Chapter 9

MAY, PHIL(1864-1903), English caricaturist, was born at Wortley, near Leeds, on the 22nd of April 1864, the son of an engineer. His father died when the child was nine years old, and at twelve he had begun to earn his living. Before he was fifteen he had acted as time-keeper at a foundry, had tried to become a jockey, and had been on the stage at Scarborough and Leeds. When he was about seventeen he went to London with a sovereign in his pocket. He suffered extreme want, sleeping out in the parks and streets, until he obtained employment as designer to a theatrical costumier. He also drew posters and cartoons, and for about two years worked for theSt Stephen’s Review, until he was advised to go to Australia for his health. During the three years he spent there he was attached to theSydney Bulletin, for which many of his best drawings were made. On his return to Europe he went to Paris by way of Rome, where he worked hard for some time before he appeared in 1892 in London to resume his interrupted connexion with theSt Stephen’s Review. His studies of the London “guttersnipe” and the coster-girl rapidly made him famous. His overflowing sense of fun, his genuine sympathy with his subjects, and his kindly wit were on a par with his artistic ability. It was often said that the extraordinary economy of line which was a characteristic feature of his drawings had been forced upon him by the deficiencies of the printing machines of theSydney Bulletin. It was in fact the result of a laborious process which involved a number of preliminary sketches, and of a carefully considered system of elimination. His later work included some excellent political portraits. He became a regular member of the staff ofPunchin 1896, and in his later years his services were retained exclusively forPunchand theGraphic. He died on the 5th of August 1903.

There was an exhibition of his drawings at the Fine Arts Society in 1895, and another at the Leicester Galleries in 1903. A selection of his drawings contributed to the periodical press and fromPhil May’s AnnualandPhil May’s Sketch Books, with a portrait and biography of the artist, entitledThe Phil May Folio, appeared in 1903.

MAY, THOMAS(1595-1650), English poet and historian, son of Sir Thomas May of Mayfield, Sussex, was born in 1595. He entered Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, in 1609, and took his B.A. degree three years later. His father having lost his fortune and sold the family estate, Thomas May, who was hampered by an impediment in his speech, made literature his profession. In 1620 he producedThe Heir, an ingeniously constructed comedy, and, probably about the same time,The Old Couple, which was not printed until 1658. His other dramatic works are classical tragedies on the subjects of Antigone, Cleopatra, and Agrippina. F. G. Fleay has suggested that the more famous anonymous tragedy ofNero(printed 1624, reprints in A. H. Bullen’sOld English Playsand theMermaid Series) should also be assigned to May. But his most important work in the department of pure literature was his translation (1627) into heroic couplets of thePharsaliaof Lucan. Its success led May to write a continuation of Lucan’s narrative down to the death of Caesar. Charles I. became his patron, and commanded him to write metrical histories of Henry II. and Edward III., which were completed in 1635. When the earl of Pembroke, then lord chamberlain, broke his staff across May’s shoulders at a masque, the king took him under his protection as “my poet,” and Pembroke made him an apology accompanied with a gift of £50. These marks of the royal favour seem to have led May to expect the posts of poet-laureate and city chronologer when they fell vacant on the death of Ben Jonson in 1637, but he was disappointed, and he forsook the court and attached himself to the party of the Parliament. In 1646 he is styled one of the “secretaries” of the Parliament, and in 1647 he published his best known work,The History of the Long Parliament. In this official apology for the moderate or Presbyterian party, he professes to give an impartial statement of facts, unaccompanied by any expression of party or personal opinion. If he refrained from actual invective, he accomplished his purpose, according to Guizot, by “omission, palliation and dissimulation.” Accusations of this kind were foreseen by May, who says in his preface that if he gives more information about the Parliament men than their opponents it is that he was more conversant with them and their affairs. In 1650 he followed this with another work written with a more definite bias, aBreviary of the History of the Parliament of England, in Latin and English, in which he defended the position of the Independents. He stopped short of the catastrophe of the king’s execution, and it seems likely that his subservience to Cromwell was not quite voluntary. In February 1650 he was brought to London from Weymouth under a strong guard for having spread false reports of the Parliament and of Cromwell. He died on the 13th of November in the same year, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, but after the Restoration his remains were exhumed and buried in a pit in the yard of St Margaret’s, Westminster. May’s change of side made him many bitter enemies, and he is the object of scathing condemnation from many of his contemporaries.

There is a long notice of May in theBiographia Britannica. See also W. J. Courthope,Hist. of Eng. Poetry, vol. 3; and Guizot,Études biographiques sur la révolution d’Angleterre(pp. 403-426, ed. 1851).

MAY,orMey(e),WILLIAM(d. 1560), English divine, was the brother of John May, bishop of Carlisle. He was educated at Cambridge, where he was a fellow of Trinity Hall, and in 1537, president of Queen’s College. May heartily supported the Reformation, signed the Ten Articles in 1536, and helped in the production ofThe Institution of a Christian Man. He had close connexion with the diocese of Ely, beingsuccessively chancellor, vicar-general and prebendary. In 1545 he was made a prebendary of St Paul’s, and in the following year dean. His favourable report on the Cambridge colleges saved them from dissolution. He was dispossessed during the reign of Mary, but restored to the deanery on Elizabeth’s accession. He died on the day of his election to the archbishopric of York.

