Chapter XX: Part 20

MASTER OF THE ROLLS, the third member of the Supreme Court of Judicature in England, the lord chancellor, president of the chancery division, being the first, and the lord chief justice, president of the king's bench division, being the second. At first he was the principal clerk of the chancery, and as such had charge of the records of the court, especially of the register of original writs and of all patents and grants under the Great Seal. Until the end of the 15th century he was called either the clerk or the keeper of the rolls, and he is still formally designated as the master or keeper of the rolls. The earliest mention of him as master of the rolls is in an act of 1495; and in another act of the same year he is again described as clerk of the rolls, showing that his official designation still remained unsettled. About the same period, however, the chief clerks of the chancery came to be called masters in chancery, and the clerk, master or keeper of the rolls was always the first among them, whichever name they bore. In course of time, from causes which are not very easy to trace, his original functions as keeper of the records passed away from him and he gradually assumed a jurisdiction in the court of chancery second only to that of the lord chancellor himself. In the beginning he only heard causes in conjunction with the other masters in chancery, and his decrees were invalid until they had been approved and signed by the lord chancellor. Sitting in the Rolls chapel or in the court in Rolls yard, he heard causes without assistance, and his decrees held good until they were reversed on petition either to the lord chancellor or afterwards to the lords justices of appeal. Before any judge with the formal title of vice-chancellor was appointed the master of the rolls was often spoken of as vice-chancellor, and in theory acted as such, sitting only when the lord chancellor was not sitting and holding his court in the evening from six o'clock to ten. Only since 1827 has the master of the rolls sat in the morning hours. By the Public Record Office Act 1838 the custody of the records was restored to him, and he is chairman of the State Papers and Historical Manuscripts Commissions. Under the Judicature Act 1875, and the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876, he now always sits with the lords justices in the court of appeal (which usually sits in two divisions of three judges, the master of the rolls presiding over one division), whose decisions can be questioned only in the House of Lords. The master of the rolls was formerly eligible to a seat in the House of Commons--a privilege enjoyed by no other member of the judicial bench;[1] but he was deprived of it by the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873, which provides that all judges of the High Court of Justice and the court of appeal shall be incapable of being elected to or sitting in the House of Commons. The master of the rolls is always sworn of the privy council. His salary is £6000 a year.

See Lord Hardwicke, _Office of the Master of the Rolls_.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Sir John Romilly, M.P. for Devonport, 1847 to 1852, was the last
master of the rolls to sit in Parliament. He was appointed master of
the rolls in 1851.

MASTIC, or MASTICH (Gr. [Greek: mastichê], probably connected with [Greek: masasthai], to chew, since mastic is used in the East as a chewing gum), a resinous exudation obtained from the lentisk, _Pistacia lentiscus_, an evergreen shrub of the natural order Anacardiaceae. The lentisk or mastic plant is indigenous to the Mediterranean coast region from Syria to Spain, but grows also in Portugal, Morocco and the Canaries. Although experiments have proved that excellent mastic might be obtained in other islands in the archipelago, the production of the substance has been, since the time of Dioscorides, almost exclusively confined to the island of Chios. The mastic districts of that island are for the most part flat and stony, with little hills and few streams. The shrubs are about 6 ft. high. The resin is contained in the bark and not in the wood, and in order to obtain it numerous vertical incisions are made, during June, July and August, in the stem and chief branches. The resin speedily exudes and hardens into roundish or oval tears, which are collected, after about fifteen days, by women and children, in little baskets lined with white paper or cotton wool. The ground around the trees is kept hard and clean, and flat pieces of stone are often laid beneath them to prevent any droppings of resin from becoming contaminated with dirt. The collection is repeated three or four times between June and September, a fine tree being found to yield about 8 or 10 lb. of mastic during the season. Besides that obtained from the incisions, mastic of very fine quality spontaneously exudes from the small branches. The harvest is affected by showers of rain during the period of collection, and the trees are much injured by frost, which is, however, of rare occurrence in the districts where they grow. Mastic occurs in commerce in the form of roundish tears about the size of peas. They are transparent, with a glassy fracture, of a pale yellow or faint greenish tinge, which darkens slowly by age. During the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries mastic enjoyed a high reputation as a medicine, and formed an ingredient in a large number of medical compounds; but its use in medicine is now obsolete, and it is chiefly employed for making varnish.

_Pistacia Khinjuk_ and _P. cabulica_, trees growing throughout Sindh,
Baluchistan and Cabul, yield a kind of mastic which is met with in the
Indian bazaars under the name of _Mustagirumi_, i.e. Roman mastic.
This when occurring in the European market is known as East Indian or
Bombay mastic. In Algeria _P. Atlantica_ yields a solid resin, which
is collected and used by the Arabs as a masticatory. Cape mastic is
the produce of _Euryops multifidus_, the resin bush, or _harpuis
bosch_ of the Boers--a plant of the composite order growing abundantly
in the Clanwilliam district. Dammar resin is sometimes sold under the
name of mastic. The West Indian mastic tree is the _Bursera gummifera_
and the Peruvian mastic is _Schinus molle_; but neither of these
furnishes commercial resins. The name mastic tree is also applied to a
timber tree, _Sider oxylon mastichodendron_, nat. ord. Sapotaceae,
which grows in the West Indies and on the coast of Florida.

MASTIGOPHORA, a group of Protozoa, moving and ingesting food by long flagella (Gr. [Greek: mastix], whip), usually few in number, and multiplying by fission, usually longitudinal, in the active condition. They were separated off from the rest of the old "Infusoria" by K. Düsing, and subdivided by O. Bütschli and E. R. Lankester into (1) Flagellata (q.v.), including Haemoflagellata (q.v.), (2) Dinoflagellata (q.v.) and Rhyncho = Cystoflagellata E. Haeckel (q.v.) = Rhynchoflagellata E. R. Lankester. The Mastigophora are frequently termed Flagellata or Flagellates.

