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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Trapani

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​ TRAPANI (anc. Drepanum), a city and episcopal see of Sicily, capital of the province of the same name, situated on the west coast, 3 m. W. of the Monte San Giuliano, which rises above it, 121 m. W. by S. of Palermo by rail, and 47 m. direct. Pop. (1906), town 47,578, commune 68,986. The ancient Drepanum (δρέπανον, a sickle, from the shape of the low spit of land on which it stands) seems originally to have been the port of Eryx, and never to have been an independent city. It is represented by Virgil in the Aeneid as the scene of the death of Anchises, but first appears in history as an important Carthaginian naval station in the First Punic War (about 260 B.C.), part of the inhabitants of Eryx being transferred thither. Near Drepanum the Roman fleet was defeated in 250 B.C., while the struggle to obtain possession of it ended in the decisive Roman victory off the Aegates Islands in 241, which led to the conclusion of peace (see Punic Wars). It continued to be an important harbour, but never acquired municipal rights. Under the Norman kings, at the time of the first crusade, it became a place of importance; while it was a residence of the Aragonese kings. In the 16th and 17th centuries it was strongly fortified. In 1848 it was the first Sicilian city to rise against the Bourbons.
No remains of the classical period exist except a portion of the mole. There are some fine Gothic and baroque palaces, and a few churches with interesting details. The Oratorio S. Michele contains wooden groups representing scenes from the Passion, executed in the 17th century and used for carrying in procession. On the tiled pavement of Sta Lucia is an interesting view of Trapani, showing the strong fortifications on the land side, which have been demolished to permit of the extension of the town in that direction. The Madonna dell' Annunziata, about 1½ m. east of the town, founded in 1332, is now restored to its original style. The adjacent Cappella del Cristo Risorto contains a statue of the Virgin and Child in marble said to have been brought from Cyprus, to which an immense number of valuable offerings have been made, among them two bronze Candelabra and a model of the city in silver; while the statue itself is hung with jewels, necklaces, cameos, rings, watches, &c. The modern town is clean and well built, with a fine esplanade on the south. It is a harbour of considerable importance. It was entered by 144 vessels, representing a tonnage of 129,164 in 1906. The imports showed a value of £276,674, the most important items being wheat, coal and timber; while the exports amounted to £143,347, the chief items being salt, wine, salt fish and building-stone. There are also large salt-pans to the south of the city, extending along the coast as far as Marsala, which produce about 200,000 tons of salt annually, of which in 1906 121,192 tons were exported, chiefly to Norway, Sweden, Canada and the United States. The numerous windmills are used for grinding the salt.
    (T. As.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mabillon, John

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​MABILLON, JOHN (1632–1707), Benedictine monk of the Congregation of St Maur (see Maurists), was the son of a peasant near Reims. In 1653 he became a monk in the abbey of St Remi at Reims. In 1664 he was placed at St Germain-des-Prés in Paris, the great literary workshop of the Maurists, where he lived and worked for twenty years, at first under d’Achery, with whom he edited the nine folio volumes of Acta of the Benedictine Saints. In Mabillon’s Prefaces (reprinted separately) these lives were for the first time made to illustrate the ecclesiastical and civil history of the early middle ages. Mabillon’s masterpiece was the De re diplomatica (1681; and a supplement, 1704) in which were first laid down the principles for determining the authenticity and date of medieval charters and manuscripts. It practically created the science of Latin palaeography, and is still the standard work on the subject. In 1685–1686 Mabillon visited the libraries of Italy, to purchase MSS. and books for the King’s Library. On his return to Paris he was called upon to defend against de Rancé, the abbot of La Trappe, the legitimacy for monks of the kind of studies to which the Maurists devoted themselves: this called forth Mabillon’s Traité des études monastiques and his Réflexions sur la réponse de M. l’abbé de la ​Trappe (1691–1692), works embodying the ideas and programme of the Maurists for ecclesiastical studies. Mabillon produced in all some twenty folio volumes and as many of lesser size, nearly all works of monumental erudition (the chief are named in the article Maurists). A very competent judge declared that, “he knew well the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th centuries, but nothing earlier or later.” Mabillon never allowed his studies to interfere with his life as a monk; he was noted for his regular attendance at the choral recitation of the office and the other duties of the monastic life, and for his deep personal religion, as well as for a special charm of character. He died on the 26th of December 1707, in the midst of the production of the colossal Benedictine Annals.
The chief authority for his life is the Abrégé de la vie de D. J. M. (also in Latin), by his disciple and friend Ruinart (1709). See also, for a full summary of his works, Tassin, Hist. littéraire de la congr. de St Maur (1770), pp. 205-269. Of modern biographies the best are those of de Broglie (2 vols., 1888) and Bäumer (1892)—the former to be especially recommended. A brief sketch by E. C. Butler may be found in the Downside Review (1893).  (E. C. B.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Maassluis

