Millefiori. Mosaic glass. (See Glass.)
Fig. 461. Roman Mile-stone at Nic-sur-Aisne in France.
Milliarium, R. (mille, a thousand, sc. paces). A column placed at intervals of a mile (1618 English yards) along a Roman road to indicate the distance. (Fig. [461].) It was also called lapis. Milliarium aureum was the name given to the golden mile-stone erected by Augustus in the Forum, where the principal roads of the Empire terminated. A stone, called the “London Stone,” in Cannon Street, E.C., is supposed to have marked the centre of the Roman roads in Britain.
Mill-rind, Fer-de-Moline, Her. The iron fixed to the centre of a millstone.
Millstone-grit. The name of a good building stone, plentiful in the north of England. It is supposed to be formed by a re-aggregation of the disintegrated materials of granite. (See the Builder, vol. ix. 639.)
Millus, R. (See Melium.)
Mimbar, Arabic. A pulpit in a mosque. A finely-carved mimbar is in the South Kensington Museum.
Minah, Minar, Hind. A tower or pillar. The Surkh Minar and Minar Chakri, among the topes at Cabul, are almost the only pillars existing in India. They are generally ascribed to Alexander the Great, but are probably Buddhist monuments of the 3rd or 4th century of our era.
Minaret (Arabic menarah, a lantern). A feature peculiar to Mohammedan architecture. A tall, slender shaft or turret, rising high above all surrounding buildings of the mosque to which it is attached; in several stories, with or without external galleries, but usually having three. From these galleries the muezzin summon the faithful to prayer. Blind men are generally selected for this duty, because the minaret commands a view of the house-tops used as sleeping-chambers in the East.