Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/782

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776 McCOOK McCREA several years, and his zeal during his first arctic voyage under Capt. Back was rewarded by a lieutenancy. In 1848 he accompanied the Franklin expedition of Sir John Ross. In the years 1850-'54 he led the crew of her majesty's ship Investigator by vessel and sledge across the great ice-encumbered sea, from the Pacific to the Atlantic, via Banks land and Melville island, being finally delivered by McClintock and Kellett, of Belcher's expedition, and thus achieving what is known as a northwest pas- sage. Lady Franklin, however, in a letter to the London " Times," Oct. 28, 1873, claims for Sir John Franklin the honor of having been the first to discover the northwest passage, during his last expedition. (See ARCTIC DIS- COVERY.) McOlure was made captain and a baronet, and parliament voted to him a sum of 5,000. Capt. (since Admiral) Sherard Os- born published from McClure's documents a narrative of " The Discovery of the North- west Passage " (London, 1856). MeCOOK, a S. E. county of Dakota, recently formed, and not included in the census of 1870; area, 432 sq. m. It is drained by Ver- milion river. The surface consists, of undu- lating prairies, and the soil is fertile. MHOSII, James, a Scottish metaphysician, born in Ayrshire in 1811. He was educated at the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh ; and while a student at Edinburgh he wrote an essay on the Stoic philosophy, for which the university, on motion of Sir William Ham- ilton, conferred upon him the honorary de- gree of A. M. He was ordained a minister of the church of Scotland at Arbroath in 1835, but removed in 1839 to Brechin, where in 1843 he took an active part in the organiza- tion of the Free church of Scotland. While pastor at Brechin he published a work en- titled "Method of the Divine Government, Physical and Moral " (8vo, Edinburgh, 1850), in which he endeavors to interrogate nature by the inductive method, avoiding either a preconceived rational system or a transcen- dental intuitionalism, inquiring what is the method of the divine government, primarily in the physical world, and secondarily in prov- idence as related to the character of man and tending to his restoration. This work discusses the laws of substance and phenomenon and of cause and effect in physical nature and in the human mind, and gained the author a wide reputation both in Great Britain and in America. He has since continued the argument in " The Supernatural in relation to the Natural " (Belfast, 1862), which was in- tended as the first part of a work on " The Method of the Divine Government, Supernat- ural and Spiritual," and shows that nature, as distinguished from the supernatural, is really a system within the larger system of the super- natural, from which it springs. In 1851 he was appointed professor of logic and meta- physics in Queen's college, Belfast, where he became distinguished as a lecturer, and wrote his *' Intuitions of the Mind inductively in- vestigated " (London, 1860), which established his reputation as a metaphysical writer. It explains what intuitions properly are, which of them are moral convictions, and how they are related to the sciences, particularly to metaphysics and theology. Avoiding alike the negation of Locke and an extravagant transcendentalism, he investigates the intui- tions by a strict induction from facts well established by consciousness, using induction to discover what is prior to induction. In 1868 he removed to the United States, having been elected president of the college of New Jersey, at Princeton, where his administration has been remarkably successful. Since assu- ming this office he has published "The Laws of Discursive Thought," a text book of logic, discussing with great fulness the nature and relation of terms, which he makes the foun- dation of all reasoning, holding that logic has mainly to do with "the notion." He received the degree of LL. D. from Harvard university in 1868. Besides the works already named, he has published " An Examination of Mill's Philosophy " (London, 1866) ; " Philosophical Papers," containing a review of Sir William Hamilton's "Logic " (1869) ; " Christianity and Positivism," a course of lectures delivered in the Union theological seminary in New York (1871), in which he declares that the questions of evolution and the origin of life belong to science altogether, but, however decided, will not impair the theological argument from de- sign ; and " The Scottish Philosophy, Biograph- ical, Expository, and Critical, from Hutcheson to Hamilton " (New York, 1874). In conjunc- tion with Prof. George Dickie, M. D., he has published "Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation " (Edinburgh, 1856). He has also published a number of "important addresses. MeCRACKEN, a W. county of Kentucky, sep- arated from Illinois by the Ohio river; area, 232 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 13,988, of whom 3,289 were colored. The Tennessee river forms its N. E. boundary, and it is drained by the Clark river and its branches. The surface is level and the soil fertile. The Pa- ducah and Memphis railroad passes through it. The chief productions in 1870 were 31,543 bushels of wheat, 273,914 of Indian corn, 18,690 of Irish and 11,985 of sweet potatoes, 1,545,050 Ibs. of tobacco, and 84,991 of butter. There were 1,359 horses, 887 mules and asses, 1,392 milch cows, 1,540 other cattle, 4,110 sheep, and 12,600 swine; 3 manufactories of agricultural implements, 5 of carriages and wagons, 4 of iron castings, &c., 4 of saddlery and harness, 1 of sash, doors, and blinds, 3 of tobacco and snuff, 3 of cigars, 3 saw mills, and 2 flour mills. Capital, Paducah. MeCREA, Jane, an American woman, born at Lamington, N. J., in 1754, killed near Fort Edward, Washington co., N. Y., July 27, 1777. She was the daughter of a Scotch Presbyterian clergyman settled in New Jersey, after whose