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​MAASSLUIS, a river port of Holland, in the province of South Holland, on the New Waterway, 10 m. by rail W. of Rotterdam. Pop. (1903), 8011. It rose into importance as a fishing harbour towards the end of the 16th century, and its prosperity rapidly increased after the opening of the New Waterway (the Maas ship canal) from Rotterdam to the sea. The fort erected here in 1572 by Philip of Marnix, lord of St Aldegonde, was captured by the Spanish in 1573.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/MacCarthy, Denis Florence

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​MacCARTHY, DENIS FLORENCE (1817–1882), Irish poet, was born in Dublin on the 26th of May 1817, and educated there and at Maynooth. His earlier verses appeared in The Dublin Satirist, and in 1843 he became a regular contributor of political verse to the recently founded Nation. He also took an active part in the Irish political associations. In 1846 he edited The Poets and Dramatists of Ireland and the Book of Irish Ballads. His collected Ballads, Poems and Lyrics (1850), including translations from nearly all the modern languages, took immensely with his countrymen on account of their patriotic ring. This was followed by The Bellfounder (1857), Under-glimpses and other poems (1857) and The Early Life of Shelley (1871). In 1853 he began a number of translations from the Spanish of Calderon’s dramas, which won for him a medal from the Royal Spanish Academy. He had already been granted a civil list pension for his literary services. He died in Ireland on the 7th of April 1882.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Maasin

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​MAASIN, a town on the S.W. coast of the island of Leyte, Philippine Islands, at the mouth of the Maasin River. Pop. (1903), 21,638. Maasin is an important port for hemp and copra. The well-built town occupies a narrow coastal plain. The river valleys in the vicinity produce cotton, pepper, tobacco, rice, Indian corn and fruit. Native cloths and pottery are manufactured. Maasin is the only place on the west coast of Leyte where a court of justice is held. The language is Visayan.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/MacColl, Malcolm

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​MacCOLL, MALCOLM (c. 1838–1907), British clergyman and publicist, was the son of a Scottish farmer. He was educated at Trinity College, Glenalmond, for the Scotch Episcopal ministry, and after further study at the university of Naples was ordained in 1859, and entered on a succession of curacies in the Church of England, in London and at Addington, Bucks. He quickly became known as a political and ecclesiastical controversialist, wielding an active pen in support of W. E. Gladstone, who rewarded him with the living of St George’s, Botolph Lane, in 1871, and with a canonry of Ripon in 1884. The living was practically a sinecure, and he devoted himself to political pamphleteering and newspaper correspondence, the result of extensive European travel, a wide acquaintance with the leading personages of the day, strong views on ecclesiastical subjects from a high-church standpoint, and particularly on the politics of the Eastern Question and Mahommedanism. He took a leading part in ventilating the Bulgarian and Armenian “atrocities,” and his combative personality was constantly to the fore in support of the campaigns of Gladstonian Liberalism. He died in London on the 5th of April 1907.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/MacCormac, Sir William

