MECCA
1196
MECKLENBURG DECLARATION
was instituted; but great scandals were revealed in 1904-5. An inquiry followed, and the result was the enactment by Congress of a law (1906) providing for rigid inspection of all animals before slaughtering, of all carcasses and meats and of slaughter-houses and meat-packing establishments, as well as of the whole process of canning, preserving and properly stamping and labeling all products. The number of wholesale establishments engaged in slaughtering and meatpacking in the United States in 1909 was 1,641, with an aggregate capital of $383,249,-ooo. They consumed materials costing $i,-201,828,000, and the value of products manufactured was $1,370,568,000. The number of animals slaughtered was about 8,114,860 cattle, 12,255,501 sheep and 33,870,616 hogs. Mecca (mek'ka), the holy city of the Moslems, is one of the oldest cities and the capital of Arabia. It is built in a narrow valley, surrounded by hills, which are crossed by two passes. The place is so secluded that the city is seen only when the traveler comes close upon it. It commands the principal caravan-routes, and early became a center of trade. The city is mainly modern, as the ancient buildings have been mostly destroyed by mountain torrents. The streets, unpaved and dirty, are broad, while the houses of stone, three and four stories high, climb the mountain. There is no drainage, and provisions of all kinds have to be brought into the city, owing to the barrenness of the soil. The population numbers about 60,000, who live upon the pilgrims who flock to the city and upon the manufacture of sacred relics. What gave Mecca its first reputation as a holy city is uncertain, though it is probably the possession of the Black Stone or fetish of the Kaaba, which attracted pilgrims ages before the time of Mohammed. This Black Stone is a small meteoric substance, and is built into the southeastern corner on the outside of the temple or Kaaba. There is another sacred stone, called the Southern Stone. The Moslems changed the temple with its heathen fetish, to a temple built by Abraham when he cast out Ishmael. The temple of Mecca or the Great Mosque is an open court surrounding the Kaaba, has 19 gates and 7 minarets, and holds 35,000 persons. The pilgrims walk around the Kaaba seven times, kiss the Black Stone and touch the Southern Stone, and pass around a small inclosure containing the supposed graves of Hagar and Ishmael. The Kaaba is covered with rich hangings, presented by the Sultan of Turkey, and has a door of silver and gilt, which is seldom opened to display the rich silver, marble and silk decorations of the interior. 11 is about 7 o feet long, about 5 o wide and nearly 40 in height. Every Mohammedan, whose means or health will permit, is obliged to make the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once. The Arabic word for a pilgrimage is hadj— and hence the Mohamme-
dan who has made the journey to Mecca is called afterward a hadji. Some who cannot make the journey themselves send some one in their place, but the honor and rewards of the deed belong, not to the substitute, but to his employer. The sacred well of Mecca may once have been a mineral spring, but analysis now gives sewage as its principal element. The city was conquered by Mohammed in 627, five years after he had fled from it. The Carmathians sacked it in 930, carrying off the Black Stone and keeping it for 22 years. It belongs now to the Turkish empire (it passed to the Turks in 1517), though the real governor is the sherif or the reputed head of the descendants of Mohammed. See Burkhardt's Travels in Arabia; Irving's Mahomet; and Palgrave's Narrative.
Mechanics (me-kan'iks) is a word employed with two distinct meanings. Sometimes it is used to denote the science of matter and energy, more properly called dynamics; and sometimes it is employed to denot} the application of dynamical principles to the theory of structures and to the theory of machines. Used in this latter sense, it is a branch of engineering and might more properly be called applied mechanics. At other times mechanics is used in a mixed sense to include both a discussion of dynamics and the application of dynamical principles to structures and machines. For pure mechanics see DYNAMICS. For applied mechanics see BRIDGE, LEVER, PULLEY, PUMP and STEAM-ENGINE. On pure mechanics — dynamics — consult Minchin's Treatise on Statics, Tait and Steele's Dynamics of a Particle and Thomson and Tait's Treatise on Natural Philosophy. Slate's Mechanics gives an excellent elementary resum6 of the subject. Worthington's Dynamics of Rotation is still more elementary. For the applications of mechanics consult Church's Mechanics of Engineering, Johnson's Materials of Construction and Ewing's Strength of Materials. For the history of the subject read Mach's Science of Mechanics or Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences.
Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, The, comprised a resolution or series of resolutions adopted in May, 1775, at a meeting of representatives of each militia-company in Mecklenburg County, N. C. It appears that the minutes which embodied the declaration were destroyed by fire in 1800. The declaration probably was restored from memory. Thus restored, it resembles the Declaration of Independence so closely that many of the phrases are word for word identical. It is possible that the Declaration of Independence in 1776 was in a measure modeled upon the Mecklenburg resolutions. It is urged, on the other hand, that many of the correspondences may be due to the confused recollection of those who restored the Mecklenburg Declaration to
