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MINA 240 MINERAL CAOUTCHOUC sensitive, _ M. pudica and M. sensitiva are the sensitive plants. The former is natu- ralized over India ; the leaves are pre- scribed in piles and fistula. The bi'uised leaves of M. rubicatilis are applied to burns. Its root is charred for gunpow- der charcoal. The legumes of M. sapo- tmria, or Acacia concinna, are sapona- ceous and are an article of commerce in India. MINA, an ancient denomination of money among the Greeks, and was worth about $16. MINARET, a slender lofty turret rising by different stages or stories, sur- rounded by one or more projecting bal- conies, commonly attached to mosques in Mohammedan countries, used by the priests to summon the people to prayers. MINAS, capital of Minas department, Uruguay, 55 miles N, E. of Montevideo, on the railroad to Montevideo. Is center of farming and stock-raising district, with stone quarries. Pop. about 10,000. MINAS GERAES (zhe-ris'), the most populous state of Brazil, inland from Espirito Santo and S. of Bahia; area 222,894 square miles. Pop. (1917) 5,064,- 858. Lying wholly in the tableland, its surface is occupied with grass and bush- covered campos, rising, however, in the Serra do Espinhaco to 5,900 feet; the principal rivers include the navigable Sao Francisco and the Rio Grande, which unites with the Paranahyba to form the Parana. Agriculture and stock raising are the chief industries; some gold is still obtained, and diamonds, iron, and lead are mined. The inhabitants are principally Indians. MINCIO (min'cho), ancient Mincius, a river of northern Italy. It flows from the southern extremity of Lake Garda, and after forming lakes and marshes around Mantua joins the Po, 8 miles beyond. It was a military base during the old wars between France and Aus- tria, and is 115 miles long. MIND, in popular language a word eometimes used as opposed to heart. Metaphysicians of the normal type, as a rule, contradistinguish it not from heart, but only from matter or body. They regard it as possessing emotions as well as intellectual powers ; the former manifesting themselves in feeling, the latter in thought. Its existence is sup- posed to be established by the conscious- ness of the thinking individual. Till about the middle of the 19th century, mind was almost universally held to be possessed by none of the inferior ani- mals; any apparent intelligence on their part was attributed to instinct. Darwin declared that the intellect and even the moral powers of man did not differ in kind, though very greatly in degree, from the rudiments of them exhibited by the lower animals. Not denjdng the latter instincts, he sought to establish that they had reason too, and that the superiority was the result chiefly of natural selec- tion carried on through cosmic periods of time. MINDANAO (men-da-nS'6) , one of the Philippine Islands, next to Luzon in point of size; length about 300 miles, breadth 150 miles; area 36,292 square miles; pop. about 500,000. All the coun- try, except on the sea-coast, is moun- tainous, the volcano of Apo being 8,819 feet high. Coffee, cocoa, and cotton are exported. The chief town is Zamboanga or Samboangan, a port and naval station at its W. extremity. Pop. about 30,000. MINDEN, a town of Louisiana, the parish seat of Webster parish. It is on the Louisiana and Arkansas railroad. It is the center of an important cotton, com, and sugar raising region. Its in- dustries include saw mills, cottonseed oil mills and compresses. It has an excel- lent high school and three parks. Pop. (1910) 3,002; (1920) 6,105. MINDEN, a Prussian town in West- phalia, on the Weser, 40 miles W. of Han- over; it has a fine new bridge (1874), a Gothic town hall, a Catholic church (till 1811 cathedral), built between the 11th century and 1379, and restored in 1864- 1885, manufactures of tobacco, beer, brandy, glass, etc., and a considerable river trade. Till 1873 a fortress of the second class, it was already a tovn in Charlemagne's day, and suffered much in the Thirty Years' War, and again in the Seven Years' War, when, on Aug. 1, 1759, the French were defeated here by , an Anglo-Hanoverian army under Fer- dinand of Brunswick and Ijord George Sackville. Pop. about 27,000. MINDORO (men-do'ro), one of the larger of the Philipp^'ne Islands, situated S. of Luzon, from v/hioh it is separated by the Strait of Manila; length about 110 miles, breadth about 53 miles; area 3,851 square miles; pop. about 30,000. The province of Mindoro, composed of Mindoro proper and groups of neighbor- ing isles, has a population of about 40,- 000. Rice, cacao, and wild cinnamon are the products. MINERAL CAOUTCHOUC (kot'chok), a variety of bitumen, intermediate be- tween the harder and softer kinds; sometimes resembling india-rubber.