[1] The name is sometimes spelt _Mahrathi_, with an _h_ before the
_r_, but, according to a phonetic law of the Aryan languages of
western India, this is incorrect. The original _h_ in "Maharastri,"
from which the word is derived, is liable to elision on coming
between two vowels.
[2] Shastri Vrajlal Kalidas, quoted by Beames in _Comparative
Grammar_, i. 102.
[3] See B. A. Gupte in _Indian Antiquary_ (1905), xxxiv. 27.
[4] For details see Dr Sten Konow's article on Maharastri and Marathi
in _Indian Antiquary_ (1903), xxxii. 180 seq.
[5] For the explanation of these terms see INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES.
[6] Abbreviations: Skr. = Sanskrit. Pr. = Maharastri Prakrit. M. =
Marathi.
[7] Fuller information regarding all the above postpositions will be
found in G. A. Grierson's article "On Certain Suffixes in the Modern
Indo-Aryan Vernaculars," on pp. 473 seq. of the _Zeitschrift für
vergleichende Sprachforschung_ for 1903.
[8] See, however, Hoernle, _Comparative Grammar_, p. 364.
MARATHON,, a plain on the N.E. coast of Attica, divided from the plain
of Athens by the range of Pentelicus; it contained four
villages--Marathon, Probalinthos, Tricorythos and Oenoe--which
originally formed an independent _tetrapolis_ and in historical times
still upheld peculiar rites and legendary associations, chiefly
connected with Heracles and Theseus. In the 6th century B.C. it served
as a base for Peisistratus (q.v.), who owned much property in that
district, for securing the rest of Attica. The plain derives its fame
mainly from the battle in which the Athenians and Plataeans defeated the
Persians (490 B.C.). The Persian force had been sent by King Darius to
punish the Athenians for previous interferences in Asia and to restore
their tyrant Hippias. It was probably by advice of the latter that the
generals Datis and Artaphernes landed their troops, numbering perhaps
50,000, at Marathon. The Athenians, on the recommendation of their
strategus Miltiades, resolved to meet this force in the open field, and
sent out their full levy of 9000 heavy infantry under the polemarch
Callimachus. They were joined on the way by 1000 Plataeans, but were
disappointed of the assistance which they expected from Sparta. From
their station at the head of the Vrana valley, which slopes down to
Marathon plain, the Athenians for some days observed the Persian army,
which gave no sign of proceeding to attack. After some waiting,
Miltiades, who seems throughout to have played a more prominent part
than his superior Callimachus, drew up the Athenian army for battle and
charged down upon the enemy, whose line was formed on the level about a
mile distant. The Athenian wings, whose formation had been made
specially deep, broke the opposing divisions by their impact; the centre
was at first overborne by the superior weight of the native Persians,
but ultimately was relieved by the victorious wings, which closed in
upon the Persian centre. The Persians were thereupon driven back into
the sea all along the line, and, although the majority regained their
ships, no less than 6400 were left dead, as against 192 Athenians. The
Persian fleet, of which perhaps a detachment had been sent on before the
battle, now sailed round Cape Sunium in order to effect a landing at
Phalerum, close by Athens, and with the help of traitors within the
walls to take the city by surprise. But Miltiades, who had suspected
some plot all along, and had lately been warned by a signal on Mt
Pentelicus which he interpreted as a message to the Persians, marched
back the victorious army in time to defend Athens. The enemy, upon
noticing his presence, did not venture a second disembarcation and
retired straightway out of Greek waters. The details of the battle, and
the Persian plan of campaign, are not made clear by our ancient sources,
but reconstructions have been attempted by numerous modern authorities.
(M. O. B. C.)
The tumulus or "Soros" was excavated by M. Stais in 1891 and 1892. A
slight previous excavation had brought to light some prehistoric
implements, and it was supposed that the mound had no connexion with the
battle; but it has now been discovered that the presence of those
prehistoric objects was accidental. Underlying the mound was found a
stratum about 85 ft. long by 20 broad, consisting of a layer of sand,
above which lay the ashes and bones of many corpses; together with these
were the remains of many lecythi and other vases, some of them
contemporary with the Persian wars, some of them of much earlier style,
and probably taken in the emergency from neighbouring cemeteries. It is
conjectured with some probability that a large vase containing ashes may
have been used as the burial urn of one of the Athenian generals who
fell. There was also, in the middle of the stratum, a trench for funeral
offerings about 30 ft. by 3; it contained bones of beasts, with ashes
and fragments of vases. There can therefore be no doubt that the tumulus
was piled up to commemorate the Athenians who fell in the battle, and
that it marks the place where the carnage was thickest. A selection from
the contents of the tumulus has been placed in the National Museum at
Athens. (E. Gr.)
