824 M E D M E E Table of mean January temperature (J. ), of mean temperature of three winter months, December, January, and February (W.), also Rainfall (R.) in the same three months, for places on the Mediterranean, with those for some others for comparison. Place-. J. W. R. Place. J. W. | R. Bilbio F. 46-4 49-5 r f.r 4 .12-88 34-0 . ,4-0 50-72 51 -62 48-02 4208 43-52 46-94 48-2 47-48 46-4 32-0 32-9 36-86 41-54 45-7 48-2 51-62 51-62 54-5 F. 48-1 50-54 50-9 53-6 54 5 57-38 52-52 52-52 49-64 43-16 46-04 48-92 48-2 48-38 47-66 3-3-06 35-42 39-4 43-16 46-6 49-3 52-7 52-7 56-0 In. 14". 231 11-3 9-6 12-4 43 4-1 9-3 50 8-5 8-0 13-0 4-6 8-0 12-0 9-9 10-5 7-5 8-8 17-5 Ajacclo F. 50-45 39 -95 F. 52-2 41-3 51-28 49-2 41-6 49-1 57-2 58-1 60-1 56-58 55-76 59-65 52-76 64-65 61-60 44-60 45-76 42-97 42-60 41-97 43-27 44-50 In. 8-0 7-8 22-5 57 10-1 12-7 56 14-4 9-0 18-3 12-1 10-1 12-2 15-9 Lisbon Tarifa Corfu Athens ., 50-45 47-57 40-28 48-74 57-38 56 -4 60-0 56-3 53-06 59-18 51-8 63-84 60-40 45-00 44-90 41-70 41-80 41-10 42-90 44-70 Gibraltar Constantinople Jerusalem Valencia Port Said Cairo Barcelona Montpcllier Alexandria Suez Nice Algiers Chan San Remo Genoa S. Cruz (Teneriffc). Funclial (Madeira).. Valentia (Ireland).. Scilly Turin Venice Home Naples Catania Palermo Pembroke Monach (Hebrides). St Kilda Malta Nature of the Bottom. In the western basin the bottom consists chiefly of clay of a grey to brownish colour. Without doubt, when freshly collected, the surface layer is reddish-brown and the lower ones dark grey. There is always some carbonate of lime, chiefly due to Foraminifera. The mud very much resembles that obtained from similar depths in those parts of the open ocean whose bottom waters are shut oil from free communication by ridges which may not approach within 2000 or 1500 fathoms of the surface, and with the exception of the Foraminifera it much resembles the mud from enclosed and comparatively shallow basins off the west coast of Scotland. In the following table the analyses are given of a few samples on the line of the submarine cable connecting Marseilles with Algiers. Locality. Composition per Cent. Latitude Longitude Depth Insoluble in HC1. Soluble in HC1. N. E. Fathoms Residue. Si0 2 in Residue. CaC0 3 Fe 2 3 FeO A1 2 3 37 39 3 23 1,343 66-13 63-98 19-79 3-09 0-39 3-46 38* 11 4* 6 1,469 39-16 79-98 38-25 2-44 0-25 10-93 39 26 4 36 782 28-13 78-98 47-50 2-21 0-20 2-54 42 47 5 11 780 48-63 70-16 31-52 2-09 0-33 4-26 43 1 5 15 265 48-04 78-60 30-80 2-40 0-36 4-58 To the student of the physical conditions of the sea the Mediter ranean possesses a very high interest ; its size is such as to entitle it to rank among oceans, while it is so completely cut off from the remaining world of water that it presents us with a type which is purely local, and one might almost say provincial. (J. Y. B. ) MEDLAR, Mespilus Germanica, L., of the tribe Pomex of the order Rosacex, regarded by Bentham and Hooker as a subgenus of Pyrus (Gen. PL, i. 626 ; see also DC., Prod, ii. 633; Trans. Lin. Soc., xiii. 99), is a native of European woods, <fcc., from Holland southwards, and of western Asia (London, Arb., ii. 877). It occurs in hedges, &c., in middle and south England, as a small much-branched spinous tree, but is not indigenous to Great Britain (Hooker s Stud. Fl. of Br. Isles, 132; Baxter s Brit. Gen. of PL, 493, and Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. ix. 86). The medlar was well known to the ancients. Pickering (Chron. Hist, of PL, 201) identifies it with a tree mentioned in a Siao-ya ode (She-King, ii. 1, 2), 827 B.C. It is the fjicnri.rj of Theophrastus and Mespilus of Pliny. London (Lc.) gives three varieties, di/usa, slrida, and sylvestris, the last being spiny, but losing its spines under cultivation, as well as four varieties of fruit. He also mentions several instances of large specimens throughout England. The well-known fruit is globular, but depressed above, with leafy persistent sepals, and contains stones of a hemispherical shape. It is not fit to eat until it begins to decay. (For culture