MOUNT. EVEREST MOUNT VERNON 11 tion to the distance of 6 or 8 m. The scenery of the island is very grand and beautiful. The greater part of its surface is covered by seven ridges of mountains, whose highest peak, Mt. Adam or Mt. Green, rises 1,762 ft. above the sea. High up among the mountains are many beautiful lakes, the largest of which is several miles long. The S. E. coast is lined with stu- pendous cliffs ; the most remarkable of these are Great Head and Schooner Head. In French- man's bay, on the E, side of Mount Desert, are five high rocky islands called the Porcupines, and about 20 m. to the southward in the open ocean is Mount Desert rock, the site of a noted lighthouse. Mount Desert is much resorted to in summer for the beauty of its scenery. The island was discovered and named by the French about the beginning of the 17th century. M. de La Saussaye and Fathers Quentin, Lalemant, Biard, and Masse, with 25 colonists from France, landed here in May, 1613, built a small fort and a few cabins, and called the place St. Sauveur. This settlement was forcibly broken up in a few weeks by Gov. Argall of Virginia. The first permanent settlement was made by Abraham Somes, who in 1T61 built a house at the head of the sound." MOUNT EVEREST. See HIMALAYA MOUN- TAINS, vol. viii., p. 732. MOUNTFORD, William, an American clergy- man, born in Kidderminster, England, May 31, 1816. He was educated at Manchester New college, and was minister of a Unitarian chapel in Manchester from 1838 to 1841, when he went to Lynn-Regis. In 1850 he removed to the United States, and soon after became minister of the first Unitarian church in Glou- cester, Mass. He was in France and Italy from 1856 to 1860, when he returned, and has since resided in Boston. He has published "Mar- tyria, a Legend " (London, 1845 ; Boston, 1846) ; " Christianity the Deliverance of the Soul and its Life," sermons (London, 1846) ; " Euthanasy, or Happy Talks toward the End of Life " (Bos- ton, 1848 ; with additions, 1850 ; new ed., 1874) ; "Thorpe, a quiet English Town, and Human Life therein " (1852) ; and "Miracles, Past and Present" (1870). MOUNT PLEASANT, a town and the capital of Henry co., Iowa, on the Burlington and Mis- souri River railroad, 25 m. W. N. "W. of Bur- lington, and 110 m. E. S. E. of Des Moines; pop. in 1870, 4,245. It stands on an elevated prairie, surrounded on all sides but the east by Big creek, an affluent of Skunk river. The adjacent country is highly productive. The town is the seat of one of the state asylums for the insane, and of Iowa Wesleyan uni- versity and German college, both under the control of the Methodists. The university was established in 1855, admits both sexes, and has preparatory, collegiate, theological, and law departments, and a school of pharmacy. In 1873-'4 it had 14 instructors, 200 students, and a library of 3,000 volumes. German college was organized in 1873, and in 1873-'4 had 4 instructors and 15 students. Mount Pleasant has graded public schools, a high school, two national banks, two weekly newspapers, two monthly periodicals, and eleven churches. MOUNTRAILLE, a N. W. county of Dakota, bordering on British America, and bounded S. W. by the Missouri river, recently formed, and not included in the census of 1870 ; area, about 3,200 sq. m. It is drained by White Earth and Little Knife rivers, affluents of the Missouri, and 'by a fork of Mouse river. The surface is elevated, being occupied by the Plateau du Coteau du Missouri. MOUNT SAINT ELIAS. See ALASKA. MOUNT VERNON, the home and burial place of George Washington, on the right bank of Mount Vernon. the Potomac in Fairfax co., Va., 9 m. S. by W. of Alexandria and 15 m. from Washington city. At the time of Washington's decease the estate comprised several thousand acres. The