See Herodotus vi. 102-117; W. M. Leake, _The Topography of Athens_
(London, 1841), ii. 203-227; R. W. Macan, _Herodotus_, iv.-vi.
(London, 1895), ii. 149-248; G. B. Grundy, _The Great Persian War_
(London, 1901), pp. 145-194; J. A. Munro in _Journal of Hellenic
Studies_, 1899, pp. 186-197. For the tumulus, [Greek: Harchaiologikon
Aeltion] 1891, pp. 67 sqq. See also MILTIADES.
MARAZION, a small seaport in the St Ives parliamentary division of
Cornwall, England, on the shore of Mount's Bay, 2 m. E. of Penzance,
served by the Great Western railway. Pop. (1901), 1251. A causeway of
boulders and pebbles, thrown up by the sea and passable at low tide,
unites Marazion with the insular St Michael's Mount (q.v.). The church
of St Hilary, destroyed by fire in 1853, had a very fine spire, which
has been faithfully reproduced in the restored building. Unusual
archaeological interest attaches to the churchyard. Its inscribed stones
date from the 4th century, one being in honour of Constantine the Great.
Another has Cornish lettering, which can no longer be deciphered; and
there are British and Roman crosses. Market gardening and fishing are
the main industries.
The charter attributed to Robert count of Mortain, granting lands and
liberties to St Michael's Mount, opposite Marazion, included a market on
Thursdays. This appears to have been held from the first on the
mainland. From it is probably derived the Marghasbigan (_Parvum Forum_)
of the earlier and the Marghasyewe or Marketjew (_Forum Jovis_) of the
later charters. It may be added that a Jewish origin has been ascribed
to the place from the name Marketjew. It is certain that Richard king of
the Romans provided that the three fairs, on the two feasts of St
Michael and at Mid-Lent, and the three markets which had hitherto been
held by the priors of St Michael's Mount on land not their own at
Marghasbighan, should in future be held on their own land at Marchadyou.
He transferred in fact the fairs and markets from the demesne lands of
the Bloyous in Marazion to those of the prior. To remedy the loss
incurred by this measure Ralph Bloyou in 1331 procured for himself and
his heirs a market on Mondays and a fair on the vigil, feast and morrow
of St Andrew at Marghasyon. In Leland's time the market was held at
Marhasdeythyow (_Forum Jovis_), and both Norden (1582) and Carew (1602)
tell us that Marcajewe signifies the Thursday's market, which, whether
etymologically sound or not, shows that the prior's market had prevailed
over its rival. In 1595 Queen Elizabeth granted to Marazion a charter of
incorporation. This ratified the grant of St Andrew's fair, provided for
another on the Feast of St Barnabas and established a market on
Saturdays. The corporation was to consist of a mayor, 8 aldermen and 12
capital burgesses. This corporation continued to administer the affairs
of the borough until it was dissolved under the Municipal Corporations
Act in 1835, when the property belonging to it was vested in charity
commissioners. The chairman of the commissioners retains possession of
the regalia. Of the fairs only the Michaelmas fair has survived and all
the markets have gone. It is frequently stated that Marazion had
formerly the right of returning two members to parliament, but that
owing to its inability to pay the members' expenses the right was lost.
Under the Commonwealth an attempt was made to secure or recover the
right, and two members are said to have been returned, but they were not
allowed to take their seats. Remains of an ancient bronze furnace,
discovered near the town, tend to prove that tin-smelting was practised
here at an early period. Marazion was once a flourishing town, and owed
its prosperity to the throng of pilgrims who came to visit St Michael's
Mount. During the first half of the 16th century it was twice plundered;
first by the French, and later by the Cornish rebels. The rise and
progress of the neighbouring borough of Penzance in the 17th century was
the undoing of Marazion.