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​MacCORMAC, SIR WILLIAM, Bart. (1836–1901), Irish surgeon, was born at Belfast on the 17th of January 1836, being the son of Dr Henry MacCormac. He studied medicine and surgery at Belfast, Dublin and Paris, and graduated in arts, medicine and surgery at the Queen’s University of Ireland, in which he afterwards became an examiner in surgery. He began practice in Belfast, where he became surgeon to the General Hospital, but left it for London on his marriage in 1861 to Miss Katherine M. Charters. In the Franco-German War of 1870 he was surgeon-in-chief to the Anglo-American Ambulance, ​and was present at Sedan; and he also went through the Turco-Servian War of 1876. He became in this way an authority on gun-shot wounds, and besides being highly successful as a surgeon was very popular in society, his magnificent physique and Irish temperament making him a notable and attractive personality. In 1881 he was appointed assistant-surgeon at St Thomas’s Hospital, London, and for twenty years continued his work there as surgeon, lecturer and consulting surgeon. In 1881 he acted as honorary secretary-general of the International Medical Congress in London, and was knighted for his services. In 1883 he was elected member of the council of the College of Surgeons, and in 1887 a member of the court of examiners; in 1893 he delivered the Bradshaw lecture, and in 1896 was elected president, being re-elected to this office in 1897, 1898, 1899, and 1900 (the centenary year of the college), an unprecedented record. In 1897 he was created a baronet, and appointed surgeon-in-ordinary to the prince of Wales. In 1899 he was Hunterian Orator. In the same year he volunteered to go out to South Africa as consulting surgeon to the forces, and from November 1899 to April 1900 he saw much active service both in Cape Colony and Natal, his assistance being cordially acknowledged on his return. In 1901 he was appointed honorary serjeant-surgeon to the king. But during 1898 he had suffered from a prolonged illness, and he had perhaps put too much strain on his strength, for on the 4th of December 1901 he died somewhat suddenly at Bath. Besides treatises on Surgical Operations and Antiseptic Surgery, and numerous contributions to the medical journals, MacCormac was the author of Work under the Red Cross and of an interesting volume commemorating the centenary of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1900. The latter contains biographical notices of all the masters and presidents up to that date.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/MacCullagh, James

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​MACCULLAGH, JAMES (1809–1847), Irish mathematician and physicist, was born in 1809, near Strabane, Ireland. After a brilliant career at Trinity College, Dublin, he was elected fellow in 1832. From 1832 to 1843 he held the chair of mathematics; and during his tenure of this post he improved in a most marked manner the position of his university as a mathematical centre. In 1843 he was transferred to the chair of natural philosophy. Overwork, mainly on subjects beyond the natural range of his powers, induced mental disease; and he died by his own hand in October 1847.
His Works were published in 1880. Their distinguishing feature is the geometry—which has rarely been applied either to pure space problems or to known physical questions such as the rotation of a rigid solid or the properties of Fresnel’s wave-surface with such singular elegance; in this respect his work takes rank with that of Louis Poinsot. One specially remarkable geometrical discovery of MacCullagh’s is that of the “modular generation of surfaces of the second degree”; and a noteworthy contribution to physical optics is his “theorem of the polar plane.” But his methods, which, in less known subjects, were almost entirely tentative, were altogether inadequate to the solution of the more profound physical problems to which his attention was mainly devoted, such as the theory of double refraction, &c. See G. G. Stokes’s “Report on Double Refraction” (B. A. Report, 1862).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mabinogion

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​MABINOGION (plural of Welsh mabinogi, from mabinog, a bard’s apprentice), the title given to the collection of eleven Welsh prose tales (from the Red Book of Hergest) published (1838) by Lady Charlotte Guest, but applied in the Red Book to four only. (See Celt: Welsh Literature.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Syringe

