Messiah

See Jesus Christ.

Mestizo

Mestizo, a Spanish-American term for the mixed offspring of Europeans and Indians. In Mexico, Peru, and Brazil, mestizos are very numerous. Their color is almost a pure white, with a skin of remarkable transparency. The chief indications of the mixture of Indian blood are a thin beard, small hands and feet, and an obliquity of the eyes. The women of this race are called mestizas, and the offspring of their marriage with whites differ but slightly from pure Europeans.

Metallic Tractors

See Perkins, Elisha.

Metalloids

See Metals.

Metaphysics

See Philosophy.

Metastasis

Metastasis (Gr. , , translation), a change in the seat of a disease, attributed by the humorists to a translation of the morbific matter from a part previously diseased to another, and by the solidists to a translation of the irritation. It has been a matter of dispute whether such an action as metastasis really ever takes place, or whether it is not simply an extension of the disease. The frequent sud-den transference of the seat of gout and acute rheumatism would seem to favor the idea that there is change of seat without any progressive extension. There are some diseases, however, which were formerly considered as metastasic, that have been shown to be properly not so classified. (See Milk Leg).

Metcalfe

Metcalfe, a S. central county of Kentucky, watered by Big and Little Barren rivers; area, about 500 sq. m.; pop. in 1870, 7,934, of whom 861 were colored. The surface is rolling and the soil fertile. The chief productions in 1870 were 88.818 bushels of wheat, 276,207 of Indian corn, 02,402 of oats, 1,310,381 lbs. of tobacco, 17,718 of wool, 84,350 of butter, and 1.045 tons of hay. There were 2,327 horses, 1,308 milch cows, 2,385 other cattle, 8,701 sheep, and 12,960 swine. Capital, Edmonton.

Meter

See Gas, vol. vii., p. 638, and Water Meter.

Methodius

See Cyril and Methodius.

Meudon

Meudon, a village of France, in the department of Seine-et-Oise, built upon an eminence on the left bank of the Seine, and on the Paris and Versailles railway, 3 m. S. W. of Paris and 2 m. S. W. of Fort Issy; pop. in 1866, 5,417. During the siege of Paris, Meudon was occupied by the 11th German army corps, which during the night of Jan. 13, 1871, repulsed a vehement sortie of the troops of Paris. The castle of Meudon, during the latter years of the second empire the summer residence of Prince Napoleon, was burned on Jan. 30.

Meursius, Or De Menrs, Johannes

Meursius, Or De Menrs, Johannes, the elder, a Dutch scholar, born at Loosduinen, near the Hague, in 1579, died in Soro, Denmark, Sept. 20, 1639. He was tutor to the sons of Barne-veldt, and in 1610 became professor of history at Leyden, and in 1611 of Greek. The states of Holland conferred on him the title of historiographer, but on the execution of Barne-veldt he was subjected to persecution, and in 1625 accepted the appointment of professor of history in the university of Soro. He wrote numerous monographs on Greek and Roman antiquities, and his collected works fill 12 volumes folio (Florence, 1741-63). - His son Johannes (1613-'54) also distinguished himself as an antiquarian scholar.