MARBLE (from Lat. _marmar_, Gr. [Greek: marmaros], shining stone), a
term applied to any limestone or dolomite which is sufficiently close in
texture to admit of being polished. Many other ornamental stones--such
as serpentine, alabaster and even granite--are sometimes loosely
designated marble, but by accurate writers the term is invariably
restricted to those crystalline and compact varieties of carbonate of
lime (occasionally with carbonate of magnesia) which, when polished, are
applicable to purposes of decoration. The crystalline structure is
typically shown in statuary marble. A fractured surface of this stone
displays a multitude of sparkling facets, which are the rhombohedral
cleavage-planes of the component grains. The beautiful lustre of
polished statuary marble is due to the light penetrating for a short
distance into the rock and then suffering reflection at the surfaces of
the deeper-lying crystals. The durability of marble in a dry atmosphere
or when protected from rain renders it a valuable building stone (q.v.);
on the other hand, when exposed to the weather or the acid atmosphere of
large cities, its surface readily crumbles.
_Statuary and Economic Marbles._--Among statuary marbles the first place
may be assigned to the famous Pentelic marble, the material in which
Pheidias, Praxiteles, and other Greek sculptors executed their principal
works. The characteristics of this stone are well seen in the Elgin
marbles, which were removed from the Parthenon at Athens, and are now at
the British Museum. The marble was derived from the quarries of Mount
Pentelicus in Attica. Several large buildings have recently been
constructed with this marble in London. The neighbouring mountain of
Hymettus likewise yielded marbles, but these were neither so pure in
colour nor so fine in texture as those of Pentelicus. Parian marble,
another stone much used by Greek sculptors and architects, was quarried
in the isle of Paros, chiefly at Mount Marpessa. It is called by ancient
writers _lychnites_ (from the Gr. [Greek: lychnos], a lamp) in allusion
to the fact that the quarries were worked by the light of lamps. The
Venus de' Medici is a notable example of work in this material. Carrara
marble is better known than any of the Greek marbles, inasmuch as it
constitutes the stone invariably employed by the best sculptors of the
present day. This marble occurs abundantly in the Apuan Alps, an
offshoot of the Apennines, and is largely worked in the neighbourhood of
Carrara, Massa and Serravezza. Stone from this district was employed in
Rome for architectural purposes in the time of Augustus, but the finer
varieties, adapted to the needs of the sculptor, were not discovered
until some time later. It is in Carrara marble that the finest works of
Michelangelo and of Canova are executed. The purest varieties of this
stone are of snow-white colour and of fine saccharoidal texture. Silica
is disseminated through some of the marble, becoming a source of
annoyance to the workman; while occasionally it separates as beautifully
pellucid crystals of quartz known as "Carrara diamonds." The geological
age of the marbles of the Apuan Alps has been a subject of much dispute,
some geologists regarding them as metamorphosed Triassic, Liassic or
Rhaetic rocks. Much of the common marble is of a bluish colour, and
therefore unfit for statuary purposes; when streaked with blue and grey
veins the stone is known as _bardiglio_. Curiously enough, the common
white marble of Tuscany comes to England as Sicilian marble--a name
probably due to its having been formerly re-shipped from some port in
Sicily.
Although crystalline marbles fit for statuary work are not found to any
extent in Great Britain, the limestones of the Palaeozoic formations
yield a great variety of marbles well suited for architectural purposes.
The Devonian rocks of south Devon are rich in handsome marbles,
presenting great diversity of tint and pattern. Plymouth, Torquay,
Ipplepen, Babbacombe and Chudleigh may be named as the principal
localities. Many of these limestones owe their beauty to the fossil
corals which they contain, and are hence known as "madrepore marbles."
Of far greater importance than the marbles of the Devonian system are
those of Carboniferous age. It is from the Carboniferous or Mountain
Limestone that British marbles are mainly derived. Marbles of this age
are worked in Derbyshire and Yorkshire, in the neighbourhood of Bristol,
in North Wales, in the Isle of Man, and in various parts of Ireland. One
of the most beautiful of these stones is the "encrinital marble," a
material which owes its peculiarities to the presence of numerous
encrinites, or stone-lilies. These fossils, when cut in various
directions, give a characteristic pattern to the stone. The joints of
the stems and arms are known from their shape as "wheel-stones," and the
rock itself has been called "entrochal marble." The most beautiful
varieties are those in which the calcareous fossils appear as white
markings on a ground of grey limestone. In Belgium a black marble with
small sections of crinoid stems is known as _petit granit_, while in
Derbyshire a similar rock, crowded with fragments of minute encrinites,
is termed "bird's-eye marble."
