Marban, Pedro de, a Spanish Jesuit and mission- ary, flourished near the close of the 17th century. In 1675 he went to Bolivia, and later to Mexico, and la- bored industriously to spread the Gospel of Christ among the savages of America, and Anally became superior of all the missions of the Jesuits in this quarter. He wrote Arte de la Leugua Moxa, con su vocabidario y catechismo (Lima, 1701, 8vo). — WoQieijNouv.Biog. Gen. xxxiii, 361.
Marbeck or Merbecke, John, the composer of the solemn and now venerable notes set to the " Preces'' and Responses in use in the catliedrals of England, to our day with only slight modifications, was organist of Windsor during the reigns of Henry VIII and his suc- cessor. A zeal for religious reformation led him to join a society in furtherance of that object, among the mem- bers of which were a priest, a singing-man of St. George's Chapel, and a tradesman of the town. Their papers were seized, and in tlie handwriting of Marbeck were found notes on the Bible, together with a concordance, in E^nglish, He and his three colleagues were found guilty of heres}-, aiul condemned to the stake. The others were executed according to their sentence ; but Marbeck, on account of his great musical talents, and being rather favored by Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, was pardoned, and lived to witness the triumph of his principles, and to publish his work, wliich apjicared un- der the title of The Boke of Common Praier, noted. The colophon is '• Imprinted by Richard Grafton, printer to the kinges majestic, 1550, cum privilegio ad imprimen- dum solum" (a verbatim reprint was given by John Pick- ering, London, 1848, sm, 4to), In the same year appear- ed also his Concordance of the Whole Bible (1550, folio), the first complete work of the kind in English ; and, in 1574, The Lives of Holy Saints, Prophets, Patriarchs, and others ; and, subsequenth', his other books connect- ed with religious history and controversy. See Allibone, Diet, of British and A mer, A uthors, vol, ii, s, v, ; English Cyclop, s, v.
Marble is the rendering in the Auth. Vers, of two forms of the same Heb. word, and is thought by some to be signified by others differently rendered, dd {shesh,
MARBLE
732 MARBURG CONFERENCE
Esth. i,G, Sept. Trapivog; Cant, v, 15, Sept. fiapjiapivog), or V'''^ (sha'yisk, 1 Chron. xxix, 2, Sept. Trcipiog), so calletl from its whiteness, undoubtedl}' refer to a pure kiiui of marble, fiap/iapoQ (l!ev. xviii, 12). Primary limestone, or marble, is a simple rock, consisting of car- bonate of lime. In its pure state, it is granular, crystal- line, and of a color varying from pure white to gray and yellowish. It is sometimes found in irregular masses, or beds, or large nodules, with little or no appearance of stratification; more generally, however, it is regularly stratified, and these strata alternate with other rocks, and are of all varieties of thickness. The texture va- ries from a highly crystalline, of a larger or finer grain, to a compact and even earthy. Other substances are sometimes combined with the simple rock, which mod- ify its appearance and texture, such as mica, quartz, liornblende. It is never found in veins, except in the form of regular crystals, and, in this respect, it exactly resembles quartz. There is considerable difficulty in drawing the line of distinction between the primary and secondary limestones, where the latter do not happen to contain organic remains. In the primary limestone, strictly speaking, no organic remains have yet been dis- covered. With one or two exceptions, and as a general ride, it may be said, they, like the primary schists, are almost destitute of organic bodies. Like the strata which it accompanies, beds of limestone are often bent and contorted, evidently from disturbance below. The colors vary from a pure white, which constitutes the statuarj' marble, to various shades of gray, brown, black, and green. These tints are derived from a carbona- ceous matter or oxide of iron, or an admixture of other minerals.
Several other terms occur in Esth. i, 6, as the names of stones in the pavement of the magnificent hall in which Ahasuerus feasted the princes of his empire. That rendered "white" marble, is "■i'l,<:/(rr, which some take to signify Parian marble, others white marljle; but nothing certain is known about it. In Arabic, the word dar signifies a large pearl. Now ))earls were certainly em- ployed by the ancients in decorating the walls of apart- ments in roj-al palaces, but that pearls were also used in the pavements of even regal dining-rooms is improbable in itself, and unsupported by any known example. The Seiituagint refers the Hebrew word to a stone resem- ijling pearls (ttiVwi/oc XiSof), by which, as J. D. Mi- chaelis conjectures, it intends to denote the Alahastriies of Pliny (Hist. Nat. xxxvi, 7, 8), which is a kind of ala- baster with the gloss of mother-of-pearl. See Alabas- TKR. The i:in3 {hahaf; Sept. (T/fapayc^iVf/c, "red" mar- ble) of the same passage was, Gesenius thinks, the verde- antiqiic, or half-porphyry of Egypt. The P"inO (soche'- rcth ; Sept. Ilr/p/i'oc Xi^oc, " black" marble) is likewise there mentioned with the other kinds of marble for forming a pavement. Gesenius says, perhaps tortoise- shell. C)thers, from the rendering of the Syriac, think it refers to black marble. It was probably some spotted variety of marble. See jMixeralogy. The pavement in the palace of Ahasuerus was no doubt of mosaic work, the floors of the apartments being laid with painted tiles or slabs of marble, in the same way as Dr. Russell describes the houses of the wealthy in modern times. In these a portion of the pavement of the courts is of mosaic, an(l it is usually that jiart which lies between the fountain and the arched alcove on the south side that is thus beautified. See IIotsK.