MAY,the fifth month of our modern year, the third of the old Roman calendar. The origin of the name is disputed; the derivation from Maia, the mother of Mercury, to whom the Romans were accustomed to sacrifice on the first day of this month, is usually accepted. The ancient Romans used on May Day to go in procession to the grotto of Egeria. From the 28th of April to the 2nd of May was kept the festival in honour of Flora, goddess of flowers. By the Romans the month was regarded as unlucky for marriages, owing to the celebration on the 9th, 11th and 13th of the Lemuria, the festival of the unhappy dead. This superstition has survived to the present day.

In medieval and Tudor England, May Day was a great public holiday. All classes of the people, young and old alike, were up with the dawn, and went “a-Maying” in the woods. Branches of trees and flowers were borne back in triumph to the towns and villages, the centre of the procession being occupied by those who shouldered the maypole, glorious with ribbons and wreaths. The maypole was usually of birch, and set up for the day only; but in London and the larger towns the poles were of durable wood and permanently erected. They were special eyesores to the Puritans. John Stubbes in hisAnatomy of Abuses(1583) speaks of them as those “stinckyng idols,” about which the people “leape and daunce, as the heathen did.” Maypoles were forbidden by the parliament in 1644, but came once more into favour at the Restoration, the last to be erected in London being that set up in 1661. This pole, which was of cedar, 134 ft. high, was set up by twelve British sailors under the personal supervision of James II., then duke of York and lord high admiral, in the Strand on or about the site of the present church of St Mary’s-in-the-Strand. Taken down in 1717, it was conveyed to Wanstead Park in Essex, where it was fixed by Sir Isaac Newton as part of the support of a large telescope, presented to the Royal Society by a French astronomer.

For an account of the May Day survivals in rural England see P. H. Ditchfield,Old English Customs extant at Present Times(1897).

MAY, ISLE OF,an island belonging to Fifeshire, Scotland, at the entrance to the Firth of Forth, 5 m. S.E. of Crail and Anstruther. It has a N.W. to S.E. trend, is more than 1 m. long, and measures at its widest about1⁄3m. St Adrian, who had settled here, was martyred by the Danes about the middle of the 9th century. The ruins of the small chapel dedicated to him, which was a favourite place of pilgrimage, still exist. The place where the pilgrims—of whom James IV. was often one—landed is yet known as Pilgrims’ Haven, and traces may yet be seen of the various wells of St Andrew, St John, Our Lady, and the Pilgrims, though their waters have become brackish. In 1499 Sir Andrew Wood of Largo, with the “Yellow Carvel” and “Mayflower,” captured the English seaman Stephen Bull, and three ships, after a fierce fight which took place between the island and the Bass Rock. In 1636 a coal beacon was lighted on the May and maintained by Alexander Cunningham of Barns. The oil light substituted for it in 1816 was replaced in 1888 by an electric light.

MAYA,an important tribe and stock of American Indians, the dominant race of Yucatan and other states of Mexico and part of Central America at the time of the Spanish conquest. They were then divided into many nations, chief among them being the Maya proper, the Huastecs, the Tzental, the Pokom, the Mame and the Cakchiquel and Quiché. They were spread over Yucatan, Vera Cruz, Tabasco, Campeche, and Chiapas in Mexico, and over the greater part of Guatemala and Salvador. In civilization the Mayan peoples rivalled the Aztecs. Their traditions give as their place of origin the extreme north; thence a migration took place, perhaps at the beginning of the Christian era. They appear to have reached Yucatan as early as the 5th century. From the evidence of the Quiché chronicles, which are said to date back to aboutA.D.700, Guatemala was shortly afterwards overrun. Physically the Mayans are a dark-skinned, round-headed, short and sturdy type. Although they were already decadent when the Spaniards arrived they made a fierce resistance. They still form the bulk of the inhabitants of Yucatan. For their culture, ruined cities, &c. seeCentral AmericaandMexico.

MAYAGUEZ,the third largest city of Porto Rico, a seaport, and the seat of government of the department of Mayaguez, on the west coast, at the mouth of Rio Yaguez, about 72 m. W. by S. of San Juan. Pop. of the city (1899), 15,187, including 1381 negroes and 4711 of mixed races; (1910), 16,591; of the municipal district, 35,700 (1899), of whom 2687 were negroes and 9933 were of mixed races. Mayaguez is connected by the American railroad of Porto Rico with San Juan and Ponce, and it is served regularly by steamboats from San Juan, Ponce and New York, although its harbour is not accessible to vessels drawing more than 16 ft. of water. It is situated at the foot of Las Mesas mountains and commands picturesque views. The climate is healthy and good water is obtained from the mountain region. From the shipping district along the water-front a thoroughfare leads to the main portion of the city, about 1 m. distant. There are four public squares, in one of which is a statue of Columbus. Prominent among the public buildings are the City Hall (containing a public library), San Antonio Hospital, Roman Catholic churches, a Presbyterian church, the court-house and a theatre. The United States has an agricultural experiment station here, and the Insular Reform School is 1 m. south of the city. Coffee, sugar-cane and tropical fruits are grown in the surrounding country; and the business of the city consists chiefly in their export and the import of flour. Among the manufactures are sugar, tobacco and chocolate. Mayaguez was founded about the middle of the 18th century on the site of a hamlet which was first settled about 1680. It was incorporated as a town in 1836, and became a city in 1873. In 1841 it was nearly all destroyed by fire.

