elected a fellow of the Royal Society in the same year as Henry Cavendish (1760). In 1750 he published at Cambridge a work of some eighty pages entitled A Treatise of Artificial Magnets, in which is shown an easy and expeditious method of making them superior to the best natural ones. Besides the description of the method of magnetization which still bears his name, this work contains a variety of accurate magnetic observations, and is distinguished by a lucid exposition of the nature of magnetic induction. He was the original inventor of the torsion balance, which afterwards became so famous in the hands of its second inventor Coulomb. Michell described it in his proposal of a method for obtaining the mean density of the earth. He did not live to put his method into practice; but this was done by Henry Cavendish, who made, by means of Michell’s apparatus, the celebrated determination that now goes by the name of Cavendish’s experiment (Phil. Trans., 1708). His most important geological essay was that entitled Conjectures concerning the Cause and Observations upon the Phaenomena of Earthquakes (Phil. Trans., li. 1760), which showed a remarkable knowledge of the strata in various parts of England and abroad.
Michell’s other contributions to science are: “Observations on the Comet of January 1760 at Cambridge, Phil. Trans. (1760); “A Recommendation of Hadley’s Quadrant for Surveying,” ibid. (1765); “Proposal of a Method for measuring Degrees of Longitude upon Parallels of the Equator,” ibid. (1766); “An Inquiry into the Probable Parallax and Magnitude of the Fixed Stars,” ibid. (1767); “On the Twinkling of the Fixed Stars,” ibid. (1767), “On the Means of Discovering the Distance, Magnitude, &c., of the Fixed stars,” ibid. (1784).
MICHEL OF NORTHGATE, DAN (fl. 1340), English writer,
the author of the Ayenbite of Inwyt. Nothing is known of him
except what can be gathered from his work. It is a literal
translation in the Kentish dialect of a French treatise entitled
Le Somme des vices et des vertues (also known as Le Miroir du
monde or Le Livre des commandemens, &c.), which was written
in 1279 by Laurentius Gallus, a Dominican monk and confessor
to Philip III. of France. This work was translated into Flemish,
Catalonian, Spanish and Italian, and appears in no less than
six English translations. Dan Michel’s autograph MS. is
preserved in Arundel MS. 57, which states that the work was
completed in the year 1340 on the eve of the apostles Simon
and Jude by Dan Michel of Northgate, a brother of the cloister
of St Austin of Canterbury. The value of the book is chiefly
philological as an. authenticated and dated example of the
southern dialect.
The Ayenbite of Inwyt was edited for the Roxburghe Club by the Rev Joseph Stevenson in 1855, and for the Early English Text Soc. by Richard Morris in 1876.
MICHELOZZO DI BARTOLOMMEO (1391–1472?), Italian
sculptor, was a Florentine by birth, the son of a tailor, and in
early life a pupil of Donatello. He worked in marble, bronze
and silver. The statue of the young St John over the door of
the Duomo at Florence, opposite the Baptistery, is by him;
and he also made the beautiful silver statuette of the Baptist
on the altar-frontal of San Giovanni. Michelozzo’s great
friend and patron was Cosimo dei Medici, whom he accompanied
to Venice in 1433 during his short exile. While at Venice,
Michelozzo built the library of San Giorgio Maggiore, and
designed other buildings there. In 1428, together with Donatello,
he erected an open-air pulpit at an angle of the cathedral of
St Stephen at Prato. The magnificent Palazzo dei Medici at
Florence built by Cosimo, was designed by him; it is one of
the noblest specimens of Italian 15th-century architecture,
in which the great taste and skill of the architect has combined
the delicate lightness of the earlier Italian Gothic with the
massive stateliness of the classical style. With great engineering
skill Michelozzo shored up, and partly rebuilt, the Palazzo
Vecchio, then in a ruinous condition, and added to it many
important rooms and staircases. When, in 1437, through
Cosimo’s liberality, the monastery of San Marco at Florence
was handed over to the Dominicans of Fiesole, Michelozzo
was employed to rebuild the domestic part and remodel the
church. For Cosimo I. he designed numerous other buildings,
mostly of great beauty and importance. Among these were
a guest-house at Jerusalem for the use of Florentine pilgrims,
Cosimo’s summer villa at Careggi, and the strongly fortified
palace of Cafagiuolo in Mugello. For Giovanni dei Medici,
Cosimo’s son, he built a very large and magnificent palace
at Fiesole. In spite of Vasari’s statement that he died at the
age of sixty-eight, he appears to have lived till 1472. He is
buried in the monastery of San Marco, Florence. Though
skilled both as a sculptor and engineer, his fame chiefly rests
on his architectural works, which claim for him a position of
very high honour even among the greatest names of the great
15th-century Florentines.
