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 MEDINA SIDONIA MEDITERRANEAN SEA 353 minarets. In the centre of the court is a piece of ground about 80 ft. square enclosed by a wooden railing, and called the garden of Fati- ma, the prophet's daughter. Near this enclo- sure is the well of the prophet. In the cov- ered part of the mosque are the tombs of Mo- hammed and of the caliphs Abubekr and Omar. They are concealed by a curtain of silk, and have never been seen by a Christian, and the Mohammedan accounts of. them are contradic- tory. At present even Mohammedans are not allowed to see them; the persons in charge declare that whoever should look upon them would be blinded by supernatural light. This mosque has been many times destroyed and rebuilt, the last time in 1710. The town has little commerce, and what trade exists is in grain, cloth, and provisions, and is carried on through the harbor of Yembo, on the Red sea, about 110 m. from Medina. The climate, though hot in summer, is severely cold in win- Medina. ter, owing to the elevation above the sea. The people are proud and indolent, and live in great part upon the revenues of the mosque, which has estates in almost all parts of the Mohammedan world. Thirty public schools still remain in this once famous seat of learn- ing. Medina was anciently called Jathrippa, and by the Arabs before Mohammed's time Yathreb. It is the place to which the prophet fled from persecution at Mecca, and where he died. For about 40 years after his death it was the seat of the caliphate. See Burton's " Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El- Medinah and Mecca" (1856). MEDINA SIDONIA, a town of Andalusia, Spain, in the province and 22 m. E. S. E. of the city of Cadiz ; pop. about 11,000. It stands on a hill in the midst of an extensive plateau, and is laid out in the form of an amphitheatre. The parish church, Santa Maria la Coronada, is a fine Gothic building. There are five con- vents, two nunneries, ten schools, and hospi- tals for the sick and for orphans and found- lings. The surrounding country produces ex- cellent fruits. There are brick and pottery works, and manufactories of coarse cloth. Medina Sidonia gives the title of duke to the descendants of Guzman the Good. MEDITERRANEAN SEA, the great midland sea separating the southern shores of Europe from the north coast of Africa, and bounded E. by part of Asia. It was not known to the an- cients by its present name. It is called the Great sea in the Scriptures, " the sea within the columns" by Strabo. By the Romans it was called mare internum or mare nostrum. The Mediterranean forms a deep gulf which communicates with the Atlantic through the narrow strait of Gibraltar; it is separated from the Red sea by the isthmus of Suez, now pierced by a canal, and penetrates deep- ly inland through the Adriatic, and still more so through the Black sea and sea of Azov. The N. and S. shores of the Mediterranean pre- sent a strong contrast; the former is greatly diversified by bays and peninsulas, sinuosities, and islands, while the latter is comparatively uniform. The main body of the sea is di- vided into two princi- pal basins, each with numerous subdivisions. The western is the smaller, and extends from Gibraltar to the strait between Sicily and the coast of Tunis, the shallowest part of which is called the Adventure bank. The eastern and greater ex- tends from this to the coast of Syria. The sub- divisions of these basins have received differ- ent names. The westernmost, reaching from Gibraltar to the islands of Corsica and Sar- dinia, is sometimes called the Balearic sea, or sea of Majorca or of Valencia ; by some it is divided into the Iberic, Sardic, and Gallic seas, the last including the gulf of Lyons. The body of water between the above named islands and Italy is known as the Tyrrhenian sea, also called the Ligurian, Tuscan, or Italian. The Sicilian sea washes the island of Sicily on the south, and joins the Ionian sea, embraced be- tween south Italy and Greece, and communi- cating through the strait of Otranto with the Adriatic. On the opposite side the African coast is indented by the gulf of Libya, with the Greater and Lesser Syrtis of the ancients. Be- tween Greece and Asia Minor lies the JEgean sea or Archipelago, the White sea of the Turks, whence the Hellespont or strait of the Darda-