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MAUCH CHUNK

IIQO

MAURITIUS

Mauch Chunk (mak* chunk'}, a mining town of Pennsylvania, lies among picturesque hills on the Lehigh, 90 miles northwest of Philadelphia There is a switchback railroad, nine miles long, from the town to Summit Hill, famous for its burning mines, which have been on fire since 1858. Population 3,969.

Mauna Kea (mou'nakd'a) on the island of Hawaii, the highest mountain in the Hawaiian Islands and in Polynesia, rises 13,803 feet above the sea. It is a volcanic dome, and its craters have not long ceased their eruptions. Its top is covered with snow most of the year, and herds of wild cattle roam in the woods that cover the mountain-side.

Mauna Loa (mou'ndlo'a}, a volcanic mountain of Hawaii, 13,760 feet in height. It is wholly made up of lava that has been thrown out in a fluid state. It is a smooth, regular dome with forests on its flanks at an elevation of 5,000 feet. It has many craters near the top and on the sides, and new ones sometimes open. The top crater, called Mokuaweo-weo, is round, 8,000 feet across and about 1,000 feet deep. The eruptions often are like lav a-fountains, spouting from the top of the mountain. In 1859 one of these fountains for four or five days sent up a stream of white-hot, fluid lava, about 200 feet through and 200 or 300 feet high, lighting the horizon forj 150 miles. In 1868 the lavas forced their way for 20 miles underground, and then burst through a fissure two miles long. Here four fountains spouted, sometimes joining in one fountain two miles in length, throwing up crimson lava and red-hot bricks 500 or 600 feet.

Maurice (ma'rts) or, in German, Moritz, Elector of Saxony, a German general, was born at Freiberg, Saxony, March 21, 1521. In 1542 he fought under Emperor Charles V against the Turks and next year against the French. He also fought with Charles at Muhlberg in 1547, in which the Smalkald league of German Protestant princes was defeated, though its two leaders were his father-in-law, Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, and his cousin, John Frederick, Elector of Saxony. Though John Frederick's dominions and title were given to Maurice, the fact that he himself was a Protestant, together with Charles' treacherous arrest of the landgrave and other despotic acts, soon cooled his devotion to the emperor. He raised an army and forced from the great emperor not only the release of Philip of Hesse, but the treaty of Passau, .July 16, 1552, which granted the fullest liberty of worship to Protestants. Next year Maurice headed a league against the margrave, Albert of Brandenburg, who would not acknowledge this treaty, and crushed him at the battle of Sievershausen, near Hannover, but was himself wounded and died two days later, July n, 1553.

Maurice (waVfo), Prince of Orange and Count of Nassau, one of the most skillful generals of his age, was the son of William the Silent, and was born at Dillenburg, northern Germany, Nov. 14, 1567. After his father's assassination in 1584, the provinces of Holland and Zealand and, afterwards, Utrecht and the other Netherland provinces chose him as their stadtholder. A great part of the Netherlands was still in the hands of the Spaniards; but under the leadership of Maurice the Dutch rapidly wrested cities and fortresses from their enemies. In 1597 he defeated the Spaniards at Turnhout, and in 1600 crushed them at Nieuwport. Then for more than three years he baffled the whole power of Spain by his defense of Ostend. At last, in 1609, Spain reluctantly acknowledged the United Provinces a free republic. A factional fight between the Orange party and the Remonstrants, led by Olden-Barneveldt, was not ended by the victory of the former party till 1621. At once Maurice renewed the war with Spain. He died at The Hague on April 23, 1625.

Mauritania. See MOROCCO.

Mauritania, the Gallicized name of ancient Morocco, is now applied by the French to the protectorate established by them in 1903 over the Moorish tribes of Trarza and Brakna north of the lower Senegal. The boundaries are undefined, with the probability that they will eventually include much or all of the territory between the French colony of Senegal and Spanish Africa. A provisional government, military and civil, has been formed, responsible to the governor-general of French West Africa.

Mauritius (ma-rish'l-us) or Isle of France, an island and British colony in the Indian Ocean, 500 miles east of Madagascar. It is of volcanic formation. The surface is a tableland rising into ridges 500 to 2,700 feet high, the highest peak, Riviere Noire, being 2,711 feet above sea-level. Lava, basalt and volcanic lakes occur. The picturesque beauty of the Isle of France, as the French called it, covered with forests, is described in St. Pierre's Paul and Virginia and Besant and Rice's My Little Girl. But in the i9th century the woods were cut down to make room for sugar-cane plantations. Among the native trees are the ebony, cocoanut palm, bamboo, benzoin, ironwood and traveler's tree. There are many tropical fruits, besides food-plants, as sugar, vanilla, coffee, cocoa, corn, rice, yams and manioc. Terrific cyclones are common. The educated upper classes are mostly descendants of the French colonists. There are many primary and secondary schools and a royal college. There are a number of negroes, Malagasi, Singhalese, Malays and Chinese; but the bulk of the people are coolies, who have been brought in nearly every year since 1842 to work the