MADRID
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MAGDEBURG
are located here. The garrison is about 3,500 strong, of whom 1,200 are Europeans. Madras ranks third among the ports of India in the number and tonnage of vessels calling and in the value of imports and exports. The city dates from 1639. It is liable to be swept by furious hurricanes, which occur some years at the beginning of the monsoons in May and October. The present population is 518,660 about three-fourths of whom are Hindus. Over 50,000 are Mohammedans, 13,000 Eurasians and about 4,000 Europeans. Madras Presidency has an area of 141,726 square miles, with a population of 41,465,404. It comprises the 'eastern or Coromandel coast, a large part of the interior of the Deccan and part of the western or Malabar coast. Its mountain ranges are the eastern and western Ghats, and it is watered by Godavari, Kistna and Kavari Rivers. Madras also forms one of the feudatory or native states, 9,969 square miles in extent, with a population of 4,811,841.
Madrid (ma-dmd' or md-dreth'), capital of Spain, is situated on the left bank of the Manzanares, 880 miles by rail from Paris. It is built on a treeless plateau 2,000 feet above the sea; and its sole recommendation as a capital would seem to be its central position in the peninsula. When Madrid was declared the capital by Philip II in 1561, it contained about 30,000 inhabitants. At the beginning of the i9th century the population numbered 160,000; in 1860 it was 298,000; and the last census gives 571,539. There is a university with 95 professors and 5,118 students. Madrid also is a province, with an area of 3,084 square miles and a population of 845,405.
Maelstrom (mdl'strum), a famous whirlpool or, rather, current in the Arctic Ocean, between Mosken and Moskerra, two of the Lofoten Isles, on the northwestern coast of Norway. Vessels can pass through this strait at high tide and low tide, although in one place there always is a rough sea, the water being churned into angry foam. The stories of ships being swallowed are mere fables, although a ship fully under the power of the current might be dashed against the rocks on either side. The current takes 12 hours to complete a circular revolution.
Maeterlinck (nie'ter-link), Maurice, a Belgian poet, essayist and dramatist, was born at Ghent in 1862. He was educated for the law, and admitted to the bar in 1887. In 1896 he abandoned law for authorship, making his home in Paris. Maeterlinck is the chief name in the literary school which is known as Young Belgium. His dramas tend to be mystical and symbolic. They lean to the unreal and at times to the morbid. The philosophical essays of Maeterlinck are regarded as masterpieces in their style. His lyric verse, which includes the volumes, Series Chaudes and Dou^e Chansons, is imaginative rather than sweet. Several of his
dramas are translated into English, e. g., The Blind, The Intruder, Princess Maleine and The Seven Princesses. The chief volumes of Maeterlinck's essays are Le Tresor des Humbles, La Lagesse et la Destinee and La Vie des Abeilles. The dramas of Maeterlinck are better adapted for reading than the stage, although they inaugurated a new school, — that of the Drame Intime.
Mafia (md-je'a), a Sicilian order or secret society, which gradually came to supplant the authority of the state by its own decrees, which are enforced even at the cost of life itself. Its organization does not appear to be of a very definite nature; but its power is undoubted and pervasive. It controls elections, affords protection against the officers of justice, and practically renders it impossible for those not members of its orders to secure employment in Sicily. Boycotting, its usual weapon, is supplemented by violence whenever occasion may seem to demand it. Nearly all crimes of violence which occur in any part of Italy are laid at its door, with how much truth in particular cases it is impossible to say. In the United States there is little doubt that it has its own secret agents, as murders in the Italian quarters of our American cities are seldom traced to their real perpetrators, and the guilty parties are but rarely brought to justice.
Magdalen Islands are situated in the lower St. Lawrence, lying farther south in the gulf than does Anticosti. They possess large deposits of gypsum.
Mag'dale'na, the principal river of Colombia, South America, rises in Ecuador, about 2° north latitude, only eight miles from the source of the Cauca. These streams flow northward, one on each side of the central Cordillera range, uniting about 100 miles from the Caribbean Sea, into which their waters are discharged. The Magdalena is navigable to Honda, 620 miles from its mouth, where the rapids begin; and above these it has been navigated to Neiva since 1875, a 2o-mile railway alongside the rapids connecting the upper and lower portions of the stream. The length of the Magdalena is 1,050 miles, and the area of its drainage has been estimated at 9 2.000 square miles. Magdalena also is a province or department and the seat of silver-mines. It has an area of 20,460 square miles, with a population of 100,000; its capital is Santa Marta (population 6,000).
Magdeburg (mdg'de-bo^6rgf),ihe capital of Prussian Saxony and one of the chief fortresses of the German Empire, is situated on the Elbe, 90 miles from Berlin and 72 from Leipsic. Magdeburg was founded by Charlemagne in 805 and rebuilt by Editha, after its destruction by the Wends, in 924. During the Thirty Years' War it was besieged for 28 weeks by Wallenstein in vain; but two years later (1631) it was taken by Tilly and
