number of volatile substances, confirming Gay-Lussac’s law. He obtained selenic acid in 1827 and showed that its salts are isomorphous with the sulphates, while a few years later he proved that the same thing is true of the manganates and the sulphates, and of the permanganates and the perchlorates. He investigated the relation of benzene to benzoic acid and to other derivatives. In 1829–1830 he published his Lehrbuch der Chemie, which embodied many original observations. His interest in mineralogy led him to study the geology of volcanic regions, and he made frequent visits to the Eifel with a view to the discovery of a theory of volcanic action. He did not, however, publish any papers on the subject, though after his death his notes were arranged and published by Dr. J. L. A. Roth in the Memoirs of the Berlin Academy (1866). In December 1861 the symptoms of heart-disease made their appearance, but he was able to carry on his academical work till December 1862. He died in Schönberg near Berlin, on the 28th of August 1863.
Mitscherlich’s published papers are chiefly to be found in the Abhandlungen of the Berlin Academy, in Poggendorff’s Annalen, and in the Annales de chimie et de physique. The 4th edition of the Lehrbuch der Chemie was published in 1844–1847, a 5th was begun in 1855, but was not completed.
MITTEN, a covering for the hand, with a division for the
thumb only, and reaching to the lower joint of the fingers;
it is made of silk, lace, wool or other material. The word
is of obscure origin; it has been connected with the Ger. mitte, middle,
half, in the sense of that which half covers the hand. There
are several Celtic words which may be cognate, e.g. Irish miotag,
mutan, a thick glove, mitten, such as is worn by hedgers and
ditchers. The 16th-century French word miton meant a gauntlet.
A fine mitten made of lace or open network and extending well
up the forearm was much worn by ladies in the early part of
the 19th century, and has been fashionable at various times
since that date.
MITTWEIDA, a town of Germany in the kingdom of Saxony,
on the Zschopau, 12 m. by rail N. of Chemnitz on the railway
to Dobeln and Riesa. Pop. (1905), 17,465. It has a handsome
Evangelical church, a classical, a modern and a technical school,
and cotton and spinning mills. Other industries are the making
of furniture, machinery, cigars and cement.
MIVART, ST GEORGE JACKSON (1827–1900), English
biologist, was born in London on the 30th of November 1827,
and educated at Clapham grammar-school, Harrow, and King’s
College, London, and afterwards at St Mary’s, Oscott, since his
conversion to Roman Catholicism prevented him from going to
Oxford. In 1851 he was called to the bar, but he devoted himself
to medical and biological studies. In 1862 he was appointed
lecturer at St Mary’s Hospital medical school, in 1869 he became
a fellow of the Zoological Society, and from 1874 to 1877 he was
professor at the short-lived Roman Catholic University
College, London. In 1873 he published Lessons in Elementary Anatomy,
and an essay on Man and Apes. In 1881 appeared
The Cat: an Introduction to the Study of Back-boned Animals.
The careful and detailed work he bestowed on Insectivora and
Carnivora largely increased our knowledge of the anatomy of
these groups. In 1871 his Genesis of Species brought him into
the controversy then raging. Though admitting evolution
generally, Mivart denied its applicability to the human intellect.
His views as to the relationship existing between human nature and intellect and animal nature in general were given in Nature and Thought (1882); and in the Origin of Human Reason (1889) he stated what he considered the fundamental difference between men and animals. In 1884, at the invitation of the Belgian episcopate, he became professor of the philosophy of natural history at the university of Louvain, which had conferred on him the degree of M.D. in 1884. Some articles published in the Nineteenth Century in 1892 and 1893, in which Mivart advocated the claims of science even where they seemed to conflict with religion, were placed on the Index expurgatorius, and other articles in January 1900 led to his excommunication by Cardinal Vaughan, with whom he had a curious correspondence vindicating his claim to hold liberal opinions while remaining in the Roman Catholic Church. Shortly afterwards he died, in London, on the 1st of April 1900. Mivart was also the author of many scientific papers and occasional articles, and of Castle and Manor: a Tale of our Time (1900), which originally appeared in 1894 as Henry Standon, by “D’Arcy Drew.”
