es, but is chiefly a wheat-growing area; in the Saginaw
Valley are great salt wells; the climate is modified by the lakes. At
first a French colony, the country was handed over to England in 1760,
and to the United States in 1776; it was organised as a territory in
1805, and admitted a State in 1837; the chief commercial city is
DETROIT (206), on Detroit River, in the E., has manufactures of
machinery and railway plant, leather, and beer, and a large shipping
trade. GRAND RAPIDS (60), on the Grand River, has furniture works,
and makes stucco-plaster and white bricks. LANSING (13) is the State
capital, and an important railway centre.

MICHIGAN, LAKE, in the N. of the United States, between Michigan and
Wisconsin, is the third largest of the fresh-water seas, its surface
being three-fourths that of Scotland; it is 335 m. long and 50 to 80
broad, bears much commerce, has low sandy shores and no islands; the
chief ports are Chicago, Milwaukee, and Racine.

MICKIEWICZ, ADAM, Polish poet, born in Lithuania, of a noble family;
in 1822 published at Kovno a collection of poems instinct with patriotic
feeling; was exiled into the interior of Russia, in 1824, for secret
intrigues in the interest of his nation; while there published three
epics, conceived in the same patriotic spirit; left Russia in 1829 for
Italy by way of Germany; was warmly welcomed by Goethe in passing; in
1834 published his great poem "Sir Thaddeus," and in 1840 was appointed
to a professorship of Polish Literature in Paris, where to the last he
laboured for his country; died at Constantinople, whence his bones were
transferred to lie beside those of Kosciusko at Cracow (1798-1855).

MICKLE, WILLIAM JULIUS, translator of the "Lusiad" (q. v.), born
at Langholm, in Dumfriesshire, author of "There's nae Luck aboot the
Hoose" (1734-1788).

MICROBE, a minute organism found in the blood of animals, especially
when suffering from disease. See BACTERIA.

MICROCOSM, name given by the Middle Age philosophers to man as
representing the macrocosm or universe in miniature.

MICROPHONE, an instrument invented in 1878 by Professor Hughes, and
consisting of charcoal tempered in mercury, which intensifies and renders
audible the faintest possible sound.

MICROZYME, a minute organism which acts as a ferment when it enters
the blood and produces zymotic diseases.

MIDAS, a king of Phrygia who, in his lust of riches, begged of
Bacchus and obtained the po