Perhaps the most generally useful marbles yielded by the Carboniferous
system are the black varieties, which are largely employed for
chimney-pieces, vases, and other ornamental objects. The colour of most
black limestone is due to the presence of bituminous matter. Such
limestone commonly emits a fetid odour when struck; and the colour,
being of organic origin, is discharged on calcination. Black marbles,
more or less dense in colour, are quarried in various parts of Ireland,
especially at Kilkenny and near Galway, but the finest kind is obtained
from near Ashford in Derbyshire. From Ashford is also derived a very
beautiful stone known as "rosewood marble." This is a dense brown
laminated limestone, displaying when polished a handsome pattern
somewhat resembling the grain of rosewood; it occurs in very limited
quantity, and is used chiefly for inlaid work. The black marble of
Frosterley, Yorkshire, is another Carboniferous example which owes its
"figure" or pattern to the presence of large corals.
With the rosewood marble may be compared the well-known "landscape
marble" or Cotham stone, an argillaceous limestone with peculiar
dendritic markings, due probably to the infiltration of water containing
oxide of manganese. This limestone occurs in irregular masses near the
base of the White Lias, or uppermost division of the Rhaetic series. It
is found principally in the neighbourhood of Bristol. The arborescent
forms depicted in bluish-grey upon this landscape marble form a marked
contrast to the angular markings of warm brown colour which are seen on
slabs of "ruin marble" from Florence--a stone occasionally known also as
landscape stone, or _pietra paesina_.
British limestones of Secondary and Tertiary age are not generally
compact enough to be used as marbles, but some of the shelly beds are
employed to a limited extent for decorative purposes. "Ammonite marble"
is a dark brown limestone from the Lower Lias of Somersetshire, crowded
with ammonites, principally _A. planicostata_. Under the name of Forest
marble, geologists recognize a local division of the Lower Oolitic
series, so named by W. Smith from Wychwood Forest in Oxfordshire, where
shelly limestones occur; and these, though of little economic value, are
capable of being used as rough marbles. But the most important marbles
of the Secondary series are the shelly limestones of the Purbeck
formation. Purbeck marble was a favourite material with medieval
architects, who used it freely for slender clustered columns and for
sepulchral monuments. It consists of a mass of the shells of a
fresh-water snail, _Paludina carinifera_, embedded in a blue, grey or
greenish limestone, and is found in the Upper Purbeck beds of Swanage in
Dorsetshire. Excellent examples of its use may be seen in Westminster
Abbey and in the Temple Church, as well as in the cathedrals of
Salisbury, Winchester, Worcester and Lincoln. Sussex marble is a very
similar stone, occurring in thin beds in the Weald clay, and consisting
largely of the shells of _Paludina_, principally _P. sussexiensis_ and
_P. fluviorum_. The altar stones and the episcopal chair in Canterbury
Cathedral are of this material.
Certain calcareous metamorphic rocks frequently form stones which are
sufficiently beautiful to be used for ornamental purposes, and are
generally classed as marbles. Such serpentinous limestones are included
by petrologists under the term "ophicalcite." The famous _verde antico_
is a rock of this character. Mona marble is an ophicalcite from the
metamorphic series of the Isle of Anglesey, while the "Irish green" of
architects is a similar rock from Connemara in western Galway. It is
notable that some of the "white marble" of Connemara has been found by
W. King and T. H. Rowney to consist almost wholly of malacolite, a
silicate of calcium and magnesium.
A beautiful marble has been worked to a limited extent in the island of
Tiree, one of the Hebrides, but the quarry appears to be now exhausted.
This Tiree marble is a limestone having a delicate carnelian colour
diffused through it in irregular patches, and containing rounded
crystals of sahlite, a green augitic mineral resembling malacolite in
composition.
Many marbles which are prized for the variegated patterns they display
owe these patterns to their formation in concentric zones--such marbles
being in fact stalagmitic deposits of carbonate of lime, sometimes
consisting of aragonite. One of the most beautiful stalagmitic rocks is
the so-called onyx marble of Algeria. This stone was largely used in the
buildings of Carthage and Rome, but the quarries which yielded it were
not known to modern sculptors until 1849, when it was rediscovered near
Oued-Abdallah. The stone is a beautifully translucent material,
delicately clouded with yellow and brown, and is greatly prized by
French workmen. Large deposits of a very fine onyx-like marble, similar
to the Algerian stone, have been worked at Técali, about 35 miles from
the city of Mexico. Among other stalagmitic marbles, mention may be made
of the well-known Gibraltar stone, which is often worked into models of
cannon and other ornamental objects. This stalagmite is much deeper in
colour and less translucent than the onyx marbles of Algeria and Mexico.