MASTODON (Gr. [Greek: mastos], breast, [Greek: odous], tooth), a name given by Cuvier to the Pliocene and Miocene forerunners of the elephants, on account of the nipple-like prominences on the molar teeth of some of the species (fig. 2), which are of a much simpler type than those of true elephants. Mastodons, like elephants, always have a pair of upper tusks, while the earlier ones likewise have a short pair in the lower jaw, which is prolonged into a snout-like symphysis for their support. These long-chinned mastodons are now regarded as forming a genus by themselves (_Tetrabelodon_), well-known examples of this group being _Tetrabelodon angustidens_ from the Miocene and _T. longirostris_ (fig. 1 C.) from the Lower Pliocene of the Continent. In the former the upper tusks are bent down so as to cross the tips of the short and chisel-like lower pair. These long-chinned mastodons must have had an extremely elongated muzzle, formed by the upper lip and nose above and the lower lip below, with which they were able to reach the ground, the neck being probably rather longer than in elephants. On the other hand, in the short-chinned mastodons, as represented by the Pleistocene North American _Mastodon americanus_ and the Pliocene European _M. turicensis_ (fig. 1), the chin had shrunk to the dimensions characteristic of elephants, with the loss of the lower incisors (or with temporary retention of rudimentary ones), while at the same time a true elephant-like trunk must have been developed by the shortening of the lower lip and the prolongation of the combined upper lip and nose.

Mastodons are found in almost all parts of the world. In Asia they gave rise to the elephants, while they themselves originated in Africa from ungulates of more normal type. (See PROBOSCIDEA.)

The upper tusks of the early mastodons differ from those of elephants
in retaining longitudinal bands of enamel. The molar teeth are six in
number on each side, increasing in size from before backwards, and, as
in the elephants, with a horizontal succession, the anterior teeth
being lost before the full development of the posterior ones, which
gradually move forward, taking the place of those that are destroyed
by wear. This process is, however, less fully developed than in
elephants, and as many as three teeth may be in place in each jaw at
one time. There is, moreover, in many species a vertical succession,
affecting either the third, or the third and second, or (in one
American species, _Tetrabelodon productus_) the first, second and
third of the six molar teeth. These three are therefore reckoned as
milk-molars, and their successors as premolars, while the last three
correspond to the true molars of other mammals. The mode of succession
of the teeth in the mastodons exhibits so many stages of the process
by which the dentition of elephants has been derived from that of more
ordinary mammals. It also shows that the anterior molars of elephants
do not correspond to the premolars of other ungulates, but to the
milk-molars, the early loss of which in consequence of the peculiar
process of horizontal forward-moving succession does not require their
replacement by premolars. Specialized species like _Mastodon
americanus_ have completely lost the rudimentary premolars.

FIG. 2.--Upper Molar of _Mastodon arvernensis_, viewed from below.]

Mastodons have fewer ridges on their molar teeth than elephants; the
ridges are also less elevated, wider apart, with a thicker enamel
covering, and scarcely any cement filling the space between them.
Sometimes (as in _M. americanus_) the ridges are simple transverse
wedge-shaped elevations, with straight or concave edges. In other
species the summits of the ridges are divided into conical cusps, and
may have accessory cusps clustering around them (as in _M.
arvernensis_, fig. 2). When the summits of these are worn by
mastication their surfaces present circles of dentine surrounded by a
border of enamel, and as attrition proceeds different patterns are
produced by the union of the bases of the cusps, a trefoil form being
characteristic of some species.

Certain of the molar teeth of the middle of the series in both
elephants and mastodons have the same number of principal ridges;
those in front having fewer, and those behind a greater number. These
teeth are distinguished as "intermediate" molars. In elephants there
are only two, the last milk-molar and the first true molar (or the
third and fourth of the whole series), which are alike in the number
of ridges; whereas in mastodons there are three such teeth, the last
milk-molar and the first and second molars (or the third, fourth and
fifth of the whole series). In elephants the number of ridges on the
intermediate molars always exceeds five, but in mastodons it is nearly
always three or four, and the tooth in front has usually one fewer and
that behind one more, so that the ridge-formula (i.e. a formula
expressing the number of ridges on each of the six molar teeth) of
most mastodons can be reduced either to 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, or 2, 3, 4,
4, 4, 5. Three-ridged and four-ridged types occur both in _Mastodon_
and _Tetrabelodon_. (R. L.*)

MAS'UDI (ABU-L HASAN 'ALI IBN HUSAIN IBN 'ALI UL-MAS'UDI) (d. c. 956), Arabian historian, was born at Bagdad towards the close of the 9th century. Much of his life was spent in travel. After he had been in Persia and Kerman, he visited Istakhr in 915, and went in the following year to Multan and Mansura, thence to Cambay, Saimur and Ceylon, to Madagascar and back to Oman. He seems about this time to have been as far as China. After a visit to the shores of the Caspian Sea he visited Tiberias in Palestine, examined the Christian church there, and described its relics. In 943 he was in Antioch, studying the ruins, and two years later in Damascus. The last ten years of his life he spent in Syria and Egypt. His great object in life had been to study with his own eyes the peculiarities of every land and to collect whatever was of interest for archaeology, history and manners. Himself a Mo'tazilite (see MAHOMMEDAN RELIGION: _Sects_), he was singularly free from bigotry, and took his information, when necessary, from Persians, Jews, Indians, and even the chronicle of a Christian bishop.

