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Glossary

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	Mackerel Atlantic mackerel is the species found in the North Atlantic. A schooling, bony, oily, strongly-flavored food fish, green above with dark blue bars and silvery color below. The commercial stock has rebounded since near collapse in the 1970s. Without ice they spoil quickly. They are caught in purse seines which produce relatively little bycatch and no bottom damage. Today most of Maine's mackerel fishery is recreational.

	Magnetic North and Variation Magnetic north is one of two points on the globe where the line of total magnetic force is vertical and towards which the magnetic needle points in all adjoining regions. Variation (also called magnetic declination) is the difference in direction between true north as determined by the earth's axis of rotation and magnetic north as determined by the earth's magnetism. The variation is designated as east or positive when the magnetic needle is deflected to the east of true north, and as west or negative when the deflection is to the west of true north. The magnetic North Pole is located south of the North Pole in the Canadian Arctic, while the magnetic South Pole is near the coast of Anarctica.

	Magnetic compass A magnetic compass gets its directive force from the Earth's magnetic field. The force acts on a magnetized needle or several needles affixed to a card, which rotate freely horizontally. Until the mid 19th century compasses were dry that is the compass card rotated in air on a pivot pin. Edward S. Ritchie developed the first liquid magnetic compass (or wet card compass) in 1862, which solved problems of instability in dry card compasses. Wet card compasses have the card suspended in a liquid, usually a light oil, which has a float in the center to take most of the weight of the card off the pivot. The oil damps or smooths the card motion in a rough sea.

	Magnetic field The magnetic force of definite strength which surrounds a magnet.

	Magnuson Fisheries Act Passed in 1976, with modifications up to 1996, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act gave the United States exclusive fishery management power in waters out to 200 miles from its shore. It gives authority to the Federal government to set conservation policies which it does through the National Marine Fisheries Service.

	Maliseet One tribe of the Wabanaki Confederation now living in the St. John's River valley mostly in New Brunswick and Quebec, with one band in Houlton, Maine

	Mallet A tool like a hammer, but with a wooden head.

	Man-of-War A warship.

	Mandarin mandarins Civil and military officials in Imperial China.

	Manila In rope, fiber obtained from the abac� plant. Named as such as the Phillipines were a primary source for this rot-resistant natural fiber rope, the most important martime rope material before the advent of petroleum-based fibers like nylon and polypropylene.

	Martingale The lower stay of rope used to sustain the strain of the forestays.

	Maskelyne, Nevil Nevil Maskelyne 1732-1811. British astronomer who served as Astronomer Royal from 1765 to 1811. He established the publication of the Nautical Almanac and was instrumental in providing the data for the lunar distance method of calculating longitude. Portrayed negatively in a recent book on longitude, Maskelyne's methods proved practical and efficient until the late 19th century when chronometers became common.

	Massachusetts Bay Colony Formed in 1628 as the Company of Massachusetts Bay in New England, the first 400 settlers, primarily Puritans, arrived in the Boston / Salem area in 1629. The first major emigration landed in 1630 under the governance of John Winthrop. In 1691-2, the Massachussetts Bay Colony was combined with other colonies to form the Province of New England.

	Mast A straight piece of timber or a hollow cylinder of wood or metal set up vertically or nearly so and supporting yards, booms, derricks, or gaffs. In fore-and-aft rigged vessels each mast is commonly made of two parts, called the lower mast and the topmast. On large sailing vessels the masts are made up of several lengths called lower mast, topmast, topgallant mast, and royal mast. Masts are supported from forwards by stays, from sides by shrouds (rigging), and from aft by backstays.

	Mast ship A seventeenth century vessel that carried cut white pine trees, several hundred feet tall, to England for use as masts for the British Navy.

	Mate In the merchant marine, the rank below master. Mates may be first, second, third, etc.

	Matting Woven straw or other fiber.

	Maul A heavy hammer for driving stakes, or wedges.

