He was a heathen by birth and followed his profession of lawyer at Rome. His work entitled Octavius is in the form of a dialogue between a Christian called Octavius and a heathen called Cæcilius. Octavius defends the Christians from the calumnies which were circulated against them, charging them with crimes in their secret religious meetings, and exposes the licentious practices of the heathen. The style of the work is argumentative and pure, and much information is given concerning the manners, customs, and opinions of the period. As an apology for As an apology for Christianity it compares favorably with those of Justin, Tertullian, and other early advocates of the Christian faith, and with those of Lactantius, Ambrose, and Eusebius of the fourth century. Its date has been disputed, but the best opinion now places it in the age of the Antonines, between 150 and 180. The text is in Migne, Patrol. Lat., iii., and, edited by Halm, in the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (Vienna, 1867); Eng. trans. in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. iv. Consult: Kühn, Der Octavius des Minucius Felix (Leipzig, 1882); Bahlen, Questiones Minuciana (Berlin, 1894).

MIN'UET (Fr., small, diminutive of menu, from Lat. minutes, small, p.p. of minuere, to diminish, from minor, less; connected with Gk.μvús, minys, small, Skt. mi, to make small, Goth. minniza, OHG. minniro, Ger. minder, AS., archaic Eng. min, less; so called because of the small steps taken in the dance). A graceful and stately dance of French origin. It is supposed to have originated in Poitou, and was introduced into Paris in 1650. The first known minuet tunes were written by Lully (q.v.) in 1653. The minuet was a favorite at the Court of Louis XIV. and was carried over into England in the reign of Charles II., where it continued popular until the time of George II. In Russia it flourished during the reigns of Peter the Great and Catharine II. At first the minuet was in threequarter time and consisted of two eight-bar phrases, each of which was repeated. Mozart's minuet in Don Giovanni shows the form of the

early dance. It was soon, however, extended by the addition of a second movement (written in three-part harmony and hence called Trio) and Bach and by increasing the number of bars. Handel often introduced the minuet into their suites. Those of the former are especially famous, and Handel also used it as a concluding movement for operatic and oratorio overtures. The minuet is of particular importance because of the position it still occupies in the symphony, which is an evolution of the suite. Haydn was the first to employ it in the symphony, but he changed its character by quickening the time and making it vivacious rather than stately. Mozart used Haydn's form, retaining the rapid tempo, but gave it a tender, graceful significance. With Beethoven its history practically ceases, for he transformed it into the scherzo, thus making it an integral part of the symphony. Its use by later composers, Schumann, Mendelssohn, and others, is comparatively rare. See DANCING; SUITE; SYMPHONY.

MINUIT, mìn'ů-ît, MINUITS, or MINNEWIT, PETER (1580-1641). An early Governor of New Netherland. He was born in Wesel, on the Rhine; was a deacon for a time in the Protestant or Walloon Church there, removed to Hol

land early in the seventeenth century, and in December, 1625, received from the Dutch West India Company the appointment of Governor and Director-General of New Netherland. He reached Manhattan Island May 4, 1626, and soon afterwards purchased the island from the Indians, obtaining it for the sum of sixty guilders (about twenty-four dollars). He built Fort Amsterdam, defended with great courage and determination the claim of the Dutch to rightful possession of the island, and administered the affairs of his office judiciously and to the general satisfaction of the colony. The fact that the patroons were successful in establishing titles to enormous tracts of land became objectionable to the Dutch West India Company, who placed the responsibility on the shoulders of Minuit. In 1631 he was accordingly recalled by the company, and sailed for Holland in the following spring, but was driven into Plymouth, England, by a gale. Here he was charged with having prosecuted illegal trading within English dominions, and his vessel was attached on complaint made by the Council for New England. In May, however, his vessel was rehimself in the favor of the Dutch West India leased. Minuit made every effort to reëstablish his services to the Government of Sweden. Company, but without success, and finally offered Through the influence of Oxenstiern, then Chancellor, a Swedish West India Company was organized, and Minuit was commissioned to estabgathered together a sufficient number of Swedes lish a Swedish colony in America. He accordingly and Finns for this purpose, sailed from the port of Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1637, and, early in 1638 built Fort Christiana, near where the city of Wilmington, Del., now stands. The Swedish Dutch, who threw every obstacle in the way of colonization scheme was bitterly opposed by the its success, and eventually captured the colony and annexed it to their possessions in 1655. For newet aus Wesel," in Historische Zeitschrift, vol. a biographical sketch consult Kapp, "Peter Minxv. (1866); and Mickley, "Some Account of William Usselinx and Peter Minuit," in the Delaware Historical Society Papers, No. vi. (Wilmington, 1886).

