Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/576

 558 MILLSTONE GRIT MILMAN size and shape for grinding grain, &c. The lower stone is firmly fixed in its bed, and is known as the " bedder." The upper one, called the "runner," is suspended over this so as to revolve with its lower face exactly parallel to the upper face of the lower stone, and more or less close to it according to the required fine- ness of the flour. The grain is admitted through a hole in the centre of the upper stone from the hopper above; and as it is ground the flour escapes round the outer edges. Grooves are cut on the face of each stone, radi- ating from near the centre to the periphery, and one edge of these grooves is sharp and per- pendicular to the face. The two stones being cut alike, when they are turned face to face these edges work against each other and crush the grain between them. The flat portions each side of the grooves are called "lands." The best millstones are made of buhrstone. (See BUHRSTONE.) They continue in use some- times as long as 20 years, the edges being occa- sionally recut. Very hard granite is also used for millstones, and the Shawangunk sandstone has long been quarried at Esopus, N. Y., for the same purpose. MILLSTONE GRIT, a geological formation, principally a conglomerate, composed of sili- cious sand and small pebbles ; it is also called grit rock and grindstone grit. It is named from the frequent use to which it is put, particularly in England. The formation lies at the commencement of the coal period, being located between the subcarboniferous period and the lower coal measures, and marks the transition from the marine to the terrestrial period. The area that had been covered with fields of crinoids was swept during the mill- stone grit epoch by currents and waves which left the surface under a great depth of pebbles and sand. The coarseness of the beds along the Appalachian region in Pennsylvania indi- cates that this was the border reef of the con- tinent, and its great thickness, exceeding 1,200 ft., shows that it was also a region of great subsidence. The formation here is mostly a whitish silicious conglomerate, with some sand- stone layers and a few thin beds of carbona- ceous shells. At Tamaqua the thickness is 1,400 ft. ; at Pottsville, 1,000 ft. ; in the Wilkesbarre region, from 200 to 300 ft. ; and where it caps the mountain at Blossburg it is from 50 to 100 ft. In Virginia the thickness sometimes reaches 1,000 ft., and the rock is mainly a sandstone, but contains heavy beds of conglomerate. It may be remarked that the conglomerate of the subcarboniferous period becomes also in Vir- ginia a sand rock. In Alabama it is a quartzose grit of great thickness, and is used for mill- stones. In Tennessee there are two heavy beds of conglomerate, with several thick coal beds between them, and also below both, which are generally referred to the false coal mea- sures of the millstone grit epoch. The mill- stone grit formation extends over parts of some of the southern counties of New York, having a thickness of from 20 to 60 ft. In Cattaraugus and Alleghany counties, on account of the regularity of the joints, it stands out in huge blocks, forming walls and square struc- tures which have received the names of " Rock City " and " Ruined City." Among the plants of this formation, according to Lesquereux, are lepidodendrons, sigillaria, and calamites, with several species of ferns. MILLVILLE, a city of Cumberland co., New Jersey, on Maurice river, at the head of navi- fation, and on the West Jersey railroad, 40 m. . of Philadelphia; pop. in 1870, 6,101. It contains a large cotton factory, and three iron founderies for the manufacture of water and gas pipes and turbine water wheels. The im- mense wheels for the Fairmount water works, Philadelphia, were cast here. It has also sever- al manufactories of hollow glassware and win- dow glass, three large lumber mills, a national bank, 11 public schools, including a high school, two weekly newspapers, and nine churches. MILMAN, Henry Hart, an English author, born in London, Feb. 10, 1791, died there, Sept. 24, 1868. He was the youngest son of Sir Francis Milman, physician to George III., and was edu- cated at Eton and at Brasenose college, Oxford, where he obtained a fellowship. His literary career commenced in 1815, with the publica- tion of " Fazio," a tragedy performed success- fully at Covent Garden; and in 1817 he took orders and was presented to the vicarage of St. Mary's, Reading. In 1818 he published " Samor, Lord of the Bright City, an Heroic Poem," founded on passages in the legendary history of Britain, and in 1820 his most suc- cessful production in verse, " The Fall of Jeru- salem," a dramatic poem. In the succeeding year he was appointed professor of poetry in the university of Oxford, and published three other dramatic poems, "The Martyr of An- tioch," " Belshazzar," and "Anne Boleyn." In 1826 he was appointed Bampton lecturer, and in the following year appeared his " Ser- mons at the Bampton Lecture," in 1829 his "History of the Jews" (3 vols. 18mo), pub- lished anonymously, and in 1840 a collected edition of his poetical works. In the same year he produced one of his most elaborate works, a "History of Christianity from the Birth of Christ to the Abolition of Paganism in the Roman Empire" (3 vols. 8vo), and in 1854-'5 a "History of Latin Christianity, in- cluding that of the Popes, to the Pontificate of Nicholas V." (6 vols. 8vo), designed as a continuation of the former, although it is a complete work. He prepared a sumptuously printed and illustrated edition of Horace (8vo, 1849), with a life of the poet and criticisms on his writings, an annotated edition of Gibbon's " Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," pre- ceded by a life of the historian, a " Memoir of Lord Macaulay," a "Life of John Keats," and translations of the " Agamemnon " of ^Eschy- lus, the " Bacchce " of Euripides, and some of the minor Greek poets. In 1862 he revised