MAYAVARAM,a town of British India, in the Tanjore district of Madras, on the Cauvery river; junction on the South Indian railway, 174 m. S.W. of Madras. Pop. (1901), 24,276. It possesses a speciality of fine cotton and silk cloth, known as Kornad from the suburb in which the weavers live. During October and November the town is the scene of a great pilgrimage to the holy waters of the Cauvery.

MAYBOLE,a burgh of barony and police burgh of Ayrshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901), 5892. It is situated 9 m. S. of Ayr and 501⁄4m. S.W. of Glasgow by the Glasgow & South-Western railway. It is an ancient place, having received a charter from Duncan II. in 1193. In 1516 it was made a burgh of regality, but for generations it remained under the subjection of the Kennedys, afterwards earls of Cassillis and marquesses of Ailsa, the most powerful family in Ayrshire. Of old Maybole was the capital of the district of Carrick, and for long its characteristic feature was the family mansions of the barons of Carrick. The castle of the earls of Cassillis still remains. The public buildings include the town-hall, the Ashgrove and the Lumsden fresh-air fortnightly homes, and the Maybole combination poorhouse. The leading manufactures are of boots and shoes and agricultural implements. Two miles to the south-west are the ruins of Crossraguel (Cross of St Regulus) Abbey, founded about 1240.Kirkoswald, where Burns spent his seventeenth year, learning land-surveying, lies a little farther west. In the parish churchyard lie “Tam o’ Shanter” (Douglas Graham) and “Souter Johnnie” (John Davidson). Four miles to the west of Maybole on the coast is Culzean Castle, the chief seat of the marquess of Ailsa, dating from 1777; it stands on a basaltic cliff, beneath which are the Coves of Culzean, once the retreat of outlaws and a resort of the fairies. Farther south are the ruins of Turnberry Castle, where Robert Bruce is said to have been born. A few miles to the north of Culzean are the ruins of Dunure Castle, an ancient stronghold of the Kennedys.

MAYEN,a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province, on the northern declivity of the Eifel range, 16 m. W. from Coblenz, on the railway Andernach-Gerolstein. Pop. (1905), 13,435. It is still partly surrounded by medieval walls, and the ruins of a castle rise above the town. There are some small industries, embracing textile manufactures, oil mills and tanneries, and a trade in wine, while near the town are extensive quarries of basalt. Having been a Roman settlement, Mayen became a town in 1291. In 1689 it was destroyed by the French.

MAYENNE, CHARLES OF LORRAINE,Duke of(1554-1611), second son of Francis of Lorraine, second duke of Guise, was born on the 26th of March 1554. He was absent from France at the time of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, but took part in the siege of La Rochelle in the following year, when he was created duke and peer of France. He went with Henry of Valois, duke of Anjou (afterwards Henry III.), on his election as king of Poland, but soon returned to France to become the energetic supporter and lieutenant of his brother, the 3rd duke of Guise. In 1577 he gained conspicuous successes over the Huguenot forces in Poitou. As governor of Burgundy he raised his province in the cause of the League in 1585. The assassination of his brothers at Blois on the 23rd and 24th of December 1588 left him at the head of the Catholic party. The Venetian ambassador, Mocenigo, states that Mayenne had warned Henry III. that there was a plot afoot to seize his person and to send him by force to Paris. At the time of the murder he was at Lyons, where he received a letter from the king saying that he had acted on his warning, and ordering him to retire to his government. Mayenne professed obedience, but immediately made preparations for marching on Paris. After a vain attempt to recover the persons of those of his relatives who had been arrested at Blois he proceeded to recruit troops in his government of Burgundy and in Champagne. Paris was devoted to the house of Guise and had been roused to fury by the news of the murder. When Mayenne entered the city in February 1589 he found it dominated by representatives of the sixteen quarters of Paris, all fanatics of the League. He formed a council general to direct the affairs of the city and to maintain relations with the other towns faithful to the League. To this council each quarter sent four representatives, and Mayenne added representatives of the various trades and professions of Paris in order to counterbalance this revolutionary element. He constituted himself “lieutenant-general of the state and crown of France,” taking his oath before the parlement of Paris. In April he advanced on Tours. Henry III. in his extremity sought an alliance with Henry of Navarre, and the allied forces drove the leaguers back, and had laid siege to Paris, when the murder of Henry III. by a Dominican fanatic changed the face of affairs and gave new strength to the Catholic party.

