a great organ dating from the 17th century. Near the cathedral is the Gothic palace, formerly the residence of the bishops of Merseburg, and now used as public offices. The town hall and the Ständehaus, where the meetings of the provincial estates were held, are also noteworthy buildings. The industries include the manufacture of machinery, paper and celluloid, and tanning and brewing.
Merseburg is one of the oldest towns in Germany. From 968 until the Reformation, it was the seat of a bishop, and in addition to being for a time the residence of the margraves of Meissen, it was a favourite residence of the German kings during the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries. Fifteen diets were held here during the middle ages, when its fairs enjoyed the importance which was afterwards transferred to those of Leipzig. The town suffered severely during the Peasants’ War and also during the Thirty Years’ War. From 1657 to 1738 it was the residence of the dukes of Saxe-Merseburg.
See E. Hoffmann, Historische Nachrichten aus Alt-Merseburg (Merseburg, 1903).
MERSEN (Meerssen), TREATY OF, a treaty concluded
on the 8th of August 870 at Mersen, in Holland, between Charles
the Bald and his half-brother, Louis the German, by which
the kingdom of their nephew Lothair II. (d. 869) was divided
between them. Charles received a portion of the kingdom
of Lothair afterwards called Lorraine, extending from the
mouths of the Rhine to Toul, together with the town of Besançon,
the Lyonnais, the Viennais, the Vivarais, and the Uzège, i.e.
the lands acquired by Lothair II. in 863 at the, death of his
brother Charles of Provence; while Louis had the cities of
Cologne, Trier and Metz, together with Alsace, the Escuens,
and the Varais, i.e. the greater part of the diocese of Besançon.
The boundary between the two realms was marked approximately
by the valleys of the Meuse and Moselle and by the
Jura. Great importance has been attached to the determination
of this frontier by some historians, who consider that it
coincided with the dividing line between the Teutonic and
Romance races and languages; but nothing is known of the
bases upon which the negotiations were effected, and the
situation created by this treaty came to an end in 879.
MERSENNE, MARIN (1588–1648), French philosopher and
mathematician, was born of peasant parents near Oizé (Sarthe)
on the 8th of September 1588, and died in Paris on the 1st of
September 1648. He was educated at the Jesuit College of
La Flèche, where he was a fellow-pupil and friend of Descartes.
In 1611 he joined the Minim Friars, and devoted himself to
philosophic teaching in various convent schools. He settled
eventually in Paris in 1620 at the convent of L’Annonciade.
For the next four years he devoted himself entirely to philosophic
and theological writing, and published Quaestions celeberrimae
in Genesim (1623); L’Impiété des déistes (1624); La Vérité des
sciences (1624). These works are characterized by wide scholarship
and the narrowest theological orthodoxy. His greatest
service to philosophy was his enthusiastic defence of Descartes,
whose agent he was in Paris and whom he visited in exile in
Holland. He submitted to various eminent Parisian thinkers
a manuscript copy of the Meditations, and defended its orthodoxy
against numerous clerical critics. In later life, he gave up
speculative thought and turned to scientific research, especially
in mathematics, physics and astronomy. Of his works in this
connexion the best known is L’Harmonie universelle (1636),
dealing with the theory of music and musical instruments.
Among his other works are: Euclidis elementorum libri, &c. (Paris, 1626); Universae geometriae synopsis (1644); Les Mécaniques de Galilée (Paris, 1634); Questions inouïes ou récréations des savants (1634); Questions théologiques, physiques, &c. (1634); Nouvelles découvertes de Galilée (1639); Cogitata physico-mathematica (1644).
See Baillet, Vie de Descartes (1691); Poté, Éloge de Mersenne (1816).
