STOMACH, disordered state of, 392. Hæmorrhage VITAL functions disordered, 390.

There appeared a sudden and marvellous conversion in the duke's case, from the most exalted to the most depressed, as if his expedition had been capable

of no mediocrities.

Wotton. Great wits have great errors, and great estates have great cares; whereas mediocrity of gifts or of estate hath usually but easy inconveniencies.

Bp. Hall. They contained no fishy composure, but were made up of man and bird; the human mediety variously placed not only above but below.

Browne's Vulgar Errours. He likens the mediocrity of wit to one of a mean fortune, who manages his store with great parsi'mony; but who, with fear of running into profuseness, never arrives to the magnificence of living.

Dryden's State of Innocence. Getting and improving our knowledge in substances only by experience and history, is all that the weakness of our faculties in this state of mediocrity, while we are in this world, can attain to.

Locke.

MEDINA (Sir John Baptist), an eminent painter, was son of Medina de L'Asturias, a Spanish captain, who had settled at Brussels, where the son was born in 1660. He was instructed by Du Chatel; and afterwards made Rubens his principal model. He was both an historical and portrait painter; and was held in extraordinary esteem by most of the princes of Germany, who distinguished him by several marks of honor. He married young, and came into England in 1686, where he drew portraits for several years with great reputation, as he painted strong resemblances with remarkable freedom of touch, and a delicate management of tint. The earl of Leven encouraged him to go to Scotland, and procured him many engagements. He returned to England for a short time; but went back to Scotland, where he died, and was buried in the Greyfriars church-yard at Edinburgh in 1711, aged fifty-two. He painted most of the Scotch nobility, and the professors of Edinburgh; but was not rich, having twenty children. He was knighted by the duke of Queensberry, being the last knight made in Scotland before the Union.

MEDINA, the capital of Woolly, a kingdom of Western Africa, contains from 800 to 1000 houses, and is defended by a high wall, surrounded by a thick hedge. It stands in long. 12° 50′ W., and lat. 13° 38′ N.

MEDINA, a city of Arabia, next in honor to Mecca for its sacred connexion with the founder of the Mahometan faith. It contains the tomb of the prophet, though the orthodox do not be lieve the body to be enclosed in it, but to have been transported to heaven. Still this tomb is held in great veneration; but a visit to it is not considered in any very high degree meritorious, VOL. XIV.

and is performed by few. Medina does not consist of more than 500 ill-built houses; and the sacred tomb itself is not superior to those which the founders of mosques usually erect. It is placed between those of the caliphs Abubeker and Omar: the building being hung with silk, which is renewed every seven years. The guard of forty eunuchs, according to Niebuhr, is chiefly designed to keep off the populace, who seek to carry off relics. Here is a very magnificent mosque, founded by the prophet, being supported by 400 columns, and containing 300 lamps, which are kept always burning. Jambo, on the Red Sea, is the port of Medina.

MEDINA DEL CAMPO, the ancient Methymna Campestris, an inland town of the province of Leon, Spain, has been the birth-place and residence of several of her kings. It is of good size, and has a neat square, with a noble fountain. The town is separated by the little river Zapardiel, into two parts. Here is a Jesuits' college, a respectable structure; and a well endowed hospital. This town has three annual fairs. Population between 5000 and 6000. The country around is rich in wine. Thirty-seven miles north-west of Segovia.

MEDINA DEL RIO SECO, an old town of Leon, is situated in a plain, watered by the Sequillo. It contains three parish churches, four convents, three hospitals, and about 8000 inhabitants. Noted in former times for its population, manufactures, and fairs, it received the name of India Chica, or the Little Indies. The castle is now entirely in ruins, and the whole place in a decayed state. Twenty-five miles north-west of Valladolid.

MEDINA SIDONIA is an ancient town of Spain, in Andalusia, having two churches, six monasteries, and about 5000 inhabitants. It has long given the title to a duchy; and the families of Medina Celi and Medina Sidonia are now united. Twenty-two miles south-east of Cadiz.

MEDIOLANUM, in ancient geography, a city of Italy, the capital of the Insubres, built by the Gauls, now called Milan. It was a municipium; a place of great strength; and the seat of the liberal arts; whence it had the name of Novæ Athenæ. See MILAN.

