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Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 16, Slice 6 - "Lightfoot, Joseph" to "Liquidation"
Author: Various
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 16, Slice 6 - "Lightfoot, Joseph" to "Liquidation"" ***
Transcriber's notes:
(1) Numbers following letters (without space) like C2 were originally
printed in subscript. Letter subscripts are preceded by an
underscore, like C_n.
(2) Characters following a carat (^) were printed in superscript.
(3) Side-notes were relocated to function as titles of their respective
paragraphs.
(4) Macrons and breves above letters and dots below letters were not
inserted.
(5) [root] stands for the root symbol; [alpha], [beta], etc. for greek
letters.
(6) The following typographical errors have been corrected:
ARTICLE LIGHTHOUSE: "Examples of mercury floats are shown in figs.
41, 42, 43 and Plate I., figs. 54 and 55." 'and' amended from 'an'.
ARTICLE LIGHTHOUSE: "Electricity was substituted as an illuminant
for the then existing oil light at St Catherine's in 1888."
'Electricity' amended from 'Elctricity'.
ARTICLE LIGHTING: "They were, however, costly to install, so that
the flat flame burner retained its popularity in spite of the fact
that its duty was comparatively low ..." 'install' amended from
'instal'.
ARTICLE LIGHTING: "... the filament in the form of a lustrous and
dense deposit having an appearance like steel when seen under the
microscope." 'microscope' amended from 'miscroscope'.
ARTICLE LIMB: "... or to the subordinate members of the Cinque
Ports, attached to one of the principal towns; Pevensey was thus a
'limb' of Hastings." 'subordinate' amended from 'surbordinate'.
ARTICLE LIMON: "Its chief towns, after Limon, are Reventazon and
Matina, both with fewer than 3000 inhabitants." 'fewer' amended
from 'fever'.
ARTICLE LIMOUSIN: "Limousin takes its name from the Lemovices, a
Gallic tribe whose county was included by Augustus in the province
of Aquitania Magna." 'Aquitania' amended from 'Aquitanic'.
ARTICLE LIPSIUS, JUSTUS: "He then returned to Louvain, but was soon
driven by the Civil War to take refuge in Antwerp, where he
received, in 1579, a call to the newly founded university of
Leiden, as professor of history." 'Louvain' amended from 'Louvian'.
ARTICLE LIPSIUS, JUSTUS: "He died at Louvain on the 23rd of March
(some give 24th of April) 1606." 'Louvain' amended from 'Louvian'.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA
A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE
AND GENERAL INFORMATION
ELEVENTH EDITION
VOLUME XVI, SLICE VI
Lightfoot, Joseph to Liquidation
ARTICLES IN THIS SLICE:
LIGHTFOOT, JOSEPH BARBER LINDAU, PAUL
LIGHTHOUSE LINDAU
LIGHTING LINDEN
LIGHTNING LINDESAY, ROBERT
LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR LINDET, JEAN BAPTISTE ROBERT
LIGHTS, CEREMONIAL USE OF LINDLEY, JOHN
LIGNE, CHARLES JOSEPH LINDLEY, NATHANIEL LINDLEY
LIGNITE LINDLEY, WILLIAM
LIGONIER, JOHN LIGONIER LINDO, MARK PRAGER
LIGUORI, ALFONSO MARIA DEI LINDSAY (family)
LIGURES BAEBIANI LINDSAY (town of Canada)
LIGURIA LINDSEY, THEOPHILUS
LI HUNG CHANG LINDSTRÖM, GUSTAF
LILAC LINDUS
LILBURNE, JOHN LINE
LILIACEAE LINE ENGRAVING
LILIENCRON, DETLEV VON LINEN and LINEN MANUFACTURES
LILITH LINEN-PRESS
LILLE LINER
LILLEBONNE LING, PER HENRIK
LILLIBULLERO LING
LILLO, GEORGE LINGARD, JOHN
LILLY, WILLIAM LINGAYAT
LILOAN LINGAYEN
LILY LINGEN, RALPH ROBERT WHEELER LINGEN
LILYE, WILLIAM LINGEN
LIMA (Ohio, U.S.A.) LINGUET, SIMON NICHOLAS HENRI
LIMA (department of Peru) LINK
LIMA (capital of Peru) LINKÖPING
LIMAÇON LINLEY, THOMAS
LIMASOL LINLITHGOW, JOHN ADRIAN LOUIS HOPE
LIMB LINLITHGOW
LIMBACH LINLITHGOWSHIRE
LIMBER LINNAEUS
LIMBORCH, PHILIPP VAN LINNELL, JOHN
LIMBURG (feudal state) LINNET
LIMBURG (province of Belgium) LINSANG
LIMBURG (town of Germany) LINSEED
LIMBURG (province of Holland) LINSTOCK
LIMBURG CHRONICLE LINT
LIMBURGITE LINTEL
LIMBUS LINTH
LIME (exudation of holly-tree) LINTON, ELIZA LYNN
LIME (tree) LINTON, WILLIAM JAMES
LIMERICK (county of Ireland) LINTOT, BARNABY BERNARD
LIMERICK (city of Ireland) LINUS (Gregorian saint)
LIMERICK (form of verse) LINUS (Greek heroic figure)
LIMES GERMANICUS LINZ
LIMESTONE LION
LIMINA APOSTOLORUM LIONNE, HUGUES DE
LIMITATION, STATUTES OF LIOTARD, JEAN ETIENNE
LIMOGES LIP
LIMON LIPA
LIMONITE LIPAN
LIMOUSIN, LÉONARD LIPARI ISLANDS
LIMOUSIN LIPETSK
LIMPOPO LIPPE (river of Germany)
LINACRE, THOMAS LIPPE (principality of Germany)
LINARES (province of Chile) LIPPI
LINARES (town of Spain) LIPPSPRINGE
LINCOLN, EARLS OF LIPPSTADT
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM LIPSIUS, JUSTUS
LINCOLN (England) LIPSIUS, RICHARD ADELBERT
LINCOLN (Illinois, U.S.A.) LIPTON, SIR THOMAS JOHNSTONE
LINCOLN (Nebraska, U.S.A.) LIQUEURS
LINCOLN JUDGMENT, THE LIQUIDAMBAR
LINCOLNSHIRE LIQUIDATION
LIND, JENNY
LIGHTFOOT, JOSEPH BARBER (1828-1889), English theologian and bishop of
Durham, was born at Liverpool on the 13th of April 1828. His father was
a Liverpool accountant. He was educated at King Edward's school,
Birmingham, under James Prince Lee, afterwards bishop of Manchester, and
had as contemporaries B. F. Westcott and E. W. Benson. In 1847 Lightfoot
went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, and there read for his degree
with Westcott. He graduated senior classic and 30th wrangler, and was
elected a fellow of his college. From 1854 to 1859 he edited the
_Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology_. In 1857 he became tutor and
his fame as a scholar grew rapidly. He was made Hulsean professor in
1861, and shortly afterwards chaplain to the Prince Consort and honorary
chaplain in ordinary to the queen. In 1866 he was Whitehall preacher,
and in 1871 he became canon of St Paul's. His sermons were not
remarkable for eloquence, but a certain solidity and balance of
judgment, an absence of partisanship, a sobriety of expression combined
with clearness and force of diction, attracted hearers and inspired them
with confidence. As was written of him in _The Times_ after his death,
"his personal character carried immense weight, but his great position
depended still more on the universally recognized fact that his belief
in Christian truth and his defence of it were supported by learning as
solid and comprehensive as could be found anywhere in Europe, and by a
temper not only of the utmost candour but of the highest scientific
capacity. The days in which his university influence was asserted were a
time of much shaking of old beliefs. The disintegrating speculations of
an influential school of criticism in Germany were making their way
among English men of culture just about the time, as is usually the
case, when the tide was turning against them in their own country. The
peculiar service which was rendered at this juncture by the 'Cambridge
School' was that, instead of opposing a mere dogmatic opposition to the
Tübingen critics, they met them frankly on their own ground; and instead
of arguing that their conclusions ought not to be and could not be true,
they simply proved that their facts and their premisses were wrong. It
was a characteristic of equal importance that Dr Lightfoot, like Dr
Westcott, never discussed these subjects in the mere spirit of
controversy. It was always patent that what he was chiefly concerned
with was the substance and the life of Christian truth, and that his
whole energies were employed in this inquiry because his whole heart was
engaged in the truths and facts which were at stake. He was not diverted
by controversy to side-issues; and his labour was devoted to the
positive elucidation of the sacred documents in which the Christian
truth is enshrined."
In 1872 the anonymous publication of _Supernatural Religion_ created
considerable sensation. In a series of masterly papers in the
_Contemporary Review_, between December 1874 and May 1877, Lightfoot
successfully undertook the defence of the New Testament canon. The
articles were published in collected form in 1889. About the same time
he was engaged in contributions to W. Smith's _Dictionary of Christian
Biography_ and _Dictionary of the Bible_, and he also joined the
committee for revising the translation of the New Testament. In 1875 he
became Lady Margaret professor of divinity in succession to William
Selwyn. He had previously written his commentaries on the epistles to
the Galatians (1865), Philippians (1868) and Colossians (1875), the
notes to which were distinguished by sound judgment and enriched from
his large store of patristic and classical learning. These commentaries
may be described as to a certain extent a new departure in New Testament
exegesis. Before Lightfoot's time commentaries, especially on the
epistles, had not infrequently consisted either of short homilies on
particular portions of the text, or of endeavours to enforce foregone
conclusions, or of attempts to decide with infinite industry and
ingenuity between the interpretations of former commentators. Lightfoot,
on the contrary, endeavoured to make his author interpret himself, and
by considering the general drift of his argument to discover his meaning
where it appeared doubtful. Thus he was able often to recover the
meaning of a passage which had long been buried under a heap of
contradictory glosses, and he founded a school in which sobriety and
common sense were added to the industry and ingenuity of former
commentators. In 1879 Lightfoot was consecrated bishop of Durham in
succession to C. Baring. His moderation, good sense, wisdom, temper,
firmness and erudition made him as successful in this position as he had
been when professor of theology, and he speedily surrounded himself with
a band of scholarly young men. He endeavoured to combine his habits of
theological study with the practical work of administration. He
exercised a large liberality and did much to further the work of
temperance and purity organizations. He continued to work at his
editions of the _Apostolic Fathers_, and in 1885 published an edition of
the Epistles of Ignatius and Polycarp, collecting also a large store of
valuable materials for a second edition of Clement of Rome, which was
published after his death (1st ed., 1869). His defence of the
authenticity of the Epistles of Ignatius is one of the most important
contributions to that very difficult controversy. His unremitting
labours impaired his health and shortened his splendid career at Durham.
He was never married. He died at Bournemouth on the 21st of December
1889, and was succeeded in the episcopate by Westcott, his schoolfellow
and lifelong friend.
Four volumes of his _Sermons_ were published in 1890.
LIGHTHOUSE, a form of building erected to carry a light for the purpose
of warning or guidance, especially at sea.
1. EARLY HISTORY.--The earliest lighthouses, of which records exist,
were the towers built by the Libyans and Cushites in Lower Egypt, beacon
fires being maintained in some of them by the priests. Lesches, a Greek
poet (c. 660 B.C.) mentions a lighthouse at Sigeum (now Cape
Incihisari) in the Troad. This appears to have been the first light
regularly maintained for the guidance of mariners. The famous Pharos[1]
of Alexandria, built by Sostratus of Cnidus in the reign of Ptolemy II.
(283-247 B.C.) was regarded as one of the wonders of the world. The
tower, which took its name from that of the small island on which it was
built, is said to have been 600 ft. in height, but the evidence in
support of this statement is doubtful. It was destroyed by an earthquake
in the 13th century, but remains are said to have been visible as late
as 1350. The name Pharos became the general term for all lighthouses,
and the term "pharology" has been used for the science of lighthouse
construction.
The tower at Ostia was built by the emperor Claudius (A.D. 50). Other
famous Roman lighthouses were those at Ravenna, Pozzuoli and Messina.
The ancient Pharos at Dover and that at Boulogne, later known as _la
Tour d'Ordre_, were built by the Romans and were probably the earliest
lighthouses erected in western Europe. Both are now demolished.
The light of Cordouan, on a rock in the sea at the mouth of the Gironde,
is the earliest example now existing of a wave-swept tower. Earlier
towers on the same rock are attributed the first to Louis le Debonnaire
(c. A.D. 805) and the second to Edward the Black Prince. The existing
structure was begun in 1584 during the reign of Henri II. of France and
completed in 1611. The upper part of the beautiful Renaissance building
was removed towards the end of the 18th century and replaced by a
loftier cylindrical structure rising to a height of 207 ft. above the
rock and with the focal plane of the light 196 ft. above high water
(fig. 1). Until the 18th century the light exhibited from the tower was
from an oak log fire, and subsequently a coal fire was in use for many
years. The ancient tower at Corunna, known as the Pillar of Hercules, is
supposed to have been a Roman Pharos. The Torre del Capo at Genoa
originally stood on the promontory of San Berrique. It was built in 1139
and first used as a lighthouse in 1326. It was rebuilt on its present
site in 1643. This beautiful tower rises 236 ft. above the cliff, the
light being elevated 384 ft. above sea-level. A lens light was first
installed in 1841. The Pharos of Meloria was constructed by the Pisans
in 1154 and was several times rebuilt until finally destroyed in 1290.
On the abandonment of Meloria by the Pisans, they erected the still
existing tower at Leghorn in 1304.
In the 17th and 18th centuries numerous towers, on which were erected
braziers or grates containing wood or coal fires, were established in
various positions on the coasts of Europe. Among such stations in the
United Kingdom were Tynemouth (c. 1608), the Isle of May (1636), St
Agnes (1680), St Bees (1718) and the Lizard (1751). The oldest
lighthouse in the United States is believed to be the Boston light
situated on Little Brewster Island on the south side of the main
entrance to Boston Harbour, Mass. It was established in 1716, the
present structure dating from 1859. During the American War of
Independence the lighthouse suffered many vicissitudes and was
successively destroyed and rebuilt three times by the American or
British forces. At the third rebuilding in 1783 a stone tower 68 ft. in
height was erected, the illuminant consisting of four oil lamps. Other
early lighthouse structures on the New England coast were those at
Beaver Tail, near the entrance to Newport Harbour (1740), and the Brant
at the entrance to Nantucket Harbour (1754). A watch-house and beacon
appear to have been erected on Beacon or Lighthouse Island as well as on
Point Allerton Hill near Boston, prior to 1673, but these structures
would seem to have been in the nature of look-out stations in time of
war rather than lighthouses for the guidance of mariners.
2. LIGHTHOUSE STRUCTURES.--The structures of lighthouses may be divided
into two classes, (a) those on rocks, shoals or in other situations
exposed to the force of the sea, and (b) the more numerous class of land
structures.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Cordouan Lighthouse.]
_Wave-swept Towers._--In determining the design of a lighthouse tower to
be erected in a wave-swept position consideration must be given to the
physical features of the site and its surroundings. Towers of this
description are classified as follows: (1) Masonry and concrete
structures; (2) Openwork steel and iron-framed erections on pile or
other foundations; (3) Cast iron plated towers; (4) Structures erected
on cylinder foundations.
(1) _Masonry Towers._--Masonry or concrete towers are generally
preferred for erection on wave-swept rocks affording good foundation,
and have also been constructed in other situations where adequate
foundations have been made by sinking caissons into a soft sea bed.
Smeaton's tower on the Eddystone Rock is the model upon which most later
designs of masonry towers have been based, although many improvements in
detail have since been made. In situations of great exposure the
following requirements in design should be observed: (a) The centre of
gravity of the tower structure should be as low as possible. (b) The
mass of the structure superimposed at any horizontal section must be
sufficient to prevent its displacement by the combined forces of wind
and waves without dependence on the adhesion at horizontal joint faces
or on the dovetailing of stones introduced as an additional safeguard.
(c) The structure should be circular in plan throughout, this form
affording the least resistance to wave stroke and wind pressure in any
direction. (d) The lower portion of the tower exposed to the direct
horizontal stroke of the waves should, for preference, be constructed
with vertical face. The upper portion to be either straight with uniform
batter or continuously curved in the vertical plane. External
projections from the face of the tower, except in the case of a gallery
under the lantern, should be avoided, the surface throughout being
smooth. (e) The height from sea-level to the top of the tower should be
sufficient to avoid the obscuration of the light by broken water or
dense spray driving over the lantern. (f) The foundation of the tower
should be carried well into the solid rock. (g) The materials of which
the tower is built should be of high density and of resistant nature.
(h) The stones used in the construction of the tower, at any rate those
on the outer face, should be dovetailed or joggled one to the other in
order to prevent their being dislodged by the sea during the process of
construction and as an additional safeguard of stability. Of late years,
cement concrete has been used to a considerable extent for maritime
structures, including lighthouses, either alone or faced with masonry.
(2) _Openwork Structures._--Many examples of openwork steel and iron
lighthouses exist. Some typical examples are described hereafter. This
form of design is suitable for situations where the tower has to be
carried on a foundation of iron or steel piles driven or screwed into an
insecure or sandy bottom, such as on shoals, coral reefs and sand banks
or in places where other materials of construction are exceptionally
costly and where facility of erection is a desideratum.
(3) _Cast iron Towers._--Cast iron plated towers have been erected in
many situations where the cost of stone or scarcity of labour would have
made the erection of a masonry tower excessively expensive.
(4) _Caisson Foundations._--Cylinder or caisson foundations have been
used for lighthouse towers in numerous cases where such structures have
been erected on sand banks or shoals. A remarkable instance is the
Rothersand Tower. Two attempts have been made to sink a caisson in the
outer Diamond Shoal off Cape Hatteras on the Atlantic coast of the
United States, but these have proved futile.
The following are brief descriptions of the more important wave-swept
towers in various parts of the world.
_Eddystone_ (_Winstanley's Tower_).--The Eddystone rocks, which lie
about 14 m. off Plymouth, are fully exposed to south-west seas. The
reef is submerged at high water of spring tides. Four towers have been
constructed on the reef. The first lighthouse (fig. 2) was polygonal
in plan and highly ornamented with galleries and projections which
offered considerable resistance to the sea stroke. The work was begun
by Henry Winstanley, a gentleman of Essex, in 1695. In 1698 it was
finished to a height of 80 ft. to the wind vane and the light
exhibited, but in the following year, in consequence of damage by
storms, the tower was increased in diameter from 16 ft. to 24 ft. by
the addition of an outer ring of masonry and made solid to a height of
20 ft. above the rock, the tower being raised to nearly 120 ft. The
work was completed in the year 1700. The lower part of the structure
appears to have been of stone, the upper part and lantern of timber.
During the great storm of the 20th of November 1703 the tower was
swept away, those in it at the time, including the builder, being
drowned.
_Eddystone_ (_Rudyerd's Tower_, fig. 3).--This structure was begun in
1706 and completed in 1709. It was a frustum of a cone 22 ft. 8 in. in
diameter at the base and 14 ft. 3 in. at the top. The tower was 92 ft.
in height to the top of the lantern. The work consisted principally of
oak timbers securely bolted and cramped together, the lower part being
filled in solid with stone to add weight to the structure. The
simplicity of the design and the absence of projections from the outer
face rendered the tower very suitable to withstand the onslaught of
the waves. The lighthouse was destroyed by fire in 1755.
_Eddystone_ (_Smeaton's Tower_, fig. 4).--This famous work, which
consisted entirely of stone, was begun in 1756, the light being first
exhibited in 1759. John Smeaton was the first engineer to use
dovetailed joints for the stones in a lighthouse structure. The
stones, which averaged 1 ton in weight, were fastened to each other by
means of dovetailed vertical joint faces, oak key wedges, and by oak
tree-nails wedged top and bottom, extending vertically from every
course into the stones beneath it. During the 19th century the tower
was strengthened on two occasions by the addition of heavy wrought
iron ties, and the overhanging cornice was reduced in diameter to
prevent the waves from lifting the stones from their beds. In 1877,
owing partly to the undermining of the rock on which the tower was
built and the insufficient height of the structure, the Corporation
of Trinity House determined on the erection of a new lighthouse in
place of Smeaton's tower.
[Illustration: FIG. 2. Winstanley 1699
FIG. 3. Rudyerd 1706
FIG. 4. Smeaton 1756
FIG. 5. Sir J. N. Douglass 1882
Lighthouses on the Eddystone.]
_Eddystone, New Lighthouse (J. N. Douglass)._--The site selected for
the new tower is 120 ft. S.S.E. from Smeaton's lighthouse, where a
suitable foundation was found, although a considerable section of the
lower courses had to be laid below the level of low water. The
vertical base is 44 ft. in diameter and 22 ft. in height. The tower
(figs. 5 and 6) is a concave elliptic frustum, and is solid, with the
exception of a fresh-water tank, to a height of 25 ft. 6 in. above
high-water level. The walls above this level vary in thickness from 8
ft. 6 in. to 2 ft. 3 in. under the gallery. All the stones are
dovetailed, both horizontally and vertically, on all joint faces, the
stones of the foundation course being secured to the rock by Muntz
metal bolts. The tower contains 62,133 cub. ft. of granite, weighing
4668 tons. The height of the structure from low water ordinary spring
tides to the mean focal plane is 149 ft. and it stands 133 ft. above
high water. The lantern is a cylindrical helically framed structure
with domed roof. The astragals are of gun-metal and the pedestal of
cast iron. The optical apparatus consists of two superposed tiers of
refracting lens panels, 12 in each tier of 920 mm. focal distance. The
lenses subtend an angle of 92° vertically. The 12 lens panels are
arranged in groups of two, thus producing a group flashing light
showing 2 flashes of 1½ seconds' duration every half minute, the
apparatus revolving once in 3 minutes. The burners originally fitted
in the apparatus were of 6-wick pattern, but these were replaced in
1904 by incandescent oil vapour burners. The intensity of the combined
beam of light from the two apparatus is 292,000 candles. At the time
of the completion of the lighthouse two bells, weighing 2 tons each
and struck by mechanical power, were installed for fog-signalling
purposes. Since that date an explosive gun-cotton fog signal has been
erected, the bells being removed. At a lower level in the tower are
installed 2 21-in. parabolic silvered reflectors with 2-wick burners,
throwing a fixed light of 8000 candle-power over a danger known as the
Hand Deeps. The work of preparing the foundation was begun on the 17th
of July 1878, the foundation stone being laid by the late duke of
Edinburgh on the 19th of August 1879. The last stone was laid on the
1st of June 1881, and the light was exhibited for the first time on
the 18th of May 1882. The upper portion of Smeaton's tower, which was
removed on completion of the new lighthouse, was re-erected on
Plymouth Hoe, where it replaced the old Trinity House sea mark. One of
the principal features in the design of the new Eddystone lighthouse
tower is the solid vertical base. This construction was much
criticized at the time, but experience has proved that heavy seas
striking the massive cylindrical structure are immediately broken up
and rush round to the opposite side, spray alone ascending to the
height of the lantern gallery. On the other hand, the waves striking
the old tower at its foundation ran up the surface, which presented a
curved face to the waves, and, unimpeded by any projection until
arriving at the lantern gallery, were partially broken up by the
cornice and then spent themselves in heavy spray over the lantern. The
shock to which the cornice of the gallery was exposed was so great
that stones were sometimes lifted from their beds. The new Eddystone
tower presents another point of dissimilarity from Smeaton's
structure, in that the stones forming the floors consist of single
corbels built into the wall and constituting solid portions thereof.
In Smeaton's tower the floors consisted of stone arches, the thrust
being taken by the walls of the tower itself, which were strengthened
for the purpose by building in chains in the form of hoops (fig. 7).
The system of constructing corbelled stone floors was first adopted by
R. Stevenson in the Bell Rock lighthouse (fig. 8).
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Plan of Entrance Floor, Eddystone Lighthouse.]
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--Floor, Smeaton's Eddystone Lighthouse.]
_Bell Rock Lighthouse_ (fig. 9).--The Bell Rock, which lies 12 m. off
the coast of Forfarshire, is exposed to a considerable extent at low
water. The tower is submerged to a depth of about 16 ft. at high water
of spring tides. The rock is of hard sandstone. The lighthouse was
constructed by Robert Stevenson and is 100 ft. in height, the solid
portion being carried to a height of 21 ft. above high water. The work
of construction was begun in 1807, and finished in 1810, the light
being first exhibited in 1811. The total weight of the tower is 2076
tons. A new lantern and dioptric apparatus were erected on the tower
in 1902. The focal plane of the light is elevated 93 ft. above high
water.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--Floor, Stevenson's Bell Rock Lighthouse.]
_Skerryvore Lighthouse_ (fig. 10).--The Skerryvore Rocks, 12 m. off
the island of Tyree in Argyllshire, are wholly open to the Atlantic.
The work, designed by Alan Stevenson, was begun in 1838 and finished
in 1844. The tower, the profile of which is a hyperbolic curve, is 138
ft. high to the lantern base, 42 ft. diameter at the base, and 16 ft.
at the top. Its weight is 4308 tons. The structure contains 9 rooms in
addition to the lantern chamber. It is solid to a height of 26 ft.
above the base.
_Heaux de Brehat Lighthouse._--The reef on which this tower is
constructed lies off the coast of Brittany, and is submerged at high
tide. The work was carried out in 1836-1839. The tower is circular in
plan with a gallery at a height of about 70 ft. above the base. The
tower is 156 ft. in height from base to lantern floor.
_Haut Banc du Nord Lighthouse._--This tower is placed on a reef at the
north-west extremity of the Île de Ré, and was constructed in
1849-1853. It is 86 ft. in height to the lantern floor.
_Bishop Rock Lighthouse._--The lighthouse on the Bishop Rock, which is
the westernmost landfall rock of the Scilly Islands, occupies perhaps
a more exposed situation than any other in the world. The first
lighthouse erected there was begun in 1847 under the direction of N.
Douglass. The tower consisted of a cast and wrought iron openwork
structure having the columns deeply sunk into the rock. On the 5th of
February 1850, when the tower was ready for the erection of the
lantern and illuminating apparatus, a heavy storm swept away the whole
of the structure. This tower was designed for an elevation of 94 ft.
to the focal plane. In 1851 the erection of a granite tower, from the
designs of James Walker, was begun; the light was first exhibited in
1858. The tower (fig. 11) had an elevation to the focal plane of 110
ft., the lower 14 courses being arranged in steps, or offsets, to
break up the force of the waves. This structure also proved
insufficient to withstand the very heavy seas to which it was exposed.
Soon after its completion the 5-cwt. fog bell, fixed to the lantern
gallery 100 ft. above high-water mark, was washed away, together with
the flagstaff and ladder. The tower vibrated considerably during
storms, and it was found that some of the external blocks of granite
had been split by the excessive stress to which they had been exposed.
In 1874 the tower was strengthened by bolting continuous iron ties to
the internal surfaces of the walls. In 1881, when further signs of
damage appeared, it was determined to remove the upper storey or
service room of the lighthouse, and to case the structure from its
base upwards with granite blocks securely dovetailed to each other and
to the existing work. At the same time it was considered advisable to
increase the elevation of the light, and place the mean focal plane of
the new apparatus at an elevation of 146 ft. above high-water mark.
The work was begun in 1883, and the new apparatus was first
illuminated on the 25th of October 1887. During the operation of
heightening the tower it was necessary to install a temporary light,
consisting of a cylindrical lightship lantern with catoptric
apparatus; this was raised from time to time in advance of the
structure as the work proceeded. The additional masonry built into the
tower amounts approximately to 3220 tons. Profiting by the experience
gained after the construction of the new Eddystone tower, Sir J. N.
Douglass decided to build the lower portion of the improved Bishop
Rock tower in the form of a cylinder, but with considerably increased
elevation (figs. 12 and 13). The cylindrical base is 40 ft. in
diameter, and rises to 25 ft. above high-water mark. The lantern is
cylindrical and helically framed, 14 ft. in diameter, the glazing
being 15 ft. in height. The optical apparatus consists of two
superposed tiers of lenses of 1330 mm. focal distance, the lenses
subtending a horizontal angle of 36° and a vertical angle of 80°. The
apparatus consists of 5 groups of lenses each group producing a double
flashing light of one minute period, the whole apparatus revolving
once in five minutes. The maximum aggregate candle-power of the flash
is 622,000 candles. A gun-cotton explosive fog signal is attached to
the lantern. The cost of the various lighthouses on the Bishop Rock
has been as follows:
1. Cast iron lighthouse £12,500 0 0
2. Granite lighthouse 34,559 18 9
3. Improved granite lighthouse 64,889 0 0
[Illustration: FIG. 9.--Bell Rock.
FIG. 10.--Skerryvore.
FIG. 11.--Bishop Rock.
FIG. 12.--Bishop Rock.]
_The Smalls Lighthouse._--A lighthouse has existed on the Smalls rock,
18½ m. off Milford Haven, since 1776, when an oak pile structure was
erected by Henry Whiteside. The existing structure, after the model of
the second lighthouse on the Bishop Rock, was erected in 1856-1861 by
the Trinity House and is 114 ft. in height from the foundation to the
lantern floor. A new optical apparatus was installed in 1907.
_Minot's Ledge Lighthouse._--The tower, which is 89 ft. in height, is
built of granite upon a reef off Boston Harbor, Mass., and occupied
five years in construction, being completed in 1860 at a cost of
£62,500. The rock just bares at low water. The stones are dovetailed
vertically but not on their horizontal beds in the case of the lower
40 ft. or solid portion of the tower, bonding bolts being substituted
for the horizontal dovetailed joints used in the case of the Wolf and
other English towers. The shape of the tower is a conical frustum.
_Wolf Rock Lighthouse._--This much exposed rock lies midway between
the Scilly Isles and the Lizard Point, and is submerged to the depth
of about 6 ft. at high water. The tower was erected in 1862-1869 (fig.
14). It is 116 ft. 6 in. high, 41 ft. 8 in. diameter at the base,
decreasing to 17 ft. at the top. The walls are 7 ft. 9½ in. thick,
decreasing to 2 ft. 3 in. The shaft is a concave elliptic frustum, and
contains 3296 tons. The lower part of the tower has projecting
scarcements in order to break up the sea.
_Dhu Heartach Rock Lighthouse._--The Dhu Heartach Rock, 35 ft. above
high water, is 14 m. from the island of Mull, which is the nearest
shore. The maximum diameter of the tower (fig. 15), which is of
parabolic outline, is 36 ft., decreasing to 16 ft.; the shaft is solid
for 32 ft. above the rock; the masonry weighs 3115 tons, of which 1810
are contained in the solid part. This tower occupied six years in
erection, and was completed in 1872.
_Great Basses Lighthouse, Ceylon._--The Great Basses lighthouse lies 6
m. from the nearest land. The cylindrical base is 32 ft. in diameter,
above which is a tower 67 ft. 5 in. high and 23 ft. in diameter. The
walls vary in thickness from 5 ft. to 2 ft. The tower, including the
base, contains about 2768 tons. The work was finished in three years,
1870-1873.
_Spectacle Reef Lighthouse, Lake Huron._--This is a structure similar
to that on Minot's ledge, standing on a limestone reef at the northern
end of the lake. The tower (fig. 16) was constructed with a view to
withstanding the effects of ice massing in solid fields thousands of
acres in extent and travelling at considerable velocity. The tower is
in shape the frustum of a cone, 32 ft. in diameter at the base and 93
ft. in height to the coping of the gallery. The focal plane is at a
level of 97 ft. above the base. The lower 34 ft. of the tower is
solid. The work was completed in 1874, having occupied four years. The
cost amounted to approximately £78,000.
_Chicken Rock Lighthouse._--The Chicken Rock lies 1 m. off the Calf of
Man. The curve of the tower, which is 123 ft. 4 in. high, is
hyperbolic, the diameter varying from 42 ft. to 16 ft. The tower is
submerged 5 ft. at high-water springs. The solid part is 32 ft. 6 in.
in height, weighing 2050 tons, the whole weight of the tower being
3557 tons. The walls decrease from 9 ft. 3 in. to 2 ft. 3 in. in
thickness. The work was begun in 1869 and completed in 1874.
_Ar'men Lighthouse._--The masonry tower, erected by the French
Lighthouse Service, on the Ar'men Rock off the western extremity of
the Île de Sein, Finistère, occupied fifteen years in construction
(1867-1881). The rock is of small area, barely uncovered at low water,
and it was therefore found impossible to construct a tower having a
base diameter greater than 24 ft. The focal plane of the light is 94
ft. above high water (fig. 17).
_St George's Reef Lighthouse, California._--This structure consists of
a square pyramidal stone tower rising from the easterly end of an oval
masonry pier, built on a rock to a height of 60 ft. above the water.
The focal plane is at an elevation of 146 ft. above high water. The
site is an exceedingly dangerous one, and the work, which was
completed in 1891, cost approximately £144,000.
_Rattray Head Lighthouse._--This lighthouse was constructed between
the years 1892 and 1895 by the Northern Lighthouse Commissioners upon
the Ron Rock, lying about one-fifth of a mile off Rattray Head,
Aberdeenshire. The focal plane is 91 ft. above high water, the
building being approximately 113 ft. in height. In the tower there is
a fog-horn worked by compressed air.
_Fastnet Lighthouse._--In the year 1895 it was reported to the Irish
Lights Commissioners that the then existing lighthouse on the Fastnet
Rock off the south-west coast of Ireland, which was completed in 1854
and consisted of a circular cast iron tower 86 ft. in height on the
summit of the rock, was considerably undermined. It was subsequently
determined to proceed with the erection of a granite structure of
increased height and founded upon a sound ledge of rock on one side of
the higher, but now considerably undermined. portion of the reef.
This lighthouse tower has its foundation laid near high-water level.
The focal plane is at a level of 158 ft. above high-water mark. The
cost of the structure, which was commenced in 1899 and completed in
1904, was £79,000.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.--Bishop Rock Lighthouse.]
_Beachy Head Lighthouse._--A lighthouse has been erected upon the
foreshore at the foot of Beachy Head, near Eastbourne, to replace the
old structure on the cliff having an elevation of 284 ft. above
high-water mark. Experience proved that the light of the latter was
frequently obscured by banks of mist or fog, while at the lower level
the transparency of the atmosphere was considerably less impaired. The
Trinity House therefore decided in the year 1899 to proceed with the
construction of a granite tower upon the foreshore at a distance of
some 570 ft. from the base of the cliff (fig. 18). The foreshore at
this point consists of chalk, and the selected site just bares at low
water ordinary spring tides. The foundation course was laid at a depth
of 10 ft. below the surface, the area being excavated within a
coffer-dam. The tower, which is 47 ft. in diameter at the base, has an
elevation to the focal plane above high water of 103 ft., or a total
height from foundation course to gallery coping of 123 ft. 6 in. The
lower or solid portion of the tower has its face stones constructed in
vertical offsets or steps in a similar manner to that adopted at the
Wolf Rock and elsewhere. The tower is constructed with a facing of
granite, all the stones being dovetailed in the usual manner. The
hearting of the base is largely composed of concrete. The work was
completed in 1902 and cost £56,000.
_Maplin Lighthouse._--The screw pile lighthouse erected on the Maplin
Sand in the estuary of the river Thames in 1838 is the earliest of its
kind and served as a model for numerous similar structures in various
parts of the world. The piles are nine in number, 5 in. diameter of
solid wrought iron with screws 4 ft. diameter (fig. 19).
_Fowey Rocks Lighthouse, Florida._--This iron structure, which was
begun in 1875 and completed in 1878, stands on the extreme northern
point of the Florida reefs. The height of the tower, which is founded
on wrought iron piles driven 10 ft. into the coral rock, is 110 ft.
from high water to focal plane. The iron openwork pyramidal structure
encloses a plated iron dwelling for the accommodation of the keepers.
The cost of construction amounted to £32,600.
_Alligator Reef Lighthouse, Florida._--This tower is one of the finest
iron sea-swept lighthouse structures in the world. It consists of a
pyramidal iron framework 135 ft. 6 in. in height, standing on the
Florida Reef in 5 ft. of water. The cost of the structure, which is
similar to the Fowey Rocks tower, was £37,000.
_American Shoal Lighthouse, Florida._--This tower (fig. 20) is typical
of the openwork pile structures on the Florida reefs, and was
completed in 1880. The focal plane of the light is at an elevation of
109 ft. above high water.
_Wolf Trap Lighthouse._--This building was erected during the years
1893 and 1894 on Wolf Trap Spit in Chesapeake Bay, near the site of
the old openwork structure which was swept away by ice early in 1893.
The new tower is formed upon a cast iron caisson 30 ft. in diameter
sunk 18 ft. into the sandy bottom. The depth of water on the shoal is
16 ft. at low water. The caisson was filled with concrete, and is
surmounted by a brick superstructure 52 ft. in height from low water
to the focal plane of the light. A somewhat similar structure was
erected in 1885-1887 on the Fourteen Foot Bank in Delaware Bay, at a
cost of £24,700. The foundation in this case was, however, shifting
sand, and the caisson was carried to a greater depth.
_Rothersand Lighthouse._--This lighthouse, off the entrance to the
river Weser (Germany), is a structure of great interest on account of
the difficulties met with in its construction. The tower had to be
founded on a bottom of shifting sand 20 ft. below low water and in a
very exposed situation. Work was begun in May 1881, when attempts were
made to sink an iron caisson under pneumatic pressure. Owing to the
enormous scour removing the sand from one side of the caisson it
tilted to an alarming angle, but eventually it was sunk to a level of
70 ft. below low-water mark. In October of the same year the whole
structure collapsed. Another attempt, made in May 1883, to sink a
caisson of bi-convex shape in plan 47 ft. long, 37 ft. wide and 62 ft.
in height, met with success, and after many difficulties the structure
was sunk to a depth of 73 ft. below low water, the sides being raised
by the addition of iron plating as the caisson sank. The sand was
removed from the interior by suction. Around the caisson foundation
were placed 74,000 cub. yds. of mattress work and stones, the interior
being filled with concrete. Towards the end of 1885 the lighthouse was
completed, at a total cost, including the first attempt, of over
£65,000. The tower is an iron structure in the shape of a concave
elliptic frustum, its base being founded upon the caisson foundation
at about half-tide level (fig. 21). The light is electric, the current
being supplied by cable from the shore. The focal plane is 78 ft.
above high water or 109 ft. from the sand level. The total height from
the foundation of the caisson to the top of the vane is 185 ft.
Other famous wave-swept towers are those at Haulbowline Rock
(Carlingford Lough, Ireland, 1823); Horsburgh (Singapore, 1851); Bayes
d'Olonne (Bay of Biscay, 1861); Hanois (Alderney, 1862); Daedalus
Reef, iron tower (Red Sea, 1863); Alguada Reef (Bay of Bengal, 1865);
Longships (Land's End, 1872); the Prongs (Bombay, 1874); Little Basses
(Ceylon, 1878); the Graves (Boston, U.S.A., 1905); Jument d'Ouessant
(France, 1907); and Roche Bonne (France, building 1910).
[Illustration: FIG. 14.--Wolf Rock.
FIG. 15.--Dhu Heartach.
FIG. 16.--Spectacle Reef.
FIG. 17.--Ar'men.
FIG. 18.--Beachy Head.]
_Jointing of Stones in Rock Towers._--Various methods of jointing the
stones in rock towers are shown in figs. 6 and 22. The great distinction
between the towers built by successive engineers to the Trinity House
and other rock lighthouses is that, in the former the stones of each
course are dovetailed together both laterally and vertically and are not
connected by metal or wooden pins and wedges and dowled as in most other
cases. This dovetail method was first adopted at the Hanois Rock at the
suggestion of Nicholas Douglass. On the upper face, one side and at one
end of each block is a dovetailed projection. On the under face and the
other side and end, corresponding dovetailed recesses are formed with
just sufficient clearance for the raised bands to enter in setting (fig.
23). The cement mortar in the joint formed between the faces so locks
the dovetails that the stones cannot be separated without breaking (fig.
24).
TABLE I.--_Comparative Cost of Exposed Rock Towers_.
+----------------------------------------------------------+--------------+--------+-----------+
| | | | Cost per |
| Name of Structure. | Total Cost. |Cub. ft.|cub. ft. of|
| | | | Masonry. |
+----------------------------------------------------------+--------------+--------+-----------+
| Eddystone, Smeaton (1759) |£40,000 0 0 | 13,343 | £2 9 11½ |
| Bell Rock, Firth of Forth (1811) | 55,619 12 1 | 28,530 | 1 19 0 |
| Skerryvore, west coast of Scotland (1844) | 72,200 11 6 | 58,580 | 1 4 7¾ |
| Bishop Rock, first granite tower (1858) | 34,559 18 9 | 35,209 | 0 19 7½ |
| Smalls, Bristol Channel (1861) | 50,124 11 8 | 46,386 | 1 1 7¼ |
| Hanois, Alderney (1862) | 25,296 0 0 | 24,542 | 1 0 7¼ |
| Wolf Rock, Land's End (1869) | 62,726 0 0 | 59,070 | 1 1 3 |
| Dhu Heartach, west coast of Scotland (1872) | 72,584 9 7 | 42,050 | 1 14 6 |
| Longships, Land's End (1872) | 43,869 8 11 | 47,610 | 0 18 5 |
| Eddystone, Douglass (1882) | 59,255 0 0 | 65,198 | 0 18 2 |
| Bishop Rock, strengthening and part reconstruction (1887)| 64,889 0 0 | 45,080 | 1 8 9 |
| Great Basses, Ceylon (1873) | 63,560 0 0 | 47,819 | 1 6 7 |
| Minot's Ledge, Boston, Mass. (1860) | 62,500 0 0 | 36,322 | 1 17 2 |
| Spectacle Reef, Lake Huron (1874) | 78,125 0 0 | 42,742 | 1 16 2 |
| Ar'men, France (1881) | 37,692 0 0 | 32,400 | 1 3 3 |
| Fastnet, Ireland (1904) | 79,000 0 0 | 62,600 | 1 5 5½ |
+----------------------------------------------------------+--------------+--------+-----------+
_Effect of Waves._--The wave stroke to which rock lighthouse towers are
exposed is often considerable. At the Dhu Heartach, during the erection
of the tower, 14 joggled stones, each of 2 tons weight, were washed away
after having been set in cement at a height of 37 ft. above high water,
and similar damage was done during the construction of the Bell Rock
tower. The effect of waves on the Bishop Rock and Eddystone towers has
been noted above.
_Land Structures for Lighthouses._--The erection of lighthouse towers
and other buildings on land presents no difficulties of construction,
and such buildings are of ordinary architectural character. It will
therefore be unnecessary to refer to them in detail. Attention is
directed to the Phare d'Eckmühl at Penmarc'h (Finistère), completed in
1897. The cost of this magnificent structure, 207 ft. in height from the
ground, was largely defrayed by a bequest of £12,000 left by the marquis
de Blocqueville. It is constructed entirely of granite, and is octagonal
in plan. The total cost of the tower and other lighthouse buildings
amounted to £16,000.
[Illustration: FIG. 19.--Maplin Pile Lighthouse.]
The tower at Île Vierge (Finistère), completed in 1902, has an elevation
of 247 ft. from the ground level to the focal plane, and is probably the
highest structure of its kind in the world.
The brick tower, constructed at Spurn Point, at the entrance to the
Humber and completed in 1895, replaced an earlier structure erected by
Smeaton at the end of the 18th century. The existing tower is
constructed on a foundation consisting of concrete cylinders sunk in the
shingle beach. The focal plane of the light is elevated 120 ft. above
high water.
Besides being built of stone or brick, land towers are frequently
constructed of cast iron plates or open steel-work with a view to
economy. Fine examples of the former are to be found in many British
colonies and elsewhere, that on Dassen Island (Cape of Good Hope), 105
ft. in height to the focal plane, being typical (fig. 25). Many openwork
structures up to 200 ft. in height have been built. Recent examples are
the towers erected at Cape San Thomé (Brazil) in 1882, 148 ft. in height
(fig. 26), Mocha (Red Sea) in 1903, 180 ft. and Sanganeb Reef (Red Sea)
1906, 165 ft. in height to the focal plane.
[Illustration: FIG. 20.--American Shoal Lighthouse, Florida.]
3. OPTICAL APPARATUS.--Optical apparatus in lighthouses is required for
one or other of three distinct purposes: (1) the concentration of the
rays derived from the light source into a belt of light distributed
evenly around the horizon, condensation in the vertical plane only being
employed; (2) the concentration of the rays both vertically and
horizontally into a pencil or cone of small angle directed towards the
horizon and caused to revolve about the light source as a centre, thus
producing a flashing light; and (3) the condensation of the light in the
vertical plane and also in the horizontal plane in such a manner as to
concentrate the rays over a limited azimuth only.
Apparatus falling under the first category produce a fixed light, and
further distinction can be provided in this class by mechanical means of
occultation, resulting in the production of an occulting or intermittent
light. Apparatus included in the second class are usually employed to
produce flashing lights, but sometimes the dual condensation is taken
advantage of to produce a fixed pencil of rays thrown towards the
horizon for the purpose of marking an isolated danger or the limits of a
narrow channel. Such lights are best described by the French term _feux
de direction_. Catoptric apparatus, by which dual condensation is
produced, are moreover sometimes used for fixed lights, the light
pencils overlapping each other in azimuth. Apparatus of the third class
are employed for sector lights or those throwing a beam of light over a
wider azimuth than can be conveniently covered by an apparatus of the
second class, and for reinforcing the beam of light emergent from a
fixed apparatus in any required direction.
The above classification of apparatus depends on the resultant effect of
the optical elements. Another classification divides the instruments
themselves into three classes: (a) catoptric, (b) dioptric and (c)
catadioptric.
_Catoptric_ apparatus are those by which the light rays are reflected
only from the faces of incidence, such as silvered mirrors of plane,
spherical, parabolic or other profile. _Dioptric_ elements are those in
which the light rays pass through the optical glass, suffering
refraction at the incident and emergent faces (fig. 27). _Catadioptric_
elements are combined of the two foregoing and consist of optical prisms
in which the light rays suffer refraction at the incident face, total
internal reflexion at a second face and again refraction on emergence at
the third face (fig. 28).
The object of these several forms of optical apparatus is not only to
produce characteristics or distinctions in lights to enable them to be
readily recognized by mariners, but to utilize the light rays in
directions above and below the horizontal plane, and also, in the case
of revolving or flashing lights, in azimuths not requiring to be
illuminated for strengthening the beam in the direction of the mariner.
It will be seen that the effective condensation in flashing lights is
very much greater than in fixed belts, thus enabling higher intensities
to be obtained by the use of flashing lights than with fixed apparatus.
[Illustration: FIG. 21.--Rothersand Lighthouse.]
_Catoptric System._--Parabolic reflectors, consisting of small facets
of silvered glass set in plaster of Paris, were first used about the
year 1763 in some of the Mersey lights by Mr Hutchinson, then dock
master at Liverpool (fig. 29). Spherical metallic reflectors were
introduced in France in 1781, followed by parabolic reflectors on
silvered copper in 1790 in England and France, and in Scotland in
1803. The earlier lights were of fixed type, a number of reflectors
being arranged on a frame or stand in such a manner that the pencils
of emergent rays overlapped and thus illuminated the whole horizon
continuously. In 1783 the first revolving light was erected at
Marstrand in Sweden. Similar apparatus were installed at Cordouan
(1790), Flamborough Head (1806) and at the Bell Rock (1811). To
produce a revolving or flashing light the reflectors were fixed on a
revolving carriage having several faces. Three or more reflectors in a
face were set with their axes parallel.
A type of parabolic reflector now in use is shown in fig. 30. The
sizes in general use vary from 21 in. to 24 in. diameter. These
instruments are still largely used for light-vessel illumination, and
a few important land lights are at the present time of catoptric type,
including those at St Agnes (Scilly Islands), Cromer and St Anthony
(Falmouth).
_Dioptric System._--The first adaptation of dioptric lenses to
lighthouses is probably due to T. Rogers, who used lenses at one of
the Portland lighthouses between 1786 and 1790. Subsequently lenses by
the same maker were used at Howth, Waterford and the North Foreland.
Count Buffon had in 1748 proposed to grind out of a solid piece of
glass a lens in steps or concentric zones in order to reduce the
thickness to a minimum (fig. 31). Condorcet in 1773 and Sir D.
Brewster in 1811 designed built-up lenses consisting of stepped
annular rings. Neither of these proposals, however, was intended to
apply to lighthouse purposes. In 1822 Augustin Fresnel constructed a
built-up annular lens in which the centres of curvature of the
different rings receded from the axis according to their distances
from the centre, so as practically to eliminate spherical aberration;
the only spherical surface being the small central part or "bull's
eye" (fig. 32). These lenses were intended for revolving lights only.
Fresnel next produced his cylindric refractor or lens belt, consisting
of a zone of glass generated by the revolution round a vertical axis
of a medial section of the annular lens (fig. 33). The lens belt
condensed and parallelized the light rays in the vertical plane only,
while the annular lens does so in every plane. The first revolving
light constructed from Fresnel's designs was erected at the Cordouan
lighthouse in 1823. It consisted of 8 panels of annular lenses placed
round the lamp at a focal distance of 920 mm. To utilize the light,
which would otherwise escape above the lenses, Fresnel introduced a
series of 8 plain silvered mirrors, on which the light was thrown by a
system of lenses. At a subsequent period mirrors were also placed in
the lower part of the optic. The apparatus was revolved by clockwork.
This optic embodied the first combination of dioptric and catoptric
elements in one design (fig. 34). In the following year Fresnel
designed a dioptric lens with catoptric mirrors for fixed light, which
was the first of its kind installed in a lighthouse. It was erected at
the Chassiron lighthouse in 1827 (fig. 35). This combination is
geometrically perfect, but not so practically on account of the great
loss of light entailed by metallic reflection which is at least 25%
greater than the system described under. Before his death in 1827
Fresnel devised his totally reflecting or catadioptric prisms to take
the place of the silvered reflectors previously used above and below
the lens elements (fig. 28). The ray Fi falling on the prismoidal ring
ABC is refracted in the direction i r and meeting the face AB at an
angle of incidence greater than the critical, is totally reflected in
the direction r e emerging after second refraction in a horizontal
direction. Fresnel devised these prisms for use in fixed light
apparatus, but the principle was, at a later date, also applied to
flashing lights, in the first instance by T. Stevenson. Both the
dioptric lens and catadioptric prism invented by Fresnel are still in
general use, the mathematical calculations of the great French
designer still forming the basis upon which lighthouse opticians work.
[Illustration: FIG. 22.--Courses of various Lighthouse Towers.]
[Illustration: FIG. 23.--Perspective drawing of Dovetailed Stone (Wolf
Rock).]
[Illustration: FIG. 24.--Section of Dovetail.]
[Illustration: FIG. 25.--Dassen Island Lighthouse (cast iron).]
[Illustration: FIG. 26.--Cape San Thomé Lighthouse.]
[Illustration: FIG. 27.--Dioptric Prism.]
Fresnel also designed a form of fixed and flashing light in which the
distinction of a fixed light, varied by flashes, was produced by
placing panels of straight refracting prisms in a vertical position on
a revolving carriage outside the fixed light apparatus. The revolution
of the upright prisms periodically increased the power of the beam, by
condensation of the rays emergent from the fixed apparatus, in the
horizontal plane.
The lens segments in Fresnel's early apparatus were of polygonal form
instead of cylindrical, but subsequently manufacturers succeeded in
grinding glass in cylindrical rings of the form now used. The first
apparatus of this description was made by Messrs Cookson of Newcastle
in 1836 at the suggestion of Alan Stevenson and erected at Inchkeith.
[Illustration: FIG. 28.--Catadioptric or Reflecting Prism.]
In 1825 the French Commission des Phares decided upon the exclusive
use of lenticular apparatus in its service. The Scottish Lighthouse
Board followed with the Inchkeith revolving apparatus in 1835 and the
Isle of May fixed optic in 1836. In the latter instrument Alan
Stevenson introduced helical frames for holding the glass prisms in
place, thus avoiding complete obstruction of the light rays in any
azimuth. The first dioptric light erected by the Trinity House was
that formerly at Start Point in Devonshire, constructed in 1836.
Catadioptric or reflecting prisms for revolving lights were not used
until 1850, when Alan Stevenson designed them for the North Ronaldshay
lighthouse.
_Dioptric Mirror._--The next important improvement in lighthouse
optical work was the invention of the dioptric spherical mirror by Mr
(afterwards Sir) J. T. Chance in 1862. The zones or prisms are
generated round a vertical axis and divided into segments. This form
of mirror is still in general use (figs. 36 and 37).
[Illustration: FIG. 29.--Early Reflector and Lamp (1763).]
_Azimuthal Condensing Prisms._--Previous to 1850 all apparatus were
designed to emit light of equal power in every azimuth either
constantly or periodically. The only exception was where a light was
situated on a stretch of coast where a mirror could be placed behind
the flame to utilize the rays, which would otherwise pass landward,
and reflect them back, passing through the flame and lens in a seaward
direction. In order to increase the intensity of lights in certain
azimuths T. Stevenson devised his azimuthal condensing prisms which,
in various forms and methods of application, have been largely used
for the purpose of strengthening the light rays in required directions
as, for instance, where coloured sectors are provided. Applications of
this system will be referred to subsequently.
[Illustration: FIG. 30.--Modern Parabolic Reflector.]
_Optical Glass for Lighthouses._--In the early days of lens lights the
only glass used for the prisms was made in France at the St Gobain and
Premontré works, which have long been celebrated for the high quality
of optical glass produced. The early dioptric lights erected in the
United Kingdom, some 13 in all, were made by Messrs Cookson of South
Shields, who were instructed by Léonor Fresnel, the brother of
Augustin. At first they tried to mould the lens and then to grind it
out of one thick sheet of glass. The successors of the Cookson firm
abandoned the manufacture of lenses in 1845, and the firm of
Letourneau & Lepaute of Paris again became the monopolists. In 1850
Messrs Chance Bros. & Co. of Birmingham began the manufacture of
optical glass, assisted by M. Tabouret, a French expert who had been a
colleague of Augustin Fresnel himself. The first light made by the
firm was shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851, since when numerous
dioptric apparatus have been constructed by Messrs Chance, who are, at
this time, the only manufacturers of lighthouse glass in the United
Kingdom. Most of the glass used for apparatus constructed in France is
manufactured at St Gobain. Some of the glass used by German
constructors is made at Rathenow in Prussia and Goslar in the Harz.
The glass generally employed for lighthouse optics has for its
refractive index a mean value of µ = 1.51, the corresponding critical
angle being 41° 30'. Messrs Chance have used dense flint glass for the
upper and lower refracting rings of high angle lenses and for dioptric
mirrors in certain cases. This glass has a value of µ = l.62 with
critical angle 38° 5'.
[Illustration: FIG. 31. Buffon's Lens.]
[Illustration: FIG. 32. Fresnel's Annular Lens.]
[Illustration: FIG. 33. Fresnel's Lens Belt.]
[Illustration: FIG. 34.--Fresnel's Revolving Apparatus at Cordouan
Lighthouse.]
_Occulting Lights._--During the last 25 years of the 19th century the
disadvantages of fixed lights became more and more apparent. At the
present day the practice of installing such, except occasionally in
the case of the smaller and less important of harbour or river lights,
has practically ceased. The necessity for providing a distinctive
characteristic for every light when possible has led to the conversion
of many of the fixed-light apparatus of earlier years into occulting
lights, and often to their supersession by more modern and powerful
flashing apparatus. An occulting apparatus in general use consists of
a cylindrical screen, fitting over the burner, rapidly lowered and
raised by means of a cam-wheel at stated intervals. The cam-wheel is
actuated by means of a weight or spring clock. Varying characteristics
may be procured by means of such a contrivance--single, double, triple
or other systems of occultation. The eclipses or periods of darkness
bear much the same relation to the times of illumination as do the
flashes to the eclipses in a revolving or flashing light. In the case
of a first-order fixed light the cost of conversion to an occulting
characteristic does not exceed £250 to £300. With apparatus
illuminated by gas the occultations may be produced by successively
raising and lowering the gas at stated intervals. Another form of
occulting mechanism employed consists of a series of vertical screens
mounted on a carriage and revolving round the burner. The carriage is
rotated on rollers or ball bearings or carried upon a small mercury
float. The usual driving mechanism employed is a spring clock. "Otter"
screens are used in cases when it is desired to produce different
periods of occultations in two or more positions in azimuth in order
to differentiate sectors marking shoals, &c. The screens are of sheet
metal blacked and arranged vertically, some what in the manner of the
laths of a venetian blind, and operated by mechanical means.
_Leading Lights._--In the case of lights designed to act as a lead
through a narrow channel or as direction lights, it is undesirable to
employ a flashing apparatus. Fixed-light optics are employed to meet
such cases, and are generally fitted with occulting mechanism. A
typical apparatus of this description is that at Gage Roads,
Fremantle, West Australia (fig. 38). The occulting bright light covers
the fairway, and is flanked by sectors of occulting red and green
light marking dangers and intensified by vertical condensing prisms. A
good example of a holophotal direction light was exhibited at the 1900
Paris Exhibition, and afterwards erected at Suzac lighthouse (France).
The light consists of an annular lens 500 mm. focal distance, of 180°
horizontal angle and 157° vertical, with a mirror of 180° at the back.
The lens throws a red beam of about 4½° amplitude in azimuth, and
50,000 candle-power over a narrow channel. The illuminant is an
incandescent petroleum vapour burner. Holophotal direction lenses of
this type can only be applied where the sector to be marked is of
comparatively small angle. Silvered metallic mirrors of parabolic form
are also used for the purpose. The use of single direction lights
frequently renders the construction of separate towers for leading
lights unnecessary.
If two distinct lights are employed to indicate the line of navigation
through a channel or between dangers they must be sufficiently far
apart to afford a good lead, the front or seaward light being situated
at a lower elevation than the rear or landward one.
_Coloured Lights._--Colour is used as seldom as possible as a
distinction, entailing as it does a considerable reduction in the
power of the light. It is necessary in some instances for
differentiating sectors over dangers and for harbour lighting
purposes. The use of coloured lights as alternating flashes for
lighthouse lights is not to be commended, on account of the unequal
absorption of the coloured and bright rays by the atmosphere. When
such distinction has been employed, as in the Wolf Rock apparatus, the
red and white beams can be approximately equalized in initial
intensity by constructing the lens and prism panels for the red light
of larger angle than those for the white beams. Owing to the
absorption by the red colouring, the power of a red beam is only 40%
of the intensity of the corresponding white light. The corresponding
intensity of green light is 25%. When red or green sectors are
employed they should invariably be reinforced by mirrors, azimuthal
condensing prisms, or other means to raise the coloured beam to
approximately the same intensity as the white light. With the
introduction of group-flashing characteristics the necessity for using
colour as a means of distinction disappeared.
[Illustration: FIG. 35.--Fixed Apparatus at Chassiron Lighthouse
(1827).]
[Illustration: FIG. 36.--Vertical Section. Prism of Dioptric Spherical
Mirror.]
_High-Angle Vertical Lenses._--Messrs Chance of Birmingham have
manufactured lenses having 97° of vertical amplitude, but this result
was only attained by using dense flint glass of high refractive index
for the upper and lower elements. It is doubtful, however, whether the
use of refracting elements for a greater angle than 80° vertically is
attended by any material corresponding advantage.
[Illustration: FIG. 37.--Chance's Dioptric Spherical Mirror.]
_Group Flashing Lights._--One of the most useful distinctions consists
in the grouping of two or more flashes separated by short intervals of
darkness, the group being succeeded by a longer eclipse. Thus two,
three or more flashes of, say, half second duration or less follow
each other at intervals of about 2 seconds and are succeeded by an
eclipse of, say, 10 seconds, the sequence being completed in a period
of, say, 15 seconds. In 1874 Dr John Hopkinson introduced the very
valuable improvement of dividing the lenses of a dioptric revolving
light with the panels of reflecting prisms above and below them,
setting them at an angle to produce the group-flashing characteristic.
The first apparatus of this type constructed were those now in use at
Tampico, Mexico and the Little Basses lighthouse, Ceylon (double
flashing). The Casquets apparatus (triple flashing) was installed in
1877. A group-flashing catoptric light had, however, been exhibited
from the "Royal Sovereign" light-vessel in 1875. A sectional plan of
the quadruple-flashing first order apparatus at Pendeen in Cornwall
is shown in fig. 39; and fig. 55 (Plate 1.) illustrates a double
flashing first order light at Pachena Point in British Columbia.
Hopkinson's system has been very extensively used, most of the
group-flashing lights shown in the accompanying tables, being designed
upon the general lines he introduced. A modification of the system
consists in grouping two or more lenses together separated by equal
angles, and filling the remaining angle in azimuth by a reinforcing
mirror or screen. A group-flashing distinction was proposed for gas
lights by J. R. Wigham of Dublin, who obtained it in the case of a
revolving apparatus by alternately raising and lowering the flame. The
first apparatus in which this method was employed was erected at
Galley Head, Co. Cork (1878). At this lighthouse 4 of Wigham's large
gas burners with four tiers of first-order revolving lenses, eight in
each tier, were adopted. By successive lowering and raising of the gas
flame at the focus of each tier of lenses he produced the
group-flashing distinction. The light showed, instead of one prolonged
flash at intervals of one minute, as would be produced by the
apparatus in the absence of a gas occulter, a group of short flashes
varying in number between six and seven. The uncertainty, however, in
the number of flashes contained in each group is found to be an
objection to the arrangement. This device was adopted at other
gas-illuminated stations in Ireland at subsequent dates. The
quadriform apparatus and gas installation at Galley Head were
superseded in 1907 by a first order bi-form apparatus with
incandescent oil vapour burner showing five flashes every 20 seconds.
[Illustration: FIG. 38.--Gage Roads Direction Light.]
[Illustration: FIG. 39.--Pendeen Apparatus. Plan at Focal Plane.]
_Flashing Lights indicating Numbers._--Captain F. A. Mahan, late
engineer secretary to the United States Lighthouse Board, devised for
that service a system of flashing lights to indicate certain numbers.
The apparatus installed at Minot's Ledge lighthouse near Boston
Harbour, Massachusetts, has a flash indicating the number 143, thus: -
---- ---, the dashes indicating short flashes. Each group is separated
by a longer period of darkness than that between successive members of
a group. The flashes in a group indicating a figure are about 1½
seconds apart, the groups being 3 seconds apart, an interval of 16
seconds' darkness occurring between each repetition. Thus the number
is repeated every half minute. Two examples of this system were
exhibited by the United States Lighthouse Board at the Chicago
Exhibition in 1893, viz. the second-order apparatus just mentioned and
a similar light of the first order for Cape Charles on the Virginian
coast. The lenses are arranged in a somewhat similar manner to an
ordinary group-flashing light, the groups of lenses being placed on
one side of the optic, while the other is provided with a catadioptric
mirror. This system of numerical flashing for lighthouses has been
frequently proposed in various forms, notably by Lord Kelvin. The
installation of the lights described is, however, the first practical
application of the system to large and important coast lights. The
great cost involved in the alteration of the lights of any country to
comply with the requirements of a numerical system is one of the
objections to its general adoption.
[Illustration: PLATE I.
FIG. 54.--FASTNET LIGHTHOUSE--FIRST ORDER SINGLE-FLASHING BIFORM
APPARATUS.
FIG. 55.--PACHENA POINT LIGHTHOUSE, B.C.--FIRST ORDER DOUBLE-FLASHING
APPARATUS.]
[Illustration: PLATE II.
FIG. 56.--OLD EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE.
FIG. 57.--EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE.
FIG. 58.--ILE VIERGE LIGHTHOUSE.
FIG. 59.--MINOT'S LEDGE LIGHTHOUSE.]
[Illustration: FIG. 40.--Sule Skerry Apparatus.]
_Hyper-radial Apparatus._--In 1885 Messrs Barbier of Paris constructed
the first hyper-radial apparatus (1330 mm. focal distance) to the
design of Messrs D. and C. Stevenson. This had a height of 1812 mm. It
was tested during the South Foreland experiments in comparison with
other lenses, and found to give excellent results with burners of
large focal diameter. Apparatus of similar focal distance (1330 mm.)
were subsequently established at Round Island, Bishop Rock, and Spurn
Point in England, Fair Isle and Sule Skerry (fig. 40) in Scotland,
Bull Rock and Tory Island in Ireland, Cape d'Antifer in France, Pei
Yu-shan in China and a lighthouse in Brazil.
The light erected in 1907 at Cape Race, Newfoundland, is a fine
example of a four-sided hyper-radial apparatus mounted on a mercury
float. The total weight of the revolving part of the light amounts to
7 tons, while the motive clock weight required to rotate this large
mass at a speed of two complete revolutions a minute is only 8 cwt.
and the weight of mercury required for flotation 950 lb. A similar
apparatus was placed at Manora Point, Karachi, India, in 1908 (fig.
41).
The introduction of incandescent and other burners of focal
compactness and high intensity has rendered the use of optics of such
large dimensions as the above, intended for burners of great focal
diameter, unnecessary. It is now possible to obtain with a
second-order optic (or one of 700 mm. focal distance), having a
powerful incandescent petroleum burner in focus, a beam of equal
intensity to that which would be obtained from the apparatus having a
10-wick oil burner or 108-jet gas burner at its focus.
_Stephenson's Spherical Lenses and Equiangular Prisms._--Mr C. A.
Stephenson in 1888 designed a form of lens spherical in the horizontal
and vertical sections. This admitted of the construction of lenses of
long focal distance without the otherwise corresponding necessity of
increased diameter of lantern. A lens of this type and of 1330 mm.
focal distance was constructed in 1890 for Fair Isle lighthouse. The
spherical form loses in efficiency if carried beyond an angle
subtending 20° at the focus, and to obviate this loss Mr Stephenson
designed his equiangular prisms, which have an inclination outwards.
It is claimed by the designer that the use of equiangular prisms
results in less loss of light and less divergence than is the case
when either the spherical or Fresnel form is adopted. An example of
this design is seen (fig. 40) in the Sule Skerry apparatus (1895).
_Fixed and Flashing Lights._--The use of these lights, which show a
fixed beam varied at intervals by more powerful flashes, is not to be
recommended, though a large number were constructed in the earlier
years of dioptric illumination and many are still in existence. The
distinction can be produced in one or other of three ways: (a) by the
revolution of detached panels of straight condensing lens prisms
placed vertically around a fixed light optic, (b) by utilizing
revolving lens panels in the middle portion of the optic to produce
the flashing light, the upper and lower sections of the apparatus
being fixed zones of catadioptric or reflecting elements emitting a
fixed belt of light, and (c) by interposing panels of fixed light
section between the flashing light panels of a revolving apparatus. In
certain conditions of the atmosphere it is possible for the fixed
light of low power to be entirely obscured while the flashes are
visible, thus vitiating the true characteristic of the light. Cases
have frequently occurred of such lights being mistaken for, and even
described in lists of light as, revolving or flashing lights.
_"Cute" and Screens._--Screens of coloured glass, intended to
distinguish the light in particular azimuths, and of sheet iron, when
it is desired to "cut off" the light sharply on any angle, should be
fixed as far from the centre of the light as possible in order to
reduce the escape of light rays due to divergence. These screens are
usually attached to the lantern framing.
_Divergence._--A dioptric apparatus designed to bend all incident rays
of light from the light source in a horizontal direction would, if the
flame could be a point, have the effect of projecting a horizontal
band or zone of light, in the case of a fixed apparatus, and a
cylinder of light rays, in the case of a flashing light, towards the
horizon. Thus the mariner in the near distance would receive no light,
the rays, visible only at or near the horizon, passing above the level
of his eye. In practice this does not occur, sufficient natural
divergence being produced ordinarily owing to the magnitude of the
flame. Where the electric arc is employed it is often necessary to
design the prisms so as to produce artificial divergence. The measure
of the natural divergence for any point of the lens is the angle whose
sine is the ratio of the diameter of the flame to the distance of the
point from centre of flame.
In the case of vertical divergence the mean height of the flame must
be substituted for the diameter. The angle thus obtained is the total
divergence, that is, the sum of the angles above and below the
horizontal plane or to right and left of the medial section. In fixed
dioptric lights there is, of course, no divergence in the horizontal
plane. In flashing lights the horizontal divergence is a matter of
considerable importance, determining as it does the duration or length
of time the flash is visible to the mariner.
_Feux-Éclairs or Quick Flashing Lights._--One of the most important
developments in the character of lighthouse illuminating apparatus
that has occurred in recent years has been in the direction of
reducing the length of flash. The initiative in this matter was taken
by the French lighthouse authorities, and in France alone forty lights
of this type were established between 1892 and 1901. The use of short
flash lights rapidly spread to other parts of the world. In England
the lighthouse at Pendeen (1900) exhibits a quadruple flash every 15
seconds, the flashes being about ¼ second duration (fig. 39), while
the bivalve apparatus erected on Lundy Island (1897) shows 2 flashes
of 1/3 second duration in quick succession every 20 seconds. Since
1900 many quick flashing lights have been erected on the coasts of the
United Kingdom and in other countries. The early _feux-éclairs_,
designed by the French engineers and others, had usually a flash of
(1/10)th to (1/3)rd of a second duration. As a result of experiments
carried out in France in 1903-1904, 3/10 second has been adopted by
the French authorities as the minimum duration for white flashing
lights. If shorter flashes are used it is found that the reduction in
duration is attended by a corresponding, but not proportionate,
diminution in effective intensity. In the case of many electric
flashing lights the duration is of necessity reduced, but the greater
initial intensity of the flash permits this loss without serious
detriment to efficiency. Red or green requires a considerably greater
duration than do white flashes. The intervals between the flashes in
lights of this character are also small, 2½ seconds to 7 seconds. In
group-flashing lights the intervals between the flashes are about 2
seconds or even less, with periods of 7 to 10 or 15 seconds between
the groups. The flashes are arranged in single, double, triple or even
quadruple groups, as in the older forms of apparatus. The _feu-éclair_
type of apparatus enables a far higher intensity of flash to be
obtained than was previously possible without any corresponding
increase in the luminous power of the burner or other source of light.
This result depends entirely upon the greater ratio of condensation of
light employed, panels of greater angular breadth than was customary
in the older forms of apparatus being used with a higher rotatory
velocity. It has been urged that short flashes are insufficient for
taking bearings, but the utility of a light in this respect does not
seem to depend so much upon the actual length of the flash as upon its
frequent recurrence at short intervals. At the Paris Exhibition of
1900 was exhibited a fifth-order flashing light giving short flashes
at 1 second intervals; this represents the extreme to which the
movement towards the reduction of the period of flashing lights has
yet been carried.
_Mercury Floats._--It has naturally been found impracticable to
revolve the optical apparatus of a light with its mountings, sometimes
weighing over 7 tons, at the high rate of speed required for
_feux-éclairs_ by means of the old system of roller carriages, though
for some small quick-revolving lights ball bearings have been
successfully adopted. It has therefore become almost the universal
practice to carry the rotating portions of the apparatus upon a
mercury float. This beautiful application of mercury rotation was the
invention of Bourdelles, and is now utilized not only for the
high-speed apparatus, but also generally for the few examples of the
older type still being constructed. The arrangement consists of an
annular cast iron bath or trough of such dimensions that a similar but
slightly smaller annular float immersed in the bath and surrounded by
mercury displaces a volume of the liquid metal whose weight is equal
to that of the apparatus supported. Thus a comparatively insignificant
quantity of mercury, say 2 cwt., serves to ensure the flotation of a
mass of over 3 tons. Certain differences exist between the type of
float usually constructed in France and those generally designed by
English engineers. In all cases provision is made for lowering the
mercury bath or raising the float and apparatus for examination.
Examples of mercury floats are shown in figs. 41, 42, 43 and Plate I.,
figs. 54 and 55.
[Illustration: FIG. 41.--Manora Point Apparatus and Lantern.]
_Multiform Apparatus._--In order to double the power to be obtained
from a single apparatus at stations where lights of exceptionally high
intensity are desired, the expedient of placing one complete lens
apparatus above another has sometimes been adopted, as at the Bishop
Rock (fig. 13), and at the Fastnet lighthouse in Ireland (Plate I.,
fig. 54). Triform and quadriform apparatus have also been erected in
Ireland; particulars of the Tory Island triform apparatus will be
found in table VII. The adoption of the multiform system involves the
use of lanterns of increased height.
_Twin Apparatus._--Another method of doubling the power of a light is
by mounting two complete and distinct optics side by side on the same
revolving table, as I shown in fig. 43 of the Île Vierge apparatus.
Several such lights have been installed by the French Lighthouse
Service.
_Port Lights._--Small self-contained lanterns and lights are in common
use for marking the entrances to harbours and in other similar
positions where neither high power nor long range is requisite. Many
such lights are unattended in the sense that they do not require the
attention of a keeper for days and even weeks together. These are
described in more detail in section 6 of this article. A typical port
light consists of a copper or brass lantern containing a lens of the
fourth order (250 mm. focal distance) or smaller, and a single wick or
2-wick Argand capillary burner. Duplex burners are also used. The
apparatus may exhibit a fixed light or, more usually, an occulting
characteristic is produced by the revolution of screens actuated by
spring clockwork around the burner. The lantern may be placed at the
top of a column, or suspended from the head of a mast. Coal gas and
electricity are also used as illuminants for port lights when local
supplies are available. The optical apparatus used in connexion with
electric light is described below.
_"Orders" of Apparatus._--Augustin Fresnel divided the dioptric
lenses, designed by him, into "orders" or sizes depending on their
local distance. This division is still used, although two additional
"orders," known as "small third order" and "hyper-radial" respectively
are in ordinary use. The following table gives the principal
dimensions of the several sizes in use:--
TABLE II.
+-------------+---------+-------------------------------------+
| | | Vertical Angles of Optics. |
| | | (Ordinary Dimensions.) |
| | Focal +-------------+-----------------------+
| Order. |Distance,| | Holophotal Optics. |
| | mm. | Dioptric +-------+-------+-------+
| | | Belt only. | Lower | Lens. | Upper |
| | | |Prisms.| |Prisms.|
+-------------+---------+-------------+-------+-------+-------+
| Hyper-Radial| 1330 | 80° | 21° | 57° | 48° |
| 1st order | 920 |92°, 80°, 58°| 21° | 57° | 48° |
| 2nd " | 700 | 80° | 21° | 57° | 48° |
| 3rd " | 500 | 80° | 21° | 57° | 48° |
| Small 3rd | | | | | |
| order | 375 | 80° | 21° | 57° | 48° |
| 4th order | 250 | 80° | 21° | 57° | 48° |
| 5th " | 187.5 | 80° | 21° | 57° | 48° |
| 6th " | 150 | 80° | 21° | 57° | 48° |
+-------------+---------+-------------+-------+-------+-------+
Lenses of small focal distance are also made for buoy and beacon
lights.
[Illustration: FIG. 42.--Cape Naturaliste Apparatus.]
[Illustration: FIG. 43.--Île Vierge Apparatus.]
_Light Intensities._--The powers of lighthouse lights in the British
Empire are expressed in terms of standard candles or in "lighthouse
units" (one lighthouse unit = 1000 standard candles). In France the
unit is the "Carcel" = .952 standard candle. The powers of burners and
optical apparatus, then in use in the United Kingdom, were carefully
determined by actual photometric measurement in 1892 by a committee
consisting of the engineers of the three general lighthouse boards,
and the values so obtained are used as the basis for calculating the
intensities of all British lights. It was found that the intensities
determined by photometric measurement were considerably less than the
values given by the theoretical calculations formerly employed. A
deduction of 20% was made from the mean experimental results obtained
to compensate for loss by absorption in the lantern glass, variations
in effects obtained by different men in working the burners and in the
illuminating quality of oils, &c. The resulting reduced values are
termed "service" intensities.
As has been explained above, the effect of a dioptric apparatus is to
condense the light rays, and the measure of this condensation is the
ratio between the vertical divergence and the vertical angle of the
optic in the case of fixed lights. In flashing lights the ratio of
vertical condensation must be multiplied by the ratio between the
horizontal divergence and the horizontal angle of the panel. The loss
of light by absorption in passing through the glass and by refraction
varies from 10% to 15%. For apparatus containing catadioptric elements
a larger deduction must be made.
The intensity of the flash emitted from a dioptric apparatus, showing
a white light, may be found approximately by the empirical formula I =
PCVH/vh, where I = intensity of resultant beam, P = service intensity
of flame, V = vertical angle of optic, v = angle of mean vertical
divergence, H = horizontal angle of panel, h = angle of mean
horizontal divergence, and C = constant varying between .9 and .75
according to the description of apparatus. The factor H/h must be
eliminated in the case of fixed lights. Deduction must also be made in
the case of coloured lights. It should, however, be pointed out that
photometric measurements alone can be relied upon to give accurate
values for lighthouse intensities. The values obtained by the use of
Allard's formulae, which were largely used before the necessity for
actual photometric measurements came to be appreciated, are
considerably in excess of the true intensities.
[Illustration: FIG. 43A.--Île Vierge Apparatus and Lantern. Plan at
focal plane.]
_Optical Calculations._--The mathematical theory of optical apparatus
for lighthouses and formulae for the calculations of profiles will be
found in the works of the Stevensons, Chance, Allard, Reynaud, Ribière
and others. Particulars of typical lighthouse apparatus will be found
in tables VI. and VII.
4. ILLUMINANTS.--The earliest form of illuminant used for lighthouses
was a fire of coal or wood set in a brazier or grate erected on top of
the lighthouse tower. Until the end of the 18th and even into the 19th
century this primitive illuminant continued to be almost the only one in
use. The coal fire at the Isle of May light continued until 1810 and
that at St Bees lighthouse in Cumberland till 1823. Fires are stated to
have been used on the two towers of Nidingen, in the Kattegat, until
1846. Smeaton was the first to use any form of illuminant other than
coal fires; he placed within the lantern of his Eddystone lighthouse a
chandelier holding 24 tallow candles each of which weighed 2/5 of a
lb. and emitted a light of 2.8 candle power. The aggregate illuminating
power was 67.2 candles and the consumption at the rate of 3.4 lb. per
hour.
_Oil._--Oil lamps with flat wicks were used in the Liverpool
lighthouses as early as 1763. Argand, between 1780 and 1783, perfected
his cylindrical wick lamp which provides a central current of air
through the burner, thus allowing the more perfect combustion of the
gas issuing from the wick. The contraction in the diameter of the
glass chimney used with wick lamps is due to Lange, and the principle
of the multiple wick burner was devised by Count Rumford. Fresnel
produced burners having two, three and four concentric wicks. Sperm
oil, costing 5s. to 8s. per gallon, was used in English lighthouses
until 1846, but about that year colza oil was employed generally at a
cost of 2s. 9d. per gallon. Olive oil, lard oil and coconut oil have
also been used for lighthouse purposes in various parts of the world.
_Mineral Oil Burners._--The introduction of mineral oil, costing a
mere fraction of the expensive animal and vegetable oils,
revolutionized the illumination of lighthouses. It was not until 1868
that a burner was devised which successfully consumed hydrocarbon
oils. This was a multiple wick burner invented by Captain Doty. The
invention was quickly taken advantage of by lighthouse authorities,
and the "Doty" burner, and other patterns involving the same
principle, remained practically the only oil burners in lighthouse use
until the last few years of the 19th century.
The lamps used for supplying oil to the burner are of two general
types, viz. those in which the oil is maintained under pressure by
mechanical action and constant level lamps. In the case of single
wick, and some 2-wick burners, oil is supplied to the burner by the
capillary action of the wick alone.
The mineral oils ordinarily in use are petroleum, which for lighthouse
purposes should have a specific gravity of from .820 to .830 at 60° F.
and flashing point of not less than 230° F. (Abel close test), and
Scottish shale oil or paraffin with a specific gravity of about .810
at 60° F. and flash point of 140° to 165° F. Both these varieties may
be obtained in England at a cost of about 6½d. per gallon in bulk.
_Coal Gas_ had been introduced in 1837 at the inner pier light of
Troon (Ayrshire) and in 1847 it was in use at the Heugh lighthouse
(West Hartlepool). In 1878 cannel coal gas was adopted for the Galley
Head lighthouse, with 108-jet Wigham burners. Sir James Douglass
introduced gas burners consisting of concentric rings, two to ten in
number, perforated on the upper edges. These give excellent results
and high intensity, 2600 candles in the case of the 10-ring burner
with a flame diameter at the focal plane of 5(5/8) in. They are still
in use at certain stations. The use of multiple ring and jet gas
burners is not being further extended. Gas for lighthouse purposes
generally requires to be specially made; the erection of gas works at
the station is thus necessitated and a considerable outlay entailed
which is avoided by the use of oil as an illuminant.
_Incandescent Coal Gas Burners._--The invention of the Welsbach mantle
placed at the disposal of the lighthouse authorities the means of
producing a light of high intensity combined with great focal
compactness. For lighthouse purposes other gaseous illuminants than
coal gas are as a rule more convenient and economical, and give better
results with incandescent mantles. Mantles have, however, been used
with ordinary coal gas in many instances where a local supply is
available.
[Illustration: FIG. 44.--"Chance" Incandescent Oil Burner, with 85 mm.
diameter mantle.]
_Incandescent Mineral Oil Burners._--Incandescent lighting with
high-flash mineral oil was first introduced by the French Lighthouse
Service in 1898 at L'Île Penfret lighthouse. The burners employed are
all made on the same principle, but differ slightly in details
according to the type of lighting apparatus for which they are
intended. The principle consists in injecting the liquid petroleum in
the form of spray mixed with air into a vaporizer heated by the mantle
flame or by a subsidiary heating burner. A small reservoir of
compressed air is used--charged by means of a hand pump--for providing
the necessary pressure for injection. On first ignition the vaporizer
is heated by a spirit flame to the required temperature. A reservoir
air pressure of 125 lb. per sq. in. is employed, a reducing valve
supplying air to the oil at from 60 to 65 lb. per sq. in. Small
reservoirs containing liquefied carbon dioxide have also been employed
for supplying the requisite pressure to the oil vessel.
The candle-power of apparatus in which ordinary multiple wick burners
were formerly employed is increased by over 300% by the substitution
of suitable incandescent oil burners. In 1902 incandescent oil burners
were adopted by the general lighthouse authorities in the United
Kingdom. The burners used in the Trinity House Service and some of
those made in France have the vaporizers placed over the flame. In
other forms, of which the "Chance" burner (fig. 44) is a type, the
vaporization is effected by means of a subsidiary burner placed under
the main flame.
Particulars of the sizes of burner in ordinary use are given in the
following table.
+--------------------+------------------+-------------------+
| Diameter of Mantle.|Service Intensity.|Consumption of oil.|
| | | Pints per hour. |
+--------------------+------------------+-------------------+
| 35 mm. | 600 candles. | .50 |
| 55 mm. | 1200 " | 1.00 |
| 85 mm. | 2150 " | 2.25 |
|Triple mantle 50 mm.| 3300 " | 3.00 |
+--------------------+------------------+-------------------+
The intrinsic brightness of incandescent burners generally may be
taken as being equivalent to from 30 candles to 40 candles per sq. cm.
of the vertical section of the incandescent mantle.
In the case of wick burners, the intrinsic brightness varies,
according to the number of wicks and the type of burner from about 3.5
candles to about 12 candles per sq. cm., the value being at its
maximum with the larger type of burner. The luminous intensity of a
beam from a dioptric apparatus is, _ceteris paribus_, proportional to
the intrinsic brightness of the luminous source of flame, and not of
the total luminous intensity. The intrinsic brightness of the flame of
oil burners increases only slightly with their focal diameter,
consequently while the consumption of oil increases the efficiency of
the burner for a given apparatus decreases. The illuminating power of
the condensed beam can only be improved to a slight extent, and, in
fact, is occasionally decreased, by increasing the number of wicks in
the burner. The same argument applies to the case of multiple ring and
multiple jet gas burners which, notwithstanding their large total
intensity, have comparatively small intrinsic brightness. The economy
of the new system is instanced by the case of the Eddystone bi-form
apparatus, which with the concentric 6-wick burner consuming 2500
gals. of oil per annum, gave a total intensity of 79,250 candles.
Under the new régime the intensity is 292,000 candles, the oil
consumption being practically halved.
_Incandescent Oil Gas Burners._--It has been mentioned that
incandescence with low-pressure coal gas produces flames of
comparatively small intrinsic brightness. Coal gas cannot be
compressed beyond a small extent without considerable injurious
condensation and other accompanying evils. Recourse has therefore been
had to compressed oil gas, which is capable of undergoing compression
to 10 or 12 atmospheres with little detriment, and can conveniently be
stored in portable reservoirs. The burner employed resembles the
ordinary Bunsen burner with incandescent mantle, and the rate of
consumption of gas is 27.5 cub. in. per hour per candle. A reducing
valve is used for supplying the gas to the burner at constant
pressure. The burners can be left unattended for considerable periods.
The system was first adopted in France, where it is installed at eight
lighthouses, among others the Ar'men Rock light, and has been extended
to other parts of the world including several stations in Scotland and
England. The mantles used in France are of 35 mm. diameter. The 35 mm.
mantle gives a candle-power of 400, with an intrinsic brightness of 20
candles per sq. cm.
The use of oil gas necessitates the erection of gas works at the
lighthouse or its periodical supply in portable reservoirs from a
neighbouring station. A complete gas works plant costs about £800. The
annual expenditure for gas lighting in France does not exceed £72 per
light where works are installed, or £32 where gas is supplied from
elsewhere. In the case of petroleum vapour lighting the annual cost of
oil amounts to about £26 per station.
_Acetylene._--The high illuminating power and intrinsic brightness of
the flame of acetylene makes it a very suitable illuminant for
lighthouses and beacons, providing certain difficulties attending its
use can be overcome. At Grangemouth an unattended 21-day beacon has
been illuminated by an acetylene flame for some years with
considerable success, and a beacon light designed to run unattended
for six months was established on Bedout Island in Western Australia
in 1910. Acetylene has also been used in the United States, Germany,
the Argentine, China, Canada, &c., for lighthouse and beacon
illumination. Many buoys and beacons on the German and Dutch coasts
have been supplied with oil gas mixed with 20% of acetylene, thereby
obtaining an increase of over 100% in illuminating intensity. In
France an incandescent burner consuming acetylene gas mixed with air
has been installed at the Chassiron lighthouse (1902). The French
Lighthouse Service has perfected an incandescent acetylene burner with
a 55 mm. mantle having an intensity of over 2000 candle-power, with
intrinsic brightness of 60 candles per sq. cm.
_Electricity._--The first installation of electric light for
lighthouse purposes in England took place in 1858 at the South
Foreland, where the Trinity House established a temporary plant for
experimental purposes. This installation was followed in 1862 by the
adoption of the illuminant at the Dungeness lighthouse, where it
remained in service until the year 1874 when oil was substituted for
electricity. The earliest of the permanent installations now existing
in England is that at Souter Point which was illuminated in 1871.
There are in England four important coast lights illuminated by
electricity, and one, viz. Isle of May, in Scotland. Of the former St
Catherine's, in the Isle of Wight, and the Lizard are the most
powerful. Electricity was substituted as an illuminant for the then
existing oil light at St Catherine's in 1888. The optical apparatus
consisted of a second-order 16-sided revolving lens, which was
transferred to the South Foreland station in 1904, and a new second
order (700 mm.) four-sided optic with a vertical angle of 139°,
exhibiting a flash of .21 second duration every 5 seconds substituted
for it. A fixed holophote is placed inside the optic in the dark or
landward arc, and at the focal plane of the lamp. This holophote
condenses the rays from the arc falling upon it into a pencil of small
angle, which is directed horizontally upon a series of reflecting
prisms which again bend the light and throw it downwards through an
aperture in the lantern floor on to another series of prisms, which
latter direct the rays seaward in the form of a sector of fixed red
light at a lower level in the tower. A somewhat similar arrangement
exists at Souter Point lighthouse.
The apparatus installed at the Lizard in 1903 is similar to that at St
Catherine's, but has no arrangement for producing a subsidiary sector
light. The flash is of .13 seconds duration every 3 seconds. The
apparatus replaced the two fixed electric lights erected in 1878.
[Illustration: FIG. 45.--Isle of May Apparatus.]
The Isle of May lighthouse, at the mouth of the Firth of Forth, was
first illuminated by electricity in 1886. The optical apparatus
consists of a second-order fixed-light lens with reflecting prisms,
and is surrounded by a revolving system of vertical condensing prisms
which split up the vertically condensed beam of light into 8 separate
beams of 3° in azimuth. The prisms are so arranged that the apparatus,
making one complete revolution in the minute, produces a group
characteristic of 4 flashes in quick succession every 30 seconds (fig.
45). The fixed light is not of the ordinary Fresnel section, the
refracting portion being confined to an angle of 10°, and the
remainder of the vertical section consisting of reflecting prisms.
In France the old south lighthouse at La Hève was lit by electricity
in 1863. This installation was followed in 1865 by a similar one at
the north lighthouse. In 1910 there were thirteen important coast
lights in France illuminated by electricity. In other parts of the
world, Macquarie lighthouse, Sydney, was lit by electricity in 1883;
Tino, in the gulf of Spezia, in 1885; and Navesink lighthouse, near
the entrance to New York Bay, in 1898. Electric apparatus were also
installed at the lighthouse at Port Said in 1869, on the opening of
the canal; Odessa in 1871; and at the Rothersand, North Sea, in 1885.
There are several other lights in various parts of the world
illuminated by this agency.
Incandescent electric lighting has been adopted for the illumination
of certain light-vessels in the United States, and a few small harbour
and port lights, beacons and buoys.
Table VI. gives particulars of some of the more important electric
lighthouses of the world.
_Electric Lighthouse Installations in France._--A list of the thirteen
lighthouses on the French coast equipped with electric light
installations will be found in table VI. It has been already mentioned
that the two lighthouses at La Hève were lit by electric light in 1863
and 1865. These installations were followed within a few years by the
establishment of electricity as illuminant at Gris-Nez. In 1882 M.
Allard, the then director-general of the French Lighthouse Service,
prepared a scheme for the electric lighting of the French littoral by
means of 46 lights distributed more or less uniformly along the
coast-line. All the apparatus were to be of the same general type, the
optics consisting of a fixed belt of 300 mm. focal distance, around
the outside of which revolved a system of 24 faces of vertical lenses.
These vertical panels condensed the belt of fixed light into beams of
3° amplitude in azimuth, producing flashes of about ¾ sec. duration.
To illuminate the near sea the vertical divergence of the lower prisms
of the fixed belt was artificially increased. These optics are very
similar to that in use at the Souter Point lighthouse, Sunderland. The
intensities obtained were 120,000 candles in the case of fixed lights
and 900,000 candles with flashing lights. As a result of a nautical
inquiry held in 1886, at which date the lights of Dunkerque, Calais,
Gris-Nez, La Canche, Baleines and Planier had been lighted, in
addition to the old apparatus at La Hève, it was decided to limit the
installation of electrical apparatus to important landfall lights--a
decision which the Trinity House had already arrived at in the case of
the English coast--and to establish new apparatus at six stations
only. These were Créac'h d'Ouessant (Ushant), Belle-Île, La Coubre at
the mouth of the river Gironde, Barfleur, Île d'Yeu and Penmarc'h. At
the same time it was determined to increase the powers of the existing
electric lights. The scheme as amended in 1886 was completed in
1902.[2]
All the electrically lit apparatus, in common with other optics
established in France since 1893, have been provided with mercury
rotation. The most recent electric lights have been constructed in the
form of twin apparatus, two complete and distinct optics being mounted
side by side upon the same revolving table and with corresponding
faces parallel. It is found that a far larger aggregate candle-power
is obtained from two lamps with 16 mm. to 23 mm. diameter carbons and
currents of 60 to 120 amperes than with carbons and currents of larger
dimensions in conjunction with single optics of greater focal
distance. A somewhat similar circumstance led to the choice of the
twin form for the two very powerful non-electric apparatus at Île
Vierge (figs. 43 and 43A) and Ailly, particulars of which will be seen
in table VII.
Several of the de Meritens magneto-electric machines of 5.5 K.W., laid
down many years ago at French electric lighthouse stations, are still
in use. All these machines have five induction coils, which, upon the
installation of the twin optics, were separated into two distinct
circuits, each consisting of 2½ coils. This modification has enabled
the old plants to be used with success under the altered conditions of
lighting entailed by the use of two lamps. The generators adopted in
the French service for use at the later stations differ materially
from the old type of de Meritens machine. The Phare d'Eckmühl
(Penmarc'h) installation serves as a type of the more modern
machinery. The dynamos are alternating current two-phase machines, and
are installed in duplicate. The two lamps are supplied with current
from the same machine, the second dynamo being held in reserve. The
speed is 810 to 820 revolutions per minute.
The lamp generally adopted is a combination of the Serrin and Berjot
principles, with certain modifications. Clockwork mechanism with a
regulating electromagnet moves the rods simultaneously and controls
the movements of the carbons so that they are displaced at the same
rate as they are consumed. It is usual to employ currents of varying
power with carbons of corresponding dimensions according to the
atmospheric conditions. In the French service two variations are used
in the case of twin apparatus produced by currents of 60 and 120
amperes at 45 volts with carbons 14 mm. and 18 mm. diameter, while in
single optic apparatus currents of 25, 50 and 100 amperes are utilized
with carbon of 11 mm., 16 mm. and 23 mm. diameter. In England fluted
carbons of larger diameter are employed with correspondingly increased
current. Alternating currents have given the most successful results
in all respects. Attempts to utilize continuous current for lighthouse
arc lights have, up to the present, met with little success.
The cost of a first-class electric lighthouse installation of the most
recent type in France, including optical apparatus, lantern, dynamos,
engines, air compressor, siren, &c., but not buildings, amounts
approximately to £5900.
_Efficiency of the Electric Light._--In 1883 the lighthouse
authorities of Great Britain determined that an exhaustive series of
experiments should be carried out at the South Foreland with a view to
ascertaining the relative suitability of electricity, gas and oil as
lighthouse illuminants. The experiments extended over a period of more
than twelve months, and were attended by representatives of the chief
lighthouse authorities of the world. The results of the trials tended
to show that the rays of oil and gas lights suffered to about equal
extent by atmospheric absorption, but that oil had the advantage over
gas by reason of its greater economy in cost of maintenance and in
initial outlay on installation. The electric light was found to suffer
to a much larger extent than either oil or gas light per unit of power
by atmospheric absorption, but the infinitely greater total intensity
of the beam obtainable by its use, both by reason of the high luminous
intensity of the electric arc and its focal compactness, more than
outweighed the higher percentage of loss in fog. The final conclusion
of the committee on the relative merits of electricity, gas or oil as
lighthouse illuminants is given in the following words: "That for
ordinary necessities of lighthouse illumination, mineral oil is the
most suitable and economical illuminant, and that for salient
headlands, important landfalls, and places where a very powerful light
is required electricity offers the greater advantages."
5. MISCELLANEOUS LIGHTHOUSE EQUIPMENT. _Lanterns._--Modern lighthouse
lanterns usually consist of a cast iron or steel pedestal, cylindrical
in plan, on which is erected the lantern glazing, surmounted by a
domed roof and ventilator (fig. 41). Adequate ventilation is of great
importance, and is provided by means of ventilators in the pedestal
and a large ventilating dome or cowl in the roof. The astragals
carrying the glazing are of wrought steel or gun-metal. The astragals
are frequently arranged helically or diagonally, thus causing a
minimum of obstruction to the light rays in any vertical section and
affording greater rigidity to the structure. The glazing is usually
¼-in. thick plate-glass curved to the radius of the lantern. In
situations of great exposure the thickness is increased. Lantern roofs
are of sheet steel or copper secured to steel or cast-iron rafter
frames. In certain instances it is found necessary to erect a grille
or network outside the lantern to prevent the numerous sea birds,
attracted by the light, from breaking the glazing by impact. Lanterns
vary in diameter from 5 ft. to 16 ft. or more, according to the size
of the optical apparatus. For first order apparatus a diameter of 12
ft. or 14 ft. is usual.
_Lightning Conductors._--The lantern and principal metallic structures
in a lighthouse are usually connected to a lightning conductor carried
either to a point below low water or terminating in an earth plate
embedded in wet ground. Conductors may be of copper tape or
copper-wire rope.
_Rotating Machinery._--Flashing-light apparatus are rotated by
clockwork mechanism actuated by weights. The clocks are fitted with
speed governors and electric warning apparatus to indicate variation
in speed and when rewinding is required. For occulting apparatus
either weight clocks or spring clocks are employed.
_Accommodation for Keepers, &c._--At rock and other isolated stations,
accommodation for the keepers is usually provided in the towers. In
the case of land lighthouses, dwellings are provided in close
proximity to the tower. The service or watch room should be situated
immediately under the lantern floor. Oil is usually stored in
galvanized steel tanks. A force pump is sometimes used for pumping oil
from the storage tanks to a service tank in the watch-room or lantern.
6. UNATTENDED LIGHTS AND BEACONS.--Until recent years no unattended
lights were in existence. The introduction of Pintsch's gas system in
the early 'seventies provided a means of illumination for beacons and
buoys of which large use has been made. Other illuminants are also in
use to a considerable extent.
_Unattended Electric Lights._--In 1884 an iron beacon lighted by an
incandescent lamp supplied with current from a secondary battery was
erected on a tidal rock near Cadiz. A 28-day clock was arranged for
eclipsing the light between sunrise and sunset and automatically
cutting off the current at intervals to produce an occulting
characteristic. Several small dioptric apparatus illuminated with
incandescent electric lamps have been made by the firm of Barbier
Bénard et Turenne of Paris, and supplied with current from batteries
of Daniell cells, with electric clockwork mechanism for occulting the
light. These apparatus have been fitted to beacons and buoys, and are
generally arranged to automatically switch off the current during the
day-time. They run unattended for periods up to two months. Two
separate lenses and lamps are usually provided, with lamp changer,
only one lamp being in circuit at a time. In the event of failure in
the upper lamp of the two the current automatically passes to the
lower lamp.
[Illustration: FIG. 46.--Garvel Beacon.]
_Oil-gas Beacons._--In 1881 a beacon automatically lighted by
Pintsch's compressed oil gas was erected on the river Clyde, and large
numbers of these structures have since been installed in all parts of
the world. The gas is contained in an iron or steel reservoir placed
within the beacon structure, refilled by means of a flexible hose on
the occasions of the periodical visits of the tender. The beacons,
which remain illuminated for periods up to three months are charged to
7 atmospheres. Many lights are provided with occulting apparatus
actuated by the gas passing from the reservoir to the burner
automatically cutting off and turning on the supply. The Garvel beacon
(1899) on the Clyde is shown in fig. 46. The burner has 7 jets, and
the light is occulting. Since 1907 incandescent mantle burners for oil
gas have been largely used for beacon illumination, both for fixed and
occulting lights.
Acetylene has also been used for the illumination of beacons and other
unattended lights.
_Lindberg Lights._--In 1881-1882 several beacons lighted automatically
by volatile petroleum spirit on the Lindberg-Lyth and Lindberg-Trotter
systems were established in Sweden. Many lights of this type have
subsequently been placed in different parts of the world. The volatile
spirit lamp burns day and night. Occultations are produced by a screen
or series of screens rotated round the light by the ascending current
of heated air and gases from the lamp acting upon a horizontal fan.
The speed of rotation of the fan cannot be accurately adjusted, and
the times of occultation therefore are liable to slight variation. The
lights run unattended for periods up to twenty-one days.
_Benson-Lee Lamps._--An improvement upon the foregoing is the
Benson-Lee lamp, in which a similar occulting arrangement is often
used, but the illuminant is paraffin consumed in a special burner
having carbon-tipped wicks which require no trimming. The flame
intensity of the light is greater than that of the burner consuming
light spirit. The introduction of paraffin also avoids the danger
attending the use of the more volatile spirit. Many of these lights
are in use on the Scottish coast. They are also used in other parts of
the United Kingdom, and in the United States, Canada and other
countries.
