Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/614

Rh 580 M A R M A R are of considerable size, and in the rainy season become deep and too often destructive torrents. The east coast of the island, exposed to the full sweep of the Atlantic, is a succession of inlets, headlands, islands, and rocks; the south coast is much more regular, but bold and steep ; and the west alone presents, in the bay of Fort de France, a stretch of mangrove swamp. Of the total area, about 83,990 acres are under cultivation, 83,843 occupied by forest and savanna, and 68,837 by fallow. On an average, according to the returns for 1874-78 inclusive, 47,440 acres are devoted to the sugar crop, 1290 to coffee, 640 to cotton, and 1660 to cocoa. The mean annual temperature is 81 in the coast region, the monthly mean for June being 83, and that of January 77. Of the annual rain fall of 87 inches, August has the heaviest share (11 3 inches), though the rainy season extends from June to October; March, the lowest, has 3*7. Martinique enjoys a remarkable immunity from hurricanes ; half a century may pass without serious disaster from such a visitation. In 1878 there were 162,861 inhabitants {77,782 males, 85,079 females) in the island, which is thus nearly as densely peopled as Belgium. Since 1848 the increase amounts to about 42,800. Of the twenty-five communes, fourteen have more than 5000 inhabitants ; the largest are Saint Pierre (23,909), Fort de France (15,414), Lamentin (13,409), and Frangois (10,297). The great mass of the population consists of Creole negroes and half-castes of various grades, ranging from the &quot;Saccatra,&quot; who has hardly retained any trace of Caucasian blood, to the so- called &quot; Sangmele&quot;,&quot; with his mere suspicion of negro com mixture. Marriage is frequently ignored, and of the births no less than 66 per cent, are illegitimate. Fort de France, the chief town, a place of about 11,000 inhabitants, stands on a bay on the west coast. Since the earthquake of 1839 nearly all the houses are of wood, and have only one story ; the streets are laid out with great regularity. An abundant supply of water was in troduced in 1856. St Pierre, the commercial centre of the island, with about 20,000 inhabitants, lies farther north on the same coast. It consists of a lower and an upper town, the one close and unhealthy, and the other for the most part well-ventilated and pleasant. Martinique, also called Macliana or Mantinino, was discovered by Columbus 15th June 1502. It was at that time inhabited by Caribs (Galibis) who had expelled or incorporated an older stock. In 1635 a Norman captain, D Enambuc, from St Christopher s, took pos session of the island, and in 1637 his nephew Duparquet became captain-general of the colony, now numbering seven hundred men. In 1654 welcome was given to three hundred Jews expelled from Brazil, and by 1658 there were at least five thousand people exclusive of the Caribs, who were soon after exterminated. Purchased by the French Government from Duparquet s children for 120,000 livres, Martinique was assigned to the West India Company, but in 1674 it became part of the royal domain. The habitants (French landholders) at first devoted themselves to the cultivation of cotton ami tobacco; but in 1650 sugar plantations were commenced, and in 1726 the coffee plant was introduced by )esdieux, who, when water ran short during his voyage to the island, shared his scanty allowance with his seedlings Slave labour having been introduced, there were 72,000 blacks in the island by 1736. Martinique has several times been occupied by the English Captured by Rodney in 1762, it was next year restored to the French ; but after the conquest by Sir John Jervis and Sir Charles Grey in 1794 it was retained for eight years and seized again in 1809, it was not surrendered till 1814. See Rcnonanl, Mat. de. la Martinique, 1822; Sidney Dunov ffivt dr In Mnv /,. IStfi ; K. Knfz, /?