MEDIOLANUM AULERCORUM, an ancient town of Gallia Celtica, afterwards named Eburovicum Civitas (Antonine), corrupted to Civitas Ebroicorum, and this last to Ebroica; whence the modern name Evreux.

MEDITATE, v. a. & v. n.
MEDITATION, n. s.
MED'ITATIVE, adj.

Fr. mediter; Italian meditare; Span. mediter; Lat. meditor. To plan or contrive; to think upon as a neuter verb, to contemplate; muse; dwell upon with deep thought: the substantive and adjective correspond.

His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. Psalm i. 2. Blessed is the man that doth meditate good things in wisdom, and that reasoneth of holy things.

Ecclus, xiv. 20.

Them among
Theer set a man of ripe and perfect age,
Who did them meditate all his life long.
Faerie Queene

R

Some affirmed that I meditated a war; God knows
I did not then think of war.
King Charles.

In meditation, those which begin heavenly thoughts,
and prosecute them not, are like those which kindle
a fire under green wood, and leave it so soon as it
but begins to flame; losing the hope of a good be-
ginning, for want of seconding it with a suitable
proceeding.
Meditate till you make some act of piety upon the
Bp. Hall.
occasion of what you meditate; either get some new
arguments against a sin, or some new encourage-
ments to virtue.
Taylor.

Milton.

'Tis most true, That musing meditation most affects The pensive secresy of desert cell. To worship God, to study his will, to meditate upon him, and to love him; all these bring pleasure and peace.

Tillotson.

Like a lion that unheeded lay,
Dissembling sleep, and watchful to betray,
With inward rage he meditates his prey. Dryden.
Thy thoughts to nobler meditations give,
And study how to die, not how to live.

Some thought and meditation are necessary; and a
Granville.
man may possibly be so stupid
all his thoughts, or to say in his heart, there is none.
as not to have God in
Bentley.

Before the memory of the flood was lost, men meditated the setting up a false religion at Babel.

MEDITERRANE', adj.
MEDITERRANEAN, or
MEDITERRANEOUS.

Forbes.

Fr. mediterrance,
of Lat. medius and
Sterra.
Encircled

with land; inland; remote from the sea.
In all that part that lieth on the north side of the
mediterrane sea, it is thought not to be the vulgar

tongue.

Brerewood.

It is found in mountains and mediterraneous parts; and so it is a fat and unctuous sublimation of the earth.

Browne.

We have taken a less height of the mountains than is requisite, if we respect the mediterraneous mountains, or those that are at a great distance from the Burnet.

sea.

The MEDITERRANEAN SEA, the Mare Internum of the ancients, extends in length from the strait of Gibraltar to the coast of Syria, nearly 2300 miles; but is of a breadth varying from 300 to 900 miles: the limits of its latitudes are 45° 54′ and 30° 5'. It is united to the Atlantic by the strait of Gibraltar, the Fretum Herculeum, Columnarium, and Gaditanum, of ancient geography, receiving the first two names from the promontories of Abyla and Calpe, the ancient pillars of Hercules; and the latter from Gades (Cadiz). The Arabs gave to the strait the name of Babuz Zukak, the gate of the way. teen leagues, and the breadth where narrowest six Its length is fourleagues.

The Mediterranean has been thought to have been originally a vast lake, the waters of which being suddenly increased by an irruption of the Black Sea, at the time of the formation of the latter, forced themselves a passage through the present strait of Gibraltar, and produced the inundation that submerged the great Atlantic island of Plato: Buffon, however, objects to this hypothesis on the ground that it is the ocean which runs into the Mediterranean, and not the latter into the ocean: he believes that the Mediterranean was in reality a lake, and that the strait

was formed by a sudden convulsion produced by against this spot. This opinion, which was also some earthquake, or violent effort of the ocean the similarity of the strata observed at equal that of several of the ancients, is supported by elevations on the opposite sides of the strait.

The Mediterranean forms various guifs, the three most considerable of which are the Gulf of Venice or Adriatic Sea (a name derived from the now small town of Adria, on the Tartara, nine leagues south of Venice, anciently washed by the sea); the Archipelago (Egean Sea); and the Gulf of Tripoli on the coast of Africa.