_Permanent Wick Lights._--About 1891 the French Lighthouse Service
introduced petroleum lamps consuming ordinary high-flash lighthouse
oil, and burning without attention for periods of several months. The
burners are of special construction, provided with a very thick wick
which is in the first instance treated in such a manner as to cause
the formation of a deposit of carbonized tar on its exposed upper
surface. This crust prevents further charring of the wick after
ignition, the oil becoming vaporized from the under side of the crust.
Many fixed, occulting and flashing lights fitted with these burners
are established in France and other countries. In the case of the
occulting types a revolving screen is placed around the burner and
carried upon a miniature mercury float. The rotation is effected by
means of a small Gramme motor on a vertical axis, fitted with a speed
governor, and supplied with current from a battery of primary cells.
The oil reservoir is placed in the upper part of the lantern and
connected with the burner by a tube, to which is fitted a constant
level regulator for maintaining the burning level of the oil at a
fixed height. In the flashing or revolving light types the arrangement
is generally similar, the lenses being revolved upon a mercury float
which is rotated by the electric motor. The flashing apparatus
established at St Marcouf in 1901 has a beam intensity of 1000
candle-power, and is capable of running unattended for three months.
The electric current employed for rotating the apparatus is supplied
by four Lalande and Chaperon primary cells, coupled in series, each
giving about 0.15 ampere at a voltage of 0.65. The power required to
work the apparatus is at the maximum about 0.165 ampere at 0.75 volt,
the large surplus of power which is provided for the sake of safety
being absorbed by a brake or governor connected with the motor.
_Wigham Beacon Lights._--Wigham introduced an oil lamp for beacon and
buoy purposes consisting of a vertical container filled with ordinary
mineral oil or paraffin, and carrying a roller immediately under the
burner case over which a long flat wick passes. One end of the wick is
attached to a float which falls in the container as the oil is
consumed, automatically drawing a fresh portion of the wick over the
roller. The other end of the wick is attached to a free counterweight
which serves to keep it stretched. The oil burns from the convex
surface of the wick as it passes over the roller, a fresh portion
being constantly passed under the action of the flame. The light is
capable of burning without attention for thirty days. These lights are
also fitted with occulting screens on the Lindberg system. The
candle-power of the flame is small.
7. LIGHT-VESSELS.--The earliest light-vessel placed in English waters
was that at the Nore in 1732. The early light-ships were of small size
and carried lanterns of primitive construction and small size
suspended from the yard-arms. Modern light-vessels are of steel, wood
or composite construction. Steel is now generally employed in new
ships. The wood and composite ships are sheathed with Muntz metal. The
dimensions of English light-vessels vary. The following may be taken
as the usual limits:
Length 80 ft. to 114 ft.
Beam 20 ft. to 24 ft.
Depth moulded 13 ft. to 15 ft. 6 in.
Tonnage 155 to 280.
The larger vessels are employed at outside and exposed stations, the
smaller ships being stationed in sheltered positions and in estuaries.
The moorings usually consist of 3-ton mushroom anchors and 1(5/8) open
link cables. The lanterns in common use are 8 ft. in diameter,
circular in form, with glazing 4 ft. in height. They are annular in
plan, surrounding the mast of the vessel upon which they are hoisted
for illumination, and are lowered to the deck level during the day.
Fixed lanterns mounted on hollow steel masts are now being used in
many services, and are gradually displacing the older type. The first
English light-vessel so equipped was constructed in 1904. Of the 87
light-vessels in British waters, including unattended light-vessels,
eleven are in Ireland and six in Scotland. At the present time there
are over 750 light-vessels in service throughout the world.
Until about 1895 the illuminating apparatus used in light-vessels was
exclusively of catoptric form, usually consisting of 21 in. or 24 in.
silvered parabolic reflectors, having 1, 2 or 3-wick mineral oil
burners in focus. The reflectors and lamps are hung in gimbals to
preserve the horizontal direction of the beams.
The following table gives the intensity of beam obtained by means of a
type of reflector in general use:
_21-in. Trinity House Parabolic Reflector_
Service Intensity
of Beam.
Burners 1 wick "Douglass" 2715 candles
" 2 " (Catoptric) 4004 "
" 2 " (Dioptric) 6722 "
" 3 " 7528 "
In revolving flashing lights two or more reflectors are arranged in
parallel in each face. Three, four or more faces or groups of
reflectors are arranged around the lantern in which they revolve, and
are carried upon a turn-table rotated by clockwork. The intensity of
the flashing beam is therefore equivalent to the combined intensities
of the beams emitted by the several reflectors in each face. The first
light-vessel with revolving light was placed at the Swin Middle at the
entrance to the Thames in 1837. Group-flashing characteristics can be
produced by special arrangements of the reflectors. Dioptric apparatus
is now being introduced in many new vessels, the first to be so fitted
in England being that stationed at the Swin Middle in 1905, the
apparatus of which is gas illuminated and gives a flash of 25,000
candle-power.
Fog signals, when provided on board light-vessels are generally in the
form of reed-horns or sirens, worked by compressed air. The
compressors are driven from steam or oil engines. The cost of a modern
type of English light-vessel, with power-driven compressed air siren,
is approximately £16,000.
In the United States service, the more recently constructed vessels
have a displacement of 600 tons, each costing £18,000. They are
provided with self-propelling power and steam whistle fog signals. The
illuminating apparatus is usually in the form of small dioptric lens
lanterns suspended at the mast-head--3 or more to each mast, but a few
of the ships, built since 1907, are provided with fourth-order
revolving dioptric lights in fixed lanterns. There are 53
light-vessels in service on the coasts of the United States with 13
reserve ships.
_Electrical Illumination._--An experimental installation of the
electric light placed on board a Mersey light-vessel in 1886 by the
Mersey Docks and Harbour Board proved unsuccessful. The United States
Lighthouse Board in 1892 constructed a light-vessel provided with a
powerful electric light, and moored her on the Cornfield Point station
in Long Island Sound. This vessel was subsequently placed off Sandy
Hook (1894) and transferred to the Ambrose Channel Station in 1907.
Five other light-vessels in the United States have since been provided
with incandescent electric lights--either with fixed or occulting
characteristics--including Nantucket Shoals (1896), Fire Island
(1897), Diamond Shoals (1898), Overfalls Shoal (1901) and San
Francisco (1902).
_Gas Illumination._--In 1896 the French Lighthouse Service completed
the construction of a steel light-vessel (Talais), which was
ultimately placed at the mouth of the Gironde. The construction of
this vessel was the outcome of experiments carried out with a view to
produce an efficient light-vessel at moderate cost, lit by a dioptric
flashing light with incandescent oil-gas burner. The construction of
the Talais was followed by that of a second and larger vessel, the
Snouw, on similar lines, having a length of 65 ft. 6 in., beam 20 ft.
and a draught of 12 ft., with a displacement of 130 tons. The cost of
this vessel complete with optical apparatus and gasholders, with
accommodation for three men, was approximately £5000. The vessel was
built in 1898-1899.[3] A third vessel was constructed in 1901-1902 for
the Sandettié Bank on the general lines adopted for the preceding
examples of her class, but of the following increased dimensions:
length 115 ft.; width at water-line 20 ft. 6 in.; and draught 15 ft.,
with a displacement of 342 tons (fig. 47). Accommodation is provided
for a crew of eight men. The optical apparatus (fig. 48) is dioptric,
consisting of 4 panels of 250 mm. focal distance, carried upon a
"Cardan" joint below the lens table, and counter-balanced by a heavy
pendulum weight. The apparatus is revolved by clockwork and
illuminated by compressed oil gas with incandescent mantle. The
candle-power of the beam is 35,000. The gas is contained in three
reservoirs placed in the hold. The apparatus is contained in a 6-ft.
lantern constructed at the head of a tubular mast 2 ft. 6 in.
diameter. A powerful siren is provided with steam engine and boiler
for working the air compressors. The total cost of the vessel,
including fog signal and optical apparatus, was £13,600. A vessel of
similar construction to the Talais was placed by the Trinity House in
1905 on the Swin Middle station. The illuminant is oil gas. Gas
illuminated light-vessels have also been constructed for the German
and Chinese Lighthouse Service.
_Unattended Light-vessels._--In 1881 an unattended light-vessel,
illuminated with Pintsch's oil gas, was constructed for the Clyde, and
is still in use at the Garvel Point. The light is occulting, and is
shown from a dioptric lens fitted at the head of a braced iron lattice
tower 30 ft. above water-level. The vessel is of iron, 40 ft. long, 12
ft. beam and 8 ft. deep, and has a storeholder on board containing oil
gas under a pressure of six atmospheres capable of maintaining a light
for three months. A similar vessel is placed off Calshot Spit in
Southampton Water, and several have been constructed for the French
and other Lighthouse Services. The French boats are provided with deep
main and bilge keels similar to those adopted in the larger gas
illuminated vessels. In 1901 a light-vessel 60 ft. in length was
placed off the Otter Rock on the west coast of Scotland; it is
constructed of steel, 24 ft. beam, 12 ft. deep and draws 9 ft. of
water (fig. 49). The focal plane is elevated 25 ft. above the
water-line, and the lantern is 6 ft. in diameter. The optical
apparatus is of 500 mm. focal distance and hung in gimbals with a
pendulum balance and "Cardan" joint as in the Sandettié light-vessel.
The illuminant is oil gas, with an occulting characteristic. The
storeholder contains 10,500 cub. ft. of gas at eight atmospheres,
sufficient to supply the light for ninety days and nights. A bell is
provided, struck by clappers moved by the roll of the vessel. The cost
of the vessel complete was £2979. The Northern Lighthouse
Commissioners have four similar vessels in service, and others have
been stationed in the Hugli estuary, at Bombay, off the Chinese coasts
and elsewhere. In 1909 an unattended gas illuminated light-vessel
provided with a dioptric flashing apparatus was placed at the Lune
Deep in Morecambe Bay. It is also fitted with a fog bell struck
automatically by a gas operated mechanism.
[Illustration: FIG. 47.--Sandettié Lightship.]
[Illustration: FIG. 48.--Lantern of Sandettié Lightship.]
_Electrical Communication of Light-vessels with the
Shore._--Experiments were instituted in 1886 at the Sunk light-vessel
off the Essex coast with the view to maintaining telephonic
communication with the shore by means of a submarine cable 9 m. in
length. Great difficulties were experienced in maintaining
communication during stormy weather, breakages in the cable being
frequent. These difficulties were subsequently partially overcome by
the employment of larger vessels and special moorings. Wireless
telegraphic installations have now (1910) superseded the cable
communications with light-vessels in English waters except in four
cases. Seven light-vessels, including the four off the Goodwin Sands,
are now fitted for wireless electrical communication with the shore.
In addition many pile lighthouses and isolated rock and island
stations have been placed in electrical communication with the shore
by means of cables or wireless telegraphy. The Fastnet lighthouse was,
in 1894, electrically connected with the shore by means of a
non-continuous cable, it being found impossible to maintain a
continuous cable in shallow water near the rock owing to the heavy
wash of the sea. A copper conductor, carried down from the tower to
below low-water mark, was separated from the cable proper, laid on the
bed of the sea in a depth of 13 fathoms, by a distance of about 100
ft. The lighthouse was similarly connected to earth on the opposite
side of the rock. The conductor terminated in a large copper plate,
and to the cable end was attached a copper mushroom. Weak currents
were induced in the lighthouse conductor by the main current in the
cable, and messages received in the tower by the help of electrical
relays. On the completion of the new tower on the Fastnet Rock in 1906
this installation was superseded by a wireless telegraphic
installation.
8. DISTRIBUTION AND DISTINCTION OF LIGHTS, &c.--_Methods of
Distinction._--The following are the various light characteristics which
may be exhibited to the mariner:--
_Fixed._--Showing a continuous or steady light. Seldom used in modern
lighthouses and generally restricted to small port or harbour lights. A
fixed light is liable to be confused with lights of shipping or other
shore lights.
_Flashing._[4]--Showing a single flash, the duration of darkness always
being greater than that of light. This characteristic or that
immediately following is generally adopted for important lights. The
French authorities have given the name _Feux-Eclair_ to flashing lights
of short duration.
_Group-Flashing._--Showing groups of two or more flashes in quick
succession (not necessarily of the same colour) separated by eclipses
with a larger interval of darkness between the groups.
_Fixed and Flashing._--Fixed light varied by a single white or coloured
flash, which may be preceded and followed by a short eclipse. This type
of light, in consequence of the unequal intensities of the beams, is
unreliable, and examples are now seldom installed although many are
still in service.
_Fixed and Group-Flashing._--Similar to the preceding and open to the
same objections.
_Revolving._--This term is still retained in the "Lists of Lights"
issued by the Admiralty and some other authorities to denote a light
gradually increasing to full effect, then decreasing to eclipse. At
short distances and in clear weather a faint continuous light may be
observed. There is no essential difference between revolving and
flashing lights, the distinction being merely due to the speed of
rotation, and the term might well be abandoned as in the United States
lighthouse list.
_Occulting._--A continuous light with, at regular intervals, one sudden
and total eclipse, the duration of light always being equal to or
greater than that of darkness. This characteristic is usually exhibited
by fixed dioptric apparatus fitted with some form of occulting
mechanism. Many lights formerly of fixed characteristic have been
converted to occulting.
_Group Occulting._--A continuous light with, at regular intervals,
groups of two or more sudden and total eclipses.
_Alternating._--Lights of different colours (generally red and white)
alternately without any intervening eclipse. This characteristic is not
to be recommended for reasons which have already been referred to. Many
of the permanent and unwatched lights on the coasts of Norway and Sweden
are of this description.
_Colour._--The colours usually adopted for lights are white, red and
green. White is to be preferred whenever possible, owing to the great
absorption of light by the use of red or green glass screens.
[Illustration: FIG. 49.--Otter Rock Light-vessel.]
_Sectors._--Coloured lights are often requisite to distinguish cuts or
sectors, and should be shown from fixed or occulting light apparatus and
not from flashing apparatus. In marking the passage through a channel,
or between sandbanks or other dangers, coloured light sectors are
arranged to cover the dangers, white light being shown over the fairway
with sufficient margin of safety between the edges of the coloured
sectors next the fairway and the dangers.
_Choice of Characteristic and Description of Apparatus._--In
determining the choice of characteristic for a light due regard must
be paid to existing lights in the vicinity. No light should be placed
on a coast line having a characteristic the same as, or similar to,
another in its neighbourhood unless one or more lights of dissimilar
characteristic, and at least as high power and range, intervene. In
the case of "landfall lights" the characteristic should differ from
any other within a range of 100 m. In narrow seas the distance between
lights of similar characteristic may be less. Landfall lights are, in
a sense, the most important of all and the most powerful apparatus
available should be installed at such stations. The distinctive
characteristic of a light should be such that it may be readily
determined by a mariner without the necessity of accurately timing the
period or duration of flashes. For landfall and other important coast
stations flashing dioptric apparatus of the first order (920 mm. focal
distance) with powerful burners are required. In countries where the
atmosphere is generally clear and fogs are less prevalent than on the
coasts of the United Kingdom, second or third order lights suffice for
landfalls having regard to the high intensities available by the use
of improved illuminants. Secondary coast lights may be of second,
third or fourth order of flashing character, and important harbour
lights of third or fourth order. Less important harbours and places
where considerable range is not required, as in estuaries and narrow
seas, may be lighted by flashing lights of fourth order or smaller
size. Where sectors are requisite, occulting apparatus should be
adopted for the main light; or subsidiary lights, fixed or occulting,
may be exhibited from the same tower as the main light but at a lower
level. In such cases the vertical distance between the high and the
low light must be sufficient to avoid commingling of the two beams at
any range at which both lights are visible. Such commingling or
blending is due to atmospheric aberration.
_Range of Lights._--The range of a light depends first on its
elevation above sea-level and secondly on its intensity. Most
important lights are of sufficient power to render them visible at the
full geographical range in clear weather. On the other hand there are
many harbour and other lights which do not meet this condition.
The distances given in lists of lights from which lights are
visible--except in the cases of lights of low power for the reason
given above--are usually calculated in nautical miles as seen from a
height of 15 ft. above sea-level, the elevation of the lights being
taken as above high water. Under certain atmospheric conditions, and
especially with the more powerful lights, the glare of the light may
be visible considerably beyond the calculated range.
TABLE III.--_Distances at which Objects can be seen at Sea,
according to their Respective Elevations and the Elevation of the
Eye of the Observer._ (A. Stevenson.)
+--------+------------+---------------------+
| |Distances in| |Distances in|
|Heights |Geographical|Heights |Geographical|
|in Feet.|or Nautical |in Feet.|or Nautical |
| | Miles. | | Miles. |
+--------+------------+--------+------------+
| 5 | 2.565 | 110 | 12.03 |
| 10 | 3.628 | 120 | 12.56 |
| 15 | 4.443 | 130 | 13.08 |
| 20 | 5.130 | 140 | 13.57 |
| 25 | 5.736 | 150 | 14.02 |
| 30 | 6.283 | 200 | 16.22 |
| 35 | 6.787 | 250 | 18.14 |
| 40 | 7.255 | 300 | 19.87 |
| 45 | 7.696 | 350 | 21.46 |
| 50 | 8.112 | 400 | 22.94 |
| 55 | 8.509 | 450 | 24.33 |
| 60 | 8.886 | 500 | 25.65 |
| 65 | 9.249 | 550 | 26.90 |
| 70 | 9.598 | 600 | 28.10 |
| 75 | 9.935 | 650 | 29.25 |
| 80 | 10.26 | 700 | 30.28 |
| 85 | 10.57 | 800 | 32.45 |
| 90 | 10.88 | 900 | 34.54 |
| 95 | 11.18 | 1000 | 36.28 |
| 100 | 11.47 | | |
+--------+------------+--------+------------+
EXAMPLE: A tower 200 ft. high will be visible 20.66 nautical miles
to an observer, whose eye is elevated 15 ft. above the water; thus,
from the table:
15 ft. elevation, distance visible 4.44 nautical miles
200 " " 16.22 "
-----
20.66 "
_Elevation of Lights._--The elevation of the light above sea-level
need not, in the case of landfall lights, exceed 200 ft., which is
sufficient to give a range of over 20 nautical miles. One hundred and
fifty feet is usually sufficient for coast lights. Lights placed on
high headlands are liable to be enveloped in banks of fog at times
when at a lower level the atmosphere is comparatively clear (e.g.
Beachy Head). No definite rule can, however, be laid down, and local
circumstances, such as configuration of the coast line, must be taken
into consideration in every case.
_Choice of Site._--"Landfall" stations should receive first
consideration and the choice of location for such a light ought never
to be made subservient to the lighting of the approaches to a port.
Subsidiary lights are available for the latter purpose. Lights
installed to guard shoals, reefs or other dangers should, when
practicable, be placed seaward of the danger itself, as it is
desirable that seamen should be able to "make" the light with
confidence. Sectors marking dangers seaward of the light should not
be employed except when the danger is in the near vicinity of the
light. Outlying dangers require marking by a light placed on the
danger or by a floating light in its vicinity.
[Illustration: FIG. 50.--Spar Gas Buoy.]
9. ILLUMINATED BUOYS.--_Gas Buoys._ Pintsch's oil gas has been in use
for the illumination of buoys since 1878. In 1883 an automatic
occulter was perfected, worked by the gas passing from the reservoir
to the burner. The lights placed on these buoys burn continuously for
three or more months. The buoys and lanterns are made in various forms
and sizes. The spar buoy (fig. 50) may be adopted for situations where
strong tides or currents prevail. Oil gas lights are frequently fitted
to Courtenay whistling (fig. 51) and bell buoys.
In the ordinary type of gas buoy lantern the burner employed is of the
multiple-jet, Argand ring, or incandescent type. Incandescent mantles
have been applied to buoy lights in France with successful results.
Since 1906, and more recently the same system of illumination has been
adopted in England and other countries. The lenses employed are of
cylindrical dioptric fixed-light form, usually 100 mm. to 300 mm.
diameter. Some of the largest types of gas-buoy in use on the French
coast have an elevation from water level to the focal plane of over 26
ft. with a beam intensity of more than 1000 candles. A large gas-buoy
with an elevation of 34 ft. to the focal plane was placed at the
entrance to the Gironde in 1907. It has an incandescent burner and
exhibits a light of over 1500 candles. Oil gas forms the most
trustworthy and efficient illuminant for buoy purposes yet introduced,
and the system has been largely adopted by lighthouse and harbour
authorities.
There are now over 2000 buoys fitted with oil gas apparatus, in
addition to 600 beacons, light-vessels and boats.
_Electric Lit Buoys._--Buoys have been fitted with electric light,
both fixed and occulting. Six electrically lit spar-buoys were laid
down in the Gedney channel, New York lower bay, in 1888. These were
illuminated by 100 candle-power Swan lamps with continuous current
supplied by cable from a power station on shore. The wear and tear of
the cables caused considerable trouble and expense. In 1895
alternating current was introduced. The installation was superseded by
gas lit buoys in 1904.
_Acetylene and Oil Lighted Buoys._--Acetylene has been extensively
employed for the lighting of buoys in Canada and in the United States;
to a less extent it has also been adopted in other countries. Both the
low pressure system, by which the acetylene gas is produced by an
automatic generator, and the so-called high pressure system in which
purified acetylene is held in solution in a high pressure gasholder
filled with asbestos composition saturated with acetone, have been
employed for illuminating buoys and beacons. Wigham oil lamps are also
used to a limited extent for buoy lighting.
_Bell Buoys._--One form of clapper actuated by the roll of the buoy
(shown in fig. 52) consists of a hardened steel ball placed in a
horizontal phosphor-bronze cylinder provided with rubber buffers.
Three of these cylinders are arranged around the mouth of the fixed
bell, which is struck by the balls rolling backwards and forwards as
the buoy moves. Another form of bell mechanism consists of a fixed
bell with three or more suspended clappers placed externally which
strike the bell when the buoy rolls.
[Illustration: FIG. 51.--Courtenay's Automatic Whistling Buoy.
A, Cylinder, 27 ft. 6 in. long.
B, Mooring shackle.
C, Rudder.
D, Buoy.
E, Diaphragm.
F, Ball valves.
G, Air inlet tubes.
H, Air (compressed outlet tube to whistle).
I, Compressed air inlet to buoy.
K, Manhole.
L, Steps.
N, Whistle.]
10. FOG SIGNALS.--The introduction of coast fog signals is of
comparatively recent date. They were, until the middle of the 19th
century, practically unknown except so far as a few isolated bells and
guns were concerned. The increasing demands of navigation, and the
application of steam power to the propulsion of ships resulting in an
increase of their speed, drew attention to the necessity of providing
suitable signals as aids to navigation during fog and mist. In times
of fog the mariner can expect no certain assistance from even the
most efficient system of coast lighting, since the beams of light from
the most powerful electric lighthouse are frequently entirely
dispersed and absorbed by the particles of moisture, forming a sea fog
of even moderate density, at a distance of less than a ¼ m. from the
shore. The careful experiments and scientific research which have been
devoted to the subject of coast fog-signalling have produced much that
is useful and valuable to the mariner, but unfortunately the practical
results so far have not been so satisfactory as might be desired,
owing to (1) the very short range of the most powerful signals yet
produced under certain unfavourable acoustic conditions of the
atmosphere, (2) the difficulty experienced by the mariner in judging
at any time how far the atmospheric conditions are against him in
listening for the expected signal, and (3) the difficulty in locating
the position of a sound signal by phonic observations.
[Illustration: FIG. 52.--Buoy Bell.]
_Bells and Gongs_ are the oldest and, generally speaking, the least
efficient forms of fog signals. Under very favourable acoustic
conditions the sounds are audible at considerable ranges. On the other
hand, 2-ton bells have been inaudible at distances of a few hundred
yards. The 1893 United States trials showed that a bell weighing 4000
lb. struck by a 450 lb. hammer was heard at a distance of 14 m. across
a gentle breeze and at over 9 m. against a 10-knot breeze. Bells are
frequently used for beacon and buoy signals, and in some cases at
isolated rock and other stations where there is insufficient
accommodation for sirens and horns, but their use is being gradually
discontinued in this country for situations where a powerful signal
is required. Gongs, usually of Chinese manufacture, were formerly in
use on board English light-ships and are still used to some extent
abroad. These are being superseded by more powerful sound instruments.
_Explosive Signals._--Guns were long used at many lighthouse and
light-vessel stations in England, and are still in use in Ireland and
at some foreign stations. These are being gradually displaced by other
explosive or compressed air signals. No explosive signals are in use
on the coasts of the United States. In 1878 sound rockets charged with
gun-cotton were first used at Flamborough Head and were afterwards
supplied to many other stations.[5] The nitrated gun-cotton or tonite
signals now in general use are made up in 4 oz. charges. These are
hung at the end of an iron jib or pole attached to the lighthouse
lantern or other structure, and fired by means of a detonator and
electric battery. The discharge may take place within 12 ft. of a
structure without danger. The cartridges are stored for a considerable
period without deterioration and with safety. This form of signal is
now very generally adopted for rock and other stations in Great
Britain, Canada, Newfoundland, northern Europe and other parts of the
world. An example will be noticed in the illustration of the Bishop
Rock lighthouse, attached to the lantern (fig. 13). Automatic hoisting
and firing appliances are also in use.
_Whistles._--Whistles, whether sounded by air or steam, are not used
in Great Britain, except in two instances of harbour signals under
local control. It has been objected that their sound has too great a
resemblance to steamers' whistles, and they are wasteful of power. In
the United States and Canada they are largely used. The whistle
usually employed consists of a metallic dome or bell against which the
high-pressure steam impinges. Rapid vibrations are set up both in the
metal of the bell and in the internal air, producing a shrill note.
The Courtenay buoy whistle, already referred to, is an American
invention and finds favour in the United States, France, Germany and
elsewhere.
_Reed-Horns._--These instruments in their original form were the
invention of C. L. Daboll, an experimental horn of his manufacture
being tried in 1851 by the United States Lighthouse Board. In 1862 the
Trinity House adopted the instrument for seven land and light-vessel
stations. For compressing air for the reed-horns as well as sirens,
caloric, steam, gas and oil engines have been variously used,
according to local circumstances. The reed-horn was improved by
Professor Holmes, and many examples from his designs are now in use in
England and America. At the Trinity House experiments with fog signals
at St Catherine's (1901) several types of reed-horn were experimented
with. The Trinity House service horn uses air at 15 lb. pressure with
a consumption of .67 cub. ft. per second and 397 vibrations. A small
manual horn of the Trinity House type consumes .67 cub. ft. of air at
5 lb. pressure. The trumpets of the latter are of brass.
_Sirens._--The most powerful and efficient of all compressed air fog
signals is the siren. The principle of this instrument may be briefly
explained as follows:--It is well known that if the tympanic membrane
is struck periodically and with sufficient rapidity by air impulses or
waves a musical sound is produced. Robinson was the first to construct
an instrument by which successive puffs of air under pressure were
ejected from the mouth of a pipe. He obtained this effect by using a
stop-cock revolving at high speed in such a manner that 720 pulsations
per second were produced by the intermittent escape of air through the
valves or ports, a smooth musical note being given. Cagniard de la
Tour first gave such an instrument the name of siren, and constructed
it in the form of an air chamber with perforated lid or cover, the
perforations being successively closed and opened by means of a
similarly perforated disk fitted to the cover and revolving at high
speed. The perforations being cut at an angle, the disk was
self-rotated by the oblique pressure of the air in escaping through
the slots. H. W. Dove and Helmholtz introduced many improvements, and
Brown of New York patented, about 1870, a steam siren with two disks
having radial perforations or slots. The cylindrical form of the siren
now generally adopted is due to Slight, who used two concentric
cylinders, one revolving within the other, the sides being perforated
with vertical slots. To him is also due the centrifugal governor
largely used to regulate the speed of rotation of the siren. Over the
siren mouth is placed a conical trumpet to collect and direct the
sound in the desired direction. In the English service these trumpets
are generally of considerable length and placed vertically, with bent
top and bell mouth. Those at St Catherine's are of cast-iron with
copper bell mouth, and have a total axial length of 22 ft. They are 5
in. in diameter at the siren mouth, the bell mouth being 6 ft. in
diameter. At St Catherine's the sirens are two in number, 5 in. in
diameter, being sounded simultaneously and in unison (fig. 53). Each
siren is provided with ports for producing a high note as well as a
low note, the two notes being sounded in quick succession once every
minute. The trumpet mouths are separated by an angle of 120° between
their axes. This double form has been adopted in certain instances
where the angle desired to be covered by the sound is comparatively
wide. In Scotland the cylindrical form is used generally, either
automatically or motor driven. By the latter means the admission of
air to the siren can be delayed until the cylinder is rotating at full
speed, and a much sharper sound is produced than in the case of the
automatic type. The Scottish trumpets are frequently constructed so
that the greater portion of the length is horizontal. The Girdleness
trumpet has an axial length of 16 ft., 11 ft. 6 in. being horizontal.
The trumpet is capable of being rotated through an angle as well as
dipped below the horizon. It is of cast-iron, no bell mouth is used,
and the conical mouth is 4 ft. in diameter. In France the sirens are
cylindrical and very similar to the English self-driven type. The
trumpets have a short axial length, 4 ft. 6 in., and are of brass,
with bent bell mouth. The Trinity House has in recent years
reintroduced the use of disk sirens, with which experiments are still
being carried out both in the United Kingdom and abroad. For
light-vessels and rock stations where it is desired to distribute the
sound equally in all directions the mushroom-head trumpet is
occasionally used. The Casquets trumpet of this type is 22 ft. in
length, of cast-iron, with a mushroom top 6 ft. in diameter. In cases
where neither the mushroom trumpet nor the twin siren is used the
single bent trumpet is arranged to rotate through a considerable
angle. Table IV. gives particulars of a few typical sirens of the most
recent form.
[Illustration: FIG. 53.--St Catherine's Double-noted Siren.]
TABLE IV.
+-----------------------+----------------------+----------+---------+----------------+--------------------+
| | | |Sounding |Cub. ft. of air | |
| | |Vibrations|Pressure |used per sec. of| |
| Station. | Description. | per sec. |in lb per| blast reduced | Remarks. |
| | | | sq. in. | to atmospheric | |
| | | | | pressure. | |
+-----------------------+----------------------+-----+----+---------+-------+--------+--------------------+
| | |High.|Low.| | High. | Low. | |
|St Catherine's (Trinity|Two 5-in. cylindrical,| 295 | 182| 25 | 32 | 16 |The air consumption |
| House) | automatically driven| | | | | | is for 2 sirens. |
| | sirens | | | | | | |
|Girdleness (N.L.C) |7-in. cylindrical | 234 | 100| 30 | 130 | 26 | |
| | siren, motor driven | | | | | | |
|Casquets (Trinity |7-in. disk siren, | .. | 98| 25 | .. | 36 | |
| House) | motor driven | | | | | | |
|French pattern siren |6-in. cylindrical | 326 | .. | 28 | 14 | .. |A uniform note of |
| | siren, automatically| | | | | | 326 vibrations per|
| | driven | | | | | | sec. has now been |
| | | | | | | | adopted generally |
| | | | | | | | in France. |
+-----------------------+----------------------+-----+----+---------+-------+--------+--------------------+
Since the first trial of the siren at the South Foreland in 1873 a
very large number of these instruments have been established both at
lighthouse stations and on board light-vessels. In all cases in Great
Britain and France they are now supplied with air compressed by steam
or other mechanical power. In the United States and some other
countries steam, as well as compressed air, sirens are in use.
_Diaphones._--The diaphone is a modification of the siren, which has
been largely used in Canada since 1903 in place of the siren. It is
claimed that the instrument emits a note of more constant pitch than
does the siren. The distinction between the two instruments is that in
the siren a revolving drum or disk alternately opens and closes
elongated air apertures, while in the diaphone a piston pulsating at
high velocity serves to alternately cover and uncover air slots in a
cylinder.
_The St Catherine's Experiments._--Extensive trials were carried out
during 1901 by the Trinity House at St Catherine's lighthouse, Isle of
Wight, with several types of sirens and reed-horns. Experiments were
also made with different pattern of trumpets, including forms having
elliptical sections, the long axis being placed vertically. The
conclusions of the committee may be briefly summarized as follows: (1)
When a large arc requires to be guarded two fixed trumpets suitably
placed are more effective than one large trumpet capable of being
rotated. (2) When the arc to be guarded is larger than that
effectively covered by two trumpets, the mushroom-head trumpet is a
satisfactory instrument for the purpose. (3) A siren rotated by a
separate motor yields better results than when self-driven. (4) No
advantage commensurate with the additional power required is obtained
by the use of air at a higher pressure than 25 lb. per sq. in. (5) The
number of vibrations per second produced by the siren or reed should
be in unison with the proper note of the associated trumpet. (6) When
two notes of different pitch are employed the difference between these
should, if possible, be an octave. (7) For calm weather a low note is
more suitable than a high note, but when sounding against the wind and
with a rough and noisy sea a high note has the greater range. (8) From
causes which cannot be determined at the time or predicted beforehand,
areas sometimes exist in which the sounds of fog signals may be
greatly enfeebled or even lost altogether. This effect was more
frequently observed during comparatively calm weather and at no great
distance from the signal station. (It has often been observed that the
sound of a signal may be entirely lost within a short distance of the
source, while heard distinctly at a greater distance and at the same
time.) (9) The siren was the most effective signal experimented with;
the reed-horn, although inferior in power, is suitable for situations
of secondary importance. (No explosive signals were under trial during
the experiments.) (10) A fog signal, owing to the uncertainty
attending its audibility, must be regarded only as an auxiliary aid to
navigation which cannot at all times be relied upon.
_Submarine Bell Signals._--As early as 1841 J. D. Colladon conducted
experiments on the lake of Geneva to test the suitability of water as
a medium for transmission of sound signals and was able to convey
distinctly audible sounds through water for a distance of over 21 m.,
but it was not until 1904 that any successful practical application of
this means of signalling was made in connexion with light-vessels.
There are at present (1910) over 120 submarine bells in service,
principally in connexion with light-vessels, off the coasts of the
United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Germany, France and other
countries. These bells are struck by clappers actuated by pneumatic or
electrical mechanism. Other submerged bells have been fitted to buoys
and beacon structures, or placed on the sea bed; in the former case
the bell is actuated by the motion of the buoy and in others by
electric current, transmitted by cable from the shore. In some cases,
when submarine bells are associated with gas buoys or beacons, the
compressed gas is employed to actuate the bell striking mechanism. To
take full advantage of the signals thus provided it is necessary for
ships approaching them to be fitted with special receiving mechanism
of telephonic character installed below the water line and in contact
with the hull plating. The signals are audible by the aid of ear
pieces similar to ordinary telephone receivers. Not only can the bell
signals be heard at considerable distances--frequently over 10 m.--and
in all conditions of weather, but the direction of the bell in
reference to the moving ship can be determined within narrow limits.
The system is likely to be widely extended and many merchant vessels
and war ships have been fitted with signal receiving mechanism.
The following table (V.) gives the total numbers of fog signals of
each class in use on the 1st of January 1910 in certain countries.
TABLE V.
+----------------------------+-------+------+--------------+------+---------+-----+------+------+------+-------+
| | | | Horns, | |Explosive| | | |Subm- | |
| |Sirens.| Diap-| Trumpets, &c.| Whis-| Signals |Guns.|Bells.|Gongs.|arine |Totals.|
| | | hone.+------+-------+ tles.| (tonite,| | | |Bells.| |
| | | |Power.|Manual.| | &c.). | | | | | |
+----------------------------+-------+------+------+-------+------+---------+-----+------+------+------+-------+
| England and Channel Islands| 44 | .. | 27 | 31 | 2 | 15 | .. | 48 | 10 | 16 | 193 |
| Scotland and Isle of Man | 35 | .. | 6 | 2 | .. | 5 | .. | 16 | 3 | .. | 67 |
| Ireland | 12 | .. | 2 | 6 | .. | 11 | 3 | 11 | .. | 3 | 48 |
| France | 12 | .. | 7 | 1 | .. | 1 | .. | 25 | .. | 2 | 48 |
| United States (excluding | | | | | | | | | | | |
| inland lakes and rivers) | 43 | .. | 35 | 15 | 59 | .. | .. | 218 | 1 | 36 | 407 |
| British North America | | | | | | | | | | | |
| (excluding inland lakes | | | | | | | | | | | |
| and rivers) | 6 | 66 | 5 | 79 | 16 | 8 | .. | 24 | .. | 11 | 215 |
+----------------------------+-------+------+--------------+------+---------+-----+------+------+------+-------+
When two kinds of signal are employed at any one station, one being
subsidiary, the latter is omitted from the enumeration. Buoy and
unattended beacon bells and whistles are also omitted, but local port
and harbour signals not under the immediate jurisdiction of the
various lighthouse boards are included, more especially in Great
Britain.
11. LIGHTHOUSE ADMINISTRATION. The principal countries of the world
possess organized and central authorities responsible for the
installation and maintenance of coast lights and fog signals, buoys and
beacons.
_United Kingdom._--In England the corporation of Trinity House, or
according to its original charter, "The Master Wardens, and Assistants
of the Guild Fraternity or Brotherhood of the most glorious and
undivided Trinity and of St Clement, in the Parish of Deptford Strond,
in the county of Kent," existed in the reign of Henry VII. as a
religious house with certain duties connected with pilotage, and was
incorporated during the reign of Henry VIII. In 1565 it was given
certain rights to maintain beacons, &c., but not until 1680 did it own
any lighthouses. Since that date it has gradually purchased most of
the ancient privately owned lighthouses and has erected many new ones.
The act of 1836 gave the corporation control of English coast lights
with certain supervisory powers over the numerous local lighting
authorities, including the Irish and Scottish Boards. The corporation
now consists of a Master, Deputy-master, and 22 Elder Brethren (10 of
whom are honorary), together with an unlimited number of Younger
Brethren, who, however, perform no executive duties. In Scotland and
the Isle of Man the lights are under the control of the Commissioners
of Northern Lighthouses constituted in 1786 and incorporated in 1798.
The lighting of the Irish coast is in the hands of the Commissioners
of Irish Lights formed in 1867 in succession to the old Dublin Ballast
Board. The principal local light boards in the United Kingdom are the
Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, and the Clyde Lighthouse Trustees. The
three general lighthouse boards of the United Kingdom, by the
provision of the Mercantile Marine Act of 1854, are subordinate to the
Board of Trade, which controls all finances.
On the 1st of January 1910 the lights, fog signals and submarine bells
in service under the control of the several authorities in the United
Kingdom were as follows:
+----------------------------------+-------+--------+--------+---------+
| |Light- | Light- | Fog |Submarine|
| |houses.|vessels.|Signals.| Bells. |
+----------------------------------+-------+--------+--------+---------+
| Trinity House | 116 | 51 | 97 | 12 |
| Northern Lighthouse Commissioners| 138 | 5 | 44 | .. |
| Irish Lights Commissioners | 93 | 11 | 35 | 3 |
| Mersey Docks and Harbour Board | 16 | 6 | 13 | 2 |
| Admiralty | 31 | 2 | 6 | .. |
| Clyde Lighthouse Trustees | 14 | 1 | 5 | .. |
| Other local lighting authorities | 809 | 11 | 89 | 2 |
| +-------+--------+--------+---------+
| Totals | 1217 | 87 | 289 | 19 |
+----------------------------------+-------+--------+--------+---------+
Some small harbour and river lights of subsidiary character are not
included in the above total.
_United States._--The United States Lighthouse Board was constituted
by act of Congress in 1852. The Secretary of Commerce and Labor is the
ex-officio president. The board consists of two officers of the navy,
two engineer officers of the army, and two civilian scientific
members, with two secretaries, one a naval officer, the other an
officer of engineers in the army. The members are appointed by the
president of the United States. The coast-line of the states, with the
lakes and rivers and Porto Rico, is divided into 16 executive
districts for purposes of administration.
The following table shows the distribution of lighthouses,
light-vessels, &c., maintained by the lighthouse board in the United
States in June 1909. In addition there are a few small lights and
buoys privately maintained.
Lighthouses and beacon lights 1333
Light-vessels in position 53
Light-vessels for relief 13
Gas lighted buoys in position 94
Fog signals operated by steam or oil engines 228
Fog signals operated by clockwork, &c. 205
Submarine signals 43
Post lights 2333
Day or unlighted beacons 1157
Bell buoys in position 169
Whistling buoys in position 94
Other buoys 5760
Steam tenders 51
Constructional Staff 318
Light keepers; and light attendants 3137
Officers and crews of light-vessels and tenders 1693
_France._--The lighthouse board of France is known as the Commission
des Phares, dating from 1792 and remodelled in 1811, and is under the
direction of the minister of public works. It consists of four
engineers, two naval officers and one member of the Institute, one
inspector-general of marine engineers, and one hydrographic engineer.
The chief executive officers are an Inspecteur Général des Ponts et
Chaussées, who is director of the board, and another engineer of the
same corps, who is engineer-in-chief and secretary. The board has
control of about 750 lights, including those of Corsica, Algeria, &c.
A similar system has been established in Spain.
TABLE VI.--_Electric Lighthouse Apparatus._
+--------------------------+-----------------+-----+----------+-----------+----------+-------------+-------+----+--------+--------------------------+----------+--------+---------+-------+---------------------------------------------------+
| | | P | | | | | C | V | C | | | | | | |
| | | e | | | | Ratio of | u | o | a | | | | | | |
| | | r | | Candle- | Focal | Angular | r | l | r | | | |Elevation| Year | |
| Name. | Characteristic. | i | Duration | power | Distance | Breadth of | r | t | b | Electric | Lamps. |Engines.| above | Estab-| Remarks. |
| | | o | of Flash.| (Service | of Lens. | Panel to | e | a | o | Generators. | | | High |lished.| |
| | | d | |Intensity).| |Whole Circle.| n | g | n | | | | Water. | | |
| | | . | | | | | t | e | s | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | . | . | . | | | | | | |
+--------------------------+-----------------+-----+----------+-----------+----------+-------------+-------+----+--------+--------------------------+----------+--------+---------+-------+---------------------------------------------------+
| | | | | Standard | | | | | | | | | | | |
|UNITED KINGDOM-- | |Secs.| Secs. | Candles. | mm. | | Amps. | | mm. | | | | Feet. | | |
| Souter Point | Single flash | 30 | 5 | | 500 | 1 : 8 | .. | 40 | 17 | Holmes machines, | Serrin | Steam | 150 | 1871 |Fixed light apparatus, with revolving vertical |
| (Durham) | | | |\ C n | | | | | | alternating (400 revs.) | | | | | condensing lenses in eight panels. |
| South Foreland | Single flash | 2.5| .35 || a o d | 700 | 1 : 16 | .. | 40 | 26 | do. | Serrin | Steam | 374 | 1904 |Lens elements only; 97° vertical angle. |
| (Kent) | | | || n t e | | | | | | | | | | | (This apparatus was in use at St Catherine's, |
| | | | || d t | | | | | | | | | | |1888 to 1904, and replaced the two fixed electric |
| | | | || l o e | | | | | | | | | | |lights established in 1872.) |
| Lizard | Single flash | 3 | .13 || e f r | 700 | 1 : 4 |145 for| 40 | 50 and | De Meritens alternators | Modified | Oil | 230 | 1903 | Mercury rotation; vertical angle, 139°. Replaced |
| (Cornwall) | | | | > - f m | | | 50 mm.| | 60 | (600 revs.) | Berjot- | engines| | | the two fixed electric lights erected in |
| | | | || p i i | | |carbons| | fluted | | Serrin | | | | 1878. |
| St Catherine's | Single flash | 5 | .21 || o c n | 700 | 1 : 4 |145 for| 40 | 50 and | do. | do. |2 Steam,| 136 | 1904 |Mercury rotation; vertical angle, 139°. |
| (Isle of Wight) | | | || w i e | | | 50 mm.| | 60 | | | each 50| | | |
| | | | || e a d | | |carbons| | fluted | | | h.p. | | | |
| Isle of May | 4 flash | 30 | .4 || r l . | 700 | 1 : 8 | 220 | 40 | 40 | do. | Berjot- | Steam | 240 | 1886 |Fixed light apparatus, with revolving vertical |
| (Firth of Forth) | | | || l | (Fixed | | | | | | Serrin | | | | condensing lenses. |
| | | | |/ y |apparatus)| | | | | | | | | | |
|FRANCE-- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Dunkerque | 2 flash | 10 | .2 to .4 | 3,500,000 | 300 | 1 : 12 | 30 | 45 | 14 and |2 De Meritens alternators,| Improved | 2 Semi-| 193 | 1902 |Twelve panels in groups of two. |
| (Strait of Dover) | | | | to | | | and | | 18 | each of 5.5 k.w. | Serrin |portable| | | (This apparatus was in use at Barfleur, 1893 |
| | | | | 6,500,000 | | | 60 | | | (550 revs.) | | steam, | | |to 1902.) |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | each 30| | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | i.h.p. | | | |
| Calais | 4 flash | 15 | .75 | 900,000 | 300 | 1 : 24 | 60 | 45 | 18 | do. | French | do. | 190 | 1883 |Fixed light apparatus, with revolving vertical |
| (Strait of Dover) | | | | | | | | | | | Service | | | | condensing prisms. |
| [Les Baleines (1882) | | | | | | | | | | | pattern | | | | |
| similar] | | | | | | | | | | | (1902) | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Cap Gris-nez | Single flash | 5 |.10 to .14| 15,000,000| 300 | 1 : 4 | 60 | 45 | 18 and | do. | do. | Steam | 233 | 1899 |Twin optic, mercury rotation. |
| (Strait of Dover) | | | | to | | | to | | 28 | | | | | | (This light superseded a triple-flashing electric|
| | | | | 30,000,000| | | 120 | | | | | | | |light, with intermediate red flash, of the Calais |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |type, established in 1885. The first installation |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |of the electric light at this station was in 1869.)|
| La Canche | 2 flash | 10 |.10 to .14| 15,000,000| 300 | 1 : 4 | 30 | 45 | 14 and | do. | do. | do. | 174 | 1900 |Twin optic, mercury rotation. |
| (Strait of Dover) | | | | to | | | to | | 18 | | | | | | (This light superseded a fixed electric light |
| | | | | 30,000,000| | | 60 | | | | | | | |established in 1884.) |
| Cap de la Hève | Single flash | 5 |.10 to .14| 10,000,000| 300 | 1 : 4 | 60 | 45 | 18 and | De Meritens alternators | Improved | do. | 397 | 1893 | Mercury rotation. |
| (Havre, English | | | | to | | | to | | 28 | (550 revs.) | Serrin | | | | (The first installation of electric light at this|
| Channel) | | | | 20,000,000| | | 120 | | | | | | | |lighthouse was in 1863.) |
| [Île d'Yeu in the Bay | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| of Biscay (1895) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| similar] | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Créac'h d'Ouessant | 2 flash | 10 |.10 to .14| 15,000,000| 300 | 1 : 4 | 60 | 45 | 18 and |2 De Meritens alternators,| French | do. | 225 | 1901 |Twin optic, mercury rotation. |
| (Ushant) | | | | to | | | to | | 28 | each of 5.5 k.w. | Service | | | | (This light superseded a double-flashing |
| [Barfleur (English | | | | 30,000,000| | | 120 | | | (550 revs.) | pattern | | | |electric light, similar to that now at Dunkerque, |
| Channel) 1903, La | | | | | | | | | | | (1902) | | | |established in 1888.) |
| Coubre (Bay of | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Biscay) 1905, and | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Belle Île (Bay | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| of Biscay) 1903, | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| similar] | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Penmarc'h (Phare | Single flash | 5 |.10 to .14| 15,000,000| 300 | 1 : 4 | 30 | 45 | 14 and | Two-phase Labour alter- | do. | do. | 197 | 1897 |Twin optic, mercury rotation. |
| d'Eckmühl) | | | | to | | | and | | 18 |nators (810 to 820 revs.) | | | | | |
| (Finistère) | | | | 30,000,000| | | 60 | | | | | | | | |
| Planier | Single flash | 5 |.10 to .14| 15,000,000| 300 | 1 : 4 | 30 | 45 |14 to 18| De Meritens alternators | do. | do. | 207 | 1902 |Twin optic, mercury rotation. |
| (near Marseilles) | | | | to | | | to | | | (550 revs.) | | | | | (This light superseded an electric light estab- |
| | | | | 30,000,000| | | 60 | | | | | | | |lished in 1881, showing a group of three white |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |flashes separated by one red flash of the Calais |
|ITALY-- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |type.) |
| Tino | 3 flash | 30 | 1.25 | Undeter- | 700 | 1 : 24 | 50 | 50 | 15 | do. | Berjot- | do. | 384 | 1885 |Eight panels of three lenses each, no mirror. |
| (Gulf of Spezia) | | | | mined. | | | 110 | | 25 | (830 revs.) | Serrin | | | | |
| | | | | | | | 200 | | 35 | | | | | | |
|AMERICA-- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Navesink | Single flash | 5 | .08 | About | 700 | Nearly 1 : 2| Max. | 50 | 23 | Alternating dynamos | Modified | Oil, | 246 | 1898 |Mercury rotation. Bivalve of 165°. |
| (Entrance to New | | | | 60,000,000| | | 100 | | | (800 revs.) | Serrin | each | | | |
| York Bay) | | | | | | | | | | | (Ciolina)| 25 h.p.| | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
|AUSTRALIA-- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Macquarie | Single flash | 60 | 8 | 5,000,000 | 920 | 1 : 16 | 55 | 50 | 15 | De Meritens alternators | Serrin | Gas | 345 | 1883 |16-panel revolving apparatus, with 180° fixed |
| (Sydney, N.S.W.) | | | | | | | 110 | | 25 | (600 revs.) | | | | | mirror. |
+--------------------------+-----------------+-----+----------+-----------+----------+-------------+-------+----+--------+--------------------------+----------+--------+---------+-------+---------------------------------------------------+
TABLE VII.--_Typical Non-Electric Lighthouse Apparatus._
+----------------+-------------------+--------------+-------+--------+------------+---------+-------------+-------------+------------------+----------+-------+----------+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| | | | | | Candle- | | Ratio of | | | | | | |
| | | | | | Power in | | Angular | | | Service | Height| | |
| Name. | Locality. | Character- |Period.|Duration| Standard | Focal | Breadth of | Illuminant. | Burner. | Candle- | above | Year | Remarks. |
| | | istic. | | of | Candles |Distance | Panel to | | | power | High | Estab- | |
| | | | |Flashes.| (Service |of Lens.|Whole Circle.| | |of Burner.| Water.| lished.* | |
| | | | | | Intensity).| | | | | | | | |
+----------------+-------------------+--------------+-------+--------+------------+---------+-------------+-------------+------------------+----------+-------+----------+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| | | | Secs. | Secs. | | mm. | | | | | Feet. | | |
|Casquets | Channel Islands | 3 flash | 30 | 1.5 | 185,000 | 920 | 1 : 9 | Incandescent| "Matthews" 3-50 | 3300 | 120 | 1877 |Dioptric holophote, 126½° vertical angle; 3 sides of 3 |
| | | | | | | | | petroleum | mm. dia. mantles | | | | panels in each. |
| | | | | | | | | vapour | | | | | |
|Eddystone | South Devon | 2 flash | 30 | 1.5 | 292,000 | 920 | 1 : 12 | do. | do. | 3300 | 133 | 1882 |Biform apparatus, lens elements only, 92° vertical angle; |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | 6 sides of 2 panels each. |
|Bishop Rock | Scilly Isles | 2 flash | 60 | 4.0 | 622,000 | 1330 | 1 : 10 | do. | do. | 3300 | 134 | 1886 |Biform apparatus, lens elements only, 80° vertical angle; |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | 5 sides of 2 panels each. |
|Spurn Point | Yorkshire | Single flash | 20 | 1.5 | 519,000 | 1330 | 1 : 6 | do. | do. | 3300 | 120 | 1895 |Lens elements only, 80° vertical angle. |
|Lundy Island | Bristol Channel | 2 flash | 20 | .33 | 374,000 | 920 | Nearly 1 : 4| do. | do. | 3300 | 165 | 1897 |Mercury rotation, 4-panel bivalve. |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | [St. Mary's Isle, Northumberland (1898), is similar.] |
|Pendeen | Cornwall | 4 flash | 15 | .25 | 190,000 | 920 | 1 : 8 | do. | do. | 3300 | 195 | 1900 |80° vertical angle lens, 2 sides of 4 panels each, mercury |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | rotation. |
|Roker Pier | Sunderland | Single flash | 5 | .10 | 175,000 | 500 | Nearly 1 : 2| do. | "Chance" 55 mm. | 1200 | 83 | 1903 |Mercury rotation; univalve 164° in azimuth, with 164° |
| | | | | | | | | | dia. mantle | | | | dioptric mirror in rear. |
|Bell Rock | Near Firth of Tay | Red and white| 60 | .50 | 392,000 | 920 and | White about | do. | "Chance" 55 mm. | 1200 | 93 | 1902 |Combined hyper-radial and first-order light with back |
| | |flashes alter-| | | | 1330 | 1 : 9 | | dia. mantle | | | | prisms in white and mirrors in red. Revolves in 60 |
| | |nately every | | | | | red about | | | | | | secs. |
| | | 30 secs. | | | | | 1 : 2.2 | | | | | |[Holy Island, 1905 (Lamlash), similar, flash every 15 secs.] |
|Kinnaird's Head | Aberdeenshire | Single flash | 15 | .50 | 881,000 | 920 and | 1 : 2.2 | do. | do. | 2150 | 120 | 1903 |Composite apparatus; panels of 1330 mm. and 920 mm. |
| | | | | | | 1330 | | | | | | | focal distance; 2 faces. |
|Tarbet Ness | Dornoch Firth | 6 flash | 30 | .50 | 89,000 | 700 | 1 : 12 | do. | "Chance" 55 mm. | 1200 | 175 | 1892 |6 panels (lens) of 30° with 180° mirror. |
| | | | | | | | | | dia. mantle | | | | [Douglas Head (Isle of Man) similar.] |
|Sule Skerry | West of Orkneys | 3 flash | 30 | 1.0 | 378,000 | 1330 | 1 : 9 | do. | "Chance" 85 mm. | 2150 | 113 | 1895 |Equiangular lenses. |
| | | | | | | | | | dia. mantle | | | | |
|Pladda | South end of Arran| 3 flash | 30 | .50 | 597,000 | 1330 | 1 : 6 | do. | do. | 2150 | 130 | 1901 |3 equiangular lens panels with mirror in rear; side panels |
| | Island | | | | | | | | | | | | eccentric. |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | [Hyskin Rocks (1904) similar.] |
|Tory Island | Co. Donegal | 3 flash | 60 | 3.0 | 17,000 to | 1330 | 1 : 6 | Coal Gas | Wigham, 108 jets | 2300 | 130 | 1887 |Triform apparatus, vertical angle of lenses 65°; 6 sides, |
| | | | | | 326,000 | | | | (maximum) | (max.) | | | one revolution in 6 minutes. The single flash from |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | lens is divided by eclipsing burner into 3 flashes. |
|Fastnet | Co. Cork | Single flash | 5 | .17 | 750,000 | 920 | 1 : 4 | Incandescent| Irish pattern | 1200 | 160 | 1904 |Biform apparatus; 4 panels of 90° vertical angle and 90° |
| | | | | | | | | petroleum | 50 mm. mantle | | | | in azimuth; mercury rotation. |
| | | | | | | | | vapour | | | | | |
|Kinsale | do. | 2 flash | 10 | .25 | 460,000 | 920 | 1 : 6 | do. | do. | 1200 | 236 | 1907 |Biform apparatus, 3 sides each of 2 panels; vertical |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | angle 96°; mercury rotation. |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | |[St. John's Point, Co. Down (1908) similar, period 7.5 secs.]|
|Howth Bailey | Dublin Bay | Single flash | 30 | 1.0 | 950,000 | 920 | 13 : 32 | do. |Irish pattern 3-50| 3300 | 134 | 1902 |Bivalve apparatus; panels of 147° in azimuth and 122° |
| | | | | | | | | | mm. dia. mantles | | | | vertical angle; mercury rotation. |
| | | | | / 1.0 | 70,000 | 920 | 1 : 8 | Oil | 6 wick | 480 | 164 | 1891 |\ |
| | | | || .50 | 180,000 | 920 | 1 : 8 | Incandescent| / 30 mm. dia. | 400 | 164 | 1895 | |The old first-order apparatus has been utilized in all |
|Chassiron | Bay of Biscay | Single flash | 10 || | | | | oil gas | | mantle | | | | | cases. |
| | | | || .70 | 360,000 | 920 | 1 : 8 | Incandescent| | 55 mm. dia. | 1300 | 164 | 1902 | | |
| | | | | \ | | | | acetylene | \ mantle | | | |/ |
|Cap d'Antifer | English Channel | Single flash | 20 | 1.0 | 400,000 | 1330 | 1 : 6 | Incandescent| French pattern | 2150 | 394 | 1894 |Mercury rotation, hyper-radial apparatus with reflecting |
| | | | | | | | | petroleum | 85 mm. mantle | | | | prisms. This is the only apparatus of this focal |
| | | | | | | | | vapour | | | | | distance on the French coast. |
|Île de Batz | Finistère | 4 flash | 25 | .37 | 200,000 | 920 | 1 : 8 | do. | do. | 2150 | 223 | 1900 |Group-flashing apparatus; 4 panels of 45°, with 180° |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | mirror in rear; mercury rotation. |
|Ar'men | do. | 3 flash | 20 | .38 | 200,000 | 700 | 1 : 5 | do. | do. | 2150 | 94 | 1897 |Mercury rotation; 3 panels, mirror in rear. |
|Villefranche | Mediterranean | Single flash | 5 | .38 | 250,000 | 700 | 1 : 4 | do. | do. | 2150 | 229 | 1902 |Mercury rotation. |
|Île Vierge | Finistère | Single flash | 5 | .38 | 500,000 | 700 | 1 : 4 | do. | do. | 2150 | 252 | 1902 |Twin optic; mercury rotation. |
|Kennery Island | Bombay | 2 flash | 10 | .25 | 250,000 | 920 | Nearly 1:4 | do. |70 mm. dia. mantle| 1400 | 153 | 1902 |Mercury rotation; bivalve apparatus; 2 double-flashing |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | 170° panels. |
|Cape Race | Newfoundland | Single flash | 7.5 | .30 | 1,100,000 | 1330 | 1 : 4 | do. | "Chance" 85 mm. | 2150 | 165 | 1907 |4 panels, vertical angle 121½°; mercury rotation. |
| | | | | | | | | | dia. mantle | | | | [Manora Point, Karachi, 1909, similar.] |
|Pachena Point | British Columbia | 2 flash | 7.5 | .44 | 220,000 | 920 | 1 : 8 | do. | do. | 2150 | .. | 1908 |Mercury rotation. 4 sides of 2 panels each. |
|Cape Hermes | Cape Colony | Single flash | 3 | .31 | 30,000 | 250 | 1 : 3 | do. | "Chance" 55 mm. | 1200 | 175 | 1904 |3 panels, vertical angle 150°; mercury rotation. |
| | | | | | | | | | dia. mantle | | | | |
|Hood Point | do. | 4 flash | 40 | .58 | 200,000 | 920 | 1 : 8 | do. | "Chance" 85 mm. | 2150 | 180 | 1895 |Mercury rotation; 4 panels of 45° in azimuth and 80° |
| | | | | | | | | | dia. mantle | | | | vertical angle, with catadioptric mirror in rear. |
|Cape Naturaliste| West Australia | 2 flash | 10 | .15 | 450,000 | 920 | About 1 : 3 | do. | do. | 2150 | 404 | 1904 |Mercury rotation; 2 lenses of 126½° in azimuth, with |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | mirror of 107°. |
|Point Cloates | do. | Single flash | 5 | .30 | 300,000 | 700 | 1 : 3 | do. | do. | 2150 | 190 | 1909 |Mercury rotation; 3 panels, each 120° in azimuth and |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | 133½° vertical angle. |
|Pecks Ledge |Connecticut, U.S.A.| 2 flash | 30 | .50 | 10,000 | 250 | 1 : 4 | do. |34 mm. dia. mantle| 300 | 54 | 1906 |Rotated on ball bearings. 2 lenses of 90° each and |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | mirror. |
|Fire Island | New York, U.S.A. | Single flash | 60 | 4.0 | 250,000 | 920 | 1 : 8 | do. |55 mm. dia. mantle| 1000 | 167 | 1858 |Rotated on roller bearings. |
|Gray's Harbor |Washington, Pacific| Alternating | 5 | .20|White 10,000| 500 | .. | Oil | 3 wick | 160 | 122 | 1898 |Mercury rotation; one (red) lens of 170° in azimuth, re- |
| | Coast, U.S.A. | red and white| | | red 8,000 | | | | | | | | inforced by two 60° mirrors; one (white) lens of 60° in |
| | | flashes | | | | | | | | | | | azimuth. |
+----------------+-------------------+--------------+-------+--------+------------+---------+-------------+-------------+------------------+----------+-------+----------+-------------------------------------------------------------+
* The dates given are of the establishment of the optical apparatus.
In many cases incandescent burners have been installed at later
dates.
_English Colonies._--In Canada the coast lighting is in the hands of
the minister of marine, and in most other colonies the public works
departments have control of lighthouse matters.
_Other Countries._--In Denmark, Austria, Holland, Russia, Sweden,
Norway and many other countries the minister of marine has charge of
the lighting and buoying of coasts; in Belgium the public works
department controls the service.
In the Trinity House Service at shore lighthouse stations there are
usually two keepers, at rock stations three or four, one being ashore
on leave. When there is a fog signal at a station there is usually an
additional keeper, and at electric light stations a mechanical
engineer is also employed as principal keeper. The crews of
light-vessels as a rule consist of 11 men, three of them and the
master or mate going on shore in rotation.
The average annual cost of maintenance of an English shore lighthouse,
with two keepers, is £275. For shore lighthouses with three keepers
and a siren fog signal the average cost is £444. The maintenance of a
rock lighthouse with four keepers and an explosive fog signal is about
£760, and an electric light station costs about £1100 annually to
maintain.
A light-vessel of the ordinary type in use in the United Kingdom
entails an annual expenditure on maintenance of approximately £1320,
excluding the cost of periodical overhaul.
AUTHORITIES.--Smeaton, _Eddystone Lighthouse_ (London, 1793); A.
Fresnel, _Mémoire sur un nouveau system d'éclairage des phares_
(Paris, 1822); R. Stevenson, _Bell Rock Lighthouse_ (Edinburgh, 1824);
Alan Stevenson, _Skerryvore Lighthouse_ (1847); Renaud, _Mémoire sur
l'éclairage et le balisage des côtes de France_ (Paris, 1864); Allard,
_Mémoire sur l'intensité et la portée des phares_ (Paris, 1876); T.
Stevenson, _Lighthouse Construction and Illumination_ (London, 1881);
Allard, _Mémoire sur les phares électriques_ (Paris, 1881); Renaud,
_Les Phares_ (Paris, 1881); Edwards, _Our Sea Marks_ (London, 1884);
D. P. Heap, _Ancient and Modern Lighthouses_ (Boston, 1889); Allard,
_Les Phares_ (Paris, 1889); Rey, _Les Progrès d'éclairage des côtes_
(Paris, 1898); Williams, _Life of Sir J. N. Douglass_ (London, 1900);
J. F. Chance, _The Lighthouse Work of Sir Jas. Chance_ (London, 1902);
de Rochemont and Deprez, _Cours des travaux maritimes_, vol. ii.
(Paris, 1902); Ribière, _Phares et Signaux maritimes_ (Paris, 1908);
Stevenson, "Isle of May Lighthouse," _Proc. Inst. Mech. Engineers_
(1887); J. N. Douglass, "Beacon Lights and Fog Signals," _Proc. Roy.
Inst._ (1889); Ribière, "Propriétés optiques des appareils des
phares," _Annales des ponts et chaussées_ (1894); Preller, "Coast
Lighthouse Illumination in France," _Engineering_ (1896); "Lighthouse
Engineering at the Paris Exhibition," Engineer (1901-1902); N. G.
Gedye, "Coast Fog Signals," _Engineer_ (1902); _Trans. Int. Nav.
Congress_ (Paris, 1900, Milan, 1905); _Proc. Int. Eng. Congress_
(Glasgow, 1901, St Louis, 1904); _Proc. Int. Maritime Congress_
(London, 1893); J. T. Chance, "On Optical Apparatus used in
Lighthouses," _Proc. Inst. C.E._ vol. xxvi.; J. N. Douglass, "The Wolf
Rock Lighthouse," ibid. vol. xxx.; W. Douglass, "Great Basses
Lighthouse," ibid. vol. xxxviii.; J. T. Chance, "Dioptric Apparatus in
Lighthouses," ibid. vol. lii.; J. N. Douglass, "Electric Light applied
to Lighthouse Illumination," ibid. vol. lvii.; W. T. Douglass, "The
New Eddystone Lighthouse," ibid. vol. lxxv.; Hopkinson, "Electric
Lighthouses at Macquarie and Tino," ibid. vol. lxxxvii.; Stevenson,
"Ailsa Craig Lighthouse and Fog Signals," ibid. vol. lxxxix.; W. T.
Douglass, "The Bishop Rock Lighthouses," ibid. vol. cviii.; Brebner,
"Lighthouse Lenses," ibid. vol. cxi.; Stevenson, "Lighthouse
Refractors," ibid. vol. cxvii.; Case, "Beachy Head Lighthouse," ibid.
vol. clix.; _Notice sur les appareils d'éclairage_ (French Lighthouse
Service exhibits at Chicago and Paris) (Paris, 1893 and 1900); _Report
on U.S. Lighthouse Board Exhibit at Chicago_ (Washington, 1894);
_Reports of the Lighthouse Board of the United States_ (Washington,
1852, et seq.); British parliamentary reports, _Lighthouse
Illuminants_ (1883, et seq.), _Light Dues_ (1896), _Trinity House Fog
Signal Committee_ (1901), _Royal Commission on Lighthouse
Administration_ (1908); _Mémoires de la Société des Ingénieurs Civils
de France_, _Annales des ponts et chaussées_ (Paris); _Proc. Inst. C.
E._; _The Engineer_; _Engineering_ (_passim_). (W. T. D.; N. G. G.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A full account is given in Hermann Thiersch, _Pharos Antike,
Islam und Occident_ (1909). See also MINARET.
[2] In 1901 one of the lights decided upon in 1886 and installed in
1888--Créac'h d'Ouessant--was replaced by a still more powerful twin
apparatus exhibited at the 1900 Paris Exhibition. Subsequently
similar apparatus to that at Créac'h were installed at Gris-Nez, La
Canche, Planier, Barfleur, Belle-Île and La Coubre, and the old
Dunkerque optic has been replaced by that removed from Belle-Île.
[3] Both the Talais and Snouw light-vessels have since been converted
into unattended light-vessels.
[4] For the purposes of the mariner a light is classed as flashing or
occulting solely according to the duration of light and darkness and
without any reference to the apparatus employed. Thus, an occulting
apparatus, in which the period of darkness is greater than that of
light, is classed in the Admiralty "List of Lights" as a "flashing"
light.
[5] The Flamborough Head rocket was superseded by a siren fog signal
in 1908.
LIGHTING. Artificial light is generally produced by raising some body to
a high temperature. If the temperature of a solid body be greater than
that of surrounding bodies it parts with some of its energy in the form
of radiation. Whilst the temperature is low these radiations are not of
a kind to which the eye is sensitive; they are exclusively radiations
less refrangible and of greater wave-length than red light, and may be
called infra-red. As the temperature is increased the infra-red
radiations increase, but presently there are added radiations which the
eye perceives as red light. As the temperature is further increased, the
red light increases, and yellow, green and blue rays are successively
thrown off. On raising the temperature to a still higher point,
radiations of a wave-length shorter even than violet light are produced,
to which the eye is insensitive, but which act strongly on certain
chemical substances; these may be called ultra-violet rays. Thus a very
hot body in general throws out rays of various wave-length; the hotter
the body the more of every kind of radiation will it throw out, but the
proportion of short waves to long waves becomes vastly greater as the
temperature is increased. Our eyes are only sensitive to certain of
these waves, viz. those not very long and not very short. The problem of
the artificial production of light with economy of energy is the same as
that of raising some body to such a temperature that it shall give as
large a proportion as possible of those rays which the eye is capable of
feeling. For practical purposes this temperature is the highest
temperature we can produce. As an illustration of the luminous effect of
the high temperature produced by converting other forms of energy into
heat within a small space, consider the following statements. If burned
in ordinary gas burners, 120 cub. ft. of 15 candle gas will give a light
of 360 standard candles for one hour. The heat produced by the
combustion is equivalent to about 60 million foot-pounds. If this gas be
burned in a modern gas-engine, about 8 million foot-pounds of useful
work will be done outside the engine, or about 4 horse-power for one
hour. If this be used to drive a dynamo for one hour, even if the
machine has an efficiency of only 80%, the energy of the current will be
about 6,400,000 foot-pounds per hour, about half of which, or only
3,200,000 foot-pounds, is converted into radiant energy in the electric
arc. But this electric arc will radiate a light of 2000 candles when
viewed horizontally, and two or three times as much when viewed from
below. Hence 3 million foot-pounds changed to heat in the electric arc
may be said roughly to affect our eyes six times as much as 60 million
foot-pounds changed to heat in an ordinary gas burner.
Owing to the high temperature at which it remains solid, and to its
great emissive power, the radiant body used for artificial illumination
is usually some form of carbon. In an oil or ordinary coal-gas flame
this carbon is present in minute particles derived from the organic
substances with which the flame is supplied and heated to incandescence
by the heat liberated in their decomposition, while in the electric
light the incandescence is the effect of the heat developed by the
electric current passed through a resisting rod or filament of carbon.
In some cases, however, other substances replace carbon as the radiating
body; in the incandescent gas light certain earthy oxides are utilized,
and in metallic filament electric lamps such metals as tungsten or
tantalum.
1. OIL LIGHTING
Vegetable and animal oils.
From the earliest times the burning of oil has been a source of light,
but until the middle of the 19th century only oils of vegetable and
animal origin were employed in indoor lamps for this purpose. Although
many kinds were used locally, only colza and sperm oils had any very
extended use, and they have been practically supplanted by mineral oil,
which was introduced as an illuminant in 1853. Up to the latter half of
the 18th century the lamps were shallow vessels into which a short
length of wick dipped; the flame was smoky and discharged acrid vapours,
giving the minimum of light with the maximum of smell. The first notable
improvement was made by Ami Argand in 1784. His burner consisted of two
concentric tubes between which the tubular wick was placed; the open
inner tube led a current of air to play upon the inner surface of the
circular flame, whilst the combustion was materially improved by placing
around the flame a chimney which rested on a perforated gallery a short
distance below the burner. Argand's original burner is the parent form
of innumerable modifications, all more or less complex, such as the
Carcel and the moderator.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
A typical example of the Argand burner and chimney is represented in
fig. 1, in which the burner is composed of three tubes, d, f, g. The
tube g is soldered to the bottom of the tube d, just above o, and the
interval between the outer surface of the tube g and the inner surface
of the tube d is an annular cylindrical cavity closed at the bottom,
containing the cylindrical cotton wick immersed in oil. The wick is
fixed to the wick tube ki, which is capable of being moved spirally;
within the annular cavity is also the tube f, which can be moved
round, and serves to elevate and depress the wick. P is a cup that
screws on the bottom of the tube d, and receives the superfluous oil
that drops down from the wick along the inner surface of the tube g.
The air enters through the holes o, o, and passes up through the tube
g to maintain the combustion in the interior of the circular flame.
The air which maintains the combustion on the exterior part of the
wick enters through the holes m, with which rn is perforated. When the
air in the chimney is rarefied by the heat of the flame, the
surrounding heavier air, entering the lower part of the chimney,
passes upward with a rapid current, to restore the equilibrium. RG is
the cylindrical glass chimney with a shoulder or constriction at R, G.
The oil flows from a side reservoir, and occupies the cavity between
the tubes g and d. The part ki is a short tube, which receives the
circular wick, and slides spirally on the tube g, by means of a pin
working in the hollow spiral groove on the exterior surface of g. The
wick-tube has also a catch, which works in a perpendicular slit in the
tube f; and, by turning the tube f, the wick-tube will be raised or
lowered, for which purpose a ring, or gallery, rn, fits on the tube d,
and receives the glass chimney RG; a wire S is attached to the tube f,
and, bending over, descends along the outside of d. The part rn, that
supports the glass chimney, is connected by four other wires with the
ring q, which surrounds the tube d, and can be moved round. When rn is
turned round, it carries with it the ring q, the wire S, and the tube
f, thus raising or depressing the wick.
A device in the form of a small metallic disk or button, known as the
Liverpool button from having been first adopted in the so-called
Liverpool lamp, effects for the current of air passing up the interior
of the Argand burner the same object as the constriction of the
chimney RG secures in the case of the external tube. The button fixed
on the end of a wire is placed right above the burner tube g, and
throws out equally all round against the flame the current of air
which passes up through g. The result of these expedients, when
properly applied, is the production of an exceedingly solid brilliant
white light, absolutely smokeless, this showing that the combustion of
the oil is perfectly accomplished.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Section of Reading Lamp.]
The means by which a uniformly regulated supply of oil is brought to
the burner varies with the position of the oil reservoir. In some
lamps, not now in use, by ring-formed reservoirs and other expedients,
the whole of the oil was kept as nearly as possible at the level of
the burner. In what are termed fountain reading, or study lamps, the
principal reservoir is above the burner level, and various means are
adopted for maintaining a supply from them at the level of the burner.
But the most convenient position for the oil reservoir in lamps for
general use is directly under the burner, and in this case the stand
of the lamp itself is utilized as the oil vessel. In the case of fixed
oils, as the oils of animal and vegetable origin used to be called, it
is necessary with such lamps to introduce some appliance for forcing a
supply of oil to the burner, and many methods of effecting this were
devised, most of which were ultimately superseded by the moderator
lamp. The Carcel or pump lamp, invented by B. G. Carcel in 1800, is
still to some extent used in France. It consists of a double piston or
pump, forcing the oil through a tube to the burner, worked by
clockwork.
A form of reading lamp still in use is seen in section in fig. 2. The
lamp is mounted on a standard on which it can be raised or lowered at
will, and fixed by a thumb screw. The oil reservoir is in two parts,
the upper ac being an inverted flask which fits into bb, from which
the burner is directly fed through the tube _d_; _h_ is an overflow
cup for any oil that escapes at the burner, and it is pierced with
air-holes for admitting the current of air to the centre tube of the
Argand burner. The lamp is filled with oil by withdrawing the flask
ac, filling it, and inverting it into its place. The under reservoir
_bb_ fills from it to the burner level ee, on a line with the mouth of
ac. So soon as that level falls below the mouth of _ac_, a bubble of
air gets access to the upper reservoir, and oil again fills up bb to
the level _ee_.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Section of Moderator Lamp.]
The moderator lamp (fig. 3), invented by Franchot about 1836, from the
simplicity and efficiency of its arrangements rapidly superseded
almost all other forms of mechanical lamp for use with animal and
vegetable oils. The two essential features of the moderator lamp are
(1) the strong spiral spring which, acting on a piston within the
cylindrical reservoir of the lamp, serves to propel the oil to the
burner, and (2) the ascending tube C through which the oil passes
upwards to the burner. The latter consist of two sections, the lower
fixed to and passing through the piston A into the oil reservoir, and
the upper attached to the burner. The lower or piston section moves
within the upper, which forms a sheath enclosing nearly its whole
length when the spring is fully wound up. Down the centre of the upper
tube passes a wire, "the moderator," G, and it is by this wire that
the supply of oil to the burner is regulated. The spring exerts its
greatest force on the oil in the reservoir when it is fully wound up,
and in proportion as it expands and descends its power decreases. But
when the apparatus is wound up the wire passing down the upper tube
extends throughout the whole length of the lower and narrower piston
tube, obstructing to a certain extent the free flow of the oil. In
proportion as the spring uncoils, the length of the wire within the
lower tube is decreased; the upward flow of oil is facilitated in the
same ratio as the force urging it upwards is weakened. In all
mechanical lamps the flow is in excess of the consuming capacity of
the burner, and in the moderator the surplus oil, flowing over the
wick, falls back into the reservoir above the piston, whence along
with new supply oil it descends into the lower side by means of
leather valves a, a. B represents the rack which, with the pinion D,
winds up the spiral spring hard against E when the lamp is prepared
for use. The moderator wire is seen separately in GG; and FGC
illustrates the arrangement of the sheathing tubes, in the upper
section of which the moderator is fixed.
Mineral oils.
As early as 1781 the idea was mooted of burning naphtha, obtained by the
distillation of coal at low temperatures, for illuminating purposes, and
in 1820, when coal gas was struggling into prominence, light oils
obtained by the distillation of coal tar were employed in the Holliday
lamp, which is still the chief factor in illuminating the street barrow
of the costermonger. In this lamp the coal naphtha is in a conical
reservoir, from the apex of which it flows slowly down through a long
metal capillary to a rose burner, which, heated up by the flame,
vaporizes the naphtha, and thus feeds the ring of small jets of flame
escaping from its circumference.
It was in 1847 that James Young had his attention drawn to an exudation
of petroleum in the Riddings Colliery at Alfreton, in Derbyshire, and
found that he could by distillation obtain from it a lubricant of
considerable value. The commercial success of this material was
accompanied by a failure of the supply, and, rightly imagining that as
the oil had apparently come from the Coal Measures, it might be obtained
by distillation from material of the same character, Young began
investigations in this direction, and in 1850 started distilling oils
from a shale known as the "Bathgate mineral," in this way founding the
Scotch oil industry. At first little attention was paid to the fitness
of the oil for burning purposes, although in the early days at Alfreton
Young attempted to burn some of the lighter distillates in an Argand
lamp, and later in a lamp made many years before for the consumption of
turpentine. About 1853, however, it was noticed that the lighter
distillates were being shipped to Germany, where lamps fitted for the
consumption of the grades of oil now known as lamp oil were being made
by Stohwasser of Berlin; some of these lamps were imported, and similar
lamps were afterwards manufactured by Laidlaw in Edinburgh.
In Pennsylvania in 1859 Colonel E. L. Drake's successful boring for
petroleum resulted in the flooding of the market with oil at prices
never before deemed possible, and led to the introduction of lamps from
Germany for its consumption. Although the first American patent for a
petroleum lamp is dated 1859, that year saw forty other applications,
and for the next twenty years they averaged about eighty a year.
English lamp-makers were not behind in their attempts to improve on the
methods in use for producing the highest results from the various grades
of oil, and in 1865 Hinks introduced the duplex burner, while later
improvements made in various directions, by Hinks, Silber, and Defries
led to the high degree of perfection to be found in the lamps of to-day.
Mineral oil for lamps as used in England at the present time may be
defined as consisting of those portions of the distillate from shale oil
or crude petroleum which have their flash-point above 73° F., and which
are mobile enough to be fed by capillarity in sufficient quantity to the
flame. The oil placed in the lamp reservoir is drawn up by the
capillarity of the wick to the flame, and being there volatilized, is
converted by the heat of the burning flame into a gaseous mixture of
hydrogen and hydrocarbons, which is ultimately consumed by the oxygen of
the air and converted into carbon dioxide and water vapour, the products
of complete combustion.
To secure high illuminating power, together with a smokeless flame and
only products of complete combustion, strict attention must be paid to
several important factors. In the first place, the wick must be so
arranged as to supply the right quantity of oil for gasification at
the burner-head--the flame must be neither starved nor overfed: if the
former is the case great loss of light is occasioned, while an excess
of oil, by providing more hydrocarbons than the air-supply to the
flame can completely burn, gives rise to smoke and products of
incomplete combustion. The action of the wick depending on the
capillary action of the microscopic tubes forming the cotton fibre,
nothing but long-staple cotton of good quality should be employed;
this should be spun into a coarse loose thread with as little twist in
it as possible, and from this the wick is built up. Having obtained a
wick of soft texture and loose plait, it should be well dried before
the fire, and when put in position in the lamp must fill the
wick-holder without being compressed. It should be of sufficient
length to reach to the bottom of the oil reservoir and leave an inch
or two on the bottom. Such a wick will suck up the oil in a regular
and uniform way, provided that the level of the oil is not allowed to
fall too low in the lamp, but it must be remembered that the wick acts
as a filter for the oil, and that if any sediment be present it will
be retained by and choke the capillaries upon which the action of the
wick depends, so that a wick should not be used for too long a time. A
good rule is that the wick should, when new, trail for 2 in. on the
bottom of the oil vessel, and should be discarded when these 2 in.
have been burnt off.
When the lamp is lighted the oil burns with a heavy, smoky flame,
because it is not able to obtain sufficient oxygen to complete the
combustion, and not only are soot flakes produced, but products of
incomplete combustion, such as carbon monoxide and even petroleum
vapour, escape--the first named highly injurious to health, and the
second of an offensive odour. To supply the _necessary amount of air_
to the flame, an artificial draught has to be created which shall
impinge upon the bottom of the flame and sweep upwards over its
surface, giving it rigidity, and by completing the combustion in a
shorter period of time than could be done otherwise, increasing the
calorific intensity and thus raising the carbon particles in the
flame to a far higher incandescence so as to secure a greater
illuminating power. This in practice has been done in two ways, first
by drawing in the air by the up-suck of the heated and expanded
products of combustion in a chimney fitted over the flame, and
secondly by creating a draught from a small clockwork fan in the base
of the lamp. It is necessary to break the initial rush of the draught:
this is mostly effected by disks of perforated metal in the base of
the burner, called _diffusers_, while the metal dome which surrounds
and rises slightly above the wick-holder serves to deflect the air on
to the flame, as in the Wanzer lamp. These arrangements also act to a
certain extent as regenerators, the air passing over the heated metal
surfaces being warmed before reaching the flame, whilst disks, cones,
buttons, perforated tubes, inner air-tubes, &c., have been introduced
to increase the illuminating power and complete the combustion.
TABLE I.
+---------------+------------------+------------------+-------------------+
| | | Grains of Oil | |
| | | per candle-power |Total Candle-power.|
| Type. | Name. | per hour. | |
| | +---------+--------+---------+---------+
| | |American.|Russian.|American.| Russian.|
|---------------+------------------+---------+--------+---------+---------+
| /| Veritas, 60-line | 64.5 | 112.5 | 122.5 | 78 |
| | | " 30-line | 42.5 | 50. | 60 | 60 |
| | | " 20-line | 43.75 | 58.5 | 40 | 35 |
|Circular wick| | Ariel, 12-line | | | | |
| | | center draught | 52.8 | 70.9 | 18 | 18 |
| | | Reading, 14-line | 97.9 | 85.4 | 12 | 12 |
| | | Kosmos, 10-line | 63.9 | 97.2 | 9 | 9 |
| \| Wizard, 15-line | 56.9 | 51.3 | 18 | 19 |
| /| Wanzer, no glass | 42.6 | 48.3 | 17 | 17 |
|Flat wick, | | Solid slip, gauze| | | | |
| single | | and cone | 84.4 | 84.4 | 8 | 8 |
| | | Old slip, fixed | | | | |
| \| gauze | 60.9 | 89.3 | 7 | 7 |
|Flat wick, /| Feeder wick | 56.2 | 55.7 | 20 | 22 |
| duplex \| Ordinary | 51.2 | 46.6 | 20 | 22 |
+---------------+------------------+---------+--------+---------+---------+
American oil--Sp. gr. 0.7904; flash-point, 110°F. Russian oil--Sp.
gr. 0.823; flash-point, 83° F.
According to Sir Boverton Redwood, duplex burners which give a flame
of 28 candle-power have an average oil consumption of 50 grains per
candle per hour, while Argand flames of 38 candle-power consume about
45 grains of oil per candle per hour. These figures were obtained from
lamps of the best types, and to obtain information as to the
efficiency of the lamps used in daily practice, a number of the most
popular types were examined, using both American and Russian oil. The
results obtained are embodied in Table 1. The first noteworthy point
in this table is the apparent superiority of the American over Russian
oil in the majority of the lamps employed, and there is no doubt that
the bulk of the lamps on the market are constructed to burn American
or shale oil. A second interesting point is that with the flat-flame
lamps the Russian oil is as good as the American. We have Redwood's
authority, moreover, for the fact that after prolonged burning the
Russian oil, even in lamps least suited to it, gives highly improved
results. Although the average consumption with these lamps is close
upon 60 grains per candle with American oil, yet some of the burners
are so manifestly wasteful that 50 grains per candle-power per hour is
the fairest basis to take for any calculation as to cost.
The dangers of the mineral oil lamp, which were a grave drawback in
the past, have been very much reduced by improvements in construction
and quality, and if it were possible to abolish the cheap and
dangerous rubbish sold in poor neighbourhoods, and to prevent the use
of side-fillers and glass reservoirs in lamps of better quality, a
still larger reduction in the number of accidents would take place. In
the use of the lamp for domestic purposes only soft well-fitting wicks
should be employed, and the lamp should be filled with oil each day so
as never to allow it to burn too low and so leave a large space above
the surface of the oil in the reservoir. The lamp should never be
moved whilst alight, and it should only be put out by means of a
proper extinguisher or by blowing across the top instead of down the
chimney. By these means the risk of accident would be so reduced as to
compare favourably with other illuminants.
Candles, oil and coal gas all emit the same products of complete
combustion, viz. carbon dioxide and water vapour. The quantities of
these compounds emitted from different illuminants for every candle of
light per hour will be seen from the following table:
Cubic Feet per Candle
Illuminant. Carbon Dioxide. Water Vapour.
Sperm candle 0.41 0.41
Oil lamp 0.24 0.18
Gas--Flat flame 0.26 0.67
Argand 0.17 0.45
Regenerative 0.07 0.19
Incandescent 0.03 0.08
From these data it appears that if the sanitary condition of the air
of a dwelling-room be measured by the amount of carbon dioxide
present, as is usually done, candles are the most prejudicial to
health and comfort, oil lamps less so, and gas least, an assumption
which practical experience does not bear out. The explanation of this
is to be found in these facts: First, where we illuminate a room with
candles or oil we are contented with a less intense and more local
light than when we are using gas, and in a room of ordinary size would
be more likely to use a lamp or two candles than the far higher
illumination we should demand if gas were employed. Secondly, the
amount of water vapour given off during the combustion of gas is
greater than in the case of the other illuminants, and water vapour
absorbing radiant heat from the burning gas becomes heated, and,
diffusing itself about the room, causes great oppression. Also the
air, being highly charged with moisture, is unable to take up so
rapidly the water vapour which is always evaporating from the surface
of our skin, and in this way the functions of the body receive a
slight check, resulting in a feeling of depression.
Oil-spray lamps.
A very successful type of oil lamp for use in engineering is represented
by the Lucigen, Doty, and Wells lights, in which the oil is forced from
a reservoir by air-pressure through a spiral heated by the flame of the
lamp, and the heated oil, being then ejected partly as vapour and partly
as spray, burns with a large and highly luminous flame. The great
drawback to these devices is that a certain proportion of the oil spray
escapes combustion and is deposited in the vicinity of the light. This
form of lamp is often used for heating as well as lighting; the rivets
needed for the Forth Bridge were heated in trays by lamps of this type
at the spot where they were required. The great advantage of these lamps
was that oils of little value could be employed, and the light obtained
approximated to 750 candles per gallon of oil consumed. They may to a
certain extent be looked upon as the forerunners of perhaps the most
successful form of incandescent oil-burner.
Oil applied to incandescent lighting.
As early as 1885 Arthur Kitson attempted to make a burner for heating
purposes on the foregoing principle, i.e. by injecting oil under
pressure from a fine tube into a chamber where it would be heated by the
waste heat escaping from the flame below, the vapour so produced being
made to issue from a small jet under the pressure caused by the initial
air-pressure and the expansion in the gasifying tube. This jet of gas
was then led into what was practically an atmospheric burner, and drew
in with it sufficient air to cause its combustion with a non-luminous
blue flame of great heating power. At the time when this was first done
the Welsbach mantle had not yet reached the period of commercial
utility, and attempts were made to use this flame for the generation of
light by consuming it in a mantle of fine platinum gauze, which,
although giving a very fine illuminating effect during the first few
hours, very soon shared the fate of all platinum mantles--that is,
carbonization of the platinum surface took place, and destroyed its
power of light emissivity. It was not until 1893 that the perfecting of
the Welsbach mantle enabled this method of consuming the oil to be
employed. The Kitson lamp, and also the Empire lamp on a similar
principle, have given results which ought to ensure their future
success, the only drawback being that they need a certain amount of
intelligent care to keep them in good working order.
Incandescent table-lamps.
Oil gas and oil vapours differ from coal gas merely in the larger
proportion and greater complexity of the hydrocarbon molecules present,
and to render the oil flame available for incandescent lighting it is
only necessary to cause the oil gas or vapour to become mixed with a
sufficient proportion of air before it arrives at the point of
combustion. But with gases so rich in hydrocarbons as those developed
from oil it is excessively difficult to get the necessary air intimately
and evenly mixed with the gas in sufficient proportion to bring about
the desired result. If even coal gas be taken and mixed with 2.27
volumes of air, its luminosity is destroyed, but such a flame would be
useless with the incandescent mantle, as if the non-luminous flame be
superheated a certain proportion of its luminosity will reappear. When
such a flame is used with a mantle the superheating effect of the mantle
itself very quickly leads to the decomposition of the hydrocarbons and
blackening of the mantle, which not only robs it of its light-giving
powers, but also rapidly ends its life. If, however, the proportion of
air be increased, the appearance of the flame becomes considerably
altered, and the hydrocarbon molecules being burnt up before impact
with the heated surface of the mantle, all chance of blackening is
avoided.
On the first attempts to construct a satisfactory oil lamp which could
be used with the incandescent mantle, this trouble showed itself to be
a most serious one, as although it was comparatively easy so to
regulate a circular-wicked flame fed by an excess of air as to make it
non-luminous, the moment the mantle was put upon this, blackening
quickly appeared, while when methods for obtaining a further air
supply were devised, the difficulty of producing a flame which would
burn for a considerable time without constant necessity for regulation
proved a serious drawback. This trouble has militated against most of
the incandescent oil lamps placed upon the market.
It soon became evident that if a wick were employed the difficulty of
getting it perfectly symmetrical was a serious matter, and that it
could only be utilized in drawing the oil up to a heating chamber
where it could be volatilized to produce the oil gas, which on then
being mixed with air would give the non-luminous flame. In the earlier
forms of incandescent oil lamps the general idea was to suck the oil
up by the capillarity of a circular wick to a point a short distance
below the opening of the burner at which the flame was formed, and
here the oil was vaporized or gasified by the heat of the head of the
burner. An air supply was then drawn up through a tube passing through
the centre of the wick-tube, while a second air current was so
arranged as to discharge itself almost horizontally upon the burning
gas below the cap, in this way giving a non-luminous and very hot
flame, which if kept very carefully adjusted afforded excellent
results with an incandescent mantle. It was an arrangement somewhat of
this character that was introduced by the Welsbach Company. The lamps,
however, required such careful attention, and were moreover so
irregular in their performance, that they never proved very
successful. Many other forms have reached a certain degree of
perfection, but have not so far attained sufficient regularity of
action to make them commercial successes. One of the most successful
was devised by F. Altmann, in which an ingenious arrangement caused
the vaporization of oil and water by the heat of a little oil lamp in
a lower and separate chamber, and the mixture of oil gas and steam was
then burnt in a burner-head with a special arrangement of air supply,
heating a mantle suspended above the burner-head.
The perfect petroleum incandescent lamp has not yet been made, but the
results thus obtained show that when the right system has been found a
very great increase in the amount of light developed from the
petroleum may be expected. In one lamp experimented with for some time
it was easy to obtain 3500 candle hours per gallon of oil, or three
times the amount of light obtainable from the oil when burnt under
ordinary conditions.
Air-gas.
Before the manufacture of coal-gas had become so universal as it is at
present, a favourite illuminant for country mansions and even villages
where no coal-gas was available was a mixture of air with the vapour of
very volatile hydrocarbons, which is generally known as "air-gas." This
was produced by passing a current of dry air through or over petroleum
spirit or the light hydrocarbons distilled from tar, when sufficient of
the hydrocarbon was taken up to give a luminous flame in flat flame and
Argand burners in the same way as coal-gas, the trouble being that it
was difficult to regulate the amount of hydrocarbon held in suspension
by the air, as this varied very widely with the temperature. As coal-gas
spread to the smaller villages and electric lighting became utilized in
large houses, the use of air-gas died out, but with the general
introduction of the incandescent mantle it again came to the front. In
the earlier days of this revival, air-gas rich in hydrocarbon vapour was
made and was further aerated to give a non-luminous flame by burning it
in an atmospheric burner.
One of the best illustrations of this system was the Aerogene gas
introduced by A. I. van Vriesland, which was utilized for lighting a
number of villages and railway stations on the continent of Europe. In
this arrangement a revolving coil of pipes continually dips into
petroleum spirit contained in a cylinder, and the air passed into the
cylinder through the coil of pipes becomes highly carburetted by the
time it reaches the outlet at the far end of the cylinder. The
resulting gas when burnt in an ordinary burner gives a luminous flame;
it can be used in atmospheric burners differing little from those of
the ordinary type. With an ordinary Welsbach "C" burner it gives a
duty of about 30 candles per foot of gas consumed, the high
illuminating power being due to the fact that the gas is under a
pressure of from 6 to 8 in. With such a gas, containing a considerable
percentage of hydrocarbon vapour, any leakage into the air of a room
would give rise to an explosive mixture, in the same way that coal-gas
would do, but inasmuch as mixtures of the vapour of petroleum spirit
and air are only explosive for a very short range, that is, from 1.25
to 5.3%, some systems have been introduced in which by keeping the
amount of petroleum vapour at 2% and burning the gas under pressure in
a specially constructed non-aerating mantle burner, not only has it
been found possible to produce a very large volume of gas per gallon
of spirit employed, but the gas is itself non-explosive, increase in
the amount of air taking it farther away from the explosive limit. The
Hooker, De Laitte and several other systems have been based upon this
principle.
2. GAS LIGHTING
In all measurements of illuminating value the standard of comparison
used in England is the light yielded by a sperm candle of the size known
as "sixes," i.e. six to the pound, consuming 120 grains of sperm per
hour, and although in photometric work slight inequalities in burning
have led to the candle being discarded in practice, the standard lamps
burning pentane vapour which have replaced them are arranged to yield a
light of ten candles, and the photometric results are expressed as
before in terms of candles.
When William Murdoch first used coal-gas at his Redruth home in 1779, he
burnt the gas as it escaped from the open end of a small iron tube, but
soon realizing that this plan entailed very large consumption of gas and
gave a very small amount of light, he welded up the end of his tube and
bored three small holes in it, so arranged that they formed three
divergent jets of flame. From the shape of the flame so produced this
burner received the name of the "cockspur" burner, and it was the one
used by Murdoch when in 1807 he fitted up an installation of gas
lighting at Phillips & Lee's works in Manchester. This--the earliest
form of gas burner--gave an illuminating value of a little under one
candle per cubic foot of gas consumed, and this duty was slightly
increased when the burner was improved by flattening up the welded end
of the tube and making a series of small holes in line and close
together, the jets of flame from which gave the burner the name of the
"cockscomb." It did not need much inventive faculty to replace the line
of holes by a saw-cut, the gas issuing from which burnt in a sheet, the
shape of which led to the burner being called the "batswing." This was
followed in 1820 by the discovery of J. B. Neilson, of Glasgow, whose
name is remembered in connexion with the use of the hot-air blast in
iron-smelting, that, by allowing two flames to impinge upon one another
so as to form a flat flame, a slight increase in luminosity was
obtained, and after several preliminary stages the union jet or
"fishtail" burner was produced. In this form of burner two holes, bored
at the necessary angle in the same nipple, caused two streams of gas to
impinge upon each other so that they flattened themselves out into a
sheet of flame. The flames given by the batswing and fishtail burners
differed in shape, the former being wide and of but little height,
whilst the latter was much higher and more narrow. This factor ensured
for the fishtail a greater amount of popularity than the batswing burner
had obtained, as the flame was less affected by draughts and could be
used with a globe, although the illuminating efficiency of the two
burners differed little.
Regenerative burner.
In a lecture at the Royal Institution on the 20th of May 1853, Sir
Edward Frankland showed a burner he had devised for utilizing the heat
of the flame to raise the temperature of the air supply necessary for
the combustion of the gas. The burner was an Argand of the type then in
use, consisting of a metal ring pierced with holes so as to give a
circle of small jets, the ring of flame being surrounded by a chimney.
But in addition to this chimney, Frankland added a second external one,
extending some distance below the first and closed at the bottom by a
glass plate fitted air-tight to the pillar carrying the burner. In this
way the air needed for the combustion of the gas had to pass down the
space between the two chimneys, and in so doing became highly heated,
partly by contact with the hot glass, and partly by radiation. Sir
Edward Frankland estimated that the temperature of the air reaching the
flame was about 500°F. In 1854 a very similar arrangement was brought
forward by the Rev. W. R. Bowditch, and, as a large amount of publicity
was given to it, the inception of the regenerative burner was generally
ascribed to Bowditch, although undoubtedly due to Frankland.
The principle of regeneration was adopted in a number of lamps, the best
of which was brought out by Friedrich Siemens in 1879. Although
originally made for heating purposes, the light given by the burner was
so effective and superior to anything obtained up to that time that it
was with some slight alterations adapted for illuminating purposes.
Improvements followed in the construction and design of the regenerative
lamp, and when used as an overhead burner it was found that not only was
an excellent duty obtained per cubic foot of gas consumed, but that the
lamp could be made a most efficient engine of ventilation, as an
enormous amount of vitiated air could be withdrawn from the upper part
of a room through a flue in the ceiling space. So marked was the
increase in light due to the regeneration that a considerable number of
burners working on this principle were introduced, some of them like the
Wenham and Cromartie coming into extensive use. They were, however,
costly to install, so that the flat flame burner retained its popularity
in spite of the fact that its duty was comparatively low, owing to the
flame being drawn out into a thin sheet and so exposed to the cooling
influence of the atmosphere. Almost at the same time that Murdoch was
introducing the cockscomb and cockspur burners, he also made rough forms
of Argand burner, consisting of two concentric pipes between which the
gas was led and burnt with a circular flame. This form was soon improved
by filling in the space between the tubes with a ring of metal, bored
with fine holes so close together that the jets coalesced in burning and
gave a more satisfactory flame, the air necessary to keep the flame
steady and ensure complete combustion being obtained by the draught
created by a chimney placed around it. When it began to be recognized
that the temperature of the flame had a great effect upon the amount of
light emitted, the iron tips, which had been universally employed, both
in flat flame and Argand burners, were replaced by steatite or other
non-conducting material of similar character, to prevent as far as
possible heat from being withdrawn from the flame by conduction.
In 1880 the burners in use for coal-gas therefore consisted of flat
flame, Argand, and regenerative burners, and the duty given by them with
a 16-candle gas was as follows:--
Candle units
per cub. ft.
Burner. of gas.
Union jet flat flame, No. 0 0.59
" " 1 0.85
" " 2 1.22
" " 3 1.63
" " 4 1.74
" " 5 1.87
" " 6 2.15
" " 7 2.44
Ordinary Argand 2.90
Standard Argand 3.20
Regenerative 7 to 10
The luminosity of a coal-gas flame depends upon the number of carbon
particles liberated within it, and the temperature to which they can be
heated. Hence the light given by a flame of coal-gas can be augmented by
(1) increasing the number of the carbon particles, and (2) raising the
temperature to which they are exposed. The first process is carried out
by enrichment (see GAS: _Manufacture_), the second is best obtained by
regeneration, the action of which is limited by the power possessed by
the material of which burners are composed to withstand the
superheating. Although with a perfectly made regenerative burner it
might be possible for a short time to get a duty as high as 16 candles
per cubic foot from ordinary coal-gas, such a burner constructed of the
ordinary materials would last only a few hours, so that for practical
use and a reasonable life for the burner 10 candles per cubic foot was
about the highest commercial duty that could be reckoned on. This
limitation naturally caused inventors to search for methods by which the
emission of light could be obtained from coal-gas otherwise than by the
incandescence of the carbon particles contained within the flame
itself. A coal-gas flame consumed in an atmospheric burner under the
conditions necessary to develop its maximum heating power could be
utilized to raise to incandescence particles having a higher emissivity
for light than carbon. This led to the gradual evolution of incandescent
gas lighting.
