MAGNET, the name given to loadstone as first discovered in Magnesia, a town in Asia Minor; also to a piece of iron, nickel, or cobalt having similar properties, notably the power of setting itself in a definite direction; also a coil of wire carrying an electric current, because such a coil really possesses the properties characteristic of an iron magnet.

MAGNETIC INDUCTION, power in a magnet of imparting its qualities to certain other substances.

MAGNETISM, the branch of science devoted to the study of the properties of magnets, and of electric currents in their magnetic relations; sometimes also used to denote the subtle influence supposed to lie at the root of all magnetic phenomena, of the true nature of which nothing is known.  See ANIMAL MAGNETISM.

MAGNIFICAT, THE, a musical composition embracing the song of the Virgin Mary in Luke I. 46-55, so called from the first word of the song in the Vulgate; it belongs to, and forms part of, the evening service.

MAGNUSSEN, FINN, a Scandinavian scholar and archaeologist, born in Iceland; became professor of Literature at Copenhagen in 1815; distinguished for his translation and exposition of the “Elder Edda” (1781-1847).

MAGYARS, a people of Mongolian origin from the highlands of Central Asia that migrated westward and settled in Hungary and Transylvania, where they now form the dominant race.

MAHABHARATA, one of the two great epic poems of ancient India, a work of slow growth, extending through ages, and of an essentially encyclopaedic character; one of the main sources of our knowledge of the ancient Indian religions and their mythologies; it is said to consist of upwards of 100,000 verses.

MAHADEVA, the great god of the Hindus; an appellation of SIVA (q. v.), as Mahadevi is of Durga, his wife.

MAHANADE, a great Indian river which, after flowing eastward for over 500 m., the last 300 of which are navigable, falls into the Bay of Bengal near Cape Palmyras; its volume in flood is enormous, and renders it invaluable for irrigation.

MAHATMA, one who, according to the Theosophists, has passed through the complete cycle of incarnation, has thereby attained perfection of being, and acquired the rank of high priesthood and miraculous powers in the spirit world, one, it would seem, of “the spirits of just men made perfect.”

MAHDI (i. e. religious leader), a name given to any Mohammedan fanatic who arises in the interest of the Mohammedan faith, summons the Moslems to war, and leads them to repel the infidel; a kind of Mohammed Messiah armed with the sword for the conquest of the world to the faith.

MAHDI, MOHAMMED AHMED, a Mohammedan fanatic, born in Dongola, and who, at the head of an army of dervishes, raised his standard for the revival of Islam in the Soudan; he was unsuccessfully opposed by the Egyptians, and Khartoum, occupied by them, fell into his hands, to the sacrifice of General Gordon, just as the British relief army under Lord Wolseley approached its walls in 1885, a few months after which he died at Omdurman.