Portions of this, the largest expanse of water also other distinctive names. in the world not denominated an ocean, have The the Balearic Islands and Spain is by the Spanispace between iards called the Sea of Valencia (Mare Balearicum). That between Sardinia, Corsica, Italy, and Sicily, the ancient Tyrrhenian Sea, is named sometimes the Sea of Tuscany and of Sicily. The great gulf by which the Adriatic is entered is called the Ionian Sea, and the eastern extremity of the Mediterranean from the isle of Candia is denominated the Levant.

Gulfs of this sea, of a secondary description, are those of Lyon (Sinus Gallicus, Sinus Leonis), Genoa (Sinus Ligusticus), and Tarente (Tarentiin Catalonia, to the Isles of Hieres; the Gulf of nus). The first extends from Cape St. Sebastian, Genoa, in its most extensive sense, from these islands to the promontory of Piombino; and the Gulf of Tarente is a branch of the Ionian Sea.

from the ocean has been supposed to prove its effect which can only be produced by the loss of level to be lower than that of the Atlantic, an more of its water by evaporation than is restored to it by rivers, rains, &c.: its level is certainly quainted with but few authentic notices of the also lower than that of the Red Sea. We are acbetween Sicily and Malta the greatest depth is depth of the Mediterranean. In the channel 100 fathon.s, while between Malta and Cape Bon there is not more than thirty fathoms waAfrican shore of the strait of Gibraltar, and even ter. The inward current is much stronger on the the opposite coast. From the strait the current at times an outward current is experienced on sets strongly to the east along the coast of Africa, following its direction to the coast of Syria, where it sets to the north and to the west along the coast of Caramania, at the rate of one mile per hour. The current from the Black Sea passes to the south through all the channels of the Archipelago. A current sets into the Adriatic along the east coast quite to its head, and out on the opposite coast. The general current sets out along the coasts of France and Spain; but the currents then setting in along the coasts of with the wind from north-west it is the reverse, Spain and France; and indeed, throughout the winds. sea, the currents are considerably affected by the

The current that flows into the Mediterranean

The idea of a submarine current in the strait almost decisive facts:-Dr. Hudson, in a paper of Gibraltar rests on the following curious and communicated to the Philosophical Transactions, above a century ago, says, 'In 1712 M. de L'

Aigle of the Phoenix, off Marseilles, giving chace near Ceuta Point to a Dutch ship, came up with her in the middle of the gut between Tariffa and Tangier, and there gave her one broadside which sunk her. A few days after, the sunk ship, with her cargo of brandy and oil, arose on the shore near Tangier, at least four leagues to the west of the place where she sunk, and directly against the strength of the current; which has persuaded many men that there is a recurrency in the deep water in the middle of the gut that sets outward to the grand ocean, which this accident very much demonstrates. Philosophical Transactions, vol. xxxiii. p. 192.

Lieutenant (afterwards admiral) Patton, when lieutenant of the Emerald, being overtaken with a very heavy gale of easterly wind, in approaching the rock of Gibraltar, when night came on it became necessary to lay the ship to, under a close-reefed main-topsail, to wait for day-light and better weather; and this was done as nearly as possible in the mid channel. About one o'clock in the morning lieutenant Patton observed an unusual darkness on the lee beam, and supposing it to be land, and the vessel to be in imminent danger, he instantly wore the ship, without waiting even to acquaint the captain. Finding it impossible to clear the land by setting sails, he saw that there was no chance of saving the ship but by trusting to the anchors. One of them was accordingly let go, but before it took effect the vessel struck the ground three times; but the ship, notwithstanding the very high swell, and the breakers within half a cable's length of the stern, rode fast til! day-break, when the weather became more moderate, and the vessel was found to have drove in at the back of the rock of Gibraltar, by a counter current. In consequence of this narrow escape, lieutenant Patton was led to study the subject of the currents of the strait of Gibraltar.