His most extensive work was the _Kitab akhbar uz-Zaman_ or _Annals_,
in 30 volumes with a supplement, _the Kitab ul-Ausat_, a chronological
sketch of general history. Of these the first part only of the former
is extant in MS. in Vienna, while the latter seems to be in the
Bodleian Library, also in MS. The substance of the two was united by
him in the work by which he is now best known, the _Muruj udh-Dhahab
wa Ma'adin ul-Jawahir_ ("Meadows of Gold and Mines of Precious
Stones"), an historical work which he completed in 947. In 956 he
finished a second edition of this and made it double its former size,
but no copy of this seems to be extant. The original edition has been
published at Bulaq and Cairo, and with French translation by C.
Barbier de Meynard and Pavet de Courteille (9 vols., Paris,
1861-1877). Another work of Mas'udi, written in the last year of his
life, is the _Kitab ut-Tanbih wal Ishraf_ (the "Book of Indication and
Revision"), in which he summarizes the work of his life and corrects
and completes his former writings. It has been edited by M. J. de
Goeje (Leiden, 1894), and a French translation has been made by Carra
de Vaux (Paris, 1896); cf. also the memoir of S. de Sacy published in
Meynard's edition of the _Muruj_.

An account of Mas'udi's works is to be found in de Sacy's memoir and
in Goeje's preface to his edition of the _Tanbih_, and of the works
extant in C. Brockelmann's _Gesch. der Arabischen Litteratur_, i.
144-145 (Weimar, 1898). C. Field's _Tales of the Caliphs_ (1909) is
based on Mas'udi. (G. W. T.)

MASULIPATAM, or BANDAR, a seaport of British India, administrative headquarters of the Kistna district of Madras, on one of the mouths of the river Kistna, 215 m. N. of Madras city. Pop. (1901), 39,507. Masulipatam was the earliest English settlement on the Coromandel coast, its importance being due to the fact that it was the _bandar_ or port of Golconda. An agency was established there in 1611. During the wars of the Carnatic, the English were temporarily expelled from the town, which was held by the French for some years. In 1759 the town and fort were carried by storm by Colonel Forde, an achievement followed by the acquisition of the Northern Circars (q.v.). In 1864 a great storm-wave swept over the entire town and is said to have destroyed 30,000 lives. Weavers form a large portion of the inhabitants, though their trade has greatly declined since the beginning of the 19th century. Their operations, besides weaving, include printing, bleaching, washing and dressing. In former days the chintzes of Masulipatam had a great reputation abroad for the freshness and permanency of their dyes. Masulipatam is a station of the Church Missionary Society. The port is only a roadstead, where vessels anchor 5 m. out. A branch line from Bezwada on the Southern Mahratta railway was opened in 1908. The chief educational institution is the Noble College of the C.M.S.

MAT (O. Eng. _meatt_, from late Lat. _matta_, whence Ital. _matta_, Ger. and Dan. _matte_, Du. _mat_, &c.), an article of various sizes and shapes, according to the purpose for which it is intended, and made of plaited or woven materials, such as coir, hemp, coco-nut fibre, straw, rushes, &c., or of rope or coarse twine. The finer fabrics are known as "matting" (q.v.). Mats are mainly used for covering floors, or in horticulture as a protection against cold or exposure for plants and trees. When used near the entrance to a house for people to wipe their boots on "door mats" are usually made of coarse coco-nut fibre, or india-rubber, cork, or of thickly coiled wire. Bags, rolls or sacks made of matting are used to hold coffee, flax, rice and other produce, and the term is often used with reference to the specific quantities of such produce, e.g. so many "mats" of coffee, rice, &c.

To be distinguished from the above is the term "mat" in glass-painting
or gilding, meaning dull, unpolished or unburnished. This is the same
as Ger. _matt_, dead, dull, cf. _matt-blau_, Med. Lat. _mattus_,
adapted from Persian _mat_, dazed, astonished, at a loss, helpless,
and seen in "mate" in chess, from Pers. _shah mat_ the king is dead.

MATABELE ("vanishing" or "hidden" people, so called from their appearance in battle, hidden behind enormous oxhide shields), a people of Zulu origin who began national life under the chief Mosilikatze. Driven out of the Transvaal by the Boers in 1837, Mosilikatze crossed the Limpopo with a military host which had been recruited from every tribe conquered by him during his ten years' predominance in the Transvaal. In their new territories the Matabele absorbed into their ranks many members of the conquered Mashona tribes and established a military despotism. Their sole occupation was war, for which their laws and organization were designed to fit them. This system of constant warfare is, since the conquest of Matabeleland by the British in 1893, a thing of the past. The Matabele are now herdsmen and agriculturists. (See RHODESIA.)

MATACHINES (Span. _matachin_, clown, or masked dancer), bands of mummers or itinerant players in Mexico, especially popular around the Rio Grande, who wander from village to village during Lent, playing in rough-and-ready style a set drama based on the history of Montezuma. Dressed in fantastic Indian costumes and carrying rattles as their orchestra, the chief characters are _El Monarca_ "the monarch" (Montezuma); _Malinche_, or _Malintzin_, the Indian mistress of Hernando Cortes; _El Toro_, "the bull," the malevolent "comic man" of the play, dressed in buffalo skin with the animal's horns on his head; _Aguelo_, the "grandfather," and _Aguela_, "grandmother." With the help of a chorus of dancers they portray the desertion of his people by Montezuma, the luring of him back by the wiles and smiles of Malinche, the final reunion of king and people, and the killing of El Toro, who is supposed to have made all the mischief.