A richly tinted stalagmitic stone worked in California is known as
Californian marble. It is worth noting that the "alabaster" of the
ancients was stalagmitic carbonate of lime, and that this stone is
therefore called by mineralogists "Oriental alabaster" in order to
distinguish it from our modern "alabaster," which is a sulphate, and not
a carbonate, of lime. Gypsum capable of taking a polish is found at
Fauld in Staffordshire and in Italy and Spain.
The brown and yellow colours which stalagmitic marbles usually present
are due to the presence of oxide of iron. This colouring matter gives
special characters to certain stones, such as the _giallo antico_, or
antique yellow marble of the Italian antiquaries. Siena marble is a
reddish mottled stone obtained from the neighbourhood of Siena in
Tuscany; and a somewhat similar stone is found in King's County,
Ireland. True red marble is by no means common, but it does occur, of
bright and uniform colour, though in very small quantity, in the
Carboniferous limestone of Derbyshire and north-east Staffordshire. The
red marble called _rosso antico_ is often confounded with the _porfiro
rosso antico_, which is really a mica-hornblende porphyrite owing its
red colour to the mineral withamite.
Fire marble is the name given to a brown shelly limestone containing
ammonites and other fossil shells, which present a brilliant display of
iridescent colours, like those of precious opal. It occurs in rocks of
Liassic age at the lead-mines of Bleiberg in Carinthia, and is worked
into snuff-boxes and other small objects. By mineralogists it is often
termed _lumachella_, an Italian name which may, however, be
appropriately applied to any marble which contains small shells.
The quarries of France, Belgium, Italy and Spain, not to mention less
important localities, yield a great diversity of marbles, and almost
each stone bears a distinctive name, often of trivial meaning; but in
this article it is impossible to enumerate the local names used by
marble-workers in different countries to distinguish the various stones
which pass under their hands.
America possesses some valuable deposits of marble, which in the eastern
States have been extensively worked. The crystalline limestones of
western New England furnish an abundance of white and grey marble, while
a beautiful material fit for statuary work has been quarried near
Rutland in Vermont. A grey bird's-eye marble is obtained from central
New York, and the greyish clouded limestones of Thomaston in Maine have
been extensively quarried. Of the variegated and coloured marbles,
perhaps the most beautiful are those from the northern part of Vermont,
in the neighbourhood of Lake Champlain. A fine brecciated marble is
found on the Maryland side of the Potomac, below Point of Rocks. Among
the principal localities for black marble may be mentioned Shoreham in
Vermont and Glen Falls in New York. In 1908 the American States
producing marble were, in order of value, Vermont, Georgia, Tennessee,
New York, Massachusetts, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Maryland, California,
Colorado, Alaska, N. Carolina, Kentucky, New Mexico, Utah, Missouri and
Idaho. In Canada the crystalline limestones of the pre-Cambrian series
yield beautiful marbles.
In India we find important quarries at Makrana in Rajputana,--a locality
which is said to have yielded the marble for the famous Taj Mahal at
Agra. In the valley of the Nerbudda, near Jabalpur, there is a large
development of marble. The white marble which is used for the delicately
pierced screens called _jalee_ work is obtained from near Raialo, in
Ulwar. (F. W. R.*)
_Petrography._--Marbles are uniformly crystalline, and hence have no
bedding or schistosity which would tend to make them fissile, but are
entirely massive and free from grain. The microstructure of pure
marble is comparatively simple. In thin sections they are seen to be
built up of somewhat rounded grains of calcite, fitting closely
together in a mosaic; very rarely do any grains show traces of
crystalline form. They are colourless and transparent, and are usually
traversed by a lattice-work of sharply defined cleavage cracks, which
correspond to the rhombohedral faces. In polarized light the colours
are pinkish or greenish white, or in very thin sections iridescent
because the mineral has a very strong double refraction. They may also
be crossed by bars or stripes, each of which indicates a twin plate,
for the crystals are usually polysynthetic. This twinning may be
produced by pressure acting either during the crystallization of the
rock or at a later period.
