MERGENTHALER 195 MERIDEN '^^The Tragic Comedians" (1881); "Poems Guadiana, 36 miles E. of Badajoz It is and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth" (1883); remarkable for its Roman remains "Diana of the Crossways" (1885) ; "Bal- which include a bridge of 81 arches 2 ' lads and Poems of Tragic Life" (1887); 575 feet long and 26 feet broad, erected "One of our Conquerors" (1891) ; "Lord by Trajan; the ruins of half a dozen prmont and his Ammta" (1894) ; "The temples, of an aqueduct, a circus a Amazing Marriage" (1895); "Odes in theater, a naumachia, a castle, and the Commemoration of the History of Arch of Santiago, 44 feet high, built by France" (1898); etc. 1909. He died May 18, MERGENTHALER, OTTMAR (merG- en-ta'-ler), an American inventor; bom in Wiirttemberg, Germany, May 10, 1854; came to the United States in 1872 and received a government position in Wash- ington to care for the mechanism of Trajan. There is also an old Moorish palace. Merida was built in 23 B. c, and flourished in great splendor as the capital of Lusitania. In 713 it was taken by the Moors, who lost it to the Span- iards in 1229. m:6rIDA, city and capital of the Mexican state of Yucatan; on a barren bells, clocks, and signal service appa- plain, 25 miles S. of Progreso, on the ?'^^,"^Li^*^^"^!.f°2!^^*?- ^^S ^ l^^^^IV^*^' ^^^^ of Mexico, and 95 miles N. E. of ^ - ' ^ "- - '" Campeachy; occupies the site of a former native city, and was founded by the Spaniards in 1542; has a cathedral and many churches, a university, seminary, girls' high school, and conservatory of music, an antiquarian museum, a public ical engineering firm in Baltimore, Md., in 1876. Subsequently, while still en- gaged with that company, he began ex- I)eriments which resulted in the inven- tion of the type-setting machine bearing his name. His plan as finally perfected consisted of a keyboard by means of library, hospital, alms-house, and f ound- which a line of type or dies could be set, ]ing asylum; trade not extensive; pop. adjusted to a desired width, and cast about 65,000. into a solid line of type metal. He , patented his invention, but it was not MERIDA, a town of Venezuela, capi- successful till the linotype company tal of Merida state; 5,290 feet above sea- which he had formed purchased the level, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada de Rogers spacer. He died in Baltimore, Merida, and 70 miles S. of the lake of Md., Oct. 28, 1899. Maracaibo; founded in 1558; it was al- MERGER, a term in old English law, i^^^t wholly, destroyed by an earthquake bearing on the relations between land- lords and tenants. In its more modem significance it constitutes a form of in- dustrial combination, generally known as a trust. By a merger a number of in- dustrial establishments, or corporations, are combined under a joint ownership, through what is technically known as a holding company. The majority stock of m 1812; is the seat of a bishop, contains a university and several higher schools, and has manufactures of carpets and woolen and cotton stuffs and exports cof- fee and fruits. Pop. about 17,000. MERIDEN, a city in New Haven co.. Conn.; on the New York. New Haven, and Hartford railroad; 18 miles N. by N. E. of New Haven. There are a high the various corporations to be controlled school, the Connecticut School for Boys, is exchanged for stock in the holding Meriden hospital, Curtis Home for Or- company, which thus acquires majority phan Children and Aged Women, the control of all in common, the transaction Curtis Memorial Library, waterworks, not always being obvious to outsiders, electric light and street railroad plants' By a decision of the United States Su- National and savings banks, and several preme Court, in the case of the North- em Security Co., a holding company formed to control the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific railroad com- panies, mergers of this character were held to be illegal. MERGUI ARCHIPELAGO, a group of islands in the Gulf of Bengal, lying off the S. provinces of Burma; they are mountainous, some rising to 3,000 feet, of picturesque beauty, and sparsely in- habited by a race called the Selungs. periodicals. The city is widely noted for its manufactures, which include tin- ware, cutlery, bronze ware, electro- plated ware, granite, iron and pearl agate ware, organs and organettes, brass and iron, gas and kerosene fixtures; bronze art goods, lamp trimmings, builders' furniture, carriage and sad- dlery hardware, table and pocket cutlery, shears, scissors, steel pens, clocks, screws, vises, shoes, firearms, curtain fix- tures, piano stools, paper boxes, harness, printing presses, and machinery. Meri- MERIDA (ma're-tfia) (ancient Au- den was taken from Wallingford and in gusta Emerita), a decayed town of Spain, corporated in May, 1806. Pop. (1910) situated on the right bank nf the 27,265; (1920) 29,867.
