Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/517

Rh M A N M A N 493 conventions, gave lectures, and carried on an enormous correspondence. He started a periodical, The Common School Journal, in which he explained his views on educa tion. He also published a series of Annual Reports ; these American critics call &quot;a classic on the subject.&quot; His seventh annual report gave the substance of his obser vations in Europe, and compared the systems of instruction followed in Prussia with those in use in Massachusetts, much to the disadvantage of the latter. 1 In 1848 Mann was elected to Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of John Quincy Adams. He tried to induce the Government to establish a bureau of education at Washington, but this was not done till much later. He resigned his seat in Congress in 1853, and became the first president of Antioch College, at Yellow Springs, a college for the combined education of men and women. Mann s chief work in American education is the reform which he brought about in the common and normal school system of Massachusetts ; and this reform is largely due to his twelve annual reports. Mann s other works are Lectures on Education, 1848 ; A Few Thoughts for a Young Man, 1850; Slavery, Letters and Speeches, 1851 ; Powers and Duties of Women, 1853, &c. A complete edition of his writings, with a biography, was published in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1867; and a selection, under the title of Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann, in 1869. MANNA, a concrete saccharine exudation obtained by making incisions in the trunk of the flowering or manna ash tree, Fraxinus Ornus, L. At the present day the manna of commerce is collected exclusively in Sicily from cultivated trees, chiefly in the districts around Capaci, Carini, Cinisi, and Favarota, small towns 20 to 25 miles west of Palermo, and in the townships of Geraci, Castelbuono, and other places in the district of Cefalu, 50 to 70 miles east of Palermo. In the frassinetti or plantations the trees are placed about 7 feet apart, and after they are eight years old, and the trunk at least 3 inches in dia meter, the collection of manna is begun. This operation is performed in July or August during the dry weather, by making transverse incisions 1 to 2 inches long, and about 1 inch apart, through the bark, one cut being made each day, the first at the bottom of the tree, another directly above the first, and so on. In succeeding years the pro cess is repeated on the untouched sides of the trunk, until the tree has been cut all round and exhausted. It is then cut down, and a young plant arising from the same root takes its place. The finest or flaky manna appears to have been allowed to harden on the stem. A very superior kind, obtained by allowing the juice to encrust pieces of wood or straws inserted in the cuts, and called manna a cannolo, is not found in commerce in England. The fragments adhering to the stem after the finest flakes have been re moved are scraped off, and form the small or Tolfa manna of commerce. That which flows from the lower incisions is often collected on tiles or on a concave piece of the prickly pear (Oimntia], but is less crystalline and more glutinous, and is less esteemed. Manna of good quality dissolves at ordinary temperatures in about G parts of water, forming a clear liquid. Its chief constituent is mannite or manna sugar, a hexatomic alcohol, C (3 H 8 (OH) 5, which likewise occurs, in much smaller quantity, in certain species of Fiwis and in plants of several widely separated natural orders. Of this substance the best manna contains 70 to 80 per cent. It crystallizes in shining rhombic prisms from its solution in boiling alcohol. Manna possesses mildly laxative properties, 1 This report has been published and edited, with preface and notes, by Dr W. B. Hodgson, under the title of Report of an Edu cational Tour, in Germany, France, Holland, and parts of Great Jiritain and Ireland, London, 1846. and on account of its sweet taste is employed as a mild aperient for children. It is less used in England now than formerly, but is still largely consumed in South America. In Italy mannite is prepared for sale in the shape of small cones resembling loaf sugar in shape, and is frequently prescribed in medicine instead of manna. The manna of the present day appears to have been unknown before the 15th century, although