The purest marbles generally contain some accessory minerals, and in
many of these rocks they form a considerable proportion of the whole
mass. The commonest are quartz in small rounded grains, scales of
colourless or pale yellow mica (muscovite and phlogopite), dark
shining flakes of graphite and small crystals of pyrites or iron
oxides. Even fine Carrara marble leaves a residue of this sort when
dissolved in acid. Many marbles contain other minerals which are
usually silicates of lime or magnesia. The list of these accessories
is a very large one. Augite is very frequent and may be white
(malacolite) or pale green (coccolite, sahlite, diopside); hornblende
occurs as white bladed tremolite or pale green actinolite; feldspars
may be present also, such as orthoclase, or more frequently some
plagioclase such as albite, labradorite and anorthite; scapolite (or
wernerite); various kinds of garnet; vesuvianite, spinel, forsterite,
periclase, brucite, talc, zoisite and epidote, chondrodite, biotite,
datolite, sphene and apatite may be mentioned as typical accessory
minerals. The presence of metalliferous minerals such as galena, grey
or red silver ores, zinc blende, antimonite, chalcopyrite,
molybdenite, cassiterite, usually indicates impregnation by
ore-bearing solutions, especially if these substances occur in
workable quantities. The rubies of Burma are found in crystalline
limestones and are constantly accompanied by precious spinel (or
balas-ruby).
These minerals represent impurities in the original limestone which
crystallized at the time that the marble became crystalline. The
silicates derive their silica mainly from sand or infiltrated
siliceous deposits; the alumina represents an admixture of clay; the
iron came from limonite or hematite in the original state of the rock.
Where the silicates bulk largely because the original limestone was
highly impure, all the carbonic acid may be driven out and replaced by
silica during the process of recrystallization. The rock is then a
calc-silicate rock, hard, tough, flinty and no longer readily soluble
in acids. They are sometimes fine-grained hornstones (known as
calc-silicate hornfelses). Where white minerals predominate
(wollastonite, tremolite, feldspar) these rocks may have a close
resemblance to marbles, but often they are green from the abundance of
green augites and amphiboles, or brown (when garnet and vesuvianite
are present in quantity) or yellow (with epidote, chondrodite or
sphene). Decomposition induces further changes in colour owing to the
formation of green or yellow serpentine, pale green talc, red
hematite, and brown limonite. Most of the coloured or variegated
crystalline marbles have originated in this manner. Often bands of
calc-silicate rock alternate with bands of marble, and they may be
folded or bent; in other cases, nodules and patches of silicates occur
in a matrix of pure marble. Earth movements may shatter the rocks,
producing fissures afterwards filled with veins of calcite; in this
way the beautiful brecciated or veined marbles are produced. Sometimes
the broken fragments are rolled and rounded by the flow of the marble
under pressure and pseudo-conglomerates or "crush conglomerates"
result. In other cases the banding of the marble indicates the
original bedding of the calcareous sediments. Crystalline limestones
which contain much mica may be called cipollins; in them quartz,
garnet and hornblende often also occur. The ophicalcites are marbles
containing much serpentine, which has been formed by the decomposition
of forsterite, olivine or augite. The much-discussed _Eozoon_, at one
time supposed to be the earliest known fossil and found in Archaean
limestones in Canada, is now known to be inorganic and to belong to
the ophicalcites.
Many marbles, probably all of them, are metamorphosed limestones. The
passage of limestones rich in fossils into true marbles as they
approach great crystalline intrusions of granite is a phenomenon seen
in many parts of the world; occasionally the recrystallization of the
rock has not completely obliterated the organic structures (e.g. at
Carrara and at Bergen in Norway). The agencies which have induced the
metamorphism are heat and pressure, the heat arising from the granite
and the pressure from overlying masses of rock, for these changes took
place before the granite cooled and while it was still deeply buried
beneath the surface. In 1806 Sir James Hall described a series of
experiments proving this. He enclosed chalk in a gun-barrel securely
plugged and heated it to a high temperature in a furnace. Carbonic
acid was given off by the chalk and produced a great pressure in the
interior of the tube. After slow cooling the mass was found to have
become converted into granular crystalline marble. As rocks which have
undergone changes of this kind are commonest in the oldest and deepest
layers of the earth's crust, most marbles are Palaeozoic or
pre-Cambrian. They occur very often with mica schists, phyllites,
&c., which were beds of clay alternating with the original limestone.
