any admixture of stones, and with very little clay or sand. The uppermost stratum of the fen lands is usually of this earth, and it commonly constitutes a moderately thick or deep bed. Intermixed with water it cannot easily be worked up into a paste; and, when with labor worked up into somewhat of a firm mass, its surface appears spongy and porous; and, as soon as dry, it easily moulders away to powder. It is usually soft to the touch, unless it be worked very closely between the fingers; then it shows a mixture of a small quantity of sand, both to the touch and to the eye. It seems indeed to consist almost entirely of pure vegetable matter; and this, lying in such plenty on the surface of the fen-lands, is the cause of their being so very fertile. The great disadvantage of the places which have this soil is their being liable to be glutted with wet. To remedy the inconveniences thence arising, the farmers who rent these lands burn the soil at proper seasons. It burns very freely and easily, the surface readily catching flame; and a substance somewhat bituminous, usually contained among the soil, assists the burning,

MOORE (John), M. D., author of Travels through France and Italy, of Zelucco, a novel, &c. The style of his travels is a model of ease and perspicuity; and in the construction of Zelucco, there are a strength, originality, and true coloring, which will render it a lasting monument of national genius. He died at his house at Richmond, February 20th, 1802. His private character as a man was as good as his public one as an author was great. His early and liberal patronage of Burns affords a specimen of his sensibility as well as of his taste.

MOORE (lieutenant-general Sir John), eldest son of the preceding, was born at Glasgow 13th of November 1761. At the age of fifteen he entered the army as an ensign of the fifty-first regiment, and in 1790 was made a lieutenant-colonel. He afterwards served in Corsica, where he was wounded. He accompanied Sir Ralph Abercrombie in 1796 to the West Indies, as brigadier general, and, having assisted in the capture, was appointed governor of St. Lucia. The following year he was employed in Ireland, where he was promoted to the rank of major-general. In 1799 he went to Holland, where he was severely wounded; and was subsequently engaged and again wounded in the expedition to Egypt. He was made a knight of the Bath, after his return to England; and in 1808 commanded a body of troops sent to the assistance of the adventurous Gustavus IV. of Sweden, but he became involved in a dispute with that prince, who placed him under arrest, from which, however, he extricated himself and returned home. In October this year he landed in Spain, at the head of an English army; but after advancing some distance, and meeting with little support from the Spaniards, he felt obliged to retreat before a superior body of the French to Corunna, where was fought the celebrated battle of that name (see CORUNNA), on the 16th of January 1809, when the general was killed by a cannon-ball, and interred on the field of battle.

MOORING, the act of confining and securing
VOL. XV.

a ship in a particular station, by chains or cables, which are either fastened to the adjacent shore, or to anchors in the bottom. A ship may be either moored by the head, or by the head and stern: i. e. she may be secured by anchors before her, without any behind; or she may have anchors out, both before and behind her; or her cables may be attached to posts, rings, or moorings, which answer the same purpose. When a ship is moored by the head with her own anchors, they are disposed according to the circumstance of the place where she lies, and the time she is to continue therein. Thus, wherever a tide ebbs and flows, it is usual to carry one anchor out towards the flood, and another towards the ebb, particularly where there is little room to range about; and the anchors are laid in the same manner, if the vessel is moored head and stern in the same place. The situation of the anchors, in a road or bay, is usually opposed to the reigning winds, or those which are most dangerous; so that the ship rides therein with the effort of both her cables. Thus, if she rides in a bay, or road, which is exposed to a north wind and heavy sea from the same quarter, the anchors passing from the opposite bows ought to lie east and west from each other: hence both the cables will retain the ship in her station with equal effort against the action of the wind and sea.

MOORINGS, in sea language, are usually an assemblage of anchors, chains, and bridles, laid athwart the bottom of a river or haven, to ride the shipping contained therein. The anchors employed on this occasion have rarely more than one fluke, which is sunk in the water near lowwater mark. Two anchors being fixed in this manner, in the opposite side of the river, are furnished with a chain extending across from one to the other. In the middle of the chain is a large square link, whose lower end terminates in a swivel, which turns round in the chain as about an axis, whenever the ship veers about with the change of the tide. To this swivel-link are attached the bridles, which are short pieces of cable, well served, whose upper ends are drawn into the ship at the mooring ports, and afterwards fastened to the masts or cable-bolts. A great number of moorings of this sort are fixed in the harbours adjacent to the king's dock-yards, as Deptford, Chatham, Portsmouth, Plymouth, &c.