MATADOR, a Spanish word meaning literally "killer," from _matar_, Lat. _mactare_, especially applied to the principal performer in a bull-fight, whose function it is to slay the bull (see BULL-FIGHTING). The word is also used of certain important cards in such games as quadrille, ombre, &c., and more particularly of a special form of the game of dominoes.

MATAMOROS, a town and port of the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico, on the S. bank of the Rio Grande, 28 m. from its mouth, opposite Brownsville, Texas. Pop. (1900), 8347. Matamoros stands in an open plain, the commercial centre for a large district, but its import trade is prejudiced by the bar at the mouth of the Rio Grande, which permits the entrance of small vessels only. The exports include hides, wool and live stock. The importance of the town in the foreign trade of northern Mexico, however, has been largely diminished by the great railways. Formerly it was the centre of a large contraband trade with Brownsville, Texas. Matamoros was founded early in the 19th century, and was named in honour of the Mexican patriot Mariano Matamoros (c. 1770-1814). In the war between the United States and Mexico, Matamoros was easily taken by the Americans on the 18th of May 1846, following General Zachary Taylor's victories at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. Matamoros was occupied by the Mexican imperialists under Mejia in 1864, and by the French in 1866.

MATANZAS, an important city of Cuba, capital of Matanzas Province, situated on a large deep bay on the N. coast, about 54 m. (by rail) E. of Havana. Pop. (1907), 36,009. There are railway outlets W., S. and E., and Matanzas is served by steamships to New York and by the coast steamers of the Herrera Line. The bay, unlike all the other better harbours of the island, has a broad mouth, 2 m. across, but there is good shelter against all winds except from the N.E. A coral reef lies across the entrance. Three rivers emptying into the bay--the San Juan, Canimar and Yumuri--have deposited much silt, necessitating the use of lighters in loading and unloading large ships. The city is finely placed at the head of the bay, on a low, sloping plain backed by wooded hills, over some of which the city itself has spread. The conical Pan de Matanzas (1277 ft.) is a striking land-mark for sailors. The San Juan and Yumuri rivers divide Matanzas into three districts. The Teatro Esteban, Casino Español and Government House are noteworthy among the buildings. The broad Paseo de Marti (Alameda de Versalles, Paseo de Santa Cristina) extends along the edge of the harbour, and is perhaps the handsomest parkway and boulevard in Cuba. At one end is a statue of Ferdinand VII., at the other a monument to 63 Cubans executed by the Spanish Government as traitors for bearing arms in the cause of independence. A splendid military road continues the Paseo to the Castillo de San Serverino (built in 1694-1695, reconstructed in 1773 and following years). There are two smaller forts, established in the 18th century. Near Matanzas are two of the most noted natural resorts of Cuba: the valley of the Yumuri, and the caves of Bellamar. Commanding the Yumuri Valley is the hill called Cumbre, on which is the Hermitage of Monteserrate (1870), with a famous shrine. Matanzas is the second port of the island in commerce. Sugar and molasses are the chief exports. The city is the chief outlet for the sugar product of the province, which, with the province of Santa Clara, produces two-thirds of the crop of the island. There are many large warehouses, rum distilleries, sugar-mills and railway machine-shops. Matanzas is frequently mentioned in the annals of the 16th and 17th centuries, when its bay was frequented by buccaneers; but the city was not laid out until 1693. In the next year it received an _ayuntamiento_ (council). Its prosperity rapidly increased after the establishment of free commerce early in the 19th century. In 1815 it was made a department capital. The mulatto poet, Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés, known as Plácido (1809-1844), was born in Matanzas, and was executed there for participation in the supposed conspiracy of negroes in 1844, which is one of the most famous episodes in Cuban history. The hurricanes of 1844 and 1846 are the only other prominent local events. American commercial influence has always been particularly strong.

MATARÓ (anc. _Iluro_), a seaport of north-eastern Spain, in the province of Barcelona, on the Mediterranean Sea and the Barcelona-Perpignan railway. Pop. (1900), 19,704. The streets of the new town, lying next the sea, are wide and regularly built; those of the old town, farther up the hill, still preserve much of their ancient character. The parish church of Santa Maria has some good pictures and wood carvings. The wine of the neighbourhood, which resembles port, is shipped in large quantities from Barcelona; and the district furnishes fine roses and strawberries for the Barcelona market. The leading industries are manufactures of linen and cotton goods, especially canvas and tarpaulin, and of soap, paper, chemicals, starch, glass, leather, spirits and flour. The railway to Barcelona, opened in October 1848, was the first to be constructed in Spain. Outside the town is the much-frequented carbonated mineral spring of Argentona.

MATCH: 1. O. Eng. _gemaecca_, a cognate form of "make," meaning originally "fit" or "suitable"; a pair, or one of a pair of objects, persons or animals. As particularly applied to a husband and wife, and hence to a marriage, the word is especially used of two persons or things which correspond exactly to each other. The verb "to match" has also the meaning to "pit one against each other," and so is applied in sport to an arranged contest between individuals or sides.

2. O. Fr. _mesche_; apparently from a latinized form of Gr. [Greek: myxa], mucus from the nose, applied to the nozzle of a lamp; primarily the wick which conveys oil or molten wax to the flame of a lamp or candle (this use is now obsolete), the word being then applied to various objects having the property of carrying fire. With early firearms a match, consisting of a cord of hemp or similar material treated with nitre and other substances so that it continued to smoulder after it had been ignited, was used for firing the charge, being either held in the gunner's hand or attached to the cock of the musket or arquebus and brought down by the action of the trigger on the powder priming ("matchlock"); and more or less similar preparations, made to burn more or less rapidly as required ("quick-match" and "slow-match"), are employed as fuses in blasting and demolition work in military operations. The word "match" was further used of a splint of wood, tipped with sulphur so that it would readily ignite, but it now most commonly means a slip of wood or other combustible material, having its end covered with a composition which takes fire when rubbed either on any rough surface or on another specially prepared composition.

