MARYLAND, one of the original 13 American states, lies immediately s. of Pennsyl vania. and is bounded on the e. by Delaware and the Atlantic ocean, between lat. 37° 53' to 39° 44' n., and long. 75° 4' to 79' 33' west. Area, 11.124 sq.m. or 7,119,360 acres; pop. '70, 780,094; income for the year 1877, $2,109,193. The line of' Atlantic coast is hut 38 fn., but including Chesapeake bay, is 411 miles. This bay, 15 m. wide at its mouth, expands to a breadth of 30 m., with numerous islands, and reaches nearly across the state. The eountry rises gradually from the coast to the tops of the Alleghenies, with great varieties of formation, including deposits of coal, iron, copper, chromate of iron, silicates and hydrates of magnesia, marl, etc. The climate is temperate, and the soil fertile, pro ducing wheat, Indian corn, cotton, tobacco, apples, plums, peaches, grapes. Its chief towns are Baltimore, Annapolis, Fredericktown, Cumberland. Vast quantities of fruit and of oysters are exported from .Maryland. The annual produce of coal is valued at about $2,000,000. Maryland ha.s upwards of 850 m. of railway. In 1870 there were 1779
schools in the state-1487 public, 72 classical, professional, and technical (including 2 universities and 19 colleges), and 220 boarding and other schools. There were also 1316 public libraries, 88 newspapers, and 1389 churches. Maryland was settled by a colony of Roman Catholic gentry from England, under a grant to the second lord Baltimore, 1632, when it received its present name in honor of the English queen, Hemietta Maria.
In1.649 it was made, as has been well said, " a land of sanctuary," by the toleration of :all religious denominations; but the Puritans, expelled from Virginia, made great trouble in the colony. Organized as a state in 1776, Maryland took a prominent part in the -revolution. In the war of 1861, its sympathies were with the south, and the first blood of the war was shed in Baltimore, several Massachusetts volunteers having been killed on their way to Washington. During the war it was invaded from Virgina, and made :the scene of blootly coufticts.