MEDOC, a district in the dep. of the Gironde, on the left of the estuary, in the S. of France, famous for its wines.

MEDUSA, one of the THREE GORGONS (q. v.), is fabled to have been originally a woman of rare beauty, with a magnificent head of hair, but having offended Athena, that goddess changed her hair into hideous serpents, and gave to her eyes the power of turning any one into stone who looked into them; PERSEUS (q. v.) cut off her head by the help of Athena, who afterwards wore it on the middle of her breastplate or shield.

MEDWAY, a river in Kent, which rises in Surrey and Sussex, and which after a NE. course of 58 m. falls into an estuary at Sheerness.

MEEANEE, a village in Sind, 6 m.  N. of Hyderabad, where Sir Charles Napier defeated an army of the Ameer of Sind in 1843.

MEERSCHAUM (lit. sea-foam), a fine white clay, a hydrate-silicate of magnesia, supposed, as found on the sea-shore in some places, to have been sea-foam petrified.

MEERUT (119), an Indian town in the North-West Provinces, on the Nuddi, 40 m.  NE. of Delhi; is capital of a district of the same name, and an Important military station; it is noted as the scene of the outbreak of the Mutiny in 1857.

MEGARIS, a small but populous State of ancient Greece, S. of Attica, whose inhabitants were adventurous seafarers, credited with deceitful propensities.  The capital, Megara, famous for white marble and fine clay, was the birthplace of Euclid.

MEGATHERIUM, an extinct genus of mammalia allied to the sloth, some 18 or 20 ft. in length and 8 ft. in height, with an elephantine skeleton.

MEHEMET ALI, pasha of Egypt, born in Albania; entered the Turkish army, and rose into favour, so that he was able to seize the pashalic, the Sultan compromising matters by exaction of an annual tribute in acknowledgment of his suzerainty; the Mamelukes, however, proved unruly, and he could not otherwise get rid of them but by luring them into his coils, and slaughtering them wholesale in 1811; he maintained two wars with the Sultan for the possession of Syria, and had Ibrahim Pasha, his son, for lieutenant; compelled to give up the struggle, he instituted a series of reforms in Egypt, and prosecuted them with such vigour that the Sultan decreed the pashalic to remain hereditary in his family (1769-1849).

MEISSEN (15), a town of Saxony, on the Upper Elbe, 15 m.  NW. of Dresden; has a very fine Gothic cathedral and an old castle.  Gellert and Lessing were educated here.  There is a large porcelain factory, where Dresden china is made, besides manufactures of iron.

MEISSONIER, JEAN LOUIS ERNEST, French painter, born at Lyons; began as a book illustrator of “Paul and Virginia” amongst other works, practising the while and perfecting his art as a figure painter, in which he achieved signal success, from his “Chess-player” series to his designs for the decoration of the Pantheon, “The Apotheosis of France,” in 1889 (1811-1891).