Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/369

MEERUT MEGALONYX 357 head of the Mediterranean, occurring in the form of veins in serpentine, and also in tertiary deposits. Dr. J. Lawrence Smith found it in Asia Minor in alluvium, apparently the result of the decomposition of carbonate of magnesia belonging to neighboring serpentine rocks. It is largely collected there for the manufacture of pipes and cigar tubes, the town of Konieh furnishing the principal supplies. It is rough- ly shaped into blocks, or sometimes into rude forms of pipes, for exportation, and freed as far as practicable from the associated minerals, which impair its quality by interfering with the carving and smoothing of its surface. It is fashioned into finished pipes, which are often highly ornamented, in different cities of Europe. Pesth and Vienna are famous for this manufacture. To produce the yellow and brown colors, which are much admired in the pipes, and which are brought out only after long smoking, the blocks are kept for some time in a mixture of wax and fatty matters. A portion of these is absorbed, and, being subsequently acted upon by the heat and the tobacco fumes, assumes various shades of col- or. The lightest qualities are too porous for producing the best pipes ; and the heaviest are rejected from suspicion of their being arti- ficial products. These artificial preparations are from the parings of the genuine material, which, being reduced to fine powder, are boiled in water and moulded into blocks, sometimes with the addition of clay. After drying and contracting, they are ready for carving. This kind is known by the name of MassaMpfe or massa bowls. The artificial meerschaums can- not easily be distinguished from the real ; but they are generally heavier, and are more free from blemishes, some of which, arising from the presence of foreign minerals, are often seen in the genuine meerschaums. MEERUT. I. A district of British India, in the Northwest Provinces, forming part of the Doab, and bounded E. by the Ganges and W. by the Jumna ; area, 2,332 sq. m. ; pop. in 1871, 1,271,454, of whom about 900,000 were Hindoos. A ridge of low hills traverses the district from N. to S., separating the valleys of the Ganges and Jumna, but the surface is generally remarkably level. The soil is abun- dantly watered by the Ganges and Jumna, and by the Ganges canal, about 50 m. of which lies in the district. The vegetation of the tropics alternates here with that of more northern latitudes, wheat being cultivated in the cool season, and sugar cane, indigo, and cotton in the wet. Apples, peaches, mangoes, and straw- berries abound. The climate is one of the finest in India. II. A city, capital of the dis- trict, on the river Kalee Nuddee, nearly equi- distant from the Ganges and the Jumna, 820 m. K W. of Calcutta, and 40 m. N. E. of Del- hi ; pop. about 30,000. The streets are narrow and dirty, and the native part of the town is wretchedly built, though it contains some ruined mosques and pagodas of considerable architectural interest. It is an important mili- tary station, having an extensive cantonment about 2 m. distant. The English church, which is capable of holding 3,000 people, is one of the finest in India. In the beginning of the sepoy rebellion, one of the most serious out- breaks occurred at Meerut. The town con- tained at that time about 4,500 troops, nearly half of whom were Europeans. The native sol- diers showed insubordination as early as April, 1857; and on May 9, 85 troopers were im- prisoned for refusing to receive the new car- tridges. On the next day, Sunday, the com- rades of these men and the sepoys of the 20th native infantry rushed from their lines on a given signal and proceeded to the quarters of the llth native infantry, whose colonel fell riddled with balls while endeavoring to per- suade them to return to duty. The llth now joined the rebels, the imprisoned troopers were released, 1,200 ruffians were let loose from the jail, and the mutineers and the rabble set fire to the cantonment and murdered every Euro- pean who fell in their way. The English troops were badly managed, and the rebels escaped them and marched to Delhi. MEGALOMX (Gr. ^yc?, /zeyaAou, great, and bwt; , claw), an extinct genus of giant edentates, allied to the sloths, established in 1797 by Thomas Jefferson, in a communication to the American philosophical society of Philadelphia, in whose " Transactions " the bones were de- scribed by Dr. Caspar Wistar, who first sug- gested the affinity of the animal to the recent sloths. The first bones were discovered in a limestone cavern in western Virginia, and were referred by Mr. Jefferson, from the large size of the claws, to some carnivorous animal ; the original specimens of this, the M. Jeffersonii (Harlan), are in the cabinet of the academy of natural sciences at Philadelphia. These, and other bones found in Tennessee, Kentucky, Mis- sissippi, and Alabama, form the materials of the most complete monograph on the subject, that of Prof. Joseph Leidy, in vol. vii. of the " Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge " (1855). The skull is about 14 in. long, with the upper outline nearly horizontal, depressed forehead, and convex nose ; the sagittal crest prominent and rugged; zygomatic process strong, and temporal fossa rough for the attach- ment of muscular fibres ; the mastoid process strongly marked ; the orbital cavity shallow ; the hard palate between the three posterior molars 14 lines wide, with a median convexity nearly as prominent as the teeth, becoming al- most plane in advance of the third molars, and varying in width from 2-J- to 4 in., perforated by large foramina and by a large incisive fora- men between the first molars ; the occipital fo- ramen circular, 16 lines in diameter, the surface of the foraminal bone being rough for the at- tachment of powerful muscles ; orifice of nose irregularly circular, about 3 in. in diameter; lower jaw about 13 in. long. The teeth are long, without fangs, sub-elliptical, of nearly uni-