Mayenne was urged to claim the crown for himself, but he was faithful to the official programme of the League and proclaimed Charles, cardinal of Bourbon, at that time a prisoner in the hands of Henry IV., as Charles X. Henry IV. retired to Dieppe, followed by Mayenne, who joined his forces with those of his cousin Charles, duke of Aumale, and Charles de Cossé, comte de Brissac, and engaged the royal forces in a succession of fights in the neighbourhood of Arques (September 1589). He was defeated and out-marched by Henry IV., who moved on Paris, but retreated before Mayenne’s forces. In 1590 Mayenne received additions to his army from the Spanish Netherlands, and took the field again, only to suffer complete defeat at Ivry (March 14, 1590). He then escaped to Mantes, and in September collected a fresh army at Meaux, and with the assistance of Alexander Farnese, prince of Parma, sent by Philip II., raised the siege of Paris, which was about to surrender to Henry IV. Mayenne feared with reason the designs of Philip II., and his difficulties were increased by the death of Charles X., the “king of the league.” The extreme section of the party, represented by the Sixteen, urged him to proceed to the election of a Catholic king and to accept the help and the claims of their Spanish allies. But Mayenne, who had not the popular gifts of his brother, the duke of Guise, had no sympathy with the demagogues, and himself inclined to the moderate side of his party, which began to urge reconciliation with Henry IV. He maintained the ancient forms of the constitution against the revolutionary policy of the Sixteen, who during his absence from Paris took the law into their own hands and in November 1591 executed one of the leaders of the more moderate party, Barnabé Brisson, president of the parlement. He returned to Paris and executed four of the chief malcontents. The power of the Sixteen diminished from that time, but with it the strength of the League.1

Mayenne entered into negotiations with Henry IV. while he was still appearing to consider with Philip II. the succession to the French crown of the Infanta Elizabeth, granddaughter, through her mother Elizabeth of Valois, of Henry II. He demanded that Henry IV. should accomplish his conversion to Catholicism before he was recognized by the leaguers. He also desired the continuation to himself of the high offices which had accumulated in his family and the reservation of their provinces to his relatives among the leaguers. In 1593 he summoned the States General to Paris and placed before them the claims of the Infanta, but they protested against foreign intervention. Mayenne signed a truce at La Villette on the 31st of July 1593. The internal dissensions of the league continued to increase, and the principal chiefs submitted. Mayenne finally made his peace only in October 1595. Henry IV. allowed him the possession of Chalon-sur-Saône, of Seurre and Soissons for three years, made him governor of the Isle of France and paid a large indemnity. Mayenne died at Soissons on the 3rd of October 1611.

AHistoire de la vie et de la mort du duc de Mayenneappeared at Lyons in 1618. See also J. B. H. Capefigue,Hist. de la Réforme, de la ligue et du règne de Henri IV.(8 vols., 1834-1835) and the literature dealing with the house of Guise (q.v.).

1The estates of the League in 1593 were the occasion of the famousSatire Ménippée, circulated in MS. in that year, but only printed at Tours in 1594. It was the work of a circle of men of letters who belonged to thepolitiquesor party of the centre and ridiculed the League. The authors were Pierre Le Roy, Jean Passerat, Florent Chrestien, Nicolas Rapin and Pierre Pithou. It opened with “La vertu du catholicon,” in which a Spanish quack (the cardinal of Plaisance) vaunts the virtues of his drug “catholicon composé,” manufactured in the Escurial, while a Lorrainer rival (the cardinal of Pellevé) tries to sell a rival cure. A mock account of the estates, with harangues delivered by Mayenne and the other chiefs of the League, followed. Mayenne’s discourse is said to have been written by the jurist Pithou.

MAYENNE,a department of north-western France, three-fourths of which formerly belonged to Lower Maine and the remainder to Anjou, bounded on the N. by Manche and Orne, E. by Sarthe, S. by Maine-et-Loire and W. by Ille-et-Vilaine. Area, 2012 sq. m. Pop. (1906), 305,457. Its ancient geological formations connect it with Brittany. The surface is agreeably undulating; forests are numerous, and the beauty of the cultivated portions is enhanced by the hedgerows and lines of trees by which the farms are divided. The highest point of the department, and indeed of the whole north-west of France, is the Mont des Avaloirs (1368 ft.). Hydrographically Mayenne belongs to the basins of the Loire, the Vilaine and the Sélune, the first mentioned draining by far the larger part of the entire area. The principal stream is the Mayenne, which passes successively from north to south through Mayenne, Laval and Château-Gontier; by means of weirs and sluices it is navigable below Mayenne, but traffic is inconsiderable. The chief affluents are the Jouanne on the left, and on the right the Colmont, the Ernée and the Oudon. A small area in the east of the department drains by the Erve into the Sarthe; the Vilaine rises in the west, and in the north-west two small rivers flow into the Sélune. The climate of Mayenne is generally healthy except in the neighbourhood of the numerous marshes. The temperature is lower and the moisture of the atmosphere greater than in the neighbouring departments; the rainfall (about 32 in. annually) is above the average for France.

