Magyar is the official language of Hungary, the official name of which (Magyarorzág, or “country of the Magyars”) enshrines the Magyar claim to predominance. While all Magyars are properly Hungarians, all Hungarians are not necessarily Magyars. “Hungarian” may be used as a generic term covering all the various races of Hungary, while “Magyar” is strictly specific to a single group. The Magyars themselves, indeed, sometimes apply the name Magyarorzág to Hungary “proper,” excluding Croatia-Slavonia, the whole kingdom being called Magyarbirodalom, the Magyar monarchy or realm. See Hungary.
MAHABALESHWAR, or Malcolmpeth, a hill station in Satara district, and the principal sanatorium in the Bombay
presidency, India. Pop. (1901), 5299. It is reached by
carriage from Wathar railway station (39 m.) or by motor car
from Poona (119 m.). Mahabaleshwar occupies the summit
of a ridge of the Western Ghats, with a general elevation of
4500 ft. above sea-level. It was established in 1828 by Sir
John Malcolm, governor of Bombay, who obtained the site from
the raja of Satara in exchange for another patch of territory.
The superior elevation of Mahabaleshwar renders it much cooler
than Matheran (2460 ft.), a sanatorium about 50 m. E. of
Bombay, but its heavy rainfall (292 in. annual average) makes
it almost uninhabitable during the rainy season. The mean
annual temperature is 67° F. In the hottest season (March-April)
an extreme of a little over 90° is reached during the
day. Mahabaleshwar forms the retreat usually during spring,
and occasionally in autumn, of the governor of Bombay, and the
chief officers of his establishment, and has the usual public
buildings of a first-class sanatorium.
MAHAFFY, JOHN PENTLAND (1839– ), Irish classical
scholar, was born in Switzerland on the 12th of July 1839. He
received his early education in Switzerland and Germany, and
later at Trinity College, Dublin, where he held the professorship
of ancient history. Mahaffy, a man of great versatility, published
numerous works, some of which, especially those dealing with
what may be called the Silver age of Greece, became standard
authorities. The following deserve mention: History of Classical
Greek Literature (4th ed., 1903 seq.); Social Life in Greece from
Homer to Menander (4th ed., 1903); The Silver Age of the Greek
World (1906); The Empire of the Ptolemies (1896); Greek Life and
Thought from Alexander to the Roman Conquest (2nd ed., 1896);
The Greek World under Roman Sway from Polybius to Plutarch
(1890). His translation of Kuno Fischer’s Commentary on Kant
(1866) and his own exhaustive analysis, with elucidations, of
Kant’s critical philosophy are of great value. He also edited the
Petrie papyri in the Cunningham Memoirs (3 vols. 1891–1905).
MAHALLAT, a province of central Persia, situated between Kashan and Irak. Pop. about 20,000; yearly revenue about £2500. Until 1890 it was one of the five “central provinces” (the other four being Irak, Ferahan, Kezzaz, and Savah), which were under a governor appointed by the shah; since then it has formed part of the Isfahan government. It is traversed by the Anarbar or Kum River, and comprises the city of Mahallat, divided into upper and lower, or Rivkan and Zanjirvan, and twenty-two flourishing villages. It was known in former times as Anar, the Anarus of Peutinger’s tables. The city, capital of the province, is situated at an elevation of 5850 ft. in 33° 51′ N., 50° 30′ E.; pop. about 9000.
