parts of the Indian Ocean, and which blow six months in one direction, and then six months from the opposite point. A ship sailing from the Red Sea with the northeast monsoon, in the summer or autumn, would meet with the south-west monsoon, in the beginning of December, which must detain her in some of the harbors on the eastern coast of Africa, till the next April. Then the north-east monsoon would carry her to the southern parts of Africa, into the region of variable winds. This regular course and changing of the monsoons was familiarly known to the navigators of Solomon's ships, and was the cause of their spending three years, to and from Ophir. In going and returning, they changed the monsoons six times, which made thirty-six months. They needed no longer time to complete the voyage, and they could not perform it in less.... Belknap.

MONTH, a space of time measured by the revolution of the sun or moon, and reckoned the twelfth part of the year. A lunar month is the space between two conjunctions of the moon with the sun, or between two moons. A solar month is the space of time wherein the sun revolves through one entire sign-of the ecliptic. The calendar, or kalendar months consist unequally of thirty and thirty-one days, excepting February, which in leap years has twenty-nine, but in other years only twenty-eight days. The Roman year, from the old institution of Numa, was lunar; borrowed from the Greeks; and to fill up the deficiency of the lunar year and extend it to the measure of the solar course, the Romans inserted, or intercalated, after the manner of the Greeks, an extraordinary month of twenty-two days, every second year, and twenty-three every fourth, between the twenty-third and twenty-fourth day of February. The Romans began their year with the month of March, which was so called because it was dedicated to Mars, their god of war. April took its name from Aphrodite, or Venus; May from the goddess Maia; June from Juventas, the goddess of youth; July from Julius Cæsar, and August from Augustus Cæsar, both usurpers and tyrants. September, October, November, and December, derived their names from Latin words, which express the numbers of seven, eight, nine, ten;

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MOON....MOORS.

because those four months stood in that numerical order in the Roman calendar. The month of January was so called because it was dedicated to the god Janus.February was so called from Februus, a name of the infernal god Pluto; forasmuch as twelve days in this month were spent in sacrifices to Pluto, in behalf of the ghosts of the dead; these days of atonement being called Februa. See CALENDAR.

MOON, a secondary planet, the satellite of our earth. The mean distance of the moon from us, is about two hundred and forty thousand miles; its diameter is about two thousand three hundred and twenty-six miles: it revolves about the earth in twenty-seven days, seven hours, and forty-three minutes; which is a lunar month. It was a doctrine of antiquity, that the moon possesses a degree of heat which will not only evaporate water, but also melts ice. "The moon (says Pliny) produces thaw, resolving ice and frosts by the humidity of her influence." The truth of this theory of the ancients, as far as it respects the moon producing evaporation, has been proved by the following modern experiment. Two vessels full of water, being situated in the following manner, namely, the one exposed to the light of the moon, and the other placed in the shade; the water in the first vessel was found to evaporate sooner than that of the second. It is said, that by some movement of the moon, hitherto not accounted for, she appears, in the polar regions, perpetually above the horizon, during the long absence of the sun: this was observed in the year 1596, at Nova Zembla, by the unfortunate Dutchmen, who wintered there, in the seventy-sixth degree of north latitude. Another curious fact is, that the moon shines more brightly on some parts of our globe than on others. In the island of Jamaica, for instance, the moon displays far greater radiance than in Europe; the smallest print is legible by her light.... St. Pierre, Bryan Edwards.

MOORS, descendants of the Carthagenians and Arabs, who conquered, and for many centuries, possessed a considerable part of Spain. In the year 1609, Philip III. at the instigation of the inquisition, issued an

edict, ordering all the Moors to leave the kingdom, within the space of thirty days, under the penalty of death. These remains of the ancient conquerors of Spain were chiefly employed in commerce and agriculture; and the principal reason assigned for this barbarous decree was, that they were still Mahometans in their hearts, though they conformed outwardly to the rites of Christianity. The Moors made some unavailing resistance, but being almost utterly unprovided with arms, they were soon obliged to submit, and, to the number of near a million industrious people, were all banished the kingdom; whence they fled, in the utmost wretchedness, into Africa. The origin of the Moorish tribes in the interior of Africa, seems, according to the account of John Leo the African, to have been this.Before the Arabian conquests, about the middle of the ninth century, all the inhabitants of Africa, who had descended from Numidians, Phenicians, Carthagenians, Romans, Vandals, or Goths, were comprehended under the general name of Mauri, or Moors, that is, natives of Mauritania, the ancient name of Barbary. All these people were converted to the religion of Mahomet, during the Arabian empire under the Caliphs: and many of them, passing the great desert, settled in the interior of Africa. There is reason to believe that their dominion stretches from west to east, in a narrow line or belt, from the mouth of the Senegal, on the north side of that river, to the confines of Abyssinia. They are a subtle and treacherous race of people, and take every opportunity of cheating and plundering the credulous and unsuspecting negroes. Among these Moors no woman is thought handsome unless she is very corpulent; and in consequence of this prevailing taste for largeness of bulk, the Moorish women take great pains to acquire corpulency early in life; insomuch that many of the young girls are compelled by their mothers to devour a great quantity of Kouskous, and drink a large bowl of camel's milk every morning. It is of no importance whether the girl has appetite or not: the Kouskous and milk must be swallowed, and obcdience is frequently enforced by blows. A celebrated traveller says, "I have seen a poor girl sit crying with the bowl at her lips, more than an hour; and her mother,

