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MURRAY

1282

MUSCI

Murray, the chief river o! Australia. It rises in the Australian Alps, flows northwest along the frontiers of New South Wales and Victoria, and in South Australia passes southward through shallow Lake Alexandrina toward the sea at Encounter Bay, a distance of 1,120 miles. It is navigable for small steamers to Albury,— 190 miles northeast of Melbourne, but its mouth cannot be entered by ships of any size. Its main branches, the Lachlan, Mur-rumbidgee and Darling, are themselves large rivers.

Muscat (m&s-kdt'), capital of the independent state of Oman or Muscat in southeastern Arabia, stands in a narrow rocky cove that opens out into the Indian Ocean on one side and on the other is the outlet of a pass into the interior. It is surrounded by a wall and defended by forts on the rocky heights above. It has narrow, uncleanly streets, and is very hot in summer. Its position makes it of great importance for the trade between eastern Arabia, Persia, India, the eastern coast of Africa and the Red Sea. Its chief exports are pearls and fish, in which the waters of the coast are very rich, together with salt, dates, drugo, dyestuff and horses. Although a very old place, Muscat was small and unimportant until the Portuguese took possession in 1508. Under their rule, lasting 150 years, it became a nourishing trading-town. It was afterward ruled by native princes called imams. The Muscat imams also ruled Zanzibar and other places in Africa, but lost these territories in 1856. Population 25,000.

Muscatine (mus'ka-ten'), la., cotrnty-seat of Muscatine County, is situated on the western bank of the Mississippi, built mostly on rocky bluffs, where the river makes a great bend to the south, 211 miles by rail southwest of Chicago. It has a large trade by river and rail, and has extensive pearl-button manufactories, employing over 2,000 people; also furniture-factories, flour and 1 amber mills, rolling-mill products, lead-works, canned goods and machine-shop products. It has admirable public and parochial schools and Musser Library, also public. It was founded in 1836, and became a city in 1853. Population 17,267.

Musci (miis'si), one of the two great groups of Bryophytes, commonly known as mosses. The numerous species are adapted to all conditions, from submerged to very dry, and are most abundantly displayed in temperate and arctic regions. They have great powers of vegetative multiplication. In consequence of this they form the well-known thick carpets and mosses, and the bog-mosses often completely fill up bogs or small ponds and lakes with a dense growth which dies below and continues to grow arjove. These bogs are some-

times called quaking (bogs or *'mosses," and furnish very treacherous footing. When the ordinary spore of a moss germinates, it

Protonema of a moss, showing a bud (fc) which is to give rise to the leafy branch.

at first produces a little, green, branching, filamentous body resembling an alga and called  the   protonema. Upon  this   prostrate protonema arise buds, which develop into the erect, leafy branches that represent the    ordinary    moss-plant. These   leafy branches usually bear the sex-organs (anthe-ridia and archegonia) at their summits. In the archegonium the egg is fertilized, forming the o6spore. When the oospore germinates, it  forms a body which  grows   downward  into the leafy branch for anchorage and also grows upward in the form of a stalk bearing a spore case. This anchored leafless body is the sporophyte, and is very   commonly    called    the moss-fruit,    although    in    no sense a fruit. The protonema and the leafy branches bearing sex-organs constitute the gametophyte  (See   ALTERNATION OP GENERATIONS). This peculiar leafless sporophyte of the moss is usually distinguished from the leafy sporophyte of ferns and seed-plants by being called  a   sporogonium. The  most   complex structure of mosses is the spore case or capsule. Usually perching upon the top of a young capsule is a loose conical cap or  hood,   known   as   the   calyptra. This calyptra is the enlarged and ruptured archegonium, which has been carried up by the development  of   the   capsule. Removing the calyptra a small lid ("operculum") is discovered, which, upon being removed, reveals the rim of the urn-like capsule. This rim is frequently beset by numerous beautiful hair-like or tooth-like processes, which extend toward the center and form what is called  the   peristome. These   peristome teeth are of service in discharging the spores Running through the midst ot the capsule

Leafy branches of a moss bearing the stalked capsules (Sporophytes ), the one ^ to the left still retaining the hoodlike calyptra.