Incandescent gas light.
Long before the birth of the Welsbach mantle it had been known that when
certain unburnable refractory substances were heated to a high
temperature they emitted light, and Goldsworthy Gurney in 1826 showed
that a cylinder of lime could be brought to a state of dazzling
brilliancy by the flame of the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe, a fact which was
utilized by Thomas Drummond shortly afterwards in connexion with the
Ordnance Survey of Ireland. The mass of a lime cylinder is, however,
relatively very considerable, and consequently an excessive amount of
heat has to be brought to bear upon it, owing to radiation and
conduction tending to dissipate the heat. This is seen by holding in the
flame of an atmospheric burner a coil of thick platinum wire, the result
being that the wire is heated to a dull red only. With wire of medium
thickness a bright red heat is soon attained, and a thin wire glows with
a vivid incandescence, and will even melt in certain parts of the flame.
Attempts were accordingly made to reduce the mass of the material
heated, and this form of lighting was tried in the streets of Paris,
buttons of zirconia and magnesia being heated by an oxy-coal-gas flame,
but the attempt was soon abandoned owing to the high cost and constant
renewals needed. In 1835 W. H. Fox Talbot discovered that even the
feeble flame of a spirit lamp is sufficient to heat lime to
incandescence, provided the lime be in a sufficiently fine state of
division. This condition he fulfilled by soaking blotting-paper in a
solution of a calcium salt and then incinerating it. Up to 1848, when J.
P. Gillard introduced the intermittent process of making water-gas, the
spirit flame and oxy-hydrogen flame were alone free from carbon
particles. Desiring to use the water-gas for lighting as well as heating
purposes Gillard made a mantle of fine platinum gauze to fit over the
flame, and for a time obtained excellent results, but after a few days
the lighting value of the mantle fell away gradually until it became
useless, owing to the wire becoming eroded on the surface by the flame
gases. This idea has been revived at intervals, but the trouble of
erosion has always led to failure.
The next important stage in the history of gas lighting was the
discovery by R. W. von Bunsen about 1855 of the atmospheric burner, in
which a non-luminous coal-gas flame is obtained by causing the coal-gas
before its combustion to mix with a certain amount of air. This simple
appliance has opened up for coal-gas a sphere of usefulness for heating
purposes as important as its use for lighting. After the introduction of
the atmospheric burner the idea of the incandescent mantle was revived
early in the eighties by the Clamond basket and a resuscitation of the
platinum mantle. The Clamond basket or mantle, as shown at the Crystal
Palace exhibition of 1882-1883, consisted of a cone of threads of
calcined magnesia. A mixture of magnesium hydrate and acetate, converted
into a paste or cream by means of water, was pressed through holes in a
plate so as to form threads, and these, after being moulded to the
required shape, were ignited. The heat decomposed the acetate to form a
luting material which glued the particles of magnesium oxide produced
into a solid mass, whilst the hydrate gave off water and became oxide.
The basket was supported with its apex downwards in a little platinum
wire cage, and a mixture of coal-gas and air was driven into it under
pressure from an inverted blowpipe burner above it.
The Welsbach mantle was suggested by the fact that Auer von Welsbach had
been carrying out researches on the rare earths, with constant use of
the spectroscope. Desiring to obtain a better effect than that produced
by heating his material on a platinum wire, he immersed cotton in a
solution of the metallic salt, and after burning off the organic matter
found that a replica of the original thread, composed of the oxide of
the metal, was left, and that it glowed brightly in the flame. From this
he evolved the idea of utilizing a fabric of cotton soaked in a
solution of a metallic salt for lighting purposes, and in 1885 he
patented his first commercial mantle. The oxides used in these mantles
were zirconia, lanthania, and yttria, but these were so fragile as to be
practically useless, whilst the light they emitted was very poor. Later
he found that the oxide of thorium--thoria--in conjunction with other
rare earth oxides, not only increased the light-giving powers of the
mantle, but added considerably to its strength, and the use of this
oxide was protected by his 1886 patent. Even these mantles were very
unsatisfactory until it was found that the purity of the oxides had a
wonderful effect upon the amount of light, and finally came the great
discovery that it was a trace of ceria in admixture with the thoria that
gave the mantle the marvellous power of emitting light.
Certain factors limit the number of oxides that can be used in the
manufacture of an incandescent mantle. Atmospheric influences must not
have any action upon them, and they must be sufficiently refractory
not to melt or even soften to any extent at the temperature of the
flame; they must also be non-volatile, whilst the shrinkage during the
process of "burning off" must not be excessive. The following table
gives the light-emissivity from pure and commercial samples of the
oxides which most nearly conform to the above requirements; the effect
of impurity upon the lighting power will be seen to be most marked.
Pure. Commercial.
Metals--
Zirconia 1.5 3.1
Thoria 0.5 6.0
Earth metals--
Cerite earths--Ceria 0.4 0.9
Lanthania 6.0
Yttrite earths--Yttria 3.2
Erbia 0.6 1.7
Common earths--Chromium oxide 0.4 0.4
Alumina 0.6 0.6
Alkaline earth metals--
Baryta 3.3 3.3
Strontia 5.2 5.5
Magnesia 5.0 5.0
Of these oxides thoria, when tested for shrinkage, duration and
strength, stands pre-eminent. It is also possible to employ zirconia
and alumina. Zirconia has the drawback that in the hottest part of the
flame it is liable not only to shrinkage and semi-fusion, but also to
slow volatilization, and the same objections hold good with respect to
alumina. With thoria the shrinkage is smaller than with any other
known substance, and it possesses very high refractory powers.
The factor which gives thoria its pre-eminence as the basis of the
mantle is that in the conversion of thorium nitrate into thorium oxide
by heat, an enormous expansion takes place, the oxide occupying more
than ten times the volume of the nitrate. This means that the mass is
highly spongy, and contains an enormous number of little air-cells
which must render it an excellent non-conductor. A mantle made with
thoria alone gives practically no light. But the power of
light-emissivity is awakened by the addition of a small trace of
ceria; and careful experiment shows that as ceria is added to it
little by little, the light which the mantle emits grows greater and
greater, until the ratio of 99% of thoria and 1% of ceria is reached,
when the maximum illuminating effect is obtained. The further addition
of ceria causes gradual diminution of light, until, when with some 10%
of ceria has been added, the light given by the mantle is again almost
inappreciable. When cerium nitrate is converted by heat into cerium
oxide, the expansion which takes place is practically nil, the ceria
obtained from a gramme of the nitrate occupying about the same space
as the original nitrate. Thus, although by weight the ratio of ceria
to thoria is as 1:99, by volume it is only as 1:999.
Manufacture of mantles.
The most successful form of mantle is made by taking a cylinder of
cotton net about 8 in. long, and soaking it in a solution of nitrates of
the requisite metals until the microscopic fibres of the cotton are
entirely filled with liquid. A longer soaking is not advantageous, as
the acid nature of the liquid employed tends to weaken the fabric and
render it more delicate to handle. The cotton is then wrung out to free
it from the excess of liquid, and one end is sewn together with an
asbestos thread, a loop of the same material or of thin platinum wire
being fixed across the constricted portion to provide a support by which
the mantle may be held by the carrying rod, which is either external to
the mantle, or (as is most often the case) fixed centrally in the burner
head. It is then ready for "burning off," a process in which the organic
matter is removed and the nitrates are converted into oxides. The flame
of an atmospheric burner is first applied to the constricted portion at
the top of the mantle, whereupon the cotton gradually burns downwards,
the shape of the mantle to a great extent depending on the regularity
with which the combustion takes place. A certain amount of carbon is
left behind after the flame has died out, and this is burnt off by the
judicious application of a flame from an atmospheric blast burner to the
interior. The action which takes place during the burning off is as
follows: The cellulose tubes of the fibre are filled with the
crystallized nitrates of the metals used, and as the cellulose burns the
nitrates decompose, giving up oxygen and forming fusible nitrites, which
in their semi-liquid condition are rendered coherent by the rapid
expansion as the oxide forms. As the action continues the nitrites
become oxides, losing their fusibility, so that by the time the organic
matter has disappeared a coherent thread of oxide is left in place of
the nitrate-laden thread of cotton. In the early days of incandescent
lighting the mantles had to be sent out unburnt, as no process was known
by which the burnt mantle could be rendered sufficiently strong to bear
carriage. As the success of a mantle depends upon its fitting the flame,
and as the burning off requires considerable skill, this was a great
difficulty. Moreover the acid nature of the nitrates in the fibres
rapidly rotted them, unless they had been subjected to the action of
ammonia gas, which neutralized any excess of acid. It was discovered,
however, that the burnt-off mantle could be temporarily strengthened by
dipping it in collodion, a solution of soluble gun-cotton in ether and
alcohol together with a little castor-oil or similar material to prevent
excessive shrinkage when drying. When the mantle was removed from the
solution a thin film of solid collodion was left on it, and this could
be burned away when required.
After the Welsbach mantle had proved itself a commercial success many
attempts were made to evade the monopoly created under the patents,
and, although it was found impossible to get the same illuminating
power with anything but the mixture of 99% thoria and 1% ceria, many
ingenious processes were devised which resulted in at least one
improvement in mantle manufacture. One of the earliest attempts in
this direction was the "Sunlight" mantle, in which cotton was
saturated with the oxides of aluminium, chromium and zirconium, the
composition of the burnt-off mantle being:--
Alumina 86.88
Chromium oxide 8.68
Zirconia 4.44
------
100.00
The light given by these mantles was entirely dependent upon the
proportion of chromium oxides present, the alumina playing the part of
base in the same way that the thoria does in the Welsbach mantle, the
zirconia being added merely to strengthen the structure. These mantles
enjoyed considerable popularity owing to the yellowish pink light they
emitted, but, although they could give an initial illumination of 12
to 15 candles per foot of gas consumed, they rapidly lost their
light-giving power owing to the slow volatilization of the oxides of
chromium and aluminium.
Another method of making the mantle was first to produce a basis of
thoria, and, having got the fabric in thorium oxide, to coat it with a
mixture of 99% thoria and 1% ceria. This modification seems to give an
improvement in the initial amount of light given by the mantle. In the
Voelker mantle a basis of thoria was produced, and was then coated by
dipping in a substance termed by the patentee "Voelkerite," a body
made by fusing together a number of oxides in the electric furnace.
The fused mass was then dissolved in the strongest nitric acid, and
diluted with absolute alcohol to the necessary degree. A very good
mantle having great lasting power was thus produced. It was claimed
that the process of fusing the materials together in the electric
furnace altered the composition in some unexplained way, but the true
explanation is probably that all water of hydration was eliminated.
The "Daylight" mantle consisted of a basis of thoria or thoria mixed
with zirconia, dipped in collodion containing a salt of cerium in
solution; on burning off the collodion the ceria was left in a finely
divided condition on the surface of the thoria. In this way a very
high initial illuminating power was obtained, which, however, rapidly
fell as the ceria slowly volatilized.
Perhaps the most interesting development of the Welsbach process was
dependent upon the manufacture of filaments of soluble guncotton or
collodion as in the production of artificial silk. In general the
process consisted in forcing a thick solution of the nitrated
cellulose through capillary glass tubes, the bore of which was less
than the one-hundredth of a millimetre. Ten or twelve of the expressed
fibres were then twisted together and wound on a bobbin, the air of
the room being kept sufficiently heated to cause the drying of the
filaments a few inches from the orifice of the tube. The compound
thread was next denitrated to remove its extreme inflammability, and
for this purpose the skeins were dipped in a solution of (for
instance) ammonium sulphide, which converted them into ordinary
cellulose. After washing and drying the skeins were ready for the
weaving machines. In 1894 F. de Mare utilized collodion for the
manufacture of a mantle, adding the necessary salts to the collodion
before squeezing it into threads. O. Knöfler in 1895, and later on A.
Plaissetty, took out patents for the manufacture of mantles by a
similar process to De Mare's, the difference between the two being
that Knöfler used ammonium sulphide for the denitration of his fabric,
whilst Plaissetty employed calcium sulphide, the objection to which is
the trace of lime left in the material. Another method for making
artificial silk which has a considerable reputation is that known as
the Lehner process, which in its broad outlines somewhat resembles the
Chardonnet, but differs from it in that the excessively high pressures
used in the earlier method are done away with by using a solution of a
more liquid character, the thread being hardened by passing through
certain organic solutions. This form of silk lends itself perhaps
better to the carrying of the salts forming the incandescent oxides
than the previous solutions, and mantles made by this process, known
as Lehner mantles, showed promise of being a most important
development of De Mare's original idea. Mantles made by these
processes show that it is possible to obtain a very considerable
increase in life and light-emissivity, but mantles made on this
principle could not now be sold at a price which would enable them to
compete with mantles of the Welsbach type.
The cause of the superiority of these mantles having been realized,
developments in the required direction were made. The structure of the
cotton mantle differed widely from that obtained by the various
collodion processes, and this alteration in structure was mainly
responsible for the increase in life. Whereas the average of a large
number of Welsbach mantles tested only showed a useful life of 700 to
1000 hours, the collodion type would average about 1500 hours, some
mantles being burnt for an even longer period and still giving an
effective illumination. This being so, it was clear that one line of
advance would be found in obtaining some material which, whilst giving
a structure more nearly approaching that of the collodion mantle,
would be sufficiently cheap to compete with the Welsbach mantle, and
this was successfully done.
By the aid of the microscope the structure of the mantle can be
clearly defined, and in examining the Welsbach mantle before and after
burning, it will be noticed that the cotton thread is a closely
twisted and plaited rope of myriads of minute fibres, whilst the
collodion mantle is a bundle of separate filaments without plait or
heavy twisting, the number of such filaments varying with the process
by which it was made. This latter factor experiment showed to have a
certain influence on the useful light-giving life of the mantle, as
whereas the Knöfler and Plaissetty mantles had an average life of
about 1500 hours, the Lehner fabric, which contained a larger number
of finer threads, could often be burnt continuously for over 3000
hours, and at the end of that period gave a better light than most of
the Welsbach after as many hundred.
It is well known that plaiting gave the cotton candle-wick that power
of bending over, when freed from the binding effect of the candle
material and influenced by heat, which brought the tip out from the
side of the flame. This, by enabling the air to get at it and burn it
away, removed the nuisance of having to snuff the candle, which for
many centuries has rendered it a tiresome method of lighting. In the
cotton mantle, the tight twisting of the fibre brings this torsion
into play. When the cotton fibres saturated with the nitrates of the
rare metals are burnt off, and the conversion into oxides takes place,
as the cotton begins to burn, not only does the shrinkage of the mass
throw a strain on the oxide skeleton, but the last struggle of torsion
in the burning of the fibre tends towards disintegration of the
fragile mass, and this all plays a part in making the cotton mantle
inferior to the collodion type.
If ramie fibre be prepared in such a way as to remove from it all
traces of the glutinous coating, a silk-like fabric can be obtained
from it, and if still further prepared so as to improve its absorbent
powers, it can be formed into mantles having a life considerably
greater than is possessed by those of the cotton fabric. Ramie thus
seemed likely to yield a cheap competitor in length of endurance to
the collodion mantle, and results have justified this expectation. By
treating the fibre so as to remove the objections against its use for
mantle-making, and then making it into threads with the least possible
amount of twist, a mantle fabric can be made in every way superior to
that given by cotton.
The Plaissetty mantles, which as now manufactured also show a
considerable advance in life and light over the original Welsbach
mantles, are made by impregnating stockings of either cotton or ramie
with the nitrates of thorium and cerium in the usual way, and, before
burning off, mercerizing the mantle by steeping in ammonia solution,
which converts the nitrates into hydrates, and gives greater density
and strength to the finished mantle. The manufacturers of the
Plaissetty mantle have also made a modification in the process by
which the saturated fabric can be so prepared as to be easily burnt
off by the consumer on the burner on which it is to be used, in this
way doing away with the initial cost of burning off, shaping,
hardening and collodionizing.
Intensifying systems.
Since 1897 inventions have been patented for methods of intensifying the
light produced by burning gas under a mantle and increasing the light
generated per unit volume of gas. The systems have either been
self-intensifying or have depended on supplying the gas (or gas and air)
under an increased pressure. Of the self-intensifying systems those of
Lucas and Scott-Snell have been the most successful. A careful study has
been made by the inventor of the Lucas light of the influence of various
sizes and shapes of chimneys in the production of draught. The specially
formed chimney used exerts a suction on the gas flame and air, and the
burner and mantle are so constructed as to take full advantage of the
increased air supply, with the result that the candle power given by the
mantle is considerably augmented. With the Scott-Snell system the
results obtained are about the same as those given by the Lucas light,
but in this case the waste heat from the burner is caused to operate a
plunger working in the crown of the lamp which sucks and delivers gas to
the burner. Both these systems are widely used for public lighting in
many large towns of the United Kingdom and the continent of Europe.
The other method of obtaining high light-power from incandescent gas
burners necessitates the use of some form of motive power in order to
place the gas, or both gas and air, under an increased pressure. The gas
compressor is worked by a water motor, hot air or gas engine; a low
pressure water motor may be efficiently driven by water from the main,
but with large installations it is more economical to drive the
compressor by a gas engine. To overcome the intermittent flow of gas
caused by the stroke of the engine, a regulator on the floating bell
principle is placed after the compressor; the pressure of gas in the
apparatus governs automatically the flow of gas to the engine. With the
Sugg apparatus for high power lighting the gas is brought from the
district pressure, which is equal to about 2½ in. of water, to an
average of 12 in. water pressure. The light obtained by this system when
the gas pressure is 9½ in. is 300 candle power with an hourly
consumption of 10 cub. ft. of gas, equivalent to 30 candles per cubic
foot, and with a gas pressure equal to 14 in. of water 400 candles are
obtained with an hourly consumption of 12½ cub. ft., which represents a
duty of 32 candles per cubic foot of gas consumed. High pressure
incandescent lighting makes it possible to burn a far larger volume of
gas in a given time under a mantle than is the case with low pressure
lighting, so as to create centres of high total illuminating value to
compete with arc lighting in the illumination of large spaces, and the
Lucas, Keith, Scott-Snell, Millennium, Selas, and many other pressure
systems answer most admirably for this purpose.
Inverted burners.
The light given by the ordinary incandescent mantle burning in an
upright position tends rather to the upward direction, because owing to
the slightly conical shape of the mantle the maximum light is emitted at
an angle a little above the horizontal. Inasmuch as for working purposes
the surface that a mantle illuminates is at angles below 45° from the
horizontal, it is evident that a considerable loss of efficient lighting
is brought about, whilst directly under the light the burner and
fittings throw a strong shadow. To avoid this trouble attempts have from
time to time been made to produce inverted burners which should heat a
mantle suspended below the mouth of the burner. As early as 1882 Clamond
made what was practically an inverted gas and air blowpipe to use with
his incandescent basket, but it was not until 1900-1901 that the
inverted mantle became a possibility. Although there was a strong
prejudice against it at first, as soon as a really satisfactory burner
was introduced, its success was quickly placed beyond doubt. The
inverted mantle has now proved itself one of the chief factors in the
enormous success achieved by incandescent mantle lighting, as the
illumination given by it is far more efficient than with the upright
mantle, and it also lends itself well to ornamental treatment.
Burners.
When the incandescent mantle was first introduced in 1886 an ordinary
laboratory Bunsen burner was experimentally employed, but unless a very
narrow mantle just fitting the top of the tube was used the flame could
not be got to fit the mantle, and it was only the extreme outer edge of
the flame which endowed the mantle fabric with the high incandescent. A
wide burner top was then placed on the Bunsen tube so as to spread the
flame, and a larger mantle became possible, but it was then found that
the slowing down of the rate of flow at the mouth of the burner owing to
its enlargement caused flashing or firing back, and to prevent this a
wire gauze covering was fitted to the burner head; and in this way the
1886-1887 commercial Welsbach burner was produced. The length of the
Bunsen tube, however, made an unsightly fitting, so it was shortened,
and the burner head made to slip over it, whilst an external lighting
back plate was added. The form of the "C" burner thus arrived at has
undergone no important further change. When later on it was desired to
make incandescent mantle burners that should not need the aid of a
chimney to increase the air supply, the long Bunsen tube was reverted
to, and the Kern, Bandsept, and other burners of this class all have a
greater total length than the ordinary burners. To secure proper mixing
of the air and gas, and to prevent flashing back, they all have heads
fitted with baffles, perforations, gauze, and other devices which oppose
considerable resistance to the flow of the stream of air and gas.
In 1900, therefore, two classes of burner were in commercial existence
for incandescent lighting--(1) the short burner with chimney, and (2)
the long burner without chimney. Both classes had the burner mouth
closed with gauze or similar device, and both needed as an essential
that the mantle should fit closely to the burner head.
Prior to 1900 attempts had been made to construct a burner in which an
incandescent mantle should be suspended head downwards. Inventors all
turned to the overhead regenerative gas lamps of the Wenham type, or
the inverted blowpipe used by Clamond, and in attempting to make an
inverted Bunsen employed either artificial pressure to the gas or the
air, or to both, or else enclosed the burner and mantle in a globe,
and by means of a long chimney created a strong draught. These burners
also were all regenerative and aimed at heating the air or gas or
mixture of the two, and they had the further drawback of being
complicated and costly. Regeneration is a valuable adjunct in ordinary
gas lighting as it increases the actions that liberate the carbon
particles upon which the luminosity of a flame is dependent, and also
increases the temperature; but with the mixture of air and gas in a
Bunsen regeneration is not a great gain when low and is a drawback
when intense, because incipient combination is induced between the
oxygen of the air and the coal-gas before the burner head is reached,
the proportions of air and gas are disturbed, and the flame instead of
being non-luminous shows slight luminosity and tends to blacken the
mantle. The only early attempt to burn a mantle in an inverted
position without regeneration or artificial pressure or draught was
made by H. A. Kent in 1897, and he used, not an inverted Bunsen, but
one with the top elongated and turned over to form a siphon, so that
the point of admixture of air and gas was below the level of the
burner head, and was therefore kept cool and away from the products of
combustion.
In 1900 J. Bernt and E. Cérvenka set themselves to solve the problem of
making a Bunsen burner which should consume gas under ordinary gas
pressure in an inverted mantle. They took the short Bunsen burner, as
found in the most commonly used upright incandescent burners, and fitted
to it a long tube, preferably of non-conducting material, which they
called an isolator, and which is designed to keep the flame at a
distance from the Bunsen. They found that it burnt fairly well, and that
the tendency of the flame to burn or lap back was lessened, but that the
hot up-current of heated air and products of combustion streamed up to
the air holes of the Bunsen, and by contaminating the air supply caused
the flame to pulsate. They then fixed an inverted cone on the isolator
to throw the products of combustion outwards and away from the air
holes, and found that the addition of this "deflecting cone" steadied
the flame. Having obtained a satisfactory flame, they attacked the
problem of the burner head. Experiments showed that the burner head must
be not only open but also of the same size or smaller than the burner
tube, and that by projecting it downwards into the mantle and leaving a
space between the mantle and the burner head the maximum mantle surface
heated to incandescence was obtained. It was also found that the
distance which the burner head projects into the mantle is equivalent to
the same amount of extra water pressure on the gas, and with a long
mantle it was found useful under certain conditions to add a cylinder or
sleeve with perforated sides to carry the gas still lower into the
mantle. The principles thus set forth by Kent, Bernt and Cérvenka form
the basis of construction of all the types of inverted mantle burners
which so greatly increased the popularity of incandescent gas lighting
at the beginning of the 20th century, whilst improvements in the shape
of the mantle for inverted lighting and the methods of attachment to the
burner have added to the success achieved.
The wonderful increase in the amount of light that can be obtained from
gas by the aid of the incandescent gas mantle is realized when one
compares the 1 to 3.2 candles per cubic foot given by the burners used
in the middle of the 19th century with the duty of incandescent burners,
as shown in the following table:--
_Light yielded per cubic foot of Gas._
Burner. Candle power.
Low pressure upright incandescent burners 15 to 20 candles
Inverted burners 14 to 21 "
Kern burners 20 to 24 "
High pressure burners 22 to 36 "
(V. B. L.)
3. ELECTRIC LIGHTING.
Electric lamps are of two varieties: (1) _Arc Lamps_ and (2)
_Incandescent_ or _Glow Lamps_. Under these headings we may briefly
consider the history, physical principles, and present practice of the
art of electric lighting.
1. _Arc Lamps._--If a voltaic battery of a large number of cells has its
terminal wires provided with rods of electrically-conducting carbon, and
these are brought in contact and then slightly separated, a form of
electric discharge takes place between them called the _electric arc_.
It is not quite certain who first observed this effect of the electric
current. The statement that Sir Humphry Davy, in 1801, first produced
and studied the phenomenon is probably correct. In 1808 Davy had
provided for him at the Royal Institution a battery of 2000 cells, with
which he exhibited the electric arc on a large scale.
The electric arc may be produced between any conducting materials
maintained at different potentials, provided that the source of electric
supply is able to furnish a sufficiently large current; but for
illuminating purposes pieces of hard graphitic carbon are most
convenient. If some source of continuous electric current is connected
to rods of such carbon, first brought into contact and then slightly
separated, the following facts may be noticed: With a low electromotive
force of about 50 or 60 volts no discharge takes place until the carbons
are in actual contact, unless the insulation of the air is broken down
by the passage of a small electric spark. When this occurs, the space
between the carbons is filled at once with a flame or luminous vapour,
and the carbons themselves become highly incandescent at their
extremities. If they are horizontal the flame takes the form of an arch
springing between their tips; hence the name _arc_. This varies somewhat
in appearance according to the nature of the current, whether continuous
or alternating, and according as it is formed in the open air or in an
enclosed space to which free access of oxygen is prevented. Electric
arcs between metal surfaces differ greatly in colour according to the
nature of the metal. When formed by an alternating current of high
electromotive force they resemble a lambent flame, flickering and
producing a somewhat shrill humming sound.
Electric arcs may be classified into continuous or alternating current
arcs, and open or enclosed arcs, carbon arcs with pure or chemically
impregnated carbons, or so-called flame arcs, and arcs formed with
metallic or oxide electrodes, such as magnetite. A continuous current
arc is formed with an electric current flowing always in the same
direction; an alternating current arc is formed with a periodically
reversed current. An open arc is one in which the carbons or other
material forming the arc are freely exposed to the air; an enclosed arc
is one in which they are included in a glass vessel. If carbons
impregnated with various salts are used to colour or increase the light,
the arc is called a chemical or flame arc. The carbons or electrodes may
be arranged in line one above the other, or they may be inclined so as
to project the light downwards or more in one direction. In a carbon arc
if the current is continuous the positive carbon becomes much hotter at
the end than the negative, and in the open air it is worn away, partly
by combustion, becoming hollowed out at the extremity into a _crater_.
At the same time the negative carbon gradually becomes pointed, and also
wears away, though much less quickly than the positive. In the
continuous-current open arc the greater part of the light proceeds from
the highly incandescent positive crater. When the arc is examined
through dark glasses, or by the optical projection of its image upon a
screen, a violet band or stream of vapour is seen to extend between the
two carbons, surrounded by a nebulous golden flame or aureole. If the
carbons are maintained at the right distance apart the arc remains
steady and silent, but if the carbons are impure, or the distance
between them too great, the true electric arc rapidly changes its place,
flickering about and frequently becoming extinguished; when this happens
it can only be restored by bringing the carbons once more into contact.
If the current is alternating, then the arc is symmetrical, and both
carbons possess nearly the same appearance. If it is enclosed in a
vessel nearly air-tight, the rate at which the carbons are burnt away is
greatly reduced, and if the current is continuous the positive carbon is
no longer cratered out and the negative no longer so much pointed as in
the case of the open arc.
Carbons.
Davy used for his first experiments rods of wood charcoal which had been
heated and plunged into mercury to make them better conductors. Not
until 1843 was it proposed by J. B. L. Foucault to employ pencils cut
from the hard graphitic carbon deposited in the interior of gas retorts.
In 1846 W. Greener and W. E. Staite patented a process for manufacturing
carbons for this purpose, but only after the invention of the Gramme
dynamo in 1870 any great demand arose for them. F. P. É. Carré in France
in 1876 began to manufacture arc lamp carbons of high quality from coke,
lampblack and syrup. Now they are made by taking some specially refined
form of finely divided carbon, such as the soot or lampblack formed by
cooling the smoke of burning paraffin or tar, or by the carbonization of
organic matter, and making it into a paste with gum or syrup. This
carbon paste is forced through dies by means of a hydraulic press, the
rods thus formed being subsequently baked with such precautions as to
preserve them perfectly straight. In some cases they are _cored_, that
is to say, have a longitudinal hole down them, filled in with a softer
carbon. Sometimes they are covered with a thin layer of copper by
electro-deposition. They are supplied for the market in sizes varying
from 4 or 5 to 30 or 40 millimetres in diameter, and from 8 to 16 in. in
length. The value of carbons for arc lighting greatly depends on their
purity and freedom from ash in burning, and on perfect uniformity of
structure. For ordinary purposes they are generally round in section,
but for certain special uses, such as lighthouse work, they are made
fluted or with a star-shaped section. The positive carbon is usually of
larger section than the negative. For continuous-current arcs a cored
carbon is generally used as a positive, and a smaller solid carbon as a
negative. For flame arc lamps the carbons are specially prepared by
impregnating them with salts of calcium, magnesium and sodium. The
calcium gives the best results. The rod is usually of a composite type.
The outer zone is pure carbon to give strength, the next zone contains
carbon mixed with the metallic salts, and the inner core is the same
but less compressed. In addition to the metallic salts a flux has to be
introduced to prevent the formation of a non-conducting ash, and this
renders it desirable to place the carbons in a downward pointing
direction to get rid of the slag so formed. Bremer first suggested in
1898 for this purpose the fluorides of calcium, strontium or barium.
When such carbons are used to form an electric arc the metallic salts
deflagrate and produce a flame round the arc which is strongly coloured,
the object being to produce a warm yellow glow, instead of the somewhat
violet and cold light of the pure carbon arc, as well as a greater
emission of light. As noxious vapours are however given off, flame arcs
can only be used out of doors. Countless researches have been made on
the subject of carbon manufacture, and the art has been brought to great
perfection.
Special manuals must be consulted for further information (see
especially a treatise on _Carbon making for all electrical purposes_,
by F. Jehl, London, 1906).
[Illustration: FIG. 4.]
[Illustration: FIG. 5.]
Physical phenomena.
The physical phenomena of the electric arc are best examined by forming
a carbon arc between two carbon rods of the above description, held in
line in a special apparatus, and arranged so as to be capable of being
moved to or from each other with a slow and easily regulated motion. An
arrangement of this kind is called a _hand-regulated arc lamp_ (fig. 4).
If such an arc lamp is connected to a source of electric supply having
an electromotive force preferably of 100 volts, and if some resistance
is included in the circuit, say about 5 ohms, a steady and continuous
arc is formed when the carbons are brought together and then slightly
separated. Its appearance may be most conveniently examined by
projecting its image upon a screen of white paper by means of an
achromatic lens. A very little examination of the distribution of light
from the arc shows that the illuminating or candle-power is not the same
in different directions. If the carbons are vertical and the positive
carbon is the upper of the two, the illuminating power is greatest in a
direction at an angle inclined about 40 or 50 degrees below the horizon,
and at other directions has different values, which may be represented
by the lengths of radial lines drawn from a centre, the extremities of
which define a curve called the _illuminating curve_ of the arc lamp
(fig. 5). Considerable differences exist between the forms of the
illuminating-power curves of the continuous and alternating current and
the open or enclosed arcs. The chief portion of the emitted light
proceeds from the incandescent crater; hence the form of the
illuminating-power curve, as shown by A. P. Trotter in 1892, is due to
the apparent area of the crater surface which is visible to an eye
regarding the arc in that direction. The form of the illuminating-power
curve varies with the length of the arc and relative size of the
carbons. Leaving out of account for the moment the properties of the arc
as an illuminating agent, the variable factors with which we are
concerned are (i.) the current through the arc; (ii.) the potential
difference of the carbons; (iii.) the length of the arc; and (iv.) the
size of the carbons. Taking in the first place the typical
direct-current arc between solid carbons, and forming arcs of different
lengths and with carbons of different sizes, it will be found that,
beginning at the lowest current capable of forming a true arc, the
potential difference of the carbons (the arc P.D.) decreases as the
current increases. Up to a certain current strength the arc is silent,
but at a particular critical value P.D. suddenly drops about 10 volts,
the current at the same time rising 2 or 3 amperes. At that moment the
arc begins to _hiss_, and in this hissing condition, if the current is
still further increased, P.D. remains constant over wide limits. This
drop in voltage on hissing was first noticed by A. Niaudet (_La Lumière
électrique_, 1881, 3, p. 287). It has been shown by Mrs Ayrton (_Journ.
Inst. Elec. Eng._ 28, 1899, p. 400) that the hissing is mainly due to
the oxygen which gains access from the air to the crater, when the
latter becomes so large by reason of the increase of the current as to
overspread the end of the positive carbon. According to A. E. Blondel
and Hans Luggin, hissing takes place whenever the current density
becomes greater than about 0.3 or 0.5 ampere per square millimetre of
crater area.
The relation between the current, the carbon P.D., and the length of
arc in the case of the direct-current arc has been investigated by
many observers with the object of giving it mathematical expression.
Let V stand for the potential difference of the carbons in volts, A
for the current through the arc in amperes, L for the length of the
arc in millimetres, R for the resistance of the arc; and let a, b, c,
d, &c., be constants. Erik Edlund in 1867, and other workers after
him, considered that their experiments showed that the relation
between V and L could be expressed by a simple linear equation,
V = a + bL.
Later researches by Mrs Ayrton (Electrician, 1898, 41, p. 720),
however, showed that for a direct-current arc of given size with solid
carbons, the observed values of V can be better represented as a
function both of A and of L of the form
c + dL
V = a + bL + ------.
A
In the case of direct-current arcs formed with solid carbons, Edlund
and other observers agree that the arc resistance R may be expressed
by a simple straight line law, R = e + fL. If the arc is formed with
cored carbons, Mrs Ayrton demonstrated that the lines expressing
resistance as a function of arc length are no longer straight, but
that there is a rather sudden dip down when the length of the arc is
less than 3 mm.
The constants in the above equation for the potential difference of
the carbons were determined by Mrs Ayrton in the case of solid carbons
to be--
11.7 + 10.5L
V = 38.9 + 2.07L + ------------.
A
There has been much debate as to the meaning to be given to the
constant a in the above equation, which has a value apparently not far
from forty volts for a direct-current arc with solid carbons. The
suggestion made in 1867 by Edlund (_Phil. Mag._, 1868, 36, p. 358),
that it implied the existence of a counter-electromotive force in the
arc, was opposed by Luggin in 1889 (_Wien. Ber._ 98, p. 1198), Ernst
Lecher in 1888 (_Wied. Ann._, 1888, 33, p. 609), and by Franz Stenger
in 1892 (_Id._ 45, p. 33); whereas Victor von Lang and L. M. Arons in
1896 (_Id._ 30, p. 95), concluded that experiment indicated the
presence of a counter-electromotive force of 20 volts. A. E. Blondel
concludes, from experiments made by him in 1897 (_The Electrician_,
1897, 39, p. 615), that there is no counter-electromotive force in the
arc greater than a fraction of a volt. Subsequently W. Duddëll (_Proc.
Roy. Soc._, 1901, 68, p. 512) described experiments tending to prove
the real existence of a counter-electromotive force in the arc,
probably having a thermo-electric origin, residing near the positive
electrode, and of an associated lesser adjuvant _e.m.f._ near the
negative carbon.
This fall in voltage between the carbons and the arc is not uniformly
distributed. In 1898 Mrs Ayrton described the results of experiments
showing that if V1 is the potential difference between the positive
carbon and the arc, then
9 + 3.1L
V1 = 31.28 + --------;
A
and if V2 is the potential difference between the arc and the negative
carbon, then
13.6
V2 = 7.6 + ----,
A
where A is the current through the arc in amperes and L is the length
of the arc in millimetres.
The total potential difference between the carbons, minus the fall in
potential down the arc, is therefore equal to the sum of V1 + V2 = V3.
22.6 + 3.1L
Hence V3 = 38.88 + -----------.
A
The difference between this value and the value of V, the total
potential difference between the carbons, gives the loss in potential
due to the true arc. These laws are simple consequences of
straight-line laws connecting the work spent in the arc at the two
electrodes with the other quantities. If W be the work spent in the
arc on either carbon, measured by the product of the current and the
potential drop in passing from the carbon to the arc, or vice versa,
then for the positive carbon W = a + bA, if the length of arc is
constant, W = c + dL, if the current through the arc is constant, and
for the negative carbon W = e + fA.
In the above experiments the potential difference between the carbons
and the arc was measured by using a third exploring carbon as an
electrode immersed in the arc. This method, adopted by Lecher, F.
Uppenborn, S. P. Thompson, and J. A. Fleming, is open to the objection
that the introduction of the third carbon may to a considerable extent
disturb the distribution of potential.
The total work spent in the continuous-current arc with solid carbons
may, according to Mrs Ayrton, be expressed by the equation
W = 11.7 + 10.5L + (38.9 + 2.07L)A.
It will thus be seen that the arc, considered as a conductor, has the
property that if the current through it is increased, the difference
of potential between the carbons is decreased, and in one sense,
therefore, the arc may be said to act as if it were a _negative
resistance_. Frith and Rodgers (_Electrician_, 1896, 38, p. 75) have
suggested that the resistance of the arc should be measured by the
ratio between a small increment of carbon potential difference and the
resulting small increment of current; in other words, by the equation
dV/dA, and not by the ratio simply of V:A. Considerable discussion has
taken place whether an electrical resistance can have a negative
value, belonging as it does to the class of scalar mathematical
quantities. Simply considered as an electrical conductor, the arc
resembles an intensely heated rod of magnesia or other refractory
oxide, the true resistance of which is decreased by rise of
temperature. Hence an increase of current through such a rod of
refractory oxide is accompanied by a decrease in the potential
difference of the ends. This, however, does not imply a negative
resistance, but merely the presence of a resistance with a negative
temperature coefficient. If we plot a curve such that the ordinates
are the difference of potential of the carbons and the abscissae the
current through the arc for constant length of arc, this curve is now
called a _characteristic curve_ of the arc and its slope at any point
the instantaneous resistance of the arc.
Other physical investigations have been concerned with the intrinsic
brightness of the crater. It has been asserted by many observers, such
as Blondel, Sir W. de W. Abney, S. P. Thompson, Trotter, L. J. G. Violle
and others, that this is practically independent of the current passing,
but great differences of opinion exist as to its value. Abney's values
lie between 39 and 116, Trotter's between 80 and 170 candles per square
millimetre. Blondel in 1893 made careful determinations of the
brightness of the arc crater, and came to the conclusion that it was 160
candles per square millimetre. Subsequently J. E. Petavel found a value
of 147 candles per square millimetre for current densities varying from
.06 to .26 amperes per square millimetre (_Proc. Roy. Soc._, 1899, 65,
p. 469). Violle also, in 1893, supported the opinion that the brightness
of the crater per square millimetre was independent of the current
density, and from certain experiments and assumptions as to the specific
heat of carbon, he asserted the temperature of the crater was about
3500° C. It has been concluded that this constancy of temperature, and
therefore of brightness, is due to the fact that the crater is at the
temperature of the boiling-point of carbon, and in that case its
temperature should be raised by increasing the pressure under which the
arc works. W. E. Wilson in 1895 attempted to measure the brightness of
the crater under various pressures, and found that under five
atmospheres the resistance of the arc appeared to increase and the
temperature of the crater to fall, until at a pressure of 20 atmospheres
the brightness of the crater had fallen to a dull red. In a later paper
Wilson and G. F. Fitzgerald stated that these preliminary experiments
were not confirmed, and their later researches throw considerable doubt
on the suggestion that it is the boiling-point of carbon which
determines the temperature of the crater. (See _Electrician_, 1895, 35,
p. 260, and 1897, 38, p. 343.)
[Illustration: FIG. 6.]
Alternating current arc.
The study of the alternating-current arc has suggested a number of new
experimental problems for investigators. In this case all the factors,
namely, current, carbon P.D., resistance, and illuminating power, are
periodically varying; and as the electromotive force reverses itself
periodically, at certain instants the current through the arc is zero.
As the current can be interrupted for a moment without extinguishing
the arc, it is possible to work the electric arc from an alternating
current generator without apparent intermission in the light, provided
that the frequency is not much below 50. During the moment that the
current is zero the carbon continues to glow. Each carbon in turn
becomes, so to speak, the crater carbon, and the illuminating power is
therefore symmetrically distributed. The curve of illumination is as
shown in fig. 3. The nature of the variation of the current and arc P.D.
can be examined by one of two methods, or their modifications,
originally due to Jules Joubert and A. E. Blondel. Joubert's method,
which has been perfected by many observers, consists in attaching to the
shaft of the alternator a contact which closes a circuit at an assigned
instant during the phase. This contact is made to complete connexion
either with a voltmeter or with a galvanometer placed as a shunt across
the carbons or in series with the arc. By this arrangement these
instruments do not read, as usual, the root-mean-square value of the arc
P.D. or current, but give a constant indication determined by, and
indicating, the instantaneous values of these quantities at some
assigned instant. By progressive variation of the phase-instant at which
the contact is made, the successive instantaneous values of the electric
quantities can be measured and plotted out in the form of curves. This
method has been much employed by Blondel, Fleming, C. P. Steinmetz,
Tobey and Walbridge, Frith, H. Görges and many others. The second
method, due to Blondel, depends on the use of the _Oscillograph_, which
is a galvanometer having a needle or coil of very small periodic time of
vibration, say (1/2000)th part of a second or less, so that its
deflections can follow the variations of current passing through the
galvanometer. An improved form of oscillograph, devised by Duddell,
consists of two fine wires, which are strained transversely to the lines
of flux of a strong magnetic field (see OSCILLOGRAPH). The current to be
examined is made to pass up one wire and down the other, and these wires
are then slightly displaced in opposite directions. A small mirror
attached to the wires is thus deflected rapidly to and fro in
synchronism with the variations of the current. From the mirror a ray of
light is reflected which falls upon a photographic plate made to move
across the field with a uniform motion. In this manner a photographic
trace can be obtained of the wave form. By this method the variations of
electric quantities in an alternating-current arc can be watched. The
variation of illuminating power can be followed by examining and
measuring the light of the arc through slits in a revolving stroboscopic
disk, which is driven by a motor synchronously with the variation of
current through the arc.
The general phenomena of the alternating-current arc are as follow:--
If the arc is supplied by an alternator of low inductance, and soft or
cored carbons are employed to produce a steady and silent arc, the
potential difference of the carbons periodically varies in a manner
not very different from that of the alternator on open circuit. If,
however, hard carbons are used, the alternating-current arc deforms
the shape of the alternator electromotive force curve; the carbon P.D.
curve may then have a very different form, and becomes, in general,
more rectangular in shape, usually having a high peak at the front.
The arc also impresses the deformation on the current curve. Blondel
in 1893 (_Electrician_, 32, p. 161) gave a number of potential and
current curves for alternating-current arcs, obtained by the Joubert
contact method, using two movable coil galvanometers of high
resistance to measure respectively potential difference and current.
Blondel's deductions were that the shape of the current and volt
curves is greatly affected by the nature of the carbons, and also by
the amount of inductance and resistance in the circuit of the
alternator. Blondel, W. E. Ayrton, W. E. Sumpner and Steinmetz have
all observed that the alternating-current arc, when hissing or when
formed with uncored carbons, acts like an inductive resistance, and
that there is a lag between the current curves and the potential
difference curves. Hence the _power-factor_, or ratio between the true
power and the product of the root-mean-square values of arc current
and carbon potential difference, in this case is less than unity. For
silent arcs Blondel found power-factors lying between 0.88 and 0.95,
and for hissing ones, values such as 0.70. Ayrton and Sumpner stated
that the power-factor may be as low as 0.5. Joubert, as far back as
1881, noticed the deformation which the alternating-current arc
impresses upon the electromotive force curve of an alternator, giving
an open circuit a simple harmonic variation of electromotive force.
Tobey and Walbridge in 1890 gave the results of a number of
observations taken with commercial forms of alternating-current arc
lamps, in which the same deformation was apparent. Blondel in 1896
came to the conclusion that with the same alternator we can produce
carbon P.D. curves of very varied character, according to the material
of the core, the length of the arc, and the inductance of the circuit.
Hard carbons gave a P.D. curve with a flat top even when worked on a
low inductance alternator.
The periodic variation of light in the alternating-current arc has
also been the subject of inquiry. H. Görges in 1895 at Berlin applied
a stroboscopic method to steady the variations of illuminating power.
Fleming and Petavel employed a similar arrangement, driving the
stroboscopic disk by a synchronous motor (_Phil. Mag._, 1896, 41). The
light passing through slits of the disk was selected in one particular
period of the phase, and by means of a lens could be taken from any
desired portion of the arc or the incandescent carbons. The light so
selected was measured relatively to the mean value of the horizontal
light emitted by the arc, and accidental variations were thus
eliminated. They found that the light from any part is periodic, but
owing to the slow cooling of the carbons never quite zero, the minimum
value happening a little later than the zero value of the current. The
light emitted by a particular carbon when it is the negative, does not
reach such a large maximum value as when it is the positive. The same
observers made experiments which seemed to show that for a given
expenditure of power in the arc the alternating current arc in general
gives less mean spherical candle-power than the continuous current
one.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.]
The effect of the wave form on the efficiency of the
alternating-current arc has engaged the attention of many workers.
Rössler and Wedding in 1894 gave an account of experiments with
alternating-current arcs produced by alternators having electromotive
force curves of very different wave forms, and they stated that the
efficiency or mean spherical candle-power per watt expended in the arc
was greatest for the flattest of the three wave forms by nearly 50%.
Burnie in 1897 gave the results of experiments of the same kind. His
conclusion was, that since the light of the arc is a function of the
temperature, that wave form of current is most efficient which
maintains the temperature most uniformly throughout the half period.
Hence, generally, if the current rises to a high value soon after its
commencement, and is preserved at that value, or nearly at that value,
during the phase, the efficiency of the arc will be greater when the
current curve is more pointed or peaked. An important contribution to
our knowledge concerning alternating-current arc phenomena was made in
1899 by W. Duddell and E. W. Marchant, in a paper containing valuable
results obtained with their improved oscillograph.[1] They studied the
behaviour of the alternating-current arc when formed both with solid
carbons, with cored carbons, and with carbon and metal rods. They
found that with solid carbons the arc P.D. curve is always
square-shouldered and begins with a peak, as shown in fig. 7 (a), but
with cored carbons it is more sinusoidal. Its shape depends on the
total resistance in the circuit, but is almost independent of the type
of alternator, whereas the current wave form is largely dependent on
the machine used, and on the nature and amount of the impedance in the
circuit; hence the importance of selecting a suitable alternator for
operating alternating-current arcs. The same observers drew attention
to the remarkable fact that if the arc is formed between a carbon and
metal rod, say a zinc rod, there is a complete interruption of the
current over half a period corresponding to that time during which the
carbon is positive; this suggests that the rapid cooling of the metal
facilitates the flow of the current from it, and resists the flow of
current to it. The dotted curve in fig. 7 (b) shows the current curve
form in the case of a copper rod. By the use of the oscillograph
Duddell and Marchant showed that the hissing continuous-current arc is
intermittent, and that the current is oscillatory and may have a
frequency of 1000 per second. They also showed that enclosing the arc
increases the arc reaction, the front peak of the potential curve
becoming more marked and the power-factor of the arc reduced.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--Enclosed Arc Lamp.]
Enclosed arc lamps.
If a continuous-current electric arc is formed in the open air with a
positive carbon having a diameter of about 15 millimetres, and a
negative carbon having a diameter of about 9 millimetres, and if a
current of 10 amperes is employed, the potential difference between the
carbons is generally from 40 to 50 volts. Such a lamp is therefore
called a 500-watt arc. Under these conditions the carbons each burn away
at the rate of about 1 in. per hour, actual combustion taking place in
the air which gains access to the highly-heated crater and negative tip;
hence the most obvious means of preventing this disappearance is to
enclose the arc in an air-tight glass vessel. Such a device was tried
very early in the history of arc lighting. The result of using a
completely air-tight globe, however, is that the contained oxygen is
removed by combustion with the carbon, and carbon vapour or hydrocarbon
compounds diffuse through the enclosed space and deposit themselves on
the cool sides of the glass, which is thereby obscured. It was, however,
shown by L. B. Marks (_Electrician_ 31, p. 502, and 38, p. 646) in 1893,
that if the arc is an arc formed with a small current and relatively
high voltage, namely, 80 to 85 volts, it is possible to admit air in
such small amount that though the rate of combustion of the carbons is
reduced, yet the air destroys by oxidation the carbon vapour escaping
from the arc. An arc lamp operated in this way is called an enclosed arc
lamp (fig. 8). The top of the enclosing bulb is closed by a gas check
plug which admits through a small hole a limited supply of air. The
peculiarity of an enclosed arc lamp operated with a continuous current
is that the carbons do not burn to a crater on the positive, and a sharp
tip or mushroom on the negative, but preserve nearly flat surfaces. This
feature affects the distribution of the light. The illuminating curve of
the enclosed arc, therefore, has not such a strongly marked maximum
value as that of the open arc, but on the other hand the true arc or
column of incandescent carbon vapour is less steady in position,
wandering round from place to place on the surface of the carbons. As a
compensation for this defect, the combustion of the carbons per hour in
commercial forms of enclosed arc lamps is about one-twentieth part of
that of an open arc lamp taking the same current.
It was shown by Fleming in 1890 that the column of incandescent carbon
vapour constituting the true arc possesses a unilateral conductivity
(_Proc. Roy. Inst._ 13, p. 47). If a third carbon is dipped into the arc
so as to constitute a third pole, and if a small voltaic battery of a
few cells, with a galvanometer in circuit, is connected in between the
middle pole and the negative carbon, it is found that when the negative
pole of the battery is in connexion with the negative carbon the
galvanometer indicates a current, but does not when the positive pole of
the battery is in connexion with the negative carbon of the arc.
The arc as an illuminant.
Turning next to the consideration of the electric arc as a source of
light, we have already noticed that the illuminating power in different
directions is not the same. If we imagine an electric arc, formed
between a pair of vertical carbons, to be placed in the centre of a
hollow sphere painted white on the interior, then it would be found that
the various zones of this sphere are unequally illuminated. If the
points in which the carbons when prolonged would intercept the sphere
are called the poles, and the line where the horizontal plane through
the arc would intercept the sphere is called the equator, we might
consider the sphere divided up by lines of latitude into zones, each of
which would be differently illuminated. The total quantity of light or
the total illumination of each zone is the product of the area of the
zone and the intensity of the light falling on the zone measured in
candle-power. We might regard the sphere as uniformly illuminated with
an intensity of light such that the product of this intensity and the
total surface of the sphere was numerically equal to the surface
integral obtained by summing up the products of the areas of all the
elementary zones and the intensity of the light falling on each. This
mean intensity is called the _mean spherical candle-power_ of the arc.
If the distribution of the illuminating power is known and given by an
illumination curve, the mean spherical candle-power can be at once
deduced (_La Lumière électrique_, 1890, 37, p. 415).
[Illustration: FIG. 9.]
Let BMC (fig. 9) be a semicircle which by revolution round the
diameter BC sweeps out a sphere. Let an arc be situated at A, and let
the element of the circumference PQ = _ds_ sweep out a zone of the
sphere. Let the intensity of light falling on this zone be I. Then if
[theta] [asymp] the angle MAP and d[theta] the incremental angle PAQ,
and if R is the radius of the sphere, we have
ds = R d[theta];
also, if we project the element PQ on the line DE we have
ab = ds cos [theta],
:. ab = R cos [theta] d[theta]
and
Iab = IR cos [theta] d[theta].
Let r denote the radius PT of the zone of the sphere, then
r = R cos [theta].
Hence the area of the zone swept out by PQ is equal to
2[pi]R cos [theta] ds = 2[pi]R² cos [theta] d[theta]
in the limit, and the total quantity of light falling on the zone is
equal to the product of the mean intensity or candle-power I in the
direction AP and the area of the zone, and therefore to
2[pi]IR² cos [theta] d[theta].
Let I0 stand for the mean spherical candle-power, that is, let I0 be
defined by the equation
4[pi]R²I0 = 2[pi]R[Sigma](Iab)
where [Sigma](Iab) is the sum of all the light actually falling on
the sphere surface, then
1
I0 = -- [Sigma](Iab)
2R
[Sigma](Iab)
= ------------ I_(max)
2RI_(max)
where I_(max) stands for the maximum candle-power of the arc. If,
then, we set off at b a line bH perpendicular to DE and in length
proportional to the candle-power of the arc in the direction AP, and
carry out the same construction for a number of different observed
candle-power readings at known angles above and below the horizon, the
summits of all ordinates such as bH will define a curve DHE. The mean
spherical candle-power of the arc is equal to the product of the
maximum candle-power (I_(max)), and a fraction equal to the ratio of
the area included by the curve DHE to its circumscribing rectangle
DFGE. The area of the curve DHE multiplied by 2[pi]/R gives us the
_total flux of light_ from the arc.
Owing to the inequality in the distribution of light from an electric
arc, it is impossible to define the illuminating power by a single
number in any other way than by stating the mean spherical
candle-power. All such commonly used expressions as "an arc lamp of
2000 candle-power" are, therefore, perfectly meaningless.
Photometry of arc.
The photometry of arc lamps presents particular difficulties, owing to
the great difference in quality between the light radiated by the arc
and that given by any of the ordinarily used light standards. (For
standards of light and photometers, see PHOTOMETER.) All photometry
depends on the principle that if we illuminate two white surfaces
respectively and exclusively by two separate sources of light, we can by
moving the lights bring the two surfaces into such a condition that
their _illumination_ or _brightness_ is the same without regard to any
small colour difference. The quantitative measurement depends on the
fact that the illumination produced upon a surface by a source of light
is inversely as the square of the distance of the source. The trained
eye is capable of making a comparison between two surfaces illuminated
by different sources of light, and pronouncing upon their equality or
otherwise in respect of brightness, apart from a certain colour
difference; but for this to be done with accuracy the two illuminated
surfaces, the brightness of which is to be compared, must be absolutely
contiguous and not separated by any harsh line. The process of comparing
the light from the arc directly with that of a candle or other similar
flame standard is exceedingly difficult, owing to the much greater
proportion and intensity of the violet rays in the arc. The most
convenient practical working standard is an incandescent lamp run at a
high temperature, that is, at an efficiency of about 2½ watts per
candle. If it has a sufficiently large bulb, and has been _aged_ by
being worked for some time previously, it will at a constant voltage
preserve a constancy in illuminating power sufficiently long to make the
necessary photometric comparisons, and it can itself be compared at
intervals with another standard incandescent lamp, or with a flame
standard such as a Harcourt pentane lamp.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.]
In measuring the candle-power of arc lamps it is necessary to have
some arrangement by which the brightness of the rays proceeding from
the arc in different directions can be measured. For this purpose the
lamp may be suspended from a support, and a radial arm arranged to
carry three mirrors, so that in whatever position the arm may be
placed, it gathers light proceeding at one particular angle above or
below the horizon from the arc, and this light is reflected out
finally in a constant horizontal direction. An easily-arranged
experiment enables us to determine the constant loss of light by
reflection at all the mirrors, since that reflection always takes
place at 45°. The ray thrown out horizontally can then be compared
with that from any standard source of light by means of a fixed
photometer, and by sweeping round the radial arm the photometric or
illuminating curve of the arc lamp can be obtained. From this we can
at once determine the nature of the illumination which would be
produced on a horizontal surface if the arc lamp were suspended at a
given distance above it. Let A (fig. 10) be an arc lamp placed at a
height h( = AB) above a horizontal plane. Let ACD be the illuminating
power curve of the arc, and hence AC the candle-power in a direction
AP. The illumination (I) or brightness on the horizontal plane at P is
equal to
AC cos APM/(AP)² = FC/(h² + x²), where x = BP.
Hence if the candle-power curve of the arc and its height above the
surface are known, we can describe a curve BMN, whose ordinate PM will
denote the brightness on the horizontal surface at any point P. It is
easily seen that this ordinate must have a maximum value at some
point. This brightness is best expressed in _candle-feet_, taking the
unit of illumination to be that given by a standard candle on a white
surface at a distance of 1 ft. If any number of arc lamps are placed
above a horizontal plane, the brightness at any point can be
calculated by adding together the illuminations due to each
respectively.
The process of delineating the photometric or polar curve of intensity
for an arc lamp is somewhat tedious, but the curve has the advantage
of showing exactly the distribution of light in different directions.
When only the mean spherical or mean hemispherical candle-power is
required the process can be shortened by employing an integrating
photometer such as that of C. P. Matthews (_Trans. Amer. Inst. Elec.
Eng._, 1903, 19, p. 1465), or the lumen-meter of A. E. Blondel which
enables us to determine at one observation the total flux of light
from the arc and therefore the mean spherical candle-power per watt.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.]
[Illustration: FIG. 12.]
Street arc lighting.
In the use of arc lamps for street and public lighting, the question of
the distribution of light on the horizontal surface is all-important. In
order that street surfaces may be well lighted, the minimum illumination
should not fall below 0.1 candle-foot, and in general, in well-lighted
streets, the maximum illumination will be 1 candle-foot and upwards. By
means of an illumination photometer, such as that of W. H. Preece and A.
P. Trotter, it is easy to measure the illumination in candle-feet at any
point in a street surface, and to plot out a number of contour lines of
equal illumination. Experience has shown that to obtain satisfactory
results the lamps must be placed on a high mast 20 or 25 ft. above the
roadway surface. These posts are now generally made of cast iron in
various ornamental forms (fig. 11), the necessary conductors for
conveying the current up to the lamp being taken inside the iron mast.
(The pair of incandescent lamps halfway down the standard are for use in
the middle of the night, when the arc lamp would give more light than is
required; they are lighted by an automatic switch whenever the arc is
extinguished.) The lamp itself is generally enclosed in an opalescent
spherical globe, which is woven over with wire-netting so that in case
of fracture the pieces may not cause damage. The necessary trimming,
that is, the replacement of carbons, is effected either by lowering the
lamp or, preferably, by carrying round a portable ladder enabling the
trimmer to reach it. For the purpose of public illumination it is very
usual to employ a lamp taking 10 amperes, and therefore absorbing about
500 watts. Such a lamp is called a 500-watt arc lamp, and it is found
that a satisfactory illumination is given for most street purposes by
placing 500-watt arc lamps at distances varying from 40 to 100 yds., and
at a height of 20 to 25 ft. above the roadway. The maximum candle-power
of a 500-watt arc enclosed in a roughened or ground-glass globe will not
exceed 1500 candles, and that of a 6.8-ampere arc (continuous) about 900
candles. If, however, the arc is an enclosed arc with double globes, the
absorption of light would reduce the effective maximum to about 200 c.p.
and 120 c.p. respectively. When arc lamps are placed in public
thoroughfares not less than 40 yds. apart, the illumination anywhere on
the street surface is practically determined by the two nearest ones.
Hence the total illumination at any point may be obtained by adding
together the illuminations due to each arc separately. Given the
photometric polar curves or illuminating-power curves of each arc taken
outside the shade or globe, we can therefore draw a curve representing
the resultant illumination on the horizontal surface. It is obvious that
the higher the lamps are placed, the more uniform is the street surface
illumination, but the less its average value; thus two 10-ampere arcs
placed on masts 20 ft. above the road surface and 100 ft. apart will
give a maximum illumination of about 1.1 and a minimum of about 0.15
candle-feet in the interspace (fig 12). If the lamps are raised on
40-ft. posts the maximum illumination will fall to 0.3, and the minimum
will rise to 0.2. For this reason masts have been employed as high as 90
ft. In docks and railway yards high masts (50 ft.) are an advantage,
because the strong contrasts due to shadows of trucks, carts, &c., then
become less marked, but for street illumination they should not exceed
30 to 35 ft. in height. Taking the case of 10-ampere and 6.8-ampere arc
lamps in ordinary opal shades, the following figures have been given by
Trotter as indicating the nature of the resultant horizontal
illumination:--
+-----------+------------+---------+------------------------+
| | | | Horizontal Illumination|
|Arc Current|Height above| Distance| in Candle-Feet. |
| in | Road | apart +-----------+------------+
| Amperes. | in Feet. | in Feet.| Maximum. | Minimum. |
+-----------+------------+---------+-----------+------------+
| 10 | 20 | 120 | 1.85 | 0.12 |
| 10 | 25 | 120 | 1.17 | 0.15 |
| 10 | 40 | 120 | 0.5 | 0.28 |
| 6.8 | 20 | 90 | 1.1 | 0.21 |
| 6.8 | 40 | 120 | 0.3 | 0.17 |
+-----------+------------+---------+-----------+------------+
As regards distance apart, a very usual practice is to place the lamps
at spaces equal to six to ten times their height above the road surface.
Blondel (_Electrician_, 35, p. 846) gives the following rule for the
height (h) of the arc to afford the maximum illumination at a distance
(d) from the foot of the lamp-post, the continuous current arc being
employed:--
For naked arc h = 0.95 d.
" arc in rough glass globe h = 0.85 d.
" " opaline glob h = "
" " opal globe h = 0.5 d.
" " holophane globe h = 0.5 d.
These figures show that the distribution of light on the horizontal
surface is greatly affected by the nature of the enclosing globe. For
street illumination naked arcs, although sometimes employed in works and
factory yards, are entirely unsuitable, since the result produced on the
eye by the bright point of light is to paralyse a part of the retina and
contract the pupil, hence rendering the eye less sensitive when directed
on feebly illuminated surfaces. Accordingly, diffusing globes have to be
employed. It is usual to place the arc in the interior of a globe of
from 12 to 18 in. in diameter. This may be made of ground glass, opal
glass, or be a dioptric globe such as the holophane. The former two are
strongly absorptive, as may be seen from the results of experiments by
Guthrie and Redhead. The following table shows the astonishing loss of
light due to the use of opal globes:--
+--------------------------------------+-----+--------+-------+-------+
| | | Arc | Arc in| Arc |
| |Naked|in Clear| Rough |in Opal|
| | Arc.| Globe. | Glass | Globe.|
| | | | Globe.| |
+--------------------------------------+-----+--------+-------+-------+
| Mean spherical c.p. | 319 | 235 | 160 | 144 |
| Mean hemispherical c.p. | 450 | 326 | 215 | 138 |
| Percentage value of transmitted light| 100 | 53 | 23 | 19 |
| Percentage absorption | 0 | 47 | 77 | 81 |
+--------------------------------------+-----+--------+-------+-------+
By using Trotter's, Fredureau's or the holophane globe, the light may be
so diffused that the whole globe appears uniformly luminous, and yet not
more than 20% of the light is absorbed. Taking the absorption of an
ordinary opal globe into account, a 500-watt arc does not usually give
more than 500 c.p. as a maximum candle-power. Even with a naked 500-watt
arc the mean spherical candle-power is not generally more than 500 c.p.,
or at the rate of 1 c.p. per watt. The maximum candle-power for a given
electrical power is, however, greatly dependent on the current density
in the carbon, and to obtain the highest current density the carbons
must be as thin as possible. (See T. Hesketh, "Notes on the Electric
Arc," _Electrician_, 39, p. 707.)
For the efficiency of arcs of various kinds, expressed by the mean
hemispherical candle power per ampere and per watt expended in the arc,
the following figures were given by L. Andrews ("Long-flame Arc Lamps,"
_Journal Inst. Elec. Eng.,_ 1906, 37, p. 4).
Candle-power Candle-power
per ampere. per watt.
Ordinary open carbon arc 82 1.54
Enclosed carbon arc 55 0.77
Chemical carbon or flame arc 259 5.80
High voltage inclined carbon arc 200 2.24
It will be seen that the flame arc lamp has an enormous advantage over
other types in the light yielded for a given electric power consumption.
Arc lamp mechanism.
The practical employment of the electric arc as a means of illumination
is dependent upon mechanism for automatically keeping two suitable
carbon rods in the proper position, and moving them so as to enable a
steady arc to be maintained. Means must be provided for holding the
carbons in line, and when the lamp is not in operation they must fall
together, or come together when the current is switched on, so as to
start the arc. As soon as the current passes, they must be moved
slightly apart, and gripped in position immediately the current reaches
its right value, being moved farther apart if the current increases in
strength, and brought together if it decreases. Moreover, it must be
possible for a considerable length of carbon to be fed through the lamp
as required.
[Illustration: FIG. 13]
[Illustration: FIG. 14]
One early devised form of arc-lamp mechanism was a system of clockwork
driven by a spring or weight, which was started and stopped by the
action of an electromagnet; in modern lighthouse lamps a similar
mechanism is still employed. W. E. Staite (1847), J. B. L. Foucault
(1849), V. L. M. Serrin (1857), J. Duboscq (1858), and a host of later
inventors, devised numerous forms of mechanical and clockwork lamps.
The modern self-regulating type may be said to have been initiated in
1878 by the differential lamp of F. von Hefner-Alteneck, and the
clutch lamp of C. F. Brush. The general principle of the former may be
explained as follows: There are two solenoids, placed one above the
other. The lower one, of thick wire, is in series with the two carbon
rods forming the arc, and is hence called the _series coil_. Above
this there is placed another solenoid of fine wire, which is called
the _shunt coil_. Suppose an iron rod to be placed so as to be partly
in one coil and partly in another; then when the coils are traversed
by currents, the iron core will be acted upon by forces tending to
pull it into these solenoids. If the iron core be attached to one end
of a lever, the other end of which carries the upper carbon, it will
be seen that if the carbons are in contact and the current is switched
on, the series coil alone will be traversed by the current, and its
magnetic action will draw down the iron core, and therefore pull the
carbons apart and strike the arc. The moment the carbons separate,
there will be a difference of potential between them, and the shunt
coil will then come into action, and will act on the core so as to
draw the carbons together. Hence the two solenoids act in opposition
to each other, one increasing and the other diminishing the length of
the arc, and maintaining the carbons in the proper position. In the
lamp of this type the upper carbon is in reality attached to a rod
having a side-rack gearing, with a train of wheels governed by a
pendulum. The action of the series coil on the mechanism is to first
lock or stop the train, and then lift it as a whole slightly. This
strikes the arc. When the arc is too long, the series coil lowers the
gear and finally releases the upper carbon, so that it can run down by
its own weight. The principle of a shunt and series coil operating on
an iron core in opposition is the basis of the mechanism of a number
of arc lamps. Thus the lamp invented by F. Krizik and L. Piette,
called from its place of origin the Pilsen lamp, comprises an iron
core made in the shape of a double cone or spindle (fig. 13), which is
so arranged in a brass tube that it can move into or out of a shunt
and series coil, wound the one with fine and the other with thick
insulated wire, and hence regulate the position of the carbon attached
to it. The movement of this core is made to feed the carbons directly
without the intervention of any clockwork, as in the case of the
Hefner-Alteneck lamp. In the clutch-lamp mechanism the lower carbon is
fixed, and the upper carbon rests upon it by its own weight and that
of its holder. The latter consists of a long rod passing through
guides, and is embraced somewhere by a ring capable of being tilted or
lifted by a finger attached to the armature of an electromagnet the
coils of which are in series with the arc. When the current passes
through the magnet it attracts the armature, and by tilting the ring
lifts the upper carbon-holder and hence strikes the arc. If the
current diminishes in value, the upper carbon drops a little by its
own weight, and the feed of the lamp is thus effected by a series of
small lifts and drops of the upper carbon (fig. 14). Another element
sometimes employed in arc-lamp mechanism is the brake-wheel regulator.
This is a feature of one form of the Brockie and of the
Crompton-Pochin lamps. In these the movement of the carbons is
effected by a cord or chain which passes over a wheel, or by a rack
geared with the brake wheel. When no current is passing through the
lamp, the wheel is free to move, and the carbons fall together; but
when the current is switched on, the chain or cord passing over the
brake wheel, or the brake wheel itself is gripped in some way, and at
the same time the brake wheel is lifted so that the arc is struck.
Although countless forms of self-regulating device have been invented
for arc lamps, nothing has survived the test of time so well as the
typical mechanisms which work with carbon rods in one line, one or both
rods being moved by a controlling apparatus as required. The early forms
of semi-incandescent arc lamp, such as those of R. Werdermann and
others, have dropped out of existence. These were not really true arc
lamps, the light being produced by the incandescence of the extremity of
a thin carbon rod pressed against a larger rod or block. The once famous
Jablochkoff candle, invented in 1876, consisted of two carbon rods about
4 mm. in diameter, placed parallel to each other and separated by a
partition of kaolin, steatite or other refractory non-conductor.
Alternating currents were employed, and the candle was set in operation
by a match or starter of high-resistance carbon paste which connected
the tips of the rods. When this burned off, a true arc was formed
between the parallel carbons, the separator volatilizing as the carbons
burned away. Although much ingenuity was expended on this system of
lighting between 1877 and 1881, it no longer exists. One cause of its
disappearance was its relative inefficiency in light-giving power
compared with other forms of carbon arc taking the same amount of power,
and a second equally important reason was the waste in carbons. If the
arc of the electric candle was accidentally blown out, no means of
relighting existed; hence the great waste in half-burnt candles. H.
Wilde, J. C. Jamin, J. Rapieff and others endeavoured to provide a
remedy, but without success.
It is impossible to give here detailed descriptions of a fraction of
the arc-lamp mechanisms devised, and it must suffice to indicate the
broad distinctions between various types. (1) Arc lamps may be either
_continuous-current_ or _alternating-current_ lamps. For outdoor
public illumination the former are greatly preferable, as owing to the
form of the illuminating power-curve they send the light down on the
road surface, provided the upper carbon is the positive one. For
indoor, public room or factory lighting, _inverted arc_ lamps are
sometimes employed. In this case the positive carbon is the lower one,
and the lamp is carried in an inverted metallic reflector shield, so
that the light is chiefly thrown up on the ceiling, whence it is
diffused all round. The alternating-current arc is not only less
efficient in mean spherical candle-power per watt of electric power
absorbed, but its distribution of light is disadvantageous for street
purposes. Hence when arc lamps have to be worked off an
alternating-current circuit for public lighting it is now usual to
make use of a _rectifier_, which rectifies the alternating current
into an unidirectional though pulsating current. (2.) Arc lamps may be
also classified, as above described, into _open_ or _enclosed arcs_.
The enclosed arc can be made to burn for 200 hours with one pair of
carbons, whereas open-arc lamps are usually only able to work, 8, 16
or 32 hours without recarboning, even when fitted with double carbons.
(3) Arc lamps are further divided into _focussing_ and _non-focussing_
lamps. In the former the lower carbon is made to move up as the upper
carbon moves down, and the arc is therefore maintained at the same
level. This is advisable for arcs included in a globe, and absolutely
necessary in the case of lighthouse lamps and lamps for optical
purposes. (4) Another subdivision is into _hand-regulated_ and
_self-regulating_ lamps. In the hand-regulated arcs the carbons are
moved by a screw attachment as required, as in some forms of
search-light lamp and lamps for optical lanterns. The carbons in large
search-light lamps are usually placed horizontally. The
self-regulating lamps may be classified into groups depending upon the
nature of the regulating appliances. In some cases the regulation is
controlled only by a _series coil_, and in others only by a _shunt
coil_. Examples of the former are the original Gülcher and Brush
clutch lamp, and some modern enclosed arc lamps; and of the latter,
the Siemens "band" lamp, and the Jackson-Mensing lamp. In series coil
lamps the variation of the current in the coil throws into or out of
action the carbon-moving mechanism; in shunt coil lamps the variation
in voltage between the carbons is caused to effect the same changes.
Other types of lamp involve the use both of shunt and series coils
acting against each other. A further classification of the
self-regulating lamps may be found in the nature of the carbon-moving
mechanism. This may be some modification of the Brush ring clutch,
hence called _clutch_ lamps; or some variety of _brake wheel_, as
employed in Brockie and Crompton lamps; or else some form of _electric
motor_ is thrown into or out of action and effects the necessary
changes. In many cases the arc-lamp mechanism is provided with a
_dash-pot_, or contrivance in which a piston moving nearly air-tight
in a cylinder prevents sudden jerks in the motion of the mechanism,
and thus does away with the "hunting" or rapid up-and-down movements
to which some varieties of clutch mechanism are liable. One very
efficient form is illustrated in the Thomson lamp and Brush-Vienna
lamp. In this mechanism a shunt and series coil are placed side by
side, and have iron cores suspended to the ends of a rocking arm held
partly within them. Hence, according as the magnetic action of the
shunt or series coil prevails, the rocking arm is tilted backwards or
forwards. When the series coil is not in action the _motion_ is free,
and the upper carbon-holder slides down, or the lower one slides up,
and starts the arc. The series coil comes into action to withdraw the
carbons, and at the same time locks the mechanism. The shunt coil then
operates against the series coil, and between them the carbon is fed
forwards as required. The control to be obtained is such that the arc
shall never become so long as to flicker and become extinguished, when
the carbons would come together again with a rush, but the feed should
be smooth and steady, the position of the carbons responding quickly
to each change in the current.
The introduction of enclosed arc lamps was a great improvement, in
consequence of the economy effected in the consumption of carbon and
in the cost of labour for trimming. A well-known and widely used form
of enclosed arc lamp is the Jandus lamp, which in large current form
can be made to burn for two hundred hours without recarboning, and in
small or midget form to burn for forty hours, taking a current of two
amperes at 100 volts. Such lamps in many cases conveniently replace
large sizes of incandescent lamps, especially for shop lighting, as
they give a whiter light. Great improvements have also been made in
inclined carbon arc lamps. One reason for the relatively low
efficiency of the usual vertical rod arrangement is that the crater
can only radiate laterally, since owing to the position of the
negative carbon no crater light is thrown directly downwards. If,
however, the carbons are placed in a downwards slanting position at a
small angle like the letter V and the arc formed at the bottom tips,
then the crater can emit downwards all the light it produces. It is
found, however, that the arc is unsteady unless a suitable magnetic
field is employed to keep the arc in position at the carbon tips. This
method has been adopted in the Carbone arc, which, by the employment
of inclined carbons, and a suitable electromagnet to keep the true arc
steady at the ends of the carbons, has achieved considerable success.
One feature of the Carbone arc is the use of a relatively high voltage
between the carbons, their potential difference being as much as 85
volts.
Arrangement.
Arc lamps may be arranged either (i.) in series, (ii.) in parallel or
(iii.) in series parallel. In the first case a number, say 20, may be
traversed by the same current, in that case supplied at a pressure of
1000 volts. Each must have a magnetic cut-out, so that if the carbons
stick together or remain apart the current to the other lamps is not
interrupted, the function of such a cut-out being to close the main
circuit immediately any one lamp ceases to pass current. Arc lamps
worked in series are generally supplied with a current from a constant
current dynamo, which maintains an invariable current of, say 10
amperes, independently of the number of lamps on the external circuit.
If the lamps, however, are worked in series off a constant potential
circuit, such as one supplying at the same time incandescent lamps,
provision must be made by which a resistance coil can be substituted for
any one lamp removed or short-circuited. When lamps are worked in
parallel, each lamp is independent, but it is then necessary to add a
resistance in series with the lamp. By special devices three lamps can
be worked in series of 100 volt circuits. Alternating-current arc lamps
can be worked off a high-tension circuit in parallel by providing each
lamp with a small transformer. In some cases the alternating
high-tension current is _rectified_ and supplied as a unidirectional
current to lamps in series. If single alternating-current lamps have to
be worked off a 100 volt alternating-circuit, each lamp must have in
series with it a choking coil or economy coil, to reduce the circuit
pressure to that required for one lamp. Alternating-current lamps take a
larger _effective_ current, and work with a less effective or virtual
carbon P.D., than continuous current arcs of the same wattage.
Cost.
The cost of working public arc lamps is made up of several items. There
is first the cost of supplying the necessary electric energy, then the
cost of carbons and the labour of recarboning, and, lastly, an item due
to depreciation and repairs of the lamps. An ordinary type of open 10
ampere arc lamp, burning carbons 15 and 9 mm. in diameter for the
positive and negative, and working every night of the year from dusk to
dawn, uses about 600 ft. of carbons per annum. If the positive carbon is
18 mm. and the negative 12 mm., the consumption of each size of carbon
is about 70 ft. per 1000 hours of burning. It may be roughly stated that
at the present prices of plain open arc-lamp carbons the cost is about
15s. per 1000 hours of burning; hence if such a lamp is burnt every
night from dusk to midnight the annual cost in that respect is about £1,
10s. The annual cost of labour per lamp for trimming is in Great Britain
from £2 to £3; hence, approximately speaking, the cost per annum of
maintenance of a public arc lamp burning every night from dusk to
midnight is about £4 to £5, or perhaps £6, per annum, depreciation and
repairs included. Since such a 10 ampere lamp uses half a Board of Trade
unit of electric energy every hour, it will take 1000 Board of Trade
units per annum, burning every night from dusk to midnight; and if this
energy is supplied, say at 1½d. per unit, the annual cost of energy will
be about £6, and the upkeep of the lamp, including carbons, labour for
trimming and repairs, will be about £10 to £11 per annum. The cost for
labour and carbons is considerably reduced by the employment of the
enclosed arc lamp, but owing to the absorption of light produced by the
inner enclosing globe, and the necessity for generally employing a
second outer globe, there is a lower resultant candle-power per watt
expended in the arc. Enclosed arc lamps are made to burn without
attention for 200 hours, singly on 100 volt circuits, or two in series
on 200 volt circuits, and in addition to the cost of carbons per hour
being only about one-twentieth of that of the open arc, they have
another advantage in the fact that there is a more uniform distribution
of light on the road surface, because a greater proportion of light is
thrown out horizontally.
It has been found by experience that the ordinary type of open arc lamp
with vertical carbons included in an opalescent globe cannot compete in
point of cost with modern improvements in gas lighting as a means of
street illumination. The violet colour of the light and the sharp
shadows, and particularly the non-illuminated area just beneath the
lamp, are grave disadvantages. The high-pressure flame arc lamp with
inclined chemically treated carbons has, however, put a different
complexion on matters. Although the treated carbons cost more than the
plain carbons, yet there is a great increase of emitted light, and a
9-ampere flame arc lamp supplied with electric energy at 1½d. per unit
can be used for 1000 hours at an inclusive cost of about £s to £6, the
mean emitted illumination being at the rate of 4 c.p. per watt absorbed.
In the Carbone arc lamp, the carbons are worked at an angle of 15° or
20° to each other and the arc is formed at the lower ends. If the
potential difference of the carbons is low, say only 50-60 volts, the
crater forms between the tips of the carbons and is therefore more or
less hidden. If, however, the voltage is increased to 90-100 then the
true flame of the arc is longer and is curved, and the crater forms at
the exteme tip of the carbons and throws all its light downwards. Hence
results a far greater mean hemispherical candle power (M.H.S.C.P.), so
that whereas a 10-ampere 60 volt open arc gives at most 1200 M.H.S.C.P.,
a Carbone 10-ampere 85 volt arc will give 2700 M.H.S.C.P. Better results
still can be obtained with impregnated carbons. But the flame arcs with
impregnated carbons cannot be enclosed, so the consumption of carbon is
greater, and the carbons themselves are more costly, and leave a greater
ash on burning; hence more trimming is required. They give a more
pleasing effect for street lighting, and their golden yellow globe of
light is more useful than an equally costly plain arc of the open type.
This improvement in efficiency is, however, accompanied by some
disadvantages. The flame arc is very sensitive to currents of air and
therefore has to be shielded from draughts by putting it under an
"economizer" or chamber of highly refractory material which surrounds
the upper carbon, or both carbon tips, if the arc is formed with
inclined carbons. (For additional information on flame arc lamps see a
paper by L. B. Marks and H. E. Clifford, _Electrician_, 1906, 57, p.
975.)
2. _Incandescent Lamps._--Incandescent electric lighting, although not
the first, is yet in one sense the most obvious method of utilizing
electric energy for illumination. It was evolved from the early observed
fact that a conductor is heated when traversed by an electric current,
and that if it has a high resistance and a high melting-point it may be
rendered incandescent, and therefore become a source of light. Naturally
every inventor turned his attention to the employment of wires of
refractory metals, such as platinum or alloys of platinum-iridium, &c.,
for the purpose of making an incandescent lamp. F. de Moleyns
experimented in 1841, E. A. King and J. W. Starr in 1845, J. J. W.
Watson in 1853, and W. E. Staite in 1848, but these inventors achieved
no satisfactory result. Part of their want of success is attributable to
the fact that the problem of the economical production of electric
current by the dynamo machine had not then been solved. In 1878 T. A.
Edison devised lamps in which a platinum wire was employed as the
light-giving agent, carbon being made to adhere round it by pressure.
Abandoning this, he next directed his attention to the construction of
an "electric candle," consisting of a thin cylinder or rod formed of
finely-divided metals, platinum, iridium, &c., mixed with refractory
oxides, such as magnesia, or zirconia, lime, &c. This refractory body
was placed in a closed vessel and heated by being traversed by an
electric current. In a further improvement he proposed to use a block of
refractory oxide, round which a bobbin of fine platinum or
platinum-iridium wire was coiled. Every other inventor who worked at the
problem of incandescent lighting seems to have followed nearly the same
path of invention. Long before this date, however, the notion of
employing carbon as a substance to be heated by the current had entered
the minds of inventors; even in 1845 King had employed a small rod of
plumbago as the substance to be heated. It was obvious, however, that
carbon could only be so heated when in a space destitute of oxygen, and
accordingly King placed his plumbago rod in a barometric vacuum. S. W.
Konn in 1872, and S. A. Kosloff in 1875, followed in the same direction.
Carbon filament lamp.
No real success attended the efforts of inventors until it was finally
recognized, as the outcome of the work by J. W. Swan, T. A. Edison, and,
in a lesser degree, St. G. Lane Fox and W. E. Sawyer and A. Man, that
the conditions of success were as follow: First, the substance to be
heated must be carbon in the form of a thin wire rod or thread,
technically termed a _filament_; second, this must be supported and
enclosed in a vessel formed entirely of glass; third, the vessel must be
exhausted as perfectly as possible; and fourth, the current must be
conveyed into and out of the carbon filament by means of platinum wires
hermetically sealed through the glass.
One great difficulty was the production of the carbon filament. King,
Sawyer, Man and others had attempted to cut out a suitably shaped
piece of carbon from a solid block; but Edison and Swan were the first
to show that the proper solution of the difficulty was to carbonize an
organic substance to which the necessary form had been previously
given. For this purpose cardboard, paper and ordinary thread were
originally employed, and even, according to Edison, a mixture of
lampblack and tar rolled out into a fine wire and bent into a spiral.
At one time Edison employed a filament of bamboo, carbonized after
being bent into a horse-shoe shape. Swan used a material formed by
treating ordinary crochet cotton-thread with dilute sulphuric acid,
the "parchmentized thread" thus produced being afterwards carbonized.
In the modern incandescent lamp the filament is generally constructed
by preparing first of all a form of soluble cellulose. Carefully
purified cotton-wool is dissolved in some solvent, such as a solution
of zinc chloride, and the viscous material so formed is forced by
hydraulic pressure through a die. The long thread thus obtained, when
hardened, is a semi-transparent substance resembling cat-gut, and when
carefully carbonized at a high temperature gives a very dense and
elastic form of carbon filament. It is cut into appropriate lengths,
which after being bent into horse-shoes, double-loops, or any other
shape desired, are tied or folded round carbon formers and immersed in
plumbago crucibles, packed in with finely divided plumbago. The
crucibles are then heated to a high temperature in an ordinary
combustion or electric furnace, whereby the organic matter is
destroyed, and a skeleton of carbon remains. The higher the
temperature at which this carbonization is conducted, the denser is
the resulting product. The filaments so prepared are sorted and
measured, and short leading-in wires of platinum are attached to their
ends by a carbon cement or by a carbon depositing process, carried out
by heating electrically the junction of the carbon and platinum under
the surface of a hydrocarbon liquid. They are then mounted in bulbs
of lead glass having the same coefficient of expansion as platinum,
through the walls of which, therefore, the platinum wires can be
hermetically sealed. The bulbs pass into the exhausting-room, where
they are exhausted by some form of mechanical or mercury pump. During
this process an electric current is sent through the filament to heat
it, in order to disengage the gases occluded in the carbon, and
exhaustion must be so perfect that no luminous glow appears within the
bulb when held in the hand and touched against one terminal of an
induction coil in operation.
In the course of manufacture a process is generally applied to the
carbon which is technically termed "treating." The carbon filament is
placed in a vessel surrounded by an atmosphere of hydrocarbon, such as
coal gas or vapour of benzol. If current is then passed through the
filament the hydrocarbon vapour is decomposed, and carbon is thrown
down upon the filament in the form of a lustrous and dense deposit
having an appearance like steel when seen under the microscope. This
deposited carbon is not only much more dense than ordinary carbonized
organic material, but it has a much lower specific electric
resistance. An untreated carbon filament is generally termed the
primary carbon, and a deposited carbon the secondary carbon. In the
process of treating, the greatest amount of deposit is at any places
of high resistance in the primary carbon, and hence it tends to cover
up or remedy the defects which may exist. The bright steely surface of
a well-treated filament is a worse radiator than the rougher black
surface of an untreated one; hence it does not require the expenditure
of so much electric power to bring it to the same temperature, and
probably on account of its greater density it ages much less rapidly.
[Illustration: FIG. 15.]
[Illustration: FIG. 16.--Incandescent Lamp Sockets.]
Finally, the lamp is provided with a collar having two sole plates on
it, to which the terminal wires are attached, or else the terminal
wires are simply bent into two loops; in a third form, the Edison
screw terminal, it is provided with a central metal plate, to which
one end of the filament is connected, the other end being joined to a
screw collar. The collars and screws are formed of thin brass embedded
in plaster of Paris, or in some material like vitrite or black glass
(fig. 15). To put the lamp into connexion with the circuit supplying
the current, it has to be fitted into a socket or holder. Three of the
principal types of holder in use are the bottom contact (B.C.) or
Dornfeld socket, the Edison screw-collar socket and the Swan or loop
socket. In the socket of C. Dornfeld (fig. 16, a and a´) two spring
pistons, in contact with the two sides of the circuit, are fitted into
the bottom of a short metallic tube having bayonet joint slots cut in
the top. The brass collar on the lamp has two pins, by means of which
a bayonet connexion is made between it and the socket; and when this
is done, the spring pins are pressed against the sole plates on the
lamp. In the Edison socket (fig. 16, b) a short metal tube with an
insulating lining has on its interior a screw sleeve, which is in
connexion with one wire of the circuit; at the bottom of the tube, and
insulated from the screw sleeve, is a central metal button, which is
in connexion with the other side of the circuit. On screwing the lamp
into the socket, the screw collar of the lamp and the boss or plate at
the base of the lamp make contact with the corresponding parts of the
socket, and complete the connexion. In some cases a form of switch is
included in the socket, which is then termed the key-holder. For loop
lamps the socket consists of an insulated block, having on it two
little hooks, which engage with the eyes of the lamp. This insulating
block also carries some form of spiral spring or pair of spring loops,
by means of which the lamp is pressed away from the socket, and the
eyes kept tight by the hooks. This spring or Swan socket (fig. 16, c)
is found useful in places where the lamps are subject to vibration,
for in such cases the Edison screw collar cannot well be used, because
the vibration loosens the contact of the lamp in the socket. The
sockets may be fitted with appliances for holding ornamental shades or
conical reflectors.
The incandescent filament being a very brilliant line of light,
various devices are adopted for moderating its brilliancy and
distributing the light. A simple method is to sand-blast the exterior
of the bulb, whereby it acquires an appearance similar to that of
ground glass, or the bare lamp may be enclosed in a suitable glass
shade. Such shades, however, if made of opalescent or semi-opaque
glass, absorb 40 to 60% of the light; hence various forms of dioptric
shade have been invented, consisting of clear glass ruled with
prismatic grooves in such a manner as to diffuse the light without any
very great absorption. Invention has been fertile in devising etched,
coloured, opalescent, frosted and ornamental shades for decorative
purposes, and in constructing special forms for use in situations,
such as mines and factories for explosives, where the globe containing
the lamp must be air-tight. High candle-power lamps, 500, 1000 and
upwards, are made by placing in one large glass bulb a number of
carbon filaments arranged in parallel between two rings, which are
connected with the main leading-in wires. When incandescent lamps are
used for optical purposes it is necessary to compress the filament
into a small space, so as to bring it into the focus of a lens or
mirror. The filament is then coiled or crumpled up into a spiral or
zigzag form. Such lamps are called _focus lamps_.
Classification of lamps.
Incandescent lamps are technically divided into high and low voltage
lamps, high and low efficiency lamps, standard and fancy lamps. The
difference between high and low efficiency lamps is based upon the
relation of the power absorbed by the lamp to the candle-power emitted.
Every lamp when manufactured is marked with a certain figure, called the
_marked volts_. This is understood to be the electromotive force in
volts which must be applied to the lamp terminals to produce through the
filament a current of such magnitude that the lamp will have a
practically satisfactory life, and give in a horizontal direction a
certain candle-power, which is also marked upon the glass. The numerical
product of the current in amperes passing through the lamp, and the
difference in potential of the terminals measured in volts, gives the
total power taken up by the lamp in watts; and this number divided by
the candle-power of the lamp (taking generally a horizontal direction)
gives the _watts per candle-power_. This is an important figure, because
it is determined by the temperature; it therefore determines the quality
of the light emitted by the lamp, and also fixes the average duration of
the filament when rendered incandescent by a current. Even in a good
vacuum the filament is not permanent. Apart altogether from accidental
defects, the carbon is slowly volatilized, and carbon molecules are also
projected in straight lines from different portions of the filament.
This process not only causes a change in the nature of the surface of
the filament, but also a deposit of carbon on the interior of the bulb,
whereby the glass is blackened and the candle-power of the lamp reduced.
The volatilization increases very rapidly as the temperature rises.
Hence at points of high resistance in the filament, more heat being
generated, a higher temperature is attained, and the scattering of the
carbon becomes very rapid; in such cases the filament is sooner or later
cut through at the point of high resistance. In order that incandescent
lighting may be practically possible, it is essential that the lamps
shall have a certain _average life_, that is, duration; and this useful
duration is fixed not merely by the possibility of passing a current
through the lamp at all, but by the rate at which the candle-power
diminishes. The decay of candle-power is called the _ageing_ of the
lamp, and the useful life of the lamp may be said to be that period of
its existence before it has deteriorated to a point when it gives only
75% of its original candle-power. It is found that in practice carbon
filament lamps, as at present made, if worked at a higher efficiency
than 2½ watts per candle-power, exhibit a rapid deterioration in
candle-power and an abbreviated life. Hence lamp manufacturers classify
lamps into various classes, marked for use say at 2½, 3, 3½ and 4 watts
per candle. A 2½ watt per candle lamp would be called a _high-efficiency
lamp_, and a 4 watt per candle lamp would be called a _low-efficiency_
lamp. In ordinary circumstances the low-efficiency lamp would probably
have a longer life, but its light would be less suitable for many
purposes of illumination in which colour discrimination is required.
The possibility of employing high-efficiency lamps depends greatly on
the uniformity of the electric pressure of the supply. If the voltage is
exceedingly uniform, then high-efficiency lamps can be satisfactorily
employed; but they are not adapted for standing the variations in
pressure which are liable to occur with public supply-stations, since,
other things being equal, their filaments are less substantial. The
classification into high and low voltage lamps is based upon the watts
per candle-power corresponding to the marked volts. When incandescent
lamps were first introduced, the ordinary working voltage was 50 or 100,
but now a large number of public supply-stations furnish current to
consumers at a pressure of 200 or 250 volts. This increase was
necessitated by the enlarging area of supply in towns, and therefore the
necessity for conveying through the same subterranean copper cables a
large supply of electric energy without increasing the maximum current
value and the size of the cables. This can only be done by employing a
higher working electromotive force; hence arose a demand for
incandescent lamps having marked volts of 200 and upwards, technically
termed high-voltage lamps. The employment of higher pressures in public
supply-stations has necessitated greater care in the selection of the
lamp fittings, and in the manner of carrying out the wiring work. The
advantages, however, of higher supply pressures, from the point of view
of supply-stations, are undoubted. At the same time the consumer desired
a lamp of a higher efficiency than the ordinary carbon filament lamp.
The demand for this stimulated efforts to produce improved carbon lamps,
and it was found that if the filament were exposed to a very high
temperature, 3000° C. in an electric furnace, it became more refractory
and was capable of burning in a lamp at an efficiency of 2½ watts per
c.p. Inventors also turned their attention to substances other than
carbon which can be rendered incandescent by the electric current.
Oxide filaments.
The luminous efficiency of any source of light, that is to say, the
percentage of rays emitted which affect the eye as light compared with
the total radiation, is dependent upon its temperature. In an ordinary
oil lamp the luminous rays do not form much more than 3% of the total
radiation. In the carbon-filament incandescent lamp, when worked at
about 3 watts per candle, the luminous efficiency is about 5%; and in
the arc lamp the radiation from the crater contains about 10 to 15% of
eye-affecting radiation. The temperature of a carbon filament working at
about 3 watts per candle is not far from the melting-point of platinum,
that is to say, is nearly 1775° C. If it is worked at a higher
efficiency, say 2.5 watts per candle-power, the temperature rises
rapidly, and at the same time the volatilization and molecular
scattering of the carbon is rapidly increased, so that the average
duration of the lamp is very much shortened. An improvement, therefore,
in the efficiency of the incandescent lamp can only be obtained by
finding some substance which will endure heating to a higher temperature
than the carbon filament. Inventors turned their attention many years
ago, with this aim, to the refractory oxides and similar substances.
Paul Jablochkoff in 1877 described and made a lamp consisting of a piece
of kaolin, which was brought to a state of incandescence first by
passing over it an electric spark, and afterwards maintained in a state
of incandescence by a current of lower electromotive force. Lane Fox and
Edison, in 1878, proposed to employ platinum wires covered with films of
lime, magnesia, steatite, or with the rarer oxides, zirconia, thoria,
&c.; and Lane Fox, in 1879, suggested as an incandescent substance a
mixture of particles of carbon with the earthy oxides. These earthy
oxides--magnesia, lime and the oxides of the rare earths, such as
thoria, zirconia, erbia, yttria, &c.--possess the peculiarity that at
ordinary temperatures they are practically non-conductors, but at very
high temperatures their resistance at a certain point rapidly falls, and
they become fairly good conductors. Hence if they can once be brought
into a state of incandescence a current can pass through them and
maintain them in that state. But at this temperature they give up oxygen
to carbon; hence no mixtures of earthy oxides with carbon are permanent
when heated, and failure has attended all attempts to use a carbon
filament covered with such substances as thoria, zirconia or other of
the rare oxides.
Nernst lamp.
H. W. Nernst in 1897, however, patented an incandescent lamp in which
the incandescent body consists entirely of a slender rod or filament of
magnesia. If such a rod is heated by the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe to a high
temperature it becomes conductive, and can then be maintained in an
intensely luminous condition by passing a current through it after the
flame is withdrawn. Nernst found that by mixing together, in suitable
proportions, oxides of the rare earths, he was able to prepare a
material which can be formed into slender rods and threads, and which is
rendered sufficiently conductive to pass a current with an electromotive
force as low as 100 volts, merely by being heated for a few moments with
a spirit lamp, or even by the radiation from a neighbouring platinum
spiral brought to a state of incandescence.
[Illustration: FIG. 17.--Nernst Lamp A Type.]
[Illustration: FIG. 18.--Nernst Lamp, Burners for B Type. a, low
voltage; b, high voltage.]
The Nernst lamp, therefore (fig. 17), consists of a slender rod of the
mixed oxides attached to platinum wires by an oxide paste. Oxide
filaments of this description are not enclosed in an exhausted glass
vessel, and they can be brought, without risk of destruction, to a
temperature considerably higher than a carbon filament; hence the lamp
has a higher luminous efficiency. The material now used for the oxide
rod or "glower" of Nernst lamps is a mixture of zirconia and yttria,
made into a paste and squirted or pressed into slender rods. This
material is non-conductive when cold, but when slightly heated it
becomes conductive and then falls considerably in resistance. The
glower, which is straight in some types of the lamp but curved in
others, is generally about 3 or 4 cm. long and 1 or 2 mm. in diameter.
It is held in suitable terminals, and close to it, or round it, but
not touching it, is a loose coil of platinum wire, also covered with
oxide and called the "heater" (fig. 18). In series with it is a spiral
of iron wire, enclosed in a bulb full of hydrogen, which is called the
"ballast resistance." The socket also contains a switch controlled by
an electromagnet. When the current is first switched on it passes
through the heater coil which, becoming incandescent, by radiation
heats the glower until it becomes conductive. The glower then takes
current, becoming itself brilliantly incandescent, and the
electromagnet becoming energized switches the heater coil out of
circuit. The iron ballast wire increases in resistance with increase
of current, and so operates to keep the total current through the
glower constant in spite of small variations of circuit voltage. The
disadvantages of the lamp are (1) that it does not light immediately
after the current is switched on and is therefore not convenient for
domestic use; (2) that it cannot be made in small light units such as
5 c.p.; (3) that the socket and fixture are large and more complicated
than for the carbon filament lamp. But owing to the higher
temperature, the light is whiter than that of the carbon glow lamp,
and the efficiency or candle power per watt is greater. Since,
however, the lamp must be included in an opal globe, some considerable
part of this last advantage is lost. On the whole the lamp has found
its field of operation rather in external than in domestic lighting.
Metallic filament lamps.
Great efforts were made in the latter part of the 19th century and the
first decade of the 20th to find a material for the filament of an
incandescent lamp which could replace carbon and yet not require a
preliminary heating like the oxide glowers. This resulted in the
production of refractory metallic filament lamps made of osmium,
tantalum, tungsten and other rare metals. Auer von Welsbach suggested
the use of osmium. This metal cannot be drawn into wire on account of
its brittleness, but it can be made into a filament by mixing the finely
divided metal with an organic binding material which is carbonized in
the usual way at a high temperature, the osmium particles then cohering.
The difficulty has hitherto been to construct in this way metallic
filament lamps of low candle power (16 c.p.) for 220 volt circuits, but
this is being overcome. When used on modern supply circuits of 220 volts
a number of lamps may be run in series, or a step-down transformer
employed.
[Illustration: FIG. 19.--Tantalum Lamp.]
The next great improvement came when W. von Bolton produced the tantalum
lamp in 1904. There are certain metals known to have a melting point
about 2000° C. or upwards, and of these tantalum is one. It can be
produced from the potassium tantalo-fluoride in a pulverulent form. By
carefully melting it _in vacuo_ it can then be converted into the
reguline form and drawn into wire. In this condition it has a density of
16.6 (water = 1), is harder than platinum and has greater tensile
strength than steel, viz. 95 kilograms per sq. mm., the value for good
steel being 70 to 80 kilograms per sq. mm. The electrical resistance at
15° C. is 0.146 ohms per metre with section of 1 sq. mm. after annealing
at 1900° C. _in vacuo_ and therefore about 6 times that of mercury; the
temperature coefficient is 0.3 per degree C. At the temperature assumed
in an incandescent lamp when working at 1.5 watts per c.p. the
resistance is 0.830 ohms per metre with a section of 1 sq. mm. The
specific heat is 0.0365. Bolton invented methods of producing tantalum
in the form of a long fine wire 0.05 mm. in diameter. To make a 25 c.p.
lamp 650 mm., or about 2 ft., of this wire are wound backwards and
forwards zigzag on metallic supports carried on a glass frame, which is
sealed into an exhausted glass bulb. The tantalum lamp so made (fig.
