Midgard
mid'gard, in Scandinavian mythology, the middle world or dwelling place of the human race. It was connected with Asgard, the dwelling of the gods, by the rainbow bridge. Midgard was formed from the eyebrows of the giant Ymir, the first created being. The Midgardsorm or Midgard serpent was an immense serpent--one of the offspring of Loki. It was cast by Odin into the sea which encircles the earth and was believed to lie coiled in the waters about the earth. See Mythology
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Midge
mij, a small insect allied to the mosquito and the fly. There are many species, in fact several families. Most of them are harmless. They deposit their eggs in the bark of decaying branches, under fallen leaves, in lakes, or even in the sap flowing from wounded trees,--wherever moisture can be found. One of the most annoying midges is the Indian "no-see-'em." This midge is so small as hardly to be seen, but its bite is more painful than that of the mosquito. It is so diminutive that nothing short of cheesecloth will keep it out. When resting, the midge usually lifts the front pair of legs. The mosquito raises the hind legs.
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Midi
CANAL DU, or CA- NAL DU LANGUEDOC, a canal from Toulouse on the Garonne to Cette on the Mediterranean. It is 150 miles long and was built in 1681 at a cost of $3,500,000. It connects the Atlantic with the Medi terranean Sea.
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Midshipman
in the United States navy, the naval cadet whose duty it formerly was to render such service as was required of him by the various officers on the ship, such as carrying messages, etc. He receives instruction, literary and professional, and his special duties are to pass on the orders of the superior officers to the men, and to superintend the carrying out of them. In zoölogy, an American sea fish allied to the toad fish.
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Midsummer Day
the feast day of the nativity of St. John the Baptist, and commonly reckoned to be June 24.
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Midsummer Night's Dream
a comedy by Shakespeare acted in 1595 and printed in 1600. The date of its composition is uncertain, although it is probable that it was among Shakespeare's first productions. The plot is largely the poet's own, although the interlude of Pyramus and Thisbe is a travesty of an ancient tale told by the poet Ovid and by Chaucer in his Legende of Goode Women. The Midsummer Night's Dream, when acted, is converted from a delightful fiction into a dull pantomime. . . . Fancy cannot be embodied any more than a simile can be painted; and it is as idle to attempt it as to personate Wall or Moonshine. Fairies are not incredible, but fairies six feet high are so. Monsters are not shocking if they are seen at a proper distance. When ghosts appear at midday, when apparitions stalk along Cheapside, then may the Midsummer Night's Dream be represented without injury at Covent Garden or at Drury Lane. The boards of a theater and the regions of fancy are not the same thing.--Hazlitt.
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Midway Islands
a group of islands in the North Pacific midway between America and Asia. The islands have come into notice as an intermediate station of the American Pacific cable which extends from San Francisco to Honolulu and the Philippines. The group consists of a low, circular coral atoll inclosing a bay some five miles in diameter. Within this shelter there are four islets, the largest of which is above a mile in length and rises to a height of forty-three feet above the sea. In 1887-9 a shipwrecked crew lived here for fourteen months. The present inhabitants are cable employes. Good fresh water may be had by sinking wells. There is an abundance of food fishes, turtles, and crabs. The islands are covered with a coarse grass, and are the nesting places of countless terns. The United States Navy Department has issued orders forbidding the use of firearms and the molestation of birds.
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Migration
in zoölogy, ornithology, etc., a term applied to the periodical or irregular movements of all animals, especially to those of birds and fishes, for though the movements of some mam-ince of Milan, and the former capital of mals correspond in some degree to Lombardy. The most remarkable among those of birds, they are rather incursions than true migrations. Most of the birds that spend their spring and summer in the temperate parts of the United States pass the winter in the far S.; the winter visitants pass the summer in the extreme N., some of them breeding in Greenland, Lapland, or Iceland. Many sea fishes migrate to a limited extent for the purpose of depositing their spawn in favorable situations. In botany, many seeds have downy or feathery appendages which when the wind blows influence their motion through the air; others are floated down rivers and the ocean casts them on distant shores.
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Miguel
MARIA EVA- RISTO, DOM, Duke of Braganza, and so-called King of Portugal; born in Lisbon, Portugal, Oct. 26, 1802; son of John VI. At six years of age he emi-a royal family to Brazil, grated with the roya and when his father succeeded to the throne in 1821, Miguel rebelled three times against him, and was banished. On the death of John, in 1826, Miguel was made regent. He seized the throne to which Maria da Gloria was heir. A revolution broke out and Dom Miguel after defeat was compelled to sign, in 1834, a capitulation and return to Portugal. He died at Brombach, Baden, Nov. 14, 1866. MIKADO (mē-kä'dō) (Japanese the exalted), poetic title of the Emperor of Japan. Yoshihito, the present ruler, is the 122d or 124th of his line, founded about 660 b. c. Seven of the mikados were women.
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Mikkelson
EJNAR, Danish explorer; born in Jutland in 1880. He served in the Amdrup expedition to Christian XI. Land in 1900 and in the Baldwin-Ziegler expedition to Franz Josef Land in 1900 and 1902. He and Leffing well directed an Anglo-American expedition into the Arctic in 1906-1907, spending the winter there. He organized an expedition to survey the N. E. coast of Greenland in 1910, in which he lost his ship, and returned to within reach of rescue by sledge. His writings include "Conquering the Arctic" (1909) and "Lost in the Arctic" (1913).
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