of

MINULUAN, mē'noo-loo'ån. A town Negros, Philippines, in the Province of Western Negros. It is situated on the northwest coast of the island, five miles north of Bacolod (Map: Philippine Islands, H 9). Population, 11,340.

MINUSINSK, me'nu-sensk'. A town of Southern Siberia, in the Government of Yeniseisk, situated on the Yenisei, 300 miles southeast of Tomsk. It has a high school for girls, a good museum and library, and considerable trade in grain and cattle. Population, in 1897, 10,255.

MINUTE (OF., Fr. minute, from Lat. minutum, small portion, from minuere, to make small). A term applied to the 60th part of an hour and to the 60th part of a degree of a circle. In architecture the term minute is applied to the 60th part of the diameter of the shaft of a classic column, measured at the base; it is used as a measure to determine the proportions of the order.

MINUTE MEN. In American history, those civilians, in Massachusetts and several other colonies, who, on the approach of the Revolutionary

War, pledged themselves to take the field at a minute's notice. In Massachusetts they were enrolled in pursuance of an act of the Provincial Congress passed November 23, 1774.

MINUTOLI, mé-noo'tô-lė, HEINRICH, Baron MENU VON (1772-1846). A Prussian officer and archæologist. He was born in Geneva of an old Italian family, early entered the Prussian army, and distinguished himself in 1793 in the Rhenish campaign against France, being severely wounded at Bitsch. Frederick William III. promoted him to be major-general, and in 1820 made him head of the Prussian archæological expedition to Egypt. His valuable Egyptian collection was bought for the Berlin Museum. Minutoli's last years were spent in retirement at Lausanne. He wrote: Ueber antike Glasmosaik (with Klaproth, 1814); the important Reise zum Tempel des Jupiter Ammon und nach Oberägypten (1824-27); and Ueber die Anfertigung und Nutzanwendung der färbigen Gläser bei den Alten (1837); as well as a biography of Frederick William III. (1838-44), and an account of the campaign of 1792 (1847).

menos.

MIN'YAS (Gk. Mɩvias, Minyas). A legendary hero connected with the Baotian city OrchoHe is called son of Poseidon in the earlier writers, but in Pausanias his father is Chryses, and he is famed for his riches, and as builder of the first great treasury-really the domed tomb of Orchomenos. His fame in legend is connected with the fate of his three daughters, Leucippe (or Leuconoë), Arsippe (or Arsinoë), and Alcathoë, who, refusing to take part with the Mænads in the orgies of Dionysus, were visited by the god with Bacchic madness, in which they tore to pieces the young son of Leucippe. Their story was acted at the festival of the Agrionia, where the priest of Dionysus, with a drawn sword, pursued women of the family of the Minyadæ. The Argonauts from Iolcos in Thessaly were also called Minya, but the original connection with Minyas is very doubtful, and the statements of the ancients are obviously mere attempts to explain the identity of name.

