[1] Sir John Romilly, M.P. for Devonport, 1847 to 1852, was the last
master of the rolls to sit in Parliament. He was appointed master of
the rolls in 1851.
MASTIC, or MASTICH (Gr. [Greek: mastichê], probably connected with
[Greek: masasthai], to chew, since mastic is used in the East as a
chewing gum), a resinous exudation obtained from the lentisk, _Pistacia
lentiscus_, an evergreen shrub of the natural order Anacardiaceae. The
lentisk or mastic plant is indigenous to the Mediterranean coast region
from Syria to Spain, but grows also in Portugal, Morocco and the
Canaries. Although experiments have proved that excellent mastic might
be obtained in other islands in the archipelago, the production of the
substance has been, since the time of Dioscorides, almost exclusively
confined to the island of Chios. The mastic districts of that island are
for the most part flat and stony, with little hills and few streams. The
shrubs are about 6 ft. high. The resin is contained in the bark and not
in the wood, and in order to obtain it numerous vertical incisions are
made, during June, July and August, in the stem and chief branches. The
resin speedily exudes and hardens into roundish or oval tears, which are
collected, after about fifteen days, by women and children, in little
baskets lined with white paper or cotton wool. The ground around the
trees is kept hard and clean, and flat pieces of stone are often laid
beneath them to prevent any droppings of resin from becoming
contaminated with dirt. The collection is repeated three or four times
between June and September, a fine tree being found to yield about 8 or
10 lb. of mastic during the season. Besides that obtained from the
incisions, mastic of very fine quality spontaneously exudes from the
small branches. The harvest is affected by showers of rain during the
period of collection, and the trees are much injured by frost, which is,
however, of rare occurrence in the districts where they grow. Mastic
occurs in commerce in the form of roundish tears about the size of peas.
They are transparent, with a glassy fracture, of a pale yellow or faint
greenish tinge, which darkens slowly by age. During the 15th, 16th and
17th centuries mastic enjoyed a high reputation as a medicine, and
formed an ingredient in a large number of medical compounds; but its use
in medicine is now obsolete, and it is chiefly employed for making
varnish.
_Pistacia Khinjuk_ and _P. cabulica_, trees growing throughout Sindh,
Baluchistan and Cabul, yield a kind of mastic which is met with in the
Indian bazaars under the name of _Mustagirumi_, i.e. Roman mastic.
This when occurring in the European market is known as East Indian or
Bombay mastic. In Algeria _P. Atlantica_ yields a solid resin, which
is collected and used by the Arabs as a masticatory. Cape mastic is
the produce of _Euryops multifidus_, the resin bush, or _harpuis
bosch_ of the Boers--a plant of the composite order growing abundantly
in the Clanwilliam district. Dammar resin is sometimes sold under the
name of mastic. The West Indian mastic tree is the _Bursera gummifera_
and the Peruvian mastic is _Schinus molle_; but neither of these
furnishes commercial resins. The name mastic tree is also applied to a
timber tree, _Sider oxylon mastichodendron_, nat. ord. Sapotaceae,
which grows in the West Indies and on the coast of Florida.
MASTIGOPHORA, a group of Protozoa, moving and ingesting food by long
flagella (Gr. [Greek: mastix], whip), usually few in number, and
multiplying by fission, usually longitudinal, in the active condition.
They were separated off from the rest of the old "Infusoria" by K.
Düsing, and subdivided by O. Bütschli and E. R. Lankester into (1)
Flagellata (q.v.), including Haemoflagellata (q.v.), (2) Dinoflagellata
(q.v.) and Rhyncho = Cystoflagellata E. Haeckel (q.v.) =
Rhynchoflagellata E. R. Lankester. The Mastigophora are frequently
termed Flagellata or Flagellates.
MASTODON (Gr. [Greek: mastos], breast, [Greek: odous], tooth), a name
given by Cuvier to the Pliocene and Miocene forerunners of the
elephants, on account of the nipple-like prominences on the molar teeth
of some of the species (fig. 2), which are of a much simpler type than
those of true elephants. Mastodons, like elephants, always have a pair
of upper tusks, while the earlier ones likewise have a short pair in the
lower jaw, which is prolonged into a snout-like symphysis for their
support. These long-chinned mastodons are now regarded as forming a
genus by themselves (_Tetrabelodon_), well-known examples of this group
being _Tetrabelodon angustidens_ from the Miocene and _T. longirostris_
(fig. 1 C.) from the Lower Pliocene of the Continent. In the former the
upper tusks are bent down so as to cross the tips of the short and
chisel-like lower pair. These long-chinned mastodons must have had an
extremely elongated muzzle, formed by the upper lip and nose above and
the lower lip below, with which they were able to reach the ground, the
neck being probably rather longer than in elephants. On the other hand,
in the short-chinned mastodons, as represented by the Pleistocene North
American _Mastodon americanus_ and the Pliocene European _M. turicensis_
(fig. 1), the chin had shrunk to the dimensions characteristic of
elephants, with the loss of the lower incisors (or with temporary
retention of rudimentary ones), while at the same time a true
elephant-like trunk must have been developed by the shortening of the
lower lip and the prolongation of the combined upper lip and nose.
Mastodons are found in almost all parts of the world. In Asia they gave
rise to the elephants, while they themselves originated in Africa from
ungulates of more normal type. (See PROBOSCIDEA.)
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--_Mastodon turicensis_ (Pliocene). A, B, Skull
and Lower Jaw of _Mastodon americanus_. C, Lower Jaw of _Tetrabelodon
longirostris_.]
The upper tusks of the early mastodons differ from those of elephants
in retaining longitudinal bands of enamel. The molar teeth are six in
number on each side, increasing in size from before backwards, and, as
in the elephants, with a horizontal succession, the anterior teeth
being lost before the full development of the posterior ones, which
gradually move forward, taking the place of those that are destroyed
by wear. This process is, however, less fully developed than in
elephants, and as many as three teeth may be in place in each jaw at
one time. There is, moreover, in many species a vertical succession,
affecting either the third, or the third and second, or (in one
American species, _Tetrabelodon productus_) the first, second and
third of the six molar teeth. These three are therefore reckoned as
milk-molars, and their successors as premolars, while the last three
correspond to the true molars of other mammals. The mode of succession
of the teeth in the mastodons exhibits so many stages of the process
by which the dentition of elephants has been derived from that of more
ordinary mammals. It also shows that the anterior molars of elephants
do not correspond to the premolars of other ungulates, but to the
milk-molars, the early loss of which in consequence of the peculiar
process of horizontal forward-moving succession does not require their
replacement by premolars. Specialized species like _Mastodon
americanus_ have completely lost the rudimentary premolars.
[Illustration: (From Owen.)