Agriculture and stock-raising are prosperous. A large number of horned cattle are reared, and in no other French department areso many horses found within the same area; the breed, that of Craon, is famed for its strength. Craon has also given its name to the most prized breed of pigs in western France. Mayenne produces excellent butter and poultry and a large quantity of honey. The cultivation of the vine is very limited, and the most common beverage is cider. Wheat, oats, barley and buckwheat, in the order named, are the most important crops, and a large quantity of flax and hemp is produced. Game is abundant. The timber grown is chiefly beech, oak, birch, elm and chestnut. The department produces antimony, auriferous quartz and coal. Marble, slate and other stone are quarried. There are several chalybeate springs. The industries include flour-milling, brick and tile making, brewing, cotton and wool spinning, and the production of various textile fabrics (especially ticking) for which Laval and Château-Gontier are the centres, agricultural implement making, wood and marble sawing, tanning and dyeing. The exports include agricultural produce, live-stock, stone and textiles; the chief imports are coal, brandy, wine, furniture and clothing. The department is served by the Western railway. It forms part of the circumscriptions of the IV. army corps, the académie (educational division) of Rennes, and the court of appeal of Angers. It comprises three arrondissements (Laval, Château-Gontier and Mayenne), with 27 cantons and 276 communes. Laval, the capital, is the seat of a bishopric of the province of Tours. The other principal towns are Château-Gontier and Mayenne, which are treated under separate headings. The following places are also of interest: Evron, which has a church of the 12th and 13th centuries; Jublains, with a Roman fort and other Roman remains; Lassay, with a fine château of the 14th and 16th centuries; and Ste Suzanne, which has remains of medieval ramparts and a fortress with a keep of the Romanesque period.

MAYENNE,a town of north-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Mayenne, 19 m. N.N.E. of Laval by rail. Pop., town 7003, commune 10,020. Mayenne is an old feudal town, irregularly built on hills on both sides of the river Mayenne. Of the old castle overlooking the river several towers remain, one of which has retained its conical roof; the vaulted chambers and chapel are ornamented in the style of the 13th century; the building is now used as a prison. The church of Notre-Dame, beside which there is a statue of Joan of Arc, dates partly from the 12th century; the choir was rebuilt in the 19th century. In the Place de Cheverus is a statue, by David of Angers, to Cardinal Jean de Cheverus (1768-1836), who was born in Mayenne. Mayenne has a subprefecture, tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a chamber of arts and manufactures, and a board of trade-arbitration. There is a school of agriculture in the vicinity. The chief industry of the place is the manufacture of tickings, linen, handkerchiefs and calicoes.

Mayenne had its origin in the castle built here by Juhel, baron of Mayenne, the son of Geoffrey of Maine, in the beginning of the 11th century. It was taken by the English in 1424, and several times suffered capture by the opposing parties in the wars of religion and the Vendée. At the beginning of the 16th century the territory passed to the family of Guise, and in 1573 was made a duchy in favour of Charles of Mayenne, leader of the League.

MAYER, JOHANN TOBIAS(1723-1762), German astronomer, was born at Marbach, in Würtemberg, on the 17th of February 1723, and brought up at Esslingen in poor circumstances. A self-taught mathematician, he had already published two original geometrical works when, in 1746, he entered J. B. Homann’s cartographic establishment at Nuremberg. Here he introduced many improvements in map-making, and gained a scientific reputation which led (in 1751) to his election to the chair of economy and mathematics in the university of Göttingen. In 1754 he became superintendent of the observatory, where he laboured with great zeal and success until his death, on the 20th of February 1762. His first important astronomical work was a careful investigation of the libration of the moon (Kosmographische Nachrichten, Nuremberg, 1750), and his chart of the full moon (published in 1775) was unsurpassed for half a century. But his fame rests chiefly on his lunar tables, communicated in 1752, with new solar tables, to the Royal Society of Göttingen, and published in theirTransactions(vol. ii.). In 1755 he submitted to the English government an amended body of MS. tables, which James Bradley compared with the Greenwich observations, and found to be sufficiently accurate to determine the moon’s place to 75″, and consequently the longitude at sea to about half a degree. An improved set was afterwards published in London (1770), as also the theory (Theoria lunae juxta systema Newtonianum, 1767) upon which the tables are based. His widow, by whom they were sent to England, received in consideration from the British government a grant of £3000. Appended to the London edition of the solar and lunar tables are two short tracts—the one on determining longitude by lunar distances, together with a description of the repeating circle (invented by Mayer in 1752), the other on a formula for atmospheric refraction, which applies a remarkably accurate correction for temperature.

Mayer left behind him a considerable quantity of manuscript, part of which was collected by G. C. Lichtenberg and published in one volume (Opera inedita, Göttingen, 1775). It contains an easy and accurate method for calculating eclipses; an essay on colour, in which three primary colours are recognized; a catalogue of 998 zodiacal stars; and a memoir, the earliest of any real value, on the proper motion of eighty stars, originally communicated to the Göttingen Royal Society in 1760. The manuscript residue includes papers on atmospheric refraction (dated 1755), on the motion of Mars as affected by the perturbations of Jupiter and the Earth (1756), and on terrestrial magnetism (1760 and 1762). In these last Mayer sought to explain the magnetic action of the earth by a modification of Euler’s hypothesis, and made the first really definite attempt to establish a mathematical theory of magnetic action (C. Hansteen,Magnetismus der Erde, i. 283). E. Klinkerfuss published in 1881 photo-lithographic reproductions of Mayer’s local charts and general map of the moon; and his star-catalogue was re-edited by F. Baily in 1830 (Memoirs Roy. Astr. Soc.iv. 391) and by G. F. J. A. Auvers in 1894.

