Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/843

Rh du Nord, and W. by Finistère. Its chief town, Vannes, is 248 miles west-south-west of Paris in a direct line and 310 by rail. From the Montagues Noires on the northern frontier the western portion of Morbihan slopes southward towards Finistère, watered by the Quimperlé, the Blavet with its affluent the Scorff, and the Auray; the eastern portion, on the other hand, dips towards the south-east in the direction of the course of the Oust and its feeders, which fall into the Vilaine. Though the Montagnes Noires contain the highest point (975 feet) in the department, the most striking orographic feature of Morbihan is the dreary, treeless, streamless tract of moorland and marsh known as the Landes of Lanvaux, which extends (west-north-west to east-south-east) with a width of from 1 to 3 miles for a distance of 31 miles between the valley of the Claie and that of the Arz (affluents of the Oust). A striking contrast to this district is afforded by the various inlets of the sea, whose shores are clothed with vegetation of exceptional richness, large fig-trees, rose-laurels, and aloes growing as if in Algeria. The coast-line is exceedingly irregular: the mouth of the Vilaine (the longest river of the department), the peninsula of Ruis, the great gulf of Morbihan (Inner Sea), from which the department takes its name, and the mouth of the Auray, the long Quiberon peninsula attached to the mainland by the narrow isthmus of Fort Penthièvre, the deep-branching estuary of Etel, the mouths of the Blavet and the Scorff uniting to form the port of Lorient, and, finally, on the borders of Finistère the mouth of the Laita, follow each other in rapid succession. Off the coast lie the islands of Groix, Belle-isle, Houat, and Hoedik. Vessels drawing 13 feet can ascend the Vilaine as far as Redon; the Blavet is canalized throughout its course through the department; and the Oust, as part of the canal from Nantes to Brest, forms a great waterway by Redon, Josselin, Rohan, and Pontivy. The climate of Morbihan is characterized by great moisture and mildness, due to the influence of the Gulf Stream.

1em 1em  MORDAUNT,. See.  MORDVINIANS, more correctly or, are a people numbering about one million, of Finnish origin, belonging to the Ural-Altaic family, who inhabit the middle Volga provinces of Russia and spread in small detached communities to the south and east of these. Their settlement in the basin of the Volga is of high antiquity. One of the two great branches into which they are divided, the Aorses (now Erzya), is mentioned by Ptolemy as dwelling between the Baltic Sea and the Ural mountains, whilst the Aorses of Asia occupied at the same time the country to the north-east of the Caspian between the Volga and the Jaxartes. Their king is said to have come with 200,000 horsemen to aid Mithradates in his wars. Strabo mentions also the Aorses as inhabitants of the country between the Don, the Caspian Sea, and the Caucasus. The name of Mordvs is mentioned for the first time by Jordanes, and they were known under the same name to the Russian annalist Nestor. The Russians made raids on the Mordvs in the 12th century, and after the fall of Kasan they rapidly invaded and colonized their abodes. The Mordvs now occupy the Russian provinces of Simbirsk, Penza, Samara, and Nijni-Novgorod, as well as those of Saratoff and Tamboff. But their villages are dispersed among those of the Russians, and they constitute only 10 to 12 per cent. of the population in the four first-named provinces, and from 5 to 6 per cent. in the last two. They are unequally distributed over this area in ethnographical islands, and constitute as much as 23 to 44 per cent. of the population of several districts of the governments of Tamboff, Simbirsk, Samara, and Saratoff, and only 2 or 3 per cent. in other districts of the same provinces. A small number of Mordvs are found also in the provinces of Ufa, Orenburg, Astrakhan, and even in Siberia as far east as the river Tom. They are divided into two great branches, the Erzya and the Moksha, differing in their ethnological features and in their language. The southern branch, or the Moksha, have a darker skin and darker eyes and hair than the northern. A third branch, the Karatays, is due to mixture with Tatars, whilst a fourth branch, mentioned by several authors, is, according to Mainoff, but a local name for pure Mordvs. Their language is considered by M. Ahlqvist as the third branch of the Western Finnish family, the two other branches being the Laponian and the Baltic Finnish, which last embodies now the languages of the Karelians, the Tavastes, the Wotes, the Wespes, the Esthes, and the Lives. The Mordvs are for the most part completely Russified,—even the Mokshas who consider themselves as the only pure Mordvs,—yet they have well maintained their ethnological features, and can be easily distinguished even when living completely as Russians. They have nearly quite forgotten their own language, only a few women remembering it among the Mokshas; but they have maintained a good deal of their old national dress, especially the women, whose profusely embroidered skirts, original hair-dress, large earrings which sometimes are merely hare-tails, and numerous necklaces covering all the chest and consisting of all possible ornaments easily distinguish them from Russian women. They have mostly dark hair, but blue eyes, generally small and rather narrow. The cephalic index of the Mordvs is very near to that of the Finns. They are brachycephalous, or sub-brachycephalous, and a few are mesaticephalous. They are finely built, rather tall and strong, and broad-chested. Their chief occupation is agriculture; they work harder and (in the basin of the Moksha) are more prosperous than their Russian neighbours. Their capacities as carpenters were well