of Thanet, and is practically contiguous with Westgate on the west and with Broadstairs on the south-east, owing to the modern extension of these popular watering-places. An electric tramway connects Margate with Broadstairs and Ramsgate, and during the season it is served by numerous pleasure steamers from London. An esplanade faces the sea along nearly the entire front of the town, and is lined with hotels, shops and dwelling-houses. A jetty exceeding a quarter of a mile in length permits the approach of vessels at all tides. It was built in 1854 and subsequently enlarged, but a pier was constructed by John Rennie in 1815, and is now chiefly used by fishermen and colliers. The church of St John the Baptist, founded in 1050, contains some portions of Norman architecture, the remainder being Decorated and Perpendicular. It is rich in ancient brasses and monuments, including a brass to Sir John Daundelyon (1443), whose family occupied a manor in the neighbourhood as early as the 13th century. The manor house of Daundelyon, or Dent de Lion, with its gateway of the early part of the 15th century, remains between Margate and Westgate. Charitable institutions include a deaf and dumb asylum (1875–1886), the Metropolitan infirmary for children (1841), and the royal sea-bathing infirmary, established in 1791 and enlarged through the munificence of Sir Erasmus Wilson in 1882. Dane Park (33 acres) was opened in 1898.
Margate (Meregate, Mergate), formerly a small fishing village, was an ancient and senior non-corporate member of Dover. In 1347 it contributed 15 ships of small tonnage at the time of the siege of Calais. Throughout the 14th century references are made to Margate in crown regulations regarding fisheries and shipping. A pier existed before 1500, but by the reign of Henry VIII. it was in a decayed condition. The amount of corn shipped was evidently small, the droits being insufficient to keep the pier in repair. Under Elizabeth Margate was still an obscure fishing village employing about 20 small vessels (“hoys”) in the coasting and river trades, chiefly in the conveyance of grain, on which in 1791 it chiefly subsisted. The droits increased, but were not properly collected until 1724. In 1777 the pier was rebuilt. It was about this time that Margate first began to be known as a bathing-place owing to its fine stretch of firm sand. In 1835 Margate was still a liberty of Dover and no right of citizenship could be acquired. In 1857 it was incorporated. In 1777 a weekly market was granted on Wednesday and Saturday. It is now held daily, but principally on those two days.
MARGGRAF, ANDREAS SIGISMUND (1709–1782), German
chemist, was born at Berlin on the 3rd of March 1709. After studying chemistry at Berlin and Strassburg, medicine at Halle, and mineralogy and metallurgy at Freiberg, he returned
to his native city in 1735 as assistant to his father, Henning
Christian Marggraf, chief apothecary at the court. Three
years later he was elected to the Berlin Academy of Sciences,
which in 1754 put him in charge of its chemical laboratory
and in 1760 appointed him director of its physics class. He
died in Berlin on the 7th of August 1782. His name is especially
associated with the discovery of sugar in beetroot. In 1747
he published an account of experiments undertaken with the
definite view of obtaining true sugar from indigenous plants,
and found that for this purpose the first place is taken by
beetroot and carrot, that in those plants sugar like that of
cane exists ready formed, and that it may be extracted by
boiling the dried roots in alcohol, from which it is deposited
on cooling. This investigation is also memorable because he
detected the minute sugar-crystals in the roots by the help
of the microscope, which was thus introduced as an adjunct
to chemical inquiry. In another research dealing with the
nature of alum he showed that one of the constituents of that
substance, alumina, is contained in common clay, and further
that the salt cannot be prepared by the action of sulphuric
acid on alumina alone, the addition of an alkali being necessary.
He explained and simplified the process of obtaining phosphorus
from urine, and made some admirable observations
on phosphoric acid; but though he noted the increase in weight
that attends the conversion of phosphorus into phosphoric
acid he was content to remain an adherent of the phlogistic
doctrine. For his time he was a skilful chemical analyst;
he knew how to distinguish potash and soda by the different
colorations they produce in flame, and how to test for iron
with prussiate of potash: he was aware that sulphate of potash,
gypsum and heavy spar, in spite of their different appearances,
all contain sulphuric acid; and he recognized that there are
different varieties of urinary calculi. In metallurgy he devised
improved methods for the manufacture of zinc and the purification
of silver, tin and other metals.
His papers, mostly written in French, were presented to the Berlin Academy, and with the exception of a few of the latest were collected in two volumes of Chymische Schriften in 1761–1767.
MARGHELAN, or Marghilan, a town of Asiatic Russia, situated in 40° 28′ N. and 71° 45′ E., the administrative centre
of the province of Ferghana. Pop. (1900), 42,855, mostly
Sarts, with Tajiks and Jews. It is a very old town, with high
earthen walls and twelve gates, commanded by a fort. It
lies in a beautiful, extraordinary fertile and well irrigated
district. The heat in summer is excessive. The principal
industry is the manufacture of silk; camels’ hair and woollen
fabrics are also made. The new Russian town, founded in
1877, is 10 m. distant to the south-east, and has a population
(1897) of 8977.
MARGRAVE (Ger. Markgraf), a German title meaning
literally “count of the March” (Lat. marchio, comes marchae, marchisus). The margraves had their origin in the counts established by Charlemagne and his successors to guard the frontier districts of the empire, and for centuries the title was always associated with this function. The margraves had within their own jurisdiction the authority of dukes, but at the outset they were subordinate to the dukes in the feudal army of the empire. In the 12th century, however, the margraves of Brandenburg and Austria (the north and east marks) asserted their position as tenants-in-chief of the empire; with the break-up of the great duchies the others did the same; and the margraves henceforward took rank with the great German princes. The title of margrave very early lost its original significance, and was borne by princes whose territories were in no sense frontier districts, e.g. by Hermann, a son of Hermann, margrave of Verona, who assumed in 1112 the title of margrave of Baden. Thus, too, when the elector Albert Achilles of Brandenburg in 1473 gave Bayreuth and Ansbach as apanages to his sons and their descendants these styled themselves margraves. The title, however, retained in Germany its sovereign significance, and has not, like “marquis” in France and “marchese” in Italy, sunk into a mere title of nobility; it is not, therefore, in its present sense the equivalent of the English title “marquess.” The German margraviates have now all been absorbed into other sovereignties, and the title margrave is borne only as a subsidiary title in the full style of their sovereigns.
MARGUERITE, the popular name for the plant known
botanically as Pyrethrum (or Chrysanthemum) frutescens (natural order Compositae), a shrubby perennial with smooth leaves cut pinnately into narrow segments and flower-heads two to three inches across produced singly in summer and autumn on slender erect stalks. The white ray-florets surround a yellow disk. It is a native of the Canary Isles, and a favourite for decoration and for greenhouse cultivation, window-boxes and open ground in the summer. The yellow marguerite (étoile d’or) has somewhat larger pale yellow flowers and glaucous leaves. The plant is propagated from cuttings taken in autumn from old plants and placed in sandy loamy soil in cold frames. By pruning the shoots in autumn the plants may be grown into very large specimens in the course of a few seasons.
MARGUERITE DE VALOIS. The name Marguerite was
common in the Valois dynasty, and during the 16th century
there were three princesses, all of whom figure in the political
as well as in the literary history of the time, and who have