19), working on a 110 volt circuit takes 0.36 amperes or 39 watts, and
hence has an efficiency of about 1.6 watts per c.p. The useful life,
that is the time in which it loses 20% of its initial candle power, is
about 400-500 hours, but in general a life of 800-1000 hours can be
obtained. The bulb blackens little in use, but the life is said to be
shorter with alternating than with direct current. When worked on
alternating current circuits the filament after a time breaks up into
sections which become curiously sheared with respect to each other but
still maintain electrical contact. The resistance of tantalum increases
with the temperature; hence the temperature coefficient is positive, and
sudden rises in working voltage do not cause such variations in
candle-power as in the case of the carbon lamp.
Patents have also been taken out for lamps made with filaments of such
infusible metals as tungsten and molybdenum, and Siemens and Halske,
Sanders and others, have protected methods for employing zirconium and
other rare metals. According to the patents of Sanders (German patents
Nos. 133701, 137568, 137569) zirconium filaments are manufactured from
the hydrogen or nitrogen compounds of the rare earths by the aid of some
organic binding material. H. Kuzel of Vienna (British Patent No. 28154
of 1904) described methods of making metallic filaments from any metal.
He employs the metals in a colloidal condition, either as hydrosol,
organosol, gel, or colloidal suspension. The metals are thus obtained in
a gelatinous form, and can be squirted into filaments which are dried
and reduced to the metallic form by passing an electric current through
them (_Electrician_, 57, 894). This process has a wide field of
application, and enables the most refractory and infusible metals to be
obtained in a metallic wire form. The zirconium and tungsten wire lamps
are equal to or surpass the tantalum lamp in efficiency and are capable
of giving light, with a useful commercial life, at an efficiency of
about one watt per candle. Lamps called osram lamps, with filaments
composed of an alloy of osmium and tungsten (wolfram), can be used with
a life of 1000 hours when run at an efficiency of about 1.5 watts per
candle.
Tungsten lamps are made by the processes of Just and Hanaman (German
patent No. 154262 of 1903) and of Kuzel, and at a useful life of 1000
hours, with a falling off in light-giving power of only 10-15%, they
have been found to work at an efficiency of one to 1.25 watts per c.p.
Further collected information on modern metallic wire lamps and the
patent literature thereof will be found in an article in the _Engineer_
for December 7, 1906.
Mention should also be made of the Helion filament glow lamp in which
the glower is composed largely of silicon, a carbon filament being used
as a base. This filament is said to have a number of interesting
qualities and an efficiency of about 1 watt per candle (see the
_Electrician_, 1907, 58, p. 567).
Mercury vapour lamps.
The mercury vapour lamps of P. Cooper-Hewitt, C. O. Bastian and others
have a certain field of usefulness. If a glass tube, highly exhausted,
contains mercury vapour and a mercury cathode and iron anode, a current
can be passed through it under high electromotive force and will then be
maintained when the voltage is reduced. The mercury vapour is rendered
incandescent and glows with a brilliant greenish light which is highly
actinic, but practically monochromatic, and is therefore not suitable
for general illumination because it does not reveal objects in their
daylight colours. It is, however, an exceedingly economical source of
light. A 3-ampere Cooper-Hewitt mercury lamp has an efficiency of 0.15
to 0.33 watts per candle, or practically the same as an arc lamp, and
will burn for several thousand hours. A similar lamp with mercury vapour
included in a tube of _uviol_ glass specially transparent to
ultra-violet light (prepared by Schott & Co. of Jena) seems likely to
replace the Finsen arc lamp in the treatment of lupus. Many attempts
have been made to render the mercury vapour lamp polychromatic by the
use of amalgams of zinc, sodium and bismuth in place of pure mercury for
the negative electrode.
Photometry of glow lamps.
An important matter in connexion with glow lamps is their photometry.
The arrangement most suitable for the photometry and testing of
incandescent lamps is a gallery or room large enough to be occupied by
several workers, the walls being painted dead black. The photometer,
preferably one of the Lummer-Brodhun form, is set up on a gallery or
bench. On one side of it must be fixed a working standard, which as
first suggested by Fleming is preferably a large bulb incandescent lamp
with a specially "aged" filament. Its candle-power can be compared, at
regular intervals and known voltages, with that of some accepted flame
standard, such as the 10 candle pentane lamp of Vernon Harcourt. In a
lamp factory or electrical laboratory it is convenient to have a number
of such large bulb standard lamps. This working standard should be
maintained at a fixed distance on one side of the photometer, such that
when worked at a standard voltage it creates an illumination of one
candle-foot on one side of the photometer disk. The incandescent lamp to
be examined is then placed on the other side of the photometer disk on a
travelling carriage, so that it can be moved to and fro. Arrangements
must be made to measure the current and the voltage of this lamp under
test, and this is most accurately accomplished by employing a
potentiometer (q.v.). The holder which carries the lamp should allow the
lamp to be held with its axis in any required position; in making normal
measurements the lamp should have its axis vertical, the filament being
so situated that none of the turns or loops overlies another as seen
from the photometer disk. Observations can then be made of the
candle-power corresponding to different currents and voltages.
The candle-power of the lamp varies with the other variables in
accordance with exponential laws of the following kind:--
If A is the current in amperes through the lamp, V the voltage or
terminal potential difference, W the power absorbed in watts, _c.p._
the maximum candle-power, and a, b, c, &c., constants, it has been
found that A and _c.p._ are connected by an exponential law such that
c.p. = aA^x
For carbon filament lamps x is a number lying between 5 and 6,
generally equal to 5.5 or 5.6. Also it has been found that c.p. = bW³
very nearly, and that
c.p. = cV^y nearly
where c is some other constant, and for carbon filaments y is a number
nearly equal to 6. It is obvious that if the candle-power of the lamp
varies very nearly as the 6th power of the current and of the voltage,
the candle-power must vary as the cube of the wattage.
Sir W. de W. Abney and E. R. Festing have also given a formula
connecting candle-power and watts equivalent to c.p. = (W - d)² where
d is a constant.
In the case of the tantalum lamp the exponent x has a value near to 6,
but the exponent y is a number near to 4, and the same for the osmium
filament. Hence for these metallic glowers a certain percentage
variation of voltage does not create so great a variation in
candle-power as in the case of the carbon lamp.
Curves delineating the relation of these variables for any
incandescent lamp are called its _characteristic-curves_. The life or
average duration is a function of W/c.p., or of the _watts per
candle-power_, and therefore of the voltage at which the lamp is
worked. It follows from the above relation that the watts per
candle-power vary inversely as the fourth power of the voltage.
From limited observations it seems that the average life of a
carbon-filament lamp varies as the fifth or sixth power of the watts
per candle-power. If V is the voltage at which the lamp is worked and
L is its average life, then L varies roughly as the twenty-fifth power
of the reciprocal of the voltage, or
L = aV^(-25).
A closer approximation to experience is given by the formula
V V²
log10L = 13.5 - -- - ------.
10 20,000
(See J. A. Fleming, "Characteristic Curves of Incandescent Lamps,"
_Phil. Mag._ May 1885).
Ageing of lamps.
All forms of incandescent or glow lamps are found to deteriorate in
light-giving power with use. In the case of carbon filaments this is due
to two causes. As already explained, carbon is scattered from the
filament and deposited upon the glass, and changes also take place in
the filament which cause it to become reduced in temperature, even when
subjected to the same terminal voltage. In many lamps it is found that
the first effect of running the lamp is slightly to increase its
candle-power, even although the voltage be kept constant; this is the
result of a small decrease in the resistance of the filament. The
heating to which it is subjected slightly increases the density of the
carbon at the outset; this has the effect of making the filament lower
in resistance, and therefore it takes more current at a constant
voltage. The greater part, however, of the subsequent decay in
candle-power is due to the deposit of carbon upon the bulb, as shown by
the fact that if the filament is taken out of the bulb and put into a
new clean bulb the candle-power in the majority of cases returns to its
original value. For every lamp there is a certain point in its career
which may be called the "smashing-point," when the candle-power falls
below a certain percentage of the original value, and when it is
advantageous to replace it by a new one. Variations of pressure in the
electric supply exercise a prejudicial effect upon the light-giving
qualities of incandescent lamps. If glow lamps, nominally of 100 volts,
are supplied from a public lighting-station, in the mains of which the
pressure varies between 90 and 110 volts, their life will be greatly
abbreviated, and they will become blackened much sooner than would be
the case if the pressure were perfectly constant. Since the candle-power
of the lamp varies very nearly as the fifth or sixth power of the
voltage, it follows that a variation of 10% in the electromotive force
creates a variation of nearly 50% in the candle-power. Thus a 16
candle-power glow lamp, marked for use at 100 volts, was found on test
to give the following candle-powers at voltages varying between 90 and
105: At 105 volts it gave 22.8 c.p.; at 100 volts, 16.7 c.p.; at 95
volts, 12.2 c.p.; and at 90 volts, 8.7 c.p. Thus a variation of 25% in
the candle-power was caused by a variation in voltage of only 5%. The
same kind of variation in working voltage exercises also a marked effect
upon the average duration of the lamp. The following figures show the
results of some tests on typical 3.1 watt lamps run at voltages above
the normal, taking the average life when worked at the marked volts
(namely, 100) as 1000 hours:
At 101 volts the life was 818 hours.
" 102 " " 681 "
" 103 " " 662 "
" 104 " " 452 "
" 105 " " 374 "
" 106 " " 310 "
Voltage regulators.
Self-acting regulators have been devised by which the voltage at the
points of consumption is kept constant, even although it varies at the
point of generation. If, however, such a device is to be effective, it
must operate very quickly, as even the momentary effect of increased
pressure is felt by the lamp. It is only therefore where the working
pressure can be kept exceedingly constant that high-efficiency lamps can
be advantageously employed, otherwise the cost of lamp renewals more
than counterbalances the economy in the cost of power. The slow changes
that occur in the resistance of the filament make themselves evident by
an increase in the watts per candle-power. The following table shows
some typical figures indicating the results of ageing in a 16
candle-power carbon-filament glow lamp:--
+----------+-------------+-------------+
|Hours run.|Candle-Power.| Watts per |
| | |Candle-Power.|
+----------+-------------+-------------+
| 0 | 16.0 | 3.16 |
| 100 | 15.8 | 3.26 |
| 200 | 15.86 | 3.13 |
| 300 | 15.68 | 3.37 |
| 400 | 15.41 | 3.53 |
| 500 | 15.17 | 3.51 |
| 600 | 14.96 | 3.54 |
| 700 | 14.74 | 3.74 |
+----------+-------------+-------------+
The gradual increase in watts per candle-power shown by this table does
not imply necessarily an increase in the total power taken by the lamp,
but is the consequence of the decay in candle-power produced by the
blackening of the lamp. Therefore, to estimate the value of an
incandescent lamp the user must take into account not merely the price
of the lamp and the initial watts per candle-power, but the rate of
decay of the lamp.
Edison effect.
The scattering of carbon from the filament to the glass bulb produces
interesting physical effects, which have been studied by T. A. Edison,
W. H. Preece and J. A. Fleming. If into an ordinary carbon-filament glow
lamp a platinum plate is sealed, not connected to the filament but
attached to a third terminal, then it is found that when the lamp is
worked with continuous current a galvanometer connected in between the
middle plate and the positive terminal of the lamp indicates a current,
but not when connected in between the negative terminal of the lamp and
the middle plate. If the middle plate is placed between the legs of a
horse-shoe-shaped filament, it becomes blackened most quickly on the
side facing the negative leg. This effect, commonly called the _Edison
effect_, is connected with an electric discharge and convection of
carbon which takes place between the two extreme ends of the filament,
and, as experiment seems to show, consists in the conveyance of an
electric charge, either by carbon molecules or by bodies smaller than
molecules. There is, however, an electric discharge between the ends of
the filament, which rapidly increases with the temperature of the
filament and the terminal voltage; hence one of the difficulties of
manufacturing high-voltage glow lamps, that is to say, glow lamps for
use on circuits having an electromotive force of 200 volts and upwards,
is the discharge from one leg of the filament to the other.
Domestic use.
A brief allusion may be made to the mode of use of incandescent lamps
for interior and private lighting. At the present time hardly any other
method of distribution is adopted than that of an arrangement _in
parallel_; that is to say, each lamp on the circuit has one terminal
connected to a wire which finally terminates at one pole of the
generator, and its other terminal connected to a wire leading to the
other pole. The lamp filaments are thus arranged between the conductors
like the rungs of a ladder. In series with each lamp is placed a switch
and a fuse or cut-out. The lamps themselves are attached to some variety
of ornamental fitting, or in many cases suspended by a simple pendant,
consisting of an insulated double flexible wire attached at its upper
end to a ceiling rose, and carrying at the lower end a shade and socket
in which the lamp is placed. Lamps thus hung head downwards are
disadvantageously used because their _end-on candle-power_ is not
generally more than 60% of their maximum candle-power. In interior
lighting one of the great objects to be attained is uniformity of
illumination with avoidance of harsh shadows. This can only be achieved
by a proper distribution of the lamps. It is impossible to give any hard
and fast rules as to what number must be employed in the illumination of
any room, as a great deal depends upon the nature of the reflecting
surfaces, such as the walls, ceilings, &c. As a rough guide, it may be
stated that for every 100 sq. ft. of floor surface one 16 candle-power
lamp placed about 8 ft. above the floor will give a dull illumination,
two will give a good illumination and four will give a brilliant
illumination. We generally judge of the nature of the illumination in a
room by our ability to read comfortably in any position. That this may
be done, the horizontal illumination on the book should not be less than
one candle-foot. The following table shows approximately the
illuminations in candle-feet, in various situations, derived from actual
experiments:--
In a well-lighted room on the floor or tables 1.0 to 3.0 c.f.
On a theatre stage 3.0 to 4.0 c.f.
On a railway platform .05 to .5 c.f.
In a picture gallery .65 to 3.5 c.f.
The mean daylight in May in the interior
of a room 30.0 to 40.0 c.f.
In full sunlight 7000 to 10,000 c.f.
In full moonlight 1/60th to 1/100th c.f.
From an artistic point of view, one of the worst methods of lighting a
room is by pendant lamps, collected in single centres in large numbers.
The lights ought to be distributed in different portions of the room,
and so shaded that the light is received only by reflection from
surrounding objects. Ornamental effects are frequently produced by means
of candle lamps in which a small incandescent lamp, imitating the flame
of a candle, is placed upon a white porcelain tube as a holder, and
these small units are distributed and arranged in electroliers and
brackets. For details as to the various modes of placing conducting
wires in houses, and the various precautions for safe usage, the reader
is referred to the article ELECTRICITY SUPPLY. In the case of low
voltage metallic filament lamps when the supply is by alternating
current there is no difficulty in reducing the service voltage to any
lower value by means of a transformer. In the case of direct current the
only method available for working such low voltage lamps off higher
supply voltages is to arrange the lamps in series.
Additional information on the subjects treated above may be found in
the following books and original papers:--
Mrs Ayrton, _The Electric Arc_ (London, 1900); Houston and Kennelly,
_Electric Arc Lighting and Electric Incandescent Lighting_; S. P.
Thompson, _The Arc Light_, Cantor Lectures, Society of Arts (1895); H.
Nakano, "The Efficiency of the Arc Lamp," _Proc. American Inst. Elec.
Eng._ (1889); A. Blondel, "Public and Street Lighting by Arc Lamps,"
_Electrician_, vols. xxxv. and xxxvi. (1895); T. Heskett, "Notes on
the Electric Arc," _Electrician_, vol. xxxix. (1897); G. S. Ram, _The
Incandescent Lamp and its Manufacture_ (London, 1895); J. A. Fleming,
_Electric Lamps and Electric Lighting_ (London, 1899); J. A. Fleming,
"The Photometry of Electric Lamps," _Jour. Inst. Elec. Eng._ (1903),
32, p. 1 (in this paper a copious bibliography of the subject of
photometry is given); J. Dredge, _Electric Illumination_ (2 vols.,
London, 1882, 1885); A. P. Trotter, "The Distribution and Measurement
of Illumination," _Proc. Inst. C.E._ vol. cx. (1892); E. L. Nichols,
"The Efficiency of Methods of Artificial Illumination," _Trans.
American Inst. Elec. Eng._ vol. vi. (1889); Sir W. de W. Abney,
_Photometry_, Cantor Lectures, Society of Arts (1894); A. Blondel,
"Photometric Magnitudes and Units," _Electrician_ (1894); J. E.
Petavel, "An Experimental Research on some Standards of Light," _Proc.
Roy. Soc._ lxv. 469 (1899); F. Jehl, _Carbon-Making for all Electrical
Purposes_ (London, 1906); G. B. Dyke, "On the Practical Determination
of the Mean Spherical Candle Power of Incandescent and Arc Lamps,"
_Phil. Mag._ (1905); the _Preliminary Report of the Sub-Committee of
the American Institute of Electrical Engineers_ on "Standards of
Light"; Clifford C. Paterson, "Investigations on Light Standards and
the Present Condition of the High Voltage Glow Lamp," _Jour. Inst.
Elec. Eng._ (January 24, 1907); J. Swinburne, "New Incandescent
Lamps," _Jour. Inst. Elec. Eng._ (1907); L. Andrews, "Long Flame Arc
Lamps," Jour. Inst. Elec. Eng. (1906); W. von Bolton and O. Feuerlein,
"The Tantalum Lamp," _The Electrician_ (Jan. 27, 1905). Also the
current issues of _The Illuminating Engineer_. (J. A. F.)
Methods of charging.
_Commercial Aspects._--The cost of supplying electricity depends more
upon the rate of supply than upon the quantity supplied; or, as John
Hopkinson put it, "the cost of supplying electricity for 1000 lamps for
ten hours is very much less than ten times the cost of supplying the
same number of lamps for one hour." Efforts have therefore been made to
devise a system of charge which shall in each case bear some relation to
the cost of the service. Consumers vary largely both in respect to the
quantity and to the period of their demands, but the cost of supplying
any one of them with a given amount of electricity is chiefly governed
by the amount of his maximum demand at any one time. The reason for this
is that it is not generally found expedient to store electricity in
large quantities. Electricity supply works generate the electricity for
the most part at the moment it is used by the consumer. Electric lamps
are normally in use on an average for only about four hours per day, and
therefore the plant and organization, if employed for a lighting load
only, are idle and unremunerative for about 20 hours out of the 24. It
is necessary to have in readiness machinery capable of supplying the
maximum possible requirements of all the consumers at any hour, and this
accounts for a very large proportion of the total cost. The cost of raw
material, viz. coal, water and stores consumed in the generation of
electricity sold, forms relatively only a small part of the total cost,
the major part of which is made up of the fixed charges attributable to
the time during which the works are unproductive. This makes it very
desirable to secure demands possessing high "load" and "diversity"
factors. The correct way to charge for electricity is to give liberal
rebates to those consumers who make prolonged and regular use of the
plant, that is to say, the lower the "peak" demand and the more
continuous the consumption, the better should be the discount. The
consumer must be discouraged from making sudden large demands on the
plant, and must be encouraged, while not reducing his total consumption,
to spread his use of the plant over a large number of hours during the
year. Mr Arthur Wright has devised a tariff which gives effect to this
principle. The system necessitates the use of a special indicator--not
to measure the quantity of electricity consumed, which is done by the
ordinary meter--but to show the maximum amount of current taken by the
consumer at any one time during the period for which he is to be
charged. In effect it shows the proportion of plant which has had to be
kept on hand for his use. If the indicator shows that say twenty lamps
is the greatest number which the consumer has turned on simultaneously,
then he gets a large discount on all the current which his ordinary
meter shows that he has taken beyond the equivalent of one hour's daily
use of those twenty lamps. Generally the rate charged under this system
is 7d. per unit for the equivalent of one hour's daily use of the
maximum demand and 1d. per unit for all surplus. It is on this principle
that it pays to supply current for tramway and other purposes at a price
which primâ facie is below the cost of production; it is only apparently
so in comparison with the cost of producing electricity for lighting
purposes. In the case of tramways the electricity is required for 15 or
16 hours per day. Electricity for a single lamp would cost on the basis
of this "maximum-demand-indicator" system for 15 hours per day only
1.86d. per unit. In some cases a system of further discounts to very
large consumers is combined with the Wright system. Some undertakers
have abandoned the Wright system in favour of average flat rates, but
this does not imply any failure of the Wright system; on the contrary,
the system, having served to establish the most economical consumption
of electricity, has demonstrated the average rate at which the
undertakers are able to give the supply at a fair profit, and the
proportion of possible new customers being small the undertakers find it
a simplification to dispense with the maximum demand indicator. But in
some cases a mistake has been made by offering the unprofitable
early-closing consumers the option of obtaining electricity at a flat
rate much lower than their load-factor would warrant and below cost
price. The effect of this is to nullify the Wright system of charging,
for a consumer will not elect to pay for his electricity on the Wright
system if he can obtain a lower rate by means of a flat rate system.
Thus the long-hour profitable consumer is made to pay a much higher
price than he need be charged, in order that the unprofitable short-hour
consumer may be retained and be made actually still more unprofitable.
It is not improbable that ultimately the supply will be charged for on
the basis of a rate determined by the size and character of the
consumer's premises, or the number and dimensions of the electrical
points, much in the same way as water is charged for by a water rate
determined by the rent of the consumer's house and the number of water
taps.
Wiring of houses.
Most new houses within an electricity supply area are wired for
electricity during construction, but in several towns means have to be
taken to encourage small shopkeepers and tenants of small houses to use
electricity by removing the obstacle of the first outlay on wiring. The
cost of wiring may be taken at 15s. to £2 per lamp installed including
all necessary wire, switches, fuses, lamps, holders, casing, but not
electroliers or shades. Many undertakers carry out wiring on the easy
payment or hire-purchase system. Parliament has sanctioned the adoption
of these systems by some local authorities and even authorized them to
do the work by direct employment of labour. The usual arrangement is to
make an additional charge of ½d. per unit on all current used, with a
minimum payment of 1s. per 8 c.p. lamp, consumers having the option of
purchasing the installation at any time on specified conditions. The
consumer has to enter into an agreement, and if he is only a tenant the
landlord has to sign a memorandum to the effect that the wiring and
fittings belong to the supply undertakers. Several undertakers have
adopted a system of maintenance and renewal of lamps, and at least one
local authority undertakes to supply consumers with lamps free of
charge.
Consumption.
There is still considerable scope for increasing the business of
electricity supply by judicious advertising and other methods.
Comparisons of the kilowatt hour consumption per capita in various towns
show that where an energetic policy has been pursued the profits have
improved by reason of additional output combined with increased load
factor. The average number of equivalent 8 c.p. lamps connected per
capita in the average of English towns is about 1.2. The average number
of units consumed per capita per annum is about 23, and the average
income per capita per annum is about 5s. In a number of American cities
20s. per capita per annum is obtained. In the United States a
co-operative electrical development association canvasses both the
general public and the electricity supply undertakers. Funds are
provided by the manufacturing companies acting in concert with the
supply authorities and contractors, and the spirit underlying the work
is to advertise the merits of electricity--not any particular company or
interest. Their efforts are directed to securing new consumers and
stimulating the increased and more varied use of electricity among
actual consumers.
All supply undertakers are anxious to develop the consumption of
electricity for power purposes even more than for lighting, but the
first cost of installing electric motors is a deterrent to the adoption
of electricity in small factories and shops, and most undertakers are
therefore prepared to let out motors, &c., on hire or purchase on
varying terms according to circumstances.
A board of trade unit will supply one 8 c.p. carbon lamp of 30 hours or
30 such lamps for one hour. In average use an incandescent lamp will
last about 800 hours, which is equal to about 12 months normal use; a
good lamp will frequently last more than double this time before it
breaks down.
A large number of towns have adopted electricity for street lighting.
Frank Bailey has furnished particulars of photometric tests which he has
made on new and old street lamps in the city of London. From these tests
the following comparative figures are deduced:--
Average total Cost
Gas-- per c.p. per annum.
Double burner ordinary low pressure incandescent
(mean of six tests) 11.1d.
Single burner high-pressure gas 9.0
Double burner high-pressure gas 11.7
Arc lamp--
Old type of lantern 8
Flame arc 5
From these tests of candle-power the illumination at a distance of 100
ft. from the source is estimated as follows:--
Candle Ft. Ratio.
Double ordinary incandescent gas lamp
illumination 0.013 = 1.0
Single high pressure ordinary incandescent
gas lamp illumination 0.016 = 1.24
Double high pressure ordinary incandescent
gas lamp illumination 0.027 = 2.10
Ordinary arc lamp 0.060 = 4.50
Flame arc lamp 0.120 = 9.00
The cost of electricity, light for light, is very much less than that of
gas. The following comparative figures relating to street lighting at
Croydon have been issued by the lighting committee of that
corporation:--
+----------------------+---------+------------+--------+------------+-------------+
| Type of Lamp. | Number | Distance | Total |Average c.p.|Cost per c.p.|
| |of Lamps.|apart (yds.)| Cost. | per Mile. | per annum. |
+----------------------+---------+------------+--------+------------+-------------+
| Incandescent gas | 2,137 | 80 | £7,062 | 839 | 15.86d. |
| Incandescent electric| 90 | 66 | 288 | 1,373 | 13.71 |
| Electric arcs | 428 | 65 | 7,212 | 10,537 | 11.32 |
+----------------------+---------+------------+--------+------------+-------------+
Apart from cheaper methods of generation there are two main sources of
economy in electric lighting. One is the improved arrangement and use of
electrical installations, and the other is the employment of lamps of
higher efficiency. As regards the first, increased attention has been
given to the position, candle-power and shading of electric lamps so as
to give the most effective illumination in varying circumstances and to
avoid excess of light. The ease with which electric lamps may be
switched on and off from a distance has lent itself to arrangements
whereby current may be saved by switching off lights not in use and by
controlling the number of lamps required to be alight at one time on an
electrolier. Appreciable economies are brought about by the scientific
disposition of lights and the avoidance of waste in use. As regards the
other source of economy, the Nernst, the tantalum, the osram, and the
metallized carbon filament lamp, although costing more in the first
instance than carbon lamps, have become popular owing to their economy
in current consumption. Where adopted largely they have had a distinct
effect in reducing the rate of increase of output from supply
undertakings, but their use has been generally encouraged as tending
towards the greater popularity of electric light and an ultimately wider
demand. Mercury vapour lamps for indoor and outdoor lighting have also
proved their high efficiency, and the use of flame arc lamps has greatly
increased the cheapness of outdoor electric lighting.
The existence of a "daylight load" tends to reduce the all-round cost of
generating and distributing electricity. This daylight load is partly
supplied by power for industrial purposes and partly by the demand for
electricity in many domestic operations. The use of electric heating and
cooking apparatus (including radiators, ovens, grills, chafing dishes,
hot plates, kettles, flat-irons, curling irons, &c.) has greatly
developed, and provides a load which extends intermittently throughout
the greater part of the twenty-four hours. Electric fans for home
ventilation are also used, and in the domestic operations where a small
amount of power is required (as in driving sewing machines, boot
cleaners, washing machines, mangles, knife cleaners, "vacuum" cleaners,
&c.) the electric motor is being largely adopted. The trend of affairs
points to a time when the total demand from such domestic sources will
greatly exceed the demand for lighting only. The usual charges for
current to be used in domestic heating or power operations vary from 1d.
to 2d. per unit. As the demand increases the charges will undergo
reduction, and there will also be a reflex action in bringing down the
cost of electricity for lighting owing to the improved load factor
resulting from an increase in the day demand. In the cooking and heating
and motor departments also there has been improvement in the efficiency
of the apparatus, and its economy is enhanced by the fact that current
may be switched on and off as required.
Testing meters.
The Board of Trade are now prepared to receive electric measuring
instruments for examination or testing at their electrical standardizing
laboratory, where they have a battery power admitting of a maximum
current of 7000 amperes to be dealt with. The London county council and
some other corporations are prepared upon requisition to appoint
inspectors to test meters on consumers' premises.
Wiring rules.
All supply undertakers now issue rules and regulations for the
efficient wiring of electric installations. The rules and regulations
issued by the institution of electrical engineers have been accepted
by many local authorities and companies, and also by many of the fire
insurance companies. The Phoenix fire office rules were the first to
be drawn up, and are adopted by many of the fire offices, but some
other leading insurance offices have their own rules under which risks
are accepted without extra premium. In the opinion of the insurance
companies "the electric light is the safest of all illuminants and is
preferable to any others when the installation has been thoroughly
well put up." Regulations have also been issued by the London county
council in regard to theatres, &c., by the national board of fire
underwriters of America (known as the "National Electrical Code"), by
the fire underwriters association of Victoria (Commonwealth of
Australia), by the Calcutta fire insurance agents association and
under the Canadian Electric Light Inspection Act. In Germany rules
have been issued by the Verband Deutscher Elektrotechniker and by the
union of private fire insurance companies of Germany, in Switzerland
by the Association Suisse des électriciens, in Austria by the
Elektrotechnischer Verein of Vienna, in France by ministerial decree
and by the syndicat professionel des industries électriques. (For
reprints of these regulations see _Electrical Trades Directory_.)
(E. Ga.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] _Journ. Inst. Elec. Eng._ 28, p. 1. The authors of this paper
give numerous instructive curves taken with the oscillograph, showing
the form of the arc P.D. and current curves for a great variety of
alternating-current arcs.
LIGHTNING, the visible flash that accompanies an electric discharge in
the sky. In certain electrical conditions of the atmosphere a cloud
becomes highly charged by the coalescence of drops of vapour. A large
drop formed by the fusion of many smaller ones contains the same amount
of electricity upon a smaller superficial area, and the electric
potential of each drop, and of the whole cloud, rises. When the cloud
passes near another cloud stratum or near a hilltop, tower or tree, a
discharge takes place from the cloud in the form of lightning. The
discharge sometimes takes place from the earth to the cloud, or from a
lower to a higher stratum, and sometimes from conductors silently. Rain
discharges the electricity quietly to earth, and lightning frequently
ceases with rain (see ATMOSPHERIC ELECTRICITY).
LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR, or LIGHTNING ROD (Franklin), the name usually given
to apparatus designed to protect buildings or ships from the destructive
effects of lightning (Fr. _paratonnerre_, Ger. _Blitzableiter_). The
upper regions of the atmosphere being at a different electrical
potential from the earth, the thick dense clouds which are the usual
prelude to a thunder storm serve to conduct the electricity of the upper
air down towards the earth, and an electrical discharge takes place
across the air space when the pressure is sufficient. Lightning
discharges were distinguished by Sir Oliver Lodge into two distinct
types--the _A_ and the _B_ flashes. The _A_ flash is of the simple type
which arises when an electrically charged cloud approaches the earth
without an intermediate cloud intervening. In the second type _B_, where
another cloud intervenes between the cloud carrying the primary charge
and the earth, the two clouds practically form a condenser; and when a
discharge from the first takes place into the second the free charge on
the earth side of the lower cloud is suddenly relieved, and the
disruptive discharge from the latter to earth takes such an erratic
course that according to the Lightning Research Committee "no series of
lightning conductors of the hitherto recognized type suffice to protect
the building." In Germany two kinds of lightning stroke have been
recognized, one as "zündenden" (causing fire), analogous to the _B_
flash, the other as "kalten" (not causing fire), the ordinary _A_
discharge. The destructive effect of the former was noticed in 1884 by
A. Parnell, who quoted instances of damage due to mechanical force,
which he stated in many cases took place in a more or less upward
direction.
The object of erecting a number of pointed rods to form a lightning
conductor is to produce a glow or brush discharge and thus neutralize or
relieve the tension of the thunder-cloud. This, if the latter is of the
_A_ type, can be successfully accomplished, but sometimes the lightning
flash takes place so suddenly that it cannot be prevented, however great
the number of points provided, there being such a store of energy in the
descending cloud that they are unable to ward off the shock. A _B_ flash
may ignore the points and strike some metal work in the vicinity; to
avoid damage to the structure this must also be connected to the
conductors. A single air terminal is of no more use than an inscribed
sign-board; besides multiplying the number of points, numerous paths, as
well as interconnexions between the conductors, must be arranged to lead
the discharge to the earth. The system of pipes and gutters on a roof
must be imitated; although a single rain-water pipe would be sufficient
to deal with a summer shower, in practice pipes are used in sufficient
number to carry off the greatest storm.
_Protected Area._--According to Lodge "there is no space near a rod
which can be definitely styled an area of protection, for it is possible
to receive violent sparks and shocks from the conductor itself, not to
speak of the innumerable secondary discharges that are liable to occur
in the wake of the main flash." The report of the Lightning Research
Committee contains many examples of buildings struck in the so-called
"protected area."
_Material for Conductors._--Franklin's original rods (1752) were made of
iron, and this metal is still employed throughout the continent of
Europe and in the United States. British architects, who objected to the
unsightliness of the rods, eventually specified copper tape, which is
generally run round the sharp angles of a building in such a manner as
to increase the chances of the lightning being diverted from the
conductor. The popular idea is that to secure the greatest protection a
rod of the largest area should be erected, whereas a single large
conductor is far inferior to a number of smaller ones and copper as a
material is not so suitable for the purpose as iron. A copper rod allows
the discharge to pass too quickly and produces a violent shock, whereas
iron offers more impedance and allows the flash to leak away by damping
down the oscillations. Thus there is less chance of a side flash from an
iron than from a copper conductor.
_Causes of Failure._--A number of failures of conductors were noticed in
the 1905 report of the Lightning Research Committee. One cause was the
insufficient number of conductors and earth connexions; another was the
absence of any system for connecting the metallic portion of the
buildings to the conductors. In some cases the main stroke was received,
but damage occurred by side-flash to isolated parts of the roof. There
were several examples of large metallic surfaces being charged with
electricity, the greater part of which was safely discharged, but enough
followed unauthorized paths, such as a speaking-tube or electric bell
wires, to cause damage. In one instance a flash struck the building at
two points simultaneously; one portion followed the conductor, but the
other went to earth jumping from a small finial to a greenhouse 30 ft.
below.
_Construction of Conductors._--The general conclusions of the Lightning
Research Committee agree with the independent reports of similar
investigators in Germany, Hungary and Holland. The following is a
summary of the suggestions made:--
The conductors may be of copper, or of soft iron protected by
galvanizing or coated with lead. A number of paths to earth must be
provided; well-jointed rain-water pipes may be utilized.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Holdfast.]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Aigrette.]
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Holdfast on Roof.]
Every chimney stack or other prominence should have an air terminal.
Conductors should run in the most direct manner from air to earth, and
be kept away from the walls by holdfasts (fig. 1), in the manner shown
by A (fig. 2); the usual method is seen in B (fig. 2), where the tape
follows the contour of the building and causes side flash. A building
with a long roof should also be fitted with a horizontal conductor along
the ridge, and to this aigrettes (fig. 3) should be attached; a simpler
method is to support the cable by holdfasts armed with a spike (fig. 4).
Joints must be held together mechanically as well as electrically, and
should be protected from the action of the air. At Westminster Abbey the
cables are spliced and inserted in a box which is filled with lead run
in when molten.
[Illustration: _Fig_. 5.--Tubular Earth.]
_Earth Connexion._--A copper plate not less than 3 sq. ft. in area may
be used as an earth connexion if buried in permanently damp ground.
Instead of a plate there are advantages in using the tubular earth shown
in fig. 5. The cable packed in carbon descends to the bottom of the
perforated tube which is driven into the ground, a connexion being made
to the nearest rain-water pipe to secure the necessary moisture. No
further attention is required. Plate earths should be tested every year.
The number of earths depends on the area of the building, but at least
two should be provided. Insulators on the conductor are of no advantage,
and it is useless to gild or otherwise protect the points of the
air-terminals. As heated air offers a good path for lightning (which is
the reason why the kitchen-chimney is often selected by the discharge),
a number of points should be fixed to high chimneys and there should be
at least two conductors to earth. All roof metals, such as finials,
flashings, rain-water gutters, ventilating pipes, cowls and stove pipes,
should be connected to the system of conductors. The efficiency of the
installation depends on the interconnexion of all metallic parts, also
on the quality of the earth connexions. In the case of magazines used
for explosives, it is questionable whether the usual plan of erecting
rods at the sides of the buildings is efficient. The only way to ensure
safety is to enclose the magazine in iron; the next best is to arrange
the conductors so that they surround it like a bird cage.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The literature, although extensive, contains so many
descriptions of ludicrous devices, that the student, after reading
Benjamin Franklin's _Experiments and Observations on Electricity made
at Philadelphia_ (1769), may turn to the _Report_ of the Lightning Rod
Conference of December 1881. In the latter work there are abstracts of
many valuable papers, especially the reports made to the French
Academy, among others by Coulomb, Laplace, Gay-Lussac, Fresnel,
Regnault, &c. In 1876 J. Clerk Maxwell read a paper before the British
Association in which he brought forward the idea (based on Faraday's
experiments) of protecting a building from the effects of lightning by
surrounding it with a sort of cage of rods or stout wire. It was not,
however, until the Bath meeting of the British Association in 1888
that the subject was fully discussed by the physical and engineering
sections. Sir Oliver Lodge showed the futility of single conductors,
and advised the interconnexion of all the metal work on a building to
a number of conductors buried in the earth. The action of lightning
flashes was also demonstrated by him in lectures delivered before the
Society of Arts (1888). The Clerk Maxwell system was adopted to a
large extent in Germany, and in July 1901 a sub-committee of the
Berlin Electro-technical Association was formed, which published
rules. In 1900 a paper entitled "The Protection of Public Buildings
from Lightning," by Killingworth Hedges, led to the formation, by the
Royal Institute of British Architects and the Surveyors' Institution,
of the Lightning Research Committee, on which the Royal Society and
the Meteorological Society were represented. The _Report_, edited by
Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir John Gavey and Killingworth Hedges (Hon. Sec.),
was published in April 1905. An illustrated supplement, compiled by K.
Hedges and entitled _Modern Lightning Conductors_ (1905), contains
particulars of the independent reports of the German committee, the
Dutch Academy of Science, and the Royal Joseph university, Budapest. A
description is also given of the author's modified Clerk Maxwell
system, in which the metal work of the roofs of a building form the
upper part, the rain-water pipes taking the place of the usual
lightning-rods. See also Sir Oliver Lodge, _Lightning Conductors_
(London, 1902). (K. H.)
LIGHTS, CEREMONIAL USE OF.
Non-Christian religions.
The ceremonial use of lights in the Christian Church, with which this
article is mainly concerned, probably has a double origin: in a very
natural symbolism, and in the adaptation of certain pagan and Jewish
rites and customs of which the symbolic meaning was Christianized. Light
is everywhere the symbol of joy and of life-giving power, as darkness is
of death and destruction. Fire, the most mysterious and impressive of
the elements, the giver of light and of all the good things of life, is
a thing sacred and adorable in primitive religions, and fire-worship
still has its place in two at least of the great religions of the world.
The Parsis adore fire as the visible expression of Ahura-Mazda, the
eternal principle of light and righteousness; the Brahmans worship it as
divine and omniscient.[1] The Hindu festival of Dewali (Diyawali, from
_diya_, light), when temples and houses are illuminated with countless
lamps, is held every November to celebrate Lakhshmi, the goddess of
prosperity. In the ritual of the Jewish temple fire and light played a
conspicuous part. In the Holy of Holies was a "cloud of light"
(_shekinah_), symbolical of the presence of Yahweh, and before it stood
the candlestick with six branches, on each of which and on the central
stem was a lamp eternally burning; while in the forecourt was an altar
on which the sacred fire was never allowed to go out. Similarly the
Jewish synagogues have each their eternal lamp; while in the religion of
Islam lighted lamps mark things and places specially holy; thus the
Ka'ba at Mecca is illuminated by thousands of lamps hanging from the
gold and silver rods that connect the columns of the surrounding
colonnade.
Greece and Rome.
The Greeks and Romans, too, had their sacred fire and their ceremonial
lights. In Greece the _Lampadedromia_ or _Lampadephoria_ (torch-race)
had its origin in ceremonies connected with the relighting of the sacred
fire. Pausanias (i. 26, § 6) mentions the golden lamp made by
Callimachus which burned night and day in the sanctuary of Athena Polias
on the Acropolis, and (vii. 22, §§ 2 and 3) tells of a statue of Hermes
Agoraios, in the market-place of Pharae in Achaea, before which lamps
were lighted. Among the Romans lighted candles and lamps formed part of
the cult of the domestic tutelary deities; on all festivals doors were
garlanded and lamps lighted (Juvenal, _Sat._ xii. 92; Tertullian,
_Apol._ xxxv.). In the cult of Isis lamps were lighted by day. In the
ordinary temples were candelabra, e.g. that in the temple of Apollo
Palatinus at Rome, originally taken by Alexander from Thebes, which was
in the form of a tree from the branches of which lights hung like fruit.
In comparing pagan with Christian usage it is important to remember that
the lamps in the pagan temples were not symbolical, but votive offerings
to the gods. Torches and lamps were also carried in religious
processions.
Funeral lamps.
The pagan custom of burying lamps with the dead conveyed no such
symbolical meaning as was implied in the late Christian custom of
placing lights on and about the tombs of martyrs and saints. Its object
was to provide the dead with the means of obtaining light in the next
world, a wholly material conception; and the lamps were for the most
part unlighted. It was of Asiatic origin, traces of it having been
observed in Phoenicia and in the Punic colonies, but not in Egypt or
Greece. In Europe it was confined to the countries under the domination
of Rome.[2]
Christian symbolism of light.
In Christianity, from the very first, fire and light are conceived as
symbols, if not as visible manifestations, of the divine nature and the
divine presence. Christ is "the true Light" (John i. 9), and at his
transfiguration "the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his
raiment was white and glistering" (Luke ix. 29); when the Holy Ghost
descended upon the apostles, "there appeared unto them cloven tongues of
fire, and it sat upon each of them" (Acts ii. 3); at the conversion of
St Paul "there shined round him a great light from heaven" (Acts ix. 3);
while the glorified Christ is represented as standing "in the midst of
seven candlesticks ... his head and hairs white like wool, as white as
snow; and his eyes as a flame of fire" (Rev. i. 14, 15). Christians are
"children of Light" at perpetual war with "the powers of darkness."
The early Church.
Tertullian and Lactantius.
2nd and 3rd centuries.
All this might very early, without the incentive of Jewish and pagan
example, have affected the symbolic ritual of the primitive Church.
There is, however, no evidence of any ceremonial use of lights in
Christian worship during the first two centuries. It is recorded, indeed
(Acts xx. 7, 8), that on the occasion of St Paul's preaching at
Alexandria in Troas "there were many lights in the upper chamber"; but
this was at night, and the most that can be hazarded is that a specially
large number were lighted as a festive illumination, as in modern Church
festivals (Martigny, _Dict. des antiqu. Chrét._). As to a purely
ceremonial use, such early evidence as exists is all the other way. A
single sentence of Tertullian (_Apol._ xxxv.) sufficiently illuminates
Christian practice during the 2nd century. "On days of rejoicing," he
says, "we do not shade our door-posts with laurels nor encroach upon the
day-light with lamps" (_die laeto non laureis postes obumbramus nec
lucernis diem infringimus_). Lactantius, writing early in the 4th
century, is even more sarcastic in his references to the heathen
practice. "They kindle lights," he says, "as though to one who is in
darkness. Can he be thought sane who offers the light of lamps and
candles to the Author and Giver of all light?" (_Div. Inst. vi. de vero
cultu_, cap. 2, in Migne, _Patr. lat._ vi. 637).[3] This is primarily an
attack on votive lights, and does not necessarily exclude their
ceremonial use in other ways. There is, indeed, evidence that they were
so used before Lactantius wrote. The 34th canon of the synod of Elvira
(305), which was contemporary with him, forbade candles to be lighted in
cemeteries during the day-time, which points to an established custom as
well as to an objection to it; and in the Roman catacombs lamps have
been found of the 2nd and 3rd centuries which seem to have been
ceremonial or symbolical.[4] Again, according to the _Acta_ of St
Cyprian (d. 258), his body was borne to the grave _praelucentibus
cereis_, and Prudentius, in his hymn on the martyrdom of St Lawrence
(_Peristeph._ ii. 71, in Migne, _Patr. lat._ lx. 300), says that in the
time of St Laurentius, i.e. the middle of the 3rd century, candles stood
in the churches of Rome on golden candelabra. The gift, mentioned by
Anastasius (_in Sylv._), made by Constantine to the Vatican basilica, of
a _pharum_ of gold, garnished with 500 dolphins each holding a lamp, to
burn before St Peter's tomb, points also to a custom well established
before Christianity became the state religion.
Jerome and Vigilantius.
Whatever previous custom may have been--and for the earliest ages it is
difficult to determine absolutely owing to the fact that the Christians
held their services at night--by the close of the 4th century the
ceremonial use of lights had become firmly and universally established
in the Church. This is clear, to pass by much other evidence, from the
controversy of St Jerome with Vigilantius.
Vigilantius, a presbyter of Barcelona, still occupied the position of
Tertullian and Lactantius in this matter. "We see," he wrote, "a rite
peculiar to the pagans introduced into the churches on pretext of
religion, and, while the sun is still shining, a mass of wax tapers
lighted.... A great honour to the blessed martyrs, whom they think to
illustrate with contemptible little candles (_de vilissimis
cereolis_)!" Jerome, the most influential theologian of the day, took
up the cudgels against Vigilantius (he "ought to be called
Dormitantius"), who, in spite of his fatherly admonition, had dared
again "to open his foul mouth and send forth a filthy stink against
the relics of the holy martyrs" (_Hier. Ep._ cix. al. 53--_ad
Ripuarium Presbyt._, in Migne, _Patr. lat._ p. 906). If candles are
lit before their tombs, are these the ensigns of idolatry? In his
treatise _contra Vigilantium_ (_Patr. lat._ t. xxiii.) he answers the
question with much common sense. There can be no harm if ignorant and
simple people, or religious women, light candles in honour of the
martyrs. "We are not born, but reborn, Christians," and that which
when done for idols was detestable is acceptable when done for the
martyrs. As in the case of the woman with the precious box of
ointment, it is not the gift that merits reward, but the faith that
inspires it. As for lights in the churches, he adds that "in all the
churches of the East, whenever the gospel is to be read, lights are
lit, though the sun be rising (_jam sole rutilante_), not in order to
disperse the darkness, but as a visible sign of gladness (_ad signum
laetitiae demonstrandum_)." Taken in connexion with a statement which
almost immediately precedes this--"Cereos autem non clara luce
accendimus, sicut frustra calumniaris: sed ut noctis tenebras hoc
solatio temperemus" (§ 7)--this seems to point to the fact that the
ritual use of lights in the church services, so far as already
established, arose from the same conservative habit as determined the
development of liturgical vestments, i.e. the lights which had been
necessary at the nocturnal meetings were retained, after the hours of
service had been altered, and invested with a symbolical meaning.
Practice in the 4th century.
Eastern Church.
Already they were used at most of the conspicuous functions of the
Church. Paulinus, bishop of Nola (d. 431), describes the altar at the
eucharist as "crowned with crowded lights,"[5] and even mentions the
"eternal lamp."[6] For their use at baptisms we have, among much other
evidence, that of Zeno of Verona for the West,[7] and that of Gregory of
Nazianzus for the East.[8] Their use at funerals is illustrated by
Eusebius's description of the burial of Constantine,[9] and Jerome's
account of that of St Paula.[10] At ordinations they were used, as is
shown by the 6th canon of the council of Carthage (398), which decrees
that the acolyte is to hand to the newly ordained deacon _ceroferarium
cum cereo_. As to the blessing of candles, according to the _Liber
pontificalis_ Pope Zosimus in 417 ordered these to be blessed,[11] and
the Gallican and Mozarabic rituals also provided for this ceremony.[12]
The Feast of the Purification of the Virgin, known as Candlemas (q.v.),
because on this day the candles for the whole year are blessed, was
established--according to some authorities--by Pope Gelasius I. about
492. As to the question of "altar lights," however, it must be borne in
mind that these were not placed upon the altar, or on a retable behind
it, until the 12th century. These were originally the candles carried by
the deacons, according to the _Ordo Romanus_ (i. 8; ii. 5; iii. 7) seven
in number, which were set down either on the steps of the altar, or,
later, behind it. In the Eastern Church, to this day, there are no
lights on the high altar; the lighted candles stand on a small altar
beside it, and at various parts of the service are carried by the
lectors or acolytes before the officiating priest or deacon. The "crowd
of lights" described by Paulinus as crowning the altar were either
grouped round it or suspended in front of it; they are represented by
the sanctuary lamps of the Latin Church and by the crown of lights
suspended in front of the altar in the Greek.
Development of the use.
To trace the gradual elaboration of the symbolism and use of ceremonial
lights in the Church, until its full development and systematization in
the middle ages, would be impossible here. It must suffice to note a few
stages in the process. The burning of lights before the tombs of martyrs
led naturally to their being burned also before relics and lastly before
images and pictures. This latter practice, hotly denounced as idolatry
during the iconoclastic controversy (see ICONOCLASM), was finally
established as orthodox by the second general council of Nicaea (787),
which restored the worship of images. A later development, however, by
which certain lights themselves came to be regarded as objects of
worship and to have other lights burned before _them_, was condemned as
idolatrous by the synod of Noyon in 1344.[13] The passion for symbolism
extracted ever new meanings out of the candles and their use. Early in
the 6th century Ennodius, bishop of Pavia, pointed out the three-fold
elements of a wax-candle (_Opusc._ ix. and x.), each of which would make
it an offering acceptable to God; the rush-wick is the product of pure
water, the wax is the offspring of virgin bees,[14] the flame is sent
from heaven.[15] Clearly, wax was a symbol of the Blessed Virgin and the
holy humanity of Christ. The later middle ages developed the idea.
Durandus, in his _Rationale_, interprets the wax as the body of Christ,
the wick as his soul, the flame as his divine nature; and the consuming
candle as symbolizing his passion and death.
In the Roman Catholic Church.
Dedication of a church.
At Mass and choir services.
Sanctuary lamps.
Symbol of the Real Presence.
In the completed ritual system of the medieval Church, as still
preserved in the Roman Catholic communion, the use of ceremonial
lights falls under three heads. (1) They may be symbolical of the
light of God's presence, of Christ as "Light of Light," or of "the
children of Light" in conflict with the powers of darkness; they may
even be no more than expressions of joy on the occasion of great
festivals. (2) They may be votive, i.e. offered as an act of worship
(_latria_) to God. (3) They are, in virtue of their benediction by the
Church, _sacramentalia_, i.e. efficacious for the good of men's souls
and bodies, and for the confusion of the powers of darkness.[16] With
one or more of these implications, they are employed in all the public
functions of the Church. At the consecration of a church twelve lights
are placed round the walls at the twelve spots where these are
anointed by the bishop with holy oil, and on every anniversary these
are relighted; at the dedication of an altar tapers are lighted and
censed at each place where the table is anointed (_Pontificale Rom._
p. ii. _De eccl. dedicat. seu consecrat._). At every liturgical
service, and especially at Mass and at choir services, there must be
at least two lighted tapers on the altar,[17] as symbols of the
presence of God and tributes of adoration. For the Mass the rule is
that there are six lights at High Mass, four at a _missa cantata_, and
two at private masses. At a Pontifical High Mass (i.e. when the bishop
celebrates) the lights are seven, because seven golden candlesticks
surround the risen Saviour, the chief bishop of the Church (see Rev.
i. 12). At most pontifical functions, moreover, the bishop--as the
representative of Christ--is preceded by an acolyte with a burning
candle (_bugia_) on a candlestick. The _Ceremoniale Episcoporum_ (i.
12) further orders that a burning lamp is to hang at all times before
each altar, three in front of the high altar, and five before the
reserved Sacrament, as symbols of the eternal Presence. In practice,
however, it is usual to have only one lamp lighted before the
tabernacle in which the Host is reserved. The special symbol of the
real presence of Christ is the _Sanctus_ candle, which is lighted at
the moment of consecration and kept burning until the communion. The
same symbolism is intended by the lighted tapers which must accompany
the Host whenever it is carried in procession, or to the sick and
dying.
As symbols of light and joy a candle is held on each side of the
deacon when reading the Gospel at Mass; and the same symbolism
underlies the multiplication of lights on festivals, their number
varying with the importance of the occasion. As to the number of these
latter no rule is laid down. They differ from liturgical lights in
that, whereas these must be tapers of pure beeswax or lamps fed with
pure olive oil (except by special dispensation under certain
circumstances), those used merely to add splendour to the celebration
may be of any material; the only exception being, that in the
decoration of the altar gas-lights are forbidden.
Tenebrae.
In general the ceremonial use of lights in the Roman Catholic Church
is conceived as a dramatic representation in fire of the life of
Christ and of the whole scheme of salvation. On Easter Eve the new
fire, symbol of the light of the newly risen Christ, is produced, and
from this are kindled all the lights used throughout the Christian
year until, in the gathering darkness (_tenebrae_) of the Passion,
they are gradually extinguished. This quenching of the light of the
world is symbolized at the service of _Tenebrae_ in Holy Week by the
placing on a stand before the altar of thirteen lighted tapers
arranged pyramidally, the rest of the church being in darkness. The
penitential psalms are sung, and at the end of each a candle is
extinguished. When only the central one is left it is taken down and
carried behind the altar, thus symbolizing the betrayal and the death
and burial of Christ. This ceremony can be traced to the 8th century
at Rome.
The Paschal Candle.
On Easter Eve new fire is made[18] with a flint and steel, and
blessed; from this three candles are lighted, the _lumen Christi_, and
from these again the Paschal Candle.[19] This is the symbol of the
risen and victorious Christ, and burns at every solemn service until
Ascension Day, when it is extinguished and removed after the reading
of the Gospel at High Mass. This, of course, symbolizes the Ascension;
but meanwhile the other lamps in the church have received their light
from the Paschal Candle, and so symbolize throughout the year the
continued presence of the light of Christ.
Baptism.
Ordination, etc.
Funeral lights.
At the consecration of the baptismal water the burning Paschal Candle
is dipped into the font "so that the power of the Holy Ghost may
descend into it and make it an effective instrument of regeneration."
This is the symbol of baptism as rebirth as children of Light. Lighted
tapers are also placed in the hands of the newly-baptized, or of their
god-parents, with the admonition "to preserve their baptism inviolate,
so that they may go to meet the Lord when he comes to the wedding."
Thus, too, as "children of Light," candidates for ordination and
novices about to take the vows carry lights when they come before the
bishop; and the same idea underlies the custom of carrying lights at
weddings, at the first communion, and by priests going to their first
mass, though none of these are liturgically prescribed. Finally,
lights are placed round the bodies of the dead and carried beside them
to the grave, partly as symbols that they still live in the light of
Christ, partly to frighten away the powers of darkness.
Excommunication.
Conversely, the extinction of lights is part of the ceremony of
excommunication (_Pontificale Rom._ pars iii.). Regino, abbot of Prum,
describes the ceremony as it was carried out in his day, when its
terrors were yet unabated (_De eccles. disciplina_, ii. 409). "Twelve
priests should stand about the bishop, holding in their hands lighted
torches, which at the conclusion of the anathema or excommunication
they should cast down and trample under foot." When the
excommunication is removed, the symbol of reconciliation is the
handing to the penitent of a burning taper.
Protestant Churches.
As a result of the Reformation the use of ceremonial lights was either
greatly modified, or totally abolished in the Protestant Churches. In
the Reformed (Calvinistic) Churches altar lights were, with the rest,
done away with entirely as popish and superstitious. In the Lutheran
Churches they were retained, and in Evangelical Germany have even
survived most of the other medieval rites and ceremonies (e.g. the use
of vestments) which were not abolished at the Reformation itself.
Church of England.
The "Lincoln Judgment."
In the Church of England the practice has been less consistent. The
first Prayer-book of Edward VI. directed two lights to be placed on the
altar. This direction was omitted in the second Prayer-book; but the
"Ornaments Rubric" of Queen Elizabeth's Prayer-book seemed again to make
them obligatory. The question of how far this did so is a much-disputed
one and is connected with the whole problem of the meaning and scope of
the rubric (see VESTMENTS). An equal uncertainty reigns with regard to
the actual usage of the Church of England from the Reformation onwards.
Lighted candles certainly continued to decorate the holy table in Queen
Elizabeth's chapel, to the scandal of Protestant zealots. They also seem
to have been retained, at least for a while, in certain cathedral and
collegiate churches. There is, however, no mention of ceremonial candles
in the detailed account of the services of the Church of England given
by William Harrison (_Description of England_, 1570); and the attitude
of the Church towards their use, until the ritualistic movement of the
17th century, would seem to be authoritatively expressed in the _Third
Part of the Sermon against Peril of Idolatry_, which quotes with
approval the views of Lactantius and compares "our Candle Religion"
with the "Gentiles Idolators." This pronouncement, indeed, though it
certainly condemns the use of ceremonial lights in most of its later
developments, and especially the conception of them as votive offerings
whether to God or to the saints, does not necessarily exclude, though it
undoubtedly discourages, their purely symbolical use.[20] In this
connexion it is worth pointing out that the homily against idolatry was
reprinted, without alteration and by the king's authority, long after
altar lights had been restored under the influence of the high church
party supreme at court. Illegal under the Act of Uniformity they seem
never to have been. The use of "wax lights and tapers" formed one of the
indictments brought by P. Smart, a Puritan prebendary of Durham, against
Dr Burgoyne, Cosin and others for setting up "superstitious ceremonies"
in the cathedral "contrary to the Act of Uniformity." The indictments
were dismissed in 1628 by Sir James Whitelocke, chief justice of Chester
and a judge of the King's Bench, and in 1629 by Sir Henry Yelverton, a
judge of Common Pleas and himself a strong Puritan (see _Hierurgia
Anglicana_, ii pp. 230 seq.). The use of ceremonial lights was among the
indictments in the impeachment of Laud and other bishops by the House of
Commons, but these were not based on the Act of Uniformity. From the
Restoration onwards the use of ceremonial lights, though far from
universal, was not unusual in cathedrals and collegiate churches.[21] It
was not, however, till the ritual revival of the 19th century that their
use was at all widely extended in parish churches. The growing custom
met with fierce opposition; the law was appealed to, and in 1872 the
Privy Council declared altar lights to be illegal (_Martin_ v.
_Mackonochie_). This judgment, founded as was afterwards admitted on
insufficient knowledge, produced no effect; and, in the absence of any
authoritative pronouncement, advantage was taken of the ambiguous
language of the Ornaments Rubric to introduce into many churches
practically the whole ceremonial use of lights as practised in the
pre-Reformation Church. The matter was again raised in the case of _Read
and others_ v. _the Bishop of Lincoln_ (see LINCOLN JUDGMENT), one of
the counts of the indictment being that the bishop had, during the
celebration of Holy Communion, allowed two candles to be alight on a
shelf or retable behind the communion table when they were not necessary
for giving light. The archbishop of Canterbury, in whose court the case
was heard (1889), decided that the mere presence of two candles on the
table, burning during the service but lit before it began, was lawful
under the first Prayer-Book of Edward VI. and had never been made
unlawful. On the case being appealed to the Privy Council, this
particular indictment was dismissed on the ground that the vicar, not
the bishop, was responsible for the presence of the lights, the general
question of the legality of altar lights being discreetly left open.
The custom of placing lighted candles round the bodies of the dead,
especially when "lying in state," has never wholly died out in
Protestant countries, though their significance has long been lost sight
of.[22] In the 18th century, moreover, it was still customary in England
to accompany a funeral with lighted tapers. Picart (_op. cit._ 1737)
gives a plate representing a funeral cortège preceded and accompanied by
boys, each carrying four lighted candles in a branched candlestick.
There seems to be no record of candles having been carried in other
processions in England since the Reformation. The usage in this respect
in some "ritualistic" churches is a revival of pre-Reformation
ceremonial.
See the article "Lucerna," by J. Toutain in Daremberg and Saglio's
_Dict. des antiquités grecques et romaines_ (Paris, 1904); J.
Marquardt, "Römische Privatalterthümer" (vol. v. of Becker's _Röm.
Alterthümer_), ii. 238-301; article "Cièrges et lampes," in the Abbé
J. A. Martigny's _Dict. des Antiquités Chrétiennes_ (Paris, 1865); the
articles "Lichter" and "Koimetarien" (pp. 834 seq.) in Herzog-Hauck's
_Realencyklopädie_ (3rd ed., Leipzig. 1901); the article "Licht" in
Wetzer and Welte's _Kirchenlexikon_ (Freiburg-i.-B., 1882-1901), an
excellent exposition of the symbolism from the Catholic point of view,
also "Kerze" and "Lichter"; W. Smith and S. Cheetham, _Dict. of Chr.
Antiquities_ (London, 1875-1880), i. 939 seq.; in all these numerous
further references will be found. See also Mühlbauer, _Gesch. u.
Bedeutung der Wachslichter bei den kirchlichen Funktionen_ (Augsburg,
1874); V. Thalhofer, _Handbuch der Katholischen Liturgik_
(Freiburg-i.-B., 1887), i. 666 seq.; and, for the post-Reformation use
in the Church of England, _Hierurgia Anglicana_, new ed. by Vernon
Staley (London, 1903). (W. A. P.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "O Fire, thou knowest all things!" See A. Bourquin,
"Brahma-karma, ou rites sacrés des Brahmans," in the _Annales du
Musée Guimet_ (Paris, 1884, t. vii.).
[2] J. Toutain, in Daremberg and Saglio, _Dictionnaire, s.v._
"Lucerna."
[3] This is quoted with approval by Bishop Jewel in the homily
_Against Peril of Idolatry_ (see below).
[4] This symbolism--whatever it was--was not pagan, i.e. the lamps
were not placed in the graves as part of the furniture of the
dead--in the Catacombs they are found only in the niches of the
galleries and the arcosolia--nor can they have been votive in the
sense popularized later.
[5] "Clara coronantur densis altaria lychnis" (_Poem. De S. Felice
natalitium_, xiv. 99, in Migne, _Patr. lat._ lxi. 467).
[6] "Continuum scyphus est argenteus aptus ad usum."
[7] "Sal, ignis et oleum" (Lib. i. Tract. xiv. 4, in Migne, xi. 358).
[8] _In sanct. Pasch._ c. 2; Migne, _Patr. graeca_, xxxvi. 624.
[9] [Greek: phôta t' ephapsantes kyklô epi skeuôn chrysôn, thaumaston
theama tois horôsi pareichon] (_Vita Constantini_, iv. 66).
[10] "Cum alii Pontifices lampadàs cereosque proferrent, alii choras
psallentium ducerent" (Ep. cviii. _ad Eustochium virginem_, in
Migne).
[11] This may be the paschal candle only. In some codices the text
runs: "Per parochias concessit licentiam benedicendi Cereum
Paschalem" (Du Cange, _Glossarium, s.v._ "Cereum Paschale"). In the
three variants of the notice of Zosimus given in Duchesne's edition
of the _Lib. pontif._ (1886-1892) the word _cera_ is, however, alone
used. Nor does the text imply that he gave to the suburbican churches
a privilege hitherto exercised by the metropolitan church. The
passage runs: "Hic constituit ut diaconi leva tecta haberent de
palleis linostimis per parrochias et ut cera benedicatur," &c. _Per
parrochias_ here obviously refers to the head-gear of the deacons,
not to the candles.
[12] See also the _Peregrinatio Sylviae_ (386), 86, &c., for the use
of lights at Jerusalem, and Isidore of Seville (_Etym._ vii. 12; xx.
10) for the usage in the West. That even in the 7th century the
blessing of candles was by no means universal is proved by the 9th
canon of the council of Toledo (671), "De benedicendo cereo et
lucerna in privilegiis Paschae." This canon states that candles and
lamps are not blessed in some churches, and that inquiries have been
made why _we_ do it. In reply, the council decides that it should be
done to celebrate the mystery of Christ's resurrection. See Isidore
of Seville, _Conc._, in Migne, _Pat. lat._ lxxxiv. 369.
[13] Du Cange, _Glossarium, s.v._ "Candela."
[14] Bees were believed, like fish, to be sexless.
[15] "Venerandis compactam elementis facem tibi, Domine, mancipamus:
in qua trium copula munerum primum de impari numero complacebit: quae
quod gratis Deo veniat auctoribus, non habetur incertum: unum quod de
fetibus fluminum accedunt nutrimenta flammarum: aliud quod apum
tribuit intemerata fecunditas, in quarum partibus nulla partitur
damna virginitas: ignis etiam coelo infusus adhibetur" (_Opusc._ x.
in Migne, _Patr. lat._ t. lxiii.).
[16] All three conceptions are brought out in the prayers for the
blessing of candles on the Feast of the Purification of the B.V.M.
(Candlemas, q.v.). (1) "O holy Lord, ... who ... by the command didst
cause this liquid to come by the labour of bees to the perfection of
wax, ... we beseech thee ... to bless and sanctify these candles for
the use of men, and the health of bodies and souls...." (2) "...
these candles, which we thy servants desire to carry lighted to
magnify thy name; that by offering them to thee, being worthily
inflamed with the holy fire of thy most sweet charity, we may
deserve," &c. (3) "O Lord Jesus Christ, the true light, ...
mercifully grant, that as these lights enkindled with visible fire
dispel nocturnal darkness, so our hearts illumined by invisible
fire," &c. (_Missale Rom._). In the form for the blessing of candles
_extra diem Purificationis B. Mariae Virg._ the virtue of the
consecrated candles in discomfiting demons is specially brought out:
"that in whatever places they may be lighted, or placed, the princes
of darkness may depart, and tremble, and may fly terror-stricken with
all their ministers from those habitations, nor presume further to
disquiet and molest those who serve thee, Almighty God" (_Rituale
Rom._).
[17] Altar candlesticks consist of five parts: the foot, stem, knob
in the centre, bowl to catch the drippings, and pricket (a sharp
point on which the candle is fixed). It is permissible to use a long
tube, pointed to imitate a candle, in which is a small taper forced
to the top by a spring (_Cong. Rit._, 11th May 1878).
[18] This is common to the Eastern Church also. Pilgrims from all
parts of the East flock to Jerusalem to obtain the "new fire" on
Easter Eve at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Here the fire is
supposed to be miraculously sent from heaven. The rush of the
pilgrims to kindle their lights at it is so great, that order is
maintained with difficulty by Mahommedan soldiers.
[19] The origin of the Paschal Candle is lost in the mists of
antiquity. According to the abbé Châtelain (quoted in Diderot's
_Encyclopédie, s.v._ "Cièrge") the Paschal Candle was not originally
a candle at all, but a wax column on which the dates of the movable
feasts were inscribed. These were later written on paper and fixed to
the Paschal Candle, a custom which in his day survived in the Cluniac
churches.
[20] This homily, written by Bishop Jewel, is largely founded on
Bullinger's _De origine erroris in Divinorum et sacrorum cultu_
(1528, 1539).
[21] A copper-plate in Bernard Picart's _Ceremonies and Religious
Customs of the Various Nations_ (Eng. trans., London, 1737), vi. pt.
1, p. 78, illustrating an Anglican Communion service at St Paul's,
shows two lighted candles on the holy table.
[22] In some parts of Scotland it is still customary to place two
lighted candles on a table beside a corpse on the day of burial.
LIGNE, CHARLES JOSEPH, PRINCE DE (1735-1814), soldier and writer, came
of a princely family of Hainaut, and was born at Brussels in 1735. As an
Austrian subject he entered the imperial army at an early age. He
distinguished himself by his valour in the Seven Years' War, notably at
Breslau, Leuthen, Hochkirch and Maxen, and after the war rose rapidly to
the rank of lieutenant field marshal. He became the intimate friend and
counsellor of the emperor Joseph II., and, inheriting his father's vast
estates, lived in the greatest splendour and luxury till the War of the
Bavarian Succession brought him again into active service. This war was
short and uneventful, and the prince then travelled in England, Germany,
Italy, Switzerland and France, devoting himself impartially to the
courts, the camps, the salons and the learned assemblies of philosophers
and scientists in each country. In 1784 he was again employed in
military work, and was promoted to Feldzeugmeister. In 1787 he was with
Catherine II. in Russia, accompanied her in her journey to the Crimea,
and was made a Russian field marshal by the empress. In 1788 he was
present at the siege of Belgrade. Shortly after this he was invited to
place himself at the head of the Belgian revolutionary movement, in
which one of his sons and many of his relatives were prominent, but
declined with great courtesy, saying that "he never revolted in the
winter." Though suspected by Joseph of collusion with the rebels, the
two friends were not long estranged, and after the death of the emperor
the prince remained in Vienna. His Brabant estates were overrun by the
French in 1792-1793, and his eldest son killed in action at La
Croix-du-Bois in the Argonne (September 14, 1792). He was given the rank
of field marshal (1809) and an honorary command at court, living in
spite of the loss of his estates in comparative luxury and devoting
himself to literary work. He lived long enough to characterize the
proceedings of the congress of Vienna with the famous _mot_: "Le Congrès
danse mais ne marche pas." He died at Vienna on the 13th of December
1814. His grandson, Eugene Lamoral de Ligne (1804-1880), was a
distinguished Belgian statesman.
His collected works appeared in thirty-four volumes at Vienna during
the last years of his life (_Mélanges militaires_, _littéraires_,
_sentimentaires_), and he bequeathed his manuscripts to the emperor's
Trabant Guard, of which he was captain (_Oeuvres posthumes_, Dresden
and Vienna, 1817). Selections were published in French and German
(_Oeuvres choisies de M. le prince de Ligne_ (Paris, 1809); _Lettres
et pensées du Maréchal Prince de Ligne_, ed. by Madame de Staël
(1809); _Oeuvres historiques, littéraires ... correspondance et
poésies diverses_ (Brussels, 1859); _Des Prinzen Karl von Ligne
militärische Werke_, ed. Count Pappenheim (Sulzbach, 1814). The most
important of his numerous works on all military subjects is the
_Fantaisies et préjugés militaires_, which originally appeared in
1780. A modern edition is that published by J. Dumaine (Paris, 1879).
A German version (_Militärische Vorurtheile und Phantasien_, &c.)
appeared as early as 1783. This work, though it deals lightly and
cavalierly with the most important subjects (the prince even proposes
to found an international academy of the art of war, wherein the
reputation of generals could be impartially weighed), is a military
classic, and indispensable to the students of the post-Frederician
period. On the whole, it may be said that the prince adhered to the
school of Guibert (q.v.), and a full discussion will be found in Max
Jähns' _Gesch. d. Kriegswissenschaften_, iii. 2091 et seq. Another
very celebrated work by the prince is the mock autobiography of Prince
Eugene (1809).
See _Revue de Bruxelles_ (October 1839); Reiffenberg, "Le Feldmaréchal
Prince Charles Joseph de Ligne," _Mémoires de l'académie de
Bruxelles_, vol. xix.; Peetermans, _Le Prince de Ligne, ou un écrivain
grand seigneur_ (Liége, 1857), _Études et notices historiques
concernant l'histoire des Pays Bas_, vol. iii. (Brussels, 1890);
_Mémoires et publications de la Société des Sciences, &c. du
Hainault_, vol. iii., 5th series; Dublet _Le Prince de Ligne et ses
contemporains_ (Paris, 1889), Wurzbach, _Biogr. Lexikon d. Kaiserth.
Österr_. (Vienna, 1858); Hirtenfeld, _Der
Militär-Maria-Theresien-Orden_, vol. i. (Vienna, 1857), Ritter von
Rettersberg, _Biogr. d. ausgezeichnetsten Feldherren_ (Prague, 1829);
Schweigerd, _Österr. Helden_, vol. iii. (Vienna, 1854); Thürheim, _F.
M. Karl Joseph Fürst de Ligne_ (Vienna, 1877).
LIGNITE (Lat. _lignum_, wood), an imperfectly formed coal, usually
brownish in colour, and always showing the structure of the wood from
which it was derived (see COAL).
LIGONIER, JOHN (JEAN LOUIS) LIGONIER, EARL (1680-1770), British Field
Marshal, came of a Huguenot family of Castres in the south of France,
members of which emigrated to England at the close of the 17th century.
He entered the army as a volunteer under Marlborough. From 1702 to 1710
he was engaged, with distinction, in nearly every important battle and
siege of the war. He was one of the first to mount the breach at the
siege of Liége, commanded a company at the Schellenberg and at Blenheim,
and was present at Menin (where he led the storming of the covered way),
Ramillies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet (where he received twenty-three
bullets through his clothing and remained unhurt). In 1712 he became
governor of Fort St Philip, Minorca, and in 1718 was adjutant-general of
the troops employed in the Vigo expedition, where he led the stormers of
Fort Marin. Two years later he became colonel of the "Black Horse" (now
7th Dragoon Guards), a command which he retained for 29 years. His
regiment soon attained an extraordinary degree of efficiency. He was
made brigadier-general in 1735, major-general in 1739, and accompanied
Lord Stair in the Rhine Campaign of 1742-1743. George II. made him a
Knight of the Bath on the field of Dettingen. At Fontenoy Ligonier
commanded the British foot, and acted throughout the battle as adviser
to the duke of Cumberland. During the "Forty-Five" he was called home to
command the British army in the Midlands, but in January 1746 was placed
at the head of the British and British-paid contingents of the Allied
army in the Low Countries. He was present at Roucoux (11th Oct. 1746),
and, as general of horse, at Val (1st July 1747), where he led the last
charge of the British cavalry. In this encounter his horse was killed,
and he was taken prisoner, but was exchanged in a few days. With the
close of the campaign ended Ligonier's active career, but (with a brief
interval in 1756-1757) he occupied various high civil and military posts
to the close of his life. In 1757 he was made, in rapid succession,
commander-in-chief, colonel of the 1st Foot Guards (now Grenadier
Guards), and a peer of Ireland under the title of Viscount Ligonier of
Enniskillen, a title changed in 1762 for that of Clonmell. From 1759 to
1762 he was master-general of the Ordnance, and in 1763 he became Baron,
and in 1766 Earl, in the English peerage. In the latter year he became
field marshal. He died in 1770. His younger brother, Francis, was also a
distinguished soldier; and his son succeeded to the Irish peerage of
Lord Ligonier.
See Combes, _J. L. Ligonier, une étude_ (Castres, 1866), and the
histories of the 7th Dragoon Guards and Grenadier Guards.
LIGUORI, ALFONSO MARIA DEI (1696-1787), saint and doctor of the Church
of Rome, was born at Marianella, near Naples, on the 27th of September
1696, being the son of Giuseppe dei Liguori, a Neapolitan noble. He
began life at the bar, where he obtained considerable practice; but the
loss of an important suit, in which he was counsel for a Neapolitan
noble against the grand duke of Tuscany, and in which he had entirely
mistaken the force of a leading document, so mortified him that he
withdrew from the legal world. In 1726 he entered the Congregation of
Missions as a novice, and became a priest in 1726. In 1732 he founded
the "Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer" at Scala, near Salerno; the
headquarters of the Order were afterwards transferred to Nocera dei
Pagani. Its members, popularly called Liguorians or Redemptorists,
devote themselves to the religious instruction of the poor, more
especially in country districts; Liguori specially forbade them to
undertake secular educational work. In 1750 appeared his celebrated
devotional book on the _Glories of Mary_; three years later came his
still more celebrated treatise on moral theology. In 1755 this was much
enlarged and translated into Latin under the title of _Homo
Apostolicus_. In 1762, at the express desire of the pope, he accepted
the bishopric of Sant' Agata dei Goti, a small town in the province of
Benevent; though he had previously refused the archbishopric of Palermo.
Here he worked diligently at practical reforms, being specially anxious
to raise the standard of clerical life and work. In 1775 he resigned his
bishopric on the plea of enfeebled health; he retired to his
Redemptorists at Nocera, and died there in 1787. In 1796 Pius VI.
declared him "venerable"; he was beatified by Pius VII. in 1816,
canonized by Gregory XVI. in 1839, and finally declared one of the
nineteen "Doctors of the Church" by Pius IX. in 1871.
Liguori is the chief representative of a school of casuistry and
devotional theology still abundantly represented within the Roman Church.
Not that he was in any sense its founder. He was simply a fair
representative of the Italian piety of his day--amiable, ascetic in his
personal habits, indefatigable in many forms of activity, and of more
than respectable abilities; though the emotional side of his character
had the predominance over his intellect. He was learned, as learning was
understood among the Italian clergy of the 18th century; but he was
destitute of critical faculty, and the inaccuracy of his quotations is
proverbial. In his casuistical works he was a diligent compiler, whose
avowed design was to take a middle course between the two current
extremes of severity and laxity. In practice, he leant constantly towards
laxity. Eighteenth-century Italy looked on religion with apathetic
indifference, and Liguori convinced himself that only the gentlest and
most lenient treatment could win back the alienated laity; hence he was
always willing to excuse errors on the side of laxity as due to an excess
of zeal in winning over penitents. Severity, on the other hand, seemed to
him not only inexpedient, but positively wrong. By making religion hard
it made it odious, and thus prepared the way for unbelief. Like all
casuists, he took for granted that morality was a recondite science,
beyond the reach of all but the learned. When a layman found himself in
doubt, his duty was not to consult his conscience, but to take the advice
of his confessor; while the confessor himself was bound to follow the
rules laid down by the casuistical experts, who delivered themselves of a
kind of "counsel's opinion" on all knotty points of practical morality.
But experts proverbially differ: what was to be done when they disagreed?
Suppose, for instance, that some casuists held it wrong to dance on
Sunday, while others held it perfectly lawful. In Liguori's time there
were four ways of answering the question. Strict moralists--called
rigorists, or "tutiorists"--maintained that the austerer opinion ought
always to be followed; dancing on Sundays was certainly wrong, if any
good authorities had declared it to be so. Probabiliorists maintained
that the more general opinion ought to prevail, irrespectively of whether
it was the stricter or the laxer; dancing on Sunday was perfectly lawful,
if the majority of casuists approved it. Probabilists argued that any
opinion might be followed, if it could show good authority on its side,
even if there was still better authority against it; dancing on Sunday
must be innocent, if it could show a fair sprinkling of eminent names in
its favour. The fourth and last school--the "laxists"--carried this
principle a step farther, and held that a practice must be
unobjectionable, if it could prove that any one "grave Doctor" had
defended it; even if dancing on Sunday had hitherto lain under the ban of
the church, a single casuist could legitimate it by one stroke of his
pen. Liguori's great achievement lay in steering a middle course between
these various extremes. The gist of his system, which is known as
"equi-probabilism," is that the more indulgent opinion may always be
followed, whenever the authorities in its favour are as good, or nearly
as good, as those on the other side. In this way he claimed that he had
secured liberty in its rights without allowing it to degenerate into
licence. However much they might personally disapprove, zealous priests
could not forbid their parishioners to dance on Sunday, if the practice
had won widespread toleration; on the other hand, they could not relax
the usual discipline of the church on the strength of a few unguarded
opinions of too indulgent casuists. Thus the Liguorian system surpassed
all its predecessors in securing uniformity in the confessional on a
basis of established usage, two advantages amply sufficient to ensure its
speedy general adoption within the Church of Rome.
_Lives_ by A. M. Tannoja, a pupil of Liguori's (3 vols., Naples,
1798-1802); new ed., Turin, 1857; French trans., Paris, 1842; P. v. A.
Giattini (Rome, 1815: Ger. trans., Vienna, 1835); F. W. Faber (4
vols., London, 1848-1849); M. A. Hugues (Münster, 1857); O. Gisler
(Einsiedeln, 1887); K. Dilgskron (2 vols., Regensburg, 1887), perhaps
the best; A. Capecelatro (2 vols., Rome, 1893); A. des Retours (Paris,
1903); A. C. Berthe (St Louis, 1906).
_Works_ (a) Collected editions. Italian: (Monza, 1819, 1828; Venice,
1830; Naples, 1840 ff.; Turin, 1887, ff.). French: (Tournai, 1855 ff.,
new ed., 1895 ff.) German: (Regensburg, 1842-1847). English: (22
vols., New York, 1887-1895). Editions of the _Theologia Moralis_ and
other separate works are very numerous. (b) _Letters_: (2 vols.,
Monza, 1831; 3 vols., Rome, 1887 ff.). See also Meyrick, _Moral and
Devotional Theology of the Church of Rome, according to the Teaching
of S. Alfonso de Liguori_ (London, 1857), and art. CASUISTRY.
(St. C.)
LIGURES BAEBIANI, in ancient geography, a settlement of Ligurians in
Samnium, Italy. The towns of Taurasia and Cisauna in Samnium had been
captured in 298 B.C. by the consul L. Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, and the
territory of the former remained Roman state domain. In 180 B.C. 47,000
Ligurians from the neighbourhood of Luna (Ligures Apuani), with women
and children, were transferred to this district, and two settlements
were formed taking their names from the consuls of 181 B.C., the Ligures
Baebiani and the Ligures Corneliani. The site of the former town lies 15
m. N. of Beneventum, on the road to Saepinum and Aesernia. In its ruins
several inscriptions have been found, notably a large bronze tablet
discovered in a public building in the Forum bearing the date A.D. 101,
and relating to the alimentary institution founded by Trajan here (see
VELEIA). A sum of money was lent to landed proprietors of the district
(whose names and estates are specified in the inscription), and the
interest which it produced formed the income of the institution, which,
on the model of that of Veleia, would have served to support a little
over one hundred children. The capital was 401,800 sesterces, and the
annual interest probably at 5%, i.e. 20,090 sesterces (£4018 and £201
respectively). The site of the other settlement--that of the Ligures
Corneliani--is unknown.
See T. Mommsen in _Corp. Inscr. Lat._ ix. (Berlin, 1883), 125 sqq.
(T. As.)
LIGURIA, a modern territorial division of Italy, lying between the
Ligurian Alps and the Apennines on the N., and the Mediterranean on the
S. and extending from the frontier of France on the W. to the Gulf of
Spezia on the E. Its northern limits touch Piedmont and Lombardy, while
Emilia and Tuscany fringe its eastern borders, the dividing line
following as a rule the summits of the mountains. Its area is 2037 sq.
m. The railway from Pisa skirts the entire coast of the territory,
throwing off lines to Parma from Sarzana and Spezia, to Milan and Turin
from Genoa, and to Turin from Savona, and there is a line from
Ventimiglia to Cuneo and Turin by the Col di Tenda. Liguria embraces the
two provinces of Genoa and Porto Maurizio (Imperia), which once formed
the republic of Genoa. Its sparsely-peopled mountains slope gently
northward towards the Po, descending, however, abruptly into the sea at
several points; the narrow coast district, famous under the name of the
Riviera (q.v.), is divided at Genoa into the Riviera di Ponente towards
France, and the Riviera di Levante towards the east. Its principal
products are wheat, maize, wine, oranges, lemons, fruits, olives and
potatoes, though the olive groves are being rapidly supplanted by
flower-gardens, which grow flowers for export. Copper and iron pyrites
are mined. The principal industries are iron-works, foundries, iron
shipbuilding, engineering, and boiler works (Genoa, Spezia,
Sampierdarena, Sestri Ponente, &c.), the production of cocoons, and the
manufacture of cottons and woollens. Owing to the sheltered situation
and the mildness of their climate, many of the coast towns are chosen by
thousands of foreigners for winter residence, while the Italians
frequent them in summer for sea-bathing. The inhabitants have always
been adventurous seamen--Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci were
Genoese,--and the coast has several good harbours, Genoa, Spezia and
Savona being the best. In educational and general development, Liguria
stands high among the regions of Italy. The populations of the
respective provinces and their chief towns are, according to the census
of 1901 (_popolazione residente_ or _legale_)--province of Genoa, pop.
931,156; number of communes 197; chief towns--Genoa (219,507), Spezia
(66,263), Savona (38,648), Sampierdarena (34,084), Sestri Ponente
(17,225). Province of Porto Maurizio, pop. 144,604, number of communes
106; chief towns--Porto Maurizio (7207), S. Remo (20,027), Ventimiglia
(11,468), Oneglia (8252). Total for Liguria, 1,075,760.
The Ligurian coast became gradually subject to the Romans, and the road
along it must have been correspondingly prolonged: up to the end of the
Hannibalic war the regular starting-point for Spain by sea was Pisae, in
195 B.C. it was the harbour of Luna (Gulf of Spezia),[1] though Genua
must have become Roman a little before this time, while, in 137 B.C., C.
Hostilius Mancinus marched as far as Portus Herculis (Villafranca), and
in 121 B.C. the province of Gallia Narbonensis was formed and the
coast-road prolonged to the Pyrenees. In 14 B.C. Augustus restored the
whole road from Placentia to Dertona (Via Postumia), and thence to Vada
Sabatia (Via Aemilia²) and the River Varus (Var), so that it thenceforth
took the name of Via Julia Augusta (see AEMILIA, VIA²). The other chief
roads of Liguria were the portion of the Via Postumia from Dertona to
Genua, a road from above Vada through Augusta Bagiennorum and Pollentia
to Augusta Taurinorum, and another from Augusta Taurinorum to Hasta and
Valentia. The names of the villages--Quarto, Quinto, &c.--on the
south-east side and Pontedecimo on the north of Genoa allude to their
distance along the Roman roads. The Roman Liguria, forming the ninth
region of Augustus, was thus far more extensive than the modern,
including the country on the north slopes of the Apennines and Maritime
Alps between the Trebia and the Po, and extending a little beyond
Albintimilium. On the west Augustus formed the provinces of the Alpes
Maritimae and the Alpes Cottiae. Towns of importance were few, owing to
the nature of the country. Dertona was the only colony, and Alba
Pompeia, Augusta Bagiennorum, Pollentia, Hasta, Aquae Statiellae, and
Genua may also be mentioned; but the Ligurians dwelt entirely in
villages, and were organized as tribes. The mountainous character of
Liguria made the spread of culture difficult; it remained a forest
district, producing timber, cattle, ponies, mules, sheep, &c. Oil and
wine had to be imported, and when the cultivation of the olive began is
not known.
The arrangement made by Augustus lasted until the time of Diocletian,
when the two Alpine provinces were abolished, and the watershed became
the boundary between Italy and Gaul. At this time we find the name
Liguria extended as far as Milan, while in the 6th century the old
Liguria was separated from it, and under the Lombards formed the fifth
Italian province under the name of Alpes Cottiae. In the middle ages the
ancient Liguria north of the Apennines fell to Piedmont and Lombardy,
while that to the south, with the coast strip, belonged to the republic
of Genoa. (T. As.)
_Archaeology and Philology._--It is clear that in earlier times the
Ligurians occupied a much more extensive area than the Augustan region;
for instance Strabo (i. 2, 92; iv. 1, 7) gives earlier authorities for
their possession of the land on which the Greek colony of Massalia
(Marseilles) was founded; and Thucydides (vi. 2) speaks of a settlement
of Ligurians in Spain who expelled the Sicani thence. Southward their
domain extended as far as Pisa on the coast of Etruria and Arretium
inland in the time of Polybius (ii. 6), and a somewhat vague reference
in Lycophron (line 1351) to the Ligurians as enemies of the founders of
Agylla (i.e. Caere) suggests that they once occupied even a larger tract
to the south. Seneca (_Cons. ad Helv._ vii. 9), states that the
population of Corsica was partly Ligurian. By combining traditions
recorded by Dionysius (i. 22; xiv. 37) and others (e.g. Serv. _ad. Aen._
xi. 317) as having been held by Cato the Censor and by Philistus of
Syracuse (385 B.C.) respectively, Professor Ridgeway (_Who were the
Romans?_ London, 1908, p. 3) decides in favour of identifying the
Ligurians with a tribe called the Aborigines who occupy a large place in
the early traditions of Italy (see Dionysius i. cc. 10 ff.); and who may
at all events be regarded with reasonable certainty as constituting an
early pre-Roman and pre-Tuscan stratum in the population of Central
Italy (see LATIUM). For a discussion of this question see VOLSCI.
Ridgeway holds that the language of the Ligurians, as well as their
antiquities, was identical with that of the early Latins, and with that
of the Plebeians of Rome (as contrasted with that of the Patrician or
Sabine element), see ROME: _History_ (_ad. init._). The archaeological
side of this important question is difficult. Although great progress
has been made with the study of the different strata of remains in
prehistoric Italy and of those of Liguria itself (see for instance the
excellent _Introduction à l'histoire romaine_ by Basile Modestov (Paris,
1907, p. 122 ff.) and W. Ridgeway's _Early Age of Greece_, p. 240 ff.)
no general agreement has been reached among archaeologists as to the
particular races who are to be identified as the authors of the early
strata, earlier, that is, than that stratum which represents the
Etruscans.
On the linguistic side some fairly certain conclusions have been
reached. D'Arbois de Jubainville (_Les Premiers habitants de l'Europe_,
ed. 2, Paris, 1880-1894) pointed out the great frequency of the suffix
-_asco_- (and -_usco_-) both in ancient and in modern Ligurian
districts, and as far north as _Caranusca_ near Metz, and also in the
eastern Alps and in Spain. He pointed out also, what can scarcely be
doubted, that the great mass of the Ligurian proper names (e.g. the
streams _Vinelasca_, _Porcobera_, _Comberanea_; _mons Tuledo_;
_Venascum_), have a definite Indo-European character. Farther Karl
Müllenhof in vol. iii. of his _Deutsche Alterthumskunde_ (Berlin, 1898)
made a careful collection of the proper names reserved in Latin
inscriptions of the Ligurian districts, such as the _Tabula Genuatium_
(_C.I.L._ i. 99) of 117 B.C. A complete collection of all Ligurian place
and personal names known has been made by S. Elizabeth Jackson, B.A.,
and the collection is to be combined with the inscriptional remains of
the district in _The Pre-Italic Dialects_, edited by R. S. Conway (see
_The Proceedings of the British Academy_). Following Kretschmer _Kuhn's
Zeitschrift_ (xxxviii. 97), who discussed several inscriptions found
near Ornavasso (Lago Maggiore) and concluded that they showed an
Indo-European language, Conway, though holding that the inscriptions are
more Celtic than Ligurian, pointed out strong evidence in the ancient
place names of Liguria that the language spoken there in the period
which preceded the Roman conquest was Indo-European, and belonged to a
definite group, namely, languages which preserved the original _q_ as
Latin did, and did not convert it into _p_ as did the Umbro-Safine
tribes. The same is probably true of Venetia (see VENETI), and of an
Indo-European language preserved on inscriptions found at Coligny and
commonly referred to the Sequani (see _Comptes Rendus de l'Ac. d'Insc._,
Paris, 1897, 703; E. B. Nicholson, _Sequanian_, London, 1898;
Thurneysen, _Zeitschr. f. Kelt. Phil._, 1899, 523). Typically Ligurian
names are _Quiamelius_, which contains the characteristic Ligurian word
_melo_- "stone" as in _mons Blustiemelus_ (_C.I.L._ v. 7749),
_Intimelium_ and the modern _Vintimiglia_. The tribal names _Soliceli_,
_Stoniceli_, clearly contain the same element as Lat. _aequi-coli_
(dwellers on the plain), _sati-cola_, &c., namely _quel_-, cf. Lat.
_in-quil-inus_, _colo_, Gr. [Greek: polein, tellesthai]. And it should
be added that the Ligurian ethnica show the prevailing use of the two
suffixes -_co_- and -_ati_-, which there is reason to refer to the
pre-Roman stratum of population in Italy (see VOLSCI).
Besides the authorities already cited the student may be referred to
C. Pauli, _Altitalische Studien_, vol. i., especially for the alphabet
of the insc.; W. Ridgeway, _Who were the Romans?_ (followed by the
abstract of a paper by the present writer) in _The Proceedings of the
British Academy_, vol. iii. p. 42; and to W. H. Hall's, _The Romans on
the Riviera and the Rhône_ (London, 1898); Issel's _La Liguria
geologica e preistorica_ (Genoa, 1892). A further batch of
Celto-Ligurian inscriptions from Giubiasco near Bellinzona (Canton
Ticino) is published by G. Herbig, in the _Anzeiger f. Schweizer.
Altertumskunde_, vii. (1905-1906), p. 187; and one of the same class
by Elia Lattes, _Di un' Iscriz. ante-Romana trovata a Carcegna sul
Lago d' Orta_ (_Atti d. r. Accad. d. Scienze di Torino_, xxxix., Feb.
1904). (R. S. C.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The dividing line between Liguria and Etruria was the lower
course of the river Macra (Magra), so that, while the harbour of Luna
was in the former, Luna itself was in the latter.
LI HUNG CHANG (1823-1901), Chinese statesman, was born on the 16th of
February 1823 at Hofei, in Ngan-hui. From his earliest youth he showed
marked ability, and when quite young he took his bachelor degree. In
1847 he became a Tsin-shi, or graduate of the highest order, and two
years later was admitted into the imperial Hanlin college. Shortly after
this the central provinces of the empire were invaded by the Taiping
rebels, and in defence of his native district he raised a regiment of
militia, with which he did such good service to the imperial cause that
he attracted the attention of Tsêng Kuo-fan, the generalissimo in
command. In 1859 he was transferred to the province of Fu-kien, where he
was given the rank of taotai, or intendant of circuit. But Tsêng had not
forgotten him, and at his request Li was recalled to take part against
the rebels. He found his cause supported by the "Ever Victorious Army,"
which, after having been raised by an American named Ward, was finally
placed under the command of Charles George Gordon. With this support Li
gained numerous victories leading to the surrender of Suchow and the
capture of Nanking. For these exploits he was made governor of Kiangsu,
was decorated with a yellow jacket, and was created an earl. An incident
connected with the surrender of Suchow, however, left a lasting stain
upon his character. By an arrangement with Gordon the rebel wangs, or
princes, yielded Nanking on condition that their lives should be spared.
In spite of the assurance given them by Gordon, Li ordered their instant
execution. This breach of faith so aroused Gordon's indignation that he
seized a rifle, intending to shoot the falsifier of his word, and would
have done so had not Li saved himself by flight. On the suppression of
the rebellion (1864) Li took up his duties as governor, but was not long
allowed to remain in civil life. On the outbreak of the rebellion of the
Nienfei, a remnant of the Taipings, in Ho-nan and Shan-tung (1866) he
was ordered again to take the field, and after some misadventures he
succeeded in suppressing the movement. A year later he was appointed
viceroy of Hukwang, where he remained until 1870, when the Tientsin
massacre necessitated his transfer to the scene of the outrage. He was,
as a natural consequence, appointed to the viceroyalty of the
metropolitan province of Chihli, and justified his appointment by the
energy with which he suppressed all attempts to keep alive the
anti-foreign sentiment among the people. For his services he was made
imperial tutor and member of the grand council of the empire, and was
decorated with many-eyed peacocks' feathers.
To his duties as viceroy were added those of the superintendent of
trade, and from that time until his death, with a few intervals of
retirement, he practically conducted the foreign policy of China. He
concluded the Chifu convention with Sir Thomas Wade (1876), and thus
ended the difficulty caused by the murder of Mr Margary in Yunnan; he
arranged treaties with Peru and Japan, and he actively directed the
Chinese policy in Korea. On the death of the emperor T'ungchi in 1875
he, by suddenly introducing a large armed force into the capital,
effected a _coup d'état_ by which the emperor Kwang Sü was put on the
throne under the tutelage of the two dowager empresses; and in 1886, on
the conclusion of the Franco-Chinese war, he arranged a treaty with
France. Li was always strongly impressed with the necessity of
strengthening the empire, and when viceroy of Chihli he raised a large
well-drilled and well-armed force, and spent vast sums both in
fortifying Port Arthur and the Taku forts and in increasing the navy.
For years he had watched the successful reforms effected in Japan and
had a well-founded dread of coming into conflict with that empire. But
in 1894 events forced his hand, and in consequence of a dispute as to
the relative influence of China and Japan in Korea, war broke out. The
result proved the wisdom of Li's fears. Both on land and at sea the
Chinese forces were ignominiously routed, and in 1895, on the fall of
Wei-hai-wei, the emperor sued for peace. With characteristic subterfuge
his advisers suggested as peace envoys persons whom the mikado very
properly and promptly refused to accept, and finally Li was sent to
represent his imperial master at the council assembled at Shimonoseki.
With great diplomatic skill Li pleaded the cause of his country, but
finally had to agree to the cession of Formosa, the Pescadores, and the
Liaotung peninsula to the conquerors, and to the payment of an indemnity
of 200,000,000 taels. By a subsequent arrangement the Liaotung peninsula
was restored to China, in exchange for an increased indemnity. During
the peace discussions at Shimonoseki, as Li was being borne through the
narrow streets of the town, a would-be assassin fired a pistol
point-blank in his face. The wound inflicted was not serious, and after
a few days' rest Li was able to take up again the suspended
negotiations. In 1896 he represented the emperor at the coronation of
the tsar, and visited Germany, Belgium, France, England, and the United
States of America. For some time after his return to China his services
were demanded at Peking, where he was virtually constituted minister for
foreign affairs; but in 1900 he was transferred to Canton as viceroy of
the two Kwangs. The Boxer movement, however, induced the emperor to
recall him to the capital, and it was mainly owing to his exertions
that, at the conclusion of the outbreak, a protocol of peace was signed
in September 1901. For many months his health had been failing, and he
died on the 7th of November 1901. He left three sons and one daughter.
(R. K. D.)
LILAC,[1] or PIPE TREE (_Syringa vulgaris_), a tree of the olive family,
Oleaceae. The genus contains about ten species of ornamental hardy
deciduous shrubs native in eastern Europe and temperate Asia. They have
opposite, generally entire leaves and large panicles of small regular
flowers, with a bell-shaped calyx and a 4-lobed cylindrical corolla,
with the two stamens characteristic of the order attached at the mouth
of the tube. The common lilac is said to have come from Persia in the
16th century, but is doubtfully indigenous in Hungary, the borders of
Moldavia, &c. Two kinds of _Syringa_, viz. _alba_ and _caerulea_, are
figured and described by Gerard (_Herball_, 1597), which he calls the
white and the blue pipe privets. The former is the common privet,
_Ligustrum vulgare_, which, and the ash tree, _Fraxinus excelsior_, are
the only members of the family native in Great Britain. The latter is
the lilac, as both figure and description agree accurately with it. It
was carried by the European colonists to north-east America, and is
still grown in gardens of the northern and middle states.
There are many fine varieties of lilac, both with single and double
flowers; they are among the commonest and most beautiful of
spring-flowering shrubs. The so-called Persian lilac of gardens (_S.
dubia_, _S. chinensis_ var. _Rothomagensis_), also known as the
Chinese or Rouen lilac, a small shrub 4 to 6 ft. high with intense
violet flowers appearing in May and June, is considered to be a hybrid
between _S. vulgaris_ and _S. persica_--the true Persian lilac, a
native of Persia and Afghanistan, a shrub 4 to 7 ft. high with
bluish-purple or white flowers. Of other species, _S. Josikaea_, from
Transylvania, has scentless bluish-purple flowers; _S. Emodi_, a
native of the Himalayas, is a handsome shrub with large ovate leaves
and dense panicles of purple or white strongly scented flowers. Lilacs
grow freely and flower profusely in almost any soil and situation, but
when neglected are apt to become choked with suckers which shoot up in
great numbers from the base. They are readily propagated by means of
these suckers.
Syringa is also a common name for the mock-orange _Philadelphus
coronarius_ (nat. ord. _Saxifragaceae_), a handsome shrub 2 to 10 ft.
high, with smooth ovate leaves and clusters of white flowers which
have a strong orange-like scent. It is a native of western Asia, and
perhaps some parts of southern Europe.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The Span. _lilac_, Fr. _lilac_, mod. lilas, are adapted from
Arab. _lilak_, Pers. _lilak_, variant of _milak_, of a blue color,
_mil_, blue, the indigo-plant.