See Hans Stegmann, Michelozzo di Bartolommeo, eine kunstgeschichtliche Studie (1888); Fritz Wolff, Michelozzo di Bartolommeo (1900); cf. also Hans Semper, Donatello (1887).
MICHIGAN, a north central state of the United States, situated
between latitudes 41° 44′ and 47° 30′ N.[1] and longitudes
82° 25′ and 90° 31′ W., and consisting of two peninsulas—the
upper or northern and the lower or southern—separated
by a strait. The upper or northern peninsula is bounded N.
by Lake Superior; E. by lakes Superior, George, Huron, and
Michigan, and by St Mary’s River, which separates it from the
Province of Ontario, Canada; S. by lakes Huron and Michigan
and the Straits of Mackinac, which separate it from the lower
peninsula; and S. and W. by Wisconsin, and the Menominee,
Montreal and Brulè Rivers, which separate it in part from
Wisconsin. The lower or southern peninsula is bounded N.
by lakes Michigan and Huron and the Straits of Mackinac,
E. by lakes Huron, St Clair and Erie, and the St Clair and
Detroit Rivers, which separate it from Ontario; S. by Ohio and
Indiana, and W. by Lake Michigan. In size Michigan ranks
eighteenth among the states of the Union, its total area being
57,980 sq. m., of which 500 sq. m. are water surface.[2]
Physical Features.—Physiographically the history of the state is similar to that of Minnesota. The northern part is rugged mountainous “old land,” not completely worn down by erosion; and the southern part is a portion of the old coastal plain, whose layers contain salt, gypsum and some inferior coal. Lake Huron on the east and Lake Michigan on the west of the lower peninsula are each 58113 ft. above sea-level, and Lake Superior on the north of the upper peninsula is 602 ft. above sea-level. For the most part the surface of the state is gently undulating and at a slight elevation above the lakes, but low marsh lands are common to many sections; the north part of the lower peninsula is occupied by a plateau of considerable dimensions, and the north-west part of the upper peninsula is rugged with hills and mountains. Crossing the lower peninsula from Saginaw Bay west by south through the valleys of the Saginaw, Maple and Grand rivers, is a depression—the former channel of an old glacial river—in which elevations for a considerable area are less than 100 ft. above the lakes. To the south-east of this depression a water-parting with summits varying from about 400 to 600 ft. above the lakes extends from a point between Saginaw Bay and Lake Huron south by west to the south border of the state and beyond. The east slope descends quite rapidly to a low flat belt from 5 to 40 m. wide along the east border of the state south from Lake Huron. From Lake Huron to the south-east shore of Saginaw Bay a wide sandy beach is followed northward by precipitous shores abounding in rocks and bluffs. West of the divide and south of the depression, south-west Michigan is occupied by the valleys of the St Joseph, Kalamazoo and Grand rivers, by the gently rolling uplands that form the parting divides between them, and by sand dunes, which here and there rise to a height of from 100 to 200 ft. or more along the shore of Lake Michigan, and are formed on this side (but not on the Wisconsin side) of the lake by the prevailing west winds. The north and north-west portions of the lower peninsula—including the counties of Roscommon and Missaukee, parts of Wexford and Ogemaw, and those to the north and north-west of these—are occupied by a rolling plateau which attains an elevation at its highest point, north of its centre, of upwards of 1100 ft. above Lake Michigan; to the south of this plateau the land slopes gently down to the depression and to the low shores of Lake Michigan and Saginaw Bay. The surface of the upper
- ↑ This is the northernmost point of the mainland; the most northerly of the islands north-east of Isle Royal and belonging to Michigan is more than 40′ further north.
- ↑ In addition, within the boundaries of Michigan, are approximately 16,653 sq. m. of Lake Superior, 12,992 sq. m. of Lake Michigan, 9925 sq. m. of Lake Huron and 460 sq. m. of lakes St Clair and Erie.
