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 MOXGOUS MONITOR the borders of the two countries. This trade, which is entirely under the supervision of Mantchoo officers, introduces among the Mon- gols European goods in moderate quantities. The Mongolian language was reduced to writing about the 14th century. Its literature consists in great part of translations of Chinese books, but it embraces a few original histories and many poems, relating chiefly to Genghis Khan and to Tamerlane. The history of the Mon- gols properly commences with Genghis Khan. At his birth (about 1160) the Mongols were divided into petty and discordant tribes. He united them into one nation, and led them forth to conquer the world. Under his ban- ners they subjugated the whole of Tartary, and a great part of China, Corea, Afghanistan, Per- sia, and Russia. Under his sons and successors the conquest of China was continued, the ca- liphate of Bagdad was overthrown, the sultan of Iconium in Asia Minor made tributary, and Europe overrun and devastated as far as the Oder and the Danube. The Mongol empire was at this time the most extensive that the world has ever seen. Kublai Khan, -the grand- son of Genghis, established the first Mongol dynasty in China (1279-1368), and conquered also Cochin-China and Tonquin. He is known in Chinese history as the emperor She-tsu, and as the founder of the 24th or Yuen dynasty. In 1368 the native race rose in insurrection and established their independence under the Ming dynasty. The Mongol empire was split into several independent sovereignties in the 13th century, but was reunited by Tamerlane in the 14th. After his death (1405) the Mon- gol power slowly declined, and in the early part of the 17th century the Mongols gradually submitted to the sovereignty of the Mantchoo emperors of China. But they yield little more than a nominal obedience. The Chinese gov- ernment watches and humors them with inces- sant anxiety, and conciliates their chiefs by annual presents of considerable value. The Mongol empire in India, however, established by Tamerlane's descendant Baber in 1526, last- ed nominally till 1858. (See MOGULS.) See Hue's " Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China" (2 vols., 1852), and Wolff's Geschichte der Mon- golen (Breslau, 1872). iMOX.OIS. See ICHNEUMON, and LEMUR. MONITEAU, a central county of Missouri, bounded N. E. by the Missouri river, and drained by Saline, Moreau, and Moniteau creeks; area, 400 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 11,375, of whom 879 were colored. Iron, limestone, and excellent coal are found, and the soil is generally fertile. The county is traversed by the Pacific railroad of Missouri. The chief productions in 1870 were 204,589 bushels of wheat, 502,917 of Indian corn, 204,036 of oats, 32,274 of potatoes, 53,706 Ibs. of tobacco, 42,688 of wool, 178,283 of butter, and. 6,023 tons of hay. There were 5,004 horses, 1,314 mules and asses, 10,727 cattle, 17,187 sheep, and 23,271 swine. Capital, California. MONITOR, the common name of many of the old-world slender-tongued lizards of the family varanidce and genus taranus (Merr.). They have an elongated head ; long, extensile, bifid, fleshy tongue, enclosed in a sheath at the base; no teeth on the palate, those of the jaws flattened at the roots, lodged in a com- mon groove or alveolus without internal bor- der, with the crowns generally pointed and curved backward; the neck long; the head and body covered with tuberculated non-im- bricated scales ; the tail very long, sometimes containing 80 vertebrae, capable of reproduc- tion, non-prehensile, compressed and keeled or rounded according as the species are aquatic or terrestrial ; no femoral pores nor dorsal crest ; eyes with two distinct movable lids ; feet large, with five unequal, non-palmated toes, furnished with strong claws ; in the fore limbs the first finger is the shortest, and the third and fourth longest; in the posterior the fourth is three times as long as the first. The monitors form a natural transition to the serpents, in the sus- pension of the bones of the face to the cranium and their mobility, in the incomplete cftcle of the orbits, in the long and narrow lower jaw loosely united in the middle, in the tongue, and in the scaly covering. The colors vary from black to deep green, with lighter spots arranged in various ways so as to resemble mosaic work ; many of these patterns are so admirable that the skin has been used to cover jewel boxes. These reptiles are, next to the crocodiles, the largest of living saurians ; they live either in the neighborhood of rivers, or in dry sandy regions, the former class being said to give notice of the presence of crocodiles by a whistling sound, whence their common name ; Nilotic Monitor (Vnranus Niloticus). they run rapidly on the ground, in a serpent- like manner on account of the length of the tail. Their food consists principally of the larger coleopterous and orthopterous insects; they also eat the eggs of aquatic birds and