LILBURNE, JOHN (c. 1614-1657), English political agitator, was the
younger son of a gentleman of good family in the county of Durham. At
the age of twelve he was apprenticed to a clothier in London, but he
appears to have early addicted himself to the "contention, novelties,
opposition of government, and violent and bitter expressions" for which
he afterwards became so conspicuous as to provoke the saying of Harry
Marten (the regicide) that, "if the world was emptied of all but John
Lilburn, Lilburn would quarrel with John, and John with Lilburn." He
appears at one time to have been law-clerk to William Prynne. In
February 1638, for the part he had taken in importing and circulating
_The Litany_ and other publications of John Bastwick and Prynne,
offensive to the bishops, he was sentenced by the Star Chamber to be
publicly whipped from the Fleet prison to Palace Yard, Westminster,
there to stand for two hours in the pillory, and afterwards to be kept
in gaol until a fine of £500 had been paid. He devoted his enforced
leisure to his favourite form of literary activity, and did not regain
his liberty until November 1640, one of the earliest recorded speeches
of Oliver Cromwell being made in support of his petition to the House of
Commons (Nov. 9, 1640). In 1641 he received an indemnity of £3000. He
now entered the army, and in 1642 was taken prisoner at Brentford and
tried for his life; sentence would no doubt have been executed had not
the parliament by threatening reprisals forced his exchange. He soon
rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, but in April 1645, having become
dissatisfied with the predominance of Presbyterianism, and refusing to
take the covenant, he resigned his commission, presenting at the same
time to the Commons a petition for considerable arrears of pay. His
violent language in Westminster Hall about the speaker and other public
men led in the following July to his arrest and committal to Newgate,
whence he was discharged, however, without trial, by order of the House,
in October. In January 1647 he was committed to the Tower for
accusations against Cromwell, but was again set at liberty in time to
become a disappointed spectator of the failure of the "Levellers" or
ultrademocratic party in the army at the Ware rendezvous in the
following November. The scene produced a deep impression on his mind,
and in February 1649 he along with other petitioners presented to the
House of Commons a paper entitled _The Serious Apprehensions of a part
of the People on behalf of the Commonwealth_, which he followed up with
a pamphlet, _England's New Chains Discovered_, criticizing Ireton, and
another exposing the conduct of Cromwell, Ireton and other leaders of
the army since June 1647 (_The Hunting of the Foxes from Newmarket and
Triploe Heath to Whitehall by Five Small Beagles_, the "beagles" being
Lilburne, Richard Overton, William Walwyn, Prince and another). Finally,
the _Second Part of England's New Chains Discovered_, a violent outburst
against "the dominion of a council of state, and a constitution of a new
and unexperienced nature," became the subject of discussion in the
House, and led anew to the imprisonment of its author in the Tower on
the 11th of April. His trial in the following October, on a charge of
seditious and scandalous practices against the state, resulted in his
unanimous acquittal, followed by his release in November. In 1650 he was
advocating the release of trade from the restrictions of chartered
companies and monopolists.
In January 1652, for printing and publishing a petition against Sir
Arthur Hesilrige and the Haberdashers' Hall for what he conceived to
have been an injury done to his uncle George Lilburne in 1649, he was
sentenced to pay fines amounting to £7000, and to be banished the
Commonwealth, with prohibition of return under the pain of death. In
June 1653 he nevertheless came back from the Low Countries, where he had
busied himself in pamphleteering and such other agitation as was
possible, and was immediately arrested; the trial, which was protracted
from the 13th of July to the 20th of August, issued in his acquittal, to
the great joy of London, but it was nevertheless thought proper to keep
him in captivity for "the peace of the nation." He was detained
successively in the Tower, in Jersey, in Guernsey and in Dover Castle.
At Dover he came under Quaker influence, and signified his readiness at
last to be done with "carnal sword fightings and fleshly bustlings and
contests"; and in 1655, on giving security for his good behaviour, he
was set free. He now settled at Eltham in Kent, frequently preaching at
Quaker meetings in the neighbourhood during the brief remainder of his
troubled life. He died on the 29th of August 1657.
His brother, Colonel Robert Lilburne, was among those who signed the
death-warrant of Charles I. In 1656 he was M.P. for the East Riding of
Yorkshire, and at the restoration was sentenced to lifelong
imprisonment.
See D. Masson, _Life of Milton_ (iv. 120); Clement Walker (_History of
Independency_, ii. 247); W. Godwin (_Commonwealth_, iii. 163-177), and
Robert Bisset (_Omitted Chapters of the History of England_, 191-251).
LILIACEAE, in botany, a natural order of Monocotyledons belonging to the
series Liliiflorae, and generally regarded as representing the typical
order of Monocotyledons. The plants are generally perennial herbs
growing from a bulb or rhizome, sometimes shrubby as in butcher's broom
(_Ruscus_) or tree-like as in species of _Dracaena, Yucca_ or _Aloe_.
The flowers are with few exceptions hermaphrodite, and regular with
parts in threes (fig. 5), the perianth which is generally petaloid
occupying the two outer whorls, followed by two whorls of stamens, with
a superior ovary of three carpels in the centre of the flower; the ovary
is generally three-chambered and contains an indefinite number of
anatropous ovules on axile placentas (see fig. 2). The fruit is a
capsule splitting along the septa (septicidal) (fig. 1), or between them
(loculicidal), or a berry (fig. 6, 3); the seeds contain a small embryo
in a copious fleshy or cartilaginous endosperm. Liliaceae is one of the
larger orders of flowering plants containing about 2500 species in 200
genera; it is of world-wide distribution. The plants show great
diversity in vegetative structure, which together with the character and
mode of dehiscence of the fruit afford a basis for the subdivision of
the order into tribes, eleven of which are recognized. The following are
the most important tribes.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Fruit or Capsule of Meadow Saffron (_Colchicum
autumnale_) dehiscing along the septa.]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Same cut across showing the three chambers with
the seeds attached along the middle line--axile placentation.]
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Corm of Meadow Saffron (_Colchicum autumnale_).
a, Old corm shrivelling; b, young corm produced laterally from the old
one.]
_Melanthoideae._--The plants have a rhizome or corm, and the fruit is
a capsule. It contains 36 genera, many of which are north temperate
and three are represented in Britain, viz. _Tofieldia_, an arctic and
alpine genus of small herbs with a slender scape springing from a tuft
of narrow ensiform leaves and bearing a raceme of small green flowers;
_Narthecium_ (bog-asphodel), herbs with a habit similar to
_Tofieldia_, but with larger golden-yellow flowers; and _Colchicum_, a
genus with about 30 species including the meadow saffron or autumn
crocus (_C. autumnale_). _Colchicum_ illustrates the corm-development
which is rare in Liliaceae though common in the allied order
Iridaceae; a corm is formed by swelling at the base of the axis (figs.
3, 4) and persists after the flowers and leaves, bearing next season's
plant as a lateral shoot in the axil of a scale-leaf at its base.
_Gloriosa_, well known in cultivation, climbs by means of its
tendril-like leaf-tips; it has handsome flowers with decurved
orange-red or yellow petals; it is a native of tropical Asia and
Africa. _Veratrum_ is an alpine genus of the north temperate zone.
_Asphodeloideae._--The plants generally have a rhizome bearing radical
leaves, as in asphodel, rarely a stem with a tuft of leaves as in
_Aloe_, very rarely a tuber (_Eriospermum_) or bulb (_Bowiea_). The
flowers are borne in a terminal raceme, the anthers open introrsely
and the fruit is a capsule, very rarely, as in _Dianella_, a berry. It
contains 64 genera. _Asphodelus_ (asphodel) is a Mediterranean genus;
_Simethis_, a slender herb with grassy radical leaves, is a native of
west and southern Europe extending into south Ireland. _Anthericum_
and _Chlorophytum_, herbs with radical often grass-like leaves and
scapes bearing a more or less branched inflorescence of small
generally white flowers, are widely spread in the tropics. Other
genera are _Funkia_, native of China and Japan, cultivated in the open
air in Britain; _Hemerocallis_, a small genus of central Europe and
temperate Asia--_H. flava_ is known in gardens as the day lily;
_Phormium_, a New Zealand genus to which belongs New Zealand flax, _P.
tenax_, a useful fibre-plant; _Kniphofia_, South and East Africa,
several species of which are cultivated; and _Aloe_. A small group of
Australian genera closely approach the order Juncaceae in having small
crowded flowers with a scarious or membranous perianth; they include
_Xanthorrhoea_ (grass-tree or black-boy) and _Kingia_, arborescent
plants with an erect woody stem crowned with a tuft of long stiff
narrow leaves, from the centre of which rises a tall dense
flower-spike or a number of stalked flower-heads; this group has been
included in Juncaceae, from which it is doubtfully distinguished only
by the absence of the long twisted stigmas which characterize the true
rushes.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Corm of _Colchicum autumnale_ in autumn when
the plant is in flower.
k, Present corm.
h, h, Brown scales covering it.
w, Its roots.
st, Its withered flowering stem.
k´, Younger corm produced from k.
wh, Roots from k´, which grows at expense of k.
s, s´, s´´, Sheathing leaves.
l´, l´´, Foliage leaves.
b, b´, Flowers.
k´´, Young corm produced from
k´, in autumn, which in succeeding autumn will produce flowers.]
_Allioideae._--The plants grow from a bulb or short rhizome; the
inflorescence is an apparent umbel formed of several shortened
monochasial cymes and subtended by a pair of large bracts. It contains
22 genera, the largest of which _Allium_ has about 250 species--7 are
British; _Agapanthus_ or African lily is a well-known garden plant; in
_Gagea_, a genus of small bulbous herbs found in most parts of Europe,
the inflorescence is reduced to a few flowers or a single flower; _G.
lutea_ is a local and rare British plant.
_Lilioideae._--Bulbous plants with a terminal racemose inflorescence;
the anthers open introrsely and the capsule is loculicidal. It
contains 28 genera, several being represented in Britain. The typical
genus _Lilium_ and _Fritillaria_ are widely distributed in the
temperate regions of the northern hemisphere; _F. meleagris_, snake's
head, is found in moist meadows in some of the southern and central
English counties; _Tulipa_ contains more than 50 species in Europe and
temperate Asia, and is specially abundant in the dry districts of
central Asia; _Lloydia_, a small slender alpine plant, widely
distributed in the northern hemisphere, occurs on Snowdon in Wales;
_Scilla_ (squill) is a large genus, chiefly in Europe and Asia--_S.
nutans_ is the bluebell or wild hyacinth; _Ornithogalum_ (Europe,
Africa and west Asia) is closely allied to _Scilla_--_O. umbellatum_,
star of Bethlehem, is naturalized in Britain; _Hyacinthus_ and
_Muscari_ are chiefly Mediterranean; _M. racemosum_, grape hyacinth,
occurs in sandy pastures in the eastern counties of England. To this
group belong a number of tropical and especially South African genera
such as _Albuca_, _Urginea_, _Drimia_, _Lachenalia_ and others.
_Dracaenoideae._--The plants generally have an erect stem with a crown
of leaves which are often leathery; the anthers open introrsely and
the fruit is a berry or capsule. It contains 9 genera, several of
which, such as _Yucca_ (fig. 5), _Dracaena_ and _Cordyline_ include
arborescent species in which the stem increases in thickness
continually by a centrifugal formation of new tissue; an extreme case
is afforded by _Dracaena Draco_, the dragon-tree of Teneriffe. _Yucca_
and several allied genera are natives of the dry country of the
southern and western United States and of Central America. _Dracaena_
and the allied genus _Cordyline_ occur in the warmer regions of the
Old World. There is a close relation between the pollination of many
yuccas and the life of a moth (_Pronuba yuccasella_); the flowers are
open and scented at night when the female moth becomes active, first
collecting a load of pollen and then depositing her eggs, generally in
a different flower from that which has supplied the pollen. The eggs
are deposited in the ovary-wall, usually just below an ovule; after
each deposition the moth runs to the top of the pistil and thrusts
some pollen into the opening of the stigma. Development of larva and
seed go on together, a few of the seeds serving as food for the
insect, which when mature eats through the pericarp and drops to the
ground, remaining dormant in its cocoon until the next season of
flowering when it emerges as a moth.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--_Yucca gloriosa._ Plant much reduced. 1,
Floral diagram. 2, Flower.]
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Twig of Butcher's Broom, _Ruscus aculeatus_,
slightly enlarged. 1, Male flower, 2, female flower, both enlarged; 3,
berry, slightly reduced.]
[Illustration: From Strasburger's _Lehrbuch der Botanik_, by
permission of Gustav Fischer.
FIG. 7.--Rhizome of _Polygonatum multiflorum_.
a, Bud of next year's aerial shoot.
b, Scar of this year's, and c, d, e, scars of three preceding years'
aerial shoots.
w, Roots.]
_Asparagoideae._--Plants growing from a rhizome; fruit a berry.
_Asparagus_ contains about 100 species in the dryer warmer parts of
the Old World; it has a short creeping rhizome, from which springs a
slender, herbaceous or woody, often very much branched, erect or
climbing stem, the ultimate branches of which are flattened or
needle-like leaf-like structures (_cladodes_), the true leaves being
reduced to scales or, in the climbers, forming short, hard more or
less recurved spines. _Ruscus aculeatus_ (fig. 6) is butcher's broom,
an evergreen shrub with flattened leaf-like cladodes, native in the
southerly portion of England and Wales; the small flowers are
unisexual and borne on the face of the cladode; the male contains
three stamens, the filaments of which are united to form a short
stout column on which are seated the diverging cells of the anthers;
in the female the ovary is enveloped by a fleshy staminal tube on
which are borne three barren anthers. _Polygonatum_ and _Maianthemum_
are allied genera with a herbaceous leafy stem and, in the former
axillary flowers, in the latter flowers in a terminal raceme; both
occur rarely in woods in Britain; _P. multiflorum_ is the well-known
Solomon's seal of gardens (fig. 7), so called from the seal-like scars
on the rhizome of stems of previous seasons, the hanging flowers of
which contain no honey, but are visited by bees for the pollen.
_Convallaria_ is lily of the valley; _Aspidistra_, native of the
Himalayas, China and Japan, is a well-known pot plant; its flowers
depart from the normal arrangement of the order in having the parts in
fours (tetramerous). Paris, including the British Herb _Paris_ (_P.
quadrifolia_), has solitary tetra- to poly-merous flowers terminating
the short annual shoot which bears a whorl of four or more leaves
below the flower; in this and in some species of the nearly allied
genus _Trillium_ (chiefly temperate North America) the flowers have a
fetid smell, which together with the dark purple of the ovary and
stigmas and frequently also of the stamens and petals, attracts
carrion-loving flies, which alight on the stigma and then climb the
anthers and become dusted with pollen; the pollen is then carried to
the stigmas of another flower.
_Luzuriagoideae_ are shrubs or undershrubs with erect or climbing
branches and fruit a berry. _Lapageria_, a native of Chile, is a
favourite greenhouse climber with fine bell-shaped flowers.
_Smilacoideae_ are climbing shrubs with broad net-veined leaves and
small dioecious flowers in umbels springing from the leaf-axils; the
fruit is a berry. They climb by means of tendrils, which are stipular
structures arising from the leaf-sheath. _Smilax_ is a characteristic
tropical genus containing about 200 species; the dried roots of some
species are the drug sarsaparilla.
The two tribes _Ophiopogonoideae_ and _Aletroideae_ are often included
in a distinct order, Haemodoraceae. The plants have a short rhizome
and narrow or lanceolate basal leaves; and they are characterized by
the ovary being often half-inferior. They contain a few genera chiefly
old world tropical and subtropical. The leaves of species of
_Sansevieria_ yield a valuable fibre.
Liliaceae may be regarded as the typical order of the series
Liliiflorae. It resembles Juncaceae in the general plan of the flower,
which, however, has become much more elaborate and varied in the form
and colour of its perianth in association with transmission of pollen by
insect agency; a link between the two orders is found in the group of
Australian genera referred to above under Asphodeloideae. The tribe
Ophiopogonoideae, with its tendency to an inferior ovary, suggests an
affinity with the Amaryllidaceae which resemble Liliaceae in habit and
in the horizontal plan of the flower, but have an inferior ovary. The
tribe Smilacoideae, shrubby climbers with net-veined leaves and small
unisexual flowers, bears much the same relationship to the order as a
whole as does the order Dioscoreaceae, which have a similar habit, but
flowers with an inferior ovary, to the Amaryllidaceae.
LILIENCRON, DETLEV VON (1844-1909), German poet and novelist, was born
at Kiel on the 3rd of June 1844. He entered the army and took part in
the campaigns of 1866 and 1870-71, in both of which he was wounded. He
retired with the rank of captain and spent some time in America,
afterwards settling at Kellinghusen in Holstein, where he remained till
1887. After some time at Munich, he settled in Altona and then at
Altrahistedt, near Hamburg. He died in July 1909. He first attracted
attention by the volume of poems, _Adjutantenritte und andere Gedichte_
(1883), which was followed by several unsuccessful dramas, a volume of
short stories, _Eine Sommerschlacht_ (1886), and a novel _Breide
Hummelsbüttel_ (1887). Other collections of short stories appeared under
the titles _Unter flatternden Fahnen_ (1888). _Der Mäcen_ (1889), _Krieg
und Frieden_ (1891); of lyric poetry in 1889, 1890 (_Der Heidegänger
und andere Gedichte_), 1893, and 1903 (_Bunte Beute_). Interesting, too,
is the humorous epic _Poggfred_ (1896; 2nd ed. 1904). Liliencron is one
of the most eminent of recent German lyric poets; his _Adjutantenritte_,
with its fresh original note, broke with the well-worn literary
conventions which had been handed down from the middle of the century.
Liliencron's work is, however, somewhat unequal, and he lacks the
sustained power which makes the successful prose writer.
Liliencron's _Sämtliche Werke_ have been published in 14 vols.
(1904-1905); his _Gedichte_ having been previously collected in four
volumes under the titles _Kampf und Spiele, Kämpfe und Ziele, Nebel
und Sonne_ and _Bunte Beute_ (1897-1903). See O. J. Bierbaum, _D. von
Liliencron_ (1892); H. Greinz, _Liliencron, eine literarhistorische
Würdigung_ (1896); F. Oppenheimer, _D. von Liliencron_ (1898).
LILITH (Heb. _lilâtu_, "night"; hence "night-monster"), a female demon
of Jewish folk-lore, equivalent to the English vampire. The personality
and name are derived from a Babylonian-Assyrian demon Lilit or Lilu.
Lilith was believed to have a special power for evil over children. The
superstition was extended to a cult surviving among some Jews even as
late as the 7th century A.D. In the Rabbinical literature Lilith becomes
the first wife of Adam, but flies away from him and becomes a demon.
LILLE, a city of northern France, capital of the department of Nord, 154
m. N. by E. of Paris on the Northern railway. Pop. (1906) 196,624. Lille
is situated in a low fertile plain on the right bank of the Deûle in a
rich agricultural and industrial region of which it is the centre. It is
a first-class fortress and headquarters of the I. army corps, and has an
enceinte and a pentagonal citadel, one of Vauban's finest works,
situated to the west of the town, from which it is divided by the Deûle.
The modern fortifications comprise over twenty detached forts and
batteries, the perimeter of the defences being about 20 m. Before 1858
the town, fortified by Vauban about 1668, occupied an elliptical area of
about 2500 yds. by 1300, with the church of Notre-Dame de la Treille in
the centre, but the ramparts on the south side have been demolished and
the ditches filled up, their place being now occupied by the great
Boulevard de la Liberté, which extends in a straight line from the goods
station of the railway to the citadel. At the S.E. end of this boulevard
are grouped the majority of the numerous educational establishments of
the city. The new enceinte encloses the old communes of Esquermes,
Wazemmes and Moulins-Lille, the area of the town being thus more than
doubled. In the new quarters fine boulevards and handsome squares, such
as the Place de la République, have been laid out in pleasant contrast
with the sombre aspect of the old town. The district of St André to the
north, the only elegant part of the old town, is the residence of the
aristocracy. Outside the enceinte populous suburbs surround the city on
every side. The demolition of the fortifications on the north and east
of the city, which is continued in those directions by the great suburbs
of La Madeleine, St Maurice and Fives, must accelerate its expansion
towards Roubaix and Tourcoing. At the demolition of the southern
fortifications, the Paris gate, a triumphal arch erected in 1682 in
honour of Louis XIV., after the conquest of Flanders, was preserved. On
the east the Ghent and Roubaix gates, built in the Renaissance style,
with bricks of different colours, date from 1617 and 1622, the time of
the Spanish domination. On the same side the Noble-Tour is a relic of
the medieval ramparts. The present enceinte is pierced by numerous
gates, including water gates for the canal of the Deûle and for the
Arbonnoise, which extends into a marsh in the south-west corner of the
town. The citadel, which contains the barracks and arsenal, is
surrounded by public gardens. The more interesting buildings are in the
old town, where, in the Grande Place and Rue Faidherbe, its animation is
concentrated. St Maurice, a church in the late Gothic style, dates in
its oldest portions from the 15th century, and was restored in 1872; Ste
Cathérine belongs to the 15th, 16th and 18th centuries, St André to the
first years of the 18th century, and Ste Madeleine to the last half of
the 17th century; all possess valuable pictures, but St Maurice alone,
with nave and double aisles, and elegant modern spire, is
architecturally notable. Notre-Dame de la Treille, begun in 1855, in the
style of the 15th century, possesses an ancient statue of the Virgin
which is the object of a well-known pilgrimage. Of the civil buildings
the Bourse (17th century) built round a courtyard in which stands a
bronze statue of Napoleon I., the Hôtel d'Aigremont, the Hôtel Gentil
and other houses are in the Flemish style; the Hôtel de Ville, dating in
the main from the middle of the 19th century, preserves a portion of a
palace built by Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, in the 15th century.
The prefecture, the Palais des Beaux-Arts, the law-courts, the school of
arts and crafts, and the Lycée Faidherbe are imposing modern buildings.
In the middle of the Grande Place stands a column, erected in 1848,
commemorating the defence of the town in 1792 (see below), and there are
also statues to Generals L. L. C. Faidherbe and F. O. de Négrier, and
busts of Louis Pasteur and the popular poet and singer A. Desrousseaux.
The Palais des Beaux-Arts contains a museum and picture galleries, among
the richest in France, as well as a unique collection of original
designs of the great masters bequeathed to Lille by J. B. Wicar, and
including a celebrated wax model of a girl's head usually attributed to
some Italian artist of the 16th century. The city also possesses a
commercial and colonial museum, an industrial museum, a fine collection
of departmental and municipal archives, the museum of the Institute of
Natural Sciences and a library containing many valuable manuscripts,
housed at the Hôtel de Ville. The large military hospital, once a Jesuit
college, is one of several similar institutions.
Lille is the seat of a prefect and has tribunals of first instance and
of commerce, a board of trade arbitrators, a chamber of commerce and a
branch of the Bank of France. It is the centre of an académie
(educational division) and has a university with faculties of laws,
letters, science and medicine and pharmacy, together with a Catholic
institute comprising faculties of theology, law, medicine and pharmacy,
letters, science, a technical school, and a department of social and
political science. Secondary education is given at the Lycée Faidherbe,
and the Lycée Fénelon (for girls), a higher school of commerce, a
national technical school and other establishments; to these must be
added schools of music and fine arts, and the Industrial and Pasteur
Institutes.
The industries, which are carried on in the new quarters of the town and
in the suburbs, are of great variety and importance. In the first rank
comes the spinning of flax and the weaving of cloth, table-linen,
damask, ticking and flax velvet. The spinning of flax thread for sewing
and lace-making is specially connected with Lille. The manufacture of
woollen fabrics and cotton-spinning and the making of cotton-twist of
fine quality are also carried on. There are important printing
establishments, state factories for the manufacture of tobacco and the
refining of saltpetre and very numerous breweries, while chemical, oil,
white lead and sugar-works, distilleries, bleaching-grounds, dye-works,
machinery and boiler works and cabinet-making occupy many thousands of
workmen. Plant for sugar-works and distilleries, military stores,
steam-engines, locomotives, and bridges of all kinds are produced by the
company of Fives-Lille. Lille is one of the most important junctions of
the Northern railway, and the Deûle canal affords communication with
neighbouring ports and with Belgium. Trade is chiefly in the raw
material and machinery for its industries, in the products thereof, and
in the wheat and other agricultural products of the surrounding
district.
Lille (l'Île) is said to date its origin from the time of Count Baldwin
IV. of Flanders, who in 1030 surrounded with walls a little town which
had arisen around the castle of Buc. In the first half of the 13th
century, the town, which had developed rapidly, obtained communal
privileges. Destroyed by Philip Augustus in 1213, it was rebuilt by
Joanna of Constantinople, countess of Flanders, but besieged and retaken
by Philip the Fair in 1297. After having taken part with the Flemings
against the king of France, it was ceded to the latter in 1312. In 1369
Charles V., king of France, gave it to Louis de Male, who transmitted
his rights to his daughter Margaret, wife of Philip the Bold, duke of
Burgundy. Under the Burgundian rule Lille enjoyed great prosperity; its
merchants were at the head of the London Hansa. Philip the Good made it
his residence, and within its walls held the first chapters of the order
of the Golden Fleece. With the rest of Flanders it passed from the dukes
of Burgundy to Austria and then to Spain. After the death of Philip IV.
of Spain, Louis XIV. reclaimed the territory and besieged Lille in 1667.
He forced it to capitulate, but preserved all its laws, customs,
privileges and liberties. In 1708, after an heroic resistance, it
surrendered to Prince Eugène and the duke of Marlborough. The treaty of
Utrecht restored it to France. In 1792 the Austrians bombarded it for
nine days and nights without intermission, but had ultimately to raise
the siege.
See É. Vanhende, _Lille et ses institutions communales de 620 à 1804_
(Lille, 1888).
LILLEBONNE, a town of France in the department of Seine-Inférieure, 3½
m. N. of the Seine and 24 m. E. of Havre by the Western railway. Pop.
(1906) 5370. It lies in the valley of the Bolbec at the foot of wooded
hills. The church of Notre-Dame, partly modern, preserves a Gothic
portal of the 16th century and a graceful tower of the same period. The
park contains a fine cylindrical donjon and other remains of a castle
founded by William the Conqueror and rebuilt in the 13th century. The
principal industries are cotton-spinning and the manufacture of calico
and candles.
Lillebonne under the Romans, _Juliobona_, was the capital of the
Caletes, or inhabitants of the Pays de Caux, in the time of Caesar, by
whom it was destroyed. It was afterwards rebuilt by Augustus, and before
it was again ruined by the barbarian invasions it had become an
important centre whence Roman roads branched out in all directions. The
remains of ancient baths and of a theatre capable of holding 3000
persons have been brought to light. Many Roman and Gallic relics,
notably a bronze statue of a woman and two fine mosaics, have been found
and transported to the museum at Rouen. In the middle ages the
fortifications of the town were constructed out of materials supplied by
the theatre. The town recovered some of its old importance under William
the Conqueror.
LILLIBULLERO, or LILLIBURLERO, the name of a song popular at the end of
the 17th century, especially among the army and supporters of William
III. in the war in Ireland during the revolution of 1688. The tune
appears to have been much older, and was sung to an Irish nursery song
at the beginning of the 17th century, and the attribution of Henry
Purcell is based on the very slight ground that it was published in
_Music's Handmaid_, 1689, as "A new Irish Tune" by Henry Purcell. It was
also a marching tune familiar to soldiers. The doggerel verses have
generally been assigned to Thomas Wharton, and deal with the
administration of Talbot, earl of Tyrconnel, appointed by James as his
lieutenant in Ireland in 1687. The refrain of the song _lilliburllero
bullen a la_ gave the title of the song. Macaulay says of the song "The
verses and the tune caught the fancy of the nation. From one end of
England to the other all classes were singing this idle rhyme." Though
Wharton claimed he had "sung a king out of three kingdoms" and Burnet
says "perhaps never had so slight a thing so great an effect" the
success of the song was "the effect, and not the cause of that excited
state of public feeling which produced the revolution" (Macaulay, _Hist.
of Eng._ chap. ix.).
LILLO, GEORGE (1693-1739), English dramatist, son of a Dutch jeweller,
was born in London on the 4th of February 1693. He was brought up to his
father's trade and was for many years a partner in the business. His
first piece, _Silvia, or the Country Burial_, was a ballad opera
produced at Lincoln's Inn Fields in November 1730. On the 22nd of June
1731 his domestic tragedy, _The Merchant_, renamed later _The London
Merchant, or the History of George Barnwell_, was produced by Theophilus
Cibber and his company at Drury Lane. The piece is written in prose,
which is not free from passages which are really blank verse, and is
founded on "An excellent ballad of George Barnwell, an apprentice of
London who ... thrice robbed his master, and murdered his uncle in
Ludlow." In breaking through the tradition that the characters of every
tragedy must necessarily be drawn from people of high rank and fortune
he went back to the Elizabethan domestic drama of passion of which the
_Yorkshire Tragedy_ is a type. The obtrusively moral purpose of this
play places it in the same literary category as the novels of
Richardson. Scoffing critics called it, with reason, a "Newgate
tragedy," but it proved extremely popular on the stage. It was regularly
acted for many years at holiday seasons for the moral benefit of the
apprentices. The last act contained a scene, generally omitted on the
London stage, in which the gallows actually figured. In 1734 Lillo
celebrated the marriage of the Princess Anne with William IV. of Orange
in _Britannia and Batavia_, a masque. A second tragedy, _The Christian
Hero_, was produced at Drury Lane on the 13th of January 1735. It is
based on the story of Scanderbeg, the Albanian chieftain, a life of whom
is printed with the play. Thomas Whincop (d. 1730) wrote a piece on the
same subject, printed posthumously in 1747. Both Lillo and William
Havard, who also wrote a dramatic version of the story, were accused of
plagiarizing Whincop's _Scanderbeg_. Another murder-drama, _Fatal
Curiosity_, in which an old couple murder an unknown guest, who proves
to be their own son, was based on a tragedy at Bohelland Farm near
Penryn in 1618. It was produced by Henry Fielding at the Little Theatre
in the Haymarket in 1736, but with small success. In the next year
Fielding tacked it on to his own _Historical Register for 1736_, and it
was received more kindly. It was revised by George Colman the elder in
1782, by Henry Mackenzie in 1784, &c. Lillo also wrote an adaptation of
the Shakespearean play of _Pericles, Prince of Tyre_, with the title
_Marina_ (Covent Garden, August 1st, 1738); and a tragedy, _Elmerick, or
Justice Triumphant_ (produced posthumously, Drury Lane, February 23rd,
1740). The statement made in the prologue to this play that Lillo died
in poverty seems unfounded. His death took place on the 3rd of September
1739. He left an unfinished version of _Arden of Feversham_, which was
completed by Dr John Hoadly and produced in 1759. Lillo's reputation
proved short-lived. He has nevertheless a certain cosmopolitan
importance, for the influence of _George Barnwell_ can be traced in the
sentimental drama of both France and Germany.
See _Lillo's Dramatic Works with Memoirs of the Author by Thomas
Davies_ (reprint by Lowndes, 1810); Cibber's _Lives of the Poets_, v.;
Genest, _Some Account of the English Stage_; Alois Brandl, "Zu Lillo's
Kaufmann in London," in _Vierteljahrschrift für Literaturgeschichte_
(Weimar, 1890, vol. iii.); Leopold Hoffmann, _George Lillo_ (Marburg,
1888); Paul von Hofmann-Wellenhof, _Shakspere's Pericles und George
Lillo's Marina_ (Vienna, 1885). There is a novel founded on Lillo's
play, _Barnwell_ (1807), by T. S. Surr, and in "George de Barnwell"
(_Novels by Eminent Hands_) Thackeray parodies Bulwer-Lytton's _Eugene
Aram_.
LILLY, WILLIAM (1602-1681), English astrologer, was born in 1602 at
Diseworth in Leicestershire, his family having been settled as yeomen in
the place for "many ages." He received a tolerably good classical
education at the school of Ashby-de-la-Zouche, but he naïvely tells us
what may perhaps have some significance in reference to his after
career, that his master "never taught logic." In his eighteenth year,
his father having fallen into great poverty, he went to London and was
employed in attendance on an old citizen and his wife. His master, at
his death in 1627, left him an annuity of £20; and, Lilly having soon
afterwards married the widow, she, dying in 1633, left him property to
the value of about £1000. He now began to dabble in astrology, reading
all the books on the subject he could fall in with, and occasionally
trying his hand at unravelling mysteries by means of his art. The years
1642 and 1643 were devoted to a careful revision of all his previous
reading, and in particular having lighted on Valentine Naibod's
_Commentary on Alchabitius_, he "seriously studied him and found him to
be the profoundest author he ever met with." About the same time he
tells us that he "did carefully take notice of every grand action
betwixt king and parliament, and did first then incline to believe that
as all sublunary affairs depend on superior causes, so there was a
possibility of discovering them by the configurations of the superior
bodies." And, having thereupon "made some essays," he "found
encouragement to proceed further, and ultimately framed to himself that
method which he ever afterwards followed." He then began to issue his
prophetical almanacs and other works, which met with serious attention
from some of the most prominent members of the Long Parliament. If we
may believe himself, Lilly lived on friendly and almost intimate terms
with Bulstrode Whitlock, Lenthall the speaker, Sir Philip Stapleton,
Elias Ashmole and others. Even Selden seems to have given him some
countenance, and probably the chief difference between him and the mass
of the community at the time was that, while others believed in the
general truth of astrology, he ventured to specify the future events to
which its calculations pointed. Even from his own account of himself,
however, it is evident that he did not trust implicitly to the
indications given by the aspects of the heavens, but like more vulgar
fortune-tellers kept his eyes and ears open for any information which
might make his predictions safe. It appears that he had correspondents
both at home and in foreign parts to keep him conversant with the
probable current of affairs. Not a few of his exploits indicate rather
the quality of a clever police detective than of a profound astrologer.
After the Restoration he very quickly fell into disrepute. His sympathy
with the parliament, which his predictions had generally shown, was not
calculated to bring him into royal favour. He came under the lash of
Butler, who, making allowance for some satiric exaggeration, has given
in the character of Sidrophel a probably not very incorrect picture of
the man; and, having by this time amassed a tolerable fortune, he bought
a small estate at Hersham in Surrey, to which he retired, and where he
diverted the exercise of his peculiar talents to the practice of
medicine. He died in 1681.
Lilly's life of himself, published after his death, is still worth
looking into as a remarkable record of credulity. So lately as 1852 a
prominent London publisher put forth a new edition of Lilly's
_Introduction to Astrology_, "with numerous emendations adapted to the
improved state of the science."
LILOAN, a town of the province of Cebú, Philippine Islands, on the E.
coast, 10 m. N.E. of Cebú, the capital of the province. Pop. (1903),
after the annexation of Compostela, 15,626. There are seventeen villages
or _barrios_ in the town, and eight of them had in 1903 a population
exceeding 1000. The language is Visayan. Fishing is the principal
industry. Liloan has one of the principal coal beds on the island; and
rice, Indian corn, sugar-cane and coffee are cultivated. Coconuts and
other tropical fruits are important products.
LILY, _Lilium_, the typical genus of the botanical order Liliaceae,
embracing nearly eighty species, all confined to the northern
hemisphere, and widely distributed throughout the north temperate zone.
The earliest in cultivation were described in 1597 by Gerard (_Herball_,
p. 146), who figures eight kinds of true lilies, which include _L.
album_ (_L. candidum_) and a variety, _bizantinum_, two umbellate forms
of the type _L. bulbiferum_, named _L. aureum_ and _L. cruentum
latifolium_, and three with pendulous flowers, apparently forms of the
martagon lily. Parkinson, in his _Paradisus_ (1629), described five
varieties of martagon, six of umbellate kinds--two white ones, and _L.
pomponium_, _L. chalcedonicum_, _L. carniolicum_ and _L.
pyrenaicum_--together with one American, _L. canadense_, which had been
introduced in 1629. For the ancient and medieval history of the lily,
see M. de Cannart d'Hamale's _Monographie historique et littéraire des
lis_ (Malines, 1870). Since that period many new species have been
added. The latest authorities for description and classification of the
genus are J. G. Baker ("Revision of the Genera and Species of Tulipeae,"
_Journ. of Linn. Soc._ xiv. p. 211, 1874), and J. H. Elwes (_Monograph
of the Genus_ Lilium, 1880), who first tested all the species under
cultivation, and has published every one beautifully figured by W. H.
Fitch, and some hybrids. With respect to the production of hybrids, the
genus is remarkable for its power of resisting the influence of foreign
pollen, for the seedlings of any species, when crossed, generally
resemble that which bears them. A good account of the new species and
principal varieties discovered since 1880, with much information on the
cultivation of lilies and the diseases to which they are subject, will
be found in the report of the Conference on Lilies, in the _Journal of
the Royal Horticultural Society_, 1901. The new species include a number
discovered in central and western China by Dr Augustine Henry and other
collectors; also several from Japan and California.
The structure of the flower represents the simple type of
monocotyledons, consisting of two whorls of petals, of three free parts
each, six free stamens, and a consolidated pistil of three carpels,
ripening into a three-valved capsule containing many winged seeds. In
form, the flower assumes three types: trumpet-shaped, with a more or
less elongated tube, e.g. _L. longiflorum_ and _L. candidum_; an open
form with spreading perianth leaves, e.g. _L. auratum_; or assuming a
pendulous habit, with the tips strongly reflexed, e.g. the martagon
type. All have scaly bulbs, which in three west American species, as _L.
Humboldti_, are remarkable for being somewhat intermediate between a
bulb and a creeping rhizome. _L. bulbiferum_ and its allies produce
aerial reproductive bulbils in the axils of the leaves. The bulbs of
several species are eaten, such as of _L. avenaceum_ in Kamchatka, of
_L. Martagon_ by the Cossacks, and of _L. tigrinum_, the "tiger lily,"
in China and Japan. Medicinal uses were ascribed to the species, but
none appear to have any marked properties in this respect.
[Illustration: Madonna or White Lily (_Lilium candidum_). About ¼ nat.
size.]
The white lily, _L. candidum_, the [Greek: leirion] of the Greeks, was
one of the commonest garden flowers of antiquity, appearing in the
poets from Homer downwards side by side with the rose and the violet.
According to Hehn, roses and lilies entered Greece from the east by
way of Phrygia, Thrace and Macedonia (_Kulturpflanzen und Hausthiere_,
3rd ed., p. 217). The word [Greek: leirion] itself, from which
_lilium_ is derived by assimilation of consonants, appears to be
Eranian (Ibid. p. 527), and according to ancient etymologists
(Lagarde, _Ges. Abh._ p. 227) the town of Susa was connected with the
Persian name of the lily _sûsan_ (Gr. [Greek: souson], Heb.
_shôshan_). Mythologically the white lily, _Rosa Junonis_, was fabled
to have sprung from the milk of Hera. As the plant of purity it was
contrasted with the rose of Aphrodite. The word [Greek: krinon], on
the other hand, included red and purple lilies, Plin. _H.N._ xxi. 5
(11, 12), the red lily being best known in Syria and Judaea
(Phaselis). This perhaps is the "red lily of Constantinople" of
Gerard, _L. chalcedonicum_. The lily of the Old Testament (shôshan)
may be conjectured to be a red lily from the simile in Cant. v. 13,
unless the allusion is to the fragrance rather than the colour of the
lips, in which case the white lily must be thought of. The "lilies of
the field," Matt. vi. 28, are [Greek: krina], and the comparison of
their beauty with royal robes suggests their identification with the
red Syrian lily of Pliny. Lilies, however, are not a conspicuous
feature in the flora of Palestine, and the red anemone (_Anemone
coronaria_), with which all the hill-sides of Galilee are dotted in
the spring, is perhaps more likely to have suggested the figure. For
the lily in the pharmacopoeia of the ancients see Adams's _Paul.
Aegineta_, iii. 196. It was used in unguents and against the bites of
snakes, &c. In the middle ages the flower continued to be common and
was taken as the symbol of heavenly purity. The three golden lilies of
France are said to have been originally three lance-heads.
Lily of the valley, _Convallaria majalis_, belongs to a different
tribe (_Asparagoideae_) of the same order. It grows wild in woods in
some parts of England, and in Europe, northern Asia and the Alleghany
Mountains of North America. The leaves and flower-scapes spring from
an underground creeping stem. The small pendulous bell-shaped flowers
contain no honey but are visited by bees for the pollen.
The word "lily" is loosely used in connexion with many plants which
are not really liliums at all, but belong to genera which are quite
distinct botanically. Thus, the Lent lily is _Narcissus
Pseudo-narcissus_; the African lily is _Agapanthus umbellatus_; the
Belladonna lily is _Amaryllis Belladonna_ (q.v.); the Jacobaea lily is
_Sprekelia formosissima_; the Mariposa lily is _Calochortus_; the lily
of the Incas is _Alstroemeria pelegrina_; St Bernard's lily is
_Anthericum Liliago_; St Bruno's lily is _Anthericum_ (or _Paradisia_)
_Liliastrum_; the water lily is _Nymphaea alba_; the Arum lily is
_Richardia africana_; and there are many others.
[Illustration: Lily of the Valley (_Convallaria majalis_). About ¼
nat. size.]
The true lilies are so numerous and varied that no general cultural
instructions will be alike suitable to all. Some species, as _L.
Martagon_, _candidum_, _chalcedonicum_, _Szovitzianum_ (or
_colchicum_), _bulbiferum_, _croceum_, _Henryi_, _pomponium_--the
"Turk's cap lily," and others, will grow in almost any good garden
soil, and succeed admirably in loam of a rather heavy character, and
dislike too much peat. But a compost of peat, loam and leaf-soil suits
_L. auratum_, _Brownii_, _concolor_, _elegans_, _giganteum_,
_japonicum_, _longiflorum_, _monadelphum_, _pardalinum_, _speciosum_,
and the tiger lily (_L. tigrinum_) well, and a larger proportion of
peat is indispensable for the beautiful American _L. superbum_ and
_canadense_. The margin of rhododendron beds, where there are
sheltered recesses amongst the plants, suits many of the more delicate
species well, partial shade and shelter of some kind being essential.
The bulbs should be planted from 6 to 10 in. (according to size) below
the surface, which should at once be mulched over with half-decayed
leaves or coconut fibre to keep out frost.
The noble _L. auratum_, with its large white flowers, having a yellow
band and numerous red or purple spots, is a magnificent plant when
grown to perfection; and so are the varieties called _rubro-vittatum_
and _cruentum_, which have the central band crimson instead of yellow;
and the broad-petalled _platyphyllum_, and its almost pure white
sub-variety called _virginale_. Of _L. speciosum_ (well known to most
gardeners as _lancifolium_), the true typical form and the red-spotted
and white varieties are grand plants for late summer blooming in the
conservatory. The tiger lily, _L. tigrinum_, and its varieties
_Fortunei_, _splendidum_ and _flore-pleno_, are amongst the best
species for the flower garden; _L. Thunbergianum_ and its many
varieties being also good border flowers. The pretty _L. Leichtlinii_
and _L. colchicum_ (or _Szovitsianum_) with drooping yellow flowers
and the scarlet drooping-flowered _L. tenuifolium_ make up, with those
already mentioned, a series of the finest hardy flowers of the summer
garden. The Indian _L. giganteum_ is perfectly distinct in character,
having broad heart-shaped leaves, and a noble stem 10 to 14 ft. high,
bearing a dozen or more large deflexed, funnel-shaped, white,
purple-stained flowers; _L. cordifolium_ (China and Japan) is similar
in character, but dwarfer in habit.
For pot culture, the soil should consist of three parts turfy loam to
one of leaf-mould and thoroughly rotted manure, adding enough pure
grit to keep the compost porous. If leaf-mould is not at hand, turfy
peat may be substituted for it. The plants should be potted in
October. The pots should be plunged in a cold frame and protected from
frost, and about May may be removed to a sheltered and moderately
shady place out-doors to remain till they flower, when they may be
removed to the greenhouse. This treatment suits the gorgeous _L.
auratum_, the splendid varieties of _L. speciosum_ (_lancifolium_) and
also the chaste-flowering trumpet-tubed _L. longiflorum_ and its
varieties. Thousands of bulbs of such lilies as _longiflorum_ and
_speciosum_ are now retarded in refrigerators and taken out in batches
for greenhouse work as required.
_Diseases._--Lilies are, under certain conditions favourable to the
development of the disease, liable to the attacks of three parasitic
fungi. The most destructive is _Botrytis cinerea_ which forms
orange-brown or buff specks on the stems, pedicels, leaves and
flower-buds, which increase in size and become covered with a delicate
grey mould, completely destroying or disfiguring the parts attacked.
The spores formed on the delicate grey mould are carried during the
summer from one plant to another, thus spreading the disease, and also
germinate in the soil where the fungus may remain passive during the
winter producing a new crop of spores next spring, or sometimes
attacking the scales of the bulbs forming small black hard bodies
embedded in the flesh. For prevention, the surface soil covering bulbs
should be removed every autumn and replaced by soil mixed with kainit;
manure for mulching should also be mixed with kainit, which acts as a
steriliser. If the fungus appears on the foliage spray with potassium
sulphide solution (2 oz. in 3 gallons of water). _Uromyces
Erythronii_, a rust, sometimes causes considerable injury to the
foliage of species of _Lilium_ and other bulbous plants, forming large
discoloured blotches on the leaves. The diseased stems should be
removed and burned before the leaves fall; as the bulb is not attacked
the plant will start growth next season free from disease. _Rhizopus
necans_ is sometimes the cause of extensive destruction of bulbs. The
fungus attacks injured roots and afterwards passes into the bulb which
becomes brown and finally rots. The fungus hibernates in the soil and
enters through broken or injured roots, hence care should be taken
when removing the bulbs that the roots are injured as little as
possible. An excellent packing material for dormant buds is coarsely
crushed wood-charcoal to which has been added a sprinkling of flowers
of sulphur. This prevents infection from outside and also destroys any
spores or fungus mycelium that may have been packed away along with
the bulbs.
When cultivated in greenhouses liliums are subject to attack from
aphides (green fly) in the early stages of growth. These pests can be
kept in check by syringing with nicotine, soft-soap and quassia
solutions, or by "vaporising" two or three evenings in succession,
afterwards syringing the plants with clear tepid water.
LILYE, or LILY, WILLIAM (c. 1468-1522), English scholar, was born at
Odiham in Hampshire. He entered the university of Oxford in 1486, and
after graduating in arts went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. On his
return he put in at Rhodes, which was still occupied by the knights of
St John, under whose protection many Greeks had taken refuge after the
capture of Constantinople by the Turks. He then went on to Italy, where
he attended the lectures of Sulpitius Verulanus and Pomponius Laetus at
Rome, and of Egnatius at Venice. After his return he settled in London
(where he became intimate with Thomas More) as a private teacher of
grammar, and is believed to have been the first who taught Greek in that
city. In 1510 Colet, dean of St Paul's, who was then founding the school
which afterwards became famous, appointed Lilye the first high master.
He died of the plague on the 25th of February 1522.
Lilye is famous not only as one of the pioneers of Greek learning, but
as one of the joint-authors of a book, familiar to many generations of
students during the 19th century, the old Eton Latin grammar. The
_Brevissima Institutio_, a sketch by Colet, corrected by Erasmus and
worked upon by Lilye, contains two portions, the author of which is
indisputably Lilye. These are the lines on the genders of nouns,
beginning _Propria quae maribus_, and those on the conjugation of
verbs beginning _As in praesenti_. The _Carmen de Moribus_ bears
Lilye's name in the early editions; but Hearne asserts that it was
written by Leland, who was one of his scholars, and that Lilye only
adapted it. Besides the _Brevissima Institutio_, Lilye wrote a variety
of Latin pieces both in prose and Verse. Some of the latter are
printed along with the Latin verses of Sir Thomas More in
_Progymnasmata Thomae Mori et Gulielmi Lylii Sodalium_ (1518). Another
volume of Latin verse (_Antibossicon ad Gulielmum Hormannum_, 1521) is
directed against a rival schoolmaster and grammarian, Robert
Whittington, who had "under the feigned name of Bossus, much provoked
Lilye with scoffs and biting verses."
See the sketch of Lilye's life by his son George, canon of St Paul's,
written for Paulus Jovius, who was collecting for his history the
lives of the learned men of Great Britain; and the article by J. H.
Lupton, formerly sur-master of St Paul's School, in the _Dictionary of
National Biography_.
LIMA, a city and the county-seat of Allen county, Ohio, U.S.A., on the
Ottawa river, about 70 m. S.S.W. of Toledo, Pop. (1890) 15,981; (1900)
21,723, of whom 1457 were foreign-born and 731 were negroes; (1910
census) 30,508. It is served by the Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh, Ft. Wayne
& Chicago division), the Erie, the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton, the
Lake Erie & Western, the Detroit, Toledo & Ironton railways, and by six
interurban electric lines. Immediately N. of the city is a state asylum
for the insane. Lima has a Carnegie library, a city hospital and a
public park of 100 acres. Among the principal buildings are the county
court house, a masonic temple, an Elks' home and a soldiers' and
sailors' memorial building. Lima College was conducted here from 1893 to
1908. Lima is situated in the centre of the great north-western
oil-field (Trenton limestone of the Ordovician system) of Ohio, which
was first developed in 1885; the product of the Lima district was
20,575,138 barrels in 1896, 15,877,730 barrels in 1902 and 6,748,676
barrels in 1908. The city is a headquarters of the Standard Oil Company,
and the refining of petroleum is one of the principal industries. The
total value of the factory product in 1905 was $8,155,586, an increase
of 31.1% over that in 1900. Lima contains railway shops of the
Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton and the Lake Erie & Western railways. The
city has a large wholesale and jobbing trade. The municipality owns and
operates the water-works. Lima was laid out in 1831, and was first
organized as a city under a general state law in 1842.
LIMA, a coast department of central Peru, bounded N. by Ancachs, E. by
Junin and Huancavelica, S. by Ica and W. by the Pacific Ocean. Pop.
(1906 estimate) 250,000; area 13,314 sq. m. The eastern boundary follows
the crests of the Western Cordillera, which gives to the department the
western slopes of this chain with the drainage basins of the rivers
Huaura, Chancay, Chillon, Rimac, Lurin, Mala and Cañete. Although the
department forms part of the rainless region, these rivers, fed from the
snows of the high Andes, provide water for the irrigation of large areas
devoted to the raising of cotton, sugar, sorghum, Indian corn, alfalfa,
potatoes, grapes and olives. The sugar estates of the Cañete are among
the best in Peru and are served by a narrow gauge railway terminating at
the small port of Cerro Azul. Indian corn is grown in Chancay and other
northern valleys, and is chiefly used, together with alfalfa and barley,
in fattening swine for lard. The mineral resources are not important,
though gold washings in the Cañete valley have been worked since early
colonial times. One of the most important industrial establishments in
the republic is the smelting works at Casapalca, on the Oroya railway,
in the Rimac valley, which receives ores from neighbouring mines of the
district of Huarochiri. The department is crossed from S.W. to N.E. by
the Oroya railway, and several short lines run from the city of Lima to
neighbouring towns. Besides Lima (q.v.) the principal towns are Huacho,
Cañete (port), Canta, Yauyos, Chorrillos, Miraflores and Barranco--the
last three being summer resorts for the people of the capital, with
variable populations of 15,000, 6000 and 5000 respectively. About 15 m.
S. of Lima, near the mouth of the Lurin, are the celebrated ruins of
Pachacamac, which are believed to antedate the occupation of this region
by the Incas.
LIMA, the principal city and the capital of Peru and of the department
and province of Lima, on the left bank of the river Rimac, 7½ m. above
its mouth and the same distance E. by N. of its seaport Callao, in 12°
2´ 34´´ S., 77° 7´ 36´´ W. Pop. (1906 estimate) 140,000, of whom a large
proportion is of negro descent, and a considerable number of foreign
birth. The city is about 480 ft. above sea-level, and stands on an arid
plain, which rises gently toward the S., and occupies an angle between
the Cerros de San Jeronimo (2493 ft.) and San Cristobal (1411 ft.) on
the N. and a short range of low hills, called the Cerros de San
Bartolomé, on the E. The surrounding region is arid, like all this part
of the Pacific coast, but through irrigation large areas have been
brought under cultivation, especially along the watercourses. The Rimac
has its source about 105 m. N.E. of Lima and is fed by the melting snows
of the higher Andes. It is an insignificant stream in winter and a
raging torrent in summer. Its tributaries are all of the same character,
except the Rio Surco, which rises near Chorrillos and flowing northward
joins the Rimac a few miles above the city. These, with the Rio Lurin,
which enters the Pacific a short distance S. of Chorrillos, provide
water for irrigating the districts near Lima. The climate varies
somewhat from that of the arid coast in general, in having a winter of
four months characterized by cloudy skies, dense fogs and sometimes a
drizzling rain. The air in this season is raw and chilly. For the rest
of the year the sky is clear and the air dry. The mean temperature for
the year is 66° F., the winter minimum being 59° and the summer maximum
78°.
The older part of Lima was laid out and built with mathematical
regularity, the streets crossing each other at right angles and
enclosing square areas, called _manzanas_, of nearly uniform size. Later
extensions, however, did not follow this plan strictly, and there is
some variation from the straight line in the streets and also in the
size and shape of the manzanas. The streets are roughly paved with
cobble stones and lighted with gas or electricity. A broad boulevard of
modern construction partly encircles the city, occupying the site of the
old brick walls (18 to 20 ft. high, 10 to 12 ft. thick at the base and 9
ft. at the top) which were constructed in 1585 by a Fleming named Pedro
Ramon, and were razed by Henry Meiggs during the administration of
President Balta. The water-supply is derived from the Rimac and
filtered, and the drainage, once carried on the surface, now passes into
a system of subterranean sewers. The streets and suburbs of Lima are
served by tramways, mostly worked by electric traction. The suburban
lines include two to Callao, one to Magdalena, and one to Miraflores and
Chorrillos. On the north side of the river is the suburb or district of
San Lazaro, shut in by the encircling hills and occupied in great part
by the poorer classes. The principal squares are the Plaza Mayor, Plaza
Bolívar (formerly P. de la Inquisicion and P. de la Independencia),
Plaza de la Exposicion, and Plaza del Acho, on the north side of the
river, the site of the bull-ring. The public gardens, connected with the
Exposition palace on the S. side of the city, and the Paseo Colon are
popular among the Limeños as pleasure resorts. The long Paseo Colon,
with its parallel drives and paths, is ornamented with trees, shrubbery
and statues, notably the Columbus statue, a group in marble designed by
the sculptor Salvatore Revelli. It is the favourite fashionable resort.
A part of the old wagon road from Lima to Callao, which was paved and
improved with walks and trees by viceroy O'Higgins, is also much
frequented. The avenue (3 m. long) leading from the city to Magdalena
was beautified by the planting of four rows of palms during the Pierola
administration. Among other public resorts are the Botanical garden, the
Grau and Bolognesi avenues (parts of the Boulevard), the Acho avenue on
the right bank of the Rimac, and the celebrated avenue of the Descalzos,
on the N. side of the river, bordered with statuary. The noteworthy
monuments of the city are the bronze equestrian statue of Bolívar in the
plaza of that name, the Columbus statue already mentioned, the Bolognesi
statue in the small square of that name, and the San Martin statue in
the Plaza de la Exposicion. The 22nd of May monument, a marble shaft
crowned by a golden bronze figure of Victory, stands where the Callao
road crosses the Boulevard. Most conspicuous among the public buildings
of Lima is the cathedral, whose twin towers and broad façade look down
upon the Plaza Mayor. Its foundation stone was laid in 1535 but the
cathedral was not consecrated until 1625. The great earthquake of 1746
reduced it to a mass of ruins, but it was reconstructed by 1758,
practically, as it now stands. It has double aisles and ten
richly-decorated chapels, in one of which rest the remains of Francisco
Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru. Also facing the same square are the
archiepiscopal and government palaces; the latter formerly the palace of
the viceroys. The interesting _casa_ of the Inquisition, whose tribunals
rivalled those of Madrid in cruelty, faces upon Plaza Bolívar, as also
the old University of San Marcos, which dates from 1551 and has
faculties of theology, law, medicine, philosophy and literature,
mathematics, and administrative and political economy. The churches and
convents of Lima are richly endowed as a rule, and some of the churches
represent a very large expenditure of money. The convent of San
Francisco, near the Plaza Mayor, is the largest monastic establishment
in Lima and contains some very fine carvings. Its church is the finest
in the city after the cathedral. Other noteworthy churches are those of
the convents of Santo Domingo, La Merced and San Augustine. There are a
number of conventual establishments (for both sexes), which, with their
chapels, and with the smaller churches, retreats, sanctuaries, &c., make
up a total of 66 institutions devoted to religious observances. An
attractive, and perhaps the most popular public building in Lima is the
Exposition palace on the plaza and in the public gardens of the same
name, on the south side of the city. It dates from 1872; its halls are
used for important public assemblies, and its upper floor is occupied by
the National Historical Institute, its museum and the gallery of
historical paintings. Other noteworthy edifices and institutions are the
National Library, the Lima Geographical Society, founded in 1888; the
Mint, which dates from 1565 and is considered to be one of the best in
South America; the great bull-ring of the Plaza del Acho, which dates
from 1768 and can seat 8000 spectators; the Concepcion market; a modern
penitentiary; and various charitable institutions. In addition to the
old university on the Plaza Bolívar, which has been modernized and
greatly improved, Lima has a school of engineers and mines (founded
1876), the old college of San Carlos, a normal school (founded 1905), a
school of agriculture (situated outside the city limits and founded in
1902), two schools for girls under the direction of religious sisters,
an episcopal seminary called the Seminario Conciliar de Santo Toribio,
and a school of arts and trades in which elementary technical
instruction is given. Under the old régime, primary instruction was
almost wholly neglected, but the 20th century brought about important
changes in this respect. In addition to the primary schools, the
government maintains free night schools for workmen.
The residences of the city are for the most part of one storey and have
mud walls supported by a wooden framework which enclose open spaces,
called _patios_, around which the living rooms are ranged. The better
class of dwellings have two floors and are sometimes built of brick. A
projecting, lattice-enclosed window for the use of women is a prominent
feature of the larger houses and gives a picturesque effect to the
streets.
Manufacturing has had some considerable development since the closing
years of the 19th century; the most important manufactories are
established outside the city limits; they produce cotton and woollen
textiles, the products of the sugar estates, chocolate, cocaine, cigars
and cigarettes, beer, artificial liquors, cotton-seed oil, hats,
macaroni, matches, paper, soap and candles. The commercial interests of
the city are important, a large part of the interior being supplied from
this point. With its port Callao the city is connected by two steam
railways, one of which was built as early as 1848; one railway runs
northward to Ancon, and another, the famous Oroya line, runs inland 130
m., crossing the Western Cordillera at an elevation of 15,645 ft. above
sea-level, with branches to Cerro de Pasco and Huari. The export trade
properly belongs to Callao, though often credited to Lima. The Limeños
are an intelligent, hospitable, pleasure-loving people, and the many
attractive features of their city make it a favourite place of residence
for foreigners.
Lima was founded on the 18th of January 1535 by Francisco Pizarro, who
named it Ciudad de los Reyes (City of the Kings) in honour of the
emperor Charles V. and Doña Juana his mother, or, according to some
authorities, in commemoration of the Feast of the Epiphany (6th January)
when its site is said to have been selected. The name soon after gave
place to that of Lima, a Spanish corruption of the Quichua word Rimac.
In 1541 Lima was made an episcopal see, which in 1545 was raised to a
metropolitan see. Under Spanish rule, Lima was the principal city of
South America, and for a time was the entrepôt for all the Pacific coast
colonies south of Panama. It became very prosperous during this period,
though often visited by destructive earthquakes, the most disastrous of
which was that of the 28th of October 1746, when the cathedral and the
greater part of the city were reduced to ruins, many lives were lost,
and the port of Callao was destroyed. Lima was not materially affected
by the military operations of the war of independence until 1821, when a
small army of Argentines and Chileans under General San Martin invested
the city, and took possession of it on the 12th of July upon the
withdrawal of the Spanish forces. San Martin was proclaimed the
protector of Peru as a free state on the 28th of July, but resigned that
office on the 20th of September 1822 to avoid a fratricidal struggle
with Bolívar. In March 1828 Lima was again visited by a destructive
earthquake, and in 1854-1855 an epidemic of yellow fever carried off a
great number of its inhabitants. In November 1864, when a hostile
Spanish fleet was on the coast, a congress of South American
plenipotentiaries was held here to concert measures of mutual defence.
Lima has been the principal sufferer in the many revolutions and
disorders which have convulsed Peru under the republic, and many of them
originated in the city itself. During the earlier part of this period
the capital twice fell into the hands of foreigners, once in 1836 when
the Bolivian general Santa Cruz made himself the chief of a
Bolivian-Peruvian confederation, and again in 1837 when an invading
force of Chileans and Peruvian refugees landed at Ancon and defeated the
Peruvian forces under President Orbegoso. The city prospered greatly
under the two administrations of President Ramon Castilla, who gave Peru
its first taste of peace and good government, and under those of
Presidents Balta and Pardo, during which many important public
improvements were made. The greatest calamity in the history of Lima was
its occupation by a Chilean army under the command of General Baquedano
after the bloody defeat of the Peruvians at Miraflores on the 15th of
January 1881. Chorrillos and Miraflores with their handsome country
residences had already been sacked and burned and their helpless
residents murdered. Lima escaped this fate, thanks to the intervention
of foreign powers, but during the two years and nine months of this
occupation the Chileans systematically pillaged the public edifices,
turned the old university of San Marcos into barracks, destroyed the
public library, and carried away the valuable contents of the Exposition
palace, the models and apparatus of the medical school and other
educational institutions, and many of the monuments and art treasures
with which the city had been enriched. A forced contribution of
$1,000,000 a month was imposed upon the population in addition to the
revenues of the custom house. When the Chilean garrison under Captain
Lynch was withdrawn on the 22nd of October 1883, it took 3000 wagons to
carry away the plunder which had not already been shipped. Of the
government palace and other public buildings nothing remained but the
bare walls. The buoyant character of the people, and the sympathy and
assistance generously offered by many civilized nations, contributed to
a remarkably speedy recovery from so great a misfortune. Under the
direction of its keeper, Don Ricardo Palma, 8315 volumes of the public
library were recovered, to which were added valuable contributions from
other countries. The portraits of the Spanish viceroys were also
recovered, except five, and are now in the portrait gallery of the
Exposition palace. The poverty of the country after the war made
recovery difficult, but years of peace have assisted it.
See Mariano F. Paz Soldan, _Diccionario geográfico-estadistico del
Perú_ (Lima, 1877); Mateo Paz Soldan and M. F. Paz Soldan, _Geografia
del Perú_ (Paris, 1862); Manuel A. Fuentes, _Lima, or Sketches of the
Capital of Peru_ (London, 1866); C. R. Markham, _Cuzo and Lima_
(London, 1856), and _History of Peru_ (Chicago, 1892); Alexandre
Garland, _Peru in 1906_ (Lima, 1907); and C. R. Enock, _Peru_ (London,
1908). For earlier descriptions see works referred to under PERU.
(A. J. L.)
LIMAÇON (from the Lat. _limax_, a slug), a curve invented by Blaise
Pascal and further investigated and named by Gilles Personne de
Roberval. It is generated by the extremities of a rod which is
constrained to move so that its middle point traces out a circle, the
rod always passing through a fixed point on the circumference. The polar
equation is r = a+b cos [theta], where 2a = length of the rod, and b =
diameter of the circle. The curve may be regarded as an epitrochoid (see
EPICYCLOID) in which the rolling and fixed circles have equal radii. It
is the inverse of a central conic for the focus, and the first positive
pedal of a circle for any point. The form of the limaçon depends on the
ratio of the two constants; if a be greater than b, the curve lies
entirely outside the circle; if a equals b, it is known as a cardioid
(q.v.); if a is less than b, the curve has a node within the circle; the
particular case when b = 2a is known as the trisectrix (q.v.). In the
figure (1) is a limaçon, (2) the cardioid, (3) the trisectrix.
[Illustration]
Properties of the limaçon may be deduced from its mechanical
construction; thus the length of a focal chord is constant and the
normals at the extremities of a focal chord intersect on a fixed circle.
The area is (b² + a²/2)[pi], and the length is expressible as an
elliptic integral.
LIMASOL, a seaport of Cyprus, on Akrotiri Bay of the south coast. Pop.
(1901) 8298. Excepting a fort attributed to the close of the 12th
century the town is without antiquities of interest, but in the
neighbourhood are the ancient sites of Amathus and Curium. Limasol has a
considerable trade in wine and carobs. The town was the scene of the
marriage of Richard I., king of England, with Berengaria, in 1191.
LIMB. (1) (In O. Eng. _lim_, cognate with the O. Nor. and Icel. _limr_,
Swed. and Dan. _lem_; probably the word is to be referred to a root
_li_- seen in an obsolete English word "lith," a limb, and in the Ger.
_Glied_), originally any portion or member of the body, but now
restricted in meaning to the external members of the body of an animal
apart from the head and trunk, the legs and arms, or, in a bird, the
wings. It is sometimes used of the lower limbs only, and is synonymous
with "leg." The word is also used of the main branches of a tree, of the
projecting spurs of a range of mountains, of the arms of a cross, &c. As
a translation of the Lat. _membrum_, and with special reference to the
church as the "body of Christ," "limb" was frequently used by
ecclesiastical writers of the 16th and 17th centuries of a person as
being a component part of the church; cf. such expressions as "limb of
Satan," "limb of the law," &c. From the use of _membrum_ in medieval
Latin for an estate dependent on another, the name "limb" is given to an
outlying portion of another, or to the subordinate members of the Cinque
Ports, attached to one of the principal towns; Pevensey was thus a
"limb" of Hastings. (2) An edge or border, frequently used in scientific
language for the boundary of a surface. It is thus used of the edge of
the disk of the sun or moon, of the expanded part of a petal or sepal in
botany, &c. This word is a shortened form of "limbo" or "limbus," Lat.
for an edge, for the theological use of which see LIMBUS.
LIMBACH, a town in the kingdom of Saxony, in the manufacturing district
of Chemnitz, 6 m. N.W. of that city. Pop. (1905) 13,723. It has a public
park and a monument to the composer Pache. Its industries include the
making of worsteds, cloth, silk and sewing-machines, and dyeing and
bleaching.
LIMBER, an homonymous word, having three meanings. (1) A two-wheeled
carriage forming a detachable part of the equipment of all guns on
travelling carriages and having on it a framework to contain ammunition
boxes, and, in most cases, seats for two or three gunners. The French
equivalent is _avant-train_, the Ger. _Protz_ (see ARTILLERY and
ORDNANCE). (2) An adjective meaning pliant or flexible and so used with
reference to a person's mental or bodily qualities, quick, nimble,
adroit. (3) A nautical term for the holes cut in the flooring in a ship
above the keelson, to allow water to drain to the pumps.
The etymology of these words is obscure. According to the _New English
Dictionary_ the origin of (1) is to be found in the Fr. _limonière_, a
derivative of _limon_, the shaft of a vehicle, a meaning which appears
in English from the 15th century but is now obsolete, except
apparently among the miners of the north of England. The earlier
English forms of the word are _lymor_ or _limmer_. Skeat suggests that
(2) is connected with "limp," which he refers to a Teutonic base
_lap_-, meaning to hang down. The _New English Dictionary_ points out
that while "limp" does not occur till the beginning of the 18th
century, "limber" in this sense is found as early as the 16th. In
Thomas Cooper's (1517?-1594) _Thesaurus Linguae Romanae et
Britannicae_ (1565), it appears as the English equivalent of the Latin
_lentus_. A possible derivation connects it with "limb."
LIMBORCH, PHILIPP VAN (1633-1712), Dutch Remonstrant theologian, was
born on the 19th of June 1633, at Amsterdam, where his father was a
lawyer. He received his education at Utrecht, at Leiden, in his native
city, and finally at Utrecht University, which he entered in 1652. In
1657 he became a Remonstrant pastor at Gouda, and in 1667 he was
transferred to Amsterdam, where, in the following year, the office of
professor of theology in the Remonstrant seminary was added to his
pastoral charge. He was a friend of John Locke. He died at Amsterdam on
the 30th of April 1712.
His most important work, _Institutiones theologiae christianae, ad
praxin pietatis et promotionem pacis christianae unice directae_
(Amsterdam, 1686, 5th ed., 1735), is a full and clear exposition of
the system of Simon Episcopius and Stephan Curcellaeus. The fourth
edition (1715) included a posthumous "Relatio historica de origine et
progressu controversiarum in foederato Belgio de praedestinatione."
Limborch also wrote _De veritate religionis Christianae amica collatio
cum erudito Judaeo_ (Gouda, 1687); _Historia Inquisitionis_ (1692), in
four books prefixed to the "Liber Sententiarum Inquisitionis
Tolosanae" (1307-1323); and _Commentarius in Acta Apostolorum et in
Epistolas ad Romanos et ad Hebraeos_ (Rotterdam, 1711). His editorial
labours included the publication of various works of his predecessors,
and of _Epistolae ecclesiasticae praestantium ac eruditorum virorum_
(Amsterdam, 1684), chiefly by Jakobus Arminius, Joannes Uytenbogardus,
Konrad Vorstius (1569-1622), Gerhard Vossius (1577-1649), Hugo
Grotius, Simon Episcopius (his grand-uncle) and Gaspar Barlaeus; they
are of great value for the history of Arminianism. An English
translation of the Theologia was published in 1702 by William Jones
(_A Complete System or Body of Divinity, both Speculative and
Practical, founded on Scripture and Reason_, London, 1702); and a
translation of the _Historia Inquisitionis_, by Samuel Chandler, with
"a large introduction concerning the rise and progress of persecution
and the real and pretended causes of it" prefixed, appeared in 1731.
See Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyklopädie_.
LIMBURG, one of the many small feudal states into which the duchy of
Lower Lorraine was split up in the second half of the 11th century. The
first count, Walram of Arlon, married Judith the daughter of Frederick
of Luxemburg, duke of Lower Lorraine (d. 1065), who bestowed upon him a
portion of his possessions lying upon both sides of the river Meuse. It
received its name from the strong castle built by Count Walram on the
river Vesdre, where the town of Limburg now stands. Henry, Walram's son
(d. 1119), was turbulent and ambitious. On the death of Godfrey of
Bouillon (1089) he forced the emperor Henry IV. to recognize him as duke
of Lower Lorraine. He was afterwards deposed and imprisoned by Count
Godfrey of Louvain on whom the ducal title had been bestowed by the
emperor Henry V. (1106). For three generations the possession of the
ducal title was disputed between the rival houses of Limburg and
Louvain. At length a reconciliation took place (1155); the name of duke
of Lower Lorraine henceforth disappears, the rulers of the territory on
the Meuse become dukes of Limburg, those of the larger territory to the
west dukes of Brabant. With the death of Duke Walram IV. (1280) the
succession passed to his daughter, Irmingardis, who was married to
Reinald I., count of Guelders. Irmingardis died without issue (1282),
and her cousin, Count Adolph of Berg, laid claim to the duchy. His
rights were disputed by Reinald, who was in possession and was
recognized by the emperor. Too weak to assert his claim by force of arms
Adolph sold his rights (1283) to John, duke of Brabant (q.v.). This led
to a long and desolating war for five years, at the end of which (1288),
finding the power of Brabant superior to his own Reinald in his turn
sold his rights to count Henry III. of Luxemburg. Henry and Reinald,
supported by the archbishop of Cologne and other allies, now raised a
great army. The rival forces met at Woeringen (5th of June 1288) and
John of Brabant (q.v.) gained a complete victory. It proved decisive,
the duchies of Limburg and Brabant passing under the rule of a common
sovereign. The duchy comprised during this period the bailiwicks of
Hervé, Montzen, Baelen, Sprimont and Wallhorn, and the counties of
Rolduc, Daelhem and Falkenberg, to which was added in 1530 the town of
Maastricht. The provisions and privileges of the famous Charter of
Brabant, the _Joyeuse Entrée_ (q.v.), were from the 15th century
extended to Limburg and remained in force until the French Revolution.
By the treaty of Westphalia (1648) the duchy was divided into two
portions, the counties of Daelhem and Falkenberg with the town of
Maastricht being ceded by Spain to the United Provinces, where they
formed what was known as a "Generality-Land." At the peace of Rastatt
(1714) the southern portion passed under the dominion of the Austrian
Habsburgs and formed part of the Austrian Netherlands until the French
conquest in 1794. During the period of French rule (1794-1814) Limburg
was included in the two French departments of Ourthe and Meuse
Inférieure. In 1814 the old name of Limburg was restored to one of the
provinces of the newly created kingdom of the Netherlands, but the new
Limburg comprised besides the ancient duchy, a piece of Gelderland and
the county of Looz. At the revolution of 1830 Limburg, with the
exception of Maastricht, threw in its lot with the Belgians, and during
the nine years that King William refused to recognize the existence of
the kingdom of Belgium the Limburgers sent representatives to the
legislature at Brussels and were treated as Belgians. When in 1839 the
Dutch king suddenly announced his intention of accepting the terms of
the settlement proposed by the treaty of London, as drawn up by
representatives of the great powers in 1831, Belgium found herself
compelled to relinquish portions of Limburg and Luxemburg. The part of
Limburg that lay on the right bank of the Meuse, together with the town
of Maastricht and a number of communes--Weert, Haelen, Kepel, Horst,
&c.--on the left bank of the river, became a sovereign duchy under the
rule of the king of Holland. In exchange for the cession of the rights
of the Germanic confederation over the portion of Luxemburg, which was
annexed by the treaty to Belgium, the duchy of Limburg (excepting the
communes of Maastricht and Venloo) was declared to belong to the
Germanic confederation. This somewhat unsatisfactory condition of
affairs continued until 1866, when at a conference of the great powers,
held in London to consider the Luxemburg question (see LUXEMBURG), it
was agreed that Limburg should be freed from every political tie with
Germany. Limburg became henceforth an integral part of Dutch territory.
See P. S. Ernst, _Histoire du Limbourg_ (7 vols., Liége, 1837-1852);
C. J. Luzac, _De Landen van Overmuze in Zonderheid 1662_ (Leiden,
1888); M. J. de Poully, _Histoire de Maastricht et de ses environs_
(1850); _Diplomaticke bescheiden betreffends de Limburg-Luxemburgsche
aangelegenheden 1866-1867_ (The Hague, 1868); and R. Fruin, _Geschied.
der Staats-Instellingen in Nederland_ (The Hague, 1901). (G. E.)
LIMBURG, or LIMBOURG, the smallest of the nine provinces of Belgium,
occupying the north-east corner of the kingdom. It represents only a
portion of the ancient duchy of Limburg (see above). The part east of
the Meuse was transferred to Holland by the London conference, and a
further portion was attached to the province of Liége including the old
capital now called Dolhain. Much of the province is represented by the
wild heath district called the Campine, recently discovered to form an
extensive coal-field. The operations for working it were only begun in
1906. North-west of Hasselt is Beverloo, where all the Belgian troops go
through a course of instruction annually. Among the towns are Hasselt,
the capital, St Trond and Looz. From the last named is derived the title
of the family known as the dukes of Looz, whose antiquity equals that of
the extinct reigning family of Limburg itself. The title of duc de Looz
is one of the four existing ducal titles in the Netherlands, the other
three being d'Arenberg, Croy and d'Ursel. Limburg contains 603,085 acres
or 942 sq. m. In 1904 the population was 255,359, giving an average of
271 per sq. m.
LIMBURG, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau, on
the Lahn, here crossed by a bridge dating from 1315, and on the main
line of railway from Coblenz to Lollar and Cassel, with a branch to
Frankfort-on-Main. Pop. (1905) 9917. It is the seat of a Roman Catholic
bishop. The small seven-towered cathedral, dedicated to St George the
martyr, is picturesquely situated on a rocky site overhanging the
river. This was founded by Conrad Kurzbold, count of Niederlahngau,
early in the 10th century, and was consecrated in 1235. It was restored
in 1872-1878. Limburg has a castle, a new town hall and a seminary for
the education of priests; its industries include the manufacture of
cloth, tobacco, soap, machinery, pottery and leather. Limburg, which was
a flourishing place during the middle ages, had its own line of counts
until 1414, when it was purchased by the elector of Trier. It passed to
Nassau in 1803. In September 1796 it was the scene of a victory gained
by the Austrians under the archduke Charles over the French.
See Hillebrand, _Limburg an der Lahn unter Pfandherrschaft 1344-1624_
(Wiesbaden, 1899).
LIMBURG, the south-easternmost and smallest province of Holland, bounded
N. by Gelderland, N.W. by North Brabant, S.W. by the Belgian province of
Limburg, and S. by that of Liége, and E. by Germany. Its area is 850 sq.
m., and its population in 1900 was 281,934. It is watered by the Meuse
(Maas) which forms part of its south-western boundary (with Belgium) and
then flows through its northern portion, and by such tributaries as the
Geul and Roer (Ruhr). Its capital is Maastricht, which gives name to one
of the two administrative districts into which it is divided, the other
being Roermond.
LIMBURG CHRONICLE, or FESTI LIMPURGENSES, the name of a German chronicle
written most probably by Tileman Elhen von Wolfhagen after 1402. It is a
source for the history of the Rhineland between 1336 and 1398, but is
perhaps more valuable for the information about German manners and
customs, and the old German folk-songs and stories which it contains. It
has also a certain philological interest.
The chronicle was first published by J. F. Faust in 1617, and has been
edited by A. Wyss for the _Monumenta Germaniae historica. Deutsche
Chroniken_, Band iv. (Hanover, 1883). See A. Wyss, _Die Limburger
Chronik untersucht_ (Marburg, 1875).
LIMBURGITE, in petrology, a dark-coloured volcanic rock resembling
basalt in appearance, but containing normally no felspar. The name is
taken from Limburg (Germany), where they occur in the well-known rock of
the Kaiserstuhl. They consist essentially of olivine and augite with a
brownish glassy ground mass. The augite may be green, but more commonly
is brown or violet; the olivine is usually pale green or colourless, but
is sometimes yellow (hyalosiderite). In the ground mass a second
generation of small eumorphic augites frequently occurs; more rarely
olivine is present also as an ingredient of the matrix. The principal
accessory minerals are titaniferous iron oxides and apatite. Felspar
though sometimes present is never abundant, and nepheline also is
unusual. In some limburgites large phenocysts of dark brown hornblende
and biotite are found, mostly with irregular borders blackened by
resorption; in others there are large crystals of soda orthoclase or
anorthoclase. Hauyne is an ingredient of some of the limburgites of the
Cape Verde Islands. Rocks of this group occur in considerable numbers in
Germany (Rhine district) and in Bohemia, also in Scotland, Auvergne,
Spain, Africa (Kilimanjaro), Brazil, &c. They are associated principally
with basalts, nepheline and leucite basalts and monchiquites. From the
last-named rocks the limburgites are not easily separated as the two
classes bear a very close resemblance in structure and in mineral
composition, though many authorities believe that the ground mass of the
monchiquites is not a glass but crystalline analcite. Limburgites may
occur as flows, as sills or dykes, and are sometimes highly vesicular.
Closely allied to them are the _augitites_, which are distinguished only
by the absence of olivine; examples are known from Bohemia, Auvergne,
the Canary Islands, Ireland, &c.
LIMBUS (Lat. for "edge," "fringe," e.g. of a garment), a theological
term denoting the border of hell, where dwell those who, while not
condemned to torture, yet are deprived of the joy of heaven. The more
common form in English is "limbo," which is used both in the technical
theological sense and derivatively in the sense of "prison," or for the
condition of being lost, deserted, obsolete. In theology there are (1)
the _Limbus Infantum_, and (2) the _Limbus Patrum_.
1. The _Limbus Infantum_ or _Puerorum_ is the abode to which human
beings dying without actual sin, but with their original sin unwashed
away by baptism, were held to be consigned; the category included, not
unbaptized infants merely, but also idiots, cretins and the like. The
word "limbus," in the theological application, occurs first in the
_Summa_ of Thomas Aquinas; for its extensive currency it is perhaps most
indebted to the _Commedia_ of Dante (_Inf._ c. 4). The question as to
the destiny of infants dying unbaptized presented itself to theologians
at a comparatively early period. Generally speaking it may be said that
the Greek fathers inclined to a cheerful and the Latin fathers to a
gloomy view. Thus Gregory of Nazianzus (_Orat._ 40) says "that such
children as die unbaptized without their own fault shall neither be
glorified nor punished by the righteous Judge, as having done no
wickedness, though they die unbaptized, and as rather suffering loss
than being the authors of it." Similar opinions were expressed by
Gregory of Nyssa, Severus of Antioch and others--opinions which it is
almost impossible to distinguish from the Pelagian view that children
dying unbaptized might be admitted to eternal life, though not to the
kingdom of God. In his recoil from Pelagian heresy, Augustine was
compelled to sharpen the antithesis between the state of the saved and
that of the lost, and taught that there are only two alternatives--to be
with Christ or with the devil, to be with Him or against Him. Following
up, as he thought, his master's teaching, Fulgentius declared that it is
to be believed as an indubitable truth that, "not only men who have come
to the use of reason, but infants dying, whether in their mother's womb
or after birth, without baptism in the name of the Father, Son and Holy
Ghost, are punished with everlasting punishment in eternal fire." Later
theologians and schoolmen followed Augustine in rejecting the notion of
any final position intermediate between heaven and hell, but otherwise
inclined to take the mildest possible view of the destiny of the
irresponsible and unbaptized. Thus the proposition of Innocent III. that
"the punishment of original sin is deprivation of the vision of God" is
practically repeated by Aquinas, Scotus, and all the other great
theologians of the scholastic period, the only outstanding exception
being that of Gregory of Rimini, who on this account was afterwards
called "tortor infantum." The first authoritative declaration of the
Latin Church upon this subject was that made by the second council of
Lyons (1274), and confirmed by the council of Florence (1439), with the
concurrence of the representatives of the Greek Church, to the effect
that "the souls of those who die in mortal sin or in original sin only
forthwith descend into hell, but to be punished with unequal
punishments." Perrone remarks (_Prael. Theol._ pt. iii. chap. 6, art. 4)
that the damnation of infants and also the comparative lightness of the
punishment involved in this are thus _de fide_; but nothing is
determined as to the place which they occupy in hell, as to what
constitutes the disparity of their punishment, or as to their condition
after the day of judgment. In the council of Trent there was
considerable difference of opinion as to what was implied in deprivation
of the vision of God, and no definition was attempted, the Dominicans
maintaining the severer view that the "limbus infantum" was a dark
subterranean fireless chamber, while the Franciscans placed it in a
region of light above the earth. Some theologians continue to maintain
with Bellarmine that the infants "in limbo" are affected with some
degree of sadness on account of a felt privation; others, following the
_Nodus praedestinationis_ of Celestine Sfrondati (1649-1696), hold that
they enjoy every kind of natural felicity, as regards their souls now,
and as regards their bodies after the resurrection, just as if Adam had
not sinned. In the condemnation (1794) of the synod of Pistoia (1786),
the twenty-sixth article declares it to be false, rash and injurious to
treat as Pelagian the doctrine that those dying in original sin are not
punished with fire, as if that meant that there is an intermediate
place, free from fault and punishment, between the kingdom of God and
everlasting damnation.
2. The _Limbus Patrum_, _Limbus Inferni_ or _Sinus Abrahae_ ("Abraham's
Bosom"), is defined in Roman Catholic theology as the place in the
underworld where the saints of the Old Testament were confined until
liberated by Christ on his "descent into hell." Regarding the locality
and its pleasantness or painfulness nothing has been taught as _de
fide_. It is sometimes regarded as having been closed and empty since
Christ's descent, but other authors do not think of it as separate in
place from the _limbus infantum_. The whole idea, in the Latin Church,
has been justly described as the mere _caput mortuum_ of the old
catholic doctrine of Hades, which was gradually superseded in the West
by that of purgatory.
LIME (O. Eng. _lim_, Lat. _limus_, mud, from _linere_, to smear), the
name given to a viscous exudation of the holly-tree, used for snaring
birds and known as "bird-lime." In chemistry, it is the popular name of
calcium oxide, CaO, a substance employed in very early times as a
component of mortars and cementing materials. It is prepared by the
burning of limestone (a process described by Dioscorides and Pliny) in
kilns similar to those described under CEMENT. The value and subsequent
treatment of the product depend on the purity of the limestone; a pure
stone yields a "fat" lime which readily slakes; an impure stone,
especially if magnesia be present, yields an almost unslakable "poor"
lime. See CEMENT, CONCRETE and MORTAR, for details.
Pure calcium oxide "quick-lime," obtained by heating the pure carbonate,
is a white amorphous substance, which can be readily melted and boiled
in the electric furnace, cubic and acicular crystals being deposited on
cooling the vapour. It combines with water, evolving much heat and
crumbling to pieces; this operation is termed "slaking" and the
resulting product "slaked lime"; it is chemically equivalent to the
conversion of the oxide into hydrate. A solution of the hydrate in
water, known as lime-water, has a weakly alkaline reaction; it is
employed in the detection of carbonic acid. "Milk of lime" consists of a
cream of the hydrate and water. Dry lime has no action upon chlorine,
carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide, although in the presence of water
combination ensues.
In medicine lime-water, applied externally, is an astringent and
desiccative, and it enters into the preparation of linamentum calcis and
carron oil which are employed to heal burns, eczema, &c. Applied
internally, lime-water is an antacid; it prevents the curdling of milk
in large lumps (hence its prescription for infants); it also acts as a
gastric sedative. Calcium phosphate is much employed in treating
rickets, and calcium chloride in haemoptysis and haemophylia. It is an
antidote for mineral and oxalic acid poisoning.
LIME,[1] or LINDEN. The lime trees, species of _Tilia_, are familiar
timber trees with sweet-scented, honeyed flowers, which are borne on a
common peduncle proceeding from the middle of a long bract. The genus,
which gives the name to the natural order Tiliaceae, contains about ten
species of trees, natives of the north temperate zone. The general name
_Tilia europaea_, the name given by Linnaeus to the European lime,
includes several well-marked sub-species, often regarded as distinct
species. These are: (1) the small-leaved lime, _T. parvifolia_ (or _T.
cordata_), probably wild in woods in England and also wild throughout
Europe, except in the extreme south-east, and Russian Asia. (2) _T.
intermedia_, the common lime, which is widely planted in Britain but not
wild there, has a less northerly distribution than _T. cordata_, from
which it differs in its somewhat larger leaves and downy fruit. (3) The
large-leaved lime, _T. platyphyllos_ (or _T. grandifolia_), occurs only
as an introduction in Britain, and is wild in Europe south of Denmark.
It differs from the other two limes in its larger leaves, often 4 in.
across, which are downy beneath, its downy twigs and its prominently
ribbed fruit. The lime sometimes acquires a great size; one is recorded
in Norfolk as being 16 yds. in circumference, and Ray mentions one of
the same girth. The famous linden tree which gave the town of Neuenstadt
in Württemberg the name of "_Neuenstadt an der grossen Linden_" was 9
ft. in diameter.
The lime is a very favourite tree. It is an object of beauty in the
spring when the delicately transparent green leaves are bursting from
the protection of the pink and white stipules, which have formed the
bud-scales, and retains its fresh green during early summer. Later, the
fragrance of its flowers, rich in honey, attracts innumerable bees; in
the autumn the foliage becomes a clear yellow but soon falls. Among the
many famous avenues of limes may be mentioned that which gave the name
to one of the best-known ways in Berlin, "Unter den Linden," and the
avenue at Trinity College, Cambridge.
The economic value of the tree chiefly lies in the inner bark or liber
(Lat. for bark), called bast, and the wood. The former was used for
paper and mats and for tying garlands by the ancients (_Od._ i. 38;
Pliny xvi. 14. 25, xxiv. 8. 33). Bast mats are now made chiefly in
Russia, the bark being cut in long strips, when the liber is easily
separable from the corky superficial layer. It is then plaited into
mats about 2 yds. square; 14,000,000 come to Britain annually, chiefly
from Archangel. The wood is used by carvers, being soft and light, and
by architects in framing the models of buildings. Turners use it for
light bowls, &c. _T. americana_ (bass-wood) is one of the most common
trees in the forests of Canada and extends into the eastern and
southern United States. It is sawn into lumber and under the name of
white-wood used in the manufacture of wooden ware, cheap furniture,
&c., and also for paper pulp (C. S. Sargent, _Silva of North
America_). It was cultivated by Philip Miller at Chelsea in 1752.
The common lime was well known to the ancients. Theophrastus says the
leaves are sweet and used for fodder for most kinds of cattle. Pliny
alludes to the use of the liber and wood, and describes the tree as
growing in the mountain-valleys of Italy (xvi. 30). See also Virg.
_Geo._ i. 173, &c.; Ov. _Met._ viii. 621, x. 92. Allusion to the
lightness of the wood is made in Aristoph. _Birds_, 1378.
For the sweet lime (_Citrus Limetta_ or _Citrus acida_) and
lime-juice, see LEMON.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] This is an altered form of O. Eng. and M. Eng. _lind_; cf. Ger.
_Linde_, cognate with Gr. [Greek: elatê], the silver fir. "Linden" in
English means properly "made of lime--or lind--wood," and the
transference to the tree is due to the Ger. _Lindenbaum_.
LIMERICK, a western county of Ireland, in the province of Munster,
bounded N. by the estuary of the Shannon and the counties of Clare and
Tipperary, E. by Tipperary, S. by Cork and W. by Kerry. The area is
680,842 acres, or about 1064 sq. m. The greater part of the county is
comparatively level, but in the south-east the picturesque Galtees,
which extend into Tipperary, attain in Galtymore a height of 3015 ft.,
and on the west, stretching into Kerry, there is a circular amphitheatre
of less elevated mountains. The Shannon is navigable for large vessels
to Limerick, above which are the rapids of Doonas and Castleroy, and a
canal. The Shannon is widely famous as a sporting river, and
Castleconnell is a well-known centre. The Maigne, which rises in the
Galtees and flows into the Shannon, is navigable as far as the town of
Adare.
This is mainly a Carboniferous Limestone county, with fairly level
land, broken by ridges of Old Red Sandstone. On the north-east, the
latter rock rises on Slievefelim, round a Silurian core, to 1523 ft.
In the south, Old Red Sandstone rises above an enclosed area of
Silurian shales at Ballylanders, the opposite scarp of Old Red
Sandstone forming the Ballyhoura Hills on the Cork border. Volcanic
ashes, andesites, basalts and intrusive sheets of basic rock, mark an
eruptive episode in the Carboniferous Limestone. These are well seen
under Carrigogunnell Castle, and in a ring of hills round Ballybrood.
At Ballybrood, Upper Carboniferous beds occur, as an outlier of a
large area that links the west of the county with the north of Kerry.
The coals in the west are not of commercial value. Lead-ore has been
worked in places in the limestone.
Limerick includes the greater part of the Golden Vale, the most
fertile district of Ireland, which stretches from Cashel in Tipperary
nearly to the town of Limerick. Along the banks of the Shannon there
are large tracts of flat meadow land formed of deposits of calcareous
and peaty matter, exceedingly fertile. The soil in the mountainous
districts is for the most part thin and poor, and incapable of
improvement. The large farms occupy the low grounds, and are almost
wholly devoted to grazing. The acreage under tillage decreases, the
proportion to pasturage being as one to nearly three. All the crops
(of which oats and potatoes are the principal) show a decrease, but
there is a growing acreage of meadow land. The numbers of live stock,
on the other hand, are on the whole well maintained, and cattle,
sheep, pigs, goats and poultry are all extensively reared. The
inhabitants are employed chiefly in agriculture, but coarse woollens
are manufactured, and also paper, and there are many meal and flour
mills. Formerly there were flax-spinning and weaving mills, but the
industry is now practically extinct. Limerick is the headquarters of
an important salmon-fishery on the Shannon. The railway communications
are entirely included in the Great Southern and Western system, whose
main line crosses the south-eastern corner of the county, with two
branches to the city of Limerick from Limerick Junction and from
Charleville, and lines from Limerick south-westward to Tralee in
county Kerry, and to Foynes on the Shannon estuary. Limerick is also
served by a line from the north through county Tipperary. The port of
Limerick, at the head of the estuary, is the most important on the
west coast.
The county includes 14 baronies. The number of members returned to the
Irish parliament was eight, two being returned for each of the
boroughs of Askeaton and Kilmallock, in addition to two returned for
the county, and two for the county of the city of Limerick. The
present county parliamentary divisions are the east and west, each
returning one member. The population (158,912 in 1891, 146,098 in
1901) shows a decrease somewhat under the average of the Irish
counties generally, emigration being, however, extensive; of the total
about 94% are Roman Catholics, and about 73% are rural. The chief
towns are Limerick (pop. 38,151), Rathkeale (1749) and Newcastle or
Newcastle West (2599). The city of Limerick constitutes a county in
itself. Assizes are held at Limerick, and quarter-sessions at Bruff,
Limerick, Newcastle and Rathkeale. The county is divided between the
Protestant dioceses of Cashel, Killaloe and Limerick; and between the
Roman Catholic dioceses of the same names.
Limerick was included in the kingdom of Thomond. Afterwards it had a
separate existence under the name of Aine-Cliach. From the 8th to the
11th century it was partly occupied by the Danes (see LIMERICK, City).
As a county, Limerick is one of the twelve generally considered to owe
their formation to King John. By Henry II. it was granted to Henry
Fitzherbert, but his claim was afterwards resigned, and subsequently
various Anglo-Norman settlements were made. About 100,000 acres of the
estates of the earl of Desmond, which were forfeited in 1586, were
situated in the county, and other extensive confiscations took place
after the Cromwellian wars. In 1709 a German colony from the Palatinate
was settled by Lord Southwell near Bruff, Rathkeale and Adare.
There are only slight remains of the round tower at Ardpatrick, but that
at Dysert is much better preserved; another at Kilmallock is in great
part a reconstruction. There are important remains of stone circles,
pillar stones and altars at Loch Gur. In several places there are
remains of old moats and tumuli. Besides the monasteries in the city of
Limerick, the most important monastic ruins are those of Adare abbey,
Askeaton abbey, Galbally friary, Kilflin monastery, Kilmallock and
Monaster-Nenagh abbey.
LIMERICK, a city, county of a city, parliamentary borough, port and the
chief town of Co. Limerick, Ireland, occupying both banks and an island
(King's Island) of the river Shannon, at the head of its estuary, 129 m.
W.S.W. of Dublin by the Great Southern and Western railway. Pop. (1901)
38,151. The situation is striking, for the Shannon is here a broad and
noble stream, and the immediately surrounding country consists of the
rich lowlands of its valley, while beyond rise the hills of the counties
Clare and Tipperary. The city is divided into English Town (on King's
Island), Irish Town and Newtown Pery, the first including the ancient
nucleus of the city, and the last the principal modern streets. The main
stream of the Shannon is crossed by Thomond Bridge and Sarsfield or
Wellesley Bridge. The first is commanded by King John's Castle, on
King's Island, a fine Norman fortress fronting the river, and used as
barracks. At the west end of the bridge is preserved the Treaty Stone,
on which the Treaty of Limerick was signed in 1691. The cathedral of St
Mary, also on King's Island, was originally built in 1142-1180, and
exhibits some Early English work, though largely altered at dates
subsequent to that period. The Roman Catholic cathedral of St John is a
modern building (1860) in early pointed style. The churches of St
Munchin (to whom is attributed the foundation of the see in the 6th
century) and St John, Whitamore's Castle and a Dominican priory, are
other remains of antiquarian interest; while the principal city and
county buildings are a chamber of commerce, a custom house commanding
the river, and court house, town hall and barracks. A picturesque public
park adjoins the railway station in Newtown Pery.
The port is the most important on the west coast, and accommodates
vessels of 3000 tons in a floating dock; there is also a graving dock.
Communication with the Atlantic is open and secure, while a vast network
of inland navigation is opened up by a canal avoiding the rapids above
the city. Quays extend for about 1600 yds. on each side of the river,
and vessels of 600 tons can moor alongside at spring tides. The
principal imports are grain, sugar, timber and coal. The exports consist
mainly of agricultural produce. The principal industrial establishments
include flour-mills (Limerick supplying most of the west of Ireland with
flour), factories for bacon-curing and for condensed milk and
creameries. Some brewing, distilling and tanning are carried on, and the
manufacture of very beautiful lace is maintained at the Convent of the
Good Shepherd; but a formerly important textile industry has lapsed. The
salmon fisheries of the Shannon, for which Limerick is the headquarters
of a district, are the most valuable in Ireland. The city is governed by
a corporation, and the parliamentary borough returns one member.
Limerick is said to have been the _Regia_ of Ptolemy and the
_Rosse-de-Nailleagh_ of the Annals of Multifernan. There is a tradition
that it was visited by St Patrick in the 5th century, but it is first
authentically known as a settlement of the Danes, who sacked it in 812
and afterwards made it the principal town of their kingdom of Limerick,
but were expelled from it towards the close of the 10th century by Brian
Boroimhe. From 1106 till its conquest by the English in 1174 it was the
seat of the kings of Thomond or North Munster, and, although in 1179 the
kingdom of Limerick was given by Henry II. to Herbert Fitzherbert, the
city was frequently in the possession of the Irish chieftains till 1195.
Richard I. granted it a charter in 1197. By King John it was committed
to the care of William de Burgo, who founded English Town, and for its
defence erected a strong castle. The city was frequently besieged in the
13th and 14th centuries. In the 15th century its fortifications were
extended to include Irish Town, and until their demolition in 1760 it
was one of the strongest fortresses of the kingdom. In 1651 it was taken
by General Ireton, and after an unsuccessful siege by William III. in
1690 its resistance was terminated on the 3rd of October of the
following year by the treaty of Limerick. The dismantling of its
fortifications began in 1760, but fragments of the old walls remain. The
original municipal rights of the city had been confirmed and extended by
a succession of sovereigns, and in 1609 it received a charter
constituting it a county of a city, and also incorporating a society of
merchants of the staple, with the same privileges as the merchants of
the staple of Dublin and Waterford. The powers of the corporation were
remodelled by the Limerick Regulation Act of 1823. The prosperity of the
city dates chiefly from the foundation of Newtown Pery in 1769 by Edmund
Sexton Pery (d. 1806), speaker of the Irish House of Commons, whose
family subsequently received the title of the earldom of Limerick. Under
the Local Government Act of 1898 Limerick became one of the six county
boroughs having a separate county council.
LIMERICK, a name which has been adopted to distinguish a certain form of
verse which began to be cultivated in the middle of the 19th century. A
limerick is a kind of burlesque epigram, written in five lines. In its
earlier form it had two rhymes, the word which closed the first or
second line being usually employed at the end of the fifth, but in later
varieties different rhyming words are employed. There is much
uncertainty as to the meaning of the name, and as to the time when it
became attached to a particular species of nonsense verses. According to
the _New Eng. Dict._ "a song has existed in Ireland for a very
considerable time, the construction of the verse of which is identical
with that of Lear's" (see below), and in which the invitation is
repeated, "Will you come up to Limerick?" Unfortunately, the specimen
quoted in the _New Eng. Dict._ is not only not identical with, but does
not resemble Lear's. Whatever be the derivation of the name, however, it
is now universally used to describe a set of verses formed on this
model, with the variations in rhyme noted above:--
"There was an old man who said 'Hush!
I perceive a young bird in that bush!'
When they said, 'Is it small?'
He replied, 'Not at all!
It is five times the size of the bush.'"