MIOCENE EPOCH (from Gk. μelwv, meiōn, less + knivós, kainos, new). A division of geologic time following the Oligocene and preceding the Pliocene epochs of the Tertiary period. The Miocene is represented in the Atlantic and Gulf States by a series of unconsolidated sands and gravels (rarely conglomerates and limestones), which attain a thickness of from 400 to 1500 feet. In the interior region it includes the Loup Fork formation of fresh-water strata, occurring in Montana, South Dakota, and the States south ward to Mexico, and the John Day beds of east ern Oregon, which are largely composed of volcanic tuffs and ashes. In Europe the Miocene strata are extensively developed. Great geographical changes were accomplished during this epoch, one of the most important being the upheaval of Central America, by which the continents of North and South America were joined. See TERTIARY SYSTEM.

MIOGA. A kind of ginger (q.v.).

MI'OHIP'PUS (from Eng. mio-cene + Gk. Iππоs, hippos, horse). A name sometimes used to designate the Upper Miocene stage of evolution of the horse, represented by the genus Anchitherium. See HORSE, FOSSIL.

MIOLAN, myo'län', FELIX. A name sometimes used by the French singer Marie Caroline Félix Carvalho (q.v.).

MIONNET, myo'nå', THÉODORE EDME (17701842). A French numismatist, born in Paris, where he studied in the Collège du Cardinal le Moine, and in the Ecole de Droit. After four years of legal practice and a short term in the army, from which he retired because of illness, he became assistant in 1800 in the numismatic cabinet in the Bibliothèque Nationale, and there began to catalogue the collections. He traveled in Italy, made many valuable numismatic finds, and in 1830 was elected to the Academy of Inscriptions. His great works, which still have a distinct scientific value, are Déscription des médailles antiques, grecques et romaines (180630, in 17 vols.) and De la rareté et du prix des médailles romaines (1815; 3d ed. 1847). Consult Walckenaer, Notice historique sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. Mionnet (Paris, 1846).

MIQUEL, mě-kěl', JOHANNES VON (18291901). A German statesman, born in Neuenhaus, Hanover, of a family of French émigrés, and educated for the bar at Heidelberg and Göttingen. In his student days he was a rabid revolutionist and something of a Socialist, but when the period of reaction set in he soon forsook his earlier sentiments. His practice in Göttingen was very successful, and in 1864 he was elected a member of the Hanoverian Diet, and in 1865 Burgomaster of Osnabrück. Removing to Berlin in 1870, he was a director of the Diskontogesellschaft until 1873, and then president of its advisory board until 1876. Then he was again made Chief Burgomaster of Osnabrück, and in 1880 of Frankfort

on-the-Main. But his greater field of usefulness was in the Prussian House of Deputies and in the Imperial Diet. There, as in the Prussian House of Lords, of which he was ex-officio a member as Burgomaster of Frankfort, he was a leader marck's most able and forceful lieutenants. In of the National Liberal Party and one of Bis1890 he became Prussian Minister of Finance, and was hailed as the 'Emperor's man,' no doubt to reassure the country in face of its fear that the new Imperial policy was to be merely reactionary. In this office, which Miquel held up to a few months before his death, he showed himself an able financier, and a bold reformer in his attempt to liberate the Imperial Treasury from depending on the contributions of the various States. As a politician he was an opportunist driven to intrigue with any party and, above all, to any sacrifice of conviction to the policy of the Kaiser, in the hope that he might be made Chancellor. But if he was unsuccessful in his programme of Imperial finance, in his more proper sphere of Prussian finance, by playing somewhat into the hands of the Agrarian Party, he secured the adoption of a new tax system, which greatly benefited the working classes and at the same time tremendously increased the revenue. On his Prussian policy, consult: Zedlitz und Neukirch, "Miquel als Finanz- und Staatsminister," in Preussisches Jahrbuch (1901).

MIQUELON, mê'k'-lôn'. An island off the coast of Newfoundland. See SAINT PIERRE.

MIR, mēr (Russ., OChurch Slav. miră, union, peace, world, Lith. mers, Alb. mir, peace). The name of the civil communities of the Russian peasants. All land is held in common and is