Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/640

 MINUTE MIOLAN-CAEVALHO services to the Swedish government in 1637, and toward the close of that year sailed from Gothenburg under the auspices of Oxenstiern, and with a commission from the queen of Swe- den authorizing him to plant a new colony on the W. coast of Delaware bay. He anchored in Chesapeake bay in March, 1638, and soon began to build Fort Christiana, 2 m. from the confluence of Minqua's Kill with the South river, near the present site of Wilmington, and despite the opposition of the Dutch he increased the settlement, which he called New Sweden. It was the first permanent European settlement of Delaware, and was annexed to the Dutch possessions in 1655. MINUTE (Lat. minutum), the 60th part of an hour; also used to denote a portion of the arc of a circle, and as a measure of angles. When the circumference of the circle is divided into 24 hours, the minute is TfVff P ar ^ ^ the circle- When the circle is divided into 360, the min- ute is the 60th part of a degree, consequently equal to sr.lnnr of the circumference. To dis- tinguish these two measures, the former is called a minute of time, the latter a minute of arc; 15 minutes of arc of a parallel of latitude being equal to one minute of time, and 4 min- utes of time to a degree. The term is used in architecture to indicate the 60th part of the diameter of the shaft of a column, measured at the base, and serves as a measure to deter- mine the proportions of the order. MIM TOLL I. Heinrieh Menu yon, baron, a German archaeologist, born in Geneva, May 12, 1772, died near Lausanne, Sept. 16, 1846. He entered the Prussian army at an early age, was wounded during the campaign on the Rhine in 1793, and made professor in the mil- itary school in Berlin. In 1820 he led a scien- tific expedition to Egypt under the patronage of the Prussian government, and visited Cairo, Thebes, and Asswan, whence he returned to Alexandria, reaching Berlin in August, 1822. The architect Liman, the naturalist Hemprich, and seven of his other companions had died on the journey, and a great portion of his col- lection was lost by shipwreck. The remainder of it was purchased by the king of Prussia. Minutoli passed his last years in Switzerland. He published BetracJitungen uber die Kriegs- Icumt (3d ed., Berlin, 1816); a narrative of his travels under the title of Reise zum Tempel deft Jupiter Ammon und nach Oberagypten (1824- '7); Beitrdge zu einer Tcunftigen Biographic Friedrich Wilhelms III. (1843); Militdrische Erinnerungen (1845); and various historical and archffiological works. While in Italy he married in 1820 WOLFE ADIXE, countess von der Schulenburg, the widow of a Saxon offi- cer, who accompanied him in his travels, and wrote in French an admirable work on Egypt (Souvenirs d'figypte, 2 vols., Paris, 1826; Ger- man translation by Gersdorf, Leipsic, 1829). II. .Inlins von, baron, son of the preceding, born in Berlin in 1805, died near Shiraz, Persia, Nov. 5, 1860. He became well known in 1846 by his discovery of the Polish conspiracy while he was director of police at Posen. In 1851 he was appointed Prussian consul general for Spain and Portugal, and in 1860 ambassador to Persia. He wrote on jurisprudence and Prussian history, and most extensively on Spain and Portugal and the Canary islands. The principal of the latter works are Altes und Neues aus Spanien (2 vols., Berlin, 1854), and Portugal und seine Colonien im Jahre 1854 (2 vols., Stuttgart, 1855). MIOCENE, in geology, the intermediate of the three epochs of the tertiary or mammalian age, having the eocene below and the pliocene above. The term is derived from Gr. ^ueZov, less, and ncuvde, recent, from less than half its species being of living forms. Some geolo- gists make a fourth division, called oligocene, by separating an upper portion of the eocene and uniting it with the lower section of the miocene. The beds of the miocene epoch are of either marine or fresh-water formation. The marine beds cover a large part of the Atlantic border of the United States, belong- ing to what is known in American geology as the Yorktown period. They are full of fos- sils, and occur at Gay Head on Martha's Vine- yard, in Cumberland co., N. J., on both sides of the Chesapeake in Maryland, and in Vir- ginia at Yorktown, Suffolk, Smithfield, and other places. Fresh-water beds of miocene occur in the upper Missouri region, along the White river, called mauvaises terres or " bad lands." They constitute the "White river" group of Hayden, and have a thickness of 1,000 ft. and upward. In these beds are found the remains of the titanotherium, which also occurs in the eocene. There are also in the Wind river valley and on the west side of the Wind Kiver mountains other fresh- water de- posits from 1,500 to 2,000 ft. thick, called the Wind river group. In California and Oregon the miocene formation consists of sandstone and shale, in some places attaining a thick- ness of 4,000 or 5,000 ft. They occur near Astoria on the Columbia river, and also in the coast ranges both north and south of San Francisco, in the Santa Inez mountains, and at various other places. MIOLAN-CiRVALHO, Caroline Marie FSlix, a French singer, born in Marseilles, Dec. 31, 1831. She studied under Delsarte and subse- quently under Duprez at the Paris conserva- tory, where she obtained the first prize after having appeared in the first act of Lucia di Lammermoor and the second act of La Juive. In 1850 she won great applause in DAmbassa- drice at the Opera Comique. In 1853 she married M. Leon Carvalho (Carvaille), who be- came manager of the Theatre Lyrique, with his wife as the leading prima donna. She per- formed with brilliant success in London in 1859, as successor of Mme. Bosio. Her chief roles are Margaret in "Faust," Dinorah, Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet," Zerline in "Don Juan," and Rosine in " The Barber of Seville."