The invention, or at least the earliest general use of this form, is
attributed to Edward Lear, who, when a tutor in the family of the earl
of Derby at Knowsley, composed, about 1834, a large number of
nonsense-limericks to amuse the little grandchildren of the house. Many
of these he published, with illustrations, in 1846, and they enjoyed and
still enjoy an extreme popularity. Lear preferred to give a geographical
colour to his absurdities, as in:--
"There was an old person of Tartary
Who cut through his jugular artery,
When up came his wife,
And exclaimed, 'O my Life,
How your loss will be felt through all Tartary!'"
but this is by no means essential. The neatness of the form has led to a
very extensive use of the limerick for all sorts of mock-serious
purposes, political, social and sarcastic, and a good many specimens
have achieved a popularity which has been all the wider because they
have, perforce, been confined to verbal transmission. In recent years
competitions of the "missing word" type have had considerable vogue, the
competitor, for instance, having to supply the last line of the
limerick.
LIMES GERMANICUS. The Latin noun _limes_ denoted generally a path,
sometimes a boundary path (possibly its original sense) or boundary, and
hence it was utilized by Latin writers occasionally to denote frontiers
definitely delimited and marked in some distinct fashion. This latter
sense has been adapted and extended by modern historians concerned with
the frontiers of the Roman Empire. Thus the Wall of Hadrian in north
England (see BRITAIN: _Roman_) is now sometimes styled the _Limes
Britannicus_, the frontier of the Roman province of Arabia facing the
desert the _Limes Arabicus_ and so forth. In particular the remarkable
frontier lines which bounded the Roman provinces of Upper (southern)
Germany and Raetia, and which at their greatest development stretched
from near Bonn on the Rhine to near Regensburg on the Danube, are often
called the _Limes Germanicus_. The history of these lines is the subject
of the following paragraphs. They have in the last fifteen years become
much better known through systematic excavations financed by the German
empire and through other researches connected therewith, and though many
important details are still doubtful, their general development can be
traced.
From the death of Augustus (A.D. 14) till after A.D. 70 Rome accepted as
her German frontier the water-boundary of the Rhine and upper Danube.
Beyond these rivers she held only the fertile plain of Frankfort,
opposite the Roman border fortress of Moguntiacum (Mainz), the
southernmost slopes of the Black Forest and a few scattered
têtes-du-pont. The northern section of this frontier, where the Rhine is
deep and broad, remained the Roman boundary till the empire fell. The
southern part was different. The upper Rhine and upper Danube are easily
crossed. The frontier which they form is inconveniently long, enclosing
an acute-angled wedge of foreign territory--the modern Baden and
Württemberg. The German populations of these lands seem in Roman times
to have been scanty, and Roman subjects from the modern Alsace and
Lorraine had drifted across the river eastwards. The motives alike of
geographical convenience and of the advantages to be gained by
recognizing these movements of Roman subjects combined to urge a forward
policy at Rome, and when the vigorous Vespasian had succeeded the
fool-criminal Nero, a series of advances began which gradually closed up
the acute angle, or at least rendered it obtuse.
The first advance came about 74, when what is now Baden was invaded and
in part annexed and a road carried from the Roman base on the upper
Rhine, Strassburg, to the Danube just above Ulm. The point of the angle
was broken off. The second advance was made by Domitian about A.D. 83.
He pushed out from Moguntiacum, extended the Roman territory east of it
and enclosed the whole within a systematically delimited and defended
frontier with numerous blockhouses along it and larger forts in the
rear. Among the blockhouses was one which by various enlargements and
refoundations grew into the well-known Saalburg fort on the Taunus near
Homburg. This advance necessitated a third movement, the construction
of a frontier connecting the annexations of A.D. 74 and 83. We know the
line of this frontier which ran from the Main across the upland Odenwald
to the upper waters of the Neckar and was defended by a chain of forts.
We do not, however, know its date, save that, if not Domitian's work, it
was carried out soon after his death, and the whole frontier thus
constituted was reorganized, probably by Hadrian, with a continuous
wooden palisade reaching from Rhine to Danube. The angle between the
rivers was now almost full. But there remained further advance and
further fortification. Either Hadrian or, more probably, his successor
Pius pushed out from the Odenwald and the Danube, and marked out a new
frontier roughly parallel to but in advance of these two lines, though
sometimes, as on the Taunus, coinciding with the older line. This is the
frontier which is now visible and visited by the curious. It consists,
as we see it to-day, of two distinct frontier works, one, known as the
Pfahlgraben, is an earthen mound and ditch, best seen in the
neighbourhood of the Saalburg but once extending from the Rhine
southwards into southern Germany. The other, which begins where the
earthwork stops, is a wall, though not a very formidable wall, of stone,
the Teufelsmauer; it runs roughly east and west parallel to the Danube,
which it finally joins at Heinheim near Regensburg. The Pfahlgraben is
remarkable for the extraordinary directness of its southern part, which
for over 50 m. runs mathematically straight and points almost absolutely
true for the Polar star. It is a clear case of an ancient frontier laid
out in American fashion. This frontier remained for about 100 years, and
no doubt in that long period much was done to it to which we cannot
affix precise dates. We cannot even be absolutely certain when the
frontier laid out by Pius was equipped with the Pfahlgraben and
Teufelsmauer. But we know that the pressure of the barbarians began to
be felt seriously in the later part of the 2nd century, and after long
struggles the whole or almost the whole district east of Rhine and north
of Danube was lost--seemingly all within one short period--about A.D.
250.
The best English account will be found in H. F. Pelham's essay in
_Trans. of the Royal Hist. Soc._ vol. 20, reprinted in his _Collected
Papers_, pp. 178-211 (Oxford, 1910), where the German authorities are
fully cited. (F. J. H.)
LIMESTONE, in petrography, a rock consisting essentially of carbonate of
lime. The group includes many varieties, some of which are very
distinct; but the whole group has certain properties in common, arising
from the chemical composition and mineral character of its members. All
limestones dissolve readily in cold dilute acids, giving off bubbles of
carbonic acid. Citric or acetic acid will effect this change, though the
mineral acids are more commonly employed. Limestones, when pure, are
soft rocks readily scratched with a knife-blade or the edge of a coin,
their hardness being 3; but unless they are earthy or incoherent, like
chalk or sinter, they do not disintegrate by pressure with the fingers
and cannot be scratched with the finger nail. When free from impurities
limestones are white, but they generally contain small quantities of
other minerals than calcite which affect their colour. Many limestones
are yellowish or creamy, especially those which contain a little iron
oxide, iron carbonate or clay. Others are bluish from the presence of
iron sulphide, or pyrites or marcasite; or grey and black from admixture
with carbonaceous or bituminous substances. Red limestones usually
contain haematite; in green limestones there may be glauconite or
chlorite. In crystalline limestones or marbles many silicates may occur
producing varied colours, e.g. epidote, chlorite, augite (green);
vesuvianite and garnet (brown and red); graphite, spinels (black and
grey); epidote, chondrodite (yellow). The specific gravity of limestones
ranges from 2.6 to 2.8 in typical examples.
When seen in the field, limestones are often recognizable by their
method of weathering. If very pure, they may have smooth rounded
surfaces, or may be covered with narrow runnels cut out by the rain. In
such cases there is very little soil, and plants are found growing only
in fissures or crevices where the insoluble impurities of the limestone
have been deposited by the rain. The less pure rocks have often eroded
or pitted surfaces, showing bands or patches rendered more resistant to
the action of the weather by the presence of insoluble materials such as
sand, clay or chert. These surfaces are often known from the crust of
hydrous oxides of iron produced by the action of the atmosphere on any
ferriferous ingredients of the rock; they are sometimes black when the
limestone is carbonaceous; a thin layer of gritty sand grains may be
left on the surface of limestones which are slightly arenaceous. Most
limestones which contain fossils show these most clearly on weathered
surfaces, and the appearance of fragments of corals, crinoids and shells
on the exposed parts of a rock indicate a strong probability that that
rock is a limestone. The interior usually shows the organic structures
very imperfectly or not at all.
Another characteristic of pure limestones, where they occur in large
masses occupying considerable areas, is the frequency with which they
produce bare rocky ground, especially at high elevations, or yield only
a thin scanty soil covered with short grass. In mountainous districts
limestones are often recognizable by these peculiarities. The chalk
downs are celebrated for the close green sward which they furnish. More
impure limestones, like those of the Lias and Oolites, contain enough
insoluble mineral matter to yield soils of great thickness and value,
e.g. the Cornbrash. In limestone regions all waters tend to be hard, on
account of the abundant carbonate of lime dissolved by percolating
waters, and caves, swallow holes, sinks, pot-holes and underground
rivers may occur in abundance. Some elevated tracts of limestone are
very barren (e.g. the Causses), because the rain which falls in them
sinks at once into the earth and passes underground. To a large extent
this is true of the chalk downs, where surface waters are notably
scarce, though at considerable depths the rocks hold large supplies of
water.
The great majority of limestones are of organic formation, consisting
of the debris of the skeletons of animals. Some are foraminiferal,
others are crinoidal, shelly or coral limestones according to the
nature of the creatures whose remains they contain. Of foraminiferal
limestones chalk is probably the best known; it is fine, white and
rather soft, and is very largely made up of the shells of globigerina
and other foraminifera (see CHALK). Almost equally important are the
nummulitic limestones so well developed in Mediterranean countries
(Spain, France, the Alps, Greece, Algeria, Egypt, Asia Minor, &c.).
The pyramids of Egypt are built mainly of nummulitic limestone.
Nummulites are large cone-shaped foraminifera with many chambers
arranged in spiral order. In Britain the small globular shells of
_Saccamina_ are important constituents of some Carboniferous
limestones; but the upper portion of that formation in Russia, eastern
Asia and North America is characterized by the occurrence of
limestones filled with the spindle-shaped shells of _Fusulina_, a
genus of foraminifera now extinct.
Coral limestones are being formed at the present day over a large
extent of the tropical seas; many existing coral reefs must be of
great thickness. The same process has been going on actively since a
very early period of the earth's history, for similar rocks are found
in great abundance in many geological formations. Some Silurian
limestones are rich in corals; in the Devonian there are deposits
which have been described as coral reefs (Devonshire, Germany). The
Carboniferous limestone, or mountain limestones of England and North
America, is sometimes nearly entirely coralline, and the great
dolomite masses of the Trias in the eastern Alps are believed by many
to be merely altered coral reefs. A special feature of coral
limestones is that, although they may be to a considerable extent
dolomitized, they are generally very free from silt and mechanical
impurities.
Crinoidal limestones, though abundant among the older rocks, are not
in course of formation on any great scale at the present time, as
crinoids, formerly abundant, are now rare. Many Carboniferous and
Silurian limestones consist mainly of the little cylindrical joints of
these animals. They are easily recognized by their shape, and by the
fact that many of them show a tube along their axes, which is often
filled up by carbonate of lime; under the microscope they have a
punctate or fenestrate structure and each joint behaves as a simple
crystalline plate with uniform optical properties in polarized light.
Remains of other echinoderms (starfishes and sea urchins) are often
found in plenty in Secondary and Tertiary limestones, but very seldom
make up the greater part of the rock. Shelly limestones may consist of
mollusca or of brachiopoda, the former being common in limestones of
all ages while the latter attained their principal development in the
Palaeozoic epoch. The shells are often broken and may have been
reduced to shell sand before the rock consolidated. Many rocks of this
class are impure and pass into marls and shelly sandstones which were
deposited in shallow waters, where land-derived sediment mingled with
remains of the creatures which inhabited the water. Fresh-water
limestones are mostly of this class and contain shells of those
varieties of mollusca which inhabit lakes. Brackish water limestones
also are usually shelly. Corallines (bryozoa, polyzoa, &c.),
cephalopods (e.g. ammonites, belemnites), crustaceans and sponges
occur frequently in limestones. It should be understood that it is not
usual for a rock to be built up entirely of one kind of organism
though it is classified according to its most abundant or most
conspicuous ingredients.
In the organic limestones there usually occurs much finely granular
calcareous matter which has been described as limestone mud or
limestone paste. It is the finely ground substance which results from
the breaking down of shells, &c., by the waves and currents, and by
the decay which takes place in the sea bottom before the fragments are
compacted into hard rock. The skeletal parts of marine animals are not
always converted into limestone in the place where they were formed.
In shallow waters, such as are the favourite haunts of mollusca,
corals, &c., the tides and storms are frequently sufficiently powerful
to shift the loose material on the sea bottom. A large part of a coral
reef consists of broken coral rock dislodged from the growing mass and
carried upwards to the beach or into the lagoon. Large fragments also
fall over the steep outward slopes of the reef and build up a talus at
their base. Coral muds and coral sands produced by the waves acting in
these detached blocks, are believed to cover two and a half millions
of square miles of the ocean floor. Owing to the fragile nature of the
shells of foraminifera they readily become disintegrated, especially
at considerable depths, largely by the solvent action of carbonic acid
in sea water as they sink to the bottom. The chalk in very great part
consists not of entire shells but of debris of foraminifera, and
mollusca (such as _Inoceramus_, &c.). The Globigerina ooze is the most
widespread of modern calcareous formations. It occupies nearly fifty
millions of square miles of the sea bottom, at an average depth of two
thousand fathoms. Pteropod ooze, consisting mainly of the shells of
pteropods (mollusca) also has a wide distribution, especially in
northern latitudes.
Consolidation may to a considerable extent be produced by pressure,
but more commonly cementation and crystallization play a large part in
the process. Recent shell sands on beaches and in dunes are not
unfrequently converted into a soft, semi-coherent rock by rain water
filtering downwards, dissolving and redepositing carbonate of lime
between the sand grains. In coral reefs also the mass soon has its
cavities more or less obliterated by a deposit of calcite from
solution. The fine interstitial mud or paste presents a large surface
to the solvents, and is more readily attacked than the larger and more
compact shell fragments. In fresh-water marls considerable masses of
crystalline calcite may be produced in this way, enclosing
well-preserved molluscan shells. Many calcareous fragments consist of
aragonite, wholly or principally, and this mineral tends to be
replaced by calcite. The aragonite, as seen in sections under the
microscope, is usually fibrous or prismatic, the calcite is more
commonly granular with a well-marked network of rhombohedral cleavage
cracks. The replacement of aragonite by calcite goes on even in shells
lying on modern sea shores, and is often very complete in rocks
belonging to the older geological periods. By the recrystallization of
the finer paste and the introduction of calcite in solution the
interior of shells, corals, foraminifera, &c., becomes occupied by
crystalline calcite, sometimes in comparatively large grains, while
the original organic structures may be very well-preserved.
Some limestones are exceedingly pure, e.g. the chalk and some
varieties of mountain limestone, and these are especially suited for
making lime. The majority, however, contain admixture of other
substances, of which the commonest are clay and sand. Clayey or
argillaceous limestones frequently occur in thin or thick beds
alternating with shales, as in the Lias of England (the marlstone
series). Friable argillaceous fresh-water limestones are called
"marls," and are used in many districts for top dressing soils, but
the name "marl" is loosely applied and is often given to beds which
are not of this nature (e.g. the red marls of the Trias). The "cement
stones" of the Lothians in Scotland are argillaceous limestones of
Lower Carboniferous age, which when burnt yield cement. The gault
(Upper Cretaceous) is a calcareous clay, often containing
well-preserved fossils, which lies below the chalk and attains
considerable importance in the south-east of England. Arenaceous
limestones pass by gradual transitions into shelly sandstones; in the
latter the shells are often dissolved leaving cavities, which may be
occupied by casts. Some of the Old Red Sandstone is calcareous. In
other cases the calcareous matter has recrystallized in large plates
which have shining cleavage surfaces dotted over with grains of sand
(Lincolnshire limestone). The Fontainebleau sandstone has large
calcite rhombohedra filled with sand grains. Limestones sometimes
contain much plant matter which has been converted into a dark coaly
substance, in which the original woody structures may be preserved or
may not. The calcareous petrified plants of Fifeshire occur in such a
limestone, and much has been learned from a microscopic study of them
regarding the anatomy of the plants of the Carboniferous period.
Volcanic ashes occur in some limestones, a good example being the
calcareous schalsteins or tuffs of Devonshire, which are usually much
crushed by earth movements. In the Globigerina ooze of the present day
there is always a slight admixture of volcanic materials derived
either from wind-blown dust, from submarine eruptions or from floating
pieces of pumice. Other limestones contain organic matter in the shape
of asphalt, bitumen or petroleum, presumably derived from plant
remains. The well-known _Val de Travers_ is a bituminous limestone of
lower Neocomian age found in the valley of that name near Neuchâtel.
Some of the oil beds of North America are porous limestones, in the
cavities of which the oil is stored up. Siliceous limestones, where
their silica is original and of organic origin, have contained
skeletons of sponges or radiolaria. In the chalk the silica has
usually been dissolved and redeposited as flint nodules, and in the
Carboniferous limestone as chert bands. It may also be deposited in
the corals and other organic remains, silicifying them, with
preservation of the original structures (e.g. some Jurassic and
Carboniferous limestones).
The oolitic limestones form a special group distinguished by their
consisting of small rounded or elliptical grains resembling fish roe;
when coarse they are called pisolites. Many of them are very pure and
highly fossiliferous. The oolitic grains in section may have a
nucleus, e.g. a fragment of a shell, quartz grain, &c., around which
concentric layers have been deposited. In many cases there is also a
radiating structure. They consist of calcite or aragonite, and between
the grains there is usually a cementing material of limestone mud or
granular calcite crystals. Deposits of silica, carbonate of iron or
small rhombohedra of dolomite are often found in the interior of the
spheroids, and oolites may be entirely silicified (Pennsylvania,
Cambrian rocks of Scotland). Oolitic ironstones are very abundant in
the Cleveland district of Yorkshire and form an important iron ore.
They are often impure, and their iron may be present as haematite or
as chalybite. Oolitic limestones are known from many geological
formations, e.g. the Cambrian and Silurian of Scotland and Wales,
Carboniferous limestone (Bristol), Jurassic, Tertiary and Recent
limestones. They are forming at the present day in some coral reefs
and in certain petrifying springs like those of Carlsbad. Their chief
development in England is in the Jurassic rocks where they occur in
large masses excellently adapted for building purposes, and yield the
well-known freestones of Portland and Bath. Some hold that they are
chemical precipitates and that the concentric oolitic structure is
produced by successive layers of calcareous deposit laid down on
fragments of shells, &c., in highly calcareous waters. An alternative
hypothesis is that minute cellular plants (_Girvanella_, &c.), have
extracted the carbonate of lime from the water, and have been the
principal agents in producing the successive calcareous crusts. Such
plants can live even in hot waters, and there seems much reason for
regarding them as of importance in this connexion.
Another group of limestones is of inorganic or chemical origin, having
been deposited from solution in water without the intervention of
living organisms. A good example of these is the "stalactite" which
forms pendent masses on the roofs of caves in limestone districts, the
calcareous waters exposed to evaporation in the air of the cave laying
down successive layers of stalactite in the places from which they
drip. At the same time and in the same way "stalagmite" gathers on the
floor below, and often accumulates in thick masses which contain bones
of animals and the weapons of primitive cave-dwelling man. Calc
sinters are porous limestones deposited by the evaporation of
calcareous springs; travertine is a well-known Italian rock of this
kind. At Carlsbad oolitic limestones are forming, but it seems
probable that minute algae assist in this process. Chemical deposits
of carbonate of lime may be produced by the evaporation of sea water
in some upraised coral lagoons and similar situations, but it is
unlikely that this takes place to any extent in the open sea, as sea
water contains very little carbonate of lime, apparently because
marine organisms so readily abstract it; still some writers believe
that a considerable part of the chalk is really a chemical
precipitate. Onyx marbles are banded limestones of chemical origin
with variegated colours such as white, yellow, green and red. They are
used for ornamental work and are obtained in Persia, France, the
United States, Mexico, &c.
Limestones are exceedingly susceptible to chemical changes of a
metasomatic kind. They are readily dissolved by carbonated waters and
acid solutions, and their place may then be occupied by deposits of a
different kind. The silification of oolites and coral rocks and their
replacement by iron ores above mentioned are examples of this process.
Many extensive hematite deposits are in this way formed in limestone
districts. Phosphatization sometimes takes place, amorphous phosphate
of lime being substituted for carbonate of lime, and these replacement
products often have great value as sources of natural fertilizers. On
ocean rocks in dry climates the droppings of birds (guano) which
contain much phosphate, percolating into the underlying limestones
change them into a hard white or yellow phosphate rock (e.g. Sombrero,
Christmas Island, &c.), sometimes known as rock-guano or mineral
guano. In the north of France beds of phosphate are found in the
chalk; they occur also in England on a smaller scale. All limestones,
especially those laid down in deep waters contain some lime phosphate,
derived from shells of certain brachiopods, fish bones, teeth, whale
bones, &c. and this may pass into solution and be redeposited in
certain horizons, a process resembling the formation of flints. On the
sea bottom at the present day phosphatic nodules are found which have
gathered round the dead bodies of fishes and other animals. As in
flint the organic structures of the original limestone may be well
preserved though the whole mass is phosphatized.
Where uprising heated waters carrying mineral solutions are proceeding
from deep seated masses of igneous rocks they often deposit a portion
of their contents in limestone beds. At Leadville, in Colorado, for
example, great quantities of rich silver lead ore, which have yielded
not a little gold, have been obtained from the limestones, while other
rocks, though apparently equally favourably situated, are barren. The
lead and fluorspar deposits of the north of England (Alston Moor,
Derbyshire) occur in limestone. In the Malay States the limestones
have been impregnated with tin oxide. Zinc ores are very frequently
associated with beds of limestone, as at Vieille Montagne in Belgium,
and copper ores are found in great quantity in Arizona in rocks of
this kind. Apart from ore deposits of economic value a great number of
different minerals, often well crystallized, have been observed in
limestones.
When limestones occur among metamorphic schists or in the vicinity of
intrusive plutonic masses (such as granite), they are usually
recrystallized and have lost their organic structures. They are then
known as crystalline limestones or marbles (q.v.). (J. S. F.)
LIMINA APOSTOLORUM, an ecclesiastical term used to denote Rome, and
especially the church of St Peter and St Paul. A _Visitatio Liminum_
might be undertaken _ex voto_ or _ex lege_. The former, visits paid in
accordance with a vow, were very frequent in the middle ages, and were
under the special protection of the pope, who put the ban upon any who
should molest pilgrims "who go to Rome for God's sake." The question of
granting dispensations from such a vow gave rise to much canonical
legislation, in which the papacy had finally to give in to the bishops.
The visits demanded by law were of more importance. In 743 a Roman synod
decreed that all bishops subject to the metropolitan see of Rome should
meet personally every year in that city to give an account of the state
of their dioceses. Gregory VII. included in the order all metropolitans
of the Western Church, and Sixtus V. (by the bull _Romanus Pontifex_,
Dec. 20, 1584) ordered the bishops of Italy, Dalmatia and Greece to
visit Rome every three years; those of France, Germany, Spain and
Portugal, Belgium, Hungary, Bohemia and the British Isles every four
years; those from the rest of Europe every five years; and bishops from
other continents every ten years. Benedict XIV. in 1740 extended the
summons to all abbots, provosts and others who held territorial
jurisdiction.
LIMITATION, STATUTES OF, the name given to acts of parliament by which
rights of action are limited in the United Kingdom to a fixed period
after the occurrence of the events giving rise to the cause of action.
This is one of the devices by which lapse of time is employed to settle
disputed claims. There are mainly two modes by which this may be
effected. We may say that the active enjoyment of a right--or
possession--for a determined period shall be a good title against all
the world. That is the method known generally as Prescription (q.v.). It
looks to the length of time during which the defendant in a disputed
claim has been in possession or enjoyment of the matter in dispute. But
the principle of the statutes of limitation is to look to the length of
time during which the plaintiff has been out of possession. The point of
time at which he might first have brought his action having been
ascertained, the lapse of the limited period after that time bars him
for ever from bringing his action. In both cases the policy of the law
is expressed by the maxim _Interest reipublicae ut sit finis litium_.
The principle of limitation was first adopted in English law in
connexion with real actions, i.e. actions for the recovery of real
property. At first a fixed date was taken, and no action could be
brought of which the cause had arisen before that date. By the Statute
of Westminster the First (3 Edward I. c. 39), the beginning of the reign
of Richard I. was fixed as the date of limitation for such actions. This
is the well-known "period of legal memory" recognized by the judges in a
different class of cases to which a rule of prescription was applied.
Possession of rights in _alieno solo_ from time immemorial was held to
be an indefeasible title, and the courts held time immemorial to begin
with the first year of Richard I.
A period absolutely fixed became in time useless for the purposes of
limitation, and the method of counting back a certain number of years
from the date of the writs was adopted in the Statute 32 Henry VIII. c.
2, which fixed periods of thirty, fifty and sixty years for various
classes of actions named therein. A large number of statutes since that
time have established periods of limitation for different kinds of
actions. Of those now in force the most important are the Limitation Act
1623 for personal actions in general, and the Real Property Limitation
Act 1833 relating to actions for the recovery of land. The latter
statute has been repealed and virtually re-enacted by the Real Property
Limitation Act 1874, which reduced the period of limitation from twenty
years to twelve, for all actions brought after the 1st January 1879. The
principal section of the act of 1833 will show the _modus operandi_:
"After the 31st December 1833, no person shall make an entry or
distress, or bring an action to recover any land or rent _but within
twenty years next after the time_ at which the right to make such entry
or distress or to bring such action shall have first accrued to some
person through whom he claims, or shall have first accrued to the person
making or bringing the same." Another section defines the times at which
the right of action or entry shall be deemed to have accrued in
particular cases; e.g. when the estate claimed shall have been an estate
or interest in reversion, such right shall be deemed to have first
accrued at the time at which such estate or interest became an estate or
interest in possession. Thus suppose lands to be let by A to B from 1830
for a period of fifty years, and that a portion of such lands is
occupied by C from 1831 without any colour of title from B or A--C's
long possession would be of no avail against an action brought by A for
the recovery of the land after the determination of B's lease. A would
have twelve years after the determination of the lease within which to
bring his action, and might thus, by an action brought in 1891,
disestablish a person who had been in quiet possession since 1831. What
the law looks to is not the length of time during which C has enjoyed
the property, but the length of time which A has suffered to elapse
since he might first have brought his action. It is to be observed,
however, that the Real Property Limitation Act does more than bar the
remedy. It extinguishes the right, differing in this respect from the
other Limitation Acts, which, while barring the remedy, preserve the
right, so that it may possibly become available in some other way than
by action.
By section 14 of the act of 1833, when any acknowledgment of the title
of the person entitled shall have been given to him or his agent in
writing signed by the person in possession, or in receipt of the profits
or rent, then the right of the person (to whom such acknowledgment shall
have been given) to make an entry or distress or bring an action shall
be deemed to have first accrued at the time at which such
acknowledgment, or the last of such acknowledgments, was given. By
section 15, persons under the disability of infancy, lunacy or
coverture, or beyond seas, and their representatives, are to be allowed
ten years from the termination of this disability, or death (which shall
have first happened), notwithstanding that the ordinary period of
limitation shall have expired.
By the act of 1623 actions of trespass, detinue, trover, replevin or
account, actions on the case (except for slander), actions of debt
arising out of a simple contract and actions for arrears of rent not due
upon specialty shall be limited to six years from the date of the cause
of action. Actions for assault, menace, battery, wounds and imprisonment
are limited to four years, and actions for slander to two years. Persons
labouring under the disabilities of infancy, lunacy or unsoundness of
mind are allowed the same time after the removal of the disability. When
the defendant was "beyond seas" (i.e. outside the United Kingdom and the
adjacent islands) an extension of time was allowed, but by the Real
Property Limitation Act of 1874 such an allowance is excluded as to real
property, and as to other matters by the Mercantile Law Amendment Act
1856.
An acknowledgment, whether by payment on account or by mere spoken
words, was formerly sufficient to take the case out of the statute. The
Act 9 Geo. IV. c. 14 (Lord Tenterden's act) requires any promise or
admission of liability to be in writing and signed by the party to be
charged, otherwise it will not bar the statute.
Contracts under seal are governed as to limitation by the act of 1883,
which provides that actions for rent upon any indenture of demise, or of
covenant, or debt or any bond or other specialty, and on recognizances,
must be brought within twenty years after cause of action. Actions of
debt on an award (the submission being not under seal), or for a
copyhold fine, or for money levied on a writ of _fieri facias_, must be
brought within six years. With regard to the rights of the crown, the
principle obtains that _nullum tempus occurrit regi_, so that no statute
of limitation affects the crown without express mention. But by the
Crown Suits Act 1769, as amended by the Crown Suits Act 1861, in suits
relating to land, the claims of the crown to recover are barred after
the lapse of sixty years. For the prosecution of criminal offences
generally there is no period of limitation, except where they are
punishable on summary conviction. In such case the period is six months
by the Summary Jurisdiction Act 1848. But there are various
miscellaneous limitations fixed by various acts, of which the following
may be noticed. Suits and indictments under penal statutes are limited
to two years if the forfeiture is to the crown, to one year if the
forfeiture is to the common informer. Penal actions by persons aggrieved
are limited to two years by the act of 1833. Prosecutions under the Riot
Act can only be sued upon within twelve months after the offence has
been committed, and offences against the Customs Acts within three
years. By the Public Authorities Protection Act 1893, a prosecution
against any person acting in execution of statutory or other public duty
must be commenced within six months. Prosecutions under the Criminal Law
Amendment Act, as amended by the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act
1904, must be commenced within six months after the commission of the
offence.
Trustees are expressly empowered to plead statutes of limitation by the
Trustees Act 1888; indeed, a defence under the statutes of limitations
must in general be specially pleaded. Limitation is regarded strictly as
a law of procedure. The English courts will therefore apply their own
rules to all actions, although the cause of action may have arisen in a
country in which different rules of limitation exist. This is also a
recognized principle of private international law (see J. A. Foote,
_Private International Law_, 3rd ed., 1904, p. 516 seq.).
_United States._--The principle of the statute of limitations has passed
with some modification into the statute-books of every state in the
Union except Louisiana, whose laws of limitation are essentially the
prescriptions of the civil law drawn from the _Partidas_, or "Spanish
Code." As to personal actions, it is generally provided that they shall
be brought within a certain specified time--usually six years or
less--from the time when the cause of action accrues, and not after,
while for land the "general if not universal limitation of the right to
bring action or to make entry is to twenty years after the right to
enter or to bring the action accrues" (Bouvier's _Law Dictionary_, art.
"Limitations"). The constitutional provision prohibiting states from
passing laws impairing the obligation of contracts is not infringed by a
law of limitations, unless it bars a right of action already accrued
without giving a reasonable term within which to bring the action.
See Darby and Bosanquet, _Statutes of Limitations_ (1899); Hewitt,
_Statutes of Limitations_ (1893).
LIMOGES, a town of west-central France, capital of the department of
Haute-Vienne, formerly capital of the old province of Limousin, 176 m.
S. by W. of Orleans on the railway to Toulouse. Pop. (1906) town,
75,906; commune, 88,597. The station is a junction for Poitiers,
Angoulême, Périgueux and Clermont-Ferrand. The town occupies a hill on
the right bank of the Vienne, and comprises two parts originally
distinct, the _Cité_ with narrow streets and old houses occupying the
lower slope, and the town proper the summit. In the latter a street
known as the Rue de la Boucherie is occupied by a powerful and ancient
corporation of butchers. The site of the fortifications which formerly
surrounded both quarters is occupied by boulevards, outside which are
suburbs with wide streets and spacious squares. The cathedral, the most
remarkable building in the Limousin, was begun in 1273. In 1327 the
choir was completed, and before the middle of the 16th century the
transept, with its fine north portal and the first two bays of the nave;
from 1875 to 1890 the construction of the nave was continued, and it was
united with the west tower (203 ft. high), the base of which belongs to
a previous Romanesque church. In the interior there are a magnificent
rood loft of the Renaissance, and the tombs of Jean de Langeac (d. 1541)
and other bishops. Of the other churches of Limoges, St Michel des Lions
(14th and 15th centuries) and St Pierre du Queyroix (12th and 13th
centuries) both contain interesting stained glass. The principal modern
buildings are the town hall and the law-courts. The Vienne is crossed by
a railway viaduct and four bridges, two of which, the Pont St Étienne
and the Pont St Martial, date from the 13th century. Among the chief
squares are the Place d'Orsay on the site of a Roman amphitheatre, the
Place Jourdan with the statue of Marshal J. B. Jourdan, born at Limoges,
and the Place d'Aine with the statue of J. L. Gay-Lussac. President
Carnot and Denis Dussoubs, both of whom have statues, were also natives
of the town. The museum has a rich ceramic collection and art,
numismatic and natural history collections.
Limoges is the headquarters of the XII. army corps and the seat of a
bishop, a prefect, a court of appeal and a court of assizes, and has
tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a board of trade
arbitration, a chamber of commerce and a branch of the Bank of France.
The educational institutions include a _lycée_ for boys, a preparatory
school of medicine and pharmacy, a higher theological seminary, a
training college, a national school of decorative art and a commercial
and industrial school. The manufacture and decoration of porcelain give
employment to about 13,000 persons in the town and its vicinity.
Shoe-making and the manufacture of clogs occupy over 2000. Other
industries are liqueur-distilling, the spinning of wool and
cloth-weaving, printing and the manufacture of paper from straw.
Enamelling, which flourished at Limoges in the middle ages and during
the Renaissance (see ENAMEL), but subsequently died out, was revived at
the end of the 19th century. There is an extensive trade in wine and
spirits, cattle, cereals and wood. The Vienne is navigable for rafts
above Limoges, and the logs brought down by the current are stopped at
the entrance of the town by the inhabitants of the Naveix quarter, who
form a special gild for this purpose.
Limoges was a place of importance at the time of the Roman conquest, and
sent a large force to the defence of Alesia. In 11 B.C. it took the name
of Augustus (_Augustoritum_); but in the 4th century it was anew called
by the name of the _Lemovices_, whose capital it was. It then contained
palaces and baths, had its own senate and the right of coinage.
Christianity was introduced by St Martial. In the 5th century Limoges
was devastated by the Vandals and the Visigoths, and afterwards suffered
in the wars between the Franks and Aquitanians and in the invasions of
the Normans. Under the Merovingian kings Limoges was celebrated for its
mints and its goldsmiths' work. In the middle ages the town was divided
into two distinct parts, each surrounded by walls, forming separate
fiefs with a separate system of administration, an arrangement which
survived till 1792. Of these the more important, known as the _Château_,
which grew up round the tomb of St Martial in the 9th century, and was
surrounded with walls in the 10th and again in the 12th, was under the
jurisdiction of the viscounts of Limoges, and contained their castle and
the monastery of St Martial; the other, the _Cité_, which was under the
jurisdiction of the bishop, had but a sparse population, the habitable
ground being practically covered by the cathedral, the episcopal palace
and other churches and religious buildings. In the Hundred Years' War
the bishops sided with the French, while the viscounts were unwilling
vassals of the English. In 1370 the _Cité_, which had opened its gates
to the French, was taken by the Black Prince and given over to fire and
sword.
The religious wars, pestilence and famine desolated Limoges in turn, and
the plague of 1630-1631 carried off more than 20,000 persons. The wise
administrations of Henri d'Aguesseau, father of the chancellor, and of
Turgot enabled Limoges to recover its former prosperity. There have been
several great fires, destroying whole quarters of the city, built, as it
then was, of wood. That of 1790 lasted for two months, and destroyed 192
houses; and that of 1864 laid under ashes a large area. Limoges
celebrates every seven years a curious religious festival (Fête
d'Ostension), during which the relics of St Martial are exposed for
seven weeks, attracting large numbers of visitors. It dates from the
10th century, and commemorates a pestilence (mal des ardents) which,
after destroying 40,000 persons, is believed to have been stayed by the
intercession of the saint.
Limoges was the scene of two ecclesiastical councils, in 1029 and 1031.
The first proclaimed the title of St Martial as "apostle of Aquitaine";
the second insisted on the observance of the "truce of God." In 1095
Pope Urban II. held a synod of bishops here in connexion with his
efforts to organize a crusade, and on this occasion consecrated the
basilica of St Martial (pulled down after 1794).
See Célestin Poré, _Limoges_, in Joanne's guides, _De Paris à Ager_
(1867); Ducourtieux, _Limoges d'après ses anciens plans_ (1884) and
_Limoges et ses environs_ (3rd ed., 1894). A very full list of works
on Limoges, the town, viscounty, bishopric, &c., is given by U.
Chevalier in _Répertoire des sources hist. du moyen âge.
Topo-bibliogr._ (Mont Céliard, 1903), t. ii. s.v.
LIMON, or PORT LIMON, the chief Atlantic port of Costa Rica, Central
America, and the capital of a district also named Limon, on a bay of the
Caribbean Sea, 103 m. E. by N. of San José. Pop. (1904) 3171. Limon was
founded in 1871, and is the terminus of the transcontinental railway to
Puntarenas which was begun in the same year. The swamps behind the town,
and the shallow coral lagoon in front of it, have been filled in. The
harbour is protected by a sea-wall built along the low-water line, and
an iron pier affords accommodation for large vessels. A breakwater from
the harbour to the island of Uvita, about 1200 yds. E. would render
Limon a first-class port. There is an excellent water-supply from the
hills above the harbour. Almost the entire coffee and banana crops of
Costa Rica are sent by rail for shipment at Limon to Europe and the
United States. The district (_comarca_) of Limon comprises the whole
Atlantic littoral, thus including the Talamanca country inhabited by
uncivilized Indians; the richest banana-growing territories in the
country; and the valuable forests of the San Juan valley. It is annually
visited by Indians from the Mosquito coast of Nicaragua, who come in
canoes to fish for turtle. Its chief towns, after Limon, are Reventazon
and Matina, both with fewer than 3000 inhabitants.
LIMONITE, or BROWN IRON ORE, a natural ferric hydrate named from the Gr.
[Greek: leimôn] (meadow), in allusion to its occurrence as "bog-ore" in
meadows and marshes. It is never crystallized, but may have a fibrous or
microcrystalline structure, and commonly occurs in concretionary forms
or in compact and earthy masses; sometimes mammillated, botryoidal,
reniform or stalactitic. The colour presents various shades of brown and
yellow, and the streak is always brownish, a character which
distinguishes it from haematite with a red, or from magnetite with a
black streak. It is sometimes called brown haematite.
Limonite is a ferric hydrate, conforming typically with the formula
Fe4O3(OH)6, or 2Fe2O3·3H2O. Its hardness is rather above 5, and its
specific gravity varies from 3.5 to 4. In many cases it has been formed
from other iron oxides, like haematite and magnetite, or by the
alteration of pyrites or chalybite.
By the operation of meteoric agencies, iron pyrites readily pass into
limonite often with retention of external form; and the masses of
"gozzan" or "gossan" on the outcrop of certain mineral-veins consist
of rusty iron ore formed in this way, and associated with cellular
quartz. Many deposits of limonite have been found, on being worked, to
pass downwards into ferrous carbonate; and crystals of chalybite
converted superficially into limonite are well known. Minerals, like
glauconite, which contain ferrous silicate, may in like manner yield
limonite, on weathering. The ferric hydrate is also readily deposited
from ferruginous waters, often by means of organic agencies. Deposits
of brown iron ore of great economic value occur in many sedimentary
rocks, such as the Lias, Oolites and Lower Greensand of various parts
of England. They appear in some cases to be altered limestones and in
others altered glauconitic sandstones. An oolitic structure is
sometimes present, and the ores are generally phosphatic, and may
contain perhaps 30% of iron. The oolitic brown ores of Lorraine and
Luxemburg are known as "minette," a diminutive of the French _mine_
(ore), in allusion to their low content of metal. Granular and
concretionary limonite accumulates by organic action on the floor of
certain lakes in Sweden, forming the curious "lake ore." Larger
concretions formed under other conditions are known as "bean ore."
Limonite often forms a cementing medium in ferruginous sands and
gravels, forming "pan"; and in like manner it is the agglutinating
agent in many conglomerates, like the South African "banket," where it
is auriferous. In iron-shot sands the limonite may form hollow
concretions, known in some cases as "boxes." The "eagle stones" of
older writers were generally concretions of this kind, containing some
substance, like sand, which rattled when the hollow nodule was shaken.
Bog iron ore is an impure limonite, usually formed by the influence of
micro-organisms, and containing silica, phosphoric acid and organic
matter, sometimes with manganese. The various kinds of brown and
yellow ochre are mixtures of limonite with clay and other impurities;
whilst in umber much manganese oxide is present. Argillaceous brown
iron ore is often known in Germany as _Thoneisenstein_; but the
corresponding term in English (clay iron stone) is applied to nodular
forms of impure chalybite. J. C. Ullmann's name of stilpnosiderite,
from the Greek [Greek: stilpnos] (shining) is sometimes applied to
such kinds of limonite as have a pitchy lustre. Deposits of limonite
in cavities may have a rounded surface or even a stalactitic form, and
may present a brilliant lustre, of blackish colour, forming what is
called in Germany _Glaskopf_ (glass head). It often happens that
analyses of brown iron ores reveal a larger proportion of water than
required by the typical formula of limonite, and hence new species
have been recognized. Thus the yellowish brown ore called by E.
Schmidt xanthosiderite, from [Greek: zanthos] (yellow) and [Greek:
sidêros] (iron), contains Fe2O(OH)4, or Fe2O3·2H2O; whilst the bog ore
known as limnite, from [Greek: limnê] (marsh) has the formula Fe(OH)3,
or Fe2O3·3H2O. On the other hand there are certain forms of ferric
hydrate containing less water than limonite and approaching to
haematite in their red colour and streak: such is the mineral which
was called hydrohaematite by A. Breithaupt, and is now generally known
under R. Hermann's name of turgite, from the mines of Turginsk, near
Bogoslovsk in the Ural Mountains. This has the formula Fe4O5(OH)2, or
2Fe2O3·H2O. It probably represents the partial dehydration of
limonite, and by further loss of water may pass into haematite or red
iron ore. When limonite is dehydrated and deoxidized in the presence
of carbonic acid, it may give rise to chalybite.
LIMOUSIN (or LIMOSIN), LÉONARD (c. 1505-c. 1577), French painter, the
most famous of a family of seven Limoges enamel painters, was the son of
a Limoges innkeeper. He is supposed to have studied under Nardon
Pénicaud. He was certainly at the beginning of his career influenced by
the German school--indeed, his earliest authenticated work, signed L. L.
and dated 1532, is a series of eighteen plaques of the "Passion of the
Lord," after Albrecht Dürer, but this influence was counter-balanced by
that of the Italian masters of the school of Fontainebleau, Primaticcio,
Rosso, Giulio Romano and Solario, from whom he acquired his taste for
arabesque ornament and for mythological subjects. Nevertheless the
French tradition was sufficiently ingrained in him to save him from
becoming an imitator and from losing his personal style. In 1530 he
entered the service of Francis I. as painter and _varlet de chambre_, a
position which he retained under Henry II. For both these monarchs he
executed many portraits in enamel--among them quite a number of plaques
depicting Diane de Poitiers in various characters,--plates, vases,
ewers, and cups, besides decorative works for the royal palaces, for,
though he is best known as an enameller distinguished for rich colour,
and for graceful designs in grisaille on black or bright blue
backgrounds, he also enjoyed a great reputation as an oil-painter. His
last signed works bear the date 1574, but the date of his death is
uncertain, though it could not have been later than the beginning of
1577. It is on record that he executed close upon two thousand enamels.
He is best represented at the Louvre, which owns his two famous votive
tablets for the Sainte Chapelle, each consisting of twenty-three
plaques, signed L. L. and dated 1553; "La Chasse," depicting Henry II.
on a white horse, Diane de Poitiers behind him on horseback; and many
portraits, including the kings by whom he was employed, Marguerite de
Valois, the duc de Guise, and the cardinal de Lorraine. Other
representative examples are at the Cluny and Limoges museums. In
England some magnificent examples of his work are to be found at the
Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Museum, and the Wallace
Collection. In the collection of Signor Rocchi, in Rome, is an
exceptionally interesting plaque representing Frances I. consulting a
fortune-teller.
See _Léonard Limousin: peintre de portraits_ (_L'Oeuvre des peintres
émailleurs_), by L. Boudery and E. Lachenaud (Paris, 1897)--a careful
study, with an elaborate catalogue of the known existing examples of
the artist's work. The book deals almost exclusively with the
portraits illustrated. See also Alleaume and Duplessis, _Les Douze
Apôtres--émaux de Léonard Limousin_, &c. (Paris, 1865); L. Boudery,
_Exposition retrospective de Limoges en 1886_ (Limoges, 1886); L.
Boudery, _Léonard Limousin et son oeuvre_ (Limoges, 1895); _Limoges et
le Limousin_ (Limoges, 1865); A. Meyer, _L'Art de l'émail de Limoges,
ancien et moderne_ (Paris, 1896); Émile Molinier, _L'Émaillerie_
(Paris, 1891).
LIMOUSIN (Lat. _Pagus Lemovicinus, ager Lemovicensis, regio Lemovicum,
Lemozinum, Limosinium_, &c.), a former province of France. In the time
of Julius Caesar the _pagus Lemovicinus_ covered the county now
comprised in the departments of Haute-Vienne, Corrèze and Creuse, with
the _arrondissements_ of Confolens in Charente and Nontron in Dordogne.
These limits it retained until the 10th century, and they survived in
those of the diocese of Limoges (except a small part cut off in 1317 to
form that of Tulle) until 1790. The break-up into great fiefs in the
10th century, however, tended rapidly to disintegrate the province,
until at the close of the 12th century Limousin embraced only the
viscounties of Limoges, Turenne and Comborn, with a few ecclesiastical
lordships, corresponding roughly to the present _arrondissements_ of
Limoges and Saint Yrien in Haute-Vienne and part of the
_arrondissements_ of Brive, Tulle and Ussel in Corrèze. In the 17th
century Limousin, thus constituted, had become no more than a small
_gouvernement_.
Limousin takes its name from the _Lemovices_, a Gallic tribe whose
county was included by Augustus in the province of _Aquitania Magna_.
Politically its history has little of separate interest; it shared in
general the vicissitudes of Aquitaine, whose dukes from 918 onwards were
its over-lords at least till 1264, after which it was sometimes under
them, sometimes under the counts of Poitiers, until the French kings
succeeded in asserting their direct over-lordship. It was, however,
until the 14th century, the centre of a civilization of which the
enamelling industry (see ENAMEL) was only one expression. The Limousin
dialect, now a mere _patois_, was regarded by the troubadours as the
purest form of Provençal.
See A. Leroeux, _Géographie et histoire du Limousin_ (Limoges, 1892).
Detailed bibliography in Chevalier, _Répertoire des sources.
Topo-bibliogr._ (Montbéliard, 1902), t. ii. s.v.
LIMPOPO, or CROCODILE, a river of S.E. Africa over 1000 m. in length,
next to the Zambezi the largest river of Africa entering the Indian
Ocean. Its head streams rise on the northern slopes of the Witwatersrand
less than 300 m. due W. of the sea, but the river makes a great
semicircular sweep across the high plateau first N.W., then N.E. and
finally S.E. It is joined early in its course by the Marico and Notwani,
streams which rise along the westward continuation of the Witwatersrand,
the ridge forming the water-parting between the Vaal and the Limpopo
basins. For a great part of its course the Limpopo forms the north-west
and north frontiers of the Transvaal. Its banks are well wooded and
present many picturesque views. In descending the escarpment of the
plateau the river passes through rocky ravines, piercing the
Zoutpansberg near the north-east corner of the Transvaal at the Toli
Azimé Falls. In the low country it receives its chief affluent, the
Olifants river (450 m. long), which, rising in the high veld of the
Transvaal east of the sources of the Limpopo, takes a more direct N.E.
course than the main stream. The Limpopo enters the ocean in 25° 15´ S.
The mouth, about 1000 ft. wide, is obstructed by sandbanks. In the rainy
season the Limpopo loses a good deal of its water in the swampy region
along its lower course. High-water level is 24 ft. above low-water
level, when the depth in the shallowest part does not exceed 3 ft. The
river is navigable all the year round by shallow-draught vessels from
its mouth for about 100 m., to a spot known as Gungunyana's Ford. In
flood time there is water communication south with the river Komati
(q.v.). At this season stretches of the Limpopo above Gungunyana's Ford
are navigable. The river valley is generally unhealthy.
The basin of the Limpopo includes the northern part of the Transvaal,
the eastern portion of Bechuanaland, southern Matabeleland and a large
area of Portuguese territory north of Delagoa Bay. Its chief
tributary, the Olifants, has been mentioned. Of its many other
affluents, the Macloutsie, the Shashi and the Tuli are the most
distant north-west feeders. In this direction the Matoppos and other
hills of Matabeleland separate the Limpopo basin from the valley of
the Zambezi. A little above the Tuli confluence is Rhodes's Drift, the
usual crossing-place from the northern Transvaal into Matabeleland.
Among the streams which, flowing north through the Transvaal, join the
Limpopo is the Nylstroom, so named by Boers trekking from the south in
the belief that they had reached the river Nile. In the coast region
the river has one considerable affluent from the north, the Chengane,
which is navigable for some distance.
The Limpopo is a river of many names. In its upper course called the
Crocodile that name is also applied to the whole river, which figures
on old Portuguese maps as the Oori (or Oira) and Bembe. Though
claiming the territory through which it ran the Portuguese made no
attempt to trace the river. This was first done by Captain J. F.
Elton, who in 1870 travelling from the Tati goldfields sought to open
a road to the sea via the Limpopo. He voyaged down the river from the
Shashi confluence to the Toli Azimé Falls, which he discovered,
following the stream thence on foot to the low country. The lower
course of the river had been explored 1868-1869 by another British
traveller--St Vincent Whitshed Erskine. It was first navigated by a
sea-going craft in 1884, when G. A. Chaddock of the British mercantile
service succeeded in crossing the bar, while its lower course was
accurately surveyed by Portuguese officers in 1895-1896. At the
junction of the Lotsani, one of the Bechuanaland affluents, with the
Limpopo, are ruins of the period of the Zimbabwes.
LINACRE (or LYNAKER), THOMAS (c. 1460-1524), English humanist and
physician, was probably born at Canterbury. Of his parentage or descent
nothing certain is known. He received his early education at the
cathedral school of Canterbury, then under the direction of William
Celling (William Tilly of Selling), who became prior of Canterbury in
1472. Celling was an ardent scholar, and one of the earliest in England
who cultivated Greek learning. From him Linacre must have received his
first incentive to this study. Linacre entered Oxford about the year
1480, and in 1484 was elected a fellow of All Souls' College. Shortly
afterwards he visited Italy in the train of Celling, who was sent by
Henry VIII. as an envoy to the papal court, and he accompanied his
patron as far as Bologna. There he became the pupil of Angelo Poliziano,
and afterwards shared the instruction which that great scholar imparted
at Florence to the sons of Lorenzo de' Medici. The younger of these
princes became Pope Leo X., and was in after years mindful of his old
companionship with Linacre. Among his other teachers and friends in
Italy were Demetrius Chalcondylas, Hermolaus Barbaras, Aldus Romanus the
printer of Venice, and Nicolaus Leonicenus of Vicenza. Linacre took the
degree of doctor of medicine with great distinction at Padua. On his
return to Oxford, full of the learning and imbued with the spirit of the
Italian Renaissance, he formed one of the brilliant circle of Oxford
scholars, including John Colet, William Grocyn and William Latimer, who
are mentioned with so much warm eulogy in the letters of Erasmus.
Linacre does not appear to have practised or taught medicine in Oxford.
About the year 1501 he was called to court as tutor of the young prince
Arthur. On the accession of Henry VIII. he was appointed the king's
physician, an office at that time of considerable influence and
importance, and practised medicine in London, having among his patients
most of the great statesmen and prelates of the time, as Cardinal
Wolsey, Archbishop Warham and Bishop Fox.
After some years of professional activity, and when in advanced life,
Linacre received priest's orders in 1520, though he had for some years
previously held several clerical benefices. There is no doubt that his
ordination was connected with his retirement from active life. Literary
labours, and the cares of the foundation which owed its existence
chiefly to him, the Royal College of Physicians, occupied Linacre's
remaining years till his death on the 20th of October 1524.
Linacre was more of a scholar than a man of letters, and rather a man of
learning than a scientific investigator. It is difficult now to judge of
his practical skill in his profession, but it was evidently highly
esteemed in his own day. He took no part in political or theological
questions, and died too soon to have to declare himself on either side in
the formidable controversies which were even in his lifetime beginning to
arise. But his career as a scholar was one eminently characteristic of
the critical period in the history of learning through which he lived. He
was one of the first Englishmen who studied Greek in Italy, whence he
brought back to his native country and his own university the lessons of
the "New Learning." His teachers were some of the greatest scholars of
the day. Among his pupils was one--Erasmus--whose name alone would
suffice to preserve the memory of his instructor in Greek, and others of
note in letters and politics, such as Sir Thomas More, Prince Arthur and
Queen Mary. Colet, Grocyn, William Lilye and other eminent scholars were
his intimate friends, and he was esteemed by a still wider circle of
literary correspondents in all parts of Europe.
Linacre's literary activity was displayed in two directions, in pure
scholarship and in translation from the Greek. In the domain of
scholarship he was known by the rudiments of (Latin) grammar
(_Progymnasmata Grammatices vulgaria_), composed in English, a revised
version of which was made for the use of the Princess Mary, and
afterwards translated into Latin by Robert Buchanan. He also wrote a
work on Latin composition, _De emendata structura Latini sermonis_,
which was published in London in 1524 and many times reprinted on the
continent of Europe.
Linacre's only medical works were his translations. He desired to make
the works of Galen (and indeed those of Aristotle also) accessible to
all readers of Latin. What he effected in the case of the first,
though not trifling in itself, is inconsiderable as compared with the
whole mass of Galen's writings; and of his translations from
Aristotle, some of which are known to have been completed, nothing has
survived. The following are the works of Galen translated by Linacre:
(1) _De sanitate tuenda_, printed at Paris in 1517; (2) _Methodus
medendi_ (Paris, 1519); (3) _De temperamentis et de Inaequali
Intemperie_ (Cambridge, 1521); (4) _De naturalibus facultatibus_
(London, 1523); (5) _De symptomatum differentiis et causis_ (London,
1524); (6) _De pulsuum Usu_ (London, without date). He also translated
for the use of Prince Arthur an astronomical treatise of Proclus, _De
sphaera_, which was printed at Venice by Aldus in 1499. The accuracy
of these translations and their elegance of style were universally
admitted. They have been generally accepted as the standard versions
of those parts of Galen's writings, and frequently reprinted, either
as a part of the collected works or separately.
But the most important service which Linacre conferred upon his own
profession and science was not by his writings. To him was chiefly
owing the foundation by royal charter of the College of Physicians in
London, and he was the first president of the new college, which he
further aided by conveying to it his own house, and by the gift of his
library. Shortly before his death Linacre obtained from the king
letters patent for the establishment of readerships in medicine at
Oxford and Cambridge, and placed valuable estates in the hands of
trustees for their endowment. Two readerships were founded in Merton
College, Oxford, and one in St John's College, Cambridge, but owing to
neglect and bad management of the funds, they fell into uselessness
and obscurity. The Oxford foundation was revived by the university
commissioners in 1856 in the form of the Linacre professorship of
anatomy. Posterity has done justice to the generosity and public
spirit which prompted these foundations; and it is impossible not to
recognize a strong constructive genius in the scheme of the College of
Physicians, by which Linacre not only first organized the medical
profession in England, but impressed upon it for some centuries the
stamp of his own individuality.
The intellectual fastidiousness of Linacre, and his habits of minute
accuracy were, as Erasmus suggests, the chief cause why he left no
more permanent literary memorials. It will be found, perhaps,
difficult to justify by any extant work the extremely high reputation
which he enjoyed among the scholars of his time. His Latin style was
so much admired that, according to the flattering eulogium of Erasmus,
Galen spoke better Latin in the version of Linacre than he had before
spoken Greek; and even Aristotle displayed a grace which he hardly
attained to in his native tongue. Erasmus praises also Linacre's
critical judgment ("vir non exacti tantum sed severi judicii").
According to others it was hard to say whether he were more
distinguished as a grammarian or a rhetorician. Of Greek he was
regarded as a consummate master; and he was equally eminent as a
"philosopher," that is, as learned in the works of the ancient
philosophers and naturalists. In this there may have been some
exaggeration; but all have acknowledged the elevation of Linacre's
character, and the fine moral qualities summed up in the epitaph
written by John Caius: "Fraudes dolosque mire perosus; fidus amicis;
omnibus ordinibus juxta carus."
The materials for Linacre's biography are to a large extent contained
in the older biographical collections of George Lilly (in Paulus
Jovius, _Descriptio Britanniae_), Bale, Leland and Pits, in Wood's
_Athenae Oxonienses_ and in the _Biographia Britannica_; but all are
completely collected in the _Life of Thomas Linacre_, by Dr Noble
Johnson (London, 1835). Reference may also be made to Dr Munk's _Roll
of the Royal College of Physicians_ (2nd ed., London, 1878); and the
Introduction, by Dr J. F. Payne, to a facsimile reproduction of
Linacre's version of _Galen de temperamentis_ (Cambridge, 1881). With
the exception of this treatise, none of Linacre's works or
translations has been reprinted in modern times.
LINARES, an inland province of central Chile, between Talca on the N.
and Nuble on the S., bounded E. by Argentina and W. by the province of
Maule. Pop. (1895) 101,858; area, 3942 sq. m. The river Maule forms its
northern boundary and drains its northern and north-eastern regions. The
province belongs partly to the great central valley of Chile and partly
to the western slopes of the Andes, the S. Pedro volcano rising to a
height of 11,800 ft. not far from the sources of the Maule. The northern
part is fertile, as are the valleys of the Andean foothills, but arid
conditions prevail throughout the central districts, and irrigation is
necessary for the production of crops. The vine is cultivated to some
extent, and good pasturage is found on the Andean slopes. The province
is traversed from N. to S. by the Chilean Central railway, and the river
Maule gives access to the small port of Constitucion, at its mouth. From
Parral, near the southern boundary, a branch railway extends westward to
Cauquenes, the capital of Maule. The capital, Linares, is centrally
situated, on an open plain, about 20 m. S. of the river Maule. It had a
population of 7331 in 1895 (which an official estimate of 1902 reduced
to 7256). Parral (pop. 8586 in 1895; est. 10,219 in 1902) is a railway
junction and manufacturing town.
LINARES, a town of southern Spain, in the province of Jaen, among the
southern foothills of the Sierra Morena, 1375 ft. above sea-level and 3
m. N.W. of the river Guadalimar. Pop. (1900) 38,245. It is connected by
four branch railways with the important argentiferous lead mines on the
north-west, and with the main railways from Madrid to Seville, Granada
and the principal ports on the south coast. The town was greatly
improved in the second half of the 19th century, when the town hall,
bull-ring, theatre and many other handsome buildings were erected; it
contains little of antiquarian interest save a fine fountain of Roman
origin. Its population is chiefly engaged in the lead-mines, and in such
allied industries as the manufacture of gunpowder, dynamite, match for
blasting purposes, rope and the like. The mining plant is entirely
imported, principally from England; and smelting, desilverizing and the
manufacture of lead sheets, pipes, &c., are carried on by British firms,
which also purchase most of the ore raised. Linares lead is unsurpassed
in quality, but the output tends to decrease. There is a thriving local
trade in grain, wine and oil. About 2 m. S. is the village of Cazlona,
which shows some remains of the ancient _Castulo_. The ancient mines
some 5 m. N., which are now known as Los Pozos de Anibal, may possibly
date from the 3rd century B.C., when this part of Spain was ruled by the
Carthaginians.
LINCOLN, EARLS OF. The first earl of Lincoln was probably William de
Roumare (c. 1095-c. 1155), who was created earl about 1140, although it
is possible that William de Albini, earl of Arundel, had previously held
the earldom. Roumare's grandson, another William de Roumare (c. 1150-c.
1198), is sometimes called earl of Lincoln, but he was never recognized
as such, and about 1148 King Stephen granted the earldom to one of his
supporters, Gilbert de Gand (d. 1156), who was related to the former
earl. After Gilbert's death the earldom was dormant for about sixty
years; then in 1216 it was given to another Gilbert de Gand, and later
it was claimed by the great earl of Chester, Ranulf, or Randulph, de
Blundevill (d. 1232). From Ranulf the title to the earldom passed
through his sister Hawise to the family of Lacy, John de Lacy (d. 1240)
being made earl of Lincoln in 1232. He was son of Roger de Lacy (d.
1212), justiciar of England and constable of Chester. It was held by
the Lacys until the death of Henry, the 3rd earl. Henry served Edward I.
in Wales, France and Scotland, both as a soldier and a diplomatist. He
went to France with Edmund, earl of Lancaster, in 1296, and when Edmund
died in June of this year, succeeded him as commander of the English
forces in Gascony; but he did not experience any great success in this
capacity and returned to England early in 1298. The earl fought at the
battle of Falkirk in July 1298, and took some part in the subsequent
conquest of Scotland. He was then employed by Edward to negotiate
successively with popes Boniface VIII. and Clement V., and also with
Philip IV. of France; and was present at the death of the English king
in July 1307. For a short time Lincoln was friendly with the new king,
Edward II., and his favourite, Piers Gaveston; but quickly changing his
attitude, he joined earl Thomas of Lancaster and the baronial party, was
one of the "ordainers" appointed in 1310 and was regent of the kingdom
during the king's absence in Scotland in the same year. He died in
London on the 5th of February 1311, and was buried in St Paul's
Cathedral. He married Margaret (d. 1309), granddaughter and heiress of
William Longsword, 2nd earl of Salisbury, and his only surviving child,
Alice (1283-1348), became the wife of Thomas, earl of Lancaster, who
thus inherited his father-in-law's earldoms of Lincoln and Salisbury.
Lincoln's Inn in London gets its name from the earl, whose London
residence occupied this site. He founded Whalley Abbey in Lancashire,
and built Denbigh Castle.
In 1349 Henry Plantagenet, earl (afterwards duke) of Lancaster, a nephew
of Earl Thomas, was created earl of Lincoln; and when his grandson Henry
became king of England as Henry IV. in 1399 the title merged in the
crown. In 1467 John de la Pole (c. 1464-1487), a nephew of Edward IV.,
was made earl of Lincoln, and the same dignity was conferred in 1525
upon Henry Brandon (1516-1545), son of Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk.
Both died without sons, and the next family to hold the earldom was that
of Clinton.
EDWARD FIENNES CLINTON, 9th Lord Clinton (1512-1585), lord high admiral
and the husband of Henry VIII.'s mistress, Elizabeth Blount, was created
earl of Lincoln in 1572. Before his elevation he had rendered very
valuable services both on sea and land to Edward VI., to Mary and to
Elizabeth, and he was in the confidence of the leading men of these
reigns, including William Cecil, Lord Burghley. From 1572 until the
present day the title has been held by Clinton's descendants. In 1768
Henry Clinton, the 9th earl (1720-1794), succeeded his uncle Thomas
Pelham as 2nd duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne, and since this date the
title of earl of Lincoln has been the courtesy title of the eldest son
of the duke of Newcastle.
See G. E. C.(okayne), _Complete Peerage_, vol. v. (1893).
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM (1809-1865), sixteenth president of the United States
of America, was born on "Rock Spring" farm, 3 m. from Hodgenville, in
Hardin (now Larue) county, Kentucky, on the 12th of February 1809.[1]
His grandfather,[2] Abraham Lincoln, settled in Kentucky about 1780 and
was killed by Indians in 1784. His father, Thomas (1778-1851), was born
in Rockingham (then Augusta) county, Virginia; he was hospitable,
shiftless, restless and unsuccessful, working now as a carpenter and now
as a farmer, and could not read or write before his marriage, in
Washington county, Kentucky, on the 12th of June 1806, to Nancy Hanks
(1783-1818), who was, like him, a native of Virginia, but had much more
strength of character and native ability, and seemed to have been, in
intellect and character, distinctly above the social class in which she
was born. The Lincolns had removed from Elizabethtown, Hardin county,
their first home, to the Rock Spring farm, only a short time before
Abraham's birth; about 1813 they removed to a farm of 238 acres on Knob
Creek, about 6 m. from Hodgenville; and in 1816 they crossed the Ohio
river and settled on a quarter-section, 1½ m. E. of the present village
of Gentryville, in Spencer county, Indiana. There Abraham's mother died
on the 5th of October 1818. In December 1819 his father married, at his
old home, Elizabethtown, Mrs Sarah (Bush) Johnston (d. 1869), whom he
had courted years before, whose thrift greatly improved conditions in
the home, and who exerted a great influence over her stepson. Spencer
county was still a wilderness, and the boy grew up in pioneer
surroundings, living in a rude log-cabin, enduring many hardships and
knowing only the primitive manners, conversation and ambitions of
sparsely settled backwoods communities. Schools were rare, and teachers
qualified only to impart the merest rudiments. "Of course when I came of
age I did not know much," wrote he years afterward, "still somehow I
could read, write and cipher to the rule of three, but that was all. I
have not been to school since. The little advance I now have upon this
store of education I have picked up from time to time under the pressure
of necessity." His entire schooling, in five different schools, amounted
to less than a twelvemonth; but he became a good speller and an
excellent penman. His own mother taught him to read, and his stepmother
urged him to study. He read and re-read in early boyhood the Bible,
Aesop, _Robinson Crusoe_, _Pilgrim's Progress_, Weems's _Life of
Washington_ and a history of the United States; and later read every
book he could borrow from the neighbours, Burns and Shakespeare becoming
favourites. He wrote rude, coarse satires, crude verse, and compositions
on the American government, temperance, &c. At the age of seventeen he
had attained his full height, and began to be known as a wrestler,
runner and lifter of great weights. When nineteen he made a journey as a
hired hand on a flatboat to New Orleans.
In March 1830 his father emigrated to Macon county, Illinois (near the
present Decatur), and soon afterward removed to Coles county. Being now
twenty-one years of age, Abraham hired himself to Denton Offutt, a
migratory trader and storekeeper then of Sangamon county, and he helped
Offutt to build a flatboat and float it down the Sangamon, Illinois and
Mississippi rivers to New Orleans. In 1831 Offutt made him clerk of his
country store at New Salem, a small and unsuccessful settlement in
Menard county; this gave him moments of leisure to devote to
self-education. He borrowed a grammar and other books, sought
explanations from the village schoolmaster and began to read law. In
this frontier community law and politics claimed a large proportion of
the stronger and the more ambitious men; the law early appealed to
Lincoln and his general popularity encouraged him as early as 1832 to
enter politics. In this year Offutt failed and Lincoln was thus left
without employment. He became a candidate for the Illinois House of
Representatives; and on the 9th of March 1832 issued an address "To the
people of Sangamon county" which betokens talent and education far
beyond mere ability to "read, write and cipher," though in its
preparation he seems to have had the help of a friend. Before the
election the Black Hawk Indian War broke out; Lincoln volunteered in one
of the Sangamon county companies on the 21st of April and was elected
captain by the members of the company. It is said that the oath of
allegiance was administered to Lincoln at this time by Lieut. Jefferson
Davis. The company, a part of the 4th Illinois, was mustered out after
the five weeks' service for which it volunteered, and Lincoln
re-enlisted as a private on the 29th of May, and was finally mustered
out on the 16th of June by Lieut. Robert Anderson, who in 1861 commanded
the Union troops at Fort Sumter. As captain Lincoln was twice in
disgrace, once for firing a pistol near camp and again because nearly
his entire company was intoxicated. He was in no battle, and always
spoke lightly of his military record. He was defeated in his campaign
for the legislature in 1832, partly because of his unpopular adherence
to Clay and the American system, but in his own election precinct, he
received nearly all the votes cast. With a friend, William Berry, he
then bought a small country store, which soon failed chiefly because of
the drunken habits of Berry and because Lincoln preferred to read and to
tell stories--he early gained local celebrity as a story-teller--rather
than sell; about this time he got hold of a set of Blackstone. In the
spring of 1833 the store's stock was sold to satisfy its creditors, and
Lincoln assumed the firm's debts, which he did not fully pay off for
fifteen years. In May 1833, local friendship, disregarding politics,
procured his appointment as postmaster of New Salem, but this paid him
very little, and in the same year the county surveyor of Sangamon county
opportunely offered to make him one of his deputies. He hastily
qualified himself by study, and entered upon the practical duties of
surveying farm lines, roads and town sites. "This," to use his own
words, "procured bread, and kept body and soul together."
In 1834 Lincoln was elected (second of four successful candidates, with
only 14 fewer votes than the first) a member of the Illinois House of
Representatives, to which he was re-elected in 1836, 1838 and 1840,
serving until 1842. In his announcement of his candidacy in 1836 he
promised to vote for Hugh L. White of Tennessee (a vigorous opponent of
Andrew Jackson in Tennessee politics) for president, and said: "I go for
all sharing the privileges of the government who assist in bearing its
burdens. Consequently, I go for admitting all whites to the right of
suffrage, who pay taxes or bear arms (by no means excluding females)"--a
sentiment frequently quoted to prove Lincoln a believer in woman's
suffrage. In this election he led the poll in Sangamon county. In the
legislature, like the other representatives of that county, who were
called the "Long Nine," because of their stature, he worked for internal
improvements, for which lavish appropriations were made, and for the
division of Sangamon county and the choice of Springfield as the state
capital, instead of Vandalia. He and his party colleagues followed
Stephen A. Douglas in adopting the convention system, to which Lincoln
had been strongly opposed. In 1837 with one other representative from
Sangamon county, named Dan Stone, he protested against a series of
resolutions, adopted by the Illinois General Assembly, expressing
disapproval of the formation of abolition societies and asserting, among
other things, that "the right of property in slaves is sacred to the
slave holding states under the Federal Constitution"; and Lincoln and
Stone put out a paper in which they expressed their belief "that the
institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy, but
that the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase
than abate its evils," "that the Congress of the United States has no
power under the Constitution to interfere with the institution of
slavery in the different states," "that the Congress of the United
States has the power, under the Constitution, to abolish slavery in the
District of Columbia, but that the power ought not to be exercised
unless at the request of the people of the District." Lincoln was very
popular among his fellow legislators, and in 1838 and in 1840 he
received the complimentary vote of his minority colleagues for the
speakership of the state House of Representatives. In 1842 he declined a
renomination to the state legislature and attempted unsuccessfully to
secure a nomination to Congress. In the same year he became interested
in the Washingtonian temperance movement.
In 1846 he was elected a member of the National House of Representatives
by a majority of 1511 over his Democratic opponent, Peter Cartwright,
the Methodist preacher. Lincoln was the only Whig member of Congress
elected in Illinois in 1846. In the House of Representatives on the 22nd
of December 1847 he introduced the "Spot Resolutions," which quoted
statements in the president's messages of the 11th of May 1846 and the
7th and 8th of December that Mexican troops had invaded the territory of
the United States, and asked the president to tell the precise "spot" of
invasion; he made a speech on these resolutions in the House on the 12th
of January 1848. His attitude toward the war and especially his vote for
George Ashmun's amendment to the supply bill at this session, declaring
that the Mexican War was "unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced
by the President," greatly displeased his constituents. He later
introduced a bill regarding slavery in the District of Columbia, which
(in accordance with his statement of 1837) was to be submitted to the
vote of the District for approval, and which provided for compensated
emancipation, forbade the bringing of slaves into the District of
Columbia, except by government officials from slave states, and the
selling of slaves away from the District, and arranged for the
emancipation after a period of apprenticeship of all slave children born
after the 1st of January 1850. While he was in Congress he voted
repeatedly for the principle of the Wilmot Proviso. At the close of his
term in 1848 he declined an appointment as governor of the newly
organized Territory of Oregon and for a time worked, without success,
for an appointment as Commissioner of the General Land Office. During
the presidential campaign he made speeches in Illinois, and in
Massachusetts he spoke before the Whig State Convention at Worcester on
the 12th of September, and in the next ten days at Lowell, Dedham,
Roxbury, Chelsea, Cambridge and Boston. He had become an eloquent and
influential public speaker, and in 1840 and 1844 was a candidate on the
Whig ticket for presidential elector.
In 1834 his political friend and colleague John Todd Stuart (1807-1885),
a lawyer in full practice, had urged him to fit himself for the bar, and
had lent him text-books; and Lincoln, working diligently, was admitted
to the bar in September 1836. In April 1837 he quitted New Salem, and
removed to Springfield, which was the county-seat and was soon to become
the capital of the state, to begin practice in a partnership with
Stuart, which was terminated in April 1841; from that time until
September 1843 he was junior partner to Stephen Trigg Logan (1800-1880),
and from 1843 until his death he was senior partner of William Henry
Herndon (1818-1891). Between 1849 and 1854 he took little part in
politics, devoted himself to the law and became one of the leaders of
the Illinois bar. His small fees--he once charged $3.50 for collecting
an account of nearly $600.00--his frequent refusals to take cases which
he did not think right and his attempts to prevent unnecessary
litigation have become proverbial. Judge David Davis, who knew Lincoln
on the Illinois circuit and whom Lincoln made in October 1862 an
associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, said that
he was "great both at _nisi prius_ and before an appellate tribunal." He
was an excellent cross-examiner, whose candid friendliness of manner
often succeeded in eliciting important testimony from unwilling
witnesses. Among Lincoln's most famous cases were: one (_Bailey_ v.
_Cromwell_, 4 Ill. 71; frequently cited) before the Illinois Supreme
Court in July 1841 in which he argued against the validity of a note in
payment for a negro girl, adducing the Ordinance of 1787 and other
authorities; a case (tried in Chicago in September 1857) for the Rock
Island railway, sued for damages by the owners of a steamboat sunk after
collision with a railway bridge, a trial in which Lincoln brought to the
service of his client a surveyor's knowledge of mathematics and a
riverman's acquaintance with currents and channels, and argued that
crossing a stream by bridge was as truly a common right as navigating it
by boat, thus contributing to the success of Chicago and railway
commerce in the contest against St Louis and river transportation; the
defence (at Beardstown in May 1858) on the charge of murder of William
("Duff") Armstrong, son of one of Lincoln's New Salem friends, whom
Lincoln freed by controverting with the help of an almanac the testimony
of a crucial witness that between 10 and 11 o'clock at night he had seen
by moonlight the defendant strike the murderous blow--this dramatic
incident is described in Edward Eggleston's novel, _The Graysons_; and
the defence on the charge of murder (committed in August 1859) of
"Peachy" Harrison, a grandson of Peter Cartwright, whose testimony was
used with great effect.
From law, however, Lincoln was soon drawn irresistibly back into
politics. The slavery question, in one form or another, had become the
great overshadowing issue in national, and even in state politics; the
abolition movement, begun in earnest by W. L. Garrison in 1831, had
stirred the conscience of the North, and had had its influence even upon
many who strongly deprecated its extreme radicalism; the Compromise of
1850 had failed to silence sectional controversy, and the Fugitive Slave
Law, which was one of the compromise measures, had throughout the North
been bitterly assailed and to a considerable extent had been nullified
by state legislation; and finally in 1854 the slavery agitation was
fomented by the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the
Missouri Compromise and gave legislative sanction to the principle of
"popular sovereignty"--the principle that the inhabitants of each
Territory as well as of each state were to be left free to decide for
themselves whether or not slavery was to be permitted therein. In
enacting this measure Congress had been dominated largely by one
man--Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois--then probably the most powerful
figure in national politics. Lincoln had early put himself on record as
opposed to slavery, but he was never technically an abolitionist; he
allied himself rather with those who believed that slavery should be
fought within the Constitution, that, though it could not be
constitutionally interfered with in individual states, it should be
excluded from territory over which the national government had
jurisdiction. In this, as in other things, he was eminently
clear-sighted and practical. Already he had shown his capacity as a
forcible and able debater; aroused to new activity upon the passage of
the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, which he regarded as a gross breach of
political faith, he now entered upon public discussion with an
earnestness and force that by common consent gave him leadership in
Illinois of the opposition, which in 1854 elected a majority of the
legislature; and it gradually became clear that he was the only man who
could be opposed in debate to the powerful and adroit Douglas. He was
elected to the state House of Representatives, from which he immediately
resigned to become a candidate for United States senator from Illinois,
to succeed James Shields, a Democrat; but five opposition members, of
Democratic antecedents, refused to vote for Lincoln (on the second
ballot he received 47 votes--50 being necessary to elect) and he turned
the votes which he controlled over to Lyman Trumbull, who was opposed to
the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and thus secured the defeat of Joel Aldrich
Matteson (1808-1883), who favoured this act and who on the eighth ballot
had received 47 votes to 35 for Trumbull and 15 for Lincoln. The various
anti-Nebraska elements came together, in Illinois as elsewhere, to form
a new party at a time when the old parties were disintegrating; and in
1856 the Republican party was formally organized in the state. Lincoln
before the state convention at Bloomington of "all opponents of
anti-Nebraska legislation" (the first Republican state convention in
Illinois) made on the 29th of May a notable address known as the "Lost
Speech." The National Convention of the Republican Party in 1856 cast
110 votes for Lincoln as its vice-presidential candidate on the ticket
with Fremont, and he was on the Republican electoral ticket of this
year, and made effective campaign speeches in the interest of the new
party. The campaign in the state resulted substantially in a drawn
battle, the Democrats gaining a majority in the state for president,
while the Republicans elected the governor and state officers. In 1858
the term of Douglas in the United States Senate was expiring, and he
sought re-election. On the 16th of June 1858 by unanimous resolution of
the Republican state convention Lincoln was declared "the first and only
choice of the Republicans of Illinois for the United States Senate as
the successor of Stephen A. Douglas," who was the choice of his own
party to succeed himself. Lincoln, addressing the convention which
nominated him, gave expression to the following bold prophecy:--
"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this
Government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do
not expect the Union to be dissolved--I do not expect the house to
fall--but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all
one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will
arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind
shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction;
or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike
lawful in all the states, old as well as new--North as well as South."
In this speech, delivered in the state House of Representatives, Lincoln
charged Pierce, Buchanan, Taney and Douglas with conspiracy to secure
the Dred Scott decision. Yielding to the wish of his party friends, on
the 24th of July, Lincoln challenged Douglas to a joint public
discussion.[3] The antagonists met in debate at seven designated places
in the state. The first meeting was at Ottawa, La Salle County, about 90
m. south-west of Chicago, on the 21st of August. At Freeport, on the
Wisconsin boundary, on the 27th of August, Lincoln answered questions
put to him by Douglas, and by his questions forced Douglas to "betray
the South" by his enunciation of the "Freeport heresy," that, no matter
what the character of Congressional legislation or the Supreme Court's
decision "slavery cannot exist a day or an hour anywhere unless it is
supported by local police regulations." This adroit attempt to reconcile
the principle of popular sovereignty with the Dred Scott decision,
though it undoubtedly helped Douglas in the immediate fight for the
senatorship, necessarily alienated his Southern supporters and assured
his defeat, as Lincoln foresaw it must, in the presidential campaign of
1860. The other debates were: at Jonesboro, in the southern part of the
state, on the 15th of September; at Charleston, 150 m. N.E. of
Jonesboro, on the 18th of September; and, in the western part of the
state, at Galesburg (Oct. 7), Quincy (Oct. 13) and Alton (Oct. 15). In
these debates Douglas, the champion of his party, was over-matched in
clearness and force of reasoning, and lacked the great moral earnestness
of his opponent; but he dexterously extricated himself time and again
from difficult argumentative positions, and retained sufficient support
to win the immediate prize. At the November election the Republican vote
was 126,084, the Douglas Democratic vote was 121,940 and the Lecompton
(or Buchanan) Democratic vote was 5091; but the Democrats, through a
favourable apportionment of representative districts, secured a majority
of the legislature (Senate: 14 Democrats, 11 Republicans; House: 40
Democrats, 35 Republicans), which re-elected Douglas. Lincoln's speeches
in this campaign won him a national fame. In 1859 he made two speeches
in Ohio--one at Columbus on the 16th of September criticising Douglas's
paper in the September _Harper's Magazine_, and one at Cincinnati on the
17th of September, which was addressed to Kentuckians,--and he spent a
few days in Kansas, speaking in Elwood, Troy, Doniphan, Atchison and
Leavenworth, in the first week of December. On the 27th of February 1860
in Cooper Union, New York City, he made a speech (much the same as that
delivered in Elwood, Kansas, on the 1st of December) which made him
known favourably to the leaders of the Republican party in the East and
which was a careful historical study criticising the statement of
Douglas in one of his speeches in Ohio that "our fathers when they
framed the government under which we live understood this question
[slavery] just as well and even better than we do now," and Douglas's
contention that "the fathers" made the country (and intended that it
should remain) part slave. Lincoln pointed out that the majority of the
members of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 opposed slavery and
that they did not think that Congress had no power to control slavery in
the Territories. He spoke at Concord, Manchester, Exeter and Dover in
New Hampshire, at Hartford (5th March), New Haven (6th March),
Woonsocket (8th March) and Norwich (9th March). The Illinois State
Convention of the Republican party, held at Decatur on the 9th and 10th
of May 1860, amid great enthusiasm declared Abraham Lincoln its first
choice for the presidential nomination, and instructed the delegation to
the National Convention to cast the vote of the state as a unit for him.
The Republican national convention, which made "No Extension of Slavery"
the essential part of the party platform, met at Chicago on the 16th of
May 1860. At this time William H. Seward was the most conspicuous
Republican in national politics, and Salmon P. Chase had long been in
the fore-front of the political contest against slavery. Both had won
greater national fame than had Lincoln, and, before the convention met,
each hoped to be nominated for president. Chase, however, had little
chance, and the contest was virtually between Seward and Lincoln, who by
many was considered more "available," because it was thought that he
could (and Seward could not) secure the vote of certain doubtful states.
Lincoln's name was presented by Illinois and seconded by Indiana. At
first Seward had the strongest support. On the first ballot Lincoln
received only 102 votes to 173½ for Seward. On the second ballot Lincoln
received 181 votes to Seward's 184½. On the third ballot the 50½ votes
formerly given to Simon Cameron[4] were given to Lincoln, who received
231½ votes to 180 for Seward, and without taking another ballot enough
votes were changed to make Lincoln's total 354 (233 being necessary for
a choice) and the nomination was then made unanimous. Hannibal Hamlin,
of Maine, was nominated for the vice-presidency. The convention was
singularly tumultuous and noisy; large claques were hired by both
Lincoln's and Seward's managers. During the campaign Lincoln remained in
Springfield, making few speeches and writing practically no letters for
publication. The campaign was unusually animated--only the Whig campaign
for William Henry Harrison in 1840 is comparable to it: there were great
torchlight processions of "wide-awake" clubs, which did "rail-fence," or
zigzag, marches, and carried rails in honour of their candidate, the
"rail-splitter." Lincoln was elected by a popular vote of 1,866,452 to
1,375,157 for Douglas, 847,953 for Breckinridge and 590,631 for Bell--as
the combined vote of his opponents was so much greater than his own he
was often called "the minority president"; the electoral vote was:
Lincoln, 180; John C. Breckinridge, 72; John Bell, 39; Stephen A.
Douglas, 12. On the 4th of March 1861 Lincoln was inaugurated as
president. (For an account of his administration see UNITED STATES:
_History_.)
During the campaign radical leaders in the South frequently asserted
that the success of the Republicans at the polls would mean that the
rights of the slave-holding states under the Federal constitution, as
interpreted by them, would no longer be respected by the North, and
that, if Lincoln were elected, it would be the duty of these
slave-holding states to secede from the Union. There was much opposition
in these states to such a course, but the secessionists triumphed, and
by the time President Lincoln was inaugurated, South Carolina, Georgia,
Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas had formally
withdrawn from the Union. A provisional government under the designation
"The Confederate States of America," with Jefferson Davis as president,
was organized by the seceding states, which seized by force nearly all
the forts, arsenals and public buildings within their limits. Great
division of sentiment existed in the North, whether in this emergency
acquiescence or coercion was the preferable policy. Lincoln's inaugural
address declared the Union perpetual and acts of secession void, and
announced the determination of the government to defend its authority,
and to hold forts and places yet in its possession. He disclaimed any
intention to invade, subjugate or oppress the seceding states. "You can
have no conflict," he said, "without being yourselves the aggressors."
Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbour, had been besieged by the
secessionists since January; and, it being now on the point of surrender
through starvation, Lincoln sent the besiegers official notice on the
8th of April that a fleet was on its way to carry provisions to the
fort, but that he would not attempt to reinforce it unless this effort
were resisted. The Confederates, however, immediately ordered its
reduction, and after a thirty-four hours' bombardment the garrison
capitulated on the 13th of April 1861. (For the military history of the
war, see AMERICAN CIVIL WAR.)
With civil war thus provoked, Lincoln, on the 15th of April, by
proclamation called 75,000 three months' militia under arms, and on the
4th of May ordered the further enlistment of 64,748 soldiers and 18,000
seamen for three years' service. He instituted by proclamation of the
19th of April a blockade of the Southern ports, took effective steps to
extemporize a navy, convened Congress in special session (on the 4th of
July), and asked for legislation and authority to make the war "short,
sharp and decisive." The country responded with enthusiasm to his
summons and suggestions; and the South on its side was not less active.
The slavery question presented vexatious difficulties in conducting the
war. Congress in August 1861 passed an act (approved August 6th)
confiscating rights of slave-owners to slaves employed in hostile
service against the Union. On the 30th of August General Fremont by
military order declared martial law and confiscation against active
enemies, with freedom to their slaves, in the State of Missouri.
Believing that under existing conditions such a step was both
detrimental in present policy and unauthorized in law, President Lincoln
directed him (2nd September) to modify the order to make it conform to
the Confiscation Act of Congress, and on the 11th of September annulled
the parts of the order which conflicted with this act. Strong political
factions were instantly formed for and against military emancipation,
and the government was hotly beset by antagonistic counsel. The
Unionists of the border slave states were greatly alarmed, but Lincoln
by his moderate conservatism held them to the military support of the
government.[5] Meanwhile he sagaciously prepared the way for the supreme
act of statesmanship which the gathering national crisis already dimly
foreshadowed. On the 6th of March 1862, he sent a special message to
Congress recommending the passage of a resolution offering pecuniary aid
from the general government to induce states to adopt gradual
abolishment of slavery. Promptly passed by Congress, the resolution
produced no immediate result except in its influence on public opinion.
A practical step, however, soon followed. In April Congress passed and
the president approved (6th April) an act emancipating the slaves in the
District of Columbia, with compensation to owners--a measure which
Lincoln had proposed when in Congress. Meanwhile slaves of loyal masters
were constantly escaping to military camps. Some commanders excluded
them altogether; others surrendered them on demand; while still others
sheltered and protected them against their owners. Lincoln tolerated
this latitude as falling properly within the military discretion
pertaining to local army operations. A new case, however, soon demanded
his official interference. On the 9th of May 1862 General David Hunter,
commanding in the limited areas gained along the southern coast, issued
a short order declaring his department under martial law, and
adding--"Slavery and martial law in a free country are altogether
incompatible. The persons in these three States--Georgia, Florida and
South Carolina--heretofore held as slaves are, therefore, declared for
ever free." As soon as this order, by the slow method of communication
by sea, reached the newspapers, Lincoln (May 19) published a
proclamation declaring it void; adding further, "Whether it be competent
for me as commander-in-chief of the army and navy to declare the slaves
of any state or states free, and whether at any time or in any case it
shall have become a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the
government to exercise such supposed power, are questions which under my
responsibility I reserve to myself, and which I cannot feel justified in
leaving to the decision of commanders in the field. These are totally
different questions from those of police regulations in armies or
camps." But in the same proclamation Lincoln recalled to the public his
own proposal and the assent of Congress to compensate states which would
adopt voluntary and gradual abolishment. "To the people of these states
now," he added, "I must earnestly appeal. I do not argue. I beseech you
to make the argument for yourselves. You cannot, if you would, be blind
to the signs of the times." Meanwhile the anti-slavery sentiment of the
North constantly increased. Congress by express act (approved on the
19th of June) prohibited the existence of slavery in all territories
outside of states. On July the 12th the president called the
representatives of the border slave states to the executive mansion, and
once more urged upon them his proposal of compensated emancipation. "If
the war continues long," he said, "as it must if the object be not
sooner attained, the institution in your states will be extinguished by
mere friction and abrasion--by the mere incidents of the war. It will be
gone, and you will have nothing valuable in lieu of it." Although
Lincoln's appeal brought the border states to no practical decision--the
representatives of these states almost without exception opposed the
plan--it served to prepare public opinion for his final act. During the
month of July his own mind reached the virtual determination to give
slavery its _coup de grâce_; on the 17th he approved a new Confiscation
Act, much broader than that of the 6th of August 1861 (which freed only
those slaves in military service against the Union) and giving to the
president power to employ persons of African descent for the suppression
of the rebellion; and on the 22nd he submitted to his cabinet the draft
of an emancipation proclamation substantially as afterward issued.
Serious military reverses constrained him for the present to withhold
it, while on the other hand they served to increase the pressure upon
him from anti-slavery men. Horace Greeley having addressed a public
letter to him complaining of "the policy you seem to be pursuing with
regard to the slaves of the rebels," the president replied on the 22nd
of August, saying, "My paramount object is to save the Union, and not
either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without
freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing all the
slaves, I would do it; and, if I could do it by freeing some and leaving
others alone, I would also do that." Thus still holding back violent
reformers with one hand, and leading up halting conservatives with the
other, he on the 13th of September replied among other things to an
address from a delegation: "I do not want to issue a document that the
whole world will see must necessarily be inoperative like the pope's
bull against the comet.... I view this matter as a practical war
measure, to be decided on according to the advantages or disadvantages
it may offer to the suppression of the rebellion.... I have not decided
against a proclamation of liberty to the slaves, but hold the matter
under advisement."
The year 1862 had opened with important Union victories. Admiral A. H.
Foote captured Fort Henry on the 6th of February, and Gen. U. S. Grant
captured Fort Donelson on the 16th of February, and won the battle of
Shiloh on the 6th and 7th of April. Gen. A. E. Burnside took possession
of Roanoke island on the North Carolina coast (7th February). The famous
contest between the new ironclads "Monitor" and "Merrimac" (9th April),
though indecisive, effectually stopped the career of the Confederate
vessel, which was later destroyed by the Confederates themselves. (See
HAMPTON ROADS.) Farragut, with a wooden fleet, ran past the twin forts
St Philip and Jackson, compelled the surrender of New Orleans (26th
April), and gained control of the lower Mississippi. The succeeding
three months brought disaster and discouragement to the Union army.
M'Clellan's campaign against Richmond was made abortive by his timorous
generalship, and compelled the withdrawal of his army. Pope's army,
advancing against the same city by another line, was beaten back upon
Washington in defeat. The tide of war, however, once more turned in the
defeat of Lee's invading army at South Mountain and Antietam in Maryland
on the 14th and on the 16th and 17th of September, compelling him to
retreat.
With public opinion thus ripened by alternate defeat and victory,
President Lincoln, on the 22nd of September 1862, issued his preliminary
proclamation of emancipation, giving notice that on the 1st of January
1863, "all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of
a state the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United
States shall be then, thenceforward and for ever free." In his message
to Congress on the 1st of December following, he again urged his plan of
gradual, compensated emancipation (to be completed on the 1st of
December 1900) "as a means, not in exclusion of, but additional to, all
others for restoring and preserving the national authority throughout
the Union." On the 1st day of January 1863 the final proclamation of
emancipation was duly issued, designating the States of Arkansas, Texas,
Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina,
and certain portions of Louisiana and Virginia, as "this day in
rebellion against the United States," and proclaiming that, in virtue of
his authority as commander-in-chief, and as a necessary war measure for
suppressing rebellion, "I do order and declare that all persons held as
slaves within said designated states and parts of states are and
henceforward shall be free," and pledging the executive and military
power of the government to maintain such freedom. The legal validity of
these proclamations was never pronounced upon by the national courts;
but their decrees gradually enforced by the march of armies were soon
recognized by public opinion to be practically irreversible.[6] Such
dissatisfaction as they caused in the border slave states died out in
the stress of war. The systematic enlistment of negroes and their
incorporation into the army by regiments, hitherto only tried as
exceptional experiments, were now pushed with vigour, and, being
followed by several conspicuous instances of their gallantry on the
battlefield, added another strong impulse to the sweeping change of
popular sentiment. To put the finality of emancipation beyond all
question, Lincoln in the winter session of 1863-1864 strongly supported
a movement in Congress to abolish slavery by constitutional amendment,
but the necessary two-thirds vote of the House of Representatives could
not then be obtained. In his annual message of the 6th of December 1864,
he urged the immediate passage of the measure. Congress now acted
promptly: on the 31st of January 1865, that body by joint resolution
proposed to the states the 13th amendment of the Federal Constitution,
providing that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a
punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,
shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their
jurisdiction." Before the end of that year twenty-seven out of the
thirty-six states of the Union (being the required three-fourths) had
ratified the amendment, and official proclamation made by President
Johnson on the 18th of December 1865, declared it duly adopted.
The foreign policy of President Lincoln, while subordinate in importance
to the great questions of the Civil War, nevertheless presented several
difficult and critical problems for his decision. The arrest (8th of
November 1861) by Captain Charles Wilkes of two Confederate envoys
proceeding to Europe in the British steamer "Trent" seriously threatened
peace with England. Public opinion in America almost unanimously
sustained the act; but Lincoln, convinced that the rights of Great
Britain as a neutral had been violated, promptly, upon the demand of
England, ordered the liberation of the prisoners (26th of December).
Later friendly relations between the United States and Great Britain,
where, among the upper classes, there was a strong sentiment in favour
of the Confederacy, were seriously threatened by the fitting out of
Confederate privateers in British ports, and the Administration owed
much to the skilful diplomacy of the American minister in London,
Charles Francis Adams. A still broader foreign question grew out of
Mexican affairs, when events culminating in the setting up of Maximilian
of Austria as emperor under protection of French troops demanded the
constant watchfulness of the United States. Lincoln's course was one of
prudent moderation. France voluntarily declared that she sought in
Mexico only to satisfy injuries done her and not to overthrow or
establish local government or to appropriate territory. The United
States Government replied that, relying on these assurances, it would
maintain strict non-intervention, at the same time openly avowing the
general sympathy of its people with a Mexican republic, and that "their
own safety and the cheerful destiny to which they aspire are intimately
dependent on the continuance of free republican institutions throughout
America." In the early part of 1863 the French Government proposed a
mediation between the North and the South. This offer President Lincoln
(on the 6th of February) declined to consider, Seward replying for him
that it would only be entering into diplomatic discussion with the
rebels whether the authority of the government should be renounced, and
the country delivered over to disunion and anarchy.
The Civil War gradually grew to dimensions beyond all expectation. By
January 1863 the Union armies numbered near a million men, and were kept
up to this strength till the end of the struggle. The Federal war debt
eventually reached the sum of $2,700,000,000. The fortunes of battle
were somewhat fluctuating during the first half of 1863, but the
beginning of July brought the Union forces decisive victories. The
reduction of Vicksburg (4th of July) and Port Hudson (9th of July), with
other operations, restored complete control of the Mississippi, severing
the Southern Confederacy. In the east Lee had the second time marched
his army into Pennsylvania to suffer a disastrous defeat at Gettysburg,
on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of July, though he was able to withdraw his
shattered forces south of the Potomac. At the dedication of this
battlefield as a soldiers' cemetery in November, President Lincoln made
the following oration, which has taken permanent place as a classic in
American literature:--
"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a
great civil war testing whether that nation, or any nation so
conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great
battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that
field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives
that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that
we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we
cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living
and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor
power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember
what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is
for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work
which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is
rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before
us--that from these honoured dead we take increased devotion to that
cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we
here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that
this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that
government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not
perish from the earth."
In the unexpected prolongation of the war, volunteer enlistments became
too slow to replenish the waste of armies, and in 1863 the government
was forced to resort to a draft. The enforcement of the conscription
created much opposition in various parts of the country, and led to a
serious riot in the city of New York on the 13th-16th of July. President
Lincoln executed the draft with all possible justice and forbearance,
but refused every importunity to postpone it. It was made a special
subject of criticism by the Democratic party of the North, which was now
organizing itself on the basis of a discontinuance of the war, to
endeavour to win the presidential election of the following year.
Clement L. Vallandigham of Ohio, having made a violent public speech at
Mt. Vernon, Ohio, on the 1st of May against the war and military
proceedings, was arrested on the 5th of May by General Burnside, tried
by military commission, and sentenced on the 16th to imprisonment; a
writ of _habeas corpus_ had been refused, and the sentence was changed
by the president to transportation beyond the military lines. By way of
political defiance the Democrats of Ohio nominated Vallandigham for
governor on the 11th of June. Prominent Democrats and a committee of the
Convention having appealed for his release, Lincoln wrote two long
letters in reply discussing the constitutional question, and declaring
that in his judgment the president as commander-in-chief in time of
rebellion or invasion holds the power and responsibility of suspending
the privilege of the writ of _habeas corpus_, but offering to release
Vallandigham if the committee would sign a declaration that rebellion
exists, that an army and navy are constitutional means to suppress it,
and that each of them would use his personal power and influence to
prosecute the war. This liberal offer and their refusal to accept it
counteracted all the political capital they hoped to make out of the
case; and public opinion was still more powerfully influenced in behalf
of the president's action, by the pathos of the query which he
propounded in one of his letters: "Must I shoot the simple-minded
soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily
agitator who induces him to desert?" When the election took place in
Ohio, Vallandigham was defeated by a majority of more than a hundred
thousand.
Many unfounded rumours of a willingness on the part of the Confederate
States to make peace were circulated to weaken the Union war spirit. To
all such suggestions, up to the time of issuing his emancipation
proclamation, Lincoln announced his readiness to stop fighting and grant
amnesty, whenever they would submit to and maintain the national
authority under the Constitution of the United States. Certain agents in
Canada having in 1864 intimated that they were empowered to treat for
peace, Lincoln, through Greeley, tendered them safe conduct to
Washington. They were by this forced to confess that they possessed no
authority to negotiate. The president thereupon sent them, and made
public, the following standing offer:--
"To whom it may concern:
"Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the
integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery, and
which comes by and with an authority that can control the armies now
at war against the United States, will be received and considered by
the Executive Government of the United States, and will be met by
liberal terms on substantial and collateral points, and the bearer or
bearers thereof shall have safe conduct both ways.
"July 18, 1864."
"ABRAHAM LINCOLN."
A noteworthy conference on this question took place near the close of
the Civil War, when the strength of the Confederacy was almost
exhausted. F. P. Blair, senior, a personal friend of Jefferson Davis,
acting solely on his own responsibility, was permitted to go from
Washington to Richmond, where, on the 12th of January 1865, after a
private and unofficial interview, Davis in writing declared his
willingness to enter a conference "to secure peace to the two
countries." Report being duly made to President Lincoln, he wrote a note
(dated 18th January) consenting to receive any agent sent informally
"with the view of securing peace to the people of our common country."
Upon the basis of this latter proposition three Confederate
commissioners (A. H. Stevens, J. A. C. Campbell and R. M. T. Hunter)
finally came to Hampton Roads, where President Lincoln and Secretary
Seward met them on the U.S. steam transport "River Queen," and on the
3rd of February 1865 an informal conference of four hours' duration was
held. Private reports of the interview agree substantially in the
statement that the Confederates proposed a cessation of the Civil War,
and postponement of its issues for future adjustment, while for the
present the belligerents should unite in a campaign to expel the French
from Mexico, and to enforce the Monroe doctrine. President Lincoln,
however, although he offered to use his influence to secure compensation
by the Federal government to slave-owners for their slaves, if there
should be "voluntary abolition of slavery by the states," a liberal and
generous administration of the Confiscation Act, and the immediate
representation of the southern states in Congress, refused to consider
any alliance against the French in Mexico, and adhered to the
instructions he had given Seward before deciding to personally accompany
him. These formulated three indispensable conditions to adjustment:
first, the restoration of the national authority throughout all the
states; second, no receding by the executive of the United States on the
slavery question; third, no cessation of hostilities short of an end of
the war, and the disbanding of all forces hostile to the government.
These terms the commissioners were not authorized to accept, and the
interview ended without result.