MIZPAH, or Mizpeh, the name of several places referred to
in the Old Testament, in each case probably derived from a
“commanding prospect,” the Hebrew name having that
significance. (1) Mizpah of Gilead, where Jacob was reconciled
to Laban (Gen. xxxi. 49); apparently the site of the camp of
the Israelites when about to attack the Ammonites under
Jephthah’s leadership (Judges x. 17). This ancient sanctuary was
probably the scene of Jephthah’s vow (Judges xi. 29; cf. v. 11).
The identification of this Mizpeh is a difficult problem: it is
supposed to be the same as Ramoth Gilead, but the evidence is
scarcely conclusive. It is referred to in Hos. v. 1. (2) Mizpah
of Benjamin. It has been suggested, on hardly sufficient
grounds, that the Mizpeh where the Hebrews assembled before
the extermination of the Benjamites (Judges xx. 1) was not the
shrine where Samuel made his headquarters (1 Sam. vii. 5). It
was fortified by Asa (1 Kings xv. 22), and after the destruction
of Jerusalem was the seat of government under the viceroy Gedaliah
(2 Kings xxv. 23): here Gedaliah was murdered (ibid. 25).
After the exile it retained the tradition of being a seat of government
(Neh. iii. 7) and a holy place (1 Macc. iii. 46). It is
probably to be identified with the mountain, Neby Samwil,
north of Jerusalem, still considered sacred by the Moslems: a
Crusaders’ church (now a mosque), covers the traditional tomb
of Samuel. (3) A territory near Mount Hermon, a seat of the
Hivites, which joined the coalition of Jabin against Joshua
(Joshua xi. 3). In the territory was the “valley of Mizpeh”
(v. 8) where the Canaanites were routed. (4) A town in the
tribe of Judah (Joshua xv. 38). (5) Mizpeh of Moab, where
David interviewed the king of Moab and found an asylum for
his parents (1 Sam. xxii. 3). (R. A. S. M.)
MIZRAIM, the biblical name for Egypt (Gen. x. 6, 13, Hebrew
Miṣrayim; the apparently dual termination -aim may be due
to a misunderstanding); there is an alternative poetical form
Māṣōr (2 Kings xix. 24, &c.). In Isa. xi. 11 the name is kept
distinct from Pathros or Upper Egypt, and represents some
portion at least of Lower Egypt. It perhaps means “boundary”
or “frontier,” a somewhat ambiguous term, which illustrates
the topographical problems. First (a), E. Schrader pointed
out in 1874 that the Assyrians knew of some Muṣri (i.e. Mizraim)
in North Syria, and it is extremely probable that this land is
referred to in 2 Kings vii. 6 (mentioned with the Hittites), and
in 1 Kings x. 28 seq., 2 Chron. i. 16 seq., where the word for
“droves” (Heb. m-q-v-h) conceals the contiguous land Kuë
(Cilicia).[1] Next (b), C. T. Beke, as long ago as 1834, concluded
in his Origines biblicae (p. 167 et passim) that “Egypt”
in the Old Testament sometimes designates a district near
Midian and the Gulf of ʽAkaba, and the view restated recently
and quite independently by H. Winckler on later evidence
(1893) has been the subject of continued debate. Egypt is
known to have laid claim to the southern half of Palestine
from early times, and consequently the extension of the name
of Egypt beyond the limits of Egypt and of the Sinaitic peninsula,
is inherently probable. When, for example, Hagar, the
“Egyptian,” is the ancestress of Ishmaelite tribes, the evidence
makes it very unlikely that the term is to be understood in the
strict ethnical sense; and there are other passages more suitably
interpreted on the hypothesis that the wider extension of the
term was once familiar. In the second half of the 8th century
B.C., Assyrian inscriptions allude to a powerful Muṣri at a time
when the Nile empire was disintegrated and scarcely in a position
to play the part ascribed to it (i.e. if by Muṣri we are to understand
Egypt).[2] Not until the supremacy of Tirhakah does the
ambiguity begin to disappear, and much depends upon the
