Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/701

Rh M E A M E C 669 agriculture, but coarse linen is woven by hand-looms, and there are a few woollen manufactories. Railways. The Dublin and Meatli line intersects the county in a north-westerly direction, and separates into several branches, while the Great Western line skirts the southern boundary. Administration and Population. The county includes 18 baronies, 146 parishes, and 1626 townlands. Assizes are held at Trim, and quarter sessions at Dunshauglin, Duleek, Kells, Navan, and Trim. Two poor-law unions, Navan and Trim, are wholly with in the county, and parts of Ardee, Celbridge, Drogheda, Dunshauglin, Edenderry, Kells, and Old Castle. It is in the Dublin military dis trict, subdistrict of Birr, with barrack stations at Navan and Trim. Ecclesiastically it is in the Meath diocese, with portions in Armagh and Kilmore. Previous to the Union it sent fourteen members to par liament, but now only the two members for the county are returned. From 81,516 in 1760 the population in 1821 had increased to 159,183, and in 1341 to 183,828, but by 1851 had diminished to 140,768, in 1871 to 95,558, and in 1881 to 87,469, of whom 44,315 were males and 43,154 females. The principal towns are Navan, 3873 ; Kells, 282 2 ; and Trim, 1586. A portion of the parliamen tary borough of Drogheda, including 933 of the inhabitants, is also within the county. The number of births in the county during the ten years ending 3d March 1881 was 21,293, an average of 23 3 to every 1000 of the population ; of deaths 16,878, an average of 18 4 ; of marriages 3165, an average of 3 5; and of emigrants 10,521, an average ot 12 1. From 1st May 1851 to 3d March 1881 the total number of emigrants was 49,375. Of the population five years old and upwards in 1881, 227 per cent, were illiterate, the percentage in 1871 being 29 9. In 1881 there were 3531 persons able to speak Irish, but none were unable to speak English. History and Antiquities. According to Ptolemy, Meath was originally inhabited by the Eblani, whose territory extended from the Boyne to the Liffey. A district known as Meath, and includ ing the present county of Meath as well as Westmeath and Long ford, with parts of Cavan, Kildare, and King s county, was in the 2d century formed by Tuathal into a kingdom to serve as mensal land of the Ard Re or over-king. Afterwards it was divided into Oireamhain, now known as Meath, and Eireanihain, which included the remainder of the old kingdom. The district was frequently subject to invasions from the Danes ; they were totally defeated at Tara in 980. About 800,000 acres, including all the present county of Meath, was granted by Henry II. to Hugh de Lacy. The most remarkable antiquarian remains are two round towers, the one at Kells, and the other in the churchyard of Donoughmore, near Navan. At New Grange, near Slane, there is an artificial cavern of a very peculiar construction. A large rath on Tara hill was the meeting-place of the princes before the Danish inva sion, and the seat of a royal palace referred to in the well-known lines of Moore. A stone on the top of the rath is supposed by some to be the stone of destiny where the ancient monarchs of Ireland were crowned. Monastic buildings were very numerous, among the more important ruins being those of Duleek, -which is said to have been the first ecclesiastical edifice in Ireland built of stone and mortar ; the extensive remains of Bective ; and those of Clonard, where also were a cathedral and a very famous college. Of the old fortresses, Trim Castle on the Boyne still presents an imposing appearance. There are also many fine old mansions. MEAUX, capital of an arrondissement, and an episcopal see, in the department of Seine-et-Marne, France, and formerly chief town of Haute Brie, is situated 28 miles east of Paris, on the Marne, which runs through the town, and on the Paris and Strasburg Railway. The cathedral, dedicated to St Stephen, dates from the 12th century; its restoration was begun thirty years ago. From the top of its western tower (250 feet high), in fine weather, the heights of Montmartre and Mont Vale rien, near Paris, can be seen. The building, which is 275 feet long and 105 feet high, consists of a nave, two aisles, a fine transept, a choir, and a sanctuary. The choir contains the statue and the tomb of P&amp;gt;ossuet, and the pulpit of the cathedral has been reconstructed with the panels of that from which the &quot; Eagle of Meaux &quot; used to preach. The great window of the south transept contains some magnificent stained glass. The episcopal palace, behind the cathedral, has