sea in the world; its communication with the Atlantic is
Gibraltar Strait, 9 m. wide; it communicates with the Black Sea through
the Dardanelles, and in 1869 a canal through the isthmus of Suez
connected it with the Red Sea, 2200 m. long by 100 to 600 m. broad; its
S. shores are regular; the N. has many gulfs, and two great inlets, the
AEgean and Adriatic Seas; the Balearic Isles, Corsica, and Sardinia,
Sicily, Malta, Cyprus, and Crete, the Ionian Isles, and the Archipelago
are the chief islands; the Rhone, Po, and Nile the chief rivers that
discharge into it; a ridge between Sicily and Cape Bon divides it into
two great basins; it is practically tideless, and salter than the
Atlantic; its waters too are warm; northerly winds prevail in the E. with
certain regular variations; the surrounding territories are the richest
in the world, and the greatest movements in civilisation and art have
taken place around it in Africa, Phoenicia, Carthage, Greece, and Rome.

MEDIUM, in modern spiritualism a person susceptible to communication
with the spirit-world.

MEDJIDIE, an Ottoman order of knighthood instituted in 1852 by the
Sultan Abd-ul-Medjid, as a reward of merit in civil or military service.

MEDOC, a district in the dep. of the Gironde, on the left of the
estuary, in the S. of France, famous for its wines.

MEDUSA, one of the THREE GORGONS (q. v.), is fabled to have
been originally a woman of rare beauty, with a magnificent head of hair,
but having offended Athena, that goddess changed her hair into hideous
serpents, and gave to her eyes the power of turning any one into stone
who looked into them; PERSEUS (q. v.) cut off her head by the
help of Athena, who afterwards wore it on the middle of her breastplate
or shield.

MEDWAY, a river in Kent, which rises in Surrey and Sussex, and which
after a NE. course of 58 m. falls into an estuary at Sheerness.

MEEANEE, a village in Sind, 6 m. N. of Hyderabad, where Sir Charles
Napier defeated an army of the Ameer of Sind in 1843.

MEERSCHAUM (lit. sea-foam), a fine white clay, a hydrate-silicate
of magnesia, supposed, as found on the sea-shore in some places, to have
been sea-foam petrified.

MEERUT (119), an Indian town in the North-West Provinces, on the
Nuddi, 40 m. NE. of Delhi; is capital of a district of the same name, and
an Important military station; it is noted as the scene of the outbreak
of the Mutiny in 1857.

MEGARIS, a small but populous S