782).

METEORS or SHOOTING STARS are small bodies consisting of iron,
stone, and certain other familiar elements which are scattered in immense
numbers through planetary space; they revolve round the sun in clouds or
in long strings, and when the earth gets close to them numbers are drawn
down to its surface, friction with the atmosphere rendering them luminous
and grinding them usually to fine dust; larger meteors are known as
fireballs and aerolites, many of which have reached the earth; comets are
masses of meteors.

METHODISTS, a body of Christians founded by John Wesley in the
interests of personal religion, ecclesiastically governed by a Conference
with subordinate district synods, and holding and professing evangelical
principles, which they teach agreeably to the theology of Arminius; the
name is also given to the followers of Whitefield, who are Calvinists in
certain respects.

METHYLATED SPIRIT, is alcohol adulterated with 10 per cent. of
wood-spirit.

METIS (i. e. wise counsel), in the Greek mythology the daughter of
Oceanos and Tethys, and the first wife of Zeus; afraid lest she should
give birth to a child wiser and more powerful than himself, he devoured
her on the first month of her pregnancy, and some time afterwards being
seized with pains, he gave birth to ATHENA (q. v.) from his
head.

METRE, the name given to the unit of length in the metric or decimal
system, and equal to 39.37 English inches, the tenths, the hundreds, and
the thousands of which are called from the Latin respectively decimetres,
centimetres, and millimetres, and ten times, a hundred times, and a
thousand times, which are called from the Greek respectively decametres,
hectometres, and kilometres.

METTERNICH, CLEMENT, PRINCE VON, Austrian diplomatist, born at
Coblenz; served as ambassador successively at the courts of Dresden,
Berlin, and Paris, and became first Minister of State in 1809, exercising
for 40 years from that date the supreme control of affairs in Austria;
one of his first acts as such was to effectuate a marriage between
Napoleon and the Archduchess Maria Theresa, himself escorting her to
Paris; he presided at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, and from that date
dominated in foreign affairs in the interest of the rights of kings and
the repression of popular insurrection; he had to flee from Vienna in
1848, but returned in 1851, after which, though not called back to
office, he continued to influence a