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MOOSE....MORAI.

with a stick in her hand, watching her all the while, and using the stick without mercy, whenever she observed that her daughter was not swallowing."....Russell, Park.

ces.

MOOSE, called in Europe, Elk. It is properly an American animal; but it is sometimes taken in the German and Russian forests. The head of the moose is large, the neck short, with a thick, short, and upright mane. The ears are a foot long; under the throat there is a fleshy protuberance; the upper-lip hangs over the lower. His horns when full grown are about four or five feet from the head to the extremity, and are shed every year. The hoofs of the moose are cloven; his gait is a long shambling trot; his course, very swift, and straight: he leaps over the highest fenThis animal is generally of a grey light brown, or mouse colour. In the winter, they herd together, to the number of twenty or thirty in a company. They prefer the coldest places; and when the snow is deep, they form a kind of yard, consisting of several acres, in which they constantly trample down the snow, that they may more easily range round their yard; and when they cannot easily come at the grass, they live on the twigs and bark of the trees. Their defence is chiefly with their fore feet, with which they strike with great force. One of these animals in Vermont, was found by measure, to be seven feet high. The largest are estimated by the hunters, to weigh thirteen or fourteen hundred pounds.... Williams.

MORAI, the place of burial for the dead chiefs, and also for the offering of sacrifices, at Otaheitee, and the other Society Islands, in the Pacific Ocean. The Morai is a long pile of stones, about thirteen feet in height, and contracted towards the top, with a quadrangular area on each side, under which the bones of the chiefs are deposited. Near the end is the place of sacrifice, where is a very large scaffold, on which the offerings of fruits and other vegetables are placed; but the animals are laid on a smaller one; and the human sacrifices are interred under the pavement. There is a heap of stones at one end of the large scaffold, with a sort of

MOREA....MOROCCO.

253

platform on one side. On this they deposit all the skulls of the human sacrifices, which they take up after they have remained under ground for some months. It is probable, that the horrid custom of offering human victims prevails in most of the islands of the Pacific Ocean, however distant from each other some of them may be.... Cooke's Voyages.

MOREA, anciently called Peloponessus, a peninsulaon the southern part of Greece, to which it is joined by the isthmus of Corinth: it is one hundred and eighty miles in length, and one hundred and thirty in breadth. This peninsula is a part of the European Turkey. The inhabitants oppressed for many centuries by the most wretched and tyrannical government in the world, have entirely lost the spirit of their ancestors. No spot on the globe has been more famed for genius and valor than the ancient Peloponessus. On the isthmus into the peninsula, stood the famous city of Corinth; which was filled with temples, palaces, theatres, porticoes, and private houses equally admirable for their structures; and which gave birth to the order named Corinthian, the most superb in architecture. On this isthmus were celebrated, once in five years, the Isthmian Games, which, like the Olympic Games, consisted of running, leaping, wrestling, throwing the quoit, boxing, driving the chariot, and riding the single horse.... Walker, Russell.

MOROCCO, an empire of Barbary, in Africa; bordering upon the Atlantic Ocean on the west, and upon the Mediterranean on the north; extending nearly four hundred miles square. The inhabitants are tawny, robust, excellent horsemen, and expert with the lance: they are Mahometans, and hold under their rod a vast number of Christian slaves. Their merchants are Jews, who carry on a great trade, by caravans, over vast deserts, from Morocco to the negro countries. Morocco, fanned by the cooling winds from the snowy top of Mount Atlas, enjoys a pure and temperate, but humid air; so humid as to cover all metals quickly with rust. The soil is extremely fertile; their deserts abound with lions, tigers, and serpents. The emperor, who is ab

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