MARQUESAS ISLANDS, or Mendana Islands (French, Les Marquises'), an archipelago of twelve islands lying between 7° 50' and 10° 35' S. lat, and 138° 30' and 140° 50' W. long. They extend over 200 miles from S.E, to N.W., and have a total area of 489 square miles. The lower or true Marquesas group consists of the islands Fatouhiva or Magdalena, Motane or San Pedro, Tahouata or Sta Christina, and Hivaoa or Dominica, the last with a coastline of more than 60 miles. With these is often included the rocky islet of Fetohougo or Hood’s, lying in midchannel to the north of Hivaoa. The north-western or Washington group is formed of seven islands, the four largest being Roa-Poua or Adams, Houahouna or Washington, Noukahiva or Marchand. (70 miles in circumference), and Hiaou. Along the centre of each island is a ridge of mountains, sometimes attaining an altitude of 3500 feet, whence rugged spurs forming deep valleys stretch towards the sea. The volcanic origin of the whole archipelago is proved by the principal rocks being of basalt, trachyte, and lava. Except on a few barren peaks the islands are clothed with verdure, and in the valleys, which are well watered with streams and brooks, the vegetation is luxuriant. The flora includes over four hundred known species, many of them identical with those belonging to the Society Islands. The vegetable products comprise bananas, bread-fruit, yams, plantains, wild cotton, bamboos, sugar-cane, cocoa-nut and dwarf palms, and several kinds of timber trees. The land fauna is, however, very poor: there are few mammals with the exception of dogs, rats, and pigs; and amphibia and insects are also generally scarce. Of twenty species of birds more than half belong to the sea, where animal life is as abundant as at other subtropical Polynesian ...

MARQUETRY. See Furniture.

MARQUETTE, a city and port of entry of the United States, and the county seat of Marquette county, Michigan, lies on a bluff about 25 feet above a bay of Lake Superior, and is a terminus of the Marquette, Houghton, and Ontonagon, and the Detroit, Mackinac, and Marquette Railroads. Though the population of the city was only 4690 in 1880, Marquette is a place of importance as the chief shipping port for the great iron-ore region of western Michigan (787,150 tons shipped in 1881), and contains a number of blast furnaces, foundries, machine-shops, and powder-mills, while at the same time it has a reputation as a resort for invalids and tourists. A Roman Catholic cathedral, convent, and orphan asylum are among the public buildings.

MARQUETTE, Jacques, a Jesuit missionary and explorer, was born in 1637 at Laon in France, and died May 18, 1675, on the banks of a small stream, now known as the Marquette, which has its mouth on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. Having joined the Society of Jesus, he sailed for Canada in 1666, spent eighteen months in the vicinity of Three Rivers, founded the mission of Sault Sainte Marie on Lake Superior in 1668, and followed the Hurons to Mackinaw in 1671. It is mainly, however, as Joliet’s companion in his voyage down the Mississippi in 1673 that Marquette holds a permanent position in the history of discovery in America.

His narrative, first published in Thevenot’s Recueil de Voyages (Paris, 1681), is printed along with other documents relating to him in Shea’s Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley (New York, 1852).