	Maury, Matthew Fountaine Matthew Fountaine Maury 1806-1873. Naval officer and oceanographer. Joined the US Navy in 1825, became superintendent of the Navy's Hydrographic Office in 1839 and in 1842 the superintendent of the Depot of Charts and Instruments. In 1844 he became the first superintendent of the Naval Observatory. His analysis of thousands of logs and reports let him create pilot charts and sailing directions for ocean navigators allowing them to choose the best wind and current. His main publication was in 1855, The Physical Geography of the Sea. A Virginian, during the Civil War he joined the Confederacy, and was in charge of all coast defenses. After a pardon for Confederate leaders in 1868, he returned to become professor of meteorology at Virginia Military Institute.

	Mawooshen According to the Indians kidnapped by George Waymouth and James Rosier, who explored the coast of Maine in 1605, the Natives called this area Mawooshen.

	Mayer, Tobias Tobias Mayer 1723-1762. German astronomer whose studies of the moon and lunar tables were sufficiently accurate to be usable to calculate longitude by lunar distances. These tables were sent to the British government and published by Maskelyne in the Nautical Almanac.

	Mean lower low water A datum or basis from which depths are measured on many charts. It is the average of the lowest of the two low tides each day on a 19 year cycle. Since it is a mean low tides can be lower than this.

	Mean time Time as measured by the mean sun�a fictitious sun conceived to move along the equinoctial at a uniform rate corresponding to the average rate of the true sun on the ecliptic. It is used as a reference for calculating mean time.

	Mechanical advantage Extra power or strength obtained by using a simple machine.

	Medina, Pedro de Pedro de Medina c.1493-c.1597. Spanish mathematician and astronomer. Published the first manual for compass navigation in 1584, the "Arte de Navagar," translated into many languages. He was the examiner for Spanish navigators for the West Indies.

	Meiji Restoration Revolution in Japan in 1866/8 that 'restored' the Emperor's rule by ending the 250 year feudal rule of Tokugawa shoguns, opening Japanese ports to the West. It was a direct result of Commodore Matthew Perry's visit to Japan in 1853 which forced the Japanese to allow American trade, ending a two-century Dutch monopoly. It created a highly centralized buracracy that was directly responsible for Japan's industrialization.

	Menhaden Pogy, Mossbunker One of the herring family, menhaden are one of the most important food fishes on the Atlantic Coast. Maine is at the northern limits of their range. They are caught in purse seines and have been traditionlly processed for fertilizer and oil especially in the Cheasapeake and North Carolina areas.

	Mercator projection Maps and charts are printed as projections of the land onto a piece of paper. The Mercator projection shows what the world looks like when a light is placed in the center of a hollow earth, and it shines out through the surface of the earth to project the shape of land and sea onto a piece of paper wrapped around the globe. Thus, the north and south poles would have to be at an infinite distance from the equator on such a map, but the shape of the land at the equator would be correct. Greenland looks larger than it really is on a Mercator projection. The advantage of the Mercator projection is that it allows one to draw a straight �rhumb line� between two points and have the bearing remain the same along that line. On a Maine chart, the longitude lines will be closer together than the latitude lines. The scale of nautical miles is the latitude scale on the right side of the chart, as one degree of latitude is equal to sixty nautical miles, or one minute of latitude is one nautical mile. While useful for the navigator, the projection greatly distorts the size of the land masses, and it is no longer used to show the whole world on a flat plane; however, it is used in large scale navigational applications.

	Mercator, Gerardus Gerardus Mercator 1512-1594. Flemish mathematician and geographer who, after moving to Germany in 1552, invented the map projection named after him. His world map was first published in 1569.

	Mess The area on board a vessel where the ship's crew members gather to eat their meals.

	Micmac Also Mi'kmag.One tribe of the Wabanaki Confederation. The original inhabitants of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick with some living in Maine and Newfoundland.

	Midcoast In Maine, generally refers to the area between the Kennebec and Penobscot Rivers.