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​ SYRINGE (Gr. σῦριγξ, reed, pipe), a hydraulic instrument, based on the principle of the pump, for the drawing up and ejecting of liquids. The ordinary form is that of a glass or metal tube ending in a pointed nozzle and fitted with an airtight piston-rod and handle. The nozzle is inserted in the liquid, which enters the cylinder by atmospheric pressure when the piston-rod is drawn up. On pushing back the piston the fluid is ejected in a jet through the nozzle. In sizes varying from the needle-pointed hypodermic syringe to the abdominal syringe, it is a common surgical implement used for the injection of fluids into the body or for the washing of wounds and cavities. The smaller syringes are made of glass, the larger of metal; the most common medical syringes consist of a length of india-rubber tubing, one end terminating in a nozzle of ivory or other easily cleaned material, in the centre is a bulb or ball which under pressure draws up the liquid through the free end of the tube which is placed in the vessel containing it. There are a very large number of different types of syringe used in surgical practice. A larger syringe of metal, with a fiat perforated nozzle is used as a garden implement for watering plants.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Syrianus

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​ SYRIANUS, a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher, and head of the school at Athens in succession to Plutarch. He is important as the teacher of Proclus, and, like Plutarch and Proclus, as a commentator on Plato and Aristotle. His best-known extant work is a commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle. He is said to have written also on the De coelo and the De interpretatione of Aristotle and on Plato's Timaeus. A treatise on the Staseis of Hermogenes was published under his name by Walz in 1833. His views were identical with those of Proclus, who regarded him with great affection and left orders that he should be buried in the same tomb.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Syrinx

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​ SYRINX (σῦριγξ), the Greek name for the pan-pipes. The principle on which it works is that of the stopped pipe, but it is blown in the same manner as the ancient Egyptian nay or oblique flute. The pipes composing it were stopped at one end, so that the sound waves had to travel twice the length of the pipe, giving out a note nearly an octave lower than that produced by an open pipe of equal length. The breath directed horizontally across the open end, impinged against the sharp inner edge of the pipes, creating the regular series of pulses which generate the sound waves within the tubes. The syrinx consisted of a varying number of reeds, having their open ends or embouchures in a horizontal line and their stopped ends, formed by the knots in the reed, gradually decreasing in length from left to right. Each pipe gave out one note, but by overblowing, i.e. increased pressure of breath and tension of lips, harmonies could be obtained.
The syrinx or pan pipes owes its double name to ancient Greek tradition, ascribing its invention to Pan in connection with a well-known legend of the Arcadian water-nymph “Syrinx.” The exact form of the instrument and the number of pipes (10) at the beginning of the third century B.C. is shown in one of the Idyllia figurata, in which the legend is repeated. The pandean pipes continued in favour with the rustic populations of the West long after the organ evolved from it had eclipsed this humble prototype. The syrinx was in use during the middle ages, and was known in France as frestel or frêtiau, in medieval Latin as fistula panis, and in Germany as Pansflöte or Hirtenpfeife (now Papagenoflöte) . At the beginning of the 19th century a revival of the popularity of this instrument took place, and quartets were played on four sets of pipes of different sizes and pitch. The modern mouth-organ is the representative of the syrinx, although blown by means of a free reed.
* ↑ See Serv. ad Virgil, Ecloga, ii. 31 ; and Ovid, Metam. i. 691, &c.
* ↑ Theocritus, Brunck, Analecta veto. poet. graec. i. 304.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Wakkerstroom

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​Wakkerstroom, a town and district of the Transvaal. The district occupies part of the S.E. of the Transvaal, being bounded S. by the Orange Free State and Natal. The frontier line is in part the crest of the Drakensberg. The town of Wakkerstroom, pop. (1904) 1402, lies 18 m. E. of Volksrust and 4 m. N. of the Natal frontier. It is built on the high veld, at an elevation of 5900 ft., and possesses a bracing climate. The neighbouring hills rise over 7000 ft. The plain on which the town stands is drained by the Slang and other tributaries of the Buffalo affluent of the Tugela. The district, a fertile agricultural region, was organized as one of the divisions of the Transvaal in 1859 by President M. W. Pretorius, and after his Christian names the town was called Marthinus-Wessel-Stroom, an unwieldy designation dropped in favour of Wakkerstroom. During the war of 1880–81 the town was unsuccessfully besieged by the Boers. In 1903 a small portion of the district was annexed to Natal.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Wake, Thomas

