Proceedings, the chief concrete results being the two volumes of Phantasms of the Living (1886), to which he contributed the introduction. Like many theorists, he had a faculty for ignoring hard facts, and in his anxiety to generalize plausibly upon the alleged data, and to hammer out striking formulae, his insight into the real character of the evidence may have left something to be desired. His long series of papers on subliminal consciousness, the results of which were embodied in a posthumous work called Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death (2 vols. 1903), constitute his own chief contribution to psychical theory. This, as he himself would have been the first to admit, was little more than provisional; but Professor William James has pointed out that the series of papers on subliminal consciousness is “the first attempt to consider the phenomena of hallucination, hypnotism, automatism, double personality and mediumship, as connected parts of one whole subject.” The last work published in his lifetime was a small collection of essays, Science and a Future Life (1893). He died at Rome on the 17th of January 1901, but was buried in his native soil at Keswick.
MYINGYAN, a district in the Meiktila division of Upper Burma. It lies in the valley of the Irrawaddy, to the south of Mandalay, on the east bank of the river. Area, 3137 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 356,052, showing an increase of 1% in the decade and a density of 114 inhabitants to the square mile. The greater part of the district is flat, especially to the north and along the banks of the Irrawaddy. Inland the country rises in gently undulating slopes. The most noticeable feature is Popa hill, an extinct volcano, in the south-eastern corner of the district. The highest peak is 4962 ft. above sea-level. The climate is dry and healthy, with high south winds from March till September. The annual rainfall averages about 35 in. The temperature varies between 106° and 70° F. The ordinary crops are millet, sesamum, cotton, maize, rice, gram, and a great variety of peas and beans. The district as a whole is not well watered, and most of the old irrigation tanks had fallen into disrepair before the annexation. There are no forests, but a great deal of low scrub. The lacquer ware of Nyaung-u and other villages near Pagan is noted throughout Burma. A considerable number of Chinese inhabit Myingyan and the larger villages. The headquarters town, Myingyan, stands on the Irrawaddy, and had a population in 1901 of 16,139. It is the terminus of the branch railway through Meiktila to the main line from Mandalay to Rangoon. The steamers of the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company also call here. A cotton-pressing machine was erected here in the time of independent Burma, and still exists.
MYITKYINA, the most northerly of the districts of Upper Burma in the Mandalay division, separated from Bhamo district in 1895. It is cut up into strips by comparatively low parallel ranges of hills running in a general way north and south. The chief plain is that of Myitkyina, covering 600 sq. m. To the east of the Irrawaddy, which bisects the district, it is low-lying and marshy. To the west it rises to a higher level, and is mostly dry. Except in the hills inhabited by the Kachin tribes there are practically no villages off the line of the Irrawaddy. The Indawgyi lake, a fine stretch of water measuring 16 m. by 6, lies in the south-west of the district. A very small amount of cultivation is carried on, mostly without irrigation. Area, 10,640 sq. m.; estimated population (1901) 67,399, showing a density of six persons to the square mile. More than half the total are Kachins, who inhabit the hills on both sides of the Irrawaddy. The headquarters town, Myitkyina, had in 1901 a population of 3618. It is the limit of navigation on the Irrawaddy, and the terminus of the railway from Rangoon and Sagaing.
MYLODON (Gr. for “mill-tooth” from μυλών and ὀδούς), a genus of extinct American edentate mammals, typified by a species (M. harlani) from the Pleistocene of Kentucky and other parts of the United States, but more abundantly represented in the corresponding formations of South America, especially Argentina and Brazil. The mylodons belong to the group of ground-sloths, and are generally included in the family Megatheriidae, although sometimes made the type of a separate family. From Megatherium these animals, which rivalled the Indian rhinoceros in bulk, differ in the shape of their cheek-teeth; these (five above and four below) being much smaller, with an ovate section, and a cupped instead of a ridged crown-surface, thus resembling those of the true sloths. In certain species of mylodon the front pair of teeth in each jaw is placed some distance in front of the rest and has the crown surface obliquely bevelled by wearing against the corresponding teeth in the opposite jaw. On this account such species have been referred to a second genus, under the name of Lestodon, but the distinction scarcely seems necessary. The skull is shorter and lower than in Megatherium, without any vertical expansion of the middle of the lower jaw, and the teeth also extend nearly to the front of the jaws; both these features being sloth-like. In the fore feet the three inner toes have large claws, while the two outer ones are rudimentary and clawless; in the hind-limbs the first toe is wanting, as in Megatherium, but the second and third are clawed. The skin was strengthened by a number of small deeply-embedded bony nodules.
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| From Owen. |
| Skeleton of Mylodon robustus (Pleistocene, South America). |
Although the typical M. harlani is North American, the mylodons are essentially a South American group, a few of the representatives of which effected an entrance into North America when that continent became finally connected with South America. Special interest attaches to the recent discovery in the cavern of Ultima Esperanza, South Patagonia, of remains of the genus Glossotherium, or Grypotherium, a near relative of Mylodon, but differing from it in having a bony arch connecting the nasal bones of the skull with the premaxillae; these include a considerable portion of the skin with the hair attached. Ossicles somewhat resembling large coffee-berries had been previously found in association with the bones of Mylodon, and in Glossotherium nearly similar ossicles occur embedded on the inner side of the thick hide. The coarse and shaggy hair is somewhat like that of the sloths. The remains, which include not only the skeleton and skin, but likewise the droppings, were found buried in grass which appears to have been chopped up by man, and it thus seems not only evident that these ground-sloths dwelt in the cave, but that there is a considerable probability of their having been kept there in a semi-domesticated state by the early human inhabitants of Patagonia. The extremely fresh condition of the remains has given rise to the idea that Glossotherium may still be living in the wilds of Patagonia.
Scelidotherium is another genus of large South American Pleistocene ground-sloths, characterized, among other features, by the elongation and slenderness of the skull, which thus makes a decided approximation to the anteater type, although retaining the full series of cheek-teeth, which were, of course, essential to an herbivorous animal. The feet resemble those of Megatherium. A much smaller South American species represents the genus Nothrotherium.
In North America Mylodon was accompanied by another gigantic species typifying the genus Megalonyx, in which the fore part of the skull was usually wide, and the third and fourth front toes carried claws. Another genus has been described from the Pleistocene
