Page:LA2-NSRW-3-0187.jpg



MASSILLON

1187

MATANZAS

Massillon (mas'sil-lon or ma'se'yon'}, Jean Baptiste, one of the greatest of French clerics and modern orators, was born at Hyeres in Provence on June 24, 1663. He first preached before Louis XIV in 1699. It was to him that the king said: "I have heard great orators in my chapel and have felt satisfied with them, but every time I have heard you I have felt dissatisfied with myself"— a saying which shows the fearless eloquence of this great orator. In 1717 Massillon was made bishop of Clermont, and next year preached his famous series of ten short sermons for Lent before young King Louis XV. He died on Sept. 18, 1742. Bossuet and Bourdaloue rival him in oratory, but he was a greater preacher than either. Among his masterpieces are his sermons on the Prodigal Son, the Death of the Just and the Unjust and For Christmas.

Massillon (mas's%l-lon), O., a city in Stark County, northeastern Ohio, on Tus-carawas River, the Ohio Canal and the Wheeling and Lake Erie, Pennsylvania and Cleveland, Lorain and Wheeling railroads. It lies 65 miles south of Cleveland in a good wheat-growing, coal-mining, stone-quarrying belt. It has many industries including iron-bridge, agricultural-implement and threshing-machine works; paper, flour, and rolling-mills; sandstone quarries and glass-works. It possesses good public schools, churches, banks and public buildings. Population 13,879.

Mas'tiff. See DOG.

Mas'todon, a large fossil elephant, remains of which are found abundantly in marshes and bogs in Europe and America. In Kentucky the bones of 100 mastodons and 20 elephants were dug out of one bog. They have been found abundantly in New York, New Jersey, Indiana and Missouri. Several very perfect specimens have been obtained from New York. Their bones are more massive thai, those of the elephant. The mastodons were very large, being 12 or 13 feet high and, including the tusks, 24 or 25 feet long. Their grinding-teeth were provided with large, rounded points like nipples, whence the name mastodon (Greek, mastos, the breast, nipple, and odous, tooth). Twigs of spruce and fir have been found lodged in the teeth and in considerable masses within the ribs where the stomach was situated. They seem to have become extinct in Europe at the close of the tertiary period, while in America they lived through the quaternary in association with primitive elephants. During the latter period of geological time these huge beasts roamed in herds over North America, from the Gulf to the Arctic regions, in company with other representatives of the elephant. Fossil remains of a pygmy elephant have been found in Malta. See MAMMOTH.

Matabeleland (mat'd-be'le-land), is the name given to an indefinite region lying

north of Transvaal and estimated to contain over 60,000 square miles. North of it lies Mashonaland (q. v.); east of it, Portuguese East Africa; and west of it German Southwest Africa. Zambezi River may be considered its northwest boundary. It used to be described as part of Kafraria; but now it forms a part of Rhodesia (See RHODESIA). Its population is supposed to be 208,000 natives and about 10,000 Europeans. Its plateaus are well-adapted to agriculture a. d admirably fitted for European settlement. It is rich in mineral resources. Over 13,000,000 acres have been surveyed; even a geodetic survey has been completed; and at Bulawayo, the capital, there are hotels, banks, government offices, public libraries, hospitals, churches and schools. Two or more newspapers are published here. Bulawayo also is the center of considerable railway building, a line connecting it with Vryburg on the south, opened in 1897; and a section extending 150 miles to the north would have been opened in 1900 but for the war in the Transvaal. A line is laid out through Gwelo to the Zambezi and northward toward Lake Tanganyika. The native population is a branch of the Zulus, physically among the finest of the African races. They formerly lived in Natal, afterward occupying part of Transvaal, but removed to their present site in 1827. In 1879 the British broke up the confederacy of the Zulus by a hard-fought war; and in 1893 ^ne South Africa Company gave the Matabele a crushing and decisive defeat from which they have never recovered. Matabeleland, on account of its fertile soil, temperate climate and mineral resources, promises to be one of the most important links in the colonies which Great Britain is planting from the Mediterranean to the Cape of Good Hope.

Matamoros (mat'a-md'rds}, Mariano, a Mexican priest and patriot. Nothing is known of the time of his birth or of his early life. At the Mexican revolution (1811) he was parish priest of Jantelolco, a village south of Mexico. Here he was threatened by royalist troops and fled to Iz icas, where he joined the rebels. Their chief, Morelos, at once made him a colonel, and he quickly became a popular leader and an able officer. He took part in the expedition to Oajaca, and won the victory of San Augustin del Palmar. The revolution had now triumphed over all Mexico, except in a few of the larger cities, but the cause was endangered by Morelos' hasty attack on Valladolid and rash battle of Puruaran. In this battle Matamoros was captured, and he was speedily executed, Feb. 3,1814. The temporary failure of Mexican independence was probably due to the death of this patriot, whose memory is highly honored by the Mexicans.

Matanzas (md-tan'zas), a fortified town and seaport on the northern coast of Cuba.