annually 200,000/000 feet of timber, and having a score of saw-mills and about as many shingle mills, the latter of which produce in the year 400,000,000 shingles, the largest quantity made at any one place in the world. Planing-mills and foundries are also maintained ; and, in consequence of the discovery in 1881 of a bed of solid salt 30 feet thick, extensive salt factories are being built. The surrounding district is especially adapted for fruit-growing ; and sportsmen are attracted to the Manistee river and its tributaries by the abundance of the rarely found grayling. The population, 3373 in 1870, was 7080 in 1880. MANITOBA, one of the western provinces of the Dominion of Canada, is situated midway between the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts of the Dominion, about 1090 miles due west of Quebec (see vol. iv. plate xxxv.). It is bounded on the S. by the parallel 49 N. lat., which divides it from the United States; on the W. by 101 20 W. long; on the N. by 52 50 N. lat.; and on the E. by the western boundary of Ontario. Manitoba formerly belonged to the HUDSON S BAY COMPANY (q.v.), and was, after the transfer of their territory to Canada, admitted in 1870 as the fifth province of the Dominion. At that time the infant province had an area of 13,500 square miles, and some 12,000 people, chiefly Indian half-breeds, In 1881 the limits were increased to the extent indicated above, and now contain, taking the Lake of the Woods as the eastern boundary, upwards of 80,000 square miles, an area only 8782 square miles less than that of England and Scotland together, extending 264 miles from north to south and upwards of 300 from east to west. The old district of Assiniboia, the result of the efforts in colonization by the earl of Selkirk in 1811 and succeeding years, was the nucleus of the province. Manitoba was so called by the Dominion parliament after the lake of that name ; the designation is usually considered to be a com pound of the Ojibway words, Manito, great spirit, and Waba, straits between lakes, or a word meaning echo. The drainage of Manitoba is entirely north-eastward to Hudson s Bay. The three lakes whose greatest lengths are 250, 150, and 130 miles respectively are Winnipeg, Winnipegoosis, and Manitoba. They are all of a very varying and irregular shape, but average respectively 30, 18, and 10 miles in width. They are fresh, shallow, and tideless. Winnipegoosis and Manitoba at high water, in spring time, discharge their overflow through small streams into Winnipeg. The chief rivers emptying into Lake Winnipeg are the Winnipeg, the Red, and the Saskatchewan. The Assiniboine river, with its source in the province, and navigable from 250 to 350 miles for steamers of light draught, enters the Red river 45 miles from Lake Winnipeg, and at the confluence of the rivers (&quot;The Forks&quot;) is situated the city of Winnipeg. The Winnipeg, which flows from the territory lying south east of Lake Winnipeg, is a noble river some 200 miles long, that after leaving Lake of the Woods, dashes with its clear water over many cascades, and traverses very beautiful scenery. At its falls from Lake of the Woods is one of the greatest and most easily utilized water-powers in the world. Like most rivers in the New World, the Red river is at intervals of years subject to freshets. In the seventy years experience of the Selkirk colonists there have been four &quot; floods.&quot; The highest level of the site of the city of Winni peg is said to have been under 5 feet of water for several weeks in May and June in 1826, under 2^ feet in 1852, not covered in 1861, and only under water on the lowest levels in 1882. The extent of overflow has thus on each occasion been less. The loose soil on the banks of the river is every year carried away in great masses, and the channel has so widened as to render the recurrence of an overflow unlikely. The Saskatchewan, though not in the province, empties into Lake Winnepeg less than half a degree from the northern boundary. It is a mighty river, rising in the Rocky Mountains, and crossing eighteen degrees of longi tude. Near its mouth are the Grand Rapids. Above these, steamers ply to Fort Edmonton, a point upwards of 800 miles north-west of the city of Winnipeg. Steamers run from Grand Rapids, through Lake Winnipeg, up Red river to the city of Winnipeg. Geologically Manitoba may be said to be the resumption of the Secondary rocks left belaud in the fertile portions of Ontario. The whole north-east of North America, running from Labrador, crossing the Ottawa, and skirting the Georgian Bay and Lake Superior, is a region of Laurentian or Primary rocks containing copper, silver, and probably gold-bearing rocks. From Lake Superior north-westward to within 40 miles of Red river and up to the eastern shore of Lake Winnipeg the same region con tinues for about 500 miles, including near its western limits the Lake of the Woods. This barren region left behind, the