Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/721

MOIB IIOIR, Dayid Macbeth, a Scottish author, born at Musselburgh, Jan. 5, 1798, died in Dumfries, July 6, 1851. He was educated at the gram- mar school of his native town, and obtained a diploma as surgeon in 1816. He contributed both prose and verse to Constable's "Edin- burgh Magazine " and to " Blackwood." He was commonly known as Delta, from the sig- nature A to his serious poems. In 1824 he published "The Legend of Genevieve, with other Tales and Poems," and in the same year began in "Blackwood "a serial novel, "The Autobiography of Mansie Wauch." In 1831 he published " The Ancient History of Medi- cine," and in 1843 " Domestic Verses," which contains some of his best known poems. In 1846 he met with an accident which made him lame for life. In 1851 he delivered in Edin- burgh six lectures on the " Poetical Literature of the Past Half Century," which were after- ward published. A selection of his poems, with a memoir by Thomas Aird, was published in 1852, and a new and complete edition of his works in 1857". He was the leading physician of Musselburgh till his death, which occurred during a tour of relaxation. MOIRA, Earl of. See HASTINGS, FRANCIS. MOIYRE, Abraham de, a French mathema- tician, born at Vitry, Champagne, May 26, 1667, died in London, Nov. 27, 1754. Upon the revocation of the edict of Nantes he took refuge in England, and devoted himself to teach- ing mathematics. He soon became connected with Halley and Newton, was admitted into the royal society in 1697, was elected a member of the academy of sciences of Berlin in 1730, and of the academy of sciences of Paris in 1754. He was one of the committee appointed to decide on the rival claims of Leibnitz and Newton to the invention of the differential calculus. He made many discoveries and im- provements in the theory of series and of prob- abilities, but is best known by the celebrated trigonometrical theorem which bears his name. He survived most of his early associates, and his subsistence latterly depended upon his so- lutions of problems relative to games of chance, which he was accustomed to give in a coffee house. Besides memoirs in the " Philosophical Transactions," he published "The Doctrine of Chances" (1718), "Annuities on Lives" (1724), and Miscellanea Analytica, de Serie'bus et Quadratures (1730). MOKMNA, or Mocanna. See ATHA BEN HAKEM. MOLA. I. Pietro Francesco, an Italian painter, born at Coldre, near Como, in 1612 or 1621, died in Rome about 1666. He was a pupil of Cesare d'Arpino and Albani. He was one of the best of the Italian landscape painters, and was much employed by Innocent X. and his successor Alexander VII., as also by Queen Christina of Sweden. II. Giambattista, a paint- er, sometimes erroneously called a brother of the preceding, born in France about 1618, died in 1661. He studied in Paris, and under Al- bani at Bologna. He excelled in landscapes. 566 VOL. xi. 45 MOLDAVIA 703 MOLASSE, the name of a peculiar, mostly gray sandstone, found abundantly throughout a large portion of the Alpine system. It oc- curs in masses frequently alternating with beds of conglomerate, and being of a fine, granular texture, is highly prized as a building stone. Owing to the fact of its forming in certain localities one of the characteristic rocks of the tertiary formation, the term molasse, as applied to group, is sometimes used synonymously with tertiary, corresponding to the eocene, miocene, and pliocene of Lyell. MOLASSES (Fr. melasse), the sirup which remains in the manufacture of brown sugar, after separating from the juice all the sac- charine matter that can be made to crystal- lize to advantage; also the inspissated juice of sorghum and sap of the maple. "Sugar- house" molasses is the sirup which remains in the conversion of brown into refined sugar, and which contains too little cane sugar to re- pay its further treatment. By fermentation and distillation molasses mixed with the skim- mings of the sugar boiling is made to produce rum. (See SUGAR.) The entire amount of molasses produced in the United States in 1870, according to the census, was 6,593,323 gallons of cane, of which 4,585,150 gallons were the product of Louisiana, 16,050,089 of sorghum, and 921,057 of maple. The produc- tion of cane molasses is limited to the southern states, while the cultivation of sorghum is gen- eral throughout the country. During the year ending June 30, 1873, 43,533,909 gallons of molasses, valued at $9,901,051, were imported into the United States, chiefly from Cuba. MOLDAU, a river of Bohemia, which rises in the Bohemian Forest, on the frontiers of Ba- varia, flows S. E. as far as Rosenberg, and then N. to Melnik, opposite which town it falls into the Elbe. It is about 300 m. long, and for nearly half its course is navigable. Its chief tributaries are the Luschnitz, Sazawa, Beraun, and "Wattawa. The principal towns on its banks are Erummau, Budweis, Pisek, and Prague. Vessels of 60 tons can ply on it to Prague. MOLDAVIA (Ger. Moldau ; Turk. Bogdari), a country of Europe belonging to the Turkish empire, and now together with Wallachia form- ing the vassal state of Roumania. It is situ- ated between lat. 45 and 49 N., and Ion. 25 and 30 15' E., and is bounded N., N. E., and E. by Bessarabia, from which it is separated by the Pruth, S. E. by the Black sea, S. by the Bulgarian district of Dobrudja and by Walla- chia, being separated from the former by the Danube, W. by Transylvania, and N. W. by Bukowina ; area, 18,435 sq. m. ; pop. about 1,460,000. It is traversed in the north and west by various offshoots of the eastern Car- pathians, through which several passes lead into Bukowina and Transylvania. The prin- cipal rivers are the Danube, which during its short course on the S. boundary receives the waters of all the others, the Pruth, and the Sereth. The chief affluents of the Pruth; are