Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/585

MILYAS MIMOSA 56T and a fire alarm telegraph. The city is sup- plied with water from the lake by water works recently erected. The United States courts for the E. district of "Wisconsin hold two sessions here annually. The assessed value of proper- ty in 1873 was $48,559,817; expenditures for general purposes, $395,392 97; total debt April 1, 1874, $2,464,986 74. The northwestern na- tional asylum for disabled soldiers is about 3 m. from the city. It occupies a brick building, having accommodations for 700 or 800 inmates, with which are connected shops and stables. The grounds embrace 425 acres, more than half of which is under cultivation, the residue being laid out as a park. The institution has a reading room and a library of more than 2,500 volumes. The present number of in- mates is about 400. In the city there are three orphan asylums, a home for the friendless, and two hospitals. The public schools, 21 in num- ber, are graded, and include a, high school. In 1873 there were 38 male and 127 female teachers employed ; number of pupils enrolled, 11,224; average attendance, 7,100. The num- ber of private schools was 47, with 7,000 pupils. Milwaukee female college had 6 in- structors and 118 students, of whom 44 were of collegiate grade. The library of the young men's association contains 11,000 volumes, and that of St. Mary's institute 1,000. There are 8 daily (4 German), 1 tri- weekly, 2 semi-week- ly, and 16 weekly (6 German) newspapers, and 1 semi-monthly (German) and 5 monthly (1 German) periodicals. The number of churches is 59, viz. : 3 Baptist, 1 Calvinistic Methodist, 1 Christadelphian, 5 Congregational, 1 Dutch Keformed, 5 Episcopal, 4 Evangelical Asso- ciation, 1 German Reformed, 2 Jewish, 10 Lutheran, 1 Lutheran Reformed, 9 Methodist Episcopal, 5 Presbyterian, 10 Roman Catholic, and 1 Unitarian. Milwaukee was settled in 1835, and incorporated as a city in 1846. BIIL1AS. See LYCIA. MDINERMl'S, a Greek poet, born in Smyrna, flourished from about 634 to 600 B. C. De- scended from a colonist from Colophon, he was called the Colophonian. He was a flute player as well as a poet, and set his poems to music, using the plaintive melody called the vo[i6g Kpadiag (melody of the heart). He fixed the form of elegiac poetry, and has been called its inventor. The most important of the sur- viving fragments of his works is his celebrated poem Nanno, the most ancient erotic elegy of Greek literature. They have been published separately by Bach (Leipsic, 1826), and have been translated into German by several distin- guished authors. The best edition of his works is by Schneidewin, in the Delectus Poetarum Elegiacorum Grcecorum (Gottingen, 1838). MIMOSA (Gr. /u/^of, a mimic, as some of the plants imitate the movements of animals), a genus of leguminosm which is so unlike in structure to the majority of the order as to serve as a type of a suborder, the mimosece. These have small regular flowers in a spike or head, with stamens twice as many as the petals and leaves (sometimes simple phyllodia), twice or thrice pinnate. The genus mimosa was ori- ginally very large, but it has been so subdivided that now it includes only about 200 species, which are herbs, under-shrubs, or .climbers, very few being erect shrubs or trees. The best known species is the sensitive plant (M. pudica), noticeable for its irritable leaves; others in the genus possess the same property, but in a less marked degree, and in all the leaves fold and ^take a sleeping position at night. The sensitive plant is a native of Bra- zil, and has been in cultivation more than 200 years ; it is usually treated as an annual, when it grows only about a foot high, but if kept under glass it will grow 3 ft. high or more, and form a straggling shrub with weak spiny branches which are beset with bristly hairs; the alternate leaves are bipinnate, with usual- ly four pinnae, each bearing numerous small Sensitive Plant (Mimosa pudica). leaflets; the flowers are in small rose-purple heads, and are succeeded by short bristly pods containing the seeds ; these retain their germi- nating power for a long time, in illustration of which it is mentioned that the jardin des plantes has been continuously supplied with sensitive plants by seeds from a bag that was brought there more than 75 years ago. It is sparingly naturalized in Florida. The sensi- tiveness of the foliage of this plant, manifested by a peculiar shrinking when touched, is one of the most striking phenomena of plant life ; when undisturbed and in a bright light, the leaves stand nearly at right angles to the stem, but a slight touch causes them to fold and droop as if dead. This change in the position of the leaf is completed in three successive move- ments: first the leaflets close in pairs, bring their faces together, and incline forward ; then the secondary petioles or branches of the leaf approach each other ; and finally the main leaf