Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/839

{|width="100%"  MORAWA, a river of Austria. See.  MORAY, Earl of. See.  MORAYSHIRE. See.  MORAZAN, Francisco, the last president of the republic of Central America, born in Honduras in 1799, shot in Costa Rica, Sept. 15, 1842. He was secretary general of Honduras in 1824, was soon after elected chief or governor of the state, and distinguished himself both as a statesman and as a military commander. In several contests he led the liberal forces of his own and the adjacent states, with unvarying success, against the reactionary party, and finally in 1829 drove them from the city of Guatemala, for which the national congress decreed him the title of saviour of the republic. He declined the post of president, but remained commander-in-chief of the forces, and in virtue of special powers delegated to him by the congress, he expelled the archbishop of Guatemala and the monks, suppressed the convents, abolished tithes, and devoted the other property and revenues of the church to education and charity. He inaugurated various schemes of public improvement, in which he was arrested in 1832 by the invasion of the republic from Mexico by a large force under Arce, the expelled president, who was seconded by various local outbreaks of his partisans. These disturbances were promptly suppressed by Morazan, who soon after accepted the presidency. In 1836 the cholera made its appearance with extraordinary fatality. The ignorant population, more particularly the Indians, became much excited, and the clerical party proclaimed that the pestilence was due to the poisoning of the waters by the whites, liberals, and foreigners. The consequence was a general outbreak of the lower orders of the people and the Indians, under the lead of Rafael Carrera. In 1840 Morazan sought refuge in Chili, whence in 1842 he went with some followers to Costa Rica, where he was made governor of the state by acclamation. He at once began to organize an army with a view to the reëstablishment of the old federation; but the plan was not popular in Costa Rica, and a revulsion ensued. Morazan and his handful of adherents were surprised, and, after a brilliant struggle, compelled to surrender. Morazan was tried by a drum-head court martial and shot.  MORBIHAN, a maritime department of France, in Brittany, bordering on Côtes-du-Nord, Ille-et-Vilaine, Loire-Inférieure, Finistère, and the bay of Biscay; area, 2,625 sq. m.; pop. in 1872, 490,352. Its name is derived from a gulf on its shore, called Morbihan, or small sea. The coast is indented by numerous bays and harbors. Belle-Isle and several smaller islands off the coast belong to this department. The northern districts are hilly, but the southern are mainly composed of extensive and fertile plains. The principal river is the Vilaine, and the department is traversed by the Blavet and the Brest and Nantes canals. The sardine fishery gives employment to more than 3,000 men. The principal minerals are iron, tin, lead, slate, and salt. There are manufactures of linen, woollens, &c. Ship building is extensively carried on. The common cereals and flax and hemp are raised, and the department is celebrated for its cider. Much attention is paid to rearing bees, and wax and honey are among the principal exports. The inhabitants of Morbihan are Bretons, and speak a dialect somewhat similar to that of the Cornish peasants in England. It is divided into the arrondissements of Lorient, Vannes, Pontivy or Napoléonville, and Ploërmel. Capital, Vannes.  MORDANTS (Fr., from Lat. mordere, to bite), materials used in dyeing and calico printing for the purpose of fixing the colors. Their action is in accordance with a twofold attraction for the coloring matter and the material of the fabric, serving as a bond of union. Substances which produce precipitates by acting upon the dyestuff, so that they may be produced within the fibres of the fabric, are also called mordants. In the strictest sense, however, they are not true mordants, but more properly speaking are components of the dyeing material, the mordant being a material that has the property of fixing the dye which has already been produced. It acts by altering the texture of the fibre in such a way as to cause it to retain the particles of the color. The principal mordants are the aluminic, stannic, and ferric salts, in which the affinity of the base and acid is comparatively weak, so that the precipitated coloring matter may be formed without much difficulty. The action of a mordant generally depends much upon the temperature at which the operation is conducted, as must be apparent from a consideration of the effects of heat upon chemical affinity, the affinity between some substances being much more affected by alterations of temperature than that between others. These reactions are also greatly modified by the nature of the fabric operated upon, and in general can only be well ascertained by experiment. Dyeing, therefore, like nearly all industrial processes, requires for its perfection the combination of theory with practice. (See, and .)  MORDAUNT, Charles. See.  <section begin="Mordvins" />MORDVINS, a people inhabiting eastern Russia. They form a subdivision of the Bulgaric or Volgaic family of the Finnic branch of the Turanian, Uralo-Altaic, or Mongolian races, and are related to the Tcheremisses and Tchuvashes. (See .) Their number has been estimated at 400,000, and their territory lies principally between the rivers Oka and Volga in the <section end="Mordvins" />
 * align="center" width="50%"|MORAWA
 * align="center"|MORDVINS
 * align="right"|821
 * } <section begin="Moravians" />religious instruction, of whom 59,843 are in church fellowship, including baptized children, and the rest candidates for admission. The total number of souls connected with the Unitas Fratrum, not counting the Diaspora members, is 96,952.—See "The Moravian Manual" (Bethlehem, Pa., 1869).