Authorities.—A. G. Kästner,Elogium Tobiae Mayeri(Göttingen, 1762);Connaissance des temps, 1767, p. 187 (J. Lalande);Monatliche Correspondenzviii. 257, ix. 45, 415, 487, xi. 462;Allg. Geographische Ephemerideniii. 116, 1799 (portrait);Berliner Astr. Jahrbuch, Suppl. Bd. iii. 209, 1797 (A. G. Kästner); J. B. J. Delambre,Hist. de l’Astr. au XVIIIesiècle, p. 429; R. Grant,Hist. of Phys. Astr.pp. 46, 488, 555; A. Berry,Short Hist. of Astr.p. 282; J. S. Pütter,Geschichte von der Universität zu Göttingen, i. 68; J. Gehler,Physik. Wörterbuch neu bearbeitet, vi. 746, 1039; Allg.Deutsche Biographie(S. Günther).

(A. M. C.)

MAYER, JULIUS ROBERT(1814-1878), German physicist, was born at Heilbronn on the 25th of November 1814, studied medicine at Tübingen, Munich and Paris, and after a journey to Java in 1840 as surgeon of a Dutch vessel obtained a medical post in his native town. He claims recognition as an independent a priori propounder of the “First Law of Thermodynamics,” but more especially as having early and ably applied that law to the explanation of many remarkable phenomena, both cosmical and terrestrial. His first little paper on the subject, “Bemerkungen über die Kräfte der unbelebten Natur,” appeared in 1842 in Liebig’sAnnalen, five years after the republication, in the same journal, of an extract from K. F. Mohr’s paper on the nature of heat, and three years later he publishedDie organische Bewegung in ihren Zusammenhange mit dem Stoffwechsel.

It has been repeatedly claimed for Mayer that he calculated the value of the dynamical equivalent of heat, indirectly, no doubt, but in a manner altogether free from error, and with a result according almost exactly with that obtained by J. P. Joule after years of patient labour in direct experimenting. This claim on Mayer’s behalf was first shown to be baseless by W. Thomson (Lord Kelvin) and P. G. Tait in an article on “Energy,” published inGood Wordsin 1862, which gave rise to a long but lively discussion. A calm and judicial annihilation of the claim is to be found in a brief article by Sir G. G. Stokes,Proc. Roy. Soc., 1871, p. 54. See also Maxwell’sTheory of Heat, chap. xiii. Mayer entirely ignored the grand fundamental principle laid down by Sadi Carnot—that nothing can be concluded as to the relation between heat and work from an experiment in which the working substance is left at the end of an operation in a different physical state from that in which it was at the commencement. Mayer has also been styled the discoverer of the fact that heat consists in (the energy of) motion, a matter settled at the very end of the 18th century by Count Rumford and Sir H. Davy; but in the teeth of this statement we have Mayer’s own words, “We might much rather assume the contrary—that in order to become heat motion must cease to be motion.”Mayer’s real merit consists in the fact that, having for himself made out, on inadequate and even questionable grounds, the conservation of energy, and having obtained (though by inaccurate reasoning) a numerical result correct so far as his data permitted, he applied the principle with great power and insight to the explanation of numerous physical phenomena. His papers, which were republished in a single volume with the titleDie Mechanik der Wärme(3rd ed., 1893), are of unequal merit. But some, especially those onCelestial DynamicsandOrganic Motion, are admirable examples of what really valuable work may be effected by a man of high intellectual powers, in spite of imperfect information and defective logic.Different, and it would appear exaggerated, estimates of Mayer are given in John Tyndall’s papers in thePhil. Mag., 1863-1864 (whose avowed object was “to raise a noble and a suffering man to the position which his labours entitled him to occupy”), and in E. Dühring’sRobert Mayer, der Galilei des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, Chemnitz, 1880. Some of the simpler facts of the case are summarized by Tait in thePhil. Mag., 1864, ii. 289.

Mayer’s real merit consists in the fact that, having for himself made out, on inadequate and even questionable grounds, the conservation of energy, and having obtained (though by inaccurate reasoning) a numerical result correct so far as his data permitted, he applied the principle with great power and insight to the explanation of numerous physical phenomena. His papers, which were republished in a single volume with the titleDie Mechanik der Wärme(3rd ed., 1893), are of unequal merit. But some, especially those onCelestial DynamicsandOrganic Motion, are admirable examples of what really valuable work may be effected by a man of high intellectual powers, in spite of imperfect information and defective logic.