several very curious old rooms ; the buildings of the choir school, which also adjoins the cathedral, are likewise of some architectural and archaeological interest. Meaux is the centre of a considerable trade in corn, cheese, eggs, and poultry ; and its mills, on the Marne, provide a great part of the meal with which Paris is supplied. The Canal de 1 Ourcq, which surrounds the town, and the Marne, furnish the means of transport. A starch manufactory, a copper and iron foundry, and manu- actories of food-pastes, of preserved vegetables, and of agricultural implements are the other principal industrial sugar factory of Villenoy, which is one of the largest in France. The population of Meaux is 11,740. In the Roman period Meaux was the capital of the Meldi, a small Gallic tribe. It formed part of the kingdom of Austrasia, ind afterwards belonged to the counts of Vermandois and Cham pagne. Its communal charter dates as far back as 1179. Meaux suffered much from the disorders of the Jacquerie, from the Hundred Years War, and from the religious wars, during Avhich it ivas an important Protestant centre. After the League, it was the irst town which opened its gates to Henry IV., in 1594. Placed as it is on the highroad of invaders marching on Paris from the ast of France, Meaux saw its environs ravaged by the army of Lorraine in 1652, and was laid under heavy requisitions in 1814, 1815, and 1870. MECCA (Xx), Mukkci), the chief town of the Hijaz in Arabia, 1 and the great holy city of IsMm, is situated two camel marches (the resting-place being Bahra or Hadda in the Batn Marr), or about 45 miles, almost duo east, from Jidda, on the Eed Sea. 2 Thus on a rough estimate Mecca lies in 21 30 N. lat. and 40 E. long. It is said in the Koran (siir. xiv. 40) that Mecca lies in a sterile valley, and the old geographers observe that the whole Haram or sacred territory round the city is almost absolutely without cultivation or date palms, while fruit trees, springs, wells, gardens, and green valleys are found immediately beyond. Mecca in fact lies in the heart of a mass of rough hills, intersected by a labyrinth of narrow valleys and passes, and projecting into the Tihama or low country on the Red Sea, in front of the great mountain wall that divides the coast lands from the central plateau, though in turn they are themselves separated from the sea by a second curtain of hills forming the western wall of the great Wady Marr. The inner mountain wall is pierced by two and only two great passes, and the valleys descending from these embrace on both sides the Mecca hills. The north-western pass, through which the Nejd traffic descends to the coast, and which also affords the easiest though longest routs from Jidda and Mecca to Taif and thence through the true Hijaz to Yemen, is the Derb el-Seil or torrent path down the well-watered Wady Marr. 3 This Wady skirts the complex of Mecca hills on the north-west from Zeima by Wady Fatima (where it is joined by the great coast road from Medina and Syria) to Hadda on the Mecca and Jidda road, a distance of perhaps 50 miles. Main-roads converge to Mecca from the three points of the Wady just named, the distance of the city from the last two being about 20 miles. From this side the most prominent of the Mecca hills is the northern &quot;Mountain of Light&quot; (J. Nur). The other pass, which affords a shorter mule road to Taif and the southern highlands, but is not practicable for ordinary baggage camels, descends from the summit of J. Kara, and leads through the great W. Na man, the Wady of the Hodheil, to the plain beneath Arafa, the most 1 Hijaz is here taken in the usual political sense of the word. The Turkish Waly of the Hijaz has his winter residence at Mecca and hi.s summer quarters at Taif. In a narrower sense the Hijaz is the lofty mountainous country between the central plateau of Nejd (or Negd, as it is called by the natives) and the lowlands of the coast (Tihama). In this sense El-Asma i reckons Mecca to the Tihama, and well-informed Arabs still follow him. 2 A variant of the name Makka is Bakka (sur. iii. 90 ; Bekri, 155 sq ). For other names and honorific epithets of the city see Bekri, vt supra, Azraki, p. 197, Yakut, iv. 617 sq. The lists are in part cor rupt, and some of the names (Kutha and Arsh or Ursh, &quot;the huts ) are not properly names of the town as a whole. _ 3 The upper part of this wady has two branches, W. Leimun and W. Nakhla. In the latter lie the gardens of Sola and the village of Zeima with its great hot spring (comp. Yakut, iii. 197). Above Zeima the path is desert.
 * stablishments. About a mile from the town is the