altebrun, KONRAD (properly MALTHE CONRAD BRUUN), geographer, born 12th August 1775, at Thisted, in Jutland, studied in Copenhagen, but was banished in 1800 because of his having openly shown his sympathy with the French Revolution. He sought refuge in Paris, where he supported himself by teaching and literary labours. With Mentelle and Herbin he compiled a Géographie Mathématique du Monde (16 vols. 1803-7); and in 1808 he began Annales des Voyages, de la Géographie, et de l'Histoire (24 vols.), in 1818 Nouvelles Annales. His principal work is a Précis de la Géographie Universelle (8 vols. 1810-29; latest ed. 6 vols. 1872). He also contributed to the Dictionnaire de la Géographie Universelle (8 vols. 1821), and took an active part in founding the Geographical Society of Paris. He died 14th December 1826.-His son, VICTOR ADOLPHE MALTEBRUN (1816-89), was professor of History and Geography at the college of Pamiers and subsequently at Paris (1848-60); and from 1860 onwards he was secretary of the Geographical Society of Paris. He was the author of numerous geographical works, as La France Illustré (new ed. 1879-84), L'Allemagne Illustré (1884-86), Histoire Géographique et Historique de l'Allemagne (186668), &c.

Maltese Cross. See CROSS.

Maltese Dog, a small kind of spaniel, with roundish muzzle, and long, silky, generally white hair. It is fit only for a lapdog.

Malthus, THOMAS ROBERT, the expounder of the theory of population, was born 14th February 1766, at the Rookery, near Dorking, in Surrey, where his father owned a small estate. He was ninth wrangler at Cambridge in 1797, was elected Fellow of his college (Jesus), took orders, and was appointed to a parish in his native county. In 1798 he brought out his Essay on the Principle

of Population, which attracted great attention and met with no little criticism. During the following years Malthus extended his knowledge of the subject both by travel and by reading, and in 1803 published a greatly enlarged edition of his essay. In 1805 he married happily, and soon after was appointed professor of Political Economy and Modern History in the East India Company's college at Haileybury, a post which he occupied till his death at Bath on 29th December 1834.

Personally Malthus was a kindly and accomplished man, who followed what he believed to be the truth, and who endured without a complaint the abuse and misunderstanding to which his writings exposed him. The aim of the Essay was to supply a reasoned corrective to the theories regarding the perfectibility of society, which had been diffused by Rousseau and his school, and which had been advocated in England by Godwin. Malthus maintained that such optimistic hopes are rendered baseless by the natural tendency of population to increase faster than the means of subsistence. He pointed out that both in the animal and vegetable kingdoms life was so prolific that if allowed free room to multiply it would fill millions of worlds in the course of a few thousand years. The only limit to its increase is the want of room and food. With regard to man, the question is complicated by the fact that the instinct of propagation is controlled by reason; but even in his case the ultimate check to population is the want of food, only it seldom operates directly, but complexity of human society. takes a variety of forms in accordance with the The more immediate checks are either preventive or positive. The former appear as moral restraint or vice. The positive checks are exceedingly various, including 'all unwholesome occupations, severe labour and exposure to the seasons, extreme poverty, bad nursing of children, large towns, excesses of all kinds, the whole train of common diseases and epidemics, wars, plague, and famine.' Malthus goes on to illustrate the action of his principle by