MENDELSSOHN, MOSES, a German philosopher, born at Dessau, of Jewish descent, a zealous monotheist, and wrote against Spinoza; was author of the “Phaedon, a Discourse on the Immortality of the Soul,” and did a great deal in his day to do away with the prejudices of the Jews and the prejudices against them; he was the friend of Lessing, and is the prototype of his “Nathan” (1720-1786).

MENDOZA (137), province in the extreme W. of Argentina; has the Andes in the W., Aconcagua (23,500 ft.), the highest peak in the New World, otherwise is chiefly worthless pampa, fertile only where irrigated from the small Mendoza River; there vines flourish; copper is plentiful, coal and oil are found.  MENDOZA (20), the capital, 640 m.  W. of Buenos Ayres by rail, is on the Trans-Andine route to Chili, with which it trades largely; suffers frequently from earthquakes.

MENELAUS, king of Sparta, the brother of Agamemnon and the husband of Helen, the carrying away of whom by Paris led to the Trojan War.

MENHIR, a kind of rude obelisk understood to be a sepulchral monument.

MENINGES, the name of three membranes that invest the brain and spinal cord, and the inflammation of which is called meningitis.

MENNONITES, a Protestant sect founded at Zurich with a creed that combines the tenets of the Baptists with those of the Quakers; have an episcopal form of government, and maintain a rigorous church discipline.

MENSCHIKOFF, ALEXANDER DANILOVITCH, Russian soldier and statesman, born in humble life at Moscow; became servant to Lefort, on whose death he succeeded him as favourite of Peter the Great, whom he accompanied to Holland and England; in the Swedish War (1702-1713) he won renown, and was created field-marshal on the field of Pultowa; he introduced to the Czar Catharine, afterwards czarina, whom he captured at Marienburg, and when Peter died secured the throne for her; during her reign and her successor’s he governed Russia, but his ambition led the nobles to banish him to Siberia 1727 (1672-1729).

MENSCHIKOFF, ALEXANDER SERGEIEVITCH, general, great-grandson of the former, served in the wars of 1812-15, in the Turkish campaign of 1828, was ambassador to the Porte in 1853, and largely responsible for the Crimean War, in which he commanded at Alma, Inkermann, and Sebastopol (1789-1869).

MENTEITH, LAKE OF, a small beautiful loch in Perthshire, 13 m.  W. of Stirling, with three islets, on one of which stood a priory where, as a child, Mary Stuart spent 1547-48; on another stood the stronghold of the earls.

MENTHOL, a crystalline substance obtained from the oil of peppermint, used in nervous affections, such as neuralgia, as a counter-irritant.

MENTONE (8), town and seaport in France, on the Mediterranean, 11/2 m. from the Italian border; was under the princes of Monaco till 1848, when it subjected itself to Sardinia, which afterwards handed it over to France; protected by the Alps, the climate is delightful, and renders it a favourite health resort in winter and spring; it exports olive-oil and fruit.