The first attempt to make matches in the modern sense may probably be ascribed to Godfrey Haukwitz, who, in 1680, acting under the direction of Robert Boyle, who at that time had just discovered how to prepare phosphorus, employed small pieces of that element, ignited by friction, to light splints of wood dipped in sulphur. This device, however, did not come into extensive use owing to its danger and inconvenience and to the cost of the phosphorus, and till the beginning of the 19th century flint and steel with tinder-box and sulphur-tipped splints of wood--"spunks" or matches--were the common means of obtaining fire for domestic and other purposes. The sparks struck off by the percussion of flint and steel were made to fall among the tinder, which consisted of carbonized fragments of cotton and linen; the entire mass of the tinder was set into a glow, developing sufficient heat to ignite the sulphur with which the matches were tipped, and thereby the splints themselves were set on fire. In 1805 one Chancel, assistant to Professor L. J. Thénard of Paris, introduced an apparatus consisting of a small bottle containing asbestos, saturated with strong sulphuric acid, with splints or matches coated with sulphur, and tipped with a mixture of chlorate of potash and sugar. The matches so prepared, when brought into contact with the sulphuric acid in the bottle, ignited, and thus, by chemical action, fire was produced. In 1823 a decided impetus was given to the artificial production of fire by the introduction of the Döbereiner lamp, so called after its inventor, J. W. Döbereiner of Jena. The first really practical friction matches were made in England in 1827, by John Walker, a druggist of Stockton-on-Tees. These were known as "Congreves" after Sir William Congreve, the inventor of the Congreve rocket, and consisted of wooden splints or sticks of cardboard coated with sulphur and tipped with a mixture of sulphide of antimony, chlorate of potash and gum. With each box which was retailed at a shilling, there was supplied a folded piece of glass paper, the folds of which were to be tightly pressed together, while the match was drawn through between them. The same idea occurred to Sir Isaac Holden independently two and a half years later. The so-called "Prometheans," patented by S. Jones of London in 1830, consisted of a short roll of paper with a small quantity of a mixture of chlorate of potash and sugar at one end, a thin glass globule of strong sulphuric acid being attached at the same point. When the sulphuric acid was liberated by pinching the glass globule, it acted on the mixed chlorate and sugar, producing fire. The phosphorus friction-match of the present day was first introduced on a commercial scale in 1833. It appears to have been made almost simultaneously in several distinct centres. The name most prominently connected with the early stages of the invention is that of J. Preschel of Vienna, who in 1833 had a factory in operation for making phosphorus matches, fusees, and amadou slips tipped with igniting composition. At the same time also matches were being made by F. Moldenhauer in Darmstadt; and for a long series of years Austria and the South-German states were the principal centres of the new industry.

But the use of ordinary white or yellow phosphorus as a principal ingredient in the igniting mixture of matches was found to be accompanied with very serious disadvantages. It is a deadly poison, and its free dissemination has led to many accidental deaths, and to numerous cases of wilful murder and suicide. Workers also who are exposed to phosphoric vapours are subject to a peculiarly distressing disease which attacks the jaw, and ultimately produces necrosis of the jaw-bone ("phossy jaw"), though with scrupulous attention to ventilation and cleanliness much of the risk of the disease may be avoided. The most serious objections to the use of phosphorus, however, were overcome by the discovery of the modified form of that body known as red or amorphous phosphorus. That substance was utilized for the manufacture of the well-known "safety matches" by J. E. Lundström, of Jönköping, Sweden, in 1852; its employment for this purpose had been patented eight years previously by another Swede, G. E. Pasch, who, however, regarded it as an oxide of phosphorus. Red phosphorus is in itself a perfectly innocuous substance, and no evil effects arise from freely working the compositions of which it forms an ingredient. The fact again that safety matches ignite only in exceptional circumstances on any other than the prepared surfaces which accompany the box--which surfaces and not the matches themselves contain the phosphorus required for ignition--makes them much less liable to cause accidental fires than other kinds.

The processes carried out in a match factory include preparing the splints, dipping them first in molten paraffin wax and then in the igniting composition, and filling the matches into boxes. All these operations are performed by complicated automatic machinery, in the development of which the Diamond Match Company of America has taken a leading part, with the minimum of manual intervention.

The chief element in the igniting mixture of ordinary or "strike
anywhere" matches used to be common yellow phosphorus, combined with
one or more other bodies which readily part with oxygen under the
influence of heat. Chief among these latter substances is chlorate of
potash, others being red lead, nitrate of lead, bichromate of potash
and peroxide of manganese. But at the beginning of the 20th century
many countries took steps to stop the use of yellow phosphorus owing
to the danger to health attending its manipulation. In Sweden, matches
made with it have been prohibited for home consumption, but not for
export, since 1901. In 1905 and 1906 two conferences, attended by
representatives of most of the governments of Europe, were held at
Berne to consider the question of prohibiting yellow phosphorus, but
no general agreement was reached owing to the objections entertained
by Sweden, Norway, Spain and Portugal, and also Japan. Germany,
France, Italy, Denmark, Holland, Switzerland and Luxemburg, however,
agreed to a convention whereby yellow phosphorus was prohibited as
from 1912, and to this Great Britain expressed her adherence after the
passing of the White Matches Prohibition Act 1908, which forbade the
manufacture and importation of such matches from the 1st of January
1910; though to avoid hardship to retailers and others holding large
stocks it permitted their sale for a year longer. Phosphorous sulphide
(sesquisulphide of phosphorus) is one of the substances widely
employed as a substitute for yellow phosphorus in matches which will
strike anywhere without the need of a specially prepared surface.

