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MINTO N. Eckert of Pennsylvania, July, 1851, to April, 1853; Thomas M. Pettit of Pennsyl- vania, April to June, 1853 ; James Ross Snow- den of Pennsylvania, June, 1853, to April, 1861 ; James Pollock of Pennsylvania, April, 1861, to October, 1866 ; William Milward of Pennsylvania, October, 1866 (not confirmed by the senate) ; Henry R. Linderman of Penn- sylvania, April, 186T, to May, 1869 ; James Pollock of Pennsylvania, May, 1869, to April, 1873 (date of reorganization, since superinten- dent at Philadelphia) ; Henry R. Linderman, April, 1873. The present mint of France, a very complete and magnificent establishment, where probably the finest work of the kind in the world is done, was built in 1771 and the following years, and commenced work in 1775. In this mint, besides the operations connected with the public coinage and making of medals, the assaying of gold and silver is done for jew- ellers, who are obliged by law to have every article stamped before it can be sold. The coinage of gold from 1850 to 1872 was of the value of 6,517,507,385 francs, and of silver during the same period 843,821,208 francs. MINTO, Gilbert Elliot, first earl of, an English statesman, born April 23, 1751, died June 21, 1814. He was the elder son of the third bar- onet, Sir Gilbert Elliot of Roxburghshire, Scot- land, and entered the house of commons in 1774 as a liberal whig. He was ambassador at Copenhagen from 1788 to 1794, and was sent as viceroy to Corsica during the English occu- pation of that island in the earlier years of the war with the French republic. On his return to England he was raised to the peerage (Oct. 10, 1797) as Baron Minto. In 1799 he was appointed ambassador at Vienna. On resuming his seat in the house of lords, he urged the union of Ireland with England, and subse- quently opposed the emancipation of the Irish Catholics. In 1806-' 7 he was president of the board of control for Indian affairs, and he was governor general of Bengal from 1807 to 1813, when he was made Viscount Melgund and earl of Minto (Feb. 24). See "Life and Letters of Sir Gilbert Elliot, first Earl of Minto," by his grandniece the countess of Minto (London, 1874). His son GILBERT ELLIOT-MUEKAY-KY- NYNMOUND, second earl, born Nov. 16, 1782, was minister to Berlin in 1832, first lord of the admiralty 1835-'41, lord privy seal in the administration of Lord John Russell (his son- in-law) 1846-'52, and in 1847 was sent on a special mission to the Italian courts for the purpose of promoting liberal reforms. He died July 31, 1859. MINUCIUS FELIX, Marcus, a Latin Christian writer, belonging, according to St. Jerome, to the first half of the 3d century. He was a native of Africa, but removed to Rome, and became distinguished as {in advocate before his conversion to Christianity. He wrote an apol- ogy for Christianity entitled Octamus. It is a dialogue defending the Christians from the calumnies then in circulation against them, and MINUIT 621 giving much information concerning the man- ners and customs of the times. It was at one time supposed that Octamus formed part of Arnobius's treatise Adversus Gerites. Baldwin first published it in an independent form, and assigned it to its real author (Heidelberg, 1560). Editions of the dialogue were pub- lished at Ley den in 1709, and at Cambridge, Eng., in 1712 ; and it has been translated into German by Kusswurm (Hamburg, 1824) and Liibkert (Leipsic, 1836), and into English by Richard James (Oxford, 1836). MINUET (Fr. menuet a graceful and stately dance, which had a celebrity in the last cen- tury equal to that at present enjoyed by the quadrille, the waltz, and the polka, but which is now rarely practised except on the stage. It is supposed to have originated in the French province of Poitou, and to have made its ap- pearance in the latter half of the 17th century. The first minuet, said to have been composed by Sully the elder, was danced by Louis XIV. at Versailles in 1653. The name has been de- rived from menu, "little," the steps of the dance being short. The time regulating the movements of the minuet consists of two strains or parts, of eight bars each, in three-crotchet time, both of which from being repeated are called reprises. The minuet or minuetto has also been effectively employed by composers as an exclusively musical movement in sym- phonies, quartets, &c. In this use the two strains consist of 16 bars each, and after being repeated are succeeded by a trio, after which the minuet is again played through somewhat more quickly. The time of this movement, which is of German origin, is an allegro, and in the second performance of the minuet it is accelerated to presto. MINUIT, or Minnits (properly MINNEWIT), Pe- ter, an American colonial governor, born in Wesel, Germany, in the latter part of the 16th century, died near Fort Christiana, Delaware, in 1641. He was a Protestant deacon in his native town, and on Dec. 19, 1625, was ap- pointed by the Dutch West India company its director general in New Netherland, and land- ed on Manhattan island May 4, 1626. His first measure was to purchase the island from the aborigines for 60 guilders. He built Fort Am- sterdam, and maintained the right of the Dutch against the claims of English supremacy over New Netherland. The colony prospered under his administration, but the West India company held him responsible for abuses which had led to the accumulation of landed property in the hands of the patroons, and he was recalled in August, 1631. He sailed in March, 1632. Stress of weather drove his ship into Ply- mouth, England, where it was attached at the suit of the council of New England, on a charge of illegally trading within the English domin- ions. The Dutch ambassador in London pro- tested, but the ship was not released till May 27. Minuit, failing to regain his position under the West India company, offered his