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MUSPEATT MUSSEL 103 a party to the conspiracy of Piso. On the death of Nero he returned from exile, and when Antonius Primus, the general of Vespa- sian, was advancing against Eome, he joined the embassy sent by Vitellius to make terms with his enemies. After the downfall of Vi- tellius he became reconciled to Vespasian, who suffered him to remain in Kome. The only edition of the extant fragments of his works is that of Peerlkamp (Haarlem, 1822). MUSPRATT, James Sheridan, a British chemist, born in Dublin, March 8, 1821, died in Liver- pool in November, 1871. He removed at an early age to Liverpool, where his father estab- lished a large chemical manufactory. At the age of 13 he travelled through France and Ger- many, and subsequently studied in the labora- tory of Prof. Graham of Glasgow, whom he accompanied to London. Before reaching the age of 17 he was sufficiently advanced to be intrusted with the chemical department in a large manufacturing establishment in Manches- ter, and he also published a lecture on chloride of lime. After an attempt to embark in busi- ness in America, by which he lost money, he went in 1843 to Giessen and studied chemistry for two years under Liebig. His first impor- tant original paper was one on the sulphites, published in Liebig and Wohler's Annalen, in which he proved the analogy between the sul- phites and the carbonates, and which procured him the degree of doctor of philosophy. While at Giessen he edited Plattner's "Treatise on the Blowpipe," with many valuable additions. Between 1845 and 1847 he travelled over Eu- rope, returning in the latter year to Giessen, where he discovered several remarkable bodies produced from the sulpho-cyanides of ethyle and methyle. In 1848 he returned to England, married the American actress Susan Cushman, and soon after founded a college of chemistry in Liverpool, of which he was appointed direc- tor. In 1854 he commenced a dictionary of chemistry, published in Europe and America in parts, which was completed in 1860 in 2 vols. royal 8vo. It was translated into Ger- man and French, and reached a large circu- lation. He has also published "Outlines of Quantitative Analysis for Students." MUSQUASH. See MUSKRAT. MUSSCHENBROEK, Pieter van, a Dutch mathe- matician, born in Leyden, March 14, 1692, died there, Sept. 19, 1761. He was educated at Leyden, and in 1717 formed an intimacy with 'sGravesande, who subsequently cooperated with him in introducing the Newtonian sys- tem of philosophy into Holland. In 1718 he took his degree of doctor of medicine, and soon afterward visited England for the pur- pose of seeing Newton and making himself acquainted with his system. In 1719 he was appointed professor of philosophy and mathe- matics and professor extraordinary of medi- cine in the university of Duisburg, which he resigned in 1723 for the chair of philosophy and mathematics at Utrecht. Here he re- mained till 1739, and about 1740 he accepted the chair of mathematics at Leyden, which he filled during the remainder of his life. His works contain many original researches in ex- perimental physics, and are among the earliest expositions of the Newtonian philosophy ; the cohesion of bodies, the phosphorescent prop- erties which many bodies acquire from expo- sure to light, magnetism, capillary attraction, and the size of the earth being among the sub- jects most successfully treated. MUSSEL, or Muscle (Lat. musculus ; Ger. Mu- schel), a well known lamellibranchiate mollusk of the genus mytilus (Linn.). It belongs to the dimyarian group, or those having two adduc- tor muscles, the anterior being small; the mantle has a distinct anal orifice ; the foot is small, cylindrical, grooved, with many retrac- tile muscles and a large silky byssus divided to its base; the shell is longitudinal and subtri- angular, with the beaks terminal and pointed, dark-colored and shining. The common salt- water mussel (M. edulis, Linn.) is from 1 to 2 in. long and 1 in. broad, of a greenish black Common Salt-water Mussel (Mytilus edulis). color externally and purplish and bluish white within. This species is esteemed as food in Europe ; they lie together in large beds uncov- ered at low water, and are more easily obtained than the oyster; they are most esteemed in autumn, as in the spring or spawning season they are apt to disarrange delicate stomachs and to produce a cutaneous eruption ; thousands of bushels are annually obtained for food and bait for deep-sea fisheries, affording employ- ment for hundreds of women and children, x especially along the frith of Forth ; they an- chor themselves very firmly to rocks and stones by the horny threads of the byssus, directed by means of the foot, and attached by their broad disk-shaped extremities. The common mussel of New England (M. lorealis, Lam.), by some considered the same as the last species, is eaten, fresh and pickled, in some parts of the country, but is more commonly used for bait or manure. The forms of their shells are very various, from accidental distor- tions or from the shape of the cavities and crevices in which they are commonly wedged. Several other species are described. Anoth- er shell, commonly called mussel by the fisher- men, is the allied genus modiola (Lam.), known in Europe as the horse mussel. Our common species (M. modiolus, Turton) is from 4 to 6 in. long and from 2 to 3 in. wide ; the shell is