/*, Mtt . et, fat. , , , P o]n t ,a^,n&quot; &quot;a if ar ?,, Pard.,,,, La Marnm^ 1877 ; H. Rev, t ade tur , a /,. de la Martinique W. MARTINSBURG, a town of the United States, the capital of Berkeley county, West Virginia, lies on a plateau above tin Tuscarora Creek, in the Shenandoah valley, 80 miles west of Washington. A station on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and a terminus of the Cumberland Valley Railway, Martinsburg is the seat of extensive machine- shops belonging to the former company, which were sacked by the Confederates in 1861. The population, 4863 in 1870, was 6335 in 1880. MARTI US, GAEL FEIEDRICH PHILIPP VON (1794- 1868), a well-known German botanist and traveller in Brazil. He studied in the university of Erlangen, and on graduating M.D. in 1814 published as his thesis a critical catalogue of plants in the botanic garden of the university. He afterwards devoted himself to botanical study, and in 1817 he and Spix were sent to Brazil by the king of Bavaria. They travelled from Rio Janeiro through several of the southern and eastern provinces of Brazil, and ascended the river Amazon to Tabatinga, as well as some of its larger affluents. In 1820 they returned to Europe with rich collections of plants and animals, as also with stores of information on the geography, ethnology, and products of Brazil. In 1820 he was appointed conservator of the botanic garden at Munich, and in 1826 professor of botany in the university there, and held both offices till 1854, when he resigned them. While a student Martius had published papers in various scien tific periodicals, and he continued to do so during his whole life. After his return from Brazil he devoted his chief attention to the flora of that country, and in addition to numerous short papers he published the Nova Genera et. Species Plantarum Brasilicnsium (1823-32, 3 vols. ) and Iconcs selectee, Plantarum Cryptogamicarum Brasiliensium (1827), both works being finely illustrated. An account of his travels in Brazil appeared in 3 vols. 4to, 1823-31, with an atlas of plates, and is regarded as one of the most valuable works of travel of the present century. Probably the work by which he is best known is his Historia Palmar-urn (1823-50) in 3 large folio volumes, of which one describes the palms discovered by himself in Brazil. In 1840 he began the Flora Brasilicnsis with the assistance of the most distinguished European botanists, who undertook monographs of the various orders. Latterly Dr Eichler was associated with him in the editorship of this work, which is still going on, though over eighty parts have appeared. He also edited several works on the zoological collections made in Brazil by Spix, after the death of the latter in 1826. On the outbreak of potato disease in Europe he investigated the state of the diseased plants, and in 1842 published his observations. He also published independent works and short papers on the abori gines of Brazil, on their civil and social condition, on their past and probable future, on their diseases and medicines, and on the languages of the various tribes, especially the Tupi. MARTOS, a town of Spain, in the province of Jaen, is situated on the slope of a steep hill, which is surmounted by a ruined castle, 16 miles west-south-west of Jaen. The streets are steep, narrow, crooked, and ill-paved ; the public buildings are of the usual order, and present no feature calling for special remark. The surrounding district is specially productive of oil, and in the neighbourhood of the town are two sulphurous springs much resorted to in cases of cutaneous disease. Population in 1877, 14,654. Martos perhaps stands on or near the site of the Tucci of Ptolemy. By Ferdinand III. it was taken from the Moors in 1225, and given to the knights of Calatrava ; it was there that the brothers Carvnjal, commanders of the order, were in 1410 executed by command of Ferdinand IV. after he had been &quot;summoned&quot; by them to a meeting at the Divine judgment seat. O Donnell here gained a victory over the royalist troops in 1854. MARTYN, HENRY (1781-1812), a celebrated missionary, was born on February 18, 1781, at Truro, Cornwall. He came of a mining family, and his father John Martyn was a &quot; captain &quot; or mine-agent at Gwennap. He received his education at the grammar school of his native town under the famous Dr Cardew, entered St John s College, Cambridge, in the autumn of 1797, and in 1801, a month before he was twenty years old, was declared senior wrangler, obtaining soon after the first Smith s prize. In the following year he was chosen a fellow of his college. In the autumn of 1801 he was introduced to Charles Simeon, whose ardent disciple he soon became. It was his intention to devote himself to the bar, but in the October term of 1802 he chanced to hear Simeon speaking of the vast amount of good done in India by a single missionary, William Carey ; some time