Safety matches contain no phosphorus in the heads; according to one
formula that has been published the mixture with which they are tipped
consists of chlorate of potash, 32 parts; bichromate of potash, 12;
red lead, 32; sulphide of antimony, 24; while the ingredients of a
suitable rubbing surface are eight parts of amorphous phosphorus to
nine of sulphide of antimony. There is no doubt, however, that there
is considerable diversity in the composition of the mixtures actually
employed.

"Vestas" are matches in which short pieces of thin "wax taper" are
used in place of wooden splints. Fusees or vesuvians consist of large
oval heads fixed on a round splint. These heads consist of a porous
mixture of charcoal, saltpetre, cascarilla or other scented bark,
glass and gum, tipped with common igniting composition. When lighted
they form a glowing mass, without flame.

It is calculated that in the principal European countries from six to
ten matches are used for each inhabitant daily, and the world's annual
output must reach a total which requires twelve or thirteen figures
for its expression. In the United States the manufacture is under the
control of the Diamond Match Company, formed in 1881; which company
also has an important share in the industry in Great Britain, where it
has established large works. Similarly the manufacture of safety
matches in Sweden is largely controlled by one big combination. In
France matches are a government monopoly, and are both dear in price
and inferior in quality, as compared with other countries where the
industry is left to private enterprise. The French government formerly
leased the manufacture to a company (_Société générale des allumettes
chimiques_), but since 1890 it has been undertaken directly by the
state.

MATE (a corruption of _make_, from O. Eng. _gemaca_, a "comrade"), a companion. In the language of the sea, the mate is the companion or assistant of the master, or of any officer at the head of a division of the crew. In the merchant service the mates are the officers who serve under the master, commonly called the captain, navigate the vessel under his direction, and replace him if he dies, or is disabled. In a war-ship mates serve under the gunner, boatswain, carpenter, &c. They are officers told off to attend to a particular part of the ship, as for example mate of the upper deck, whose duty is to see that it is kept clean, or mate of the hold, who is employed to serve out the water and other stores, and to keep the weights adjusted so as to preserve the trim--or balance--of the ship. (For "mate" in chess, see CHESS.)

MATÉ, or PARAGUAY TEA, the dried leaves of _Ilex paraguariensis_,[1] an evergreen shrub or small tree belonging to the same genus as the common holly, a plant to which it bears some resemblance in size and habit. The leaves are from 6 to 8 in. long, shortly stalked, with a somewhat acute tip and finely toothed at the margin. The small white flowers grow in forked clusters in the axils of the leaves; the sepals, petals and stamens are four in number, or occasionally five; and the berry is 4-seeded. The plant grows abundantly in Paraguay, and the south of Brazil, forming woods called _yerbales_. One of the principal centres of the maté industry is the Villa Real, a small town above Asuncion on the Paraguay river; another is the Villa de San Xavier, in the district between the rivers Uruguay and Parana.

Although maté appears to have been used from time immemorial by the
Indians, the Jesuits were the first to attempt its cultivation. This
was begun at their branch missions in Paraguay and the province of Rio
Grande de San Pedro, where some plantations still exist, and yield the
best tea that is made. From this circumstance the names Jesuits' tea,
tea of the Missions, St Bartholomew's tea, &c., are sometimes applied
to maté. Under cultivation the quality of the tea improves, but the
plant remains a small shrub with numerous stems, instead of forming,
as in the wild state, a tree with a rounded head. From cultivated
plants the leaves are gathered every two or three years, that interval
being necessary for restoration to vigorous growth. The collection of
maté is, however, chiefly effected by Indians employed for that
purpose by merchants, who pay a money consideration to government for
the privilege.

When a yerbal or maté wood is found, the Indians, who usually travel
in companies of about twenty-five in number, build wigwams and settle
down to the work for about six months. Their first operation is to
prepare an open space, called a _tatacua_, about 6 ft. square, in
which the surface of the soil is beaten hard and smooth with mallets.
The leafy branches of the maté are then cut down and placed on the
tatacua, where they undergo a preliminary roasting from a fire kindled
around it. An arch of poles, or of hurdles, is then erected above it,
on which the maté is placed, a fire being lighted underneath. This
part of the process demands some care, since by it the leaves have to
be rendered brittle enough to be easily pulverized, and the aroma has
to be developed, the necessary amount of heat being only learned by
experience. After drying, the leaves are reduced to coarse powder in
mortars formed of pits in the earth well rammed. Maté so prepared is
called _caa gazu_ or _yerva do polos_, and is chiefly used in Brazil.
In Paraguay and the vicinity of Parana in the Argentine Republic, the
leaves are deprived of the midrib before roasting; this is called
_caa-míri_. A very superior quality, or _caa-cuys_, is also prepared
in Paraguay from the scarcely expanded buds. Another method of drying
maté has been adopted, the leaves being heated in large cast-iron pans
set in brickwork, in the same way that tea is dried in China; it is
afterwards powdered by machinery.

Portion of plant, half natural size. Flower, drupe and nuts, twice
natural size. Part of under-side of leaf showing minute glands,
natural size.]