MERSEY, a river in the north-west of England. It is formed
by the junction of the Goyt and the Etherow a short distance
below Marple in Cheshire on the first-named stream. The
Goyt rises in the neighbourhood of Axe Edge, south-west of
Buxton, and the Etherow in the uplands between Penistone
and Glossop, watering the narrow Longdendale in which are
several reservoirs for the Manchester water supply. The
Mersey thus drains a large part of the Peak district of Derbyshire
and of the southern portion of the Pennine system. The
general direction from Marple is westerly. At Stockport the
river Tame joins from the north, rising in the moors to the
north-east of Oldham, and the Mersey soon afterwards debouches
upon the low plain to the west of Manchester, which lies on
its northern tributary the Irwell. The Bollin joins from the
south-east near Heatley, and the main river, passing Warrington,
begins to expand into an estuary before reaching Runcorn
and Widnes, which face each other across it. The estuary,
widening suddenly at the junction of the Weaver from the south-east,
212 m. below Runcorn, is 3 m. wide off Ellesmere Port, but
narrows to less than 34 m. at Liverpool, and hardly exceeds a
mile at the mouth in the Irish Sea. The fall of the Mersey is about
1600 ft. in all and about 300 from Marple; its length, including
the Goyt, is 70 m. exclusive of lesser windings, and it drains
an area of 1596 sq. m. The estuary is one of the most important
commercial waterways in the world. (See Liverpool and
Birkenhead.) The Manchester Ship Canal (q.v.) joins the
estuary through Eastham Locks, skirts its southern shore up
to Runcorn, and crosses the river several times. From the name
of the river was taken the title of Lord Mersey in 1910 by
Sir John Bigham (b. 1840), on his elevation to the peerage after
serving as a judge of the high court from 1897 to 1909 and
president of the divorce court 1909–1910.
MERSINA, a town on the south-eastern coast of Asia Minor,
and capital of a sanjak in the vilayet of Adana. Pop. about
15,000 including many Christians, Armenian, Greek and
European. Its existence as a port began with the silting up
of the harbour of Tarsus and Pompeiopolis, east and west, in
the early middle ages; but it did not rise to importance till the
Egyptian occupation of Cilicia (1832). It is now the busiest
port on the south coast, being the terminus of the railway from
Tarsus and Adana, by which (but still more by road) the produce
of the rich “Aleian” plain comes down. It is served by most
of the Levantine steamship companies, and is the best point
of departure for visitors desiring to see Tarsus, the Cilician
remains, and the finest scenery of the East Taurus. There
is, however, no enclosed harbour, but only a good jetty. The
making of a breakwater has long been under consideration.
The anchorage in the roadstead is good, but the bay shoals for
a long way out, and is exposed to swell from south-west and
south. Mersina is an American mission centre, and the seat
of a British vice-consul. Like all lowland Cilicia, it has a
notoriously bad summer climate, and all inhabitants, who
can do so, migrate to stations on the lower slopes of Taurus.
(D. G. H.)
MERTHYR TYDFIL, or Merthyr Tydvil, a municipal,
county and parliamentary borough, and market-town of Glamorganshire,
south Wales, situated in a bleak and hilly region on
the river Taff, on the Glamorganshire Canal, and the Brecon
and Merthyr, Great Western, North Western, Taff Vale and
Rhymney railways, 25 m. N.N.W. of Cardiff, 30 E.N.E. of
Swansea, and 176 from London. Pop. (1901), 69,228. The
town is said to have derived its name from the martyrdom of
St Tydfil, daughter of Brychan, who was put to death by
Saxons in the 5th century. It is for the most part irregularly
built and was formerly subject to severe epidemics due to
defective sanitation; but it now possesses a supply of the purest
water from the lesser Taff on the southern slope of the Breconshire
Beacons. The town owes its early industrial prosperity
to the abundant ironstone and coal of the district, and it thus
became at an early date the chief seat of the iron industry in Wales.
Four great ironworks were established here between 1759 and
1782. With the earliest, that of Dowlais, the Guest family
were associated, first as partners and later as sole owners from
1782 to 1901 when the works were disposed to the company
of Guest, Keen and Nettlefold. In 1765, Cyfarthfa was started
by Anthony Bacon, and when firmly established, sold in 1794
to Richard Crawshay by whose descendants the works were