	Middens Dump for household waste; shell middens are piles of discarded mollusk shells.

	Midshipman A naval officer trainee; the lowest rank of an officer, midshipmen take their name from their stations amidships on a sailing warship.In the sailing days a midshipman could be quite young 10 or 12, so that by the time they stood for a Lieutenant's examination they could have five years or more of seafaring experience and training. Now used for students at naval academys

	Midwife In the past, a woman trained to deliver babies; now a nursing specialty requiring advanced education.

	Mizzen mizen The mizzen itself is the gaff sail flown from the mizzenmast of a bark or barkentine or the fore and aft sail set on the mizzenmast of a ketch or yawl.

	Mizzen-stay Mizzen staysail A small sail sometimes placed forward of the mizzenmast.

	Mizzenmast The mizzenmast is the afternost mast on a three-masted sailing ship. On a sailing ship with more than 3 masts it is the third mast from the bow. On a ketch or yawl, which have two masts with the forward one the taller, the mizzenmast is the after mast.

	Molasses A thick syrup produced during the sugar refining process.

	Mollusk A soft bodied invertebrate animal often with one or two hard shells. Familiar mollusks are shell fish, squid and octopodi, and sea slugs, snails and limpets.

	Monolith A large single block of stone.

	Monsoon The seasonal winds of the Indian Ocean and southeast Asia, blowing from the southwest in summer and the northeast in winter.

	Montevideo The capital city of Uruguay, a country north of Argentina, on the Atlantic coast of South America.

	Montpelier Home of General Henry Knox, in Thomaston, Maine.

	Monts, Pierre du Gua de Pierre du Gua de Monts c.1558-1628 French nobleman, trader, and colonial leader. After making several voyages to Canada, in 1603 he was granted a trading monopoly, appointed lieutenant-general and tasked with establishing a 60 person colony by the French king Henry VI. Organized a private merchant-backed company to finance the venture, and hired Samuel Champlain as geographer and cartographer. Sailed with two ships in March of 1604. Explored the Nova Scotia Coast and the Bay of Fundy, and established a colony on St. Croix Island in June. Winter was quite hard and they finanally were trapped on the island by ice. Half died. With spring and a relief force from France, the colony was shifted to Annapolis Royal on Nova Scotia coast. Champlain continued his mapping and survey of the main coast and Monts returned to France to continue and strengthen the financial backing of the venture. De Monts is the person that demonstrated that colonization was possible and was directly responsible for the initial French settlement of Canada.

	Morse code Method of transmitting information using just on and off pulses, with a code based on how long these pulses are on. These pulses can be light, sound, radio waves or electrical pulses. Created for the telegraph in the 1830s it was used extensively for radio communication before voice and other communication techniques. Now largely obsolete as a communication tool it has still specialized uses such as lighted aids to navigation.

	Mortar A mixture of lime and/or cement, with sand and water, used as a bond between bricks or stones.

	Mother Carey's chicken mother caries chicken Sailors' nickname for the storm petrel, a sea bird.

	Mowatt, Captain Henry Captain Henry Mowat 1734-1798. Royal Navy officer active in New England during the American Revolution. In 1775, as a Lieutenant acting under orders to harass the coast, he burned Falmouth ( Portland). By 1779 he was a commander and with three small ships successfully defended Castine against the Penobscot Expedition. By 1796 he had become the senior officer in command of the North American station.

	Mullet A bony fish with a stout, elongated body.

	Muscongus Bay Boat Small centerboard sloop, about 20 feet long, built in the Muscongus and Penobscot Bay areas in the middle years of the 19th century for fishing. Year round demand for lobsters required bigger fishing boats and the Muscongus sloop became enlarged to the Maine Sloop Boat also known as Friendship sloop, a keel sloop of 30 feet or more.

	Mussel A bivalve mollusk with numbers of species found in both fresh and salt water. Of commericial interest in Maine is the blue mussel, found in natural mussel beds and raised in aquaculture.