The different methods of preparation influence to a certain extent the
value of the product, the maté prepared in Paraguay being considered
the best, that of Oran and Paranagua very inferior. The leaves when
dried are packed tightly in serons or oblong packages made of raw
hides, which are then carefully sewed up. These shrink by exposure to
the sun, and in a couple of days form compact parcels each containing
about 200 lb. of tea; in this form it keeps well. The tea is generally
prepared for use in a small silver-mounted calabash, made of the fruit
of _Crescentia cujete_ (Cuca) or of _Lagenaria_ (Cabaço), usually
about the size of a large orange, the tapering end of the latter
serving for a handle. In the top of the calabash, or _maté_,[2] a
circular hole about the size of a florin is made, and through this
opening the tea is sucked by means of a bombilla. This instrument
consists of a small tube 6 or 7 in. long, formed either of metal or a
reed, which has at one end a bulb made either of extremely fine
basket-work or of metal perforated with minute holes, so as to prevent
the particles of the tea-leaves from being drawn up into the mouth.
Some sugar and a little hot water are first placed in the gourd, the
yerva is then added, and finally the vessel is filled to the brim with
boiling water, or milk previously heated by a spirit lamp. A little
burnt sugar or lemon juice is sometimes added instead of milk. The
beverage is then handed round to the company, each person being
furnished with a bombilla. The leaves will bear steeping about three
times. The infusion, if not drunk soon after it is made, rapidly turns
black. Persons who are fond of maté drink it before every meal, and
consume about 1 oz. of the leaves per day. In the neighbourhood of
Parana it is prepared and drunk like Chinese tea. Maté is generally
considered disagreeable by those unaccustomed to it, having a somewhat
bitter taste; moreover, it is the custom to drink it so hot as to be
unpleasant. But in the south-eastern republics it is a much-prized
article of luxury, and is the first thing offered to visitors. The
_gaucho_ of the plains will travel on horseback for weeks asking no
better fare than dried beef washed down with copious draughts of maté,
and for it he will forego any other luxury, such as sugar, rice or
biscuit. Maté acts as a restorative after great fatigue in the same
manner as tea. Since it does not lose its flavour so quickly as tea by
exposure to the air and damp it is more valuable to travellers.

Since the beginning of the 17th century maté has been drunk by all
classes in Paraguay, and it is now used throughout Brazil and the
neighbouring countries.

The virtues of this substance are due to the occurrence in it of
caffeine, of which a given quantity of maté, as prepared for drinking,
contains definitely less than a similar quantity of tea or coffee. It
is less astringent than either of these, and thus is, on all scores,
less open to objection.

See Scully, _Brazil_ (London, 1866); Mansfield, _Brazil_ (London,
1856); Christy, _New Commercial Plants_, No. 3 (London, 1880); _Kew
Bulletin_ (1892), p. 132.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _I. gigantea_, _I. ovalifolia_, _I. Humboldtiana_, and _I.
nigropunctata_, besides several varieties of these species, are also
used for preparing maté.

[2] The word _caa_ signified the plant in the native Indian language.
The Spaniards gave it a similar name, _yerba_. _Maté_ comes from the
language of the Incas, and originally means a calabash. The Paraguay
tea was called at first _yerva do maté_, and then, the _yerva_ being
dropped, the name _maté_ came to signify the same thing.

MATERA, a city of Basilicata, Italy, in the province of Potenza, from which it is 68 m. E. by road (13 m. S. of the station of Altamura), 1312 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901), 17,801. Part of it is built on a level plateau and part in deep valleys adjoining, the tops of the campaniles of the lower portions being on a level with the streets of the upper. The principal building is the cathedral of the archbishopric of Acerenza and Matera, formed in 1203 by the union of the two bishoprics, dating respectively from 300 and 398. The western façade of the cathedral is plain, while the utmost richness of decoration is lavished on the south front which faces the piazza. Almost in the centre of this south façade is an exquisitely sculptured window, from which letters from the Greek patriarch at Constantinople used to be read. The campanile is 175 ft. high. In the vicinity are the troglodyte caverns of Monte Scaglioso, still inhabited by some of the lower classes, and other caves with 13th-century frescoes.

Neolithic pottery has been found here, but the origin of the town is
uncertain. Under the Normans Matera was a countship for William Bras
de Fer and his successors. It was the chief town of the Basilicata
from 1664 till 1811, when the French transferred the administration to
Potenza.

MATERIALISM (from Lat. _materia_, matter), in philosophy, the theory which regards all the facts of the universe as explainable in terms of matter and motion, and in particular explains all psychical processes by physical and chemical changes in the nervous system. It is thus opposed both to natural realism and to idealism. For the natural realist stands upon the common-sense position that minds and material objects have equally effective existence; while the idealist explains matter by mind and denies that mind can be explained by matter. The various forms into which materialism may be classified correspond to the various causes which induce men to take up materialistic views. _Naïve materialism_ is due to a cause which still, perhaps, has no small power, the natural difficulty which persons who have had no philosophic training experience in observing and appreciating the importance of the immaterial facts of consciousness. The pre-Socratics may be classed as naïve materialists in this sense; though, as at that early period the contrast between matter and spirit had not been fully realized and matter was credited with properties that belong to life, it is usual to apply the term hylozoism (q.v.) to the earliest stage of Greek metaphysical theory. It is not difficult to discern the influence of naïve materialism in contemporary thinking. We see it in Huxley, and still more in Haeckel, whose materialism (which he chooses to term "monism") is evidently conditioned by ignorance of the history and present position of speculation. _Cosmological materialism_ is that form of the doctrine in which the dominant motive is the formation of a comprehensive world-scheme: the Stoics and Epicureans were cosmological materialists. In _anti-religious materialism_ the motive is hostility to established dogmas which are connected, in the Christian system especially, with certain forms of spiritual doctrine. Such a motive weighed much with Hobbes and with the French materialists of the 18th century, such as La Mettrie and d'Holbach. The cause of _medical materialism_ is the natural bias of physicians towards explaining the health and disease of mind by the health and disease of body. It has received its greatest support from the study of insanity, which is now fully recognized as conditioned by disease of the brain. To this school belong Drs Maudsley and Mercier. The highest form of the doctrine is _scientific materialism_, by which term is meant the doctrine so commonly adopted by the physicist, zoologist and biologist.

