Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/419

 MERIAN MERIDA 407 smaller ; the flesh has a fishy taste and odor. There is a small merganser in South -America, for which was established the genus merga- netta (Gould), which seems to mark the transi- tion from the ducks to the mergansers. The bill is as long as the head, straight, compressed, elevated at the base ; the shoulder of the wing in both sexes is armed with a strong sharp spur; the tail -is lengthened and rounded, of rigid and pointed feathers. The only species mentioned by Gray is the M. armata (Gould), found inhabiting the rapid rivers of the An- des, swimming and diving against the moun- tain torrents with the utmost ease ; so at home is it on the water, and so rarely dis- turbed, that it seldom makes use of its wings except for short flights; they are generally seen in pairs. The affinity of the mergansers with the ducks is further shown by the oc- currence of hybrids; in the cabinet of the Boston society of natural history there is a wild hybrid between the L. cucullatus and the golden-eyed duck (bucepJiala Americana). MERIAN. I. Matthaus, the elder, a Swiss en- graver, born in Basel in 1593, died in Frank- fort in 1651. He studied four years in Zurich under Dietrich Meyer, a glass painter and en- graver, lived several years in Paris, and after- ward in Frankfort. He is best known by views representing the environs of Heidelberg, Stutt- gart, and other cities, from his own designs (30 vols., Frankfort, 1640-'88). II. Matthaus, the younger, son of the preceding, born in Basel in 1621, died in Frankfort in 1687. He stud- ied painting under Vandyke, and attained a considerable reputation, especially for his por- traits of the emperor Leopold I. and other German princes, painted after the manner of Vandyke. He also executed a " Martyrdom of St. Lawrence" in the cathedral of Bamberg, and other historical pictures, and was an engra- ver. III. Maria Sibylla, sister of the preceding, born in Frankfort, April 12, 1647, died in Am- sterdam, Jan. 13, 1717. She drew from nature flowers, caterpillars, butterflies, and similar ob- jects, which she executed in miniature. In 1665 she was married to Johann Andreas Graff, with whom she took up her residence in Nuremberg, retaining her own name. A work on caterpillars, illustrated from her de- signs, was published in Dutch (2 vols. 4to, Nu- remberg, 1679-'83). A Latin translation ap- peared in Amsterdam in 1717, and in 1730 an enlarged edition was published there in French under the title of Histoire generale des in- sectes de V Europe. In 1684 she settled with her husband in Holland, and in 1698 sailed for Surinam, where during a residence of two years she prepared the materials for her Dis- sertatio de Generations et MetamorpJiosibus Insectorum Surinamensium (Amsterdam, 1705), of which a new edition was published soon after her death under the supervision of her daughters. Her two works were republished together in 1768-'7l under the title of Histoire des imectes de V Europe et de VAmerique (fol., Paris). Two volumes of her original draw- ings^are preserved in the British museum. MERIDA (anc. Augusta Emerita), a city of Estremadura, Spain, on the right bank of the Guadiana, in the province and 30 m. E. of the city of Badajoz ; pop. about 5,000. The streets are paved and clean; the houses are mostly very ancient. The town contains a hospital, a lunatic asylum, a theatre, three churches, two nunneries, and four primary schools. Merida is famous for its well pre- served monuments of Roman antiquity. The Guadiana is here crossed by a bridge built by Trajan, and rebuilt in 1610 by Philip III., with 81 arches, 2,575 ft. long, 26 ft. broad, and 33 ft. above the bed of the river. Another bridge, 450 ft. long, which still retains its original Roman pavement, crosses the little stream Albarregas. There is also a triumphal arch 44 ft. high, built by Trajan ; a well pre- served amphitheatre; the piers of a stupen- dous aqueduct ; a more modern Roman aque- duct of 140 arches, which still supplies the city with water; a gateway with an Arabic inscription ; and a few remains of a castle. Some historians suppose Merida to have been founded by the Greeks ; but it was certainly rebuilt and called Augusta Emerita by Publius Carisius in 25 B. 0. It was taken by the Moors shortly after their landing in Spain in 711, and from them it was wrested by Alfonso the "Wise in 1230. Prudentius describes it as a magnifi- cent city in the 4th century ; since its annex- ation by Alfonso it has gradually declined. The French invested the town in June, 1811, but were driven off by the English in April, 1812. MERIDA, an inland city of Mexico, in the peninsula and capital of the state of Yucatan, and of the department of its own name, 22 m. from the gulf of Mexico, and 615 m. E. by N. of Mexico; pop. in 1871, 33,025, chiefly descendants of the Mayas and mestizos. It is situated in the midst of a level plain; the streets are very regular and spacious, and there are several squares. On the principal square stand the cathedral, a majestic struc- ture completed in 1598, the government house, the city hall, the episcopal palace, and the an- cient college of San Ildefonso, now occupied by the treasury offices and the state tribunals. Besides the cathedral, there are 14 churches, a hospital with a revenue of $115,000 and an annual subvention of $2,400 from the state, a public library, a theatre, prison, house of cor- rection, asylum, several political, mercantile, and literary periodicals, and a number of lit- erary and commercial associations. Education is in a prosperous state, there being schools of law, medicine^ and pharmacy, an instituto literario, private colleges, academies, and lyce- ums, and 14 primary and grammar schools. Manufactures are very flourishing, including cotton fabrics, cigars and cigarettes, rum, re- fined sugar, molasses, cordage,' leather, soap, Panama hats, &c. The annual value of manu- factures is about $1,200,000. Rope, leather,