MITCHELL, SILAS WEIR (1830-1914), American physician and author (see 18.618), died in Philadelphia, Pa., Jan. 4 1914. After 1910 he published John Sherwood, Ironmaster (ign), West-ways (1913), and Complete Poems (1914)-
MOHN, HENRIK (1835-1916), Norwegian meteorologist, was born at Bergen May 15 1835, his family being of German origin. He was educated at the Cathedral school, Bergen, and after- wards entered the university of Christiania, where he took his doctor's degree in 1852. In 1861 he became an observer at the Christiania observatory, in 1866 was elected professor of meteor- ology at Christiania University, and in 1866 was appointed director of the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, which he was largely instrumental in founding. He retained this post until 1913. Mohn's meteorological researches were of the highest importance. His tudes sur les mouvements de I'atmosphere, written in collaboration with the mathematician Goldberg (1876-8), is a work of great value for the study of the dynamics of the atmosphere, and the authors continued their researches on the subject in various papers contributed to the Zeitschrift der Oest. Meteor. Gesell. (1877-8). Mohn did much work on the subject of storms, publishing storm maps of the Atlantic (1870-1), and he also carried out researches (1876-8) on the meteorology and oceanography of the northern Atlantic. He worked out and published the meteorological observations of various polar expeditions, including those of Nansen in the " Fram " (1893-6), the second " Fram " expedition (1898-1902), and Amundsen's south polar journey (1910-2), some of his papers appearing as supplements to Petermann's Mitteilungen. He also published many articles on the climate of Norway and conducted investi- gations into the use of the hypsometer, which are of great importance for the study of the physics of the earth. Besides the works mentioned above, he produced Grundzilge der Meteo- rologie, which has gone through numerous enlarged editions since its first appearance in 1872 as a small text-book. Mohn was a member of many foreign scientific societies, and was senior hon. member of the Royal Meteorological Society of London, having been elected in 1874. He died at Christiania Sept. 12 1916.
MOLESWORTH, MARY LOUISA (1830-1921), Scottish writer (see 18.660), died in London, July 21 1921.
MOLTKE, HELMUTH VON (1848-1916), Prussian general, chief of the German general staff at the outbreak of the World War, was born at Gersdorf in Mecklenburg on May 23 1848, and was the nephew of the great Moltke. From 1902 to 1904 he was in command of the ist Div. of the Guards Corps with the rank of lieutenant-general. In 1906 he was appointed chief of the general staff of the army. He was responsible for the general conduct of the German operations at the beginning of the World War and is now known to have been acting upon the plan for the invasion of the north-east of France and a rapid advance upon Paris which had been drawn up by his great predecessor, Gen. von Schlieffen. In important particulars, how- ever, he appears to have deviated from Schlieffen's plan, and in particular to have failed to concentrate sufficient force in the blow which was delivered on the north-east. He has likewise been charged with having failed to coordinate the positions of the German forces on the eve of the battle of the Marne, and having allowed to be issued confusing orders which contributed to the German defeat in that decisive battle. About the same time his health had become seriously impaired, and on Oct. 25 1914 he was relieved of his post and was succeeded by Gen. von Falkenhayn. He was entrusted in Berlin with the office of chief of the home substitute for the general staff (Der stelher- tretende Generalstab) , which had the task of organizing and for- warding the reserves and of controlling the Territorial army corps, corresponding to those at the front. General von Moltke died suddenly at a celebration in the Reichstag building on June 18 1916. He left memoirs entitled Die " Schuld " am Kriege, which up to 1921 had not yet been published.
MONO, SIR ALFRED MORITZ, 1ST BART. (1868- ), British politician, was born at Farnworth, near Widnes, Lanes., Oct. 23 1868, the son of the famous chemist Ludwig Mond (see 18.693). Hewas educatedat Cheltenham and St. John's College, Cambridge, and afterwards at Edinburgh University. In 1894 he was called to the bar, and afterwards joined the North Wales and Chester circuit. He entered the firm of Brunner, Mond & Co., becoming a director in 1895, and also became chairman of the Mond Nickel Co. and a director of the South Staffordshire Mond Gas Co. and various other companies. He was elected to Parliament in 1906 as Liberal member for Chester, losing his seat in 1910, but the same year was elected for Swansea and created a baronet. On the formation of Mr. Lloyd George's Ministry in 1916 he became First Commissioner of Works, and in 1921 he became Minister of Health. Sir Alfred Mond was in 1908 chairman of the chemical industries section of the Franco- British exhibition. He published many articles on the alkali trade in scientific and economic journals, besides a volume of essays, Questions of To-day and To-morrow (1912). His wife Violet, daughter of J. H. Goetze, was well known in society, and was created D.B.E. for her work during the war; and their daughter Eva Violet married in 1914 Visct. Erleigh, eldest son of Lord Reading.
MONET, CLAUDE (1840- ), French painter (see 18.694). In his later years Monet worked at his painting solely in the neighbourhood of Giverny, where he lived, and devoted himself to the study of modifications in the aspect of a limited number of subjects caused by changes in the light and the seasons. On the motive of the " Bassin aux Nympheas " he produced a series of twelve large compositions. Another series, painted in 1913, is the " Arceaux Fleuris," which represents a corner of his garden at Giverny. In 1918 he produced a number of similar studies under the general title of " Saule Pleureur."
MONEY MARKET (see 17.732*). Like most of the terms current in business or in economics, the phrase "money market " is used in different senses. It sometimes means the whole financial machinery as applied to the creation, collection and distribution of both credit and capital, and so includes not only the banks, accepting houses and discount houses, but also the stock exchange, bullion brokers, dealers in foreign exchange, company promoters, and all others who handle the business of lending and investing money and transferring it from one country to another. The subject of the present article, however, is the money market in the narrower sense of the phrase, covering the machinery of the creation and distribution of credit that is to say, of banking money which can be produced for the use of borrowers by banks and financial firms and companies. Loan issuers, company promoters, and stockbrokers do not exercise this power of creating money; they collect money saved by the public or borrowed by the public from bankers, and hand it over to governments, municipalities or industrial and commercial users to be used by official borrowers for public works, or for military expenditure, or to cover a deficit, and by industry and trade in developing production and distribution. The money market, however, in its strict and narrower sense not only collects money but creates and expands its supply. In England, where before the World War the money market had been developed to a very high point of elasticity and specialization, it worked by means of a ring of banks grouped round the Bank of England as its centre, with the assistance of accepting houses, a group of private firms of high standing, who performed an important function in the creation of bills of exchange, and the discount houses or bill-brokers, a group of joint-stock companies and private firms, which specialized in buying and selling bills of exchange, using for this purpose money largely borrowed from the banks.
In any country which founds its monetary system on a scientific basis the power of the banks to create credit cannot be expanded indefinitely; some check must be imposed either by law, or, as in England, by convention, tradition and the prudence of the bankers. Caution on their part is stimulated by the fact that they have always to be ready to meet demands upon them in legal-tender cash ; and so the amount of credit which they can prudently create is limited by the amount of legal-tender cash that they have available or can obtain if required.
Legal-tender cash means cash that can be legally tendered, and must be received by the creditor, in payment of a debt. In
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