Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/767

 MONITOR MONK 749 reptiles, and lizards, small tortoises, fish, and mammals. The true monitors, of which fewer than 20 species are described, are confined to Asia, Africa, and Australasia. Of the genus varanus, erroneously called tupinambis by Daudin, the best known aquatic species is the monitor of the Nile ( F. Niloticm, Fitz.), com- mon in the rivers of Egypt and of western and southern Africa, and attaining a length of 5 or 6 ft., of which the head is about one eleventh, the neck one ninth, and the tail nearly one half; the teeth are 30 above and 22 below; the general color above is greenish gray with black dots, with four or five yellow V-shaped marks pointing backward upon the nape, bands of yellow eye-like spots on the back, a wide black band on the shoulder, and a narrow one edged with pale green on each temple ; whitish below, with brown transverse bands, and the claws black. From its supposed usefulness in devouring the eggs of the crocodile, it was highly esteemed by the ancient Egyptians. Other aquatic species are found in the East Indies, and in Australia and its archipelago. Of the terrestrial monitors the best known is the V. scincus (Merr.), the skink of the ancients, the land crocodile of Herodotus, the waran of the Arabs, and the genus psammosaurus of Fitzinger. Tfris is very common in the sandy deserts of Egypt; it is about 3 ft. long, of which the rounded tail is more than half. The color of the upper parts varies from brown to yellow, spotted and banded with one or the other ; it is less carnivorous and ferocious than the aquatic monitors. Cuvier, in his Ossemens fossiles, has referred to the family of monitors several gigantic fossil reptiles, as the proto- rosaurm (H. de Meyer), from the coppery schists of Germany ; the mosasaurus (Conyb.), over 30 ft. long, intermediate between moni- tors and iguanas, from the calcareous strata of Maestricht ; the geosaurus (Cuv.), 12 or 13 ft. long, from an iron mine near Mannheim ; and the megalosaurus (Buckland), about 40 ft. long, from the vicinity of Oxford, placed by Pictet among the dinosaurians, having certain mam- malian characters. The name of monitor is sometimes given to some American lacertian lizards, especially of the genus sahator (Dum. and Bibr.), more properly called safeguards, corresponding in part to tupinambis (Daud.) and tejus (Merr.), and to monitor (Fitz.). MONITOR, in naval architecture. See IRON- CLAD SHIPS. MONK. See MONAOHISM. MONK, George, duke of Albemarle, an Eng- lish general, born at Potheridge, Devonshire, Dec. 6, 1608, died in London, Jan. 3, 1670. At the age of 17 he was a volunteer in an un- successful expedition against Cadiz under his relative, Sir Richard Greenville. About a year later he enlisted in the force sent to the isle of Re", and remained in the service till 1628. Soon after the peace of that year he entered the service of the United Provinces, and re- turned to England about 1638 with the rank of captain. He soon received an appointment in the army of Charles I., under whom he served with the rank of lieutenant colonel in the two expeditions undertaken just before the conference of Ripon (1640). In 1642 he was appointed colonel of the forces sent to suppress the Irish rebellion, and remained in this service till the breaking out of the civil war. In 1643 he was recalled, but was arrested immediately on his landing in England, and deprived of his office, on suspicion of his favoring the parlia- ment (September). This was so satisfactorily disproved that he was speedily restored to command and promoted to be major general of the Irish brigade, then (January, 1644) en- gaged in the attack on Nantwich. He had scarcely arrived at that place when he was sur- prised, defeated, and captured by Sir Thomas Fairfax; and he was imprisoned in the tower for about two years. On his release both par- ties eagerly endeavored to secure his services ; and in November, 1646, he was finally induced by arguments and bribes to take the " solemn league and covenant " and espouse the parlia- mentary side. He was at once sent to Ireland, and commanded there against O'Neill from 1647 to 1649, exhibiting such military talent as to gain the high opinion of Cromwell, who in 1650 made him lieutenant general of ordnance in the expedition against the Scotch. Here he great- ly distinguished himself, especially at the bat- tle of Dunbar. He was now appointed com- mander-in-chief in Scotland, completed the conquest of the country, and having fully sub- jugated it, and compelled the formal union of Scotland with the commonwealth, he returned to England in 1652, leaving a reputation for great power and energy, but also for occasional cruelty ; the most noteworthy example of the latter quality being his butchery in cold blood of the governor and 800 of the garrison of Dun- dee (1651). In the war against the Dutch, Monk was sent into the channel with a fleet which he commanded jointly with Gen. Dean till the death of the latter on June 2, 1652, in an action in which the final success of the English was due to Monk's persistency in maintaining the fight till the arrival of reinforcements under Blake. He was commander of the fleet in the action on July 31 (new style, Aug. 10), 1653, in which Van Tromp was killed and the Dutch defeated. In 1654 he suppressed the royalist insurrection in Scotland, and afterward kept that kingdom under the full control of the commonwealth until the death of Cromwell. From that time he devoted himself to the ac- quisition of personal power, striving to con- ciliate both the royalists and their opponents. When Richard Cromwell resigned the protec- torate, in 1659, Monk declared for the par- liament, and marched to London with 7,000 men ; yet he acted with such skilful duplicity that while he now had the whole country prac- tically under the control of himself and his troops, it was impossible to foresee in what way he would use the power he had acquired.