MOORLANDS, a tract so called in the north part of Staffordshire, where the land rises gradually into small hills, which run through the midst of England in one continued ridge, rising higher and higher to Scotland, and sending forth many rivers. The soil here is so foul and cold that the snows lie almost all the year on the tops of the hills; and it is withal very rugged and barren: it, however, yields plenty of coal, lead, copper, rance-marble, and mill-stones; and some of the limestone hills bear a sweet though short grass, very grateful to the oxen, of which there is a very good breed.

MOORS. See MOROCCO.

MOORS, in the Isle of Man, those who summon the courts for the several sheadings; such as the lords bailiffs. The office is similar to that of bailiff of the hundred.

G

Including Cossimbazar this place exten ls eight miles along the eastern bank of the Bhagirutty River, about 129 miles above Calcutta. The houses have seldom above one story, and tiled roofs; the streets are narrow and dirty; but the nabob's palace, which has been lately rebuilt, and the imambury and mosques are in good condition. It is also the residence of the British civil establishment, and a judicial court of circuit. It was plundered by the Mahrattas in 1742, but still carries on a considerable trade in silk, raw and manufactured; and, notwithstanding the river is nearly dry during six months, the surrounding district is very fertile. During the rainy season it is subject to inundation, which has frequently rendered the city unhealthy.

MOOSSO, a town of Southern Africa, to the north of Leetakoo, and capital of a tribe called the Murahlongs. It is said to be much larger than Leetakoo, and to contain from 10,000 to 12,000 inhabitants.

MOOT, v. a. & adj. Lat. mortan; Goth. mota, motgian, to encounter. To dispute; plead: hence to state a point of law by way of exercise, as was commonly done in the inns of court: a moot case or point is a point or case unsettled and disputable.

In this moot case your judgment to refuse, Is present death. Dryden's Juvenal. Would you not think him cracked, who would require another to make an argument on a moot point, who understands nothing of our laws?

Locke on Education. Let us drop both our pretences; for I believe it is a moot point, whether I am more likely to make a master Bull, or you a master Strutt.

Arbuthnot's History of John Bull. MOP, n.s & v.a. Wel. moppa; Lat. mappa. A flocky household utensil, used with a long handle to mop is to take up or clean with a

mop.

:

Such is that sprinkling which some careless quean Flirts on you from her mop, but not so clean. You fly, invoke the gods; then turning, stop To rail; she singing, still whirls on her mop.

Swift.

To

MOP, v. n. Either from Mock, as Dr. Johnson conjectures: or MOUTH, which see. make wry mouths in contempt.

Each one tripping on his toe
Will be here with mop and mow.

Shakspeare.

Fire fiends have been in poor Tom at once; of lust, as Obdicut; Hobbididen, prince of dumbness; Mahu, of stealing; Mohu, of murder; and Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and mowing, who since possesses chamber-maids. Id.

An ass fell a mopping and braying at a lion. L'Estrange.

MOPE, v. n. & v. a. Barb. Lat. mopus, of MOPUS, n. s. Smyops. To be stupid; inactive; drowsy: to make stupid or spiritless.

What a wretched and peevish fellow is this king of England, to mope with his fat-brained followers. Shakspeare.

A very pretty moppet! Dryden's Spanish Fryar.

MOPSUS, in fabulous history, a celebrated prophet, son of Apollo, by Manto, the daughter of Tiresias, who flourished about the time of the the gods, and had an oracle at Malia, celebrated After death he was ranked among Trojan war. for the true and decisive answers which it gave.

MOPSUs, the son of Ampyx and Chloris, born at Titaressa in Thessaly. He was the prophet and soothsayer of the Argonauts, and died at his return from Colchis, by the bite of a serpent in Libya. Jason erected a monument to him on the sea-shore, where afterwards Africanus built a temple where he gave oracles. He has often been confounded with the son of Manto, as their professions and their names were the same.

MOQUEBAH, a province and town of Peru, sixteen leagues from the Pacific Ocean. The province though cold, is fertile in wine, brandy, and olives. It is forty-two leagues long. The town is situated at the foot of the Cordillera in a pleasant valley, and has a good church and several convents. It suffered severely by an earthquake in 1715. Population 6000: seventy miles south of Arequipa.

dostan in the province of Delhi, and district of MORADABAD, a considerable town of HinBareily. It is delightfully situated on the Ramgonga River, and the houses are generally built of stone or brick, two or three stories high. It formerly was the residence of one of the Rohilla chiefs, and had a mint. It is now the station of the British civil establishments. Long. 78° 45′ E., lat. 28° 52′ N.

MOREA, in botany, a genus of the monogynia order and triandria class of plants, natural order sixth, ensata: COR. hexapetalous; the three interior petals patent, the rest like those of

the iris.