As Lincoln's first presidential term of four years neared its end, the
Democratic party gathered itself for a supreme effort to regain the
ascendancy lost in 1860. The slow progress of the war, the severe
sacrifice of life in campaign and battle, the enormous accumulation of
public debt, arbitrary arrests and suspension of _habeas corpus_, the
rigour of the draft, and the proclamation of military emancipation
furnished ample subjects of bitter and vindictive campaign oratory. A
partisan coterie which surrounded M'Clellan loudly charged the failure
of his Richmond campaign to official interference in his plans.
Vallandigham had returned to his home in defiance of his banishment
beyond military lines, and was leniently suffered to remain. The
aggressive spirit of the party, however, pushed it to a fatal extreme.
The Democratic National Convention adopted (August 29, 1864) a
resolution (drafted by Vallandigham) declaring the war a failure, and
demanding a cessation of hostilities; it nominated M'Clellan for
president, and instead of adjourning _sine die_ as usual, remained
organized, and subject to be convened at any time and place by the
executive national committee. This threatening attitude, in conjunction
with alarming indications of a conspiracy to resist the draft, had the
effect to thoroughly consolidate the war party, which had on the 8th of
June unanimously renominated Lincoln, and had nominated Andrew Johnson
of Tennessee for the vice-presidency. At the election held on the 8th of
November 1864, Lincoln received 2,216,076 of the popular votes, and
M'Clellan (who had openly disapproved of the resolution declaring the
war a failure) but 1,808,725; while of the presidential electors 212
voted for Lincoln and 21 for M'Clellan. Lincoln's second term of office
began on the 4th of March 1865.
While this political contest was going on the Civil War was being
brought to a decisive close. Grant, at the head of the Army of the
Potomac, followed Lee to Richmond and Petersburg, and held him in siege
to within a few days of final surrender. General W. T. Sherman,
commanding the bulk of the Union forces in the Mississippi Valley, swept
in a victorious march through the heart of the Confederacy to Savannah
on the coast, and thence northward to North Carolina. Lee evacuated
Richmond on the 2nd of April, and was overtaken by Grant and compelled
to surrender his entire army on the 9th of April 1865. Sherman pushed
Johnston to a surrender on the 26th of April. This ended the war.
Lincoln being at the time on a visit to the army, entered Richmond the
day after its surrender. Returning to Washington, he made his last
public address on the evening of the 11th of April, devoted mainly to
the question of reconstructing loyal governments in the conquered
states. On the evening of the 14th of April he attended Ford's theatre
in Washington. While seated with his family and friends absorbed in the
play, John Wilkes Booth, an actor, who with others had prepared a plot
to assassinate the several heads of government, went into the little
corridor leading to the upper stage-box, and secured it against ingress
by a wooden bar. Then stealthily entering the box, he discharged a
pistol at the head of the president from behind, the ball penetrating
the brain. Brandishing a huge knife, with which he wounded Colonel
Rathbone who attempted to hold him, the assassin rushed through the
stage-box to the front and leaped down upon the stage, escaping behind
the scenes and from the rear of the building, but was pursued, and
twelve days afterwards shot in a barn where he had concealed himself.
The wounded president was borne to a house across the street, where he
breathed his last at 7 A.M. on the 15th of April 1865.
President Lincoln was of unusual stature, 6 ft. 4 in., and of spare
but muscular build; he had been in youth remarkably strong and skilful
in the athletic games of the frontier, where, however, his popularity
and recognized impartiality oftener made him an umpire than a
champion. He had regular and prepossessing features, dark complexion,
broad high forehead, prominent cheek bones, grey deep-set eyes, and
bushy black hair, turning to grey at the time of his death. Abstemious
in his habits, he possessed great physical endurance. He was almost as
tender-hearted as a woman. "I have not willingly planted a thorn in
any man's bosom," he was able to say. His patience was inexhaustible.
He had naturally a most cheerful and sunny temper, was highly social
and sympathetic, loved pleasant conversation, wit, anecdote and
laughter. Beneath this, however, ran an undercurrent of sadness; he
was occasionally subject to hours of deep silence and introspection
that approached a condition of trance. In manner he was simple,
direct, void of the least affectation, and entirely free from
awkwardness, oddity or eccentricity. His mental qualities were--a
quick analytic perception, strong logical powers, a tenacious memory,
a liberal estimate and tolerance of the opinions of others, ready
intuition of human nature; and perhaps his most valuable faculty was
rare ability to divest himself of all feeling or passion in weighing
motives of persons or problems of state. His speech and diction were
plain, terse, forcible. Relating anecdotes with appreciative humour
and fascinating dramatic skill, he used them freely and effectively in
conversation and argument. He loved manliness, truth and justice. He
despised all trickery and selfish greed. In arguments at the bar he
was so fair to his opponent that he frequently appeared to concede
away his client's case. He was ever ready to take blame on himself and
bestow praise on others. "I claim not to have controlled events," he
said, "but confess plainly that events have controlled me." The
Declaration of Independence was his political chart and inspiration.
He acknowledged a universal equality of human rights. "Certainly the
negro is not our equal in colour," he said, "perhaps not in many other
respects; still, in the right to put into his mouth the bread that his
own hands have earned, he is the equal of every other man white or
black." He had unchanging faith in self-government. "The people," he
said, "are the rightful masters of both congresses and courts, not to
overthrow the constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the
constitution." Yielding and accommodating in non-essentials, he was
inflexibly firm in a principle or position deliberately taken. "Let us
have faith that right makes might," he said, "and in that faith let us
to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it." The emancipation
proclamation once issued, he reiterated his purpose never to retract
or modify it. "There have been men base enough," he said, "to propose
to me to return to slavery our black warriors of Port Hudson and
Olustee, and thus win the respect of the masters they fought. Should I
do so I should deserve to be damned in time and eternity. Come what
will, I will keep my faith with friend and foe." Benevolence and
forgiveness were the very basis of his character; his world-wide
humanity is aptly embodied in a phrase of his second inaugural: "With
malice toward none, with charity for all." His nature was deeply
religious, but he belonged to no denomination.
Lincoln married in Springfield on the 4th of November 1842, Mary Todd
(1818-1882), also a native of Kentucky, who bore him four sons, of whom
the only one to grow up was the eldest, Robert Todd Lincoln (b. 1843),
who graduated at Harvard in 1864, served as a captain on the staff of
General Grant in 1865, was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1867, was
secretary of war in the cabinets of Presidents Garfield and Arthur in
1881-1885, and United States Minister to Great Britain in 1889-1893, and
was prominently connected with many large corporations, becoming in 1897
president of the Pullman Co.
Of the many statues of President Lincoln in American cities, the best
known is that, in Chicago, by St Gaudens. Among the others are two by
Thomas Ball, one in statuary hall in the Capitol at Washington, and one
in Boston; two--one in Rochester, N.Y., and one in Springfield, Ill.--by
Leonard W. Volk, who made a life-mask and a bust of Lincoln in 1860; and
one by J. Q. A. Ward, in Lincoln Park, Washington. Francis B. Carpenter
painted in 1864 "Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation," now in
the Capitol at Washington.
See _The Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln_ (12 vols., New York,
1906-1907; enlarged from the 2-volume edition of 1894 by John G.
Nicolay and John Hay). There are various editions of the
Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858; perhaps the best is that edited by E.
E. Sparks (1908). There are numerous biographies, and biographical
studies, including: John G. Nicolay and John Hay, _Abraham Lincoln: A
History_ (10 vols., New York, 1890), a monumental work by his private
secretaries who treat primarily his official life; John G. Nicolay, _A
Short Life of Abraham Lincoln_ (New York, 1904), condensed from the
preceding; John T. Morse, Jr., _Abraham Lincoln_ (2 vols., Boston,
1896), in the "American Statesmen" series, an excellent brief
biography, dealing chiefly with Lincoln's political career; Ida M.
Tarbell, _The Early Life of Lincoln_ (New York, 1896) and _Life of
Abraham Lincoln_ (2 vols., New York, 1900), containing new material to
which too great prominence and credence is sometimes given; Carl
Schurz, _Abraham Lincoln: An Essay_ (Boston, 1891), a remarkably able
estimate; Ward H. Lamon, _The Life of Abraham Lincoln from his Birth
to his Inauguration as President_ (Boston, 1872), supplemented by
_Recollections of Abraham Lincoln 1847-1865_ (Chicago, 1895), compiled
by Dorothy Lamon, valuable for some personal recollections, but
tactless, uncritical, and marred by the effort of the writer, who as
marshal of the District of Columbia, knew Lincoln intimately, to prove
that Lincoln's melancholy was due to his lack of religious belief of
the orthodox sort; William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik, _Abraham
Lincoln, the True Story of a Great Life_ (3 vols., Chicago, 1889;
revised, 2 vols., New York, 1892), an intimate and ill-proportioned
biography by Lincoln's law partner who exaggerates the importance of
the petty incidents of his youth and young manhood; Isaac N. Arnold,
_History of Abraham Lincoln and the Overthrow of Slavery_ (Chicago,
1867), revised and enlarged as _Life of Abraham Lincoln_ (Chicago,
1885), valuable for personal reminiscences; Gideon Welles, _Lincoln
and Seward_ (New York, 1874), the reply of Lincoln's secretary of the
navy to Charles Francis Adams's eulogy (delivered in Albany in April
1873) on Lincoln's secretary of state, W. H. Seward, in which Adams
claimed that Seward was the premier of Lincoln's administration; F. B.
Carpenter, _Six Months in the White House_ (New York, 1866), an
excellent account of Lincoln's daily life while president; Robert T.
Hill, _Lincoln the Lawyer_ (New York, 1906); A. Rothschild, _Lincoln,
the Master of Men_ (Boston, 1906); J. Eaton and E. O. Mason, _Grant,
Lincoln, and the Freedmen_ (New York, 1907); R. W. Gilder, _Lincoln,
the Leader, and Lincoln's Genius for Expression_ (New York, 1909); M.
L. Learned, _Abraham Lincoln: An American Migration_ (Philadelphia,
1909), a careful study of the Lincoln family in America; W. P.
Pickett, _The Negro Problem: Abraham Lincoln's Solution_ (New York,
1909); James H. Lea and J. R. Hutchinson, _The Ancestry of Abraham
Lincoln_ (Boston, 1909), a careful genealogical monograph; and C. H.
McCarthy, _Lincoln's Plan of Reconstruction_ (New York, 1901). For an
excellent account of Lincoln as president see J. F. Rhodes, _History
of the United States from the Compromise of 1850_ (7 vols.,
1893-1906). (J. G. N.; C. C. W.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Lincoln's birthday is a legal holiday in California, Colorado,
Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas,
Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North
Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, West Virginia
and Wyoming.
[2] Samuel Lincoln (c. 1619-1690), the president's first American
ancestor, son of Edward Lincoln, gent., of Hingham, Norfolk,
emigrated to Massachusetts in 1637 as apprentice to a weaver and
settled with two older brothers in Hingham, Mass. His son and
grandson were iron founders; the grandson Mordecai (1686-1736) moved
to Chester county, Pennsylvania. Mordecai's son John (1711-c. 1773),
a weaver, settled in what is now Rockingham county, Va., and was the
president's great-grandfather.
[3] Douglas and Lincoln first met in public debate (four on a side)
in Springfield in December 1839. They met repeatedly in the campaign
of 1840. In 1852 Lincoln attempted with little success to reply to a
speech made by Douglas in Richmond. On the 4th of October 1854 in
Springfield, in reply to a speech on the Nebraska question by Douglas
delivered the day before, Lincoln made a remarkable speech four hours
long, to which Douglas replied on the next day; and in the fortnight
immediately following Lincoln attacked Douglas's record again at
Bloomington and at Peoria. On the 26th of June 1857 Lincoln in a
speech at Springfield answered Douglas's speech of the 12th in which
he made over his doctrine of popular sovereignty to suit the Dred
Scott decision. Before the actual debate in 1858 Douglas made a
speech in Chicago on the 9th of July, to which Lincoln replied the
next day; Douglas spoke at Bloomington on the 16th of July and
Lincoln answered him in Springfield on the 17th.
[4] Without Lincoln's knowledge or consent, the managers of his
candidacy before the convention bargained for Cameron's votes by
promising to Cameron a place in Lincoln's cabinet, should Lincoln be
elected. Cameron became Lincoln's first secretary of war.
[5] In November 1861 the president drafted a bill providing (1) that
all slaves more than thirty-five years old in the state of Delaware
should immediately become free; (2) that all children of slave
parentage born after the passage of the act should be free; (3) that
all others should be free on attaining the age of thirty-five or
after the 1st of January 1893, except for terms of apprenticeship;
and (4) that the national government should pay to the state of
Delaware $23,200 a year for twenty-one years. But this bill, which
Lincoln had hoped would introduce a system of "compensated
emancipation," was not approved by the legislature of Delaware, which
considered it in February 1862.
[6] It is to be noted that slavery in the border slave states was not
affected by the proclamation. The parts of Virginia and Louisiana not
affected were those then considered to be under Federal jurisdiction;
in Virginia 55 counties were excepted (including the 48 which became
the separate state of West Virginia), and in Louisiana 13 parishes
(including the parish of Orleans). As the Federal Government did not,
at the time, actually have jurisdiction over the rest of the
territory of the Confederate States, that really affected, some
writers have questioned whether the proclamation really emancipated
any slaves when it was issued. The proclamation had the most
important political effect in the North of rallying more than ever to
the support of the administration the large anti-slavery element. The
adoption of the 13th amendment to the Federal Constitution in 1865
rendered unnecessary any decision of the U.S. Supreme Court upon the
validity of the proclamation.
LINCOLN, a city and county of a city, municipal, county and
parliamentary borough, and the county town of Lincolnshire, England.
Pop. (1901) 48,784. It is picturesquely situated on the summit and south
slope of the limestone ridge of the Cliff range of hills, which rises
from the north bank of the river Witham, at its confluence with the Foss
Dyke, to an altitude of 200 ft. above the river. The cathedral rises
majestically from the crown of the hill, and is a landmark for many
miles. Lincoln is 130 m. N. by W. from London by the Great Northern
railway; it is also served by branches of the Great Eastern, Great
Central and Midland railways.
Lincoln is one of the most interesting cities in England. The ancient
British town occupied the crown of the hill beyond the Newport or North
Gate. The Roman town consisted of two parallelograms of unequal length,
the first extending west from the Newport gate to a point a little west
of the castle keep. The second parallelogram, added as the town
increased in size and importance, extended due south from this point
down the hill towards the Witham as far as Newland, and thence in a
direction due east as far as Broad Street. Returning thence due north,
it joined the south-east corner of the first and oldest parallelogram in
what was afterwards known as the Minster yard, and terminated its east
side upon its junction with the north wall in a line with the Newport
gate. This is the oldest part of the town, and is named "above hill."
After the departure of the Romans, the city walls were extended still
farther in a south direction across the Witham as far as the great bar
gate, the south entrance to the High Street of the city; the junction of
these walls with the later Roman one was effected immediately behind
Broad Street. The "above hill" portion of the city consists of narrow
irregular streets, some of which are too steep to admit of being
ascended by carriages. The south portion, which is named "below hill,"
is much more commodious, and contains the principal business premises.
Here also are the railway stations.
The glory of Lincoln is the noble cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
commonly known as the Minster. As a study to the architect and antiquary
this stands unrivalled, not only as embodying the earliest purely Gothic
work extant, but as containing within its compass every variety of style
from the simple massive Norman of the central west front, and the later
and more ornate examples of that style in the west doorways and towers;
onward through all the Gothic styles, of each of which both early and
late examples appear. The building material is the oolite and calcareous
stone of Lincoln Heath and Haydor, which has the peculiarity of becoming
hardened on the surface when tooled. Formerly the cathedral had three
spires, all of wood or leaded timber. The spire on the central tower,
which would appear to have been the highest in the world, was blown down
in 1547. Those on the two western towers were removed in 1808.
The ground plan of the first church, adopted from that of Rouen, was
laid by Bishop Remigius in 1086, and the church was consecrated three
days after his death, on the 6th of May 1092. The west front consists
of an Early English screen (c. 1225) thrown over the Norman front, the
west towers rising behind it. The earliest Norman work is part of that
of Remigius; the great portals and the west towers up to the third
storey are Norman c. 1148. The upper parts of them date from 1365.
Perpendicular windows (c. 1450) are inserted. The nave and aisles were
completed c. 1220. The transepts mainly built between 1186 and 1235
have two fine rose windows, that in the N. is Early English, and that
in the S. Decorated. The first has beautiful contemporary stained
glass. These are called respectively the Dean's Eye and Bishop's Eye.
A Galilee of rich Early English work forms the entrance of the S.
transept. Of the choir the western portion known as St Hugh's
(1186-1204) is the famous first example of pointed work; the eastern,
called the Angel Choir, is a magnificently ornate work completed in
1280. Fine Perpendicular canopied stalls fill the western part. The
great east window, 57 ft. in height, is an example of transition from
Early English to Decorated c. 1288. Other noteworthy features of the
interior are the Easter sepulchre (c. 1300), the foliage ornamentation
of which is beautifully natural; and the organ screen of a somewhat
earlier date. The great central tower is Early English as far as the
first storey, the continuation dates from 1307. The total height is
271 ft.; and the tower contains the bell, Great Tom of Lincoln,
weighing over 5 tons. The dimensions of the cathedral internally
are--nave, 252 × 79.6 × 80 ft.; choir, 158 × 82 × 72 ft.; angel choir,
which includes presbytery and lady chapel, 166 × 44 × 72 ft.; main
transept, 220 × 63 × 74 ft.; choir transept, 166 × 44 × 72 ft. The
west towers are 206 ft. high.
The buildings of the close that call for notice are the chapter-house
of ten sides, 60 ft. diameter, 42 ft. high, with a fine vestibule of
the same height, built c. 1225, and therefore the earliest of English
polygonal chapter-houses, and the library, a building of 1675, which
contains a small museum. The picturesque episcopal palace contains
work of the date of St Hugh, and the great hall is mainly Early
English. There is some Decorated work, and much Perpendicular,
including the gateway. It fell into disuse after the Reformation, but
by extensive restoration was brought back to its proper use at the end
of the 19th century. Among the most famous bishops were St Hugh of
Avalon (1186-1200); Robert Grosseteste (1235-1253); Richard Flemming
(1420-1431), founder of Lincoln College, Oxford; William Smith
(1495-1514), founder of Brasenose College, Oxford; William Wake
(1705-1716); and Edmund Gibson (1716-1723). Every stall has produced a
prelate or cardinal. The see covers almost the whole of the county,
with very small portions of Norfolk and Yorkshire, and it included
Nottinghamshire until the formation of the bishopric of Southwell in
1884. At its earliest formation, when Remigius, almoner of the abbey
of Fécamp, removed the seat of the bishopric here from Dorchester in
Oxfordshire shortly after the Conquest, it extended from the Humber to
the Thames, eastward beyond Cambridge, and westward beyond Leicester.
It was reduced, however, by the formation of the sees of Ely,
Peterborough and Oxford, and by the rearrangement of diocesan
boundaries in 1837.
The remains of Roman Lincoln are of the highest interest. The Newport
Arch or northern gate of _Lindum_ is one of the most perfect specimens
of Roman architecture in England. It consists of a great arch flanked by
two smaller arches, of which one remains. The Roman Ermine Street runs
through it, leading northward almost in a straight line to the Humber.
Fragments of the town wall remain at various points; a large quantity of
coins and other relics have been discovered; and remains of a
burial-place and buildings unearthed. Of these last the most important
is the series of column-bases, probably belonging to a Basilica, beneath
a house in the street called Bail Gate, adjacent to the Newport Arch. A
villa in Greetwell; a tesselated pavement, a milestone and other relics
in the cloister; an altar unearthed at the church of St Swithin, are
among many other discoveries. Among churches, apart from the minster,
two of outstanding interest are those of St Mary-le-Wigford and St
Peter-at-Gowts (i.e. sluice-gates), both in the lower part of High
Street. Their towers, closely similar, are fine examples of perhaps very
early Norman work, though they actually possess the characteristics of
pre-Conquest workmanship. Bracebridge church shows similar early work;
but as a whole the churches of Lincoln show plainly the results of the
siege of 1644, and such buildings as St Botolph's, St Peter's-at-Arches
and St Martin's are of the period 1720-1740. Several churches are modern
buildings on ancient sites. There were formerly three small priories,
five friaries and four hospitals in or near Lincoln. The preponderance
of friaries over priories of monks is explained by the fact that the
cathedral was served by secular canons. Bishop Grosseteste was the
devoted patron of the friars, particularly the Franciscans, who were
always in their day the town missionaries. The Greyfriars, near St
Swithin's church, is a picturesque two-storied building of the 13th
century. Lincoln is rich in early domestic architecture. The building
known as John of Gaunt's stables, actually St Mary's Guild Hall, is of
two storeys, with rich Norman doorway and moulding. The Jews' House is
another fine example of 12th-century building; and Norman remains appear
in several other houses, such as Deloraine Court and the House of Aaron
the Jew. Lincoln Castle, lying W. of the cathedral, was newly founded by
William the Conqueror when Remigius decided to found his minster under
its protection. The site, with its artificial mounds, is of much
earlier, probably British, date. There are Norman remains in the Gateway
Tower; parts of the walls are of this period, and the keep dates from
the middle of the 12th century. Among medieval gateways, the Exchequer
Gate, serving as the finance-office of the chapter, is a fine specimen
of 13th-century work. Pottergate is of the 14th century, and Stonebow in
High Street of the 15th, with the Guildhall above it. St Dunstan's Lock
is the name, corrupted from Dunestall, now applied to the entrance to
the street where a Jewish quarter was situated; here lived the Christian
boy afterwards known as "little St Hugh," who was asserted to have been
crucified by the Jews in 1255. His shrine remains in the S. choir aisle
of the minster. Other antiquities are the Perpendicular conduit of St
Mary in High Street and the High Bridge, carrying High Street over the
Witham, which is almost unique in England as retaining some of the old
houses upon it.
Among modern public buildings are the county hall, old and new corn
exchanges and public library. Educational establishments include a
grammar school, a girls' high school, a science and art school and a
theological college. The arboretum in Monks Road is the principal
pleasure-ground; and there is a race-course. The principal industry is
the manufacture of agricultural machinery and implements; there are also
iron foundries and maltings, and a large trade in corn and agricultural
produce. The parliamentary borough, returning one member, falls between
the Gainsborough division of the county on the N., and that of Sleaford
on the S. Area, 3755 acres.
_History._--The British Lindun, which, according to the geography of
Claudius Ptolemaeus, was the chief town of the Coritani, was probably
the nucleus of the Roman town of Lindum. This was at first a Roman
legionary fortress, and on the removal of the troops northward was
converted into a municipality with the title of _colonia_. Such
important structural remains as have been described attest the rank and
importance of the place, which, however, did not attain a very great
size. Its bishop attended the council of Arles in 314, and Lincoln
(_Lindocolina_, _Lincolle_, _Nicole_) is mentioned in the Itinerary of
Antoninus written about 320. Although said to have been captured by
Hengest in 475 and recovered by Ambrosius in the following year, the
next authentic mention of the city is Bede's record that Paulinus
preached in Lindsey in 628 and built a stone church at Lincoln in which
he consecrated Honorius archbishop of Canterbury. During their inroads
into Mercia, the Danes in 877 established themselves at Lincoln, which
was one of the five boroughs recovered by King Edmund in 941. A mint
established here in the reign of Alfred was maintained until the reign
of Edward I. (Mint Street turning from High Street near the Stonebow
recalls its existence.) At the time of the Domesday Survey Lincoln was
governed by twelve Lawmen, relics of Danish rule, each with hereditable
franchises of sac and soc. Whereas it had rendered £20 annually to King
Edward, and £10 to the earl, it then rendered £100. There had been 1150
houses, but 240 had been destroyed since the time of King Edward. Of
these 166 had suffered by the raising of the castle by William I. in
1068 partly on the site of the Roman camp. The strength of the position
of the castle brought much fighting on Lincoln. In 1141 King Stephen
regained both castle and city from the empress Maud, but was attacked
and captured in the same year at the "Joust of Lincoln." In 1144 he
besieged the castle, held by the earl of Chester, and recovered it as a
pledge in 1146. In 1101 it was held by Gerard de Camville for Prince
John and was besieged by William Longchamp, Richard's chancellor, in
vain; in 1210 it stood a siege by the partisans of the French prince
Louis, who were defeated at the battle called Lincoln Fair on the 19th
of May 1217. Granted by Henry III. to William Longepée, earl of
Salisbury, in 1224, the castle descended by the marriage of his
descendant Alice to Thomas Plantagenet, and became part of the duchy of
Lancaster.
In 1157 Henry II. gave the citizens their first charter, granting them
the city at a fee-farm rent and all the liberties which they had had
under William II., with their gild merchant for themselves and the men
of the county as they had then. In 1200 the citizens obtained release
from all but pleas of the Crown without the walls, and pleas of external
tenure, and were given the pleas of the Crown within the city according
to the customs of the city of London, on which those of Lincoln were
modelled. The charter also gave them quittance of toll and lastage
throughout the kingdom, and of certain other dues. In 1210 the citizens
owed the exchequer £100 for the privilege of having a mayor, but the
office was abolished by Henry III. and by Edward I. in 1290, though
restored by the charter of 1300. In 1275 the citizens claimed the return
of writs, assize of bread and ale and other royal rights, and in 1301
Edward I., when confirming the previous charters, gave them quittance of
murage, pannage, pontage and other dues. The mayor and citizens were
given criminal jurisdiction in 1327, when the burghmanmot held weekly in
the gildhall since 1272 by the mayor and bailiffs was ordered to hear
all local pleas which led to friction with the judges of assize. The
city became a separate county by charter of 1409, when it was decreed
that the bailiffs should henceforth be sheriffs and the mayor the king's
escheator, and the mayor and sheriffs with four others justices of the
peace with defined jurisdiction. As the result of numerous complaints of
inability to pay the fee-farm rent of £180 Edward IV. enlarged the
bounds of the city in 1466, while Henry VIII. in 1546 gave the citizens
four advowsons, and possibly also in consequence of declining trade the
city markets were made free of tolls in 1554. Incorporated by Charles I.
in 1628 under a common council with 13 aldermen, 4 coroners and other
officers, Lincoln surrendered its charters in 1684, but the first
charter was restored after the Revolution, and was in force till 1834.
Parliaments were held at Lincoln in 1301, 1316 and 1327, and the city
returned two burgesses from 1295 to 1885, when it lost one member. After
the 13th century the chief interests of Lincoln were ecclesiastical and
commercial. As early as 1103 Odericus declared that a rich citizen of
Lincoln kept the treasure of King Magnus of Norway, supplying him with
all he required, and there is other evidence of intercourse with
Scandinavia. There was an important Jewish colony, Aaron of Lincoln
being one of the most influential financiers in the kingdom between 1166
and 1186. It was probably jealousy of their wealth that brought the
charge of the crucifixion of "little St Hugh" in 1255 upon the Jewish
community. Made a staple of wool, leather and skins in 1291, famous for
its scarlet cloth in the 13th century, Lincoln had a few years of great
prosperity, but with the transference of the staple to Boston early in
the reign of Edward III., its trade began to decrease. The craft gilds
remained important until after the Reformation, a pageant still being
held in 1566. The fair now held during the last whole week of April
would seem to be identical with that granted by Charles II. in 1684.
Edward III. authorized a fair from St Botolph's day to the feast of SS
Peter and Paul in 1327, and William III. gave one for the first
Wednesday in September in 1696, while the present November fair is,
perhaps, a survival of that granted by Henry IV. in 1409 for fifteen
days before the feast of the Deposition of St Hugh.
See _Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report_, xiv., appendix pt. 8;
John Ross, _Civitas Lincolina, from its municipal and other Records_
(London, 1870); J. G. Williams, "Lincoln Civic Insignia,"
_Lincolnshire Notes and Queries_, vols. vi.-viii. (Horncastle,
1901-1905); _Victoria County History, Lincolnshire_.
LINCOLN, a city and the county-seat of Logan county, Illinois, U.S.A.,
in the N. central part of the state, 156 m. S.W. of Chicago, and about
28 m. N.E. of Springfield. Pop. (1900) 8962, of whom 940 were
foreign-born; (1910 census) 10,892. It is served by the Illinois Central
and the Chicago & Alton railways and by the Illinois Traction Interurban
Electric line. The city is the seat of the state asylum for
feeble-minded children (established at Jacksonville in 1865 and removed
to Lincoln in 1878), and of Lincoln College (Presbyterian) founded in
1865. There are also an orphans' home, supported by the Independent
Order of Odd Fellows, and a Carnegie library. The old court-house in
which Abraham Lincoln often practised is still standing. Lincoln is
situated in a productive grain region, and has valuable coal mines. The
value of the factory products increased from $375,167 in 1900 to
$784,248 in 1905, or 109%. The first settlement on the site of Lincoln
was made in 1835, and the city was first chartered in 1857.
LINCOLN, a city of S.E. Nebraska, U.S.A., county-seat of Lancaster
county and capital of the state. Pop. (1900) 40,169 (5297 being
foreign-born); (1910 census) 43,973. It is served by the Chicago,
Burlington & Quincy, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, the Union
Pacific, the Missouri Pacific and the Chicago & North-Western railways.
Lincoln is one of the most attractive residential cities of the Middle
West. Salt Creek, an affluent of the Platte river, skirts the city. On
this side the city has repeatedly suffered from floods. The principal
buildings include a state capitol (built 1883-1889); a city-hall,
formerly the U.S. government building (1874-1879); a county court-house;
a federal building (1904-1906); a Carnegie library (1902); a hospital
for crippled children (1905) and a home for the friendless, both
supported by the state; a state penitentiary and asylum for the insane,
both in the suburbs; and the university of Nebraska. In the suburbs
there are three denominational schools, the Nebraska Wesleyan University
(Methodist Episcopal, 1888) at University Place; Union College (Seventh
Day Adventists, 1891) at College View; and Cotner University (Disciples
of Christ, 1889, incorporated as the Nebraska Christian University) at
Bethany. Just outside the city limits are the state fair grounds, where
a state fair is held annually. Lincoln is the see of a Roman Catholic
bishopric. The surrounding country is a beautiful farming region, but
its immediate W. environs are predominantly bare and desolate
salt-basins. Lincoln's "factory" product increased from $2,763,484 in
1900 to $5,222,620 in 1905, or 89%, the product for 1905 being 3.4% of
the total for the state. The municipality owns and operates its
electric-lighting plant and water-works.
The salt-springs attracted the first permanent settlers to the site of
Lincoln in 1856, and settlers and freighters came long distances to
reduce the brine or to scrape up the dry-weather surface deposits. In
1886-1887 the state sank a test-well 2463 ft. deep, which discredited
any hope of a great underground flow or deposit. Scarcely any use is
made of the salt waters locally. Lancaster county was organized
extra-legally in 1859, and under legislative act in 1864; Lancaster
village was platted and became the county-seat in 1864 (never being
incorporated); and in 1867, when it contained five or six houses, its
site was selected for the state capital after a hard-fought struggle
between different sections of the state (see NEBRASKA).[1] The new city
was incorporated as Lincoln (and formally declared the county-seat by
the legislature) in 1869, and was chartered for the first time as a city
of the second class in 1871; since then its charter has been repeatedly
altered. After 1887 it was a city of the first class, and after 1889 the
only member of the highest subdivision in that class. After a "reform"
political campaign, the ousting in 1887 of a corrupt police judge by the
mayor and city council, in defiance of an injunction of a federal court,
led to a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, favourable to the city
authorities and important in questions of American municipal government.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Lincoln was about equally distant from Pawnee City and the Kansas
border, the leading Missouri river towns, and the important towns of
Fremont and Columbus on the N. side of the Platte.
LINCOLN JUDGMENT, THE. In this celebrated English ecclesiastical suit,
the bishop of Lincoln (Edward King, q.v.) was cited before his
metropolitan, the archbishop of Canterbury (Dr Benson), to answer
charges of various ritual offences committed at the administration of
Holy Communion in the church of St Peter at Gowts, in the diocese of
Lincoln, on the 4th of December 1887, and in Lincoln cathedral on the
10th of December 1887. The promoters were Ernest de Lacy Read, William
Brown, Felix Thomas Wilson and John Marshall, all inhabitants of the
diocese of Lincoln, and the last two parishioners of St Peter at Gowts.
The case has a permanent importance in two respects. First, certain
disputed questions of ritual were legally decided. Secondly, the
jurisdiction of the archbishop of Canterbury alone to try one of his
suffragan bishops for alleged ecclesiastical offences was considered and
judicially declared to be well founded both by the judicial committee of
privy council and by the archbishop of Canterbury with the concurrence
of his assessors. The proceedings were begun on the 2nd of June 1888 by
a petition presented by the promoters to the archbishop, praying that a
citation to the bishop of Lincoln might issue calling on him to answer
certain ritual charges. On the 26th of June 1888 the archbishop, by
letter, declined to issue citation, on the ground that until instructed
by a competent court as to his jurisdiction, he was not clear that he
had it. The promoters appealed to the judicial committee of the privy
council, to which an appeal lies under 25 Henry VIII. c. 19 for "lack of
justice" in the archbishop's court. The matter was heard on the 20th of
July 1888, and on the 8th of August 1888 the committee decided (i.) that
an appeal lay from the refusal of the archbishop to the judicial
committee, and (ii.) that the archbishop had jurisdiction to issue a
citation to the bishop of Lincoln and to hear the promoters' complaint,
but they abstained from expressing an opinion as to whether the
archbishop had a discretion to refuse citation--whether, in fact, he had
any power of "veto" over the prosecution. The case being thus remitted
to the archbishop, he decided to entertain it, and on the 4th of January
1889 issued a citation to the bishop of Lincoln.
On the 12th of February 1889 the archbishop of Canterbury sat in Lambeth
Palace Library, accompanied by the bishops of London (Dr Temple),
Winchester (Dr Harold Browne), Oxford (Dr Stubbs) and Salisbury (Dr
Wordsworth), and the vicar-general (Sir J. Parker Deane) as assessors.
The bishop of Lincoln appeared in person and read a "Protest" to the
archbishop's jurisdiction to try him except in a court composed of the
archbishop and all the bishops of the province as judges. The court
adjourned in order that the question of jurisdiction might be argued. On
the 11th of May the archbishop gave judgment to the effect that whether
sitting alone or with assessors he had jurisdiction to entertain the
charge. On the 23rd and 24th of July 1889 a further preliminary
objection raised by the bishop of Lincoln's counsel was argued. The
offences alleged against the bishop of Lincoln were largely breaches of
various rubrics in the communion service of the Prayer Book which give
directions to the "minister." These rubrics are by the Acts of
Uniformity (1 Elizabeth c. 2, and 13 & 14 Car. II. c. 4) made legally
binding. But it was argued that a bishop is not a "minister" so as to be
bound by the rubrics. The archbishop, however, held otherwise, and the
assessors (except the bishop of Salisbury, who dissented) concurred in
this decision. At this and subsequent hearings the bishop of Hereford
(Dr Atlay) took the place of the bishop of Winchester as an assessor,
and the bishop of Rochester (Dr Thorold), originally appointed an
assessor, but absent from England at the outset, was present.
Charges and decisions.
The case was heard on its merits in February 1890, before the archbishop
and all the assessors, and the archbishop delivered his judgment on the
21st of November 1890. The alleged offences were eight in number. No
facts were in dispute, but only the legality of the various matters
complained of. I. The bishop was charged with having mixed water with
wine in the chalice during the communion service, and II. with having
administered the chalice so mixed to the communicants. It was decided
that the mixing of the water with the wine during service was illegal,
because an additional ceremony not enjoined in the Prayer Book, but that
the administration of the mixed chalice, the mixing having been effected
before service, was in accordance with primitive practice and not
forbidden in the Church of England. III. The bishop was charged with the
ceremonial washing of the vessels used for the holy communion, and with
drinking the water used for these ablutions. It was decided that the
bishop had committed no offence, and that what he had done was a
reasonable compliance with the requirement of the rubric that any of the
consecrated elements left over at the end of the celebration should be
then and there consumed. IV. The bishop was charged with taking the
eastward position (i.e. standing at the west side of the holy table with
his face to the east and his back to the congregation) during the
ante-communion service (i.e. the part of the communion service prior to
the consecration prayer). The rubric requires the celebrant to stand at
the north side of the table. A vast amount of research convinced the
archbishop that this is an intentionally ambiguous phrase which may with
equal accuracy be applied to the north end of the table as now arranged
in churches, and to the long side of the table, which, in Edward VI.'s
reign, was often placed lengthwise down the church, so that the long
sides would face north and south. It was therefore decided (one of the
assessors dissenting) that both positions are legal, and that the bishop
had not offended in adopting the eastward position. V. The bishop was
charged with so standing during the consecration prayer that the "Manual
Acts" of consecration were invisible to the people gathered round. It
should be stated that the courts (see _Ridsdale_ v. _Clifton_, L.R. 1
P.D. 316; 2 P.D. 276) had already decided that the eastward position
during the consecration prayer was legal, but that it must not be so
used by the celebrant as to conceal the "Manual Acts." The archbishop
held that the bishop of Lincoln had transgressed the law in this
particular. VI. The bishop was charged with having, during the
celebration of holy communion, allowed two candles to be alight on a
shelf or retable behind the altar when they were not necessary for
giving light. The archbishop decided that the mere presence of two altar
candles burning during the service, but lit before it began, was lawful
under the First Prayer Book of Edward VI., and has never been made
unlawful, and, therefore, that the bishop was justified in what he had
done. VII. The bishop was charged with having permitted the hymn known
as _Agnus Dei_ to be sung immediately after the consecration of the
elements at a celebration of the holy communion. The archbishop decided
that the use of hymns in divine service was too firmly established to be
legally questioned, and that there was nothing to differentiate the use
of this particular hymn at this point of the service from the use of
other hymns on other occasions in public worship. VIII. The bishop was
charged with making the sign of the Cross in the air with his hand in
the benediction and at other times during divine service. The archbishop
held that these crossings were ceremonies not enjoined and, therefore,
illegal. The judgment confined itself to the legal declarations here
summarized, and pronounced no monition or other sentence on the bishop
of Lincoln in respect of the matters in which he appeared to have
committed breaches of the ecclesiastical law.
The promoters appealed to the judicial committee. The bishop did not
appear on the appeal, which was therefore argued on the side of the
promoters only. The appeal was heard in June and July 1891, before Lords
Halsbury, Hobhouse, Esher, Herschell, Hannen and Shand and Sir Richard
Couch, with the bishop of Chichester (Dr Durnford), the bishop of St
Davids (Dr Basil Jones) and the bishop of Lichfield (Dr Maclagan) as
episcopal assessors. The points appealed were those above numbered II.,
III., IV., VI., VII. Judgment was given on the 2nd of August 1892, and
the appeal failed on all points. As to II., III., IV., and VII. the
Committee agreed with the archbishop. As to VI. (altar lights) they held
that, as it was not shown that the bishop was responsible for the
presence of lighted candles, the charge could not be sustained against
him, and so dismissed it without considering the general question of the
lawfulness of altar lights. They also held that the archbishop was
within his right in pronouncing no sentence against the bishop, who, it
should be added, conformed his practice to the judgment from the date of
its delivery. (L. T. D.)
LINCOLNSHIRE, an eastern county of England, bounded N. by the Humber, E.
by the German Ocean and the Wash, S.E. for 3 m. by Norfolk, S. by
Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire, S.W. by Rutland, W. by
Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire and N.W. by Yorkshire. The area is
2646 sq. m., the county being second to Yorkshire of the English
counties in size.
The coast-line, about 110 m. in length, including the Humber shore, is
generally low and marshy, and artificial banks for guarding against the
inroads of the sea are to be found, in places, all along the coast. From
Grimsby to Skegness traces of a submarine forest are visible; but while
the sea is encroaching upon some parts of the coast it is receding from
others, as shown by Holbeach, which is now 6 m. from the sea. Several
thousand acres have been reclaimed from this part of the Wash, and round
the mouth of the Nene on the south-east. The deep bay between the coasts
of Lincolnshire and Norfolk, called the Wash, is full of dangerous
sandbanks and silt; the navigable portion off the Lincolnshire coast is
known as the Boston Deeps. The rapidity of the tides in this inlet, and
the lowness of its shores, which are generally indistinct on account of
mist from a moderate offing, render this the most difficult portion of
the navigation of the east coast of England. On some parts of the coast
there are fine stretches of sand, and Cleethorpes, Skegness, Mablethorpe
and Sutton-on-Sea are favourite resorts for visitors.
The surface of Lincolnshire is generally a large plain, small portions
of which are slightly below the level of the sea. The south-east parts
are perfectly flat; and about one-third of the county consists of fens
and marshes, intersected in all directions by artificial drains, called
locally dykes, delphs, drains, becks, leams and eaux. This flat surface
is broken by two ranges of calcareous hills running north and south
through the county, and known as the Lincoln Edge or Heights, or the
Cliff, and the Wolds. The former range, on the west, runs nearly due
north from Grantham to Lincoln, and thence to the Humber, traversing the
Heaths of Lincolnshire, which were formerly open moors, rabbit warrens
and sheep walks, but are now enclosed and brought into high cultivation.
The Wolds form a ridge of bold hills extending from Spilsby to
Barton-on-Humber for about 40 m., with an average breadth of about 8 m.
The Humber separates Lincolnshire from Yorkshire. Its ports on the
Lincolnshire side are the small ferry-ports of Barton and New Holland,
and the important harbour of Grimsby. The Trent forms part of the
boundary with Nottinghamshire, divides the Isle of Axholme (q.v.) from
the district of Lindsey, and falls into the Humber about 30 m. below
Gainsborough. The Witham rises on the S.W. border of the county, flows
north past Grantham to Lincoln, and thence E. and S.E. to Boston, after
a course of about 80 m. The Welland rises in north-west
Northamptonshire, enters the county at Stamford, and, after receiving
the Glen, flows through an artificial channel into the Fosdyke Wash. The
Nene on the south-east has but a small portion of its course in
Lincolnshire; it flows due north through an artificial outfall, called
the Wisbech Cut. Between the Wolds and the sea lie the Marshes, a level
tract of rich alluvial soil extending from Barton-on-Humber to
Wainfleet, varying in breadth from 5 to 10 m. Between the Welland and
the Nene in the south-east of the county are Gedney Marsh, Holbeach
Marsh, Moulton Marsh and Sutton Marsh.
The Fens (q.v.), the soil of which has been formed partly by tidal
action and partly by the decay of forests, occupy the Isle of Axholme on
the north-west, the vale of Ancholme on the north, and most of the
country south-east of Lincoln. The chief of these are the Holland,
Wildmore, West and East Fens draining into the Witham; and the Deeping,
Bourn, Great Porsand, and Whaplode Fens draining into the Welland.
The low lands adjoining the tidal reaches of the Trent and Humber, and
part of those around the Wash have been raised above the natural level
and enriched by the process of warping, which consists in letting the
tide run over the land, and retaining it there a sufficient time to
permit the deposit of the sand and mud held in solution by the waters.
_Geology._--The geological formations for the most part extend in
parallel belts, nearly in the line of the length of the county, from
north to south, and succeed one another in ascending order from west
to east. The lowest is the Triassic Keuper found in the Isle of
Axholme and the valley of the Trent in the form of marls, sandstone
and gypsum. Fish scales and teeth, with bones and footprints of the
_Labyrinthodon_, are met with in the sandstone. The red clay is
frequently dug for brick-making. The beds dip gently towards the east.
At the junction between the Trias and Lias are series of beds termed
Rhaetics, which seem to mark a transition from one to the other. These
belts are in part exposed in pits near Newark, and extend north by
Gainsborough to where the Trent flows into the Humber, passing thence
into Yorkshire. The characteristic shells are found at Lea, 2 m. south
of Gainsborough, with a thin bone-bed full of fish teeth and scales.
The Lower Lias comes next in order, with a valuable bed of ironstone
now largely worked. This bed is about 27 ft. in thickness, and crops
out at Scunthorpe and Frodingham, where the workings are open and
shallow. The Middle Lias, which enters the county near Woolsthorpe, is
about 20 or 30 ft. thick, and is very variable both in thickness and
mineralogical character; the iron ores of Denton and Caythorpe belong
to this horizon. The Upper Lias enters the county at Stainby, passing
by Grantham and Lincoln where it is worked for bricks. The Lias thus
occupies a vale about 8 or 10 m. in width in the south, narrowing
until on the Humber it is about a mile in width. To this succeed the
Oolite formations. The Inferior Oolite, somewhat narrower than the
Lias, extends from the boundary with Rutland due north past Lincoln to
the vicinity of the Humber; it forms the Cliff of Lincolnshire with a
strong escarpment facing westward. At Lincoln the ridge is notched by
the river Witham. The principal member of the Inferior Oolite is the
Lincolnshire limestone, which is an important water-bearing bed and is
quarried at Lincoln, Ponton, Ancaster, and Kirton Lindsey for building
stone. Eastward of the Inferior Oolite lie the narrow outcrops of the
Great Oolite and Cornbrash. The Middle Oolite, Oxford clay and
Corallian is very narrow in the south near Wilsthorpe, widening
gradually about Sleaford. It then proceeds north from Lincoln with
decreasing width to the vicinity of the Humber. The Upper Oolite,
Kimeridge clay, starts from the vicinity of Stamford, and after
attaining its greatest width near Horncastle, runs north-north-west to
the Humber. The Kimeridge clay is succeeded by the Spilsby sandstone,
Tealby limestone, Claxby ironstone, and carstone which represent the
highest Jurassic and lowest Cretaceous rocks. In the Cretaceous system
of the Wolds, the Lower Greensand runs nearly parallel with the Upper
Oolite past South Willingham to the Humber. The Upper Greensand and
Gault, represented in Lincolnshire by the Red Chalk, run north-west
from Irby, widening out as far as Kelstern on the east, and cross the
Humber. The Chalk formation, about equal in breadth to the three
preceding, extends from Burgh across the Humber. The rest of the
county, comprising all its south-east portions between the Middle
Oolite belt and the sea, all its north-east portions between the chalk
belt and the sea, and a narrow tract up the course of the Ancholme
river, consists of alluvial deposits or of reclaimed marsh. In the
northern part boulder clay and glacial sands cover considerable tracts
of the older rocks. Bunter, Permian, and Coal Measure strata have been
revealed by boring to underlie the Keuper near Haxey.
Gypsum is dug in the Isle of Axholme, whiting is made from the chalk
near the shores of the Humber, and lime is made on the Wolds.
Freestone is quarried around Ancaster, and good oolite building stone
is quarried near Lincoln and other places. Ironstone is worked at
several places and there are some blast furnaces.
At Woodhall Spa on the Horncastle branch railway there is a
much-frequented bromine and iodine spring.
_Climate, Soil and Agriculture._--The climate of the higher grounds is
healthy, and meteorological observation does not justify the
reputation for cold and damp often given to the county as a whole. The
soils vary considerably, according to the geological formations; ten
or twelve different kinds may be found in going across the country
from east to west. A good sandy loam is common in the Heath division;
a sandy loam with chalk, or a flinty loam on chalk marl, abounds on
portions of the Wolds; an argillaceous sand, merging into rich loam,
lies on other portions of the Wolds; a black loam and a rich vegetable
mould cover most of the Isle of Axholme on the north-west; a
well-reclaimed marine marsh, a rich brown loam, and a stiff cold clay
variously occupy the low tracts along the Humber, and between the
north Wolds and the sea; a peat earth, a deep sandy loam, and a rich
soapy blue clay occupy most of the east and south Fens; and an
artificial soil, obtained by "warping," occupies considerable low
strips of land along the tidal reaches of the rivers.
Lincolnshire is one of the principal agricultural, especially
grain-producing, counties in England. Nearly nine-tenths of the total
area is under cultivation. The wide grazing lands have long been
famous, and the arable lands are specially adapted for the growth of
wheat and beans. The largest individual grain-crop, however, is
barley. Both cattle and sheep are bred in great numbers. The cattle
raised are the Shorthorns and improved Lincolnshire breeds. The dairy,
except in the vicinity of large towns, receives little attention. The
sheep are chiefly of the Lincolnshire and large Leicestershire breeds,
and go to the markets of Yorkshire and London. Lincolnshire has long
been famous for a fine breed of horses both for the saddle and
draught. Horse fairs are held every year at Horncastle and Lincoln.
Large flocks of geese were formerly kept in the Fens, but their number
has been diminished since the drainage of these parts. Where a large
number of them were bred, nests were constructed for them one above
another; they were daily taken down by the gooseherd, driven to the
water, and then reinstated in their nests, without a single bird being
misplaced. Decoys were once numerous in the undrained state of the
Fens.
_Industries and Communications._--Manufactures are few and, relatively
to the agricultural industry, small. The mineral industries, however,
are of value, and there are considerable agricultural machine and
implement factories at Lincoln, Boston, Gainsborough, Grantham and
Louth. At Little Bytham a very hard brick, called adamantine clinker,
is made of the siliceous clay that the Romans used for similar works.
Bone-crushing, tanning, the manufacture of oil-cake for cattle, and
rope-making are carried on in various places. Grimsby is an important
port both for continental traffic and especially for fisheries; Boston
is second to it in the county; and Gainsborough has a considerable
traffic on the Trent. Sutton Bridge is a lesser port on the Wash.
The principal railway is the Great Northern, its main line touching
the county in the S.W. and serving Grantham. Its principal branches
are from Peterborough to Spalding, Boston, Louth and Grimsby; and from
Grantham to Sleaford and Boston, and to Lincoln, and Boston to
Lincoln. This company works jointly with the Great Eastern the line
from March to Spalding, Lincoln, Gainsborough and Doncaster, and with
the Midland that from Saxby to Bourn, Spalding, Holbeach, Sutton
Bridge and King's Lynn. The Midland company has a branch from Newark
to Lincoln, and the Lancashire, Derbyshire, and East Coast line
terminates at Lincoln. The Great Central railway connects the west,
Sheffield and Doncaster with Grimsby, and with Hull by ferry from New
Holland. Canals connect Louth with the Humber, Sleaford with the
Witham, and Grantham with the Trent near Nottingham; but the greater
rivers and many of the drainage cuts are navigable, being artificially
deepened and embanked.
_Population and Administration._--The area of the ancient county is
1,693,550 acres, with a population in 1891 of 472,878 and in 1901 of
498,847. The primary divisions are three trithings or Ridings (q.v.).
The north division is called the Parts of Lindsey, the south-west the
Parts of Kesteven, and the south-east the Parts of Holland. Each of
these divisions had in early times its own reeve or gerefa. Each
constitutes an administrative county, the Parts of Lindsey having an
area of 967,689 acres; Kesteven, 465,877 acres; and Holland, 262,766
acres. The Parts of Lindsey contain 17 wapentakes; Kesteven, exclusive
of the soke and borough of Grantham and the borough of Stamford, 9
wapentakes; and Holland, 3 wapentakes. The municipal boroughs and
urban districts are as follows:--
1. PARTS OF LINDSEY.--Municipal boroughs--Grimsby, a county borough
(pop. 63,138), Lincoln, a city and county borough and the county town
(48,784), Louth (9518). Urban districts--Alford (2478),
Barton-upon-Humber (5671), Brigg (3137), Broughton (1300), Brumby and
Frodingham (2273), Cleethorpes with Thrunscoe (12,578), Crowle (2769),
Gainsborough (17,660), Horncastle (4038), Mablethorpe (934), Market
Rasen (2188), Roxby-cum-Risby (389), Scunthorpe (6750), Skegness
(2140), Winterton (1361), Woodhall Spa (988).
2. PARTS OF KESTEVEN.--Municipal boroughs--Grantham (17,593), Stamford
(8229). Urban districts--Bourne (4361), Bracebridge (1752), Ruskington
(1196), Sleaford (5468).
3. PARTS OF HOLLAND.--Municipal borough--Boston (15,667). Urban
districts--Holbeach (4755), Long Sutton (2524), Spalding (9385),
Sutton Bridge (2105). In the Parts of Holland the borough of Boston
has a separate commission of the peace and there are two petty
sessional divisions. Lincolnshire is in the Midland circuit. In the
Parts of Kesteven the boroughs of Grantham and Stamford have each a
separate commission of the peace and separate courts of quarter
sessions, and there are 4 petty sessional divisions. In the Parts of
Lindsey the county boroughs of Grimsby and Lincoln have each a
separate commission of the peace and a separate court of quarter
sessions, while the municipal borough of Louth has a separate
commission of the peace, and there are 14 petty sessional divisions.
The three administrative counties and the county boroughs contain
together 761 civil parishes. The ancient county contains 580
ecclesiastical parishes and districts, wholly or in part. It is mostly
in the diocese of Lincoln, but in part also in the dioceses of
Southwell and York. For parliamentary purposes the county is divided
into seven divisions, namely, West Lindsey or Gainsborough, North
Lindsey or Brigg, East Lindsey or Louth, South Lindsey or Horncastle,
North Kesteven or Sleaford, South Kesteven or Stamford, and Holland or
Spalding, and the parliamentary boroughs of Boston, Grantham, Grimsby
and Lincoln, each returning one member.
_History._--Of the details of the English conquest of the district which
is now Lincolnshire little is known, but at some time in the 6th century
Engle and Frisian invaders appear to have settled in the country north
of the Witham, where they became known as the Lindiswaras, the southern
districts from Boston to the Trent basin being at this time dense
woodland. In the 7th century the supremacy over Lindsey alternated
between Mercia and Northumbria, but few historical references to the
district are extant until the time of Alfred, whose marriage with
Ealswitha was celebrated at Gainsborough three years before his
accession. At this period the Danish inroads upon the coast of Lindsey
had already begun, and in 873 Healfdene wintered at Torksey, while in
878 Lincoln and Stamford were included among the five Danish boroughs,
and the organization of the districts dependent upon them probably
resulted about this time in the grouping of Lindsey, Kesteven and
Holland to form the shire of Lincoln. The extent and permanence of the
Danish influence in Lincolnshire is still observable in the names of its
towns and villages and in the local dialect, and, though about 918 the
confederate boroughs were recaptured by Edward the Elder, in 993 a
Viking fleet again entered the Humber and ravaged Lindsey, and in 1013
the district of the five boroughs acknowledged the supremacy of Sweyn.
The county offered no active resistance to the Conqueror, and though
Hereward appears in the Domesday Survey as a dispossessed under-tenant
of the abbot of Peterborough at Witham-on-the-Hill, the legends
surrounding his name do not belong to this county. In his northward
march in 1068 the Conqueror built a castle at Lincoln, and portioned out
the principal estates among his Norman followers, but the Domesday
Survey shows that the county on the whole was leniently treated, and a
considerable number of Englishmen retained their lands as subtenants.
The origin of the three main divisions of Lincolnshire is anterior to
that of the county itself, and the outcome of purely natural conditions,
Lindsey being in Roman times practically an island bounded by the swamps
of the Trent and the Witham on the west and south and on the east by the
North Sea, while Kesteven and Holland were respectively the regions of
forest and of fen. Lindsey in Norman times was divided into three
ridings--North, West and South--comprising respectively five, five and
seven wapentakes; while, apart from their division into wapentakes, the
Domesday Survey exhibits a unique planning out of the ridings into
approximately equal numbers of 12-carucate hundreds, the term hundred
possessing here no administrative or local significance, but serving
merely as a unit of area for purposes of assessment. The Norman division
of Holland into the three wapentakes of Elloe, Kirton and Skirbeck has
remained unchanged to the present day. In Kesteven the wapentakes of
Aswardhurn, Aveland, Beltisloe, Haxwell, Langoe, Loveden, Ness,
Winnibriggs, and Grantham Soke have been practically unchanged, but the
Domesday wapentakes of Boothby and Graffo now form the wapentake of
Boothby Graffo. In Northriding Bradley and Haverstoe have been combined
to form Bradley Haverstoe wapentake, and the Domesday wapentake of
Epworth in Westriding has been absorbed in that of Manley. Wall
wapentake in Westriding was a liberty of the bishop of Lincoln, and as
late as 1515 the dean and chapter of Lincoln claimed delivery and return
of writs in the manor and hundred of Navenby. In the 13th century
Baldwin Wake claimed return of writs and a market in Aveland. William de
Vesci claimed liberties and exemptions in Caythorpe, of which he was
summoned to render account at the sheriff's tourn at Halton. The abbot
of Peterborough, the abbot of Tupholme, the abbot of Bardney, the prior
of Catleigh, the prior of Sixhills, the abbot of St Mary's, York, the
prioress of Stixwould and several lay owners claimed liberties and
jurisdiction in their Lincolnshire estates in the 13th century.
The shire court for Lincolnshire was held at Lincoln every forty days,
the lords of the manor attending with their stewards, or in their
absence the reeve and four men of the vill. The ridings were each
presided over by a riding-reeve, and wapentake courts were held in the
reign of Henry I. twelve times a year, and in the reign of Henry III.
every three weeks, while twice a year all the freemen of the wapentake
were summoned to the view of frankpledge or tourn held by the sheriff.
The boundaries between Kesteven and Holland were a matter of dispute as
early as 1389 and were not finally settled until 1816.
Lincolnshire was originally included in the Mercian diocese of
Lichfield, but, on the subdivision of the latter by Theodore in 680, the
fen-district was included in the diocese of Lichfield, while the see for
the northern parts of the county was placed at "Sidnacester," generally
identified with Stow. Subsequently both dioceses were merged in the vast
West-Saxon bishopric of Dorchester, the see of which was afterwards
transferred to Winchester, and by Bishop Remigius in 1072 to Lincoln.
The archdeaconry of Lincoln was among those instituted by Remigius, and
the division into rural deaneries also dates from this period. Stow
archdeaconry is first mentioned in 1138, and in 1291 included four
deaneries, while the archdeaconry of Lincoln included twenty-three. In
1536 the additional deaneries of Hill, Holland, Loveden and Graffoe had
been formed within the archdeaconry of Lincoln, and the only deaneries
created since that date are East and West Elloe and North and South
Grantham in Lincoln archdeaconry. The deaneries of Gartree, Grimsby,
Hill, Horncastle, Louthesk, Ludborough, Walshcroft, Wraggoe and
Yarborough have been transferred from the archdeaconry of Lincoln to
that of Stow. Benedictine foundations existed at Ikanho, Barrow,
Bardney, Partney and Crowland as early as the 7th century, but all were
destroyed in the Danish wars, and only Bardney and Crowland were ever
rebuilt. The revival of monasticism after the Conquest resulted in the
erection of ten Benedictine monasteries, and a Benedictine nunnery at
Stainfield. The Cistercian abbeys at Kirkstead, Louth Park, Revesby,
Vaudey and Swineshead, and the Cistercian nunnery at Stixwould were
founded in the reign of Stephen, and at the time of the Dissolution
there were upwards of a hundred religious houses in the county.
In the struggles of the reign of Stephen, castles at Newark and Sleaford
were raised by Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, against the king, while
Ranulf "Gernons," earl of Chester, in 1140 garrisoned Lincoln for the
empress. The seizure of Lincoln by Stephen in 1141 was accompanied with
fearful butchery and devastation, and by an accord at Stamford William
of Roumare received Kirton in Lindsey, and his tenure of Gainsborough
Castle was confirmed. In the baronial outbreak of 1173 Roger Mowbray,
who had inherited the Isle of Axholme from Nigel d'Albini, garrisoned
Ferry East, or Kinnard's Ferry, and Axholme against the king, and, after
the destruction of their more northern fortresses in this campaign,
Epworth in Axholme became the principal seat of the Mowbrays. In the
struggles between John and his barons Lincoln in 1216 made peace with
the king by surrendering hostages for the payment of a fine of 1000
marks, but after the landing of Louis the city was captured by Gilbert
de Gant, then earl of Lincoln. After his disastrous march to Swineshead
Abbey, John journeyed through Sleaford to Newark, where he died, and in
the battle of Lincoln in 1217 Gilbert de Gant was captured and the city
sacked. At the time of the Wars of the Roses the county, owing to
territorial influence, was mainly Lancastrian, and in 1461 the Yorkist
strongholds of Grantham and Stamford were sacked to such effect that the
latter never recovered. The Lincolnshire rising of 1470 was crushed by
the defeat of the rebels in the skirmish known as "Losecoat Field" near
Stamford. In the Civil War of the 17th century, Lindsey for the most
part declared for the king, and the Royalist cause was warmly supported
by the earl of Lindsey, Viscount Newark, Sir Peregrine Bertie and the
families of Dymoke, Heneage and Thorold. Lord Willoughby of Parham was a
prominent Parliamentary leader, and the Isle of Axholme and the Puritan
yeomanry of Holland declared for the parliament. In 1643 Cromwell won a
small victory near Grantham, and the Royalist garrisons at Lynn and
Lincoln surrendered to Manchester. In 1644, however, Newark,
Gainsborough, Lincoln, Sleaford and Crowland were all in Royalist hands,
and Newark only surrendered in 1646. Among other historic families
connected with Lincolnshire were the Wakes of Bourne and the
d'Eyncourts, who flourished at Blankney from the Conquest to the reign
of Henry VI.; Belvoir Castle was founded by the Toenis, from whom it
passed by the Daubeneys, then to the Barons Ros and later to the
Manners, earls of Rutland. In the Lindsey Survey of 1115-1118 the name
of Roger Marmion, ancestor of the Marmion family, who had inherited the
fief of Robert Despenser, appears for the first time.
At the time of the Domesday Survey there were between 400 and 500 mills
in Lincolnshire; 2111 fisheries producing large quantities of eels; 361
salt-works; and iron forges at Stow, St Mary and at Bytham. Lincoln and
Stamford were flourishing centres of industry, and markets existed at
Kirton-in-Lindsey, Louth, Old Bolingbroke, Spalding, Barton and Partney.
The early manufactures of the county are all connected with the woollen
trade, Lincoln being noted for its scarlet cloth in the 13th century,
while an important export trade in the raw material sprang up at Boston.
The disafforesting of Kesteven in 1230 brought large areas under
cultivation, and the same period is marked by the growth of the maritime
and fishing towns, especially Boston (which had a famous fish-market),
Grimsby, Barton, Saltfleet, Wainfleet and Wrangle. The Lincolnshire
towns suffered from the general decay of trade in the eastern counties
which marked the 15th century, but agriculture was steadily improving,
and with the gradual drainage of the fen-districts culminating in the
vast operations of the 17th century, over 330,000 acres in the county
were brought under cultivation, including more than two-thirds of
Holland. The fen-drainage resulted in the extinction of many local
industries, such as the trade in goose-feathers and the export of wild
fowl to the London markets, a 17th-century writer terming this county
"the aviary of England, 3000 mallards with other birds having been
caught sometimes in August at one draught." Other historic industries of
Lincolnshire are the breeding of horses and dogs and rabbit-snaring; the
Witham was noted for its pike; and ironstone was worked in the south,
now chiefly in the north and west.
As early as 1295 two knights were returned to parliament for the shire
of Lincoln, and two burgesses each for Lincoln, Grimsby and Stamford. In
the 14th century Lincoln and Stamford were several times the
meeting-places of parliament or important councils, the most notable
being the Lincoln Parliament of 1301, while at Stamford in 1309 a truce
was concluded between the barons, Piers Gaveston and the king. Stamford
discontinued representation for some 150 years after the reign of Edward
II.; Grantham was enfranchised in 1463 and Boston in 1552. Under the act
of 1832 the county was divided into a northern and southern division,
returning each two members, and Great Grimsby lost one member. Under
the act of 1868 the county returned six members in three divisions and
Stamford lost one member. Under the act of 1885 the county returned
seven members in seven divisions; Lincoln, Boston and Grantham lost one
member each and Stamford was disfranchised.
_Antiquities._--At the time of the suppression of the monasteries in
the reign of Henry VIII. there were upwards of one hundred religious
houses; and among the Fens rose some of the finest abbeys held by the
Benedictines. The Gilbertines were a purely English order which took
its rise in Lincolnshire, the canons following the Austin rule, the
nuns and lay brothers that of the Cistercians. They generally lived in
separate houses, but formed a community having a common church in
which the sexes were divided by a longitudinal wall. These houses were
at Alvingham, Catley, Holland Brigg, Lincoln, before the gate of which
the first Eleanor Cross was erected by Edward I. to his wife, Newstead
in Lindsey, Sempringham, the chief house of the order, founded by St
Gilbert of Gaunt in 1139, of which the Norman nave of the church is in
use, Stamford (a college for students) and Wellow. There were
nunneries of the order at Haverholme, Nun Ormsby and Tunstal.
The following are a few of the most famous abbeys. Barlings
(Premonstratensian), N.E. of Lincoln, was founded 1154, for fourteen
canons. The tower, Decorated, with arcading pierced with windows, and
the east wall of the south wing remain. The Benedictine Mitred Abbey
of Crowland (q.v.) was founded 716, and refounded in 948. Part of the
church is still in use. Thornton Abbey (Black Canons) in the north
near the Humber was founded in 1139. There remain a fragment of the
south wing of the transept, two sides of the decagonal chapter-house
(1282) and the beautiful west gate-house, Early Perpendicular
(1332-1388), with an oriel window on the east. Kirkstead Abbey
(Cistercian) was founded in 1139. Little remains beyond an Early
English chapel of singular beauty.
In the Parts of Lindsey several churches present curious early
features, particularly the well-known towers of St Peter,
Barton-on-Humber, St Mary-le-Wigford and St Peter at Gowts, Lincoln,
which exhibit work of a pre-Conquest type. Stow church for Norman of
various dates, Bottesford and St James, Grimsby, for Early English,
Tattershall and Theddlethorpe for Perpendicular are fine examples of
various styles.
In the Parts of Kesteven the churches are built of excellent stone
which abounds at Ancaster and near Sleaford. The church of St Andrew,
Heckington, is the best example of Decorated architecture in the
county; it is famed for its Easter sepulchre and fine sedilia. The
noble church of St Wulfram, Grantham, with one of the finest spires in
England, is also principally Decorated; this style in fact is
particularly well displayed in Kesteven, as in the churches of
Caythorpe, Claypole, Navenby and Ewerby. At Stamford (q.v.) there are
five churches of various styles.
It is principally in the Parts of Holland that the finest churches in
the county are found; they are not surpassed by those of any other
district in the kingdom, which is the more remarkable as the district
is composed wholly of marsh land and is without stone of any kind. It
is highly probable that the churches of the south part of this
district owe their origin to the munificence of the abbeys of Crowland
and Spalding. The church of Long Sutton, besides its fine Norman nave,
possesses an Early English tower and spire which is comparable with
the very early specimen at Oxford cathedral. Whaplode church is
another noteworthy example of Norman work; for Early English work the
churches of Kirtop-in-Holland, Pinchbeck and Weston may be noticed;
for Decorated those at Donington and Spalding; and for Perpendicular,
Gedney, together with parts of Kirton church. Of the two later styles,
however, by far the most splendid example is the famous church of St
Botolph, Boston (q.v.), with its magnificent lantern-crowned tower or
"stump."
There are few remains of medieval castles, although the sites of a
considerable number are traceable. Those of Lincoln and Tattershall (a
fine Perpendicular building in brick) are the most noteworthy, and
there are also fragments at Boston and Sleaford, Country seats worthy
of note (chiefly modern) are Aswarby Hall, Belton House, Brocklesby,
Casewick, Denton Manor, Easton Hall, Grimsthorpe (of the 16th and 18th
centuries, with earlier remains), Haverholm Priory, Nocton Hall,
Panton Hall, Riby Grove, Somerby Hall, Syston Park and Uffington. The
city of Lincoln is remarkably rich in remains of domestic architecture
from the Norman period onward, and there are similar examples at
Stamford and elsewhere. In this connexion the remarkable triangular
bridge at Crowland of the 14th century (see BRIDGES) should be
mentioned.
See _Victoria County History, Lincolnshire_; Thomas Allen, _The
History of the County of Lincoln_ (2 vols., London, 1834); C. G.
Smith, _A Translation of that portion of the Domesday Book which
relates to Lincolnshire and Rutlandshire_ (London, 1870); G. S.
Streatfield, _Lincolnshire and the Danes_ (London, 1884); _Chronicle
of the Rebellion in Lincolnshire, 1470_, ed. J. E. Nicholls, Camden
Society, _Camden Miscellany_, vol. i. (London, 1847); _The
Lincolnshire Survey, temp. Henry I._, ed. James Greenstreet (London,
1884); _Lincolnshire Notes and Queries_ (Horncastle, 1888);
_Lincolnshire Record Society_ (Horncastle, 1891).
LIND, JENNY (1820-1887), the famous Swedish singer, was born at
Stockholm on the 6th of October 1820, the daughter of a lace
manufacturer. Mlle Lundberg, an opera-dancer, first discovered her
musical gift, and induced the child's mother to have her educated for
the stage; during the six or seven years in which she was what was
called an "actress pupil," she occasionally appeared on the stage, but
in plays, not operas, until 1836, when she made a first attempt in an
opera by A. F. Lindblad. She was regularly engaged at the opera-house In
1837. Her first great success was as Agathe, in Weber's _Der
Freischütz_, in 1838, and by 1841, when she started for Paris, she had
already become identified with nearly all the parts in which she
afterwards became famous. But her celebrity in Sweden was due in great
part to her histrionic ability, and there is comparatively little said
about her wonderful vocal art, which was only attained after a year's
hard study under Manuel Garcia, who had to remedy many faults that had
caused exhaustion in the vocal organs. On the completion of her studies
she sang before G. Meyerbeer, in private, in the Paris Opera-house, and
two years afterwards was engaged by him for Berlin, to sing in his
_Feldlager in Schlesien_ (afterwards remodelled as _L' Étoile du nord_);
but the part intended for her was taken by another singer, and her first
appearance took place in _Norma_ on the 15th of December 1844. She
appeared also in Weber's _Euryanthe_ and Bellini's _La Sonnambula_, and
while she was at Berlin the English manager, Alfred Bunn, induced her to
sign a contract (which she broke) to appear in London in the following
season. In December 1845 she appeared at a Gewandhaus concert at
Leipzig, and made the acquaintance of Mendelssohn, as well as of Joachim
and many other distinguished German musicians. In her second Berlin
season she added the parts of Donna Anna (Mozart's _Don Giovanni_),
Julia (Spontini's _Vestalin_) and Valentine (Meyerbeer's _Les
Huguenots_) to her repertory. She sang in operas or concerts at
Aix-la-Chapelle, Hanover, Hamburg, Vienna, Darmstadt and Munich during
the next year, and took up two Donizetti rôles, those of Lucia and "la
Figlia del Reggimento," in which she was afterwards famous. At last
Lumley, the manager of Her Majesty's Theatre, succeeded in inducing Mlle
Lind to visit England, in spite of her dread of the penalties threatened
by Bunn on her breach of the contract with him, and she appeared on the
4th of May 1847 as Alice in Meyerbeer's _Robert le Diable_. Her début
had been so much discussed that the _furore_ she created was a foregone
conclusion. Nevertheless it exceeded everything of the kind that had
taken place in London or anywhere else; the sufferings and struggles of
her well-dressed admirers, who had to stand for hours to get into the
pit, have become historic. She sang in several of her favourite
characters, and in that of Susanna in Mozart's _Figaro_, besides
creating the part of Amalia in Verdi's _I Masnadieri_, written for
England and performed on the 22nd of July. In the autumn she appeared in
operas in Manchester and Liverpool, and in concerts at Brighton,
Birmingham, Hull, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth, Norwich, Bristol, Bath and
Exeter. At Norwich began her acquaintance with the bishop, Edward
Stanley (1779-1849), which was said to have led to her final
determination to give up the stage as a career. After four more
appearances in Berlin, and a short visit to Stockholm, she appeared in
London in the season of 1848, when she sang in Donizetti's _L'Elisire
d'amore_ and Bellini's _I Puritani_, in addition to her older parts. In
the same year she organized a memorable performance of _Elijah_, with
the receipts of which the Mendelssohn scholarship was founded, and sang
at a great number of charity and benefit concerts. At the beginning of
the season of 1849 she intended to give up operatic singing, but a
compromise was effected by which she was to sing the music of six
operas, performed without action, at Her Majesty's Theatre; but the
first, a concert performance of Mozart's _Il Flauto magico_, was so
coldly received that she felt bound, for the sake of the manager and the
public, to give five more regular representations, and her last
performance on the stage was on the 10th of May 1849, in _Robert le
Diable_. Her decision was not even revoked when the king of Sweden
urged her to reappear in opera at her old home. She paid visits to
Germany and Sweden again before her departure for America in 1850. Just
before sailing she appeared at Liverpool, for the first time in England,
in an oratorio of Handel, singing the soprano music in _The Messiah_
with superb art. She remained in America for nearly two years, being for
a great part of the time engaged by P. T. Barnum. In Boston, on the 5th
of February 1852, she married Otto Goldschmidt (1829-1907), whom she had
met at Lübeck in 1850. For some years after her return to England, her
home for the rest of her life, she appeared in oratorios and concerts,
and her dramatic instincts were as strongly and perhaps as
advantageously displayed in these surroundings as they had been on the
stage, for the grandeur of her conceptions in such passages as the
"Sanctus" of _Elijah_, the intensity of conviction which she threw into
the scene of the widow in the same work, or the religious fervour of "I
know that my Redeemer liveth," could not have found a place in opera. In
her later years she took an active interest in the Bach Choir, conducted
by her husband, and not only sang herself in the chorus, but gave the
benefit of her training to the ladies of the society. For some years she
was professor of singing at the Royal College of Music. Her last public
appearance was at Düsseldorf on the 20th of January 1870 when she sang
in _Ruth_, an oratorio composed by her husband. She died at Malvern on
the 2nd of November 1887. The supreme position she held so long in the
operatic world was due not only to the glory of her voice, and the
complete musicianship which distinguished her above all her
contemporaries, but also to the naïve simplicity of her acting in her
favourite parts, such as Amina, Alice or Agathe. In these and others she
had the precious quality of conviction, and identified herself with the
characters she represented with a thoroughness rare in her day. Unharmed
by the perils of a stage career, she was a model of rectitude,
generosity and straightforwardness, carrying the last quality into a
certain blunt directness of manner that was sometimes rather startling.
(J. A. F. M.)
LINDAU, PAUL (1839- ), German dramatist and novelist, the son of a
Protestant pastor, was born at Magdeburg on the 3rd of June 1839. He was
educated at the gymnasium in Halle and subsequently in Leipzig and
Berlin. He spent five years in Paris to further his studies, acting
meanwhile as foreign correspondent to German papers. After his return to
Germany in 1863 he was engaged in journalism in Düsseldorf and
Elberfeld. In 1870 he founded _Das neue Blatt_ at Leipzig; from 1872 to
1881 he edited the Berlin weekly, _Die Gegenwart_; and in 1878 he
founded the well-known monthly, _Nord und Süd_, which he continued to
edit until 1904. Two books of travel, _Aus Venetien_ (Düsseldorf, 1864)
and _Aus Paris_ (Stuttgart, 1865). were followed by some volumes of
critical studies, written in a light, satirical vein, which at once made
him famous. These were _Harmlose Briefe eines deutschen Kleinstädters_
(Leipzig, 2 vols., 1870), _Moderne Märchen für grosse Kinder_ (Leipzig,
1870) and _Literarische Rücksichtslosigkeiten_ (Leipzig, 1871). He was
appointed intendant of the court theatre at Meiningen in 1895, but
removed to Berlin in 1899, where he became manager of the Berliner
Theater, and subsequently, until 1905, of the Deutsches Theater. He had
begun his dramatic career in 1868 with _Marion_, the first of a long
series of plays in which he displayed a remarkable talent for stage
effect and a command of witty and lively dialogue. Among the more famous
were _Maria und Magdalena_ (1872), _Tante Therese_ (1876), _Gräfin Lea_
(1879), _Die Erste_ (1895), _Der Abend_ (1896), _Der Herr im Hause_
(1899), _So ich dir_ (1903), and he adapted many plays by Dumas, Augier
and Sardou for the German stage. Five volumes of his plays have been
published (Berlin, 1873-1888). Some of his volumes of short stories
acquired great popularity, notably _Herr und Frau Bewer_ (Breslau, 1882)
and T_oggenburg und andere Geschichten_ (Breslau, 1883). A
novel-sequence entitled _Berlin_ included _Der Zug nach dem Westen_
(Stuttgart, 1886, 10th ed. 1903), _Arme Mädchen_ (1887, 9th ed. 1905)
and _Spitzen_ (1888, 8th ed. 1904). Later novels were _Die Gehilfin_
(Breslau, 1894), _Die Brüder_, (Dresden, 1895), _Der König von Sidon_
(Breslau, 1898). His earlier books on _Molière_ (Leipzig, 1871) and
_Alfred de Musset_ (Berlin, 1877) were followed by some volumes of
dramatic and literary criticism, _Gesammelte Aufsätze_ (Berlin, 1875),
_Dramaturgische Blätter_ (Stuttgart, 2 vols., 1875; new series, Breslau,
1878, 2 vols.), _Vorspiele auf dem Theater_ (Breslau, 1895).
His brother, RUDOLF LINDAU (b. 1829), was a well-known diplomatist and
author. His novels and tales were collected in 1893 (Berlin, 6 vols.).
The most attractive, such as _Reisegefährten_ and _Der lange Holländer_,
deal with the life of European residents in the Far East.
See Hadlich, _Paul Lindau als dramatischer Dichter_ (2nd ed., Berlin,
1876).
LINDAU, a town and pleasure resort in the kingdom of Bavaria, and the
central point of the transit trade between that country and Switzerland,
situated on two islands off the north-eastern shore of Lake Constance.
Pop. (1905) 6531. The town is a terminus of the Vorarlberg railway, and
of the Munich-Lindau line of the Bavarian state railways, and is
connected with the mainland both by a wooden bridge and by a railway
enbankment erected in 1853. There are a royal palace and an old and a
new town-hall (the older one having been built in 1422 and restored in
1886-1888), a museum and a municipal library with interesting
manuscripts and a collection of Bibles, also classical, commercial and
industrial schools. The harbour is much frequented by steamers from
Constance and other places on the lake. There are also some Roman
remains, the Heidenmauer, and a fine modern fountain, the Reichsbrunnen.
Opposite the custom-house is a bronze statue of the Bavarian king
Maximilian II., erected in 1856.
On the site now occupied by the town there was a Roman camp, the
_castrum Tiberii_, and the authentic records of Lindau date back to the
end of the 9th century, when it was known as Lintowa. In 1274, or
earlier, it became a free imperial town; in 1331 it joined the Swabian
league, and in 1531 became a member of the league of Schmalkalden,
having just previously accepted the reformed doctrines. In 1647 it was
ineffectually besieged by the Swedes. In 1804 it lost its imperial
privileges and passed to Austria, being transferred to Bavaria in 1805.
See Boulan, _Lindau, vor altem und jetzt_ (Lindau, 1872); and
Stettners, _Führer durch Lindau und Umgebungen_ (Lindau, 1900).
LINDEN, a town in the Prussian province of Hanover, 3 m. S.W. by rail
from the city of that name, of which it practically forms a suburb, and
from which it is separated by the Ihme. Pop. (1905) 57,941. It has a
fine modern town-hall, and a classical and other schools. Chief among
its industries are machine building, weaving, iron and steel works and
the manufacture of chemicals, india-rubber goods and carpets.
LINDESAY, ROBERT, of Pitscottie (c. 1530-c. 1590), Scottish historian,
of the family of the Lindesays of the Byres, was born at Pitscottie, in
the parish of Ceres, Fifeshire, which he held in lease at a later
period. His _Historie and Cronicles of Scotland_, the only work by which
he is remembered, is described as a continuation of that of Hector
Boece, translated by John Bellenden. It covers the period from 1437 to
1565, and, though it sometimes degenerates into a mere chronicle of
short entries, is not without passages of great picturesqueness. Sir
Walter Scott made use of it in _Marmion_; and, in spite of its
inaccuracy in details, it is useful for the social history of the
period. Lindesay's share in the _Cronicles_ was generally supposed to
end with 1565; but Dr Aeneas Mackay considers that the frank account of
the events connected with Mary Stuart between 1565 and 1575 contained in
one of the MSS. is by his hand and was only suppressed because it was
too faithful in its record of contemporary affairs.
The _Historie and Cronicles_ was first published in 1728. A complete
edition of the text (2 vols.), based on the Laing MS. No. 218 in the
university of Edinburgh, was published by the Scottish Text Society in
1899 under the editorship of Aeneas J. G. Mackay. The MS., formerly in
the possession of John Scott of Halkshill, is fuller, and, though in a
later hand, is, on the whole, a better representative of Lindesay's
text.
LINDET, JEAN BAPTISTE ROBERT (1749-1825), French revolutionist, was
born at Bernay (Eure). Before the Revolution he was an _avocat_ at
Bernay. He acted as _procureur-syndic_ of the district of Bernay during
the session of the Constituent Assembly. Appointed deputy to the
Legislative Assembly and subsequently to the Convention, he attained
considerable prominence. He was very hostile to the king, furnished a
_Rapport sur les crimes imputés à Louis Capet_ (10th of December 1792),
and voted for the death of Louis without appeal or respite. He was
instrumental in the establishment of the Revolutionary Tribunal and
contributed to the downfall of the Girondists. As member of the
Committee of Public Safety, he devoted himself particularly to the
question of food-supplies, and it was only by dint of dogged
perseverance and great administrative talent that he was successful in
coping with this difficult problem. He had meanwhile been sent to
suppress revolts in the districts of Rhône, Eure, Calvados and
Finistère, where he had been able to pursue a conciliatory policy.
Without being formally opposed to Robespierre, he did not support him,
and he was the only member of the Committee of Public Safety who did not
sign the order for the execution of Danton and his party. In a like
spirit of moderation he opposed the Thermidorian reaction, and defended
Barère, Billaud-Varenne the Collot d'Herbois from the accusations
launched against them on the 22nd of March 1795. Himself denounced on
the 20th of May 1795, he was defended by his brother Thomas, but only
escaped condemnation by the vote of amnesty of the 4th of Brumaire, year
IV. (26th of October 1795). He was minister of finance from the 18th of
June to the 9th of November 1799, but refused office under the Consulate
and the Empire. In 1816 he was proscribed by the Restoration government
as a regicide, and did not return to France until just before his death
on the 17th of February 1825. His brother Thomas made some mark as a
Constitutional bishop and member of the Convention.
See Amand Montier, _Robert Lindet_ (Paris, 1899); H. Turpin, _Thomas
Lindet_ (Bernay, 1886); A. Montier, _Correspondance de Thomas Lindet_
(Paris, 1899).
LINDLEY, JOHN (1799-1865), English botanist, was born on the 5th of
February 1799 at Catton, near Norwich, where his father, George Lindley,
author of _A Guide to the Orchard and Kitchen Garden_, owned a nursery
garden. He was educated at Norwich grammar school. His first
publication, in 1819, a translation of the _Analyse du fruit_ of L. C.
M. Richard, was followed in 1820 by an original _Monographia Rosarum_,
with descriptions of new species, and drawings executed by himself, and
in 1821 by _Monographia Digitalium_, and by "Observations on Pomaceae,"
contributed to the Linnean Society. Shortly afterwards he went to
London, where he was engaged by J. C. Loudon to write the descriptive
portion of the _Encyclopaedia of Plants_. In his labours on this
undertaking, which was completed in 1829, he became convinced of the
superiority of the "natural" system of A. L. de Jussieu, as
distinguished from the "artificial" system of Linnaeus followed in the
_Encyclopaedia_; the conviction found expression in _A Synopsis of
British Flora, arranged according to the Natural Order_ (1829) and in
_An Introduction to the Natural System of Botany_ (1830). In 1829
Lindley, who since 1822 had been assistant secretary to the
Horticultural Society, was appointed to the chair of botany in
University College, London, which he retained till 1860; he lectured
also on botany from 1831 at the Royal Institution, and from 1836 at the
Botanic Gardens, Chelsea. During his professoriate he wrote many
scientific and popular works, besides contributing largely to the
_Botanical Register_, of which he was editor for many years, and to the
_Gardener's Chronicle_, in which he had charge of the horticultural
department from 1841. He was a fellow of the Royal, Linnean and
Geological Societies. He died at Turnham Green on the 1st of November
1865.
Besides those already mentioned, his works include _An Outline of the
First Principles of Horticulture_ (1832), _An Outline of the Structure
and Physiology of Plants_ (1832), _A Natural System of Botany_ (1836),
_The Fossil Flora of Great Britain_ (with William Hutton, 1831-1837),
_Flora Medica_ (1838), _Theory of Horticulture_ (1840), _The Vegetable
Kingdom_ (1846), _Folia Orchidacea_ (1852), _Descriptive Botany_
(1858).
LINDLEY, NATHANIEL LINDLEY, BARON (1828- ), English judge, son of John
Lindley (q.v.), was born at Acton Green, Middlesex, on the 29th of
November 1828. He was educated at University College School, and studied
for a time at University College, London. He was called to the bar at
the Middle Temple in 1850, and began practice in the Court of Chancery.
In 1855 he published _An Introduction to the Study of Jurisprudence_,
consisting of a translation of the general part of Thibaut's _System des
Pandekten Rechts_, with copious notes. In 1860 he published in two
volumes his _Treatise on the Law of Partnership, including its
Application to Joint Stock and other Companies_, and in 1862 a
supplement including the Companies Act of 1862. This work has since been
developed into two text-books well known to lawyers as _Lindley on
Companies_ and _Lindley on Partnership_. He became a Q.C. in January
1872. In 1874 he was elected a bencher of the Middle Temple, of which he
was treasurer in 1894. In 1875 he was appointed a justice of common
pleas, the appointment of a chancery barrister to a common-law court
being justified by the fusion of law and equity then shortly to be
brought about, in theory at all events, by the Judicature Acts. In
pursuance of the changes now made be became a justice of the common
pleas division of the High Court of Justice, and in 1880 of the queen's
bench division. In 1881 he was raised to the Court of Appeal and made a
privy councillor. In 1897, Lord Justice Lindley succeeded Lord Esher as
master of the rolls, and in 1900 he was made a lord of appeal in
ordinary with a life peerage and the title of Baron Lindley. He resigned
the judicial post in 1905. Lord Lindley was the last serjeant-at-law
appointed, and the last judge to wear the serjeant's coif, or rather the
black patch representing it, on the judicial wig. He married in 1858
Sarah Katherine, daughter of Edward John Teale of Leeds.
LINDLEY, WILLIAM (1808-1900), English engineer, was born in London on
the 7th of September 1808, and became a pupil under Francis Giles, whom
he assisted in designing the Newcastle and Carlisle and the London and
Southampton railways. Leaving England about 1837, he was engaged for a
time in railway work in various parts of Europe, and then returned, as
engineer-in-chief to the Hamburg-Bergedorf railway, to Hamburg, near
which city he had received his early education, and to which he was
destined to stand in much the same relation as Baron Haussmann to Paris.
His first achievement was to drain the Hammerbrook marshes, and so add
some 1400 acres to the available area of the city. His real opportunity,
however, came with the great fire which broke out on the 5th of May 1842
and burned for three days. He was entrusted with the direction of the
operations to check its spread, and the strong measures he adopted,
including the blowing-up of the town hall, brought bis life into danger
with the mob, who professed to see in him an English agent charged with
the destruction of the port of Hamburg. After the extinction of the fire
he was appointed consulting engineer to the senate and town council, to
the Water Board and to the Board of Works. He began with the
construction of a complete sewerage system on principles which did not
escape criticism, but which experience showed to be good. Between 1844
and 1848 water-works were established from his designs, the intake from
the Elbe being at Rothenburgsort. Subsidence tanks were used for
clarification, but in 1853, when he designed large extensions, he urged
the substitution of sand-filtration, which, however, was not adopted
until the cholera epidemic of 1892-1893 had shown the folly of the
opposition directed against it. In 1846 he erected the Hamburg
gas-works; public baths and wash-houses were built, and large extensions
to the port executed according to his plans in 1854; and he supervised
the construction of the Altona gas and water works in 1855. Among other
services he rendered to the city may be mentioned the trigonometrical
survey executed between 1848 and 1860, and the conduct of the
negotiations which in 1852 resulted in the sale of the "Steelyard" on
the banks of the Thames belonging to it jointly with the two other
Hanseatic towns, Bremen and Lübeck. In 1860 he left Hamburg, and during
the remaining nineteen years of his professional practice he was
responsible for many engineering works in various European cities,
among them being Frankfort-on-the-Main, Warsaw, Pesth, Düsseldorf,
Galatz and Basel. In Frankfort he constructed sewerage works on the same
principles as those he followed in Hamburg, and the system was widely
imitated not only in Europe, but also in America. He was also consulted
in regard to water-works at Berlin, Kiel, Stralsund, Stettin and
Leipzig; he advised the New River Company of London on the adoption of
the constant supply system in 1851; and he was commissioned by the
British Government to carry out various works in Heligoland, including
the big retaining wall "Am Falm." He died at Blackheath, London, on the
22nd of May 1900.
LINDO, MARK PRAGER (1819-1879), Dutch prose writer, of English-Jewish
descent, was born in London on the 18th of September 1810. He went to
Holland when nineteen years of age, and once established there as a
private teacher of the English language, he soon made up his mind to
remain. In 1842 he passed his examination at Arnhem, qualifying him as a
professor of English in Holland, subsequently becoming a teacher of the
English language and literature at the gymnasium in that town. In 1853
he was appointed in a similar capacity at the Royal Military Academy in
Breda. Meanwhile Lindo had obtained a thorough grasp of the Dutch
language, partly during his student years at Utrecht University, where
in 1854 he gained the degree of doctor of literature. His proficiency in
the two languages led him to translate into Dutch several of the works
of Dickens, Thackeray and others, and afterwards also of Fielding,
Sterne and Walter Scott. Some of Lindo's translations bore the imprint
of hasty and careless work, and all were very unequal in quality. His
name is much more likely to endure as the writer of humorous original
sketches and novelettes in Dutch, which he published under the pseudonym
of De Oude Herr Smits ("Old Mr Smits"). Among the most popular are;
_Brieven en Ontboezemingen_ ("Letters and Confessions," 1853, with three
"Continuations"); _Familie van Ons_ ("Family of Ours," 1855);
_Bekentenissen eener Jonge Dame_ ("Confessions of a Young Lady," 1858);
_Uittreksels uit het Dagboek van Wijlen den Heer Janus Snor_ ("Extracts
from the Diary of the late Mr Janus Snor," 1865); _Typen_ ("Types,"
1871); and, particularly, _Afdrukken van Indrukken_ ("Impressions from
Impressions," 1854, reprinted many times). The last-named was written in
collaboration with Lodewyk Mulder, who contributed some of its drollest
whimsicalities of Dutch life and character, which, for that reason, are
almost untranslatable. Lodewyk Mulder and Lindo also founded together,
and carried on, for a considerable time alone, the _Nederlandsche
Spectator_ ("The Dutch Spectator"), a literary weekly, still published
at The Hague, which bears little resemblance to its English prototype,
and which perhaps reached its greatest popularity and influence when
Vosmaer contributed to it a brilliant weekly letter under the fanciful
title of Vlugmaren ("Swifts"). Lindo's serious original Dutch writings
he published under his own name, the principal one being _De Opkomst en
Ontwikkeling van het Engelsche Volk_ ("The Rise and Development of the
British People," 2 vols. 1868-1874)--a valuable history. Lodewyk Mulder
published in 1877-1879 a collected edition of Lindo's writings in five
volumes, and there has since been a popular reissue. Lindo was appointed
an inspector of primary schools in the province of South Holland in
1865, a post he held until his death at The Hague on the 9th of March
1879.
LINDSAY, the family name of the earls of Crawford. The family is one of
great antiquity in Scotland, the earliest to settle in that country
being Sir Walter de Lindesia, who attended David, earl of Huntingdon,
afterwards King David I., in his colonization of the Lowlands early in
the 12th century. The descendants of Sir Walter divided into three
branches, one of which held the baronies of Lamberton in Scotland, and
Kendal and Molesworth in England; another held Luffness and Crawford in
Scotland and half Limesi in England; and a third held Breneville and
Byres in Scotland and certain lands, not by baronial tenure, in England.
The heads of all these branches sat as barons in the Scottish parliament
for more than two hundred years before the elevation of the chief of the
house to an earldom in 1398. The Lindsays held the great mountain
district of Crawford in Clydesdale, from which the title of the earldom
is derived, from the 12th century till the close of the 15th, when it
passed to the Douglas earls of Angus. See CRAWFORD, EARLS OF.
See A. W. C. Lindsay, afterwards earl of Crawford, _Lives of the
Lindsays, or a Memoir of the Houses of Crawford and Belcarres_ (3
vols., 1843 and 1858).
LINDSAY, a town and port of entry of Ontario, Canada, and capital of
Victoria county, on the Scugog river, 57 m. N.E. of Toronto by rail, on
the Canadian Pacific railway, and at the junction of the Port Hope and
Haliburton branches and the Midland division of the Grand Trunk railway.
Pop. (1901) 7003. It has steamboat communication, by way of the Trent
canal, with Lake Scugog and the ports on the Trent system. It contains
saw and grist mills, agricultural implement and other factories.
LINDSEY, THEOPHILUS (1723-1808), English theologian, was born in
Middlewich, Cheshire, on the 20th of June 1723, and was educated at the
Leeds Free School and at St John's College, Cambridge, where in 1747 he
became a fellow. For some time he held a curacy in Spitalfields, London,
and from 1734 to 1756 he travelled on the continent of Europe as tutor
to the young duke of Northumberland. He was then presented to the living
of Kirkby-Wiske in Yorkshire, and after exchanging it for that of
Piddletown in Dorsetshire, he removed in 1763 to Catterick in Yorkshire.
Here about 1764 he founded one of the first Sunday schools in England.
Meanwhile he had begun to entertain anti-Trinitarian views, and to be
troubled in conscience about their inconsistency with the Anglican
belief; since 1769 the intimate friendship of Joseph Priestley had
served to foster his scruples, and in 1771 he united with Francis
Blackburne, archdeacon of Cleveland (his father-in-law), John Jebb
(1736-1786), Christopher Wyvill (1740-1822) and Edmund Law (1703-1787),
bishop of Carlisle, in preparing a petition to parliament with the
prayer that clergymen of the church and graduates of the universities
might be relieved from the burden of subscribing to the thirty-nine
articles, and "restored to their undoubted rights as Protestants of
interpreting Scripture for themselves." Two hundred and fifty signatures
were obtained, but in February 1772 the House of Commons declined even
to receive the petition by a majority of 217 to 71; the adverse vote was
repeated in the following year, and in the end of 1773, seeing no
prospect of obtaining within the church the relief which his conscience
demanded, Lindsey resigned his vicarage. In April 1774 he began to
conduct Unitarian services in a room in Essex Street, Strand, London,
where first a church, and afterwards the Unitarian offices, were
established. Here he remained till 1793, when he resigned his charge in
favour of John Disney (1746-1816), who like himself had left the
established church and had become his colleague. He died on the 3rd of
November 1808.
Lindsey's chief work is _An Historical View of the State of the
Unitarian Doctrine and Worship from the Reformation to our own Times_
(1783); in it he claims, amongst others, Burnet, Tillotson, S. Clarke,
Hoadly and Sir I. Newton for the Unitarian view. His other
publications include _Apology on Resigning the Vicarage of Catterick_
(1774), and _Sequel to the Apology_ (1776); _The Book of Common Prayer
reformed according to the plan of the late Dr Samuel Clarke_ (1774);
_Dissertations on the Preface to St John's Gospel and on praying to
Jesus Christ_ (1779); _Vindiciae Priestleianae_ (1788); _Conversations
upon Christian Idolatry_ (1792); and _Conversations on the Divine
Government, showing that everything is from God, and for good to all_
(1802). Two volumes of _Sermons, with appropriate prayers annexed_,
were published posthumously in 1810; and a volume of Memoirs, by
Thomas Belsham, appeared in 1812.
LINDSTRÖM, GUSTAF (1829-1901), Swedish palaeontologist, was born at
Wisby in Gotland on the 27th of August 1829. In 1848 he entered the
university at Upsala, and in 1854 he took his doctor's degree. Having
attended a course of lectures in Stockholm by S. L. Lovén, he became
interested in the zoology of the Baltic, and published several papers on
the invertebrate fauna, and subsequently on the fishes. In 1856 he
became a school teacher, and in 1858 a master in the grammar school at
Wisby. His leisure was devoted to researches on the fossils of the
Silurian rocks of Gotland, including the corals, brachiopods,
gasteropods, pteropods, cephalopods and crustacea. He described also
remains of the fish _Cyathaspis_ from Wenlock Beds, and (with T.
Thorell) a scorpion _Palaeaphonus_ from Ludlow Beds at Wisby. He
determined the true nature of the operculated coral _Calceola_; and
while he described organic remains from other parts of northern Europe,
he worked especially at the Palaeozoic fossils of Sweden. He was awarded
the Murchison medal by the Geological Society of London in 1895. In 1876
he was appointed keeper of the fossil Invertebrata in the State Museum
at Stockholm, where he died on the 16th of May 1901.
See obituary (with portrait), by F. A. Bather, in _Geol. Mag._ (July
1901), p. 333.
LINDUS, one of the three chief cities of the island of Rhodes, before
their synoecism in the city of Rhodes. It is situated on the E. side of
the island, and has a finely placed acropolis on a precipitous hill, and
a good natural harbour just N. of it. Recent excavations have discovered
the early temple of Athena Lindia on the Acropolis, and splendid
Propylaea and a staircase, resembling those at Athens. The sculptors of
the Laocoon are among the priests of Athena Lindia, whose names are
recorded by inscriptions. Some early temples have also been found, and
inscriptions cut on the rock recording the sacrifices known as [Greek:
Boukatia]. There are also traces of a theatre and rock-cut tombs. On the
Acropolis is a castle, built by the knights in the 14th century, and
many houses in the town show work of the same date.
See RHODES; also Chr. Blinkenberg and K. F. Kinch, _Exploration arch.
de Rhodes_ (Copenhagen, 1904-1907).
LINE, a word of which the numerous meanings may be deduced from the
primary ones of thread or cord, a succession of objects in a row, a mark
or stroke, a course or route in any particular direction. The word is
derived from the Lat. _linea_, where all these meanings may be found,
but some applications are due more directly to the Fr. _ligne_. _Linea_,
in Latin, meant originally "something made of hemp or flax," hence a
cord or thread, from _linum_, flax. "Line" in English was formerly used
in the sense of flax, but the use now only survives in the technical
name for the fibres of flax when separated by heckling from the tow (see
LINEN). The ultimate origin is also seen in the verb "to line," to cover
something on the inside, originally used of the "lining" of a garment
with linen.
In mathematics several definitions of the line may be framed according
to the aspect from which it is viewed. The synthetical genesis of a line
from the notion of a point is the basis of Euclid's definition, [Greek:
grammê, de mêkos aplates] ("a line is widthless length"), and in a
subsequent definition he affirms that the boundaries of a line are
points, [Greek: grammês de perata sêmeia]. The line appears in
definition 6 as the boundary of a surface: [Greek: epiphaneias de perata
grammai] ("the boundaries of a surface are lines"). Another synthetical
definition, also treated by the ancient Greeks, but not by Euclid,
regards the line as generated by the motion of a point ([Greek: rhysis
sêmeiou]), and, in a similar manner, the "surface" was regarded as the
flux of a line, and a "solid" as the flux of a surface. Proclus adopts
this view, styling the line [Greek: archê] in respect of this capacity.
Analytical definitions, although not finding a place in the Euclidean
treatment, have advantages over the synthetical derivation. Thus the
boundaries of a solid may define a plane, the edges a line, and the
corners a point; or a section of a solid may define the surface, a
section of a surface the line, and the section of a line the "point."
The notion of dimensions follows readily from either system of
definitions. The solid extends three ways, i.e. it has length, breadth
and thickness, and is therefore three-dimensional; the surface has
breadth and length and is therefore two-dimensional; the line has only
extension and is unidimensional; and the point, having neither length,
breadth nor thickness but only position, has no dimensions.