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​WAKE, THOMAS (1297-1349), English baron, belonged to a Lincolnshire family which had lands also in Cumberland, being the son of John Wake (d. 1300), who was summoned to parliament as a baron in 1295, and the grandson of Baldwin Wake (d. 1282), both barons and warriors of repute. Among Thomas Wake's guardians were Piers Gaveston and Henry, earl of Lincoln, whose daughter Blanche (d. 1357) he married before 1317. This lady was the niece of Thomas, earl of Lancaster, and her husband was thus attached to the Lancastrian party, but he did not follow Earl Thomas in the proceedings which led to his death in 1322. Hating the favourites of Edward II. Wake joined Queen Isabella in 1326 and was a member of the small council which advised the young king, Edward III.; soon, however, he broke away from the queen and her ally, Roger Mortimer, and in conjunction with his father-in-law, now earl of Lancaster, he joined the malcontent barons. He was possibly implicated in the plot which cost his brother-in-law, Edmund, earl of Kent, his life in 1330, and he fled to France, returning to England after the overthrow of Isabella and Mortimer. Edward III. made him governor of the Channel Islands and he assisted Edward Bruce to invade Scotland, being afterwards sent on an errand to France. In 1341 he incurred the displeasure of the king and was imprisoned, but he had been restored and had been employed in Brittany and elsewhere when he died childless on the 31st of May 1349. His estates passed to his sister Margaret (d. 1349), widow of Edmund, earl of Kent, and her son John (d. 1352), and later to the Holand family. Wake established a house for the Austin canons at Newton near Hull; this was afterwards transferred to Haltemprice in the same neighbourhood.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Wakefield, Gilbert

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​WAKEFIELD, GILBERT (1756–1801), English classical scholar and politician, was born at Nottingham on the 22nd of February 1756. He was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge (fellow, 1776). In 1778 he took orders, but in the following year quitted the church and accepted the post of classical tutor at the Nonconformist academy at Warrington, which he held till the dissolution of the establishment in 1783. After leaving Warrington, he took private pupils at Nottingham and other places, and also occupied himself with literary work. His most important production at this period was the first part of the Silva critics, the design of which was the “illustration of the Scriptures by light borrowed from the philology of Greece and Rome.” In 1790 he was appointed professor of classics at the newly-founded Unitarian college at Hackney, but his proposed reforms and his objection to religious observances led to unpleasantness and to his resignation in the following year. From this time he supported himself by his pen. His edition of Lucretius, a work of high pretensions and little solid performance, appeared in 1796–1799, and gained for the editor a very exaggerated reputation (see Munro’s Lucretius, i. pp. 19, 20). His light-hearted criticism of Porson’s edition of the Hecuba was avenged by the latter’s famous toast: “Gilbert Wakefield; what’s Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba?” About this time Wakefield, who hated Pitt and condemned war as utterly unchristian, abandoned literature for political and religious controversy. After assailing with equal bitterness writers so entirely opposed as William Wilberforce and Thomas Paine, in January 1798 he “employed a few hours” in drawing up a reply to Bishop Watson’s Address to the People of Great Britain, written in defence of Pitt and the war and the new “tax upon income.” He was charged with having published a seditious libel, convicted in spite of an eloquent defence, and imprisoned for two years in Dorchester gaol. A considerable sum of money was subscribed by the public, sufficient to provide for his family upon his death, which took place on the 9th of September 1801. While in prison he corresponded on classical subjects with Charles James Fox, the letters being subsequently published.
See the second edition of his Memoirs (1804). The first volume is autobiographical; the second, compiled by J. T. Rutt and A. Wainewright, includes several estimates of his character and performances from various sources, the most remarkable being one by Dr Parr; see also Gentleman’s Magazine (September 1801); Henry Crabb Robinson’s Diary (3rd ed., 1872); John Aikin in Aiken’s General Biography (1799–1815).