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rior; The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland by Bent; Rhodesia of To-Day by Knight; and How We Made Rhodesia by Lenard. See Rhodesia. Ma'son and Dix'on's Line, often thought to be a line dividing the slaveholding states from free states. In fact, it ran for over a third of its length between two slave-states, Maryland and Delaware. It was run by two English surveyors, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, during 1764-67, and determines the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania and between Maryland and Delaware. Milestones were set up and each five miles marked by a larger stone, on which were cut the arms of William Penn and Lord Baltimore. The work was so well-done that when, in 1849, it was gone over again no mistake of any account was found. The line does roughly divide the north from the south, and is popularly used to distinguish the two sections of the country. Mason, George, was born at Doeg's Neck, Va., in 1725. In 1775 the Virginia convention made him a member of the committee of safety which was charged with the government of the colony. The next year he drew up a declaration of rights and a constitution for the new state, which were adopted without an opposing vote. He also, with the help of Jefferson, had a bill passed making all kinds of worship lawful in Virginia. In 1777 he became a member of the Continental Congress. In 1787 he was one of the foremost men in the convention which drew up the constitution of the United States, where he took firm ground against making slavery permanent. He was afraid that the constitution, as at last agreed upon by the convention, would bring about a monarchy or a tyranny of aristocrats, and stood shoulder to shoulder with Patrick Henry in fighting ratification by Virginia. He sought to have about 20 charges made, some of which were afterward adopted by Congress. He was chosen as Virginia's first United States senator, but refused to serve. His statue stands with Jefferson's, Henry's and those of other leading Virginians at the base of Crawford's statue of Washington in front of the capitol at Richmond. Mason died in Fairfax County, Va., in 1792. JAMES M. MASON Mason, James Murray, American jurist and statesman and Confederate commissioner to England in 1861, was born in Fairfax County, Va., Nov. 3, 1798, being a grandson of George Mason. He graduated from William and Mary College, and was admitted to the Virginia bar when 22. He served many years in the Virginia house of delegates and in the federal Congress from 1837 to 1839. He was elected senator from Virginia in 1847, and retained that place until the breaking out of the Civil War, when he cast in his lot with the seceding states. He

was captured on Nov. 6, 1861, when on his way to Europe to represent the Confederacy abroad, and was held a prisoner by the federal authorities until Jan 1, 1862, when, upon the demand of the English government, he was released. His mission to England, after all, proved ineffective, although it nearly embroiled the two nations in war. Mr. Mason died near Alexandria, Va., April 28, 1871. Mason, Lowell, an American composer, was born at Medfield, Mass., Jan. 8, 1792. As a boy he was very fond of music; and began to teach it when quite young. In 1821 his Boston Handel and Haydn Collection of Church-Music was published, and at once made him noted, and enabled him to leave Savannah, where he had taught for 15 years, and make Boston his headquarters. Here he taught children's classes without charge, and published a number of music-books for children, as well as glee-books, and over 20 books of sacred and church music. A large part of the best American church-music is Mason's. He died at Orange, N. J., Aug. 11, 1872. Masons. See Freemasons. Mass is the name which has been given to the amount of matter in a body. The mass of a body, the amount of matter in a body and the inertia of a body are strictly synonymous terms as used in modern physics. Matter and therefore mass have not been defined in terms of anything simpler; but mass can be measured in terms of many other quantities. Thus mass is equal to the product of volume by density. In like manner the mass of a body is equal to the quotient of its weight divided by the acceleration of gravity. A sharp distinction between mass and weight is essential to all clear thinking on this subject. The standard of mass used in ordinary commerce is the mass of a piece of metal kept in the Standard's Office, London, and known as the avoirdupois pound. The standard of mass employed in science is a piece of metal kept at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures at Sèvres, and known as the kilogram. See Inertia. Massachusetts (mas'a-chū'sĕts) is one of the New England states and one of the original 13 states. It is 47 1/2 miles wide and 182 long, being but one sixth as large as New York. It is bounded on the north by New Hampshire and Vermont, on the