The definition of a "straight" line is a matter of much complexity.
Euclid defines it as the line which lies evenly with respect to the
points on itself--[Greek: eutheia grammê estin hêtis ex isou tois eph
heautês sêmeiois keitai]: Plato defined it as the line having its middle
point hidden by the ends, a definition of no purpose since it only
defines the line by the path of a ray of light. Archimedes defines a
straight line as the shortest distance between two points.
A better criterion of rectilinearity is that of Simplicius, an Arabian
commentator of the 5th century: _Linea recta est quaecumque super duas
ipsius extremitates rotata non movetur de loco suo ad alium locum_ ("a
straight line is one which when rotated about its two extremities does
not change its position"). This idea was employed by Leibnitz, and most
auspiciously by Gierolamo Saccheri in 1733.
The drawing of a straight line between any two given points forms the
subject of Euclid's first postulate--[Greek: êitêsthô apo pantos sêmeiou
epi pan sêmeion eutheian grammên agagein], and the producing of a
straight line continuously in a straight line is treated in the second
postulate--[Greek: kai peperasmenên eutheian kata to suneches ep'
eutheias ekbalein].
For a detailed analysis of the geometrical notion of the line and
rectilinearity, see W. B. Frankland, _Euclid's Elements_ (1905). In
analytical geometry the right line is always representable by an
equation or equations of the first degree; thus in Cartesian
coordinates of two dimensions the equation is of the form Ax + By + C
= 0, in triangular coordinates Ax + By + Cz = 0. In three-dimensional
coordinates, the line is represented by two linear equations. (See
GEOMETRY, ANALYTICAL.) _Line geometry_ is a branch of analytical
geometry in which the line is the element, and not the point as with
ordinary analytical geometry (see GEOMETRY, LINE).
LINE ENGRAVING, on plates of copper or steel, the method of engraving
(q.v.), in which the line itself is hollowed, whereas in the woodcut
when the line is to print black it is left in relief, and only white
spaces and white lines are hollowed.
The art of line engraving has been practised from the earliest ages. The
prehistoric Aztec hatchet given to Humboldt in Mexico was just as truly
_engraved_ as a modern copper-plate which may convey a design by
Flaxman; the Aztec engraving is ruder than the European, but it is the
same art. The important discovery which made line engraving one of the
multiplying arts was the discovery how to print an incised line, which
was hit upon at last by accident, and known for some time before its
real utility was suspected. Line engraving in Europe does not owe its
origin to the woodcut, but to the chasing on goldsmiths' work. The
goldsmiths of Florence in the middle of the 15th century were in the
habit of ornamenting their works by means of engraving, after which they
filled up the hollows produced by the burin with a black enamel made of
silver, lead and sulphur, the result being that the design was rendered
much more visible by the opposition of the enamel and the metal. An
engraved design filled up in this manner was called a _niello_. Whilst a
niello was in progress the artist could not see it so well as if the
enamel were already in the lines, yet he did not like to put in the hard
enamel prematurely, as when once it was set it could not easily be got
out again. He therefore took a sulphur cast of his niello in progress,
on a matrix of fine clay, and filled up the lines in the sulphur with
lampblack, thus enabling himself to judge of the state of his engraving.
At a later period it was discovered that a proof could be taken on
damped paper by filling the engraved lines with a certain ink and wiping
it off the surface of the plate, sufficient pressure being applied to
make the paper go into the hollowed lines and fetch the ink out of them.
This was the beginning of plate printing. The niello engravers thought
it a convenient way of proving their work--the metal itself--as it saved
the trouble of the sulphur cast, but they saw no further into the
future. They went on engraving nielli just the same to ornament plate
and furniture; nor was it until the 16th century that the new method of
printing was carried out to its great and wonderful results. There are,
however, certain differences between plate-printing and block-printing
which affect the essentials of art. When paper is driven _into_ a line
so as to fetch the ink out of it, the line may be of unimaginable
fineness, it will print all the same; but when the paper is only pressed
_upon_ a raised line, the line must have some appreciable thickness; the
wood engraving, therefore, can never--except in a _tour de force_--be so
delicate as plate engraving. Again, not only does plate-printing excel
block-printing in delicacy; it excels it also in force and depth. There
never was, and there will never be, a woodcut line having the power of
a deep line in a plate, for in block-printing the line is only a
blackened surface of paper slightly impressed, whereas in plate-printing
it is a _cast_ with an additional thickness of printing ink.
The most important of the tools used in line-engraving is the burin,
which is a bar of steel with one end fixed in a handle rather like a
mushroom with one side cut away, the burin itself being shaped so that
the cutting end when sharpened takes the form of a lozenge, point
downwards. The burin acts exactly like a plough; it makes a furrow and
turns out a shaving of metal as the plough turns the soil of a field.
The burin, however, is pushed while the plough is pulled, and this
peculiar character of the burin, or graver, as a pushed instrument at
once establishes a wide separation between it and all the other
instruments employed in the arts of design, such as pencils, brushes,
pens and etching needles.
The elements of engraving with the burin upon metal will be best
understood by an example of a very simple kind, as in the engraving of
letters. The capital letter B contains in itself the rudiments of an
engraver's education. As at first drawn, before the blacks are
inserted, this letter consists of two perpendicular straight lines and
four curves, all the curves differing from each other. Suppose, then,
that the engraver has to make a B, he will scratch these lines,
reversed, very lightly with a sharp point or style. The next thing is
to cut out the blacks (not the whites, as in wood engraving), and this
would be done with two different burins. The engraver would get his
vertical black line by a powerful ploughing with the burin between his
two preparatory first lines, and then take out some copper in the
thickest parts of the two curves. This done, he would then take a
finer burin and work out the gradation from the thick line in the
midst of the curve to the thin extremities which touch the
perpendicular. When there is much gradation in a line the darker parts
of it are often gradually ploughed out by returning to it over and
over again. The hollows so produced are afterwards filled with
printing ink, just as the hollows in a niello were filled with black
enamel; the surplus printing ink is wiped from the smooth surface of
the copper, damped paper is laid upon it, and driven into the hollowed
letter by the pressure of a revolving cylinder; it fetches the ink
out, and you have your letter B in intense black upon a white ground.
When the surface of a metal plate is sufficiently polished to be used
for engraving, the slightest scratch upon it will print as a black
line, the degree of blackness being proportioned to the depth of the
scratch. An engraved plate from which visiting cards are printed is a
good example of some elementary principles of engraving. It contains
thin lines and thick ones, and a considerable variety of curves. An
elaborate line engraving, if it is a pure line engraving and nothing
else, will contain only these simple elements in different
combinations. The real line engraver is always engraving a line more
or less broad and deep in one direction or another; he has no other
business than this.
In the early Italian and early German prints, the line is used with such
perfect simplicity of purpose that the methods of the artists are as
obvious as if we saw them actually at work.
The student may soon understand the spirit and technical quality of the
earliest Italian engraving by giving his attention to a few of the
series which used erroneously to be called the "Playing Cards of
Mantegna," but which have been shown by Mr Sidney Colvin to represent "a
kind of encyclopaedia of knowledge."
The history of these engravings is obscure. They are supposed to be
Florentine; they are certainly Italian; and their technical manner is
called that of Baccio Baldini. But their style is as clear as a style
can be, as clear as the artist's conception of his art. In all these
figures the outline is the main thing, and next to that the lines which
mark the leading folds of the drapery; lines quite classical in purity
of form and severity of selection, and especially characteristic in
this, that they are always really engraver's lines, such as may
naturally be done with the burin, and they never imitate the freer line
of the pencil or etching needle. Shading is used in the greatest
moderation with thin straight strokes of the burin, that never overpower
the stronger organic lines of the design. Of chiaroscuro, in any
complete sense, there is none. The sky behind the figures is represented
by white paper, and the foreground is sometimes occupied by flat
decorative engraving, much nearer in feeling to calligraphy than to
modern painting. Sometimes there is a cast shadow, but it is not
studied, and is only used to give relief. In this early metal engraving
the lines are often crossed in the shading, whereas in the earliest
woodcuts they are not; the reason being that when lines are incised they
can as easily be crossed as not, whereas, when they are reserved, the
crossing involves much labour of a non-artistic kind. Here, then, we
have pure line-engraving with the burin, that is, the engraving of the
pure line patiently studied for its own beauty, and exhibited in an
abstract manner, with care for natural form combined with inattention to
the effects of nature. Even the forms are idealized, especially in the
cast of draperies, for the express purpose of exhibiting the line to
better advantage. Such are the characteristics of those very early
Italian engravings which were attributed erroneously to Mantegna. When
we come to Mantegna himself we find a style equally decided. Drawing and
shading were for him two entirely distinct things. He did not draw and
shade at the same time, as a modern chiaroscurist would, but he first
got his outlines and the patterns on his dresses all very accurate, and
then threw over them a veil of shading, a very peculiar kind of shading,
all the lines being straight and all the shading diagonal. This is the
primitive method, its peculiarities being due, not to a learned
self-restraint, but to a combination of natural genius with technical
inexperience, which made the early Italians at once desire and discover
the simplest and easiest methods. Whilst the Italians were shading with
straight lines the Germans had begun to use curves, and as soon as the
Italians saw good German work they tried to give to their burins
something of the German suppleness.
The characteristics of early metal engraving in Germany are seen to
perfection in Martin Schongauer and Albert Dürer, who, though with
striking differences, had many points in common. Schongauer died in
1488; whilst the date of Dürer's death is 1528. Schongauer was therefore
a whole generation before Dürer, yet not greatly inferior to him in the
use of the burin, though Dürer has a much greater reputation, due in
great measure to his singular imaginative powers. Schongauer is the
first great German engraver known by name, but he was preceded by an
unknown German master, called "the Master of 1466," who had Gothic
notions of art (in strong contrast to the classicism of Baccio Baldini),
but used the burin skilfully, conceiving of line and shade as separate
elements, yet shading with an evident desire to follow the form of the
thing shaded, and with lines in various directions. Schongauer's art is
a great stride in advance, and we find in him an evident pleasure in the
bold use of the burin. Outline and shade, in Schongauer, are not nearly
so much separated as in Baccio Baldini, and the shading, generally in
curved lines, is far more masterly than the straight shading of
Mantegna. Dürer continued Schongauer's curved shading, with increasing
manual delicacy and skill; and as he found himself able to perform feats
with the burin which amused both himself and his buyers, he over-loaded
his plates with quantities of living and inanimate objects, each of
which he finished with as much care as if it were the most important
thing in the composition. The engravers of those days had no conception
of any necessity for subordinating one part of their work to another;
they drew, like children, first one object and then another object, and
so on until the plate was furnished from top to bottom and from the left
side to the right. Here, of course, is an element of facility in
primitive art which is denied to the modern artist. In Dürer all objects
are on the same plane. In his "St Hubert" (otherwise known as "St
Eustace") of c. 1505, the stag is quietly standing on the horse's back,
with one hoof on the saddle, and the kneeling knight looks as if he were
tapping the horse on the nose. Dürer seems to have perceived the mistake
about the stag, for he put a tree between us and the animal to correct
it, but the stag is on the horse's back nevertheless. This ignorance of
the laws of effect is least visible and obtrusive in plates which have
no landscape distances, such as "The Coat of Arms with the Death's Head"
(1503) and "The Coat of Arms with the Cock" (c. 1512).
Dürer's great manual skill and close observation made him a wonderful
engraver of objects taken separately. He saw and rendered all objects;
nothing escaped him; he applied the same intensity of study to
everything. Though a thorough student of the nude--witness his Adam and
Eve (1504) and other plates--he would pay just as much attention to the
creases of a gaiter as to the development of a muscle; and though man
was his main subject, he would study dogs with equal care (see the five
dogs in the "St Hubert"), as well as pigs (see the "Prodigal Son," c.
1495); and at a time when landscape painting was unknown he studied
every clump of trees, every visible trunk and branch, nay, every
foreground plant, and each leaf of it separately. In his buildings he
saw every brick like a bricklayer, and every joint in the woodwork like
a carpenter. The immense variety of the objects which he engraved was a
training in suppleness of hand. His lines go in every direction, and are
made to render both the undulations of surfaces (see the plane in the
Melencolia, 1514) and their texture (see the granular texture of the
stones in the same print).
From Dürer we come to Italy again, through Marcantonio, who copied
Dürer, translating more than sixty of his woodcuts upon metal. It is one
of the most remarkable things in the history of art, that a man who had
trained himself by copying northern work, little removed from pure
Gothicism, should have become soon afterwards the great engraver of
Raphael, who was much pleased with his work and aided him by personal
advice. Yet, although Raphael was a painter, and Marcantonio his
interpreter, the reader is not to infer that engraving had as yet
subordinated itself to painting. Raphael himself evidently considered
engraving a distinct art, for he never once set Marcantonio to work from
a picture, but always (much more judiciously) gave him drawings, which
the engraver might interpret without going outside his own art;
consequently Marcantonio's works are always genuine engravings, and are
never pictorial. Marcantonio was an engraver of remarkable power. In him
the real pure art of line-engraving reached its maturity. He retained
much of the early Italian manner in his backgrounds, where its
simplicity gives a desirable sobriety; but his figures are boldly
modelled in curved lines, crossing each other in the darker shades, but
left single in the passages from dark to light, and breaking away in
fine dots as they approach the light itself, which is of pure white
paper. A school of engraving was thus founded by Raphael, through
Marcantonio, which cast aside the minute details of the early schools
for a broad, harmonious treatment.
The group known as the engravers of Rubens marked a new development.
Rubens understood the importance of engraving as a means of increasing
his fame and wealth, and directed Vorsterman and others. The theory of
engraving at that time was that it ought not to render accurately the
local colour of painting, which would appear wanting in harmony when
dissociated from the hues of the picture; and it was one of the
anxieties of Rubens so to direct his engravers that the result might be
a fine plate independently of what he had painted. To this end he helped
his engravers by drawings, in which he sometimes indicated what he
thought the best direction for the lines. Rubens liked Vorsterman's
work, and scarcely corrected it, a plate he especially approved being
"Susannah and the Elders," which is a learned piece of work well
modelled, and shaded everywhere on the figures and costumes with fine
curved lines, the straight line being reserved for the masonry.
Vorsterman quitted Rubens after executing fourteen important plates, and
was succeeded by Paul Pontius, then a youth of twenty, who went on
engraving from Rubens with increasing skill until the painter's death.
Boetius a Bolswert engraved from Rubens towards the close of his life,
and his brother Schelte a Bolswert engraved more than sixty compositions
of Rubens, of the most varied character, including hunting scenes and
landscapes. This brings us to the engraving of landscape as a separate
study. Rubens treated landscape in a broad comprehensive manner, and
Schelte's way of engraving it was also broad and comprehensive. The
lines are long and often undulating, the cross-hatchings bold and rather
obtrusive, for they often substitute unpleasant reticulations for the
refinement and mystery of nature, but it was a beginning, and a vigorous
beginning. The technical developments of engraving under the influence
of Rubens may be summed up briefly as follows: (1) The Italian outline
had been discarded as the chief subject of attention, and modelling had
been substituted for it; (2) broad masses had been substituted for the
minutely finished detail of the northern schools; (3) a system of light
and dark had been adopted which was not pictorial, but belonged
especially to engraving, which it rendered (in the opinion of Rubens)
more harmonious.
The history of line-engraving, from the time of Rubens to the beginning
of the 19th century, is rather that of the vigorous and energetic
application of principles already accepted than any new development.
From the two sources already indicated, the school of Raphael and the
school of Rubens, a double tradition flowed to England and France, where
it mingled and directed English and French practice. The first influence
on English line-engraving was Flemish, and came from Rubens through
Vandyck, Vorsterman, and others; but the English engravers soon
underwent French and Italian influences, for although Payne learned from
a Fleming, Faithorne studied in France under Philippe de Champagne the
painter and Robert Nanteuil the engraver. Sir Robert Strange studied in
France under Philippe Lebas, and then five years in Italy, where he
saturated his mind with Italian art. French engravers came to England as
they went to Italy, so that the art of engraving became in the 18th
century cosmopolitan. In figure-engraving the outline was less and less
insisted upon. Strange made it his study to soften and lose the outline.
Meanwhile, the great classical Renaissance school, with Gérard Audran at
its head, had carried forward the art of modelling with the burin, and
had arrived at great perfection of a sober and dignified kind. Audran
was very productive in the latter half of the 17th century, and died in
1703, after a life of severe self-direction in labour, the best external
influence he underwent being that of the painter Nicolas Poussin. He
made his work more rapid by the use of etching, but kept it entirely
subordinate to the work of the burin. One of the finest of his large
plates is "St John Baptizing," from Poussin, with groups of dignified
figures in the foreground and a background of grand classical landscape,
all executed with the most thorough knowledge according to the ideas of
that time. The influence of Claude Lorrain on the engraving of landscape
was exercised less through his etchings than his pictures, which
compelled the engravers to study delicate distinctions in the values of
light and dark. Through Woollett and Vivarès, Claude exercised an
influence on landscape engraving almost equal to that of Raphael and
Rubens on the engraving of the figure, though he did not direct his
engravers personally.
In the 19th century line-engraving received first an impulse and finally
a check. The impulse came from the growth of public wealth, the
increasing interest in art and the increase in the commerce of art,
which, by means of engraving, fostered in England mainly by John
Boydell, penetrated into the homes of the middle classes, as well as
from the growing demand for illustrated books, which gave employment to
engravers of first-rate ability. The check to line-engraving came from
the desire for cheaper and more rapid methods, a desire satisfied in
various ways, but especially by etching and by the various kinds of
photography. Nevertheless, the 19th century produced most highly
accomplished work in line-engraving, both in the figure and in
landscape. Its characteristics, in comparison with the work of other
centuries, were chiefly a more thorough and delicate rendering of local
colour, light and shade, and texture. The elder engravers could draw as
correctly as the moderns, but they either neglected these elements or
admitted them sparingly, as opposed to the spirit of their art. In a
modern engraving from Landseer may be seen the blackness of a man's
boots (local colour), the soft roughness of his coat (texture), and the
exact value in light and dark of his face and costume against the cloudy
sky. Nay more, there is to be found every sparkle on bit, boot and
stirrup. Modern painting pays more attention to texture and chiaroscuro
than classical painting did, and engraving necessarily followed in the
same directions. But there is a certain sameness in pure line-engraving
more favourable to some forms and textures than to others. This sameness
of line-engraving, and its costliness, led to the adoption of mixed
methods, extremely prevalent in commercial prints from popular artists.
In the well-known prints from Rosa Bonheur, for example, by T. Landseer,
H. T. Ryall, and C. G. Lewis, the tone of the skies is got by
machine-ruling, and so is much undertone in the landscape; the fur of
the animals is all etched, and so are the foreground plants, the real
burin work being used sparingly where most favourable to texture. Even
in the exquisite engravings after Turner, by Cooke, Goodall, Wallis,
Miller, Willmore, and others, who reached a degree of delicacy in light
and shade far surpassing the work of the old masters, the engravers had
recourse to etching, finishing with the burin and dry point. Turner's
name may be added to those of Raphael, Rubens and Claude in the list of
painters who have had a special influence upon engraving. The speciality
of Turner's influence was in the direction of delicacy of tone. In this
respect the Turner vignettes to Roger's poems were a high-water mark of
human attainment, not likely ever to be surpassed.
The record of the art of line-engraving during the last quarter of the
19th century is one of continued decay. Technical improvements, it was
hoped, might save the art; it was thought by some that the slight revival
resultant on the turning back of the burin's cutting-point--whereby the
operator pulled the tool towards him instead of pushing it from
him--might effect much, in virtue of the time and labour saved by the
device. But by the beginning of the 20th century pictorial line-engraving
in England was practically non-existent, and, with the passing of Jeens
and Stacpoole, the spasmodic demand by publishers for engravers to
engrave new plates remained unanswered. Mr C. W. Sherborn, the exquisite
and facile designer and engraver of book-plates, has scarcely been
surpassed in his own line, but his art is mainly heraldic. There are now
no men capable of such work as that with which Doo, J. H. Robinson, and
their fellows maintained the credit of the English School. Line-engraving
has been killed by etching, mezzotint and the "mixed method." The
disappearance of the art is due not so much to the artistic objection
that the personality of the line-engraver stands obtrusively between the
painter and the public; it is rather that the public refuse to wait for
several years for the proofs for which they have subscribed, when by
another method they can obtain their plates more quickly. An important
line plate may occupy a prodigious time in the engraving; J. H.
Robinson's "Napoleon and the Pope" took about twelve years. The invention
of steel-facing a copper plate would now enable the engraver to proceed
more expeditiously; but even in this case he can no more compete with the
etcher than the mezzotint-engraver can keep pace with the photogravure
manufacturer.
The Art Union of London in the past gave what encouragement it could;
but with the death of J. Stephenson (1886) and F. Bacon (1887) it was
evident that all hope was gone. John Saddler at the end was driven, in
spite of his capacity to do original work, to spend most of his time in
assisting Thomas Landseer to rule the skies on his plates, simply
because there was not enough line-engraving to do. Since then there was
some promise of a revival, and Mr Bourne engraved a few of the pictures
by Gustave Doré. But little followed. The last of the line-engravers of
Turner's pictures died in the person of Sir Daniel Wilson (d. 1892),
who, recognizing the hopelessness of his early profession, laid his
graver aside, and left Europe for Canada and eventually became president
of the university of Toronto.
If line-engraving still flourishes in France, it is due not a little to
official encouragement and to intelligent fostering by collectors and
connoisseurs. The prizes offered by the École des Beaux Arts would
probably not suffice to give vitality to the art but for the employment
afforded to the finished artist by the "Chalcographie du Musée du
Louvre," in the name of which commissions are judiciously distributed.
At the same time, it must be recognized that not only are French
engravers less busy than they were in days when line-engraving was the
only "important" method of picture-translation, but they work for the
most part for much smaller rewards. Moreover, the class of the work has
entirely changed, partly through the reduction of prices paid for it,
partly through the change of taste and fashion, and partly, again,
through the necessities of the situation. That is to say, that public
impatience is but a partial factor in the abandonment of the fine broad
sweeping trough cut deep into the copper which was characteristic of the
earlier engraving, either simply cut or crossed diagonally so as to form
the series of "lozenges" typical of engraving at its finest and grandest
period. That method was slow; but scarcely less slow was the shallower
work rendered possible by the steel plate by reason of the much greater
degree of elaboration of which such plates were capable, and which the
public was taught--mainly by Finden--to expect. The French engravers
were therefore driven at last to simplify their work if they were to
satisfy the public and live by the burin. To compensate for loss of
colour, the art developed in the direction of elegance and refinement.
Gaillard (d. 1887), Blanchard, and Alphonse François (d. 1888) were
perhaps the earliest chiefs of the new school, the characteristics of
which are the substitution of exquisite greys for the rich blacks of
old, simplicity of method being often allied to extremely high
elaboration. Yet the aim of the modern engraver has always been, while
pushing the capability of his own art to the farthermost limit, to
retain throughout the individual and personal qualities of the master
whose work is translated on the plate. The height of perfection to which
the art is reached is seen in the triptych of Mantegna by Achille
Jacquet (d. 1909), to whom may perhaps be accorded the first place among
several engravers of the front rank. This "Passion" (from the three
pictures in the Louvre and at Tours, forming the predella of the San
Zeno altarpiece in Verona) not only conveys the forms, sentiment, and
colour of the master, but succeeds also in rendering the peculiar
luminosity of the originals. Jacquet, who gained the _Prix de Rome_ in
1870, also translated pictures of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and engraved fine
plates after Paul Dubois, Cabanel, Bouguereau, Meissonier and Detaille.
The freedom of much of his work suggests an affinity with etching and
dry-point; indeed, it appears that he uses the etching-needle and acid
to lay in some of his groundwork and outlines. Léopold Flameng's
engraving after Jan van Eyck's "Virgin with the Donor," in the Louvre,
is one of the most admirable works of its kind, retaining the quality
and sentiment of the master, extreme minuteness and elaboration
notwithstanding. Jules Jacquet is known for his work after Meissonier
(especially the "Friedland") and after Bonnat; Adrien Didier for his
plates after Holbein ("Anne of Cleves"), Raphael, and Paul Veronese,
among the Old Masters, and Bonnat, Bouguereau, and Roybet among the new.
Jazinski (Botticelli's "Primavera"), Sulpis (Mantegna and Gustave
Moreau), Patricot (Gustave Moreau), Burney, and Champollion (d. 1901),
have been among the leaders of the modern school. Their object is to
secure the faithful transcript of the painter they reproduce, while
readily sacrificing the power of the old method, which, whatever its
force and its beauty, was easily acquired by mediocre artists of
technical ability who were nevertheless unable to appreciate or
reproduce anything beyond mechanical excellence.
The Belgian School of engraving is not without vitality. Gustave Biot
was equally skilful in portraiture and subject (engraving after Gallait,
Cabanel, Gustave Doré, among his best work); A. M. Danse executed plates
after leading painters, and elaborated an effective "mixed method" of
graver-work and dry-point; and de Meerman has engraved a number of good
plates; but private patronage is hardly sufficient in Belgium to
maintain the school in a state of prosperous efficiency.
In Germany, as might be expected, line-engraving retains not a little of
its popularity in its more orthodox form. The novel Stauffer-Bern
method, in which freedom and lightness are obtained with such delicacy
that the fine lines, employed in great numbers, run into tone, and yield
a supposed advantage in modelling, has not been without appreciation.
But the more usual virtue of the graver has been best supported, and
many have worked in the old-fashioned manner. Friedrich Zimmermann (d.
1887) began his career by engraving such prints as Guido Reni's "Ecce
Homo" in Dresden, and then devoted himself to the translation of modern
German painters. Rudolph Pfnor was an ornamentist representative of his
class; and Joseph Kohlschein, of Düsseldorf, a typical exponent of the
intelligent conservative manner. His "Marriage at Cana" after Paul
Veronese, "The Sistine Madonna" after Raphael, and "St Cecilia" after
the same master, are all plates of a high order.
In Italy the art is well-nigh as moribund as in England. When Vittorio
Pica (of Naples) and Conconi (of Milan) have been named, it is difficult
to mention other successors to the fine school of the 19th century which
followed Piranesi and Volpato. A few of the pupils of Rosaspina and
Paolo Toschi lived into the last quarter of the century, but to the
present generation Asiolo, Jesi, C. Raimondi, L. Bigola, and Antonio
Isac are remembered rather for their efforts than for their success in
supporting their art against the combined opposition of etching,
"process" and public indifference.
Outside Europe line-engraving can no longer be said to exist. Here and
there a spasmodic attempt may be made to appeal to the artistic
appreciation of a limited public; but no general attention is paid to
such efforts, nor, it may be added, are these inherently worthy of much
notice. There are still a few who can engrave a head from a photograph
or drawing, or a small engraving for book-illustration or for
book-plates; there are more who are highly proficient in mechanical
engraving for decorative purposes; but the engraving-machine is fast
superseding this class. In short, the art of worthily translating a fine
painting beyond the borders of France, Belgium, Germany and perhaps
Italy can scarcely be said to survive, and even in those countries it
appears to exist on sufferance and by hot-house encouragement.
AUTHORITIES.--P. G. Hamerton, _Drawing and Engraving_ (Edinburgh,
1892); H. W. Singer and W. Strang, _Etching, Engraving, and other
methods of Printing Pictures_ (London, 1897); A. de Lostalot, _Les
Procédés de la gravure_ (Paris, 1882); Le Comte Henri Delaborde, La
Gravure (Paris, English trans., with a chapter on English engraving
methods, by William Walker, London, 1886); H. W. Singer, _Geschichte
des Kupferstichs_ (Magdeburg and Leipzig, 1895), and _Der Kupferstich_
(Bielefeld and Leipzig, 1904); Alex. Waldow, _Illustrirte Encyklopädie
der Graphischen Künste_ (Leipzig, 1881-1884); Lippmann, _Engraving and
Engraving_, translated by Martin Hardie (London, 1906); and for those
who desire books of gossip on the subject, Arthur Hayden, _Chats on
Old Prints_ (London, 1906), and Malcolm C. Salaman, _The Old Engravers
of England_ (London, 1906). (P. G. H.; M. H. S.)
LINEN and LINEN MANUFACTURES. Under the name of linen are comprehended
all yarns spun and fabrics woven from flax fibre (see FLAX).
From the earliest periods of human history till almost the close of the
18th century the linen manufacture was one of the most extensive and
widely disseminated of the domestic industries of European countries.
The industry was most largely developed in Russia, Austria, Germany,
Holland, Belgium, the northern provinces of France, and certain parts of
England, in the north of Ireland, and throughout Scotland; and in these
countries its importance was generally recognized by the enactment of
special laws, having for their object the protection and extension of
the trade. The inventions of Arkwright, Hargreaves and Crompton in the
later part of the 18th century, benefiting almost exclusively the art of
cotton-spinning, and the unparalleled development of that branch of
textile manufactures, largely due to the ingenuity of these inventors,
gave the linen trade as it then existed a fatal blow. Domestic spinning,
and with it hand-loom weaving, immediately began to shrink; the trade
which had supported whole villages and provinces entirely disappeared,
and the linen manufacture, in attenuated dimensions and changed
conditions, took refuge in special localities, where it resisted, not
unsuccessfully, the further assaults of cotton, and, with varying
fortunes, rearranged its relations in the community of textile
industries. The linen industries of the United Kingdom were the first to
suffer from the aggression of cotton; more slowly the influence of the
rival textile reached other countries.
In 1810 Napoleon I. offered a reward of one million francs to any
inventor who should devise the best machinery for the spinning of flax
yarn. Within a few weeks thereafter Philippe de Girard patented in
France important inventions for flax spinning by both dry and wet
methods. His inventions, however, did not receive the promised reward
and were neglected in his native country. In 1815 he was invited by the
Austrian government to establish a spinning mill at Hirtenberg near
Vienna, which was run with his machinery for a number of years, but it
failed to prove a commercial success. In the meantime English inventors
had applied themselves to the task of adapting machines to the
preparation and spinning of flax. The foundation of machine spinning of
flax was laid by John Kendrew and Thomas Porthouse of Darlington, who,
in 1787, secured a patent for "a mill or machine upon new principles for
spinning yarn from hemp, tow, flax or wool." By innumerable successive
improvements and modifications, the invention of Kendrew and Porthouse
developed into the perfect system of machinery with which, at the
present day, spinning-mills are furnished; but progress in adapting flax
fibres for mechanical spinning, and linen yarn for weaving cloth by
power-loom was much slower than in the corresponding case of cotton.
Till comparatively recent times, the sole spinning implements were the
spindle and distaff. The spindle, which is the fundamental apparatus in
all spinning machinery, was a round stick or rod of wood about 12 in. in
length, tapering towards each extremity, and having at its upper end a
notch or slit into which the yarn might be caught or fixed. In general,
a ring or "whorl" of stone or clay was passed round the upper part of
the spindle to give it momentum and steadiness when in rotation, while
in some few cases an ordinary potato served the purpose of a whorl. The
distaff, or rock, was a rather longer and stronger bar or stick, around
one end of which, in a loose coil or ball, the fibrous material to be
spun was wound. The other extremity of the distaff was carried under the
left arm, or fixed in the girdle at the left side, so as to have the
coil of flax in a convenient position for drawing out to form the yarn.
A prepared end of yarn being fixed into the notch, the spinster, by a
smart rolling motion of the spindle with the right hand against the
right leg, threw it out from her, spinning in the air, while, with the
left hand, she drew from the rock an additional supply of fibre which
was formed into a uniform and equal strand with the right. The yarn
being sufficiently twisted was released from the notch, wound around the
lower part of the spindle, and again fixed in the notch at the point
insufficiently twisted; and so the rotating, twisting and drawing out
operations went on till the spindle was full. So persistent is an
ancient and primitive art of this description that in remote districts
of Scotland--a country where machine spinning has attained a high
standard--spinning with rock and spindle is still practised;[1] and yarn
of extraordinary delicacy, beauty and tenacity has been spun by their
agency. The first improvement on the primitive spindle was found in the
construction of the hand-wheel, in which the spindle, mounted in a
frame, was fixed horizontally, and rotated by a band passing round it
and a large wheel, set in the same framework. Such a wheel became known
in Europe about the middle of the 16th century, but it appears to have
been in use for cotton spinning in the East from time immemorial. At a
later date, which cannot be fixed, the treadle motion was attached to
the spinning wheel, enabling the spinster to sit at work with both hands
free; and the introduction of the two-handed or double-spindle wheel,
with flyers or twisting arms on the spindles, completed the series of
mechanical improvements effected on flax spinning till the end of the
18th century. The common use of the two-handed wheel throughout the
rural districts of Ireland and Scotland is a matter still within the
recollection of some people; but spinning wheels are now seldom seen.
The modern manufacture of linen divides itself into two branches,
spinning and weaving, to which may be added the bleaching and various
finishing processes, which, in the case of many linen textures, are
laborious undertakings and important branches of industry. The flax
fibre is received in bundles from the scutch mill, and after having been
classed into various grades, according to the quality of the material,
it is labelled and placed in the store ready for the flax mill. The
whole operations in yarn manufacture comprise (1) hackling, (2)
preparing and (3) spinning.
_Hackling._--This first preparatory process consists not only in
combing out, disentangling and laying smooth and parallel the separate
fibres, but also serves to split up and separate into their ultimate
filaments the strands of fibre which, up to this point, have been
agglutinated together. The hackling process was originally performed
by hand, and it was one of fundamental importance, requiring the
exercise of much dexterity and judgment. The broken, ravelled and
short fibres, which separate out in the hackling process, form tow, an
article of much inferior value to the spinner. A good deal of
hand-hackling is still practised, especially in Irish and continental
mills; and it has not been found practicable, in any case, to dispense
entirely with a rough preparation of the fibre by hand labour. In
hackling by hand, the hackler takes a handful or "strick" of rough
flax, winds the top end around his hands, and then, spreading out the
root end as broad and flat as possible, by a swinging motion dashes
the fibre into the hackle teeth or needles of the rougher or "ruffer."
The rougher is a board plated with tin, and studded with spikes or
teeth of steel about 7 in. in length, which taper to a fine sharp
point. The hackler draws his strick several times through this tool,
working gradually up from the roots to near his hand, till in his
judgment the fibres at the root end are sufficiently combed out and
smoothed. He then seizes the root end and similarly treats the top end
of the strick. The same process is again repeated on a similar tool,
the teeth of which are 5 in. long, and much more closely studded
together; and for the finer counts of yarn a third and a fourth hackle
may be used, of still increasing fineness and closeness of teeth. In
dealing with certain varieties of the fibre, for fine spinning
especially, the flax is, after roughing, broken or cut into three
lengths--the top, middle and root ends. Of these the middle cut is
most valuable, being uniform in length, strength and quality. The root
end is more woody and harsh, while the top, though fine in quality, is
uneven and variable in strength. From some flax of extra length it is
possible to take two short middle cuts; and, again, the fibre is
occasionally only broken into two cuts. Flax so prepared is known as
"cut line" in contradistinction to "long line" flax, which is the
fibre unbroken. The subsequent treatment of line, whether long or cut,
does not present sufficient variation to require further reference to
these distinctions.
In the case of hackling by machinery, the flax is first roughed and
arranged in stricks, as above described under hand hackling. In the
construction of hackling machines, the general principles of those now
most commonly adopted are identical. The machines are known as
vertical sheet hackling machines, their essential features being a set
of endless leather bands or sheets revolving over a pair of rollers in
a vertical direction. These sheets are crossed by iron bars, to which
hackle stocks, furnished with teeth, are screwed. The hackle stocks on
each separate sheet are of one size and gauge, but each successive
sheet in the length of the machine is furnished with stocks of
increasing fineness, so that the hackling tool at the end where the
flax is entered is the coarsest, say about four pins per inch, while
that to which the fibre is last submitted has the smallest and most
closely set teeth. The finest tools may contain from 45 to 60 pins per
inch. Thus the whole of the endless vertical revolving sheet presents
a continuous series of hackle teeth, and the machines are furnished
with a double set of such sheets revolving face to face, so close
together that the pins of one set of sheets intersect those on the
opposite stocks. Overhead, and exactly centred between these revolving
sheets, is the head or holder channel, from which the flax hangs down
while it is undergoing the hackling process on both sides. The flax is
fastened in a holder consisting of two heavy flat plates of iron,
between which it is spread and tightly screwed up. The holder is 11
in. in length, and the holder channel is fitted to contain a line of
six, eight or twelve such holders, according to the number of separate
bands of hackling stocks in the machine. The head or holder channel
has a falling and rising motion, by which it first presents the ends
and gradually more and more of the length of the fibre to the hackle
teeth, and, after dipping down the full length of the fibre exposed,
it slowly rises and lifts the flax clear of the hackle stocks. By a
reciprocal motion all the holders are then moved forward one length;
that at the last and finest set of stocks is thrown out, and place is
made for filling in an additional holder at the beginning of the
series. Thus with a six-tool hackle, or set of stocks, each holder
full of flax from beginning to end descends into and rises from the
hackle teeth six times in travelling from end to end of the machine.
The root ends being thus first hackled, the holders are shot back
along an inclined plane, the iron plates unclamped, the flax reversed,
and the top ends are then submitted to the same hackling operation.
The tow made during the hackling process is carried down by the pins
of the sheet, and is stripped from them by means of a circular brush
placed immediately under the bottom roller. The brush revolves in the
same direction as, but quicker than the sheet, consequently the tow is
withdrawn from the pins. The tow is then removed from the brush by a
doffer roller, from which it is finally removed by a doffing knife.
This material is then carded by a machine similar to, but finer than,
the one described under Jute (q.v.). The hackled flax, however, is
taken direct to the preparing department.
_Preparing._--The various operations in this stage have for their
object the proper assortment of dressed line into qualities fit for
spinning, and the drawing out of the fibres to a perfectly level and
uniform continuous ribbon or sliver, containing throughout an equal
quantity of fibre in any given length. From the hackling the now
smooth, glossy and clean stricks are taken to the sorting room, where
they are assorted into different qualities by the "line sorter," who
judges by both eye and touch the quality and capabilities of the
fibre. So sorted, the material is passed to the spreading and drawing
frames, a series or system of machines all similar in construction and
effect. The essential features of the spreading frame are: (1) the
feeding cloth or creeping sheet, which delivers the flax to (2) a pair
of "feed and jockey" rollers, which pass it on (3) to the gill frame
or fallers. The gill frame consists of a series of narrow hackle bars,
with short closely studded teeth, which travel between the feed
rollers and the drawing or "boss and pressing" rollers to be
immediately attended to. They are, by an endless screw arrangement,
carried forward at approximately the same rate at which the flax is
delivered to them, and when they reach the end of their course they
fall under, and by a similar screw arrangement are brought back to the
starting-point; and thus they form an endless moving level toothed
platform for carrying away the flax from the feed rollers. This is the
machine in which the fibres are, for the first time, formed into a
continuous length termed a sliver. In order to form this continuous
sliver it is necessary that the short lengths of flax should overlap
each other on the spread sheet or creeping sheet. This sheet contains
four or six divisions, so that four or six lots of overlapped flax are
moving at the same time towards the first pair of rollers--the boss
rollers or retaining rollers. The fibre passes between these rollers
and is immediately caught by the rising gills which carry the fibre
towards the drawing rollers. The pins of the gills should pass through
the fibre so that they may have complete control over it, while their
speed should be a little greater than the surface speed of the
retaining rollers. The fibre is thus carried forward to the drawing
rollers, which have a surface speed of from 10 to 30 times that of the
retaining rollers. The great difference between the speeds of the
retaining and drawing rollers results in each sliver being drawn out
to a corresponding degree. Finally all the slivers are run into one
and in this state are passed between the delivery rollers into the
sliver cans. Each can should contain the same length of sliver, a
common length being 1000 yds. A bell is automatically rung by the
machine to warn the attendant that the desired length has been
deposited into the can. From the spreading frame the cans of sliver
pass to the drawing frames, where from four to twelve slivers combined
are passed through feed rollers over gills, and drawn out by drawing
rollers to the thickness of one. A third and fourth similar doubling
and drawing may be embraced in a preparing system, so that the number
of doublings the flax undergoes, before it arrives at the roving
frame, may amount to from one thousand to one hundred thousand,
according to the quality of yarn in progress. Thus, for example, the
doublings on one preparing system may be 6 × 12 × 12 × 12 × 8 =
82,944. The slivers delivered by the last drawing frame are taken to
the roving frame, where they are singly passed through feed rollers
and over gills, and, after drafting to sufficient tenuity, they are
slightly twisted by flyers and wound on bobbins, in which condition
the material--termed "rove" or "rovings"--is ready for the spinning
frame.[2]
_Spinning._--The spinning operation, which follows the roving, is done
in two principal ways, called respectively dry spinning and wet
spinning, the first being used for the lower counts or heavier yarns,
while the second is exclusively adopted in the preparation of fine
yarns. The spinning frame does not differ in principle from the
throstle spinning machine used in cotton manufacture. The bobbins of
flax rove are arranged in rows on each side of the frame (the spinning
frames being all double) on pins in an inclined plane. The rove
passes downwards through an eyelet or guide to a pair of nipping
rollers between which and the final drawing rollers, placed in the
case of dry spinning from 18 to 22 in. lower down, the fibre receives
its final draft while passing over and under cylinders and
guide-plate, and attains that degree of tenuity which the finished
yarn must possess. From the last rollers the now attenuated material,
in passing to the flyers receives the degree of twist which compacts
the fibres into the round hard cord which constitutes spun yarn; and
from the flyers it is wound on the more slowly rotating spool within
the flyer arms, centred on the top of the spindle. The amount of twist
given to the thread at the spinning frame varies from 1.5 to 2 times
the square root of the count. In wet spinning the general sequence of
operations is the same, but the rove, as unwound from its bobbin,
first passes through a trough of water heated to about 120° Fahr.; and
the interval between the two pairs of rollers in which the drawing out
of the rove is accomplished is very much shorter. The influence of the
hot water on the flax fibre appears to be that it softens the gummy
substance which binds the separate cells together, and thereby allows
the elementary cells to a certain extent to be drawn out without
breaking the continuity of the fibre; and further it makes a finer,
smoother and more uniform strand than can be obtained by dry spinning.
The extent to which the original strick of flax as laid on the feeding
roller for (say) the production of a 50 lea yarn is, by doublings and
drawings, extended, when it reaches the spinning spindle, may be
stated thus: 35 times on spreading frame, 15 times on first drawing
frame, 15 times on second drawing frame, 14 times on third drawing
frame, 15 times on roving frame and 10 times on spinning frame, in all
16,537,500 times its original length, with 8 × 12 × 16 = 1536
doublings on the three drawing frames. That is to say, 1 yd. of
hackled line fed into the spreading frame is spread out, mixed with
other fibres, to a length of about 9400 m. of yarn, when the above
drafts obtain. The drafts are much shorter for the majority of yarns.
The next operation is reeling from the bobbins into hanks. By act of
parliament, throughout the United Kingdom the standard measure of flax
yard is the "lea," called also in Scotland the "cut" of 300 yds. The
flax is wound or reeled on a reel having a circumference of 90 in. (2½
yds.) making "a thread," and one hundred and twenty such threads form
a lea. The grist or count of all fine yarns is estimated by the number
of leas in 1 lb.; thus "50 lea" indicates that there are 50 leas or
cuts of 300 yds. each in 1 lb. of the yard so denominated. With the
heavier yarns in Scotland the quality is indicated by their weight per
"spyndle" of 48 cuts or leas; thus "3 lb. tow yarn" is such as weighs
3 lb. per spyndle, equivalent to "16 lea."
The hanks of yarn from wet spinning are either dried in a loft with
artificial heat or exposed over ropes in the open air. When dry they
are twisted back and forward to take the wiry feeling out of the yarn,
and made up in bundles for the market as "grey yarn." English spinners
make up their yarns into "bundles" of 20 hanks, each hank containing
10 leas; Irish spinners make hanks of 12 leas, 16(2/3) of which form a
bundle; Scottish manufacturers adhere to the spyndle containing 4
hanks of 12 cuts or leas.
Commercial qualities of yarn range from about 8 lb. tow yarns (6 lea)
up to 160 lea line yarn. Very much finer yarn up even to 400 lea may
be spun from the system of machines found in many mills; but these
higher counts are only used for fine thread for sewing and for the
making of lace. The highest counts of cut line flax are spun in Irish
mills for the manufacture of fine cambrics and lawns which are
characteristic features of the Ulster trade. Exceedingly high counts
have sometimes been spun by hand, and for the preparation of the
finest lace threads it is said the Belgian hand spinners must work in
damp cellars, where the spinner is guided by the sense of touch alone,
the filament being too fine to be seen by the eye. Such lace yarn is
said to have been sold for as much as £240 per lb. In the Great
Exhibition of 1851, yarn of 760 lea, equal to about 130 m. per lb.,
was shown which had been spun by an Irish woman eighty-four years of
age. In the same exhibition there was shown by a Cambray manufacturing
firm hand-spun yarn equal to 1200 warp and 1600 weft or to more than
204 and 272 m. per lb. respectively.
_Bleaching._--A large proportion of the linen yarn of commerce undergoes
a more or less thorough bleaching before it is handed over to the
weaver. Linen yarns in the green condition contain such a large
proportion of gummy and resinous matter, removable by bleaching, that
cloths which might present a firm close texture in their natural
unbleached state would become thin and impoverished in a perfectly
bleached condition. Nevertheless, in many cases it is much more
satisfactory to weave the yarns in the green or natural colour, and to
perform all bleaching operations in the piece. Manufacturers allow about
20 to 25% of loss in weight of yarn in bleaching from the green to the
fully bleached stage; and the intermediate stages of boiled, improved,
duck, cream, half bleach and three-quarters bleach, all indicating a
certain degree of bleaching, have corresponding degrees of loss in
weight. The differences in colour resulting from different degrees of
bleaching are taken advantage of for producing patterns in certain
classes of linen fabrics.
Linen thread is prepared from the various counts of fine bleached line
yarn by winding the hanks on large spools, and twisting the various
strands, two, three, four or six cord as the case may be, on a doubling
spindle similar in principle to the yarn spinning frame, excepting, of
course, the drawing rollers. A large trade in linen thread has been
created by its use in the machine manufacture of boots and shoes,
saddlery and other leather goods, and in heavy sewing-machine work
generally. The thread industry is largely developed at Lisburn near
Belfast, at Johnstone near Glasgow, Bridport, Dorsetshire, and at
Paterson, New Jersey, United States. Fine cords, net twine and ropes are
also twisted from flax.
Weaving.--The difficulties in the way of power-loom linen weaving,
combined with the obstinate competition of hand-loom weavers, delayed
the introduction of factory weaving of linen fabrics for many years
after the system was fully applied to other textiles. The principal
difficulty arose through the hardness and inelasticity of the linen
yarns, owing to which the yarn frequently broke under the tension to
which it was subjected. Competition with the hand-loom against the
power-loom in certain classes of work is conceivable, although it is
absolutely impossible for the work of the spinning wheel to stand
against the rivalry of drawing, roving and spinning frames. To the
present day, in Ireland especially, a great deal of fine weaving is done
by hand-loom. Warden states that power was applied on a small scale to
the weaving of canvas in London about 1812; that in 1821 power-looms
were started for weaving linen at Kirkcaldy, Scotland; and that in 1824
Maberly & Co. of Aberdeen had two hundred power-looms erected for linen
manufacture. The power-loom has been in uninterrupted use in the
Broadford factory, Aberdeen, which then belonged to Maberly & Co., down
to the present day, and that firm may be credited with being the
effective introducers of power-loom weaving in the linen trade.
The various operations connected with linen weaving, such as winding,
warping, dressing, beaming and drawing-in, do not differ in essential
features from the like processes in the case of cotton weaving, &c.,
neither is there any significant modification in the looms employed (see
WEAVING). Dressing is a matter of importance in the preparation of linen
warps for beaming. It consists in treating the spread yarn with flour or
farina paste, applied to it by flannel-covered rollers, the lowermost of
which revolves in a trough of paste. The paste is equalized on the yarn
by brushes, and dried by passing the web over steam-heated cylinders
before it is finally wound on the beam for weaving.
Fabrics.
Linen fabrics are numerous in variety and widely different in their
qualities, appearance and applications, ranging from heavy sail-cloth
and rough sacking to the most delicate cambrics, lawns and scrims. The
heavier manufactures include as a principal item sail-cloth, with
canvas, tarpaulin, sacking and carpeting. The principal seats of the
manufacture of these linens are Dundee, Arbroath, Forfar, Kirkcaldy,
Aberdeen and Barnsley. The medium weight linens, which are used for a
great variety of purposes, such as tent-making, towelling, covers,
outer garments for men, linings, upholstery work, &c., include duck,
huckaback, crash, tick, dowlas, osnaburg, low sheetings and low brown
linens. Plain bleached linens form a class by themselves, and include
principally the materials for shirts and collars and for bed sheets.
Under the head of twilled linens are included drills, diapers and
dimity for household use; and damasks for table linen, of which two
kinds are distinguished--single or five-leaf damask, and double or
eight-leaf damask, the pattern being formed by the intersection of
warp and weft yarns at intervals of five and eight threads of yarn
respectively. The fine linens are cambrics, lawns and handkerchiefs;
and lastly, printed and dyed linen fabrics may be assigned to a
special though not important class. In a general way it may be said
regarding the British industry that the heavy linen trade centres in
Dundee; medium goods are made in most linen manufacturing districts;
damasks are chiefly produced in Belfast, Dunfermline and Perth; and
the fine linen manufactures have their seat in Belfast and the north
of Ireland. Leeds and Barnsley are the centres of the linen trade in
England.
Linen fabrics have several advantages over cotton, resulting
principally from the microscopic structure and length of the flax
fibre. The cloth is much smoother and more lustrous than cotton cloth;
and, presenting a less "woolly" surface, it does not soil so readily,
nor absorb and retain moisture so freely, as the more spongy cotton;
and it is at once a cool, clean and healthful material for
bed-sheeting and clothing. Bleached linen, starched and dressed,
possesses that unequalled purity, gloss and smoothness which make it
alone the material suitable for shirt-fronts, collars and wristbands;
and the gossamer delicacy, yet strength, of the thread it may be spun
into fits it for the fine lace-making to which it is devoted. Flax is
a slightly heavier material than cotton, while its strength is about
double.
As regards the actual number of spindles and power-looms engaged in
linen manufacture, the following particulars are taken from the report
of the Flax Supply Association for 1905:--
+------------------+------+----------+------+------------+
| | | Number of| | Number of |
| Country. | Year.| Spindles | Year.| Power-looms|
| | | for Flax | | for Linen |
| | | Spinning.| | Weaving. |
|------------------+------+----------+------+------------+
| Austria-Hungary | 1903 | 280,414 | 1895 | 3357 |
| Belgium | 1902 | 280,000 | 1900 | 3400 |
| England and Wales| 1905 | 49,941 | 1905 | 4424 |
| France | 1902 | 455,838 | 1891 | 18,083 |
| Germany | 1902 | 295,796 | 1895 | 7557 |
| Holland | 1896 | 8000 | 1891 | 1200 |
| Ireland | 1905 | 851,388 | 1905 | 34,498 |
| Italy | 1902 | 77,000 | 1902 | 3500 |
| Norway | .. | .. | 1880 | 120 |
| Russia | 1902 | 300,000 | 1889 | 7312 |
| Scotland | 1905 | 160,085 | 1905 | 17,185 |
| Spain | .. | .. | 1876 | 1000 |
| Sweden | .. | .. | 1884 | 286 |
+------------------+------+----------+------+------------+
_British Exports of Linen Yarn and Cloth._
+---------------------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| | 1891. | 1896. | 1901. | 1906. |
+---------------------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| Weight of linen yarn | | | | |
| in pounds | 14,859,900 | 18,462,300 | 12,971,100 | 14,978,200 |
| Length in yards of linen | | | | |
| piece goods, plain, | | | | |
| bleached or unbleached |144,416,700 |150,849,300 |137,521,000 |173,334,200 |
| Length in yards of linen | | | | |
| piece goods, checked, | | | | |
| dyed or printed, also | | | | |
| damask and diaper | 11,807,600 | 17,986,100 | 8,007,600 | 13,372,100 |
| Length in yards of sail- | | | | |
| cloth | 3,233,400 | 5,372,600 | 4,686,700 | 4,251,400 |
| Total length in yards of | | | | |
| all kinds of linen cloth|159,457,700 |174,208,000 |150,215,300 |190,957,700 |
| Weight in pounds of linen | | | | |
| thread for sewing | 2,474,100 | 2,240,300 | 1,721,000 | 2,181,100 |
+---------------------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
AUTHORITIES.--History of the trade, &c.: Warden's _Linen Trade,
Ancient and Modern_. Spinning: Peter Sharp, _Flax, Tow and Jute
Spinning_ (Dundee); H. R. Carter, _Spinning and Twisting of Long
Vegetable Fibres_ (London). Weaving: Woodhouse and Milne, _Jute and
Linen Weaving_, part i., Mechanism, part ii., Calculations and Cloth
Structure (Manchester); and Woodhouse and Milne, _Textile Design: Pure
and Applied_ (London). (T. Wo.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See Sir Arthur Mitchell's _The Past in the Present_ (Edinburgh,
1880).
[2] The preparation of tow for spinning differs in essential features
from the processes above described. Tow from different sources, such
as scutching tow, hackle tow, &c. differs considerably in quality and
value, some being very impure, filled with woody shives &c., while
other kinds are comparatively open and clean. A preliminary opening
and cleaning is necessary for the dirty much-matted tows, and in
general thereafter they are passed through two carding engines called
respectively the breaker and the finisher cards till the slivers from
their processes are ready for the drawing and roving frames. In the
case of fine clean tows, on the other hand, passing through a single
carding engine may be sufficient. The processes which follow the
carding do not differ materially from those followed in the
preparation of rove from line flax.
LINEN-PRESS, a contrivance, usually of oak, for pressing sheets,
table-napkins and other linen articles, resembling a modern office
copying-press. Linen presses were made chiefly in the 17th and 18th
centuries, and are now chiefly interesting as curiosities of antique
furniture. Usually quite plain, they were occasionally carved with
characteristic Jacobean designs.
LINER, or LINE OF BATTLE SHIP, the name formerly given to a vessel
considered large enough to take part in a naval battle. The practice of
distinguishing between vessels fit, and those not fit, to "lie in a line
of battle," arose towards the end of the 17th century. In the early 18th
century all vessels of 50 guns and upwards were considered fit to lie in
a line. After the Seven Years' War (1756-63) the 50-gun ships were
rejected as too small. When the great revolutionary wars broke out the
smallest line of battle ship was of 64 guns. These also came to be
considered as too small, and later the line of battle-ships began with
those of 74 guns. The term is now replaced by "battleship"; "liner"
being the colloquial name given to the great passenger ships used on the
main lines of sea transport.
LING, PER HENRIK (1776-1839), Swedish medical-gymnastic practitioner,
son of a minister, was born at Ljunga in the south of Sweden in 1776. He
studied divinity, and took his degree in 1797, but then went abroad for
some years, first to Copenhagen, where he taught modern languages, and
then to Germany, France and England. Pecuniary straits injured his
health, and he suffered much from rheumatism, but he had acquired
meanwhile considerable proficiency in gymnastics and fencing. In 1804 he
returned to Sweden, and established himself as a teacher in these arts
at Lund, being appointed in 1805 fencing-master to the university. He
found that his daily exercises had completely restored his bodily
health, and his thoughts now turned towards applying this experience for
the benefit of others. He attended the classes on anatomy and
physiology, and went through the entire curriculum for the training of a
doctor; he then elaborated a system of gymnastics, divided into four
branches, (1) pedagogical, (2) medical, (3) military, (4) aesthetic,
which carried out his theories. After several attempts to interest the
Swedish government, Ling at last in 1813 obtained their co-operation,
and the Royal Gymnastic Central Institute, for the training of gymnastic
instructors, was opened in Stockholm, with himself as principal. The
orthodox medical practitioners were naturally opposed to the larger
claims made by Ling and his pupils respecting the cure of diseases--so
far at least as anything more than the occasional benefit of some form
of skilfully applied "massage" was concerned; but the fact that in 1831
Ling was elected a member of the Swedish General Medical Association
shows that in his own country at all events his methods were regarded as
consistent with professional recognition. Ling died in 1839, having
previously named as the repositories of his teaching his pupils Lars
Gabriel Branting (1799-1881), who succeeded him as principal of the
Institute, and Karl Augustus Georgii, who became sub-director; his son,
Hjalmar Ling (1820-1886), being for many years associated with them. All
these, together with Major Thure Brandt, who from about 1861 specialized
in the treatment of women (gynecological gymnastics), are regarded as
the pioneers of Swedish medical gymnastics.
It may be convenient to summarize here the later history of Ling's
system of medical gymnastics. A _Gymnastic Orthopaedic Institute_ at
Stockholm was founded in 1822 by Dr Nils Åkerman, and after 1827
received a government grant; and Dr Gustaf Zander elaborated a
medico-mechanical system of gymnastics, known by his name, about 1857,
and started his Zander Institute at Stockholm in 1865. At the Stockholm
Gymnastic Central Institute qualified medical men have supervised the
medical department since 1864; the course is three years (one year for
qualified doctors). Broadly speaking, there have been two streams of
development in the Swedish gymnastics founded on Ling's
beginnings--either in a conservative direction, making certain forms of
gymnastic exercises subsidiary to the prescriptions of orthodox medical
science, or else in an extremely progressive direction, making these
exercises a substitute for any other treatment, and claiming them as a
cure for disease by themselves. Modern medical science recognizes fully
the importance of properly selected exercises in preserving the body
from many ailments; but the more extreme claim, which rules out the use
of drugs in disease altogether, has naturally not been admitted. Modern
professed disciples of Ling are divided, the representative of the more
extreme section being Henrik Kellgren (b. 1837), who has a special
school and following.
Ling and his earlier assistants left no proper written account of
their treatment, and most of the literature on the subject is
repudiated by one set or other of the gymnastic practitioners. Dr
Anders Wide, M.D., of Stockholm, has published a _Handbook of Medical
Gymnastics_ (English edition, 1899), representing the more
conservative practice. Henrik Kellgren's system, which, though based
on Ling's, admittedly goes beyond it, is described in _The Elements of
Kellgren's Manual Treatment_ (1903), by Edgar F. Cyriax, who before
taking the M.D. degree at Edinburgh had passed out of the Stockholm
Institute as a "gymnastic director." See also the encyclopaedic work
on _Sweden: its People and Industry_ (1904), p. 348, edited by G.
Sundbärg for the Swedish government.
LING[1] (_Molva vulgaris_), a fish of the family Gadidae, which is
readily recognized by its long body, two dorsal fins (of which the
anterior is much shorter than the posterior), single long anal fin,
separate caudal fin, a barbel on the chin and large teeth in the lower
jaw and on the palate. Its usual length is from 3 to 4 ft., but
individuals of 5 or 6 ft. in length, and some 70 lb. in weight, have
been taken. The ling is found in the North Atlantic, from Spitzbergen
and Iceland southwards to the coast of Portugal. Its proper home is the
North Sea, especially on the coasts of Norway, Denmark, Great Britain
and Ireland, it occurs in great abundance, generally at some distance
from the land, in depths varying between 50 and 100 fathoms. During the
winter months it approaches the shores, when great numbers are caught by
means of long lines. On the American side of the Atlantic it is less
common, although generally distributed along the south coast of
Greenland and on the banks of Newfoundland. Ling is one of the most
valuable species of the cod-fish family; a certain number are consumed
fresh, but by far the greater portion are prepared for exportation to
various countries (Germany, Spain, Italy). They are either salted and
sold as "salt-fish," or split from head to tail and dried, forming, with
similarly prepared cod and coal-fish, the article of which during Lent
immense quantities are consumed in Germany and elsewhere under the name
of "stock-fish." The oil is frequently extracted from the liver and used
by the poorer classes of the coast population for the lamp or as
medicine.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] As the name of the fish, "ling" is found in other Teut.
languages; cf. Dutch and Ger. _Leng_, Norw. _langa_, &c. It is
generally connected in origin with "long," from the length of its
body. As the name of the common heather, _Calluna vulgaris_ (see
HEATH) the word is Scandinavian; cf. Dutch and Dan. _lyng_, Swed.
_ljung_.
LINGARD, JOHN (1771-1851), English historian, was born on the 5th of
February 1771 at Winchester, where his father, of an ancient
Lincolnshire peasant stock, had established himself as a carpenter. The
boy's talents attracted attention, and in 1782 he was sent to the
English college at Douai, where he continued until shortly after the
declaration of war by England (1793). He then lived as tutor in the
family of Lord Stourton, but in October 1794 he settled along with seven
other former members of the old Douai college at Crook Hall near Durham,
where on the completion of his theological course he became
vice-president of the reorganized seminary. In 1795 he was ordained
priest, and soon afterwards undertook the charge of the chairs of
natural and moral philosophy. In 1808 he accompanied the community of
Crook Hall to the new college at Ushaw, Durham, but in 1811, after
declining the presidency of the college at Maynooth, he withdrew to the
secluded mission at Hornby in Lancashire, where for the rest of his life
he devoted himself to literary pursuits. In 1817 he visited Rome, where
he made researches in the Vatican Library. In 1821 Pope Pius VII.
created him doctor of divinity and of canon and civil law; and in 1825
Leo XII. is said to have made him cardinal _in petto_. He died at Hornby
on the 17th of July 1851.
Lingard wrote _The Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church_ (1806), of
which a third and greatly enlarged addition appeared in 1845 under the
title _The History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church;
containing an account of its origin, government, doctrines, worship,
revenues, and clerical and monastic institutions_; but the work with
which his name is chiefly associated is _A History of England, from
the first invasion by the Romans to the commencement of the reign of
William III._, which appeared originally in 8 vols. at intervals
between 1819 and 1830. Three successive subsequent editions had the
benefit of extensive revision by the author; a fifth edition in 10
vols. 8vo appeared in 1849, and a sixth, with life of the author by
Tierney prefixed to vol. x., in 1854-1855. Soon after its appearance
it was translated into French, German and Italian. It is a work of
ability and research; and, though Cardinal Wiseman's claim for its
author that he was "the only impartial historian of our country" may
be disregarded, the book remains interesting as representing the view
taken of certain events in English history by a devout, but able and
learned, Roman Catholic in the earlier part of the 19th century.
LINGAYAT (from _linga_, the emblem of Siva), the name of a peculiar sect
of Siva worshippers in southern India, who call themselves _Vira-Saivas_
(see HINDUISM). They carry on the person a stone _linga_ (phallus) in a
silver casket. The founder of the sect is said to have been Basava, a
Brahman prime minister of a Jain king in the 12th century. The Lingayats
are specially numerous in the Kanarese country, and to them the Kanarese
language owes its cultivation as literature. Their priests are called
Jangamas. In 1901 the total number of Lingayats in all India was
returned as more than 2½ millions, mostly in Mysore and the adjoining
districts of Bombay, Madras and Hyderabad.
LINGAYEN, a town and the capital of the province of Pangasinán, Luzon,
Philippine Islands, about 110 m. N. by W. of Manila, on the S. shore of
the Gulf of Lingayen, and on a low and fertile island in the delta of
the Agno river. Pop. (1903) 21,529. It has good government buildings, a
fine church and plaza, the provincial high school and a girls' school
conducted by Spanish Dominican friars. The climate is cool and healthy.
The chief industries are the cultivation of rice (the most important
crop of the surrounding country), fishing and the making of nipa-wine
from the juice of the nipa palm, which grows abundantly in the
neighbouring swamps. The principal language is Pangasinán; Ilocano is
also spoken.
LINGEN, RALPH ROBERT WHEELER LINGEN, BARON (1819-1905), English civil
servant, was born in February 1819 at Birmingham, where his father, who
came of an old Hertfordshire family, with Royalist traditions, was in
business. He became a scholar of Trinity College, Oxford, in 1837; won
the Ireland (1838) and Hertford (1839) scholarships; and after taking a
first-class in _Literae Humaniores_ (1840), was elected a fellow of
Balliol (1841). He subsequently won the Chancellor's Latin Essay (1843)
and the Eldon Law scholarship (1846). After taking his degree in 1840,
he became a student of Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the bar in 1847;
but instead of practising as a barrister, he accepted an appointment in
the Education Office, and after a short period was chosen in 1849 to
succeed Sir J. Kay Shuttleworth as its secretary or chief permanent
official. He retained this position till 1869. The Education Office of
that day had to administer a somewhat chaotic system of government
grants to local schools, and Lingen was conspicuous for his fearless
discrimination and rigid economy, qualities which characterized his
whole career. When Robert Lowe (Lord Sherbrooke) became, as
vice-president of the council, his parliamentary chief, Lingen worked
congenially with him in producing the Revised Code of 1862 which
incorporated "payment by results"; but the education department
encountered adverse criticism, and in 1864 the vote of censure in
parliament which caused Lowe's resignation, founded (but erroneously) on
an alleged "editing" of the school inspectors' reports, was inspired by
a certain antagonism to Lingen's as well as to Lowe's methods. Shortly
before the introduction of Forster's Education Act of 1870, he was
transferred to the post of permanent secretary of the treasury. In this
office, which he held till 1885, he proved a most efficient guardian of
the public purse, and he was a tower of strength to successive
chancellors of the exchequer. It used to be said that the best
recommendation for a secretary of the treasury was to be able to say
"No" so disagreeably that nobody would court a repetition. Lingen was at
all events a most successful resister of importunate claims, and his
undoubted talents as a financier were most prominently displayed in the
direction of parsimony. In 1885 he retired. He had been made a C.B. in
1869 and a K.C.B. in 1878, and on his retirement he was created Baron
Lingen. In 1889 he was made one of the first aldermen of the new London
County Council, but he resigned in 1892. He died on the 22nd of July
1905. He had married in 1852, but left no issue.
LINGEN, a town in the Prussian province of Hanover, on the Ems canal, 43
m. N.N.W. of Münster by rail. Pop. 7500. It has iron foundries,
machinery factories, railway workshops and a considerable trade in
cattle, and among its other industries are weaving and malting and the
manufacture of cloth. Lingen was the seat of a university from 1685 to
1819.
The county of Lingen, of which this town was the capital, was united in
the middle ages with the county of Treklenburg. In 1508, however, it was
separated from this and was divided into an upper and a lower county,
but the two were united in 1541. A little, later Lingen was sold to the
emperor Charles V., from whom it passed to his son, Philip II. of Spain,
who ceded it in 1507 to Maurice, prince of Orange. After the death of
the English king, William III., in 1702, it passed to Frederick I., king
of Prussia, and in 1815 the lower county was transferred to Hanover,
only to be united again with Prussia in 1866.
See Möller, _Geschichte der vormaligen Grafschaft Lingen_ (Lingen,
1874); Herrmann, _Die Erwerbung der Stadt und Grafschaft Lingen durch
die Krone Preussen_ (Lingen, 1902); and Schriever, _Geschichte des
Kreiges Lingen_ (Lingen, 1905).
LINGUET, SIMON NICHOLAS HENRI (1736-1794), French journalist and
advocate, was born on the 14th of July 1736, at Reims, whither his
father, the assistant principal in the Collège de Beauvais of Paris, had
recently been exiled by _lettre de cachet_ for engaging in the Jansenist
controversy. He attended the Collège de Beauvais and won the three
highest prizes there in 1751. He accompanied the count palatine of
Zweibrücken to Poland, and on his return to Paris he devoted himself to
writing. He published partial French translations of Calderon and Lope
de Vega, and wrote parodies for the _Opéra Comique_ and pamphlets in
favour of the Jesuits. Received at first in the ranks of the
_philosophes_, he soon went over to their opponents, possibly more from
contempt than from conviction, the immediate occasion for his change
being a quarrel with d'Alembert in 1762. Thenceforth he violently
attacked whatever was considered modern and enlightened, and while he
delighted society with his numerous sensational pamphlets, he aroused
the fear and hatred of his opponents by his stinging wit. He was
admitted to the bar in 1764, and soon became one of the most famous
pleaders of his century. But in spite of his brilliant ability and his
record of having lost but two cases, the bitter attacks which he
directed against his fellow advocates, especially against Gerbier
(1725-1788), caused his dismissal from the bar in 1775. He then turned
to journalism and began the _Journal de politique et de littérature_,
which he employed for two years in literary, philosophical and legal
criticisms. But a sarcastic article on the French Academy compelled him
to turn over the Journal to La Harpe and seek refuge abroad. Linguet,
however, continued his career of free lance, now attacking and now
supporting the government, in the _Annales politiques, civiles et
littéraires_, published from 1777 to 1792, first at London, then at
Brussels and finally at Paris. Attempting to return to France in 1780 he
was arrested for a caustic attack on the duc de Duras (1715-1789), an
academician and marshal of France, and imprisoned nearly two years in
the Bastille. He then went to London, and thence to Brussels, where, for
his support of the reforms of Joseph II., he was ennobled and granted an
honorarium of one thousand ducats. In 1786 he was permitted by Vergennes
to return to France as an Austrian counsellor of state, and to sue the
duc d'Aiguillon (1730-1798), the former minister of Louis XV., for fees
due him for legal services rendered some fifteen years earlier. He
obtained judgment to the amount of 24,000 livres. Linguet received the
support of Marie Antoinette; his fame at the time surpassed that of his
rival Beaumarchais, and almost excelled that of Voltaire. Shortly
afterwards he visited the emperor at Vienna to plead the case of Van der
Noot and the rebels of Brabant. During the early years of the Revolution
he issued several pamphlets against Mirabeau, who returned his ill-will
with interest, calling him "the ignorant and bombastic M. Linguet,
advocate of Neros, sultans and viziers." On his return to Paris in 1791
he defended the rights of San Domingo before the National Assembly. His
last work was a defence of Louis XVI. He retired to Marnes near Ville
d'Avray to escape the Terror, but was sought out and summarily condemned
to death "for having flattered the despots of Vienna and London." He was
guillotined at Paris on the 27th of June 1794.
Linguet was a prolific writer in many fields. Examples of his
attempted historical writing are _Histoire du siècle d'Alexandre le
Grand_ (Amsterdam, 1762), and _Histoire impartiale des Jésuites_
(Madrid, 1768), the latter condemned to be burned. His opposition to
the _philosophes_ had its strongest expressions in _Fanatisme des
philosophes_ (Geneva and Paris, 1764) and _Histoire des révolutions
de l'empire romain_ (Paris, 1766-1768). His _Théorie des lois
civiles_ (London, 1767) is a vigorous defence of absolutism and attack
on the politics of Montesquieu. His best legal treatise is _Mémoire
pour le comte de Morangies_ (Paris, 1772); Linguet's imprisonment in
the Bastille afforded him the opportunity of writing his _Mémoires sur
la Bastille_, first published in London in 1789; it has been
translated into English (Dublin, 1783, and Edinburgh, 1884-1887), and
is the best of his works though untrustworthy.
See A. Devérité, _Notice pour servir à l'histoire de la vie et des
écrits de S. N. H. Linguet_ (Liége, 1782); Gardoz, _Essai historique
sur la vie et les ouvrages de Linguet_ (Lyon, 1808); J. F. Barrière,
_Mémoire de Linguet et de Latude_ (Paris, 1884); Ch. Monselet, _Les
Oubliés et les dédaignés_ (Paris, 1885), pp. 1-41; H. Monin "Notice
sur Linguet," in the 1889 edition of _Mémoires sur la Bastille_; J.
Cruppi, _Un avocat journaliste au 18^e siècle, Linguet_ (Paris,
1895); A. Philipp. _Linguet, ein Nationalökonom des XVIII Jahrhunderts
in seinen rechtlichen, socialen und volkswirtschaftlichen
Anschauungen_ (Zürich, 1896); A. Lichtenberger, _Le Socialisme
utopique_ (1898), pp. 77-131.
LINK. (1) (Of Scandinavian origin; cf. Swed. _länk_, Dan. _laenke_;
cognate with "flank," and Ger. _Gelenk_, joint), one of the loops of
which a chain is composed; used as a measure of length in surveying,
being (1/100)th part of a "chain." In Gunter's chain, a "link" = 7.92
in.; the chain used by American engineers consists of 100 links of a
foot each in length (for "link work" and "link motions" see MECHANICS: §
_Applied_, and STEAM ENGINE). The term is also applied to anything used
for connecting or binding together, metaphorically or absolutely. (2)
(O. Eng. _hlinc_, possibly from the root which appears in "to lean"), a
bank or ridge of rising ground; in Scots dialect, in the plural, applied
to the ground bordering on the sea-shore, characterized by sand and
coarse grass; hence a course for playing golf. (3) A torch made of pitch
or tow formerly carried in the streets to light passengers, by men or
boys called "link-boys" who plied for hire with them. Iron link-stands
supporting a ring in which the link might be placed may still be seen at
the doorways of old London houses. The word is of doubtful origin. It
has been referred to a Med. Lat. _lichinus_, which occurs in the form
_linchinus_ (see Du Cange, _Glossarium_); this, according to a
15th-century glossary, meant a wick or match. It is an adaptation of Gr.
[Greek: luchnos], lamp. Another suggestion connects it with a supposed
derivation of "linstock," from "lint." _The New English Dictionary_
thinks the likeliest suggestion is to identify the word with the "link"
of a chain. The tow and pitch may have been manufactured in lengths, and
then cut into sections or "links."
LINKÖPING, a city of Sweden, the seat of a bishop, and chief town of the
district (_län_) of Östergötland. Pop. (1900) 14,552. It is situated in
a fertile plain 142 m. by rail S.W. of Stockholm, and communicates with
Lake Roxen (½ m. to the north) and the Göta and Kinda canals by means of
the navigable Stångå. The cathedral (1150-1499), a Romanesque building
with a beautiful south portal and a Gothic choir, is, next to the
cathedral of Upsala, the largest church in Sweden. It contains an
altarpiece by Martin Heemskerck (d. 1574), which is said to have been
bought by John II. for twelve hundred measures of wheat. In the church
of St Lars are some paintings by Per Horberg (1746-1816), the Swedish
peasant artist. Other buildings of note are the massive episcopal palace
(1470-1500), afterwards a royal palace, and the old gymnasium founded by
Gustavus Adolphus in 1627, which contains the valuable library of old
books and manuscripts belonging to the diocese and state college, and
collection of coins and antiquities. There is also the Östergötland
Museum, with an art collection. The town has manufactures of tobacco,
cloth and hosiery. It is the headquarters of the second army division.
Linköping early became a place of mark, and was already a bishop's see
in 1082. It was at a council held in the town in 1153 that the payment
of Peter's pence was agreed to at the instigation of Nicholas
Breakspeare, afterwards Adrian IV. The coronation of Birger Jarlsson
Valdemar took place in the cathedral in 1251; and in the reign of
Gustavus Vasa several important diets were held in the town. At
Stångåbro (Stångå Bridge), close by, an obelisk (1898) commemorates the
battle of Stångåbro (1598), when Duke Charles (Protestant) defeated the
Roman Catholic Sigismund. A circle of stones in the Iron Market of
Linköping marks the spot where Sigismund's adherents were beheaded in
1600.
LINLEY, THOMAS (1732-1795), English musician, was born at Wells,
Somerset, and studied music at Bath, where he settled as a
singing-master and conductor of the concerts. From 1774 he was engaged
in the management at Drury Lane theatre, London, composing or compiling
the music of many of the pieces produced there, besides songs and
madrigals, which rank high among English compositions. He died in London
on the 19th of November 1795. His eldest son THOMAS (1756-1778) was a
remarkable violinist, and also a composer, who assisted his father; and
he became a warm friend of Mozart. His works, with some of his father's,
were published in two volumes, and these contain some lovely madrigals
and songs. Another son, WILLIAM (1771-1835), who held a writership at
Madras, was devoted to literature and music and composed glees and
songs. Three daughters were similarly gifted, and were remarkable both
for singing and beauty; the eldest of them ELIZABETH ANN (1754-1792),
married Richard Brinsley Sheridan in 1773, and thus linked the fortunes
of her family with his career.
LINLITHGOW, JOHN ADRIAN LOUIS HOPE, 1ST MARQUESS OF (1860-1908), British
administrator, was the son of the 6th earl of Hopetoun. The Hope family
traced their descent to John de Hope, who accompanied James V.'s queen
Madeleine of Valois from France to Scotland in 1537, and of whose
great-grandchildren Sir Thomas Hope (d. 1646), lord advocate of
Scotland, was ancestor of the earls of Hopetoun, while Henry Hope
settled in Amsterdam, and was the ancestor of the famous Dutch bankers
of that name, and of the later Hopes of Bedgebury, Kent. Sir Thomas's
son, Sir James Hope of Hopetoun (1614-1661), Scottish lord of session,
was grandfather of Charles, 1st earl of Hopetoun in the Scots peerage
(1681-1742), who was created earl in 1703; and his grandson, the 3rd
earl, was in 1809 made a baron of the United Kingdom. John, the 4th earl
(1765-1823), brother of the 3rd earl, was a distinguished soldier, who
for his services in the Peninsular War was created Baron Niddry in 1814
before succeeding to the earldom. The marquessate of Linlithgow was
bestowed on the 7th earl of Hopetoun in 1902, in recognition of his
success as first governor (1900-1902) of the commonwealth of Australia;
he died on the 1st of March 1908, being succeeded as 2nd marquess by his
eldest son (b. 1887).
An earldom of Linlithgow was in existence from 1600 to 1716, this
being held by the Livingstones, a Scottish family descended from Sir
William Livingstone. Sir William obtained the barony of Callendar in
1346, and his descendant, Sir Alexander Livingstone (d. c. 1450), and
other members of this family were specially prominent during the
minority of King James II. Alexander Livingstone, 7th Lord Livingstone
(d. 1623), the eldest son of William, the 6th lord (d. c. 1580), a
supporter of Mary, queen of Scots, was a leading Scottish noble during
the reign of James VI. and was created earl of Linlithgow in 1600.
Alexander's grandson, George, 3rd earl of Linlithgow (1616-1690), and
the latter's son, George, the 4th earl (c. 1652-1695), were both
engaged against the Covenanters during the reign of Charles II. When
the 4th earl died without sons in August 1695 the earldom passed to
his nephew, James Livingstone, 4th earl of Callendar. James, who then
became the 5th earl of Linlithgow, joined the Stuart rising in 1715;
in 1716 he was attainted, being thus deprived of all his honours, and
he died without sons in Rome in April 1723.
The earldom of Callendar, which was thus united with that of
Linlithgow, was bestowed in 1641 upon James Livingstone, the third son
of the 1st earl of Linlithgow. Having seen military service in Germany
and the Netherlands, James was created Lord Livingstone of Almond in
1633 by Charles I., and eight years later the king wished to make him
lord high treasurer of Scotland. Before this, however, Almond had
acted with the Covenanters, and during the short war between England
and Scotland in 1640 he served under General Alexander Leslie,
afterwards earl of Leven. But the trust reposed in him by the
Covenanters did not prevent him in 1640 from signing the "band of
Cumbernauld," an association for defence against Argyll, or from being
in some way mixed up with the "Incident," a plot for the seizure of
the Covenanting leaders, Hamilton and Argyll. In 1641 Almond became an
earl, and, having declined the offer of a high position in the army
raised by Charles I., he led a division of the Scottish forces into
England in 1644 and helped Leven to capture Newcastle. In 1645
Callendar, who often imagined himself slighted, left the army, and in
1647 he was one of the promoters of the "engagement" for the release
of the king. In 1648, when the Scots marched into England, he served
as lieutenant-general under the duke of Hamilton, but the duke found
him as difficult to work with as Leven had done previously, and his
advice was mainly responsible for the defeat at Preston. After this
battle he escaped to Holland. In 1650 he was allowed to return to
Scotland, but in 1654 his estates were seized and he was imprisoned;
he came into prominence once more at the Restoration. Callendar died
on March 1674, leaving no children, and, according to a special
remainder, he was succeeded in the earldom by his nephew Alexander (d.
1685), the second son of the 2nd earl of Linlithgow; and he again was
succeeded by his nephew Alexander (d. 1692), the second son of the 3rd
earl of Linlithgow. The 3rd earl's son, James, the 4th earl, then
became 5th earl of Linlithgow (see _supra_).
LINLITHGOW, a royal, municipal and police burgh and county town of
Linlithgowshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 4279. It lies in a valley on the
south side of a loch, 17½ m. W. of Edinburgh by the North British
railway. It long preserved an antique and picturesque appearance, with
gardens running down to the lake, or climbing the lower slopes of the
rising ground, but in the 19th century much of it was rebuilt. About 4
m. S. by W. lies the old village of Torphichen (pop. 540), where the
Knights of St John of Jerusalem had their chief Scottish preceptory. The
parish kirk is built on the site of the nave of the church of the
establishment, but the ruins of the transept and of part of the choir
still exist. Linlithgow belongs to the Falkirk district group of
parliamentary burghs with Falkirk, Airdrie, Hamilton and Lanark. The
industries include shoe-making, tanning and currying, manufactures of
paper, glue and soap, and distilling. An old tower-like structure near
the railway station is traditionally regarded as a mansion of the
Knights Templar. Other public buildings are the first town house
(erected in 1668 and restored in 1848 after a fire); the town hall,
built in 1888; the county buildings and the burgh school, dating from
the pre-Reformation period. There are some fine fountains. The Cross
Well in front of the town house, a striking piece of grotesque work
carved in stone, originally built in the reign of James V., was rebuilt
in 1807. Another fountain is surmounted by the figure of St Michael, the
patron-saint of the burgh. Linlithgow Palace is perhaps the finest ruin
of its kind in Scotland. Heavy but effective, the sombre walls rise
above the green knolls of the promontory which divides the lake into two
nearly equal portions. In plan it is almost square (168 ft. by 174 ft.),
enclosing a court (91 ft. by 88 ft.), in the centre of which stands the
ruined fountain of which an exquisite copy was erected in front of
Holyrood Palace by the Prince Consort. At each corner there is a tower
with an internal spiral staircase, that of the north-west angle being
crowned by a little octagonal turret known as "Queen Margaret's Bower,"
from the tradition that it was there that the consort of James IV.
watched and waited for his return from Flodden. The west side, whose
massive masonry, hardly broken by a single window, is supposed to date
in part from the time of James III., who later took refuge in one of its
vaults from his disloyal nobles; but the larger part of the south and
east side belongs to the period of James V., about 1535; and the north
side was rebuilt in 1619-1620 by James VI. Of James V.'s portion,
architecturally the richest, the main apartments are the Lyon chamber or
parliament hall and the chapel royal. The grand entrance, approached by
a drawbridge, was on the east side; above the gateway are still some
weather-worn remains of rich allegorical designs. The palace was reduced
to ruins by General Hawley's dragoons, who set fire to it in 1746.
Government grants have stayed further dilapidation. A few yards to the
south of the palace is the church of St Michael, a Gothic (Scottish
Decorated) building (180 ft. long internally excluding the apse, by 62
ft. in breadth excluding the transepts), probably founded by David I. in
1242, but mainly built by George Crichton, bishop of Dunkeld
(1528-1536). The central west front steeple was till 1821 topped by a
crown like that of St Giles', Edinburgh. The chief features of the
church are the embattled and pinnacled tower, with the fine doorway
below, the nave, the north porch and the flamboyant window in the south
transept. The church contains some fine stained glass, including a
window to the memory of Sir Charles Wyville Thomson (1830-1882), the
naturalist, who was born in the parish.
Linlithgow (wrongly identified with the Roman _Lindum_) was made a royal
burgh by David I. Edward I. encamped here the night before the battle of
Falkirk (1298), wintered here in 1301, and next year built "a pele
[castle] mekill and strong," which in 1313 was captured by the Scots
through the assistance of William Bunnock, or Binning, and his hay-cart.
In 1369 the customs of Linlithgow yielded more than those of any other
town in Scotland, except Edinburgh; and the burgh was taken with Lanark
to supply the place of Berwick and Roxburgh in the court of the Four
Burghs (1368). Robert II. granted it a charter of immunities in 1384.
The palace became a favourite residence of the kings of Scotland, and
often formed part of the marriage settlement of their consorts (Mary of
Guelders, 1449; Margaret of Denmark, 1468; Margaret of England, 1503).
James V. was born within its walls in 1512, and his daughter Mary on the
7th of December 1542. In 1570 the Regent Moray was assassinated in the
High Street by James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh. The university of
Edinburgh took refuge at Linlithgow from the plague in 1645-1646; in the
same year the national parliament, which had often sat in the palace,
was held there for the last time. In 1661 the Covenant was publicly
burned here, and in 1745 Prince Charles Edward passed through the town.
In 1859 the burgh was deprived by the House of Lords of its claim to
levy bridge toll and custom from the railway company.
LINLITHGOWSHIRE, or WEST LOTHIAN, a south-eastern county of Scotland,
bounded N. by the Firth of Forth, E. and S.E. by Edinburghshire, S.W. by
Lanarkshire and N.W. by Stirlingshire. It has an area of 76,861 acres,
or 120 sq. m., and a coast line of 17 m. The surface rises very
gradually from the Firth to the hilly district in the south. A few miles
from the Forth a valley stretches from east to west. Between the county
town and Bathgate are several hills, the chief being Knock (1017 ft.),
Cairnpapple, or Cairnnaple (1000), Cocklerue (said to be a corruption of
Cuckold-le-Roi, 912), Riccarton Hills (832) terminating eastwards in
Binny Craig, a striking eminence similar to those of Stirling and
Edinburgh, Torphichen Hills (777) and Bowden (749). In the coast
district a few bold rocks are found, such as Dalmeny, Dundas (well
wooded and with a precipitous front), the Binns and a rounded eminence
of 559 ft. named Glower-o'er-'em or Bonnytoun, bearing on its summit a
monument to General Adrian Hope, who fell in the Indian Mutiny. The
river Almond, rising in Lanarkshire and pursuing a north-easterly
direction, enters the Firth at Cramond after a course of 24 m., during a
great part of which it forms the boundary between West and Mid Lothian.
Its right-hand tributary, Breich Water, constitutes another portion of
the line dividing the same counties. The Avon, rising in the detached
portion of Dumbartonshire, flows eastwards across south Stirlingshire
and then, following in the main a northerly direction, passes the county
town on the west and reaches the Firth about midway between Grangemouth
and Bo'ness, having served as the boundary of Stirlingshire, during
rather more than the latter half of its course. The only loch is
Linlithgow Lake (102 acres), immediately adjoining the county town on
the north, a favourite resort of curlers and skaters. It is 10 ft. deep
at the east end and 48 ft. at the west. Eels, perch and braise (a
species of roach) are abundant.
_Geology._--The rocks of Linlithgowshire belong almost without
exception to the Carboniferous system. At the base is the Calciferous
Sandstone series, most of which lies between the Bathgate Hills and
the eastern boundary of the county. In this series are the Queensferry
limestone, the equivalent of the Burdiehouse limestone of Edinburgh,
and the Binny sandstone group with shales and clays and the Houston
coal bed. At more than one horizon in this series oil shales are
found. The Bathgate Hills are formed of basaltic lavas and tuffs--an
interbedded volcanic group possibly 2000 ft. thick in the Calciferous
Sandstone and Carboniferous Limestone series. A peculiar serpentinous
variety of the prevailing rock is quarried at Blackburn for oven
floors; it is known as "lakestone." Binns Hill is the site of one of
the volcanic cones of the period. The Carboniferous Limestone series
consists of an upper and lower limestone group--including the
Petershill, Index, Dykeneuk and Craigenbuck limestones--and a middle
group of shales, ironstones and coals; the Smithy, Easter Main, Foul,
Red and Splint coals belong to this horizon. Above the Carboniferous
Limestone the Millstone grit series crops in a belt which may be
traced from the mouth of the Avon southwards to Whitburn. This is
followed by the true coal-measures with the Boghead or Torbanehill
coal, the Colinburn, Main, Ball, Mill and Upper Cannel or Shotts gas
coals of Armadale, Torbanehill and Fauldhouse.
_Climate and Agriculture._--The average rainfall for the year is 29.9
in., and the average temperature 47.5° F. (January 38° F.; July 59.5°
F.). More than three-fourths of the county, the agriculture of which
is highly developed, is under cultivation. The best land is found
along the coast, as at Carriden and Dalmeny. The farming is mostly
arable, permanent pasture being practically stationary (at about
22,000 acres). Oats is the principal grain crop, but barley and wheat
are also cultivated. Farms between 100 and 300 acres are the most
common. Turnips and potatoes are the leading green crops. Much land
has been reclaimed; the parish of Livingston, for example, which in
the beginning of the 18th century was covered with heath and juniper,
is now under rotation. In Torphichen and Bathgate, however, patches of
peat moss and swamp occur, and in the south there are extensive moors
at Fauldhouse and Polkemmet. Live stock does not count for so much in
West Lothian as in other Scottish counties, though a considerable
number of cattle are fattened and dairy farming is followed
successfully, the fresh butter and milk finding a market in Edinburgh.
There is some sheep-farming, and horses and pigs are reared. The
wooded land occurs principally in the parks and "policies" surrounding
the many noblemen's mansions and private estates.
_Other Industries._--The shale-oil trade flourishes at Bathgate,
Broxburn, Armadale, Uphall, Winchburgh, Philpstoun and Dalmeny. There
are important iron-works with blast furnaces at Bo'ness, Kinneil,
Whitburn and Bathgate, and coal is also largely mined at these places.
Coal-mining is supposed to have been followed since Roman times, and
the earliest document extant regarding coalpits in Scotland is a
charter granted about the end of the 12th century to William Oldbridge
of Carriden. Fire-clay is extensively worked in connexion with the
coal, and ironstone employs many hands. Limestone, freestone and
whinstone are all quarried. Binny freestone was used for the Royal
Institution and the National Gallery in Edinburgh, and many important
buildings in Glasgow. Some fishing is carried on from Queensferry, and
Bo'ness is the principal port.
_Communications._--The North British Railway Company's line from
Edinburgh to Glasgow runs across the north of the county, it controls
the approaches to the Forth Bridge, and serves the rich mineral
district around Airdrie and Coatbridge in Lanarkshire via Bathgate.
The Caledonian Railway Company's line from Glasgow to Edinburgh
touches the extreme south of the shire. The Union Canal, constructed
in 1818-1822 to connect Edinburgh with the Forth and Clyde Canal near
Camelon in Stirlingshire, crosses the county, roughly following the
N.B.R. line to Falkirk. The Union Canal, which is 31 m. long and
belongs to the North British railway, is carried across the Almond and
Avon on aqueducts designed by Thomas Telford, and near Falkirk is
conveyed through a tunnel 2100 ft. long.
_Population and Administration._--In 1891 the population amounted to
52,808, and in 1901 to 65,708, showing an increase of 24.43% in the
decennial period, the highest of any Scottish county for that decade,
and a density of 547 persons to the sq. m. In 1901 five persons spoke
Gaelic only, and 575 Gaelic and English. The chief towns, with
populations in 1901, are Bathgate (7549), Borrowstounness (9306),
Broxburn (7099) and Linlithgow (4279). The shire returns one member to
parliament. Linlithgowshire is part of the sheriffdom of the Lothians
and Peebles, and a resident sheriff-substitute sits at Linlithgow and
Bathgate. The county is under school-board jurisdiction, and there are
academies at Linlithgow, Bathgate and Bo'ness. The local authorities
entrust the bulk of the "residue" grant to the County Secondary
Education Committee, which subsidizes elementary technical classes
(cookery, laundry and dairy) and science and art and technological
classes, including their equipment.
_History._--Traces of the Pictish inhabitants still exist. Near
Inveravon is an accumulation of shells--mostly oysters, which have long
ceased to be found so far up the Forth--considered by geologists to be a
natural bed, but pronounced by antiquaries to be a kitchen midden. Stone
cists have been discovered at Carlowrie, Dalmeny, Newliston and
elsewhere; on Cairnnaple is a circular structure of remote but unknown
date; and at Kipps is a cromlech that was once surrounded by stones. The
wall of Antoninus lies for several miles in the shire. The discovery of
a fine legionary tablet at Bridgeness in 1868 is held by some to be
conclusive evidence that the great rampart terminated at that point and
not at Carriden. Roman camps can be distinguished at several spots. On
the hill of Bowden is an earthwork, which J. Stuart Glennie and others
connect with the struggle of the ancient Britons against the Saxons of
Northumbria. The historical associations of the county mainly cluster
round the town of Linlithgow (q.v.). Kingscavil (pop. 629) disputes with
Stonehouse in Lanarkshire the honour of being the birthplace of Patrick
Hamilton, the martyr (1504-1528).
See Sir R. Sibbald, _History of the Sheriffdoms of Linlithgow and
Stirlingshire_ (Edinburgh, 1710); G. Waldie, _Walks along the Northern
Roman Wall_ (Linlithgow, 1883); R. J. H. Cunningham, _Geology of the
Lothians_ (Edinburgh, 1838).
LINNAEUS, the name usually given to CARL VON LINNÉ (1707-1778), Swedish
botanist, who was born on the 13th of May, O.S. (May 23, N.S.) 1707 at
Råshult, in the province of Småland, Sweden, and was the eldest child of
Nils Linnaeus the comminister, afterwards pastor, of the parish, and
Christina Brodersonia, the daughter of the previous incumbent. In 1717
he was sent to the primary school at Wexiö, and in 1724 he passed to the
gymnasium. His interests were centred on botany, and his progress in the
studies considered necessary for admission to holy orders, for which he
was intended, was so slight that in 1726 his father was recommended to
apprentice him to a tailor or shoemaker. He was saved from this fate
through Dr Rothman, a physician in the town, who expressed the belief
that he would yet distinguish himself in medicine and natural history,
and who further instructed him in physiology. In 1727 he entered the
university of Lund, but removed in the following year to that of Upsala.
There, through lack of means, he had a hard struggle until, in 1729, he
made the acquaintance of Dr Olaf Celsius (1670-1756), professor of
theology, at that time working at his _Hierobotanicon_, which saw the
light nearly twenty years later. Celsius, impressed with Linnaeus's
knowledge and botanical collections, and finding him necessitous,
offered him board and lodging.
During this period, he came upon a critique which ultimately led to the
establishment of his artificial system of plant classification. This was
a review of Sébastien Vaillant's _Sermo de Structura Florum_ (Leiden,
1718), a thin quarto in French and Latin; it set him upon examining the
stamens and pistils of flowers, and, becoming convinced of the paramount
importance of these organs, he formed the idea of basing a system of
arrangement upon them. Another work by Wallin, [Greek: Gamos phytôn],
_sive Nuptiae Arborum Dissertatio_ (Upsala, 1729), having fallen into
his hands, he drew up a short treatise on the sexes of plants, which was
placed in the hands of the younger Olaf Rudbeck (1660-1740), the
professor of botany in the university. In the following year Rudbeck,
whose advanced age compelled him to lecture by deputy, appointed
Linnaeus his adjunctus; in the spring of 1730, therefore, the latter
began his lectures. The academic garden was entirely remodelled under
his auspices, and furnished with many rare species. In the preceding
year he had solicited appointment to the vacant post of gardener, which
was refused him on the ground of his capacity for better things.
In 1732 he undertook to explore Lapland, at the cost of the Academy of
Sciences of Upsala; he traversed upwards of 4600 m., and the cost of the
journey is given at 530 copper dollars, or about £25 sterling. His own
account was published in English by Sir J. E. Smith, under the title
_Lachesis Lapponica_, in 1811; the scientific results were published in
his _Flora Lapponica_ (Amsterdam, 1737). In 1733 Linnaeus was engaged at
Upsala in teaching the methods of assaying ores, but was prevented from
delivering lectures on botany for academic reasons. At this juncture the
governor of Dalecarlia invited him to travel through his province, as he
had done through Lapland. Whilst on this journey, he lectured at Fahlun
to large audiences; and J. Browallius (1707-1755), the chaplain there,
afterwards bishop of Åbo, strongly urged him to go abroad and take his
degree of M.D. at a foreign university, by which means he could
afterwards settle where he pleased. Accordingly he left Sweden in 1735.
Travelling by Lübeck and Hamburg, he proceeded to Harderwijk, where he
went through the requisite examinations, and defended his thesis on the
cause of intermittent fever. His scanty funds were now nearly spent, but
he passed on through Haarlem to Leiden; there he called on Jan Fredrik
Gronovius (1600-1762), who, returning the visit, was shown the _Systema
naturae_ in MS., and was so greatly astonished at it that he sent it to
press at his own expense. This famous system, which, artificial as it
was, substituted order for confusion, largely made its way on account of
the lucid and admirable laws, and comments on them, which were issued
almost at the same time (see BOTANY). H. Boerhaave, whom Linnaeus saw
after waiting eight days for admission, recommended him to J. Burman
(1707-1780), the professor of botany at Amsterdam, with whom he stayed a
twelvemonth. While there he issued his _Fundamenta Botanica_, an
unassuming small octavo, which exercised immense influence. For some
time also he lived with the wealthy banker, G. Clifford (1685-1750), who
had a magnificent garden at Hartecamp, near Haarlem.
In 1736 Linnaeus visited England. He was warmly recommended by Boerhaave
to Sir Hans Sloane, who seems to have received him coldly. At Oxford Dr
Thomas Shaw welcomed him cordially; J. J. Dillenius, the professor of
botany, was cold at first, but afterwards changed completely, kept him a
month, and even offered to share the emoluments of the chair with him.
He saw Philip Miller (1691-1771), the _Hortulanorum Princeps_, at
Chelsea Physic Garden, and took some plants thence to Clifford; but
certain other stories which are current about his visit to England are
of very doubtful authenticity.
On his return to the Netherlands he completed the printing of his
_Genera Plantarum_, a volume which must be considered the starting-point
of modern systematic botany. During the same year, 1737, he finished
arranging Clifford's collection of plants, living and dried, described
in the _Hortus Cliffortianus_. During the compilation he used to "amuse"
himself with drawing up the _Critica Botanica_, also printed in the
Netherlands. But this strenuous and unremitting labour told upon him;
the atmosphere of the Low Countries seemed to oppress him beyond
endurance; and, resisting all Clifford's entreaties to remain with him,
he started homewards, yet on the way he remained a year at Leiden, and
published his _Classes Plantarum_ (1738). He then visited Paris, where
he saw Antoine and Bernard de Jussieu, and finally sailed for Sweden
from Rouen. In September 1738 he established himself as a physician in
Stockholm, but, being unknown as a medical man, no one at first cared to
consult him; by degrees, however, he found patients, was appointed naval
physician at Stockholm, with minor appointments, and in June 1730
married Sara Moræa. In 1741 he was appointed to the chair of medicine at
Upsala, but soon exchanged it for that of botany. In the same year,
previous to this exchange, he travelled through Öland and Gothland, by
command of the state, publishing his results in _Oländska och
Gothländska Resa_ (1745). The index to this volume shows the first
employment of specific names in nomenclature.
Henceforward his time was taken up by teaching and the preparation of
other works. In 1745 he issued his _Flora Suecica_ and _Fauna Suecica_,
the latter having occupied his attention during fifteen years;
afterwards, two volumes of observations made during journeys in Sweden,
_Wästgöta Resa_ (Stockholm, 1747), and _Skånska Resa_ (Stockholm, 1751).
In 1748 he brought out his _Hortus Upsaliensis_, showing that he had
added eleven hundred species to those formerly in cultivation in that
garden. In 1750 his _Philosophia Botanica_ was given to the world; it
consists of a commentary on the various axioms he had published in 1735
in his _Fundamenta Botanica_, and was dictated to his pupil P. Löfling
(1720-1756), while the professor was confined to his bed by an attack of
gout. But the most important work of this period was his _Species
Plantarum_ (Stockholm, 1753), in which the specific names are fully set
forth. In the same year he was created knight of the Polar Star, the
first time a scientific man had been raised to that honour in Sweden. In
1755 he was invited by the king of