a mountain in Sicily with the Arabic name Gibelman, i.e., &quot; manna moun tain,&quot; appears to point to its collection there during the period that the island was held by the Saracens, 827-1070. In the 16th century it was collected in Calabria in Italy, and until recently was produced in the Tuscan Maremma, but neither from that locality nor from the States of the Church is any now brought into commerce, although the name of Tolfa, a town near Civita Vecchia, is still applied to an inferior variety of the drug. Various other kinds of manna are known, but none of these have been found to contain mannite. Alhagi manna (Persian and Arabic tar-angubin) is the produce of Alhagi camelorum, Fisch., a small, spiny, leguminous plant, growing in Persia, Afghanistan, and Baluchistan. This manna occurs in the form of small, roundish, hard, dry tears, varying from the size of a mustard seed to that of a coriander, of a light-brown colour, sweet taste, and senna-like odour. The spines and pods of the plant are often mixed with it. It is collected near* Kandahar and Herat, and imported into India from Cabul and Kandahar to the extent of about 2000 Ib. annually, and is valued, at about thirty shillings per ft&amp;gt;. Tamarisk manna (Persian gaz-angubin, tamarisk honey) exudes in June and July from the slender branches of Tamarix gallica, var. mannifera, Ehrenb., in the form of honey-like drops, which, in the cool tem perature of the early morning, are found in the solid state. Thin secretion is caused by the puncture of an insect, Coccus manniparua, Ehrenb. In the valleys of the peninsula of Sinai, especially in the Wady el-Sheikh, this manna (Arabic man) is collected by the Arabs and sold to the monks of St Catherine, who supply it to the pilgrims visiting the convent. It is found also in Persia and the Punjab, but does not appear to be collected in any quantity. This kind ol manna seems to be alluded to by Herodotus (vii. 31). Under the same name of gaz-angubin there are sold commonly in the Persian bazaars round cakes, of which a chief ingredient is a manna obtained to the south-west of Ispahan, in the month of August, by shaking the branches or scraping the stems of Astragalus florulentus and A. adscendens, Boiss. and Hausskn. 2 Shirkhist, a kind of manna known to writers on materia medica in the 16th century, is still found in the bazaars of north-west India, being imported from Afghanistan and Turkestan to a limited extent. Haussknecht states that it is the produce of Cotoncastcr nummularia, Fisch. and Mey. (Rosaceae), and Atmphaxis spinosa, L. (Polygonacese), and that it is brought chiefly from Herat. Oak manna, according to Haussknecht, is collected from the twigs of Quercus Vallonea, Kotschy, and Q. pcrsica, Jaub. and Spach, on which it is produced by the puncture of an insect during the month of August. This manna occurs in the state of agglutinated tears, and forms an object of some industry among the wandering tribes of Kurdistan at the present day. It is collected before sunrise, by shaking the grains of manna on to linen cloths spread out beneath the trees, or by dipping the small branches in hot water and evaporating the solution thus obtained. A substance collected by the inhabitants of Laristan from Pyrus glabra, Boiss., strongly resembles oak manna in appearance. Australian manna is found on the leaves of Eucalyptus viminalis, Lab. ; the Lerp manna of Australia is of animal origin. Brian9on manna is met with on the leaves of the common LARCH (q.v. ), and a kind of manna was at one time obtained from the cedar, but none of these are now collected for commercial purposes. The manna of Scripture, notwithstanding the miraculous circum stances which distinguish it in the Biblical narrative from anything now known, answers in its description very closely to the tamarisk- manna. See Pharmacographia, p. 409 ; Hanbury, Science Papers, p. 355- 368 ; Stewart, Punjab Plants, Lahore, 1869, pp. 57-92 ; Geoffrey, Mat. Med., ii. (1741) p. 584 ; Dobson, Proc. Roy. Soc. Van Dicmerix Land, i. (1851) p. 234. MANNHEIM, the most populous town and the second capital of the grand-duchy of Baden, lies on the right bank of the Ehine, in the triangular piece of low-lying ground enclosed between that river and the Neckar. It 2 See Bombay Lit. Tr., vol. i. art. 16, for details as to the gaz- angubin. A common Persian sweetmeat consists of wheat-flour kneaded with manna into a thick paste.