Different, and it would appear exaggerated, estimates of Mayer are given in John Tyndall’s papers in thePhil. Mag., 1863-1864 (whose avowed object was “to raise a noble and a suffering man to the position which his labours entitled him to occupy”), and in E. Dühring’sRobert Mayer, der Galilei des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, Chemnitz, 1880. Some of the simpler facts of the case are summarized by Tait in thePhil. Mag., 1864, ii. 289.

MAYFLOWER,the vessel which carried from Southampton, England, to Plymouth, Massachusetts, the Pilgrims who established the first permanent colony in New England. It was of about 180 tons burden, and in company with the “Speedwell” sailed from Southampton on the 5th of August 1620, the two having on board 120 Pilgrims. After two trials the “Speedwell” was pronounced unseaworthy, and the “Mayflower” sailed alone from Plymouth, England, on the 6th of September with the 100 (or 102) passengers, some 41 of whom on the 11th of November (O.S.) signed the famous “Mayflower Compact” in Provincetown Harbor, and a small party of whom, including William Bradford, sent to choose a place for settlement, landed at what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts, on the 11th of December (21stN.S.), an event which is celebrated, as Forefathers’ Day, on the 22nd of December. A “General Society of Mayflower Descendants” was organized in 1894 by lineal descendants of passengers of the “Mayflower” to “preserve their memory, their records, their history, and all facts relating to them, their ancestors and their posterity.” Every lineal descendant, over eighteen years of age, of any passenger of the “Mayflower” is eligible to membership. Branch societies have since been organized in several of the states and in the District of Columbia, and a triennial congress is held in Plymouth.

See Azel Ames,The May-Flower and Her Log(Boston, 1901); Blanche McManus,The Voyage of the Mayflower(New York, 1897);The General Society of Mayflower: Meetings, Officers and Members, arranged in State Societies, Ancestors and their Descendants(New York, 1901). Also the articlesPlymouth, Mass.;Massachusetts, §History;Pilgrim; andProvincetown, Mass.

MAY-FLY.The Mayflies belong to the Ephemeridae, a remarkable family of winged insects, included by Linnaeus in his order Neuroptera, which derive their scientific name fromἐφήμερος, in allusion to their very short lives. In some species it is possible that they have scarcely more than one day’s existence, but others are far longer lived, though the extreme limit is probably rarely more than a week. The family has very sharply defined characters, which separate its members at once from all other neuropterous (or pseudo-neuropterous) groups.

These insects are universally aquatic in their preparatory states. The eggs are dropped into the water by the female in large masses, resembling, in some species, bunches of grapes in miniature. Probably several months elapse before the young larvae are excluded. The sub-aquatic condition lasts a considerable time: inCloeon, a genus of small and delicate species, Sir J. Lubbock (Lord Avebury) proved it to extend over more than six months; but in larger and more robust genera (e.g.Palingenia) there appears reason to believe that the greater part of three years is occupied in preparatory conditions.

The larva is elongate and campodeiform. The head is rather large, and is furnished at first with five simple eyes of nearly equal size; but as it increases in size the homologues of the facetted eyes of the imago become larger, whereas those equivalent to the ocelli remain small. The antennae are long and thread-like, composed at first of few joints, but the number of these latter apparently increases at each moult. The mouth parts are well developed, consisting of an upper lip, powerful mandibles, maxillae with three-jointed palpi, and a deeply quadrifid labium or lower lip with three-jointed labial palpi. Distinct and conspicuous maxillulae are associated with the tongue or hypopharynx. There are three distinct and large thoracic segments, whereof the prothorax is narrower than the others; the legs are much shorter and stouter than in the winged insect, with monomerous tarsi terminated by a single claw. The abdomen consists of ten segments, the tenth furnished with long and slender multi-articulate tails, which appear to be only two in number at first, but an intermediate one gradually develops itself (though this latter is often lost in the winged insect). Respiration is effected by means of external gills placed along both sides of the dorsum of the abdomen and hinder segments of the thorax. These vary in form: in some species they are entire plates, in others they are cut up into numerous divisions, in all cases traversed by numerous tracheal ramifications. According to the researches of Lubbock and of E. Joly, the very young larvae have no breathing organs, and respiration is effected through the skin. Lubbock traced at least twenty moults inCloeon; at about the tenth rudiments of the wing-cases began to appear. These gradually become larger, and when so the creature may be said to have entered its “nymph” stage; but there is no condition analogous to the pupa-stage of insects with complete metamorphoses.There may be said to be three or four different modes of life in these larvae: some are fossorial, and form tubes in the mud or clay in which they live; others are found on or beneath stones; while others again swim and crawl freely among water plants. It is probable that some are carnivorous, either attacking other larvae or subsisting on more minute forms of animal life; but others perhaps feed more exclusively on vegetable matters of a low type, such as diatoms.The most aberrant type of larva is that of the genusProsopistoma, which was originally described as an entomostracous crustacean on account of the presence of a large carapace overlapping the greater part of the body. The dorsal skeletal elements of the thorax and of the anterior six abdominal segments unite with the wing-cases to form a large respiratory chamber, containing five pairs of tracheal gills, with lateral slits for the inflow and a posterior orifice for the outflow of water. Species of this genus occur in Europe, Africa and Madagascar.