Formerly it was supposed that some of these marbles were crystalline
sediments or even igneous rocks, but the tendency of modern geology is
to assume that they were ordinary limestones, many of which may have
been fossiliferous. In regions where the sedimentary rocks have been
converted into schists, gneisses and granulites, the limestones are
represented by calc schists, cipollins and marbles. Often no granite
or other intrusive rock is present which may be regarded as the cause
of the metamorphism. The marbles are often banded or schistose, and
under the microscope show crushing and deformation of the component
crystals, such as would have been produced by the earth pressures
which accompany rock-folding. These crush structures have been
obtained experimentally in marbles subjected to great pressures in
steel cylinders. In the recrystallization of these limestones the
direct heating action of igneous intrusions may have played no part,
but the rise of temperature and increase of pressure due to the
folding of great rock masses have probably been the operating causes.
This type of metamorphism has been distinguished by the name
_marmarosis_ (Sir A. Geikie, _Text Book of Geology_, 1882).
For descriptions of ancient marbles see F. Corsi, _Delle pietre
antiche_ (Rome, 1845); M. W. Porter, _What Rome was built with_
(Oxford, 1907), and for marbles in general consult E. Hull, _Building
and Ornamental Stones_ (1872); G. P. Merrill, _Stones for Building and
Decoration_ (3rd ed., 1905, New York). (J. S. F.)
MARBLEHEAD, a township of Essex county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., occupying
a rocky promontory on Massachusetts Bay, about 16 m. N. of Boston. Pop.
(1890), 8202; (1900), 7582; (1905), 7209; (1910), 7338. Area, about 4
sq. m. Marblehead is served by the Boston & Maine railroad, and by
electric railways connecting with Salem, Lynn and Boston. It is a quaint
old town, with a number of houses dating back to the 17th and 18th
centuries. Among the older buildings are the Lee mansion (1768), St
Michael's church (P. E., 1714), and the old town-hall (1727), sometimes
called Marblehead's "Cradle of Liberty." Abbot Hall (1877), the
municipal building, also contains the public library and several
noteworthy paintings, including "The Spirit of '76" or "Yankee Doodle"
by Archibald M. Willard. The post office and custom-house was completed
in 1904. There are several parks (Crocker, Fort Sewall, Seaside, and
Fountain), and an old burying-ground, in which many of the early
settlers and a number of soldiers of the War of Independence (including
General John Glover) are buried; and a granite monument near the railway
station commemorates the taking of the British supply and powder ship
"Hope" off Marblehead in 1776 by Captain James Mugford, who was killed
during the fight. The commodious harbour, nearly landlocked, is formed
by a rocky peninsula known as Marblehead Neck. On this are the
club-houses of the Eastern and Corinthian Yacht clubs; and Marblehead is
a popular yachting centre. The manufacture of children's shoes is the
principal industry. Shipbuilding, once important, has been superseded by
yacht and launch construction.
Marblehead, originally a part of Salem, known as Marble Harbor, was
settled about 1629 by English emigrants (probably mostly from
Lincolnshire and Devonshire); later (after about 1700) many emigrants
from the Channel Islands settled here, and to them the dialectical
peculiarities of Marblehead have often (perhaps mistakenly) been
attributed. Marblehead was separately incorporated as a town in 1649. In
the colonial period Marblehead was an important commercial port, and at
one time was one of the most populous places in Massachusetts. After the
passage of the Boston Port Bill (1774) it was made the port of entry
instead of Boston, but its merchants refused to take advantage of this
opportunity and patriotically invited the Boston merchants to use their
wharves and warehouses. During the War of Independence many "state
cruisers" (chartered at the Continental expense) set out from this port,
the most famous being the "Lee," commanded by John Manley[1] (1733-93);
in November 1775 this cruiser captured the "Nancy" with military stores
valued at £20,541, which were taken to the American army at Cambridge.
The "Lee" was manned by fifty men of the "amphibious regiment," which
under General John Glover (1732-1797) rendered invaluable services to
Washington in conveying his troops across the East River after the
battle of Long Island, and later in ferrying them across the Delaware
before the battle of Trenton. Marblehead furnished more than 1000 men to
the Continental army. During the war of 1812 the sea fight between the
"Chesapeake" and the "Shannon" took place (June 1, 1813) off the
adjacent coast. Marblehead was the scene of Benjamin (nicknamed "Flood")
Ireson's ride, immortalized by J. G. Whittier.
See Samuel Roads, jun., _The History and Traditions of Marblehead_
(Boston, 1880; 3rd ed., Marblehead, 1897).