MACROOM', a post and market town of the county of Cork, Ireland, situated on the river Sullane, 21 m. w. from Cork, with which it is connected by railway. The pop. in '71 was 3,193. The town consists merely of a, single street, nearly a mile long, and con tains some good houses and shops, but the great majority of the dwellings are mean and poverty-stricken.
McSPARRAN, JAMES, D.D.,1695-1757, b. in the n. of Ireland, and came to Narra gansett, R. I., in 1721, as a missionary of the Episcopal society for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts; m as an intimate friend of bishop Berkeley at Newport; visited England in 1736; was an eloquent and popular preacher; wrote America Dissected, a historical and geographical treatise, which Updike has republished in his _History of the Episcopal Church. in Narragansett, .R. L He was engaged at the time of his death, upon an extended history of the colonies.
ItIACTRA, a genus of lamellibranchiate mollusks, having a somewhat triangular shell, broader than long, the valves equal; the animal with the siphons united to the extremity, and a large compressed foot. They are sometimes called trough shells. The species are numerous, and widely distributed; they burrow in the sand and mud of sea shores, and of the bottom of the sea. The foot enables them also to move with activity, after the manner of cockles. Some of the species have shells of considerable beauty, otthers are coarse. Several small species are very.abundant on the British shores, so that in some places they are gathered for feeding pigs, but not by those who have much regard to the quality of the bacon. The fossil species are few. The genus mactra is, the type of a family, mactridce.
McTYEIRE', Horadaszn NIMMONS, b. S. C., 1824; graduated at Randolph-Macon college, Virginia, in 1844, in which year he entered the ministry. He became pastor of
a church (Methodist Episcopal)in Mobile, and in 1847 married Amelia Townsend, cousin. of the widow of the late Cornelius Vanderbilt, whose farnily were members of his pastoral charge. During the years between 1848 and 1858 he was appointed to churches in New. Orleans, and distinguished himself by being. among the few pastors who remained with their people during the yellow fever epidenucs which devastated that city. In 1851 he was made the first editor of the New Orleans Christian Advocate. In 1858 he was called to Nashville, Tenn., to take editorial charge of the central organ of the Methodist Epis copal church, south, there published. At the general conference he was elected and, consecrated bishop, and fixed his residence in Nashville. 1Vhen Cornelius Vanderbilt founded the university named after him, situated at Nashville, he named bishop. MeTyeire as the first president of the board of trust controlling the affairs of the insti tution, and intrusted to him the fullest powers and discretion as to its establishment and control. The deed of gift contained the only instance on record of vesting the veto• power in the president of a board of trustees. This was done by commodore Vanderbilt in the instance of bishop MeTyeire, at once to signify his profound confidence in him personally, and perhaps not less to indicate his faith in " one-man power." To the president of the new university fell the chief responsibility concerning all its details of construction, organization, and adaptation to its comprehensive uses. Its success has been the best evidence of the sound judgment displayed by the founder in his selection.