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MOZAMBIQUE CHANNEL
1274
MUENSTERBERG


boundary of Mozambique proper, its inland border extending to Lake Nyasa. The coast is low and swampy, but the interior has well-wooded plains with valuable timber. The soil is fertile and produces corn, rice, cotton, cocoanut and india-rubber. The country is rich in minerals, but mining has not been extensive. The capital is Mozambique, built on a coral island near the mainland. The Mozambique Company administers, besides Mozambique, the Manica and Sofala region. Railways operate into Rhodesia and Transvaal, others are building, and there are telegraphs.


Mozambique Channel lies between Madagascar and the eastern coast of Africa. It is 400 miles wide and 1,050 long.


Mozart (mō'zärt), Wolfgang Amade'us Chrys'ostom, the great musician, was born at Salzburg, Germany, Jan. 27, 1756. When only six years old, his father took him and nis sister on a musical tour through Europe. In Bologna, then the great center of music in Italy, the Philharmonic Society elected him for membership when only fifteen, in spite of its rule that no one under twenty should be admitted. The Easter music in the Sistine Chapel was jealously guarded and no copy allowed to be made, but young Mozart, hearing it once, wrote it out from memory. In 1781 he lost his position in the court of the archbishop with whom he had gone to Vienna. He soon after produced two operas, one of them The Marriage of Figaro, which created a furore, and he was commissioned to write an opera for the theater in Prague. The summer-house where, and the little stone table on which, he wrote this opera, Don Giovanni, are still shown in the gardens at Prague. The great success of this work made it impossible for the court to overlook his merits longer, and he received an appointment from the emperor with a small salary, his duty being to supply the dance-music at the imperial balls. He struggled with debt, mistaken loyalty preventing him from leaving the service of the emperor when offered a better position in Prussia. A friend, a theater-manager in financial difficulties, induced Mozart to come to his aid with a new opera, and in March, 1791, he began his Magic Flute. It was produced in September, and made the fortune of the lucky manager. While at work on this opera, a stranger visited him and commissioned him to write a requiem mass, to be finished in a month. He imagined there was something mysterious about the order, and said he was writing it for himself. He really was dying, and on Dec. 4, 1791, when a few friends met to rehearse the part of the work that was finished, he was unequal to the effort, though even when unconscious seeming to be occupied with his work. He died that night at Vienna, and was buried in the churchyard. When his wife tried to find the grave a few days after, no one could tell her where it was. Many years after his death Vienna honored him with a monument. Mozart wrote 624 compositions. In opera and symphony he is second to none. His three great operas, Don Giovanni, the Magic Flute and Figaro, still hold the stage, and three of his forty-one symphonies will always be admired as long as music exists. See Life by Otto John, translated by Townsend.


Mudfishes, a group of widely differing fishes frequenting muddy waters. The term includes the bowfin or mudfish found throughout our central states from Lake Superior to Florida and Texas; a small marine goby occuring on the California coast; the killifish called the mummichog; and the lungfishes or Dipnoi. The flesh of the bowfin is eaten by our negroes, but not relished by whites. This fish is known in the south as mudfish or grindle; in the north it is sometimes called dogfish, sometimes lawyer. It is very gamy, makes a brave struggle before it surrenders, and also is very hardy, for it can live a considerable time out of water. It attains a length of about two feet, a weight of twelve pounds; the head is thick, the mouth filled with powerful teeth. It is very voracious. When frightened, the young seek safety in the mother's huge mouth. The mummichog is common in our brackish waters. The Dipnoi or double-breathers, in having lungs, approach the class of amphibia just above the fishes. They are descended from a very ancient stock of fishes, representatives of which are found in the mesozoic rocks. There are only three varieties now living: the ceratodus of Queensland, Australia; the protopterus of the rivers of tropical Africa; and the lepidosiren of the Amazon and its tributaries. All are fresh-water fish of an eel-like form, and attain a length of three to six feet. Ceratodus is the largest, reaching a weight of twenty pounds. Its flesh is highly esteemed as food. It feeds on plants and the insects found upon the leaves. Protopterus is smaller. It feeds on insects, frogs and smaller fishes. At the approach of the dry season it burrows in the mud, and forms a capsule of earth around itself. This is lined internally with a moist slime secreted by the glands in the skin. Within this case the fish lies in a dormant condition, feeding upon fatty material stored up mainly in the tail. These capsules of earth have been dug out, and the living fish safely transported to Europe and the United States. They are revived by immersion in the water. The lepidosiren is not so well-known as the other two forms.


Muen'sterberg, Hugo, a psychologist and professor at Harvard University and a distinguished scientist and writer, was born at Dantzig, Germany, in 1863. After study-