'He had ascertained by experience,' says his brother, captain Patton, that when two fluids meet in a narrow channel, the one being lighter than the other, that which is heaviest will run out below, at the same rate exactly that the fluid which is lightest runs in above. Of the truth of this any person may satisfy himself by filling two long phials, one with salt water and the other with fresh; color one of them with ink, or any other substance to distinguish it, and place the mouths of the phials close together, holding them horizontally: the salt water, which is heaviest, will be seen to run out below, exactly at the same rate that the fresh water, which is lightest, runs in above. The same law of nature holds with respect to air, which is also a fluid; if, for example, the air in a room is more heated than the air in the outside, or next apartment, it will of consequence become rarified and lighter; if the doors be opened between them, and a lighted candle be placed on the floor of the passage of the door, the flame will blow inward with the cold air running in below; but if the candle is held up, near the upper part of the door, the flame will go outward with the warm and light air, blowing out as fast above as the heavy air comes in below.

'Lieutenant Patton, therefore, very naturally

conceived that, if the water within the Mediterranean be heavier than the water in the Atlantic, the water of the latter, according to the laws of gravity and fluids, must of course run in above, and at the some rate the water of the Mediterranean, being heaviest, run out below; and in this particular case, as the cause must be perpetual, the effect must follow; and the upper or surface current never cease to run in from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. In order to ascertain the fact, whether the water in the Mediterranean is actually heavier than the water in the Atlantic, Lieutenant Patton filled some bottles of seawater, at a distance from all land, in the Atlantic, and also some bottles near the middle of the Mediterranean, which were afterwards carefully and accurately weighed; when a flask, containing one pound six ounces and five drachms of the Atlantic water, was found to be thirteen grains lighter than the same flask most exactly filled with an equal quantity of the Mediterranean water. The difference of weight seems small in the contents of a flask, but, on so large a body of water as the gut of Gibraltar must contain, is quite sufficient to account for the constant current which, from this cause, as lieutenant Patton has fully ascertained, runs from the Atlantic into the Mediterranean.'

To this testimony may be added the fact lately communicated to Dr. Marcet by Dr. Macmichael, on the authority of the British consul at Valencia, that some years ago a vessel was lost at Ceuta, on the African coast, and its wreck afterwards thrown up at Tariffa on the European shore, full two miles west of Ceuta.

The tides of the Mediterranean are all, on the whole, inconsiderable; but they have, in some places, a perceptible rise and fall. The greatest seems to be at Venice, where the extreme difference is three feet. At Marsala, in Sicily, the flood comes from the north-east, and the rise is two and a half to three feet; at Naples one foot, at Toulon one to two feet, on the coast of Syria only six inches. The winds also produce partial and irregular elevations of water, which in many instances have probably been mistaken for tides: when strong westerly winds blow, for any continuance, they force an accumulated body of waters through the strait, which raises the general level of the sea, while strong Levant winds have a contrary effect; nevertheless it is observed that, in the sea of Tuscany, south-east winds cause a greater elevation of the tide; on the north coast of Sicily, particularly at Marsala, where, as we have observed, the common rise is but three feet, with a strong south-east wind it is as much as ten or eleven. In the strait of Euripus, which separates Negropont from the continent, a singular phenomenon occurs: during the first eight days of the moon, as well as from the fourteenth to the twentieth day, and for the last three days, the tide ebbs and flows regularly four times in the twenty-four hours; while, during each of the other days it ebbs and flows with great force from eleven to fourteen times, though the difference of elevation never exceeds two feet. Aristotle is said to have drowned himself here from a feeling of humiliation at being unable to account for this.

In the strait of Messina is found the celebrated Charybdis, which at present is not considered a very dangerous agitation of the waters. It occupies a space of about 100 feet in circumference opposite a little cove east of Faro light-house called Calo Faro, and about 250 yards from the shore. The agitation only takes place when the current is ebbing, or setting through the strait from the north, when its stream makes with the shore a number of angles of incidence which retard its progress, so that it takes two hours to reach Charybdis from the entrance of the strait. Here it produces a considerable rippling, but no vortex; for the light substances thrown into it, instead of being carried down, are tossed about on the surface. The depth of water here is about eighty fathoms. Between the tides there is a period of repose, of never more than an hour nor less than a quarter of an hour. When the wind blows strongly from the south against the current, the waves rise to a dangerous height for open boats; but the only danger to a large vessel is of being driven on shore by the stream, her sails and rudder being in this spot useless. In order to prevent such accidents, expert seamen, with proper boats, are kept constantly ready on the beach, at Messina, to put off to the assistance of any vessel. On the Calabrian shore, opposite Charybdis, is the equally celebrated rock of Scylla, a little promontory the extremity of which is 200 feet in perpendicular height. At low water many rocks show themselves at its base; and these, with the currents and waves rushing with great fury and noise into the neighbouring caverns, doubtless gave rise to the poetical fiction of the dogs howling round the monster Scylla.' However this rock is not without a certain degree of danger, which in some measure authorises the proverb of 'falling upon Scylla in trying to avoid Charybdis;' for the tide setting directly on it, and the depth being too great for anchorage, a ship is liable to be driven on it in either a calm or a contrary wind. On the summit of the promontory is a castle, and on the south side a little village.

