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 MITCHELL'S PEAK Australia; the first, in 1831-'2, resulted in the discovery of the Peel and Nammoy rivers ; and during the second and third, in 1835-'6, the Darling and Glenelg rivers were explored, and Australia Felix discovered. The fourth (1845-'6) was undertaken to trace out a route from Sydney to the gulf of Carpentaria ; the loss of cattle and horses prevented the com- pletion of the expedition, but it led to the dis- covery of the Victoria river. During a visit to England Major Mitchell published "Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Aus- tralia, with Descriptions of the recently ex- plored Region of Australia Felix," &c. (2 vols. 8vo, London, 1838); and his "Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Aus- tralia " appeared in 1848. In 1853 he published a lecture on the boomerang propeller, which he had invented for steam vessels. He was knighted in 1839, and made a colonel in 1854. MITCHELL'S PEAK. See BLACK MOUNTAINS. MITCHILL, Samnel Latham, an American phy- sician, born in North Hempstead, Long Island, Aug. 20, 1764, died in New York, Sept. 7, 1831. He graduated as M. D. at the university of Edinburgh in 1786, returned to America in the following year, and studied law. In 1792 he was appointed professor of chemistry, natural history, and philosophy in Columbia college, where his dissent from some of Lavoi- sier's principles involved him in a controver- sy with Dr. Priestley, which led to a lasting friendship between the two disputants. In 1796 he made a geological and miner alogical tour along the Hudson. In conjunction with Dr. Edward Miller and Elihu H. Smith he founded the quarterly "Medical Repository," of which he continued to be editor for 16 years. It was the first scientific periodical published in the United States. Twice he was a member of the legislature, and in 1801 he became a representative in congress, and in 1804 United States senator. At the expiration of his term of office he was again elected to the house of representatives. In 1808 he became professor of natural history in the college of physicians and surgeons, and in 1820 of botany and mate- ria medica. In 1826 the institution gave place to the Rutgers medical school, of which Dr. Mitchill became vice president. The poems of " Croaker and co." contain records of some of Dr. Mitchill's eccentricities. He proposed to change the name of this country to Fredonia, and wrote in 1804 " An Address to the Fredes, or People of the United States." He was the author of " Observations on the Absorbent Tubes of Animal Bodies " (12mo, New York, 1787) ; " Nomenclature of the New Chemis- try " (1794); "Life, Exploits, and Precepts of Tammany, the famous Indian Chief," a half his- torical, half fanciful address before the Tam- many society of New York (1795) ; and " Syn- opsis of Chemical Nomenclature and Arrange- ment " (1801). See " Reminiscences of Sam- uel Latham Mitchill, M. D., LL. D.," by John W. Francis, M. D. (New York, 1859). MITFORD 679 MITE, a name applied to many very small articulated animals, of the arachnoid order and suborder acarina, including the ticks, itch in- sects, and other parasites, and the minute acari. The abdomen is unarticulated, and fused with the cephalothorax ; the external envelope is of chitine, solid and indestructible ; four pairs of feet on the cephalothorax, armed with nails, and in some provided with long pedunculated disks by which the animal is attached ; some, when young, have six feet; eyes usually ab- sent; mandibles wanting, the antennas being changed into prehensile and masticatory or- gans, moving vertically, piercing or cutting as may be necessary, and sometimes enclosed in a sheath in the form of a sucker. The stomach ' has several cascal appendages, and the short and straight intestine opens near the middle of the abdomen ; salivary glands well developed ; no apparent heart nor blood vessels, the color- less nutritive fluid filling all the interstices of the body, and being irregularly circulated by the muscular movements and the contractions of the intestinal canal ; respiration aerial, per- formed chiefly by the skin, and in some by tracheae. The sexes are separate ; many have an ovipositor, by which they insert their eggs under the epidermis of plants and animals, in the latter case often causing great irritation ; some surround their eggs by a tough substance which glues them to various objects. Their extreme minuteness in some cases may be judged of by the fact that they infest flies and very small insects ; they are exceedingly pro- lific. Some live under stones, others on plants, on animals, or among decaying organic sub- stances, and a few are aquatic ; the parasitic ones, sucking the blood of animals and man, are sometimes very annoying. The itch insect has been described under ITCH, and the ticks and other mites under EPIZOA. Among the mites, the acarus domes- ticus is found especially in old cheese (the pow- der of which, so agree- able to epicures, is made up of these little ani- mals with their eggs and excrement), in flour, sugar, and on figs and sugared fruits ; the A. destructor feeds on the specimens of the ento- mologist and zoologist; the garden mites (trom- bidiidce) live on fruits, flowers, and leaves ; the spider mites (gamasidce) include the minute red spider of hothouses ; and the wood mites (pribatidcR) creep among stones and moss. MITFORD, Mary Russell, an English authoress, born at Alresford, Hampshire, Dec. 16, 1786, died near Reading, Jan. 10, 1855. She was the daughter of a physician whose pecuniary spec- ulations early involved his family in ruin. Her education was chiefly acquired at a school in Chelsea. At 20 years of age she published three volumes of poems, some of them long narratives in the style of Scott; and about 1812 she adopted literature as a profession, Mite (Acarus domesticus).