of the medlar see HORTICULTURE.) The Japanese medlar is JEriobotryajaponica, L , a genus of the same tribe of Itosacese. MEDOC is the name given to the district in France adjoining the left bank of the Gironde from Ambes, the point where the Garonne and Dordogne unite, to Lesparie, where the marshes and polders which border on the mouth of the river begin ; its length varies from 35 to 40 miles, its breadth from 12 to 5, and the area is about 386 square miles. It is formed by a number of low hills, which separate the Landes from the Gironde, and is traversed only by small streams; the Gironde itself is muddy, and often enveloped in fog, and the region as a whole is very far from being picturesque ; but a fifth part of its soil is occupied by vineyards, the products of which form the finest growths of Bordeaux. Of these the most esteemed are Chateau-Margaux, Cbateau-Laffitte, and Chateau-Latour. Prior to the ravages of the Phylloxera, the annual product of the Medoc district was 40,000 tuns, of which 9000 were of fine quality. MEDUSA. See GORGOX, vol. x. p. 785. See also HYDROZOA, vol. xii. p. 547 sy. MEDYIST, a district town of Russia, situated in the government of Kaluga, 39 miles north-west of the capital of the province, on the highway from Moscow to Warsaw. It was formerly known under the name of Mezetsk, and in the 14th century formed part of the Smolensk principality. The soil of the surrounding country being rather infertile, the population is engaged to some extent in manufactures of linen, cotton, and paper, and the merchants of Medyn carry on a brisk trade in this produce, as well as in rye, oats, and hemp seed. The population is 8000. MEER, JAN VAN DER (1632-1675), of Delft, not to be confounded with the elder or younger Van der Meer of Haarlem or with Van der Meer of Utrecht, is one of the excellent painters of Holland about whom the Dutch biographers give us little information. 1 Van der Meer, or Vermeer, by which name he is also known, was born in Delft in 1632. There is a tradition, handed down by the Dutch writers, that he was a pupil of Carel Fabritius, but, in the strict sense of the word, this is almost impossible, for Fabritius was but eight years older than Van der Meer, and entered the guild of St Luke only one year before our painter. From his early death the works by Fabritius are few, but his contemporaries speak of him as a man of re markable power, and the paintings now ascertained to be from his hand, and till recently ascribed to Rembrandt, prove him to have been deeply imbued with the spirit and manner of that master. Whether Van der Meer had ever any closer relation to Rembrandt than through com panionship with Fabritius remains as yet uncertain. In 1653 he married Catherine Bolenes, and in the same year he entered the guild of St Luke of Delft, becoming one of the heads of the guild in 1662, and again in 1670. He died at Delft in 1675, leaving a widow and eight children. His circumstances cannot have been flourishing, for at his death he left twenty-six pictures undisposed of, and his widow had to apply to the court of insolvency to be placed under a curator, who, it is interesting to know, was Leeuwenhoek, the naturalist. It is his works, however, that claim our attention. For more than two centuries he has been almost completely forgotten, and his pictures have been sold under the names 1 This undeserved neglect seems to have fallen on him at an early period, for Houbraken (Groote Sckouburgh, 1718), writing little more than forty years after his death, does not even mention him. The only definite information we have from a contemporary is given by Bleyswijck (Beschrijviny der Stad Delft. 1687), who tells us that he was born in 1632, and that he worked along with Carl Fabritius, an able disciple of Rembrandt, who lost his life by an explosion of a powder n agazine in Delft in 1654. Jt is to the patient researches of W. Burger (Th. Thore), Havard, Obreeu, Soutendam, and others that we owe our knowledge of the main facts of his life, discovered in the
archives of his native town.