The Fata Morgana of the strait of Messina is to the ignorant as wonderful a phenomenon as was Scylla or Charybdis to the ancients. In fine summer days,' says a late French traveller, when the weather is calm, there rises a vapor from the sea which, when it has acquired a certain density, forms, in the atmosphere horizontal prisms, whose sides are so disposed that they reflect for some time like mirrors the objects on the coast, exhibiting by turns the city of Messina, trees, animals, men, mountains, &c. This representation continues for eight or ten minutes, when shining irregularities are observed on the surface of the prisms, that first render confused the objects they reflect and the picture dies away gradually.'

The Mediterranean being the receptacle of but four rivers of magnitude, while a stream from the Atlantic continually runs into it, its waters are as saline as those of the latter. According, indeed, to the late experiments of Dr. Manet they are even more so. The singularity of this has been explained upon the supposition that the Mediterranean is not supplied, by the rivers which

flow into it, with a quantity of fresh water sufficient to replace what it loses by evaporation under a burning sun, aided by a powerful radiation from the African shores and the parching winds blowing from the adjacent deserts: and philosophers suppose that the only reason why this sea does not gradually increase in saltness, and become converted into saturated brine, is the under current of water already mentioned, salter than the ocean, which runs out at the strait of Gibraltar, and unloads its waters of their excess of salt.

This sea has several springs of fresh water rushing up from amidst the salt, the most celebrated of which is in the grand port of Tarento, called the Little Sea, and at some distance from the mouth of the Galesus: it is in such force and abundance that it may be taken up without the least mixture of salt water.

The winds most prevalent in the Mediterranean blow between north-west and north-east, with few intermissions, for nine months of the year, and almost constantly during summer. In the other three months (February, March, and April) south-east and south-west winds prevail. The nature and effects of the winds in the Mediterranean, however, differ greatly according to locality. On the south of Spain the Solano wind (called in Italy the Sirocco) is from the southeast. These, blowing from the sandy deserts of Africa, bring with them, particularly to Sicily and Naples, a degree of insupportable heat. During their continuance the elasticity of the air seems to be lost, and both the body and mind are reduced to debility. At Palermo, where the intensity of the Sirocco is greatest, it never lasts more than forty-eight hours, but at Naples it sometimes continues for weeks. The Mistral is a north-west wind which blows with great violence down the Gulf of Lyon. The Kamsin a S. S. W. wind, which blows in Egypt in March and April, generally not more than three successive days at a time. While it continues, the atmosphere seems to be on fire, and acquires a purple tinge; and the transient blasts which succeed from time to time, resemble the breath from a furnace. This is the period in Egypt when the plague, which seems to be indigenous in this country, bursts forth in all its violence. The Kamsin signifies the wind of fifty days, thus named because it only happens, it is said, during fifty days of March and April. The Samiel, or poisonous wind of the Arabs, which at Bassora blows from north-west, at Bagdad from west, at Mecca from the east, and in Syria from the south-east, and which is also the Šimoom of the desert, is similar in its nature and effects. It contains a great portion of azote.

Towards the east of the Mediterranean the temperature of the atmosphere varies more with the wind than in any other part of the world. In the Archipelago the northern winds, Tramontana, the Etesian winds of the ancients (though this denomination was also extended to all periodical winds), which blow at times with great violence during summer, bring a considerable degree of cold, and obscure the horizon in a remarkable manner. They are very injurious to vegetation, and cause violent head-aches. A few