Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/23

M U I M U L 13 attached to the kingdom of "Westphalia, and in 1815 it again became Prussian. The Teutonic Order established itself at Miihl- hausen in 1200, and acquired considerable property there, which ultimately passed into the possession of the town. MUIR, JOHX (1810-1882), Sanskrit scholar, was born on 5th February 1810 in Glasgow, where his father, William Muir, was a merchant. He was educated at the grammar school of Irvine, the university of Glasgow, and the East India Company s college at Haileybury. He went to India in 1828, and served with distinction in various offices, as assistant secretary to the board of revenue, Allahabad, as magistrate and collector at Azimgarh, as principal of the Victoria College, Benares, and as civil and session judge at Futtehpoor. He was throughout remarkable for his zeal in cultivating and encouraging the study of San skrit, in finding methods and furthering schemes for the enlightenment and amelioration of the Hindus. He was persuaded that the only way in which they could escape from the tyranny of caste, with all its attendant evils, was by being made to know how they had become what they were, and also how the freer and more civilized "Western peoples believed and lived. He worked assidu ously at the organization and development of the higher edu cation of India, and endeavoured to stimulate the learned classes to the study of their own most ancient literature, and of the religious and philosophical literature of the West. He did while in India much work in both depart ments, and was the occasion of still more being done both by Hindus and Europeans. In 1853 he retired from the service and settled in Edinburgh, where he may be said to have continued under more favourable conditions his Indian labours. In 1862 he endowed the chair of Sanskrit in the university of Edinburgh, and was the main agent in founding the Shaw fellowship in mental philosophy. He was a D.C.L. of Oxford, LL.D. of Edinburgh, and Ph.D. of Bonn. He died 7th March 1882. In 1858 appeared vol. i. of his Original Sanskrit Texts (2d ed. 1868) ; it was on the origin of caste, an inquiry intended to show that it did not exist in the Vedic age. Vol. ii. (1st ed. 1860, 2d 1871) was concerned with the origin and racial affinities of the Hindus, exhibiting all the then available evidences of their con nexion, their linguistic, social, and political kinship, with the other branches of the Indo-European stock. Vol. iii. (1st ed. 1861, 2d 1868) was on the Vedas, a full and exhaustive inquiry as to the ideas of their origin, authority, and inspiration held both by the Vedic and later Indian writers. Vol. iv. (1st ed. 1863, 2d 1873) was a comparison of the Vedic with the later representations of the principal Indian deities, an exhibition of the process by which three gods hardly known to the Vedic hymns became the deities of the former Hindu Trimurti. Vol. v. (1870) was on the Vedic myth ology. These texts form still our most exhaustive work on the Vedic age, and show better than any others the point from which the peculiar religious and political development of India started. Dr Muir was also the author of a volume of Metrical Translations from the Sanskrit, an anonymous work on Inspiration, several works in Sanskrit, and many essays in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society and elsewhere. MULA, a town of Spain, in the province of Murcia, is situated 22 miles to the westward of that town on the slope and summit of an eminence on the left bank of the Mula, a small tributary of the Segura, periodically liable to destructive floods. The Sierra Espuiia rises on the south to a height of nearly 5200 feet. The usual public buildings, grouped round the central square of the town, present no features of special interest. The ground of the neighbourhood is somewhat broken, but of the cultivable portion about one-half is occupied with olives and vines. The industries and trade of the place are con nected principally with agriculture. The population in 1877 was 10,597. About 3|- miles to the eastward are two groups of houses known as the Banos de Mula, with warm sulphurous springs of considerable local repute. MULBERRY. The mulberry family (Moracex) is usually included, along with the closely-allied figs, bread fruits, nettles, hops, planes, and elms, in one vast alliance of monochlamydeous Exogens, the order Urticacese, (or Ul- maceae, as Baillon prefers to call it). The Moracex include three sub-families, of which the typical genera are : Drsr- stenia, which is almost a Fig ; Broussonetia, the Paper Mulberry of Japan, the East Indies, and the South Sea Islands ; and Morus, the Mulberry proper, of which the ten or twelve species are all native to temperate regions in Asia and America, or to hill regions in their tropics, but are readily cultivated in similar climates in Europe, Africa, and Australia. The Black Mulberry (Morus nigra, L.) is mainly culti vated for its purplish black compound fruit (a sorosix formed by the aggregated drupes of the whole female in florescence), which is wholesome and palatable if eaten fresh from the tree before acetous fermentation has had time to set in. Save in syrup, and on account of its rich dark-red colouring matter, it has no longer any pharma ceutical uses. (See HORTICULTURE, vol. xii. p. 272.) The White Mulberry (M. alba, L.), so called from its nearly white fruit, is the one mainly employed in seri culture. There are many varieties, among which tho Philippine Mulberry (var. multicaulvs) is perhaps most highly esteemed. The American and Indian species (M. americana and M. indica, the latter not to be confounded with Morinda citrifolia, a cinchonaceous tree, sometimes also called Indian Mulberry) are also cultivated for the same purpose. For systematic and descriptive purposes see " Morus " in Baillon, Hist. d. Plantes, vi. ; or Luerssen, Med. Pharm. Botanik, vol. ii. For history and economic uses see F. v. Miiller, Select Plants for Culture in Victoria, Melbourne, 1876 ; and Hehn, Kulturpflanzcn, &.C., 3d ed., Berlin, 1877 ; also SILK. MULE. Though this term is not unfrequently applied to the produce of two creatures of different species, and is synonymous with hybrid, yet in its ordinary accepta tion it is employed to designate the offspring or " cross " between the equine and asinine species. There are two kinds of mule the Mule proper (Equus Asinus, var. y ; Mulus ; Fr., Mulct or Grand Mulet ; Ger., Grosser Maul- esel), which is the hybrid produce of a male ass with a mare, and the Ninny (Equus Asinus, var. 8 ; Hinnus ; Fr., Bar dot or Petit Mulet; Ger., Kleiner Maulesel), the offspring of the stallion and female ass. The mule is the more valu able of the two, and to its production the attention of breeders is entirely directed. Indeed, the hinny is so rarely produced, owing to the antipathy of the stallion to the female ass, that many authorities deny its existence. Intercourse between the mare and male ass is very sel dom voluntary ; indeed, horses will not associate with asses, and combats between them are often serious. The male ass will freely mate with the mare, but the latter has a strong repugnance to him, as has also the stallion for the female ass. Hence in mule-breeding the mare has to be blindfolded and otherwise deceived, or secured in a travis or by ropes, before she will allow the ass to approach her. Fecundation is not so certain between the ass and horse species as between the male and female of either species, for, while of four mares three at least will be fecundated by the stallion, as a rule only two will be so by the ass. Fecundation of the hybrid female by the male ass or the stallion is not very rare ; but it is otherwise with the male hybrid, no instance being recorded in which he has been prolific, though physically the animal appears to be perfect, and often exhibits an intense ardour for the female. The female mule, when fecundated, seldom reaches the natural term of pregnancy, and rarely brings forth a living offspring. The duration of gestation in a mare impregnated by the ass is a little longer than in impregnation by the stallion, the average being 375 days. Abortion readily occurs, and more care is necessary than in breeding horses or asses.