It may perhaps be fairly said that materialism is at present a necessary methodological postulate of natural-scientific inquiry. The business of the scientist is to explain everything by the physical causes which are comparatively well understood and to exclude the interference of spiritual causes. It was the great work of Descartes to exclude rigorously from science all explanations which were not scientifically verifiable; and the prevalence of materialism at certain epochs, as in the enlightenment of the 18th century and in the German philosophy of the middle 19th, were occasioned by special need to vindicate the scientific position, in the former case against the Church, in the latter case against the pseudo-science of the Hegelian dialectic. The chief definite periods of materialism are the pre-Socratic and the post-Aristotelian in Greece, the 18th century in France, and in Germany the 19th century from about 1850 to 1880. In England materialism has been endemic, so to speak, from Hobbes to the present time, and English materialism is more important perhaps than that of any other country. But, from the national distrust of system, it has not been elaborated into a consistent metaphysic, but is rather traceable as a tendency harmonizing with the spirit of natural science. Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Mill and Herbert Spencer are not systematic materialists, but show tendencies towards materialism.

See METAPHYSICS; and Lange's _History of Materialism_.

MATER MATUTA (connected with Lat. _mane_, _matutinus_, "morning"), an old Italian goddess of dawn. The idea of light being closely connected with childbirth, whereby the infant is brought into the light of the world, she came to be regarded as a double of Juno, and was identified by the Greeks with Eilithyia. Matuta had a temple in Rome in the Forum Boarium, where the festival of Matralia was celebrated on the 11th of June. Only married women were admitted, and none who had been married more than once were allowed to crown her image with garlands. Under hellenizing influences, she became a goddess of sea and harbours, the Ino-Leucothea of the Greeks. In this connexion it is noticeable that, as Ino tended her nephew Dionysus, so at the Matralia the participants prayed for the welfare of their nephews and nieces before that of their own children. The transformation was complete in 174 B.C., when Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, after the conquest of Sardinia, placed in the temple of Matuta a map commemorative of the campaign, containing a plan of the island and the various engagements. The progress of navigation and the association of divinities of the sky with maritime affairs probably also assisted to bring about the change, although the memory of her earlier function as a goddess of childbirth survived till imperial times.

Ovid, _Fasti_, vi. 475; Livy xli. 28; Plutarch, _Quaestiones romanae_,
16, 17.

MATHEMATICS (Gr. [Greek: mathêmatkê], sc. [Greek: technê] or [Greek: epistêmê]; from [Greek: mathêma], "learning" or "science"), the general term for the various applications of mathematical thought, the traditional field of which is number and quantity. It has been usual to define mathematics as "the science of discrete and continuous magnitude." Even Leibnitz,[1] who initiated a more modern point of view, follows the tradition in thus confining the scope of mathematics properly so called, while apparently conceiving it as a department of a yet wider science of reasoning. A short consideration of some leading topics of the science will exemplify both the plausibility and inadequacy of the above definition. Arithmetic, algebra, and the infinitesimal calculus, are sciences directly concerned with integral numbers, rational (or fractional) numbers, and real numbers generally, which include incommensurable numbers. It would seem that "the general theory of discrete and continuous quantity" is the exact description of the topics of these sciences. Furthermore, can we not complete the circle of the mathematical sciences by adding geometry? Now geometry deals with points, lines, planes and cubic contents. Of these all except points are quantities: lines involve lengths, planes involve areas, and cubic contents involve volumes. Also, as the Cartesian geometry shows, all the relations between points are expressible in terms of geometric quantities. Accordingly, at first sight it seems reasonable to define geometry in some such way as "the science of dimensional quantity." Thus every subdivision of mathematical science would appear to deal with quantity, and the definition of mathematics as "the science of quantity" would appear to be justified. We have now to consider the reasons for rejecting this definition as inadequate.

_Types of Critical Questions._--What are numbers? We can talk of five apples and ten pears. But what are "five" and "ten" apart from the apples and pears? Also in addition to the cardinal numbers there are the ordinal numbers: the fifth apple and the tenth pear claim thought. What is the relation of "the fifth" and "the tenth" to "five" and "ten"? "The first rose of summer" and "the last rose of summer" are parallel phrases, yet one explicitly introduces an ordinal number and the other does not. Again, "half a foot" and "half a pound" are easily defined. But in what sense is there "a half," which is the same for "half a foot" as "half a pound"? Furthermore, incommensurable numbers are defined as the limits arrived at as the result of certain procedures with rational numbers. But how do we know that there is anything to reach? We must know that [root]2 exists before we can prove that any procedure will reach it. An expedition to the North Pole has nothing to reach unless the earth rotates.

Also in geometry, what is a point? The straightness of a straight line and the planeness of a plane require consideration. Furthermore, "congruence" is a difficulty. For when a triangle "moves," the points do not move with it. So what is it that keeps unaltered in the moving triangle? Thus the whole method of measurement in geometry as described in the elementary textbooks and the older treatises is obscure to the last degree. Lastly, what are "dimensions"? All these topics require thorough discussion before we can rest content with the definition of mathematics as the general science of magnitude; and by the time they are discussed the definition has evaporated. An outline of the modern answers to questions such as the above will now be given. A critical defence of them would require a volume.[2]