Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/391

MEMMINGEN MEMPHIS 379 MEMMINGEN, a walled town of Bavaria, in the district of Swabia and Neuburg, on the Aach, 41 m. S. W. of Augsburg; pop. in 1871, 7,215. It has six churches, a handsome town house, grammar and industrial schools, a hospi- tal, an orphan asylum, manufactures of chintz, calico, wax cloth, ribbons, tobacco, copper, and iron, a bell foundery, bleach fields, and glue works. It was a free imperial city till 1802. Here on Oct. 13, 1805, 4,000 Austrians sur- rendered to the French under Soult. MEMHINGER, Charles Gnstavns, an American politician, born in Wurtemberg, Germany, Jan. 7, 1803. His mother, a widow, emigrated to Charleston, S. C., when he was an infant, and soon died. He was placed in an orphan asy- lum, but at the age of nine was adopted by Goy. Thomas Bennett. He graduated at the South Carolina college in 1820, began to prac- tise law in Charleston in 1825, and was a leader of the Union party during the nullification excitement. He published " The Book of Nul- lification " (1832-'3), satirizing the advocates of the doctrine in Biblical style. In 1836 he was elected to the legislature, where he opposed the suspension of specie payments by the banks in 1839. He assisted the attorney general in the prosecution of the principal case, which resulted in a decision that the banks had for- feited their charters. For nearly 20 years he was at the head of the finance committee in the lower house of the legislature, from which he retired in 1852. He was again returned in 1854, having become particularly interested in the reformation of the public school system. In 1859 he was a commissioner from South Caro- lina to Virginia, to secure cooperation against the movements of abolitionists. He was ap- pointed secretary of the treasury of the Con- federate States in February, 1861, and resigned in June, 1864. MEMNON, a hero of the Trojan war, son of Tithonus and Eos or Aurora. Homer in the Odyssey describes him as the handsome son of Eos who brought a force of Ethiopians to as- sist in the defence of Troy against the Greeks. Hesiod calls him king of the Ethiopians. He was slain by Achilles. The Greeks in later ages confounded him with the Egyptian king Amenophis (Amen-hotep) III., whose colossal statue near Thebes excited their wonder by its vocal powers. It is the northernmost of two colossal sitting figures of black stone, in the approach to a temple now ruined, in the quar- ter of western Thebes called Memnonia by the Greeks. The height of each of these statues is 47 ft., and they rest upon pedestals about 12 ft. high. The upper half of the vocal Mem- non was broken off and thrown down, but was afterward restored. On the lower part are 72 inscriptions in Greek and Latin (the earliest being dated A. D. 62), by the emperor Hadrian, the empress Sabina, and by several governors of Egypt and other travellers, official and pri- vate, testifying that they have visited the Mem- non and heard his voice. The sound is said to have resembled the twanging of a harp string or the striking of brass, and it occurred at sun- rise or soon after. Strabo, who visited it with ^Elius Gallus, the governor of Egypt, says he heard the sound, but could " not affirm whether it proceeded from the pedestal or the statue it- self, or even from some of those who stood near its base." He does not mention the name of Memnon, and it was not till after his time ap- parently that the Romans began to suppose the statue to be that of the son of Tithonus. The stone in the lap of the statue, when struck with a hammer, rings with a metallic sound ; and as there is a square hole in the body just behind this, it is conjectured that the sound was pro- duced by a person concealed therein. Another theory is that the sound was the effect of the expansion of this stone by the sun's rays, as a similar sound has been thus produced from one of the roof stones of the temple at Karnak. MEMPHIS, a city, port of delivery, and the capital of Shelby co., Tennessee, situated in the S. W. corner of the state, on the Missis- sippi river, just below the mouth of Wolf river, on the fourth Chickasaw bluff, 780 m. above New Orleans, 420 m. below St. Louis, and 190 m. S. W. of Nashville; pop. in 1840, 3,360; in 1850, 8,841; in 1860, 22,623; in 1870, 40,226, of whom 15,471 were colored and 6,780 foreigners ; in 1874, including sub- urbs, estimated by local authorities at 65,000. The bluff on which the city is built is about 35 ft. above the highest floods. The streets are broad and regular, and lined with handsome buildings. Many of the residences on the avenues leading from the river are surrounded with beautiful lawns. The city extends over three square miles. In the centre there is a handsome park, filled with trees, and contain- ing a bust of Andrew Jackson. There are two theatres seating 800 and 1,000 persons re- spectively, and a building for the United States custom house is soon to be commenced. The principal of the six cemeteries is Elmwood, on the S. E. border of the city. Memphis is lighted with gas, is supplied with water on the Holly system, and has about 20 m. of street railways. It is the largest city of Tennessee, and the principal place on the Mississippi be- tween St. Louis and New Orleans, and has a very extensive trade with Arkansas, Mississippi, W. Tennessee, and N. Alabama. Railroad facilities are afforded by the Memphis and Charleston, Mississippi and Tennessee, Louis- ville and Nashville and Great Southern, Mem- phis and Little Rock, and Memphis and Raleigh lines, while the Memphis and Paducah railroad is completed for 40 m. The Memphis and Lit- tle Rock line terminates at Hopefield on the Arkansas side of the Mississippi, whence a powerful transfer boat conveys an entire train at once to Memphis. Lines of steamers run to St. Louis, Cincinnati, Vicksburg, Napoleon, Ark., and to the Arkansas, White, and St. Fran- cis rivers. The receipts of cotton in 1870-71 were 511,432 bales; in 187l-'2, 380,938; in