hymn-singing, Calvinism, Roman Catholicism, and the Evangelical movement as represented by Charles Simeon and the Bible Society. Among his writings are Lectures on the Criticism and Interpretation of the Bible (1828), A Comparative View of the Churches of England and Rome (1814), and Horae Pelasgicae (1815). He died at Peterborough on the 1st of May 1839.
MARSH, NARCISSUS (1638–1713), archbishop of Dublin and
Armagh, was born at Hannington, Wiltshire, and educated at
Oxford. He became a fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, in 1658.
In 1662 he was ordained, and presented to the living of Swindon,
which he resigned in the following year. After acting as chaplain
to Seth Ward, bishop of Exeter and Salisbury, and Lord
Chancellor Clarendon, he was elected principal of St Alban Hall,
Oxford, in 1673. In 1679 he was appointed provost of Trinity
College, Dublin, where he did much to encourage the study of the
Irish language. He helped to found the Royal Dublin Society,
and contributed to it a paper entitled “Introductory Essay to
the Doctrine of Sounds” (printed in Philosophical Transactions,
No. 156, Oxford, 1684). In 1683 he was consecrated bishop of
Ferns and Leighlin, but after the accession of James II. he was
compelled by the turbulent soldiery to flee to England (1689),
where he became vicar of Gresford, Flint, and canon of St Asaph.
Returning to Ireland in 1691 after the battle of the Boyne, he
was made archbishop of Cashel, and three years later he became
archbishop of Dublin. About this time he founded the Marsh
Library in Dublin. He became archbishop of Armagh in 1703.
Between 1699 and 1711 he was six times a lord justice of Ireland.
He died on the 2nd of November 1713.
MARSH, OTHNIEL CHARLES (1831–1899), American
palaeontologist, was born in Lockport, New York, on the 29th
of October 1831. He graduated at Yale College in 1860, and
studied geology and mineralogy in the Sheffield scientific school,
New Haven, and afterwards palaeontology and anatomy in
Berlin, Heidelberg and Breslau. Returning to America in 1866
he was appointed professor of vertebrate palaeontology at Yale
College, and there began the researches of the fossil vertebrata
of the western states, whereby he established his reputation. He
was aided by a private fortune from his uncle, George Peabody,
whom he induced to establish the Peabody Museum of Natural
History (especially devoted to zoology, geology and mineralogy)
in the college. In May 1871 he discovered the first pterodactyl
remains found in America, and in subsequent years he brought to
light from Wyoming and other regions many new genera and
families, and some entirely new orders of extinct vertebrata,
which he described in monographs or periodical articles. These
included remains of the Cretaceous toothed birds Hesperornis
and Ichthyornis, the Cretaceous flying-reptiles (Pteranodon),
the swimming reptiles or Mosasauria, and the Cretaceous and
Jurassic land reptiles (Dinosauria) among which were the Brontosaurus
and Atlantosaurus. The remarkable mammals which he
termed Brontotheria (now grouped as Titanotheriidae), and the
huge Dinocerata, one being the Uintatherium, were also brought
to light by him. Among his later discoveries were remains of
early ancestors of horses in America. On becoming vice-president
of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science in 1875 he gave an address on the “Introduction and
Succession of Vertebrate Life in America,” summarizing his
conclusions to that date. He repeatedly organized and often
accompanied scientific exploring expeditions in the Rocky
Mountains, and their results tended in an important degree to
support the doctrines of natural selection and evolution. He
published many papers on these, and found time—besides that
necessarily given to the accumulation and care of the most
extensive collection of fossils in the world—to write Odontornithes:
A Monograph on the Extinct Toothed Birds of North
America (1880); Dinocerata: A Monograph on an Extinct Order
of Gigantic Mammals (1884); and The Dinosaurs of North America
(1896). His work is full of accurately recorded facts of permanent
value. He was long in charge of the division of vertebrate
palaeontology in the United States Geological Survey, and
received many scientific honours, medals and degrees, American
and foreign. He died in New Haven on the 18th of March 1899.
See obituary by Dr Henry Woodward (with portrait) in Geol. Mag. (1899), p. 237.
MARSH (O. F. mersc, for merisc, a place full of “meres” or
pools; cf. Ger. Meer, sea, Lat. mare), an area of low-lying
watery land. The significance of a marsh area is not so much
in the manner of its formation as in the peculiar chemical and
physical results that accompany it, and its relation to the ecology
of plant and animal life. Chemically it is productive of such
gases as arise from decomposing vegetation and are transitory
in their effects, and in the production of hydrated iron oxide,
which may be seen floating as an iridescent scum at the edge of
rusty, marshy pools. This sinks into the soil and forms a
powerful iron cement to many sandstones, binding them into a
hard local mass, while the surrounding sandstones are loose and
friable. A curious morphological inversion follows in a later
geological period, the marsh area forming the hard cap of a hill
(see Mesa) while the surrounding sandstones are weathered
away. Salt marshes are a feature of many low-lying sea-coasts
and areas of inland drainage.
MARSHAL (med. Lat. marescalcus, from O.H.Ger. marah,
horse, and scalc, servant), a title given in various countries
to certain military and civil officers, usually of high rank. The
origin and development of the meaning of the designation is
closely analogous with that of constable (q.v.). Just as the title
of constable, in all its medieval and modern uses, is traceable to
the style and functions of the Byzantine count of the stable, so
that of marshal was evolved from the title of the marescalci,
or masters of the horse, of the early Frankish kings. In this
original sense the word survived down to the close of the Holy
Roman empire in the titular office of Erz-Marschalk (arch-marshal),
borne by the electors of Saxony. Elsewhere the
meaning of office and title was modified. The importance of
cavalry in medieval warfare led to the marshalship being associated
with military command; this again led to the duty of keeping
order in court and camp, of deciding questions of chivalry, and
to the assumption of judicial and executive functions. The
marshal, as a military leader, was originally a subordinate officer,
the chief command under the king being held by the constable;
but in the 12th century, though still nominally second to the
constable, the marshal has come to the forefront as commander
of the royal forces and a great officer of state. In England after
the Conquest the marshalship was hereditary in the family which
derived its surname from the office, and the hereditary title of
earl-marshal originated in the marriage of William Marshal
with the heiress of the earldom of Pembroke (see Earl Marshal).
Similarly, in Scotland, the office of marischal (from the French
maréchal), probably introduced under David I., became in the 14th
century hereditary in the house of Keith. In 1485 the Scottish
marischal became an earl under the designation of earl-marischal,
the dignity coming to an end by the attainder of George, 10th
earl-marischal, in 1716. In France, on the other hand, though
under Philip Augustus the marshal of France (marescalcus
Franciae) appears as commander-in-chief of the forces, care was
taken not to allow the office to become descendible; under
Francis I. the number of marshals of France was raised to two,
under Henry III. to four, and under Louis XIV. to twenty.
Revived by Napoleon, the title fell into abeyance with the
downfall of the Second empire.
In England the use of the word marshal in the sense of commander of an army appears very early; so Matthew Paris records that in 1214 King John constituted William, earl of Salisbury, marescalcus of his forces. The modern military title of field marshal, imported from Germany by King George II. in 1736, is derived from the high dignity of the marescalcus in a roundabout way. The marescalcus campi, or maréchal des champs, was originally one of a number of officials to whom the name, with certain of the functions, of the marshal was given. The marshal, being responsible for order in court and camp, had to employ subordinates, who developed into officials often but nominally dependent upon him. On military expeditions it was usual for two such marshals to precede the army, select the site of the camp and assign to the lords and knights their places in it. In