MAHAN, ALFRED THAYER (1840– ), American naval
officer and historian, was born on the 27th of September 1840
at West Point, New York. His father, Dennis Hart Mahan
(1802–1871) was a professor in the military academy, and the
author of textbooks on civil and military engineering. The son
graduated at the naval academy in 1859, became lieutenant in
1861, served on the “Congress,” and on the “Pocahontas,”
“Seminole,” and “James Adger” during the Civil War, and was
instructor at the naval academy for a year. In 1865 he was made
lieut.-commander, commander in 1872, captain in 1885. Meanwhile
he saw service in the Gulf of Mexico, the South Atlantic, the
Pacific, and Asia, and did shore duty at Boston, New York and
Annapolis. In 1886–89 he was president of the naval war college at
Newport, Rhode Island. Between 1889 and 1892 he was
engaged in special service for the bureau of navigation, and in
1893 was made commander of the “Chicago,” of the European
squadron. In 1896 he retired from active service, but was a
member of the naval board of strategy during the war between
the United States and Spain. He was a member of the peace
congress at the Hague in 1899. This long and varied service
gave him extensive opportunities for observation, which he supplemented
by constant study of naval authorities and reflection
on the interpretation of the problems of maritime history. His
first book was a modest and compact story of the affairs in The
Gulf and Inland Waters (1883), in a series of volumes by various
writers, entitled The Navy in the Civil War; in 1890 he suddenly
acquired fame by the appearance of his masterly work entitled
The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783. Having
been impressed by the failure of historians to allow for the influence
of sea power in struggles between nations, he was led to
make prolonged investigations of this general theme (see Sea Power).
The reception accorded the volume was instant and
hearty; in England, in particular, it was deemed almost an epoch-making
work, and was studied by naval specialists, cabinet
ministers and journalists, as well as by a large part of the general
public. It was followed by The Influence of Sea Power upon the
French Revolution and Empire (2 vols. 1892); The Life of Nelson,
the Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain (1897); and Sea
Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 (1905). The author’s
general aim in these works—some of which have been translated
into French, German and Japanese—was to make the consideration
of maritime matters paramount to that of military, political
or economic movements, without, however, as he himself says
“divorcing them from their surroundings of cause and effect in
general history, but seeking to show how they modified the latter,
and were modified by them.” He selected the year 1660 as the
beginning of his narrative, as being the date when the “sailing-ship
era, with its distinctive features, had fairly begun.” The
series as a whole has been accepted as finally authoritative, supplanting
its predecessors of similar aim, and almost—in the
words of Theodore Roosevelt—founding a new school of naval
historical writing.
Other works by Mahan are a Life of Admiral Farragut (1892); The Interest of America in Sea Power (1897); Lessons of the War with Spain (1899); The Story of the War with South Africa and The Problem of Asia (1900); Types of Naval Officers drawn from the History of the British Navy (1901); Retrospect and Prospect, studies of international relations (1902).
MAHANADI, or Mahanuddy (“The Great River”), a river of India. It rises in 20° 10′ N., 82° E., 25 m. S. of Raipur town, in the wild mountains of Bastar in the Central Provinces. At first an insignificant stream, taking a northerly direction, it drains the eastern portion of the Chhattisgarh plain, then a little above Seorinarayan it receives the waters which its first great affluent, the Seonath, has collected from the western portion of the plain; thence flowing for some distance due E., its stream is augmented by the drainage of the hills of Uprora, Korba, and the ranges that separate Sambalpur from Chota Nagpur. At Padampur it turns towards the south, and struggling through masses of rock, flows past the town of Sambalpur to Sonpur. From Sonpur it pursues a tortuous course among ridges and rocky crags towards the range of the Eastern Ghats. This mountain line it pierces by a gorge about 40 m. in length, overlooked by forest-clad hills. Since the opening of the Bengal-Nagpur railway, the Mahanadi is little used for navigation. It pours down upon the Orissa delta at Naraj, about 7 m. west of Cuttack town; and after traversing Cuttack district from west to east, and throwing off numerous branches (the Katjori, Paika, Biropa, Chitartala, &c.) it falls into the Bay of Bengal at False Point by several channels.
The Mahanadi has an estimated drainage area of 43,800 sq. m., and its rapid flow renders its maximum discharge in time of flood second to that of no other river in India. During unusually high floods 1,500,000 cub. ft. of water pour every second through the Naraj gorge, one-half of which, uncontrolled by the elaborate