There may be said to be three or four different modes of life in these larvae: some are fossorial, and form tubes in the mud or clay in which they live; others are found on or beneath stones; while others again swim and crawl freely among water plants. It is probable that some are carnivorous, either attacking other larvae or subsisting on more minute forms of animal life; but others perhaps feed more exclusively on vegetable matters of a low type, such as diatoms.

The most aberrant type of larva is that of the genusProsopistoma, which was originally described as an entomostracous crustacean on account of the presence of a large carapace overlapping the greater part of the body. The dorsal skeletal elements of the thorax and of the anterior six abdominal segments unite with the wing-cases to form a large respiratory chamber, containing five pairs of tracheal gills, with lateral slits for the inflow and a posterior orifice for the outflow of water. Species of this genus occur in Europe, Africa and Madagascar.

When the aquatic insect has reached its full growth it emerges from the water or seeks its surface; the thorax splits down the back and the winged form appears. But this is not yet perfect, although it has all the form of a perfect insect and is capable of flight; it is what is variously termed a “pseud-imago,” “sub-imago” or “pro-imago.” Contrary to the habits of all other insects, there yet remains a pellicle that has to be shed, covering every part of the body. This final moult is effected soon after the insect’s appearance in the winged form; the creature seeks a temporary resting-place, the pellicle splits down the back, and the now perfect insect comes forth, often differing very greatly in colours and markings from the condition in which it was only a few moments before. If the observer takes up a suitable position near water, his coat is often seen to be covered with the cast sub-imaginal skins of these insects, which had chosen him as a convenient object upon which to undergo their final change. In some few genera of very low type it appears probable that, at any rate in the female, this final change is never effected and that the creature dies a sub-imago.

The winged insect differs considerably in form from its sub-aquatic condition. The head is smaller, often occupied almost entirely above in the male by the very large eyes, which in some species are curiously double in that sex, one portion being pillared, and forming what is termed a “turban,” the mouth parts are aborted, for the creature is now incapable of taking nutriment either solid or fluid; the antennae are mere short bristles, consisting of two rather large basal joints and a multi-articulate thread. The prothorax is much narrowed, whereas the other segments (especially the mesothorax) are greatly enlarged; the legs long and slender, the anterior pair often very much longer in the male than in the female; the tarsi four- or five-jointed; but in some genera (e.g.Oligoneuriaand allies) the legs are aborted, and the creatures are driven helplessly about by the wind. The wings are carried erect: the anterior pair large, with numerous longitudinal nervures, and usually abundant transverse reticulation; the posterior pair very much smaller, often lanceolate, and frequently wanting absolutely. The abdomen consists of ten segments; at the end are either two or three long multi-articulate tails; in the male the ninth joint bears forcipated appendages; in the female the oviducts terminate at the junction of the seventh and eighth ventral segments. The independent opening of the genital ducts and the absence of an ectodermal vagina and ejaculatory duct are remarkable archaic features of these insects, as has been pointed out by J. A. Palmén. The sexual act takes place in the air, and is of very short duration, but is apparently repeated several times, at any rate in some cases.

Ephemeridaeare found all over the world, even up to high northern latitudes. F. J. Pictet, A. E. Eaton and others havegiven us valuable works or monographs on the family; but the subject still remains little understood, partly owing to the great difficulty of preserving such delicate insects; and it appears probable they can only be satisfactorily investigated as moist preparations. The number of described species is less than 200, spread over many genera.

From the earliest times attention has been drawn to the enormous abundance of species of the family in certain localities. Johann Anton Scopoli, writing in the 18th century, speaks of them as so abundant in one place in Carniola that in June twenty cartloads were carried away for manure!Polymitarcys virgo, which, though not found in England, occurs in many parts of Europe (and is common at Paris), emerges from the water soon after sunset, and continues for several hours in such myriads as to resemble snow showers, putting out lights, and causing inconvenience to man, and annoyance to horses by entering their nostrils. In other parts of the world they have been recorded in multitudes that obscured passers-by on the other side of the street. And similar records might be multiplied almost to any extent. In Britain, although they are often very abundant, we have scarcely anything analogous.

Fish, as is well known, devour them greedily, and enjoy a veritable feast during the short period in which any particular species appears. By anglers the common English species ofEphemera(vulgataanddanica, but more especially the latter, which is more abundant) is known as the “may-fly,” but the terms “green drake” and “bastard drake” are applied to conditions of the same species. Useful information on this point will be found in Ronalds’sFly-Fisher’s Entomology, edited by Westwood.

Ephemeridae belong to a very ancient type of insects, and fossil imprints of allied forms occur even in the Devonian and Carboniferous formations.

There is much to be said in favour of the view entertained by some entomologists that the structural and developmental characteristics of may-flies are sufficiently peculiar to warrant the formation for them of a special order of insects, for which the names Agnatha, Plectoptera and Ephemeroptera have been proposed. (SeeHexapoda,Neuroptera.)

Back to Index Next