Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/371

 MEGANTIC MEGATHERIUM 359 (Cuv.), the best known species, had probably a straight muzzle, thin, and laterally compressed ; the teeth were flat, pointed, curved backward like a pruning knife, with the enamel of the posterior edge serrated to the base, and for a short distance from the point also on the ante- rior ; the structure of these teeth, calculated to lacerate flesh and to hold a prey once seized, shows that the animal was highly carnivorous. The teeth, some of them 3 in. long, were im- planted in distinct sockets formed by partitions running across from the higher external to the lower internal border of the jaw, combining crocodilian and lizard characters. This animal must have attained a length of 30 or 40 ft. ; it was terrestrial, and probably preyed upon the smaller reptiles and the young of the larger. The hylceoaaurus (Mantell), another dinosau- rian reptile, is described under its own head. MEGANTIC, a S. E. county of Quebec, Canada, watered by the Becancour river ; area, 743 sq. m. ; pop. in 1871, 18,879, of whom 12,074 were of French, 4,444 of Irish, 1,302 of Scotch, and 963 of English origin or descent. It contains Lakes Joseph and William, and is traversed by the Grand Trunk railway. Capital, Leeds. MEGARA, a city of ancient Greece, capital of Megaris, about 1 m. from the Saronic gulf, op- posite the island of Salamis, 20 m. W. by ST. of Athens. It consisted of a double acropolis and the city proper. The more ancient acropolis is said to have been built by Car, son of Pho- roneus ; the other, together with the city, by Alcathous, son of Pelops. Subsequently a Dorian colony, under Alethes and Athemenes, took possession of the city, and enlarged it. Its original name appears to have been Po- lichne. In the 8th and 7th centuries B. C. Megara was opulent and powerful, and found- ed the colonies of Megara Hyblaea in Sicily, Astacus in Bithynia, and Chalcedon and By- zantium on the Bosporus. In the time of Solon it entered into a contest with Athens for the island of Salamis, but without success. In the Persian war it contributed 3,000 heavy- armed troops and 20 ships to the confederate forces. After that struggle Megara left the Peloponnesian confederacy for that of Athens, to which ere long it became virtually subject ; and the Athenians, to secure their supremacy over it, built the long walls which connected Megara with its port Nisssa. The Athenian garrison, however, was expelled by the aid of Peloponnesian troops in 445. The Athenians retaliated by excluding the Megarians from their markets and harbors, which decree ope- rated so injuriously to the interests of the lat- ter that its enforcement was one of the pre- texts of the Spartans and their allies for the Peloponnesian war. During that war Megara suffered severely from siege and famine, the Athenians being still in possession of Nisaea ; and subsequently, though it partly recovered its prosperity, it ceased to be prominent in history. It was celebrated for its philosophi- cal school, founded by Euclid, the disciple of Socrates. It contained noted public buildings, of which few traces remain. The present little town of Megara, which is the capital of the nomarchy of Attica and Boeotia, is dilapidated. A ferry connects it with Salamis. MEGARIS, a district of ancient Greece, bounded N. by Boeotia, E. by Attica, S. by the Saronic gulf, and W. by Corinth and the Corinthian gulf; area, about 143 sq. m. It is in general rugged and hilly. The principal mountains are Mt. Cithsaron, which separates it from Bceotia, and the Geranean chain, which ex- tends E. and W. across its S. part from sea to sea. Through this chain are three passes : one, the Scironian pass, runs by the Saronic gulf, and formed the direct road from Corinth to Athens ; another, which runs along the Corin- thian gulf, was the great thoroughfare between Boeotia and the Peloponnesus ; and a third crosses the centre of the mountains. The territory of Megaris contains no plain except that of its metropolis. The earliest inhabi- tants were ./Eolians and lonians, and it origi- nally constituted part of Attica. The present eparchy of Megaris (pop. about 12,000) forms part of the nomarchy of Attica and Boeotia. MEGASTHENES (Gr. ^yof, great, and aBtvoc, strength), a name given by Dana to one of the grand divisions of the non-marsupial or higher mammals, as indicating a superior type, based on a larger and more powerful plan of structure. This division includes the monkeys, carnivora, herbivora, and cetaceans. He has given the name of microsthenes (juKpfa small, and oBivos, strength) to the inferior, based on a weak type of structure; this division includes the bats, insectivora, rodents, and edentates. The mar- supials and monotremes constitute the still lower division of semi-oviparans or ootocoids ; and man forms alone the highest or fourth division, the archonts. The parallelism be- tween the megasthenes and microsthenes is, according to him, complete; the bats in the latter represent the monkeys in the former; the insectivora represent the carnivora, the rodents the herbivora, and the edentates the cetaceans. MEGATHERIUM (Gr. //ya?, great, and %fov, animal), an extinct edentate animal, of gigantic size, coming in many respects near to the sloth family, and with its allies, the megalonyx and mylodon, seeming to form the transition from the edentates to the proboscidians. Pictet calls the family gravigrades, placing them between the sloths and the armadillos ; in all the molars are hollow cylinders of dentine and cement without enamel, the tube of dentine being filled with a porous substance; the form of the head, which is short and truncated, the large descending zygomatic process, and many parts of the skeleton (as the union of the acromion and coracoid processes of the sca- pula), resemble those of the sloths; the teeth consist only of molars, the canines of the sloths being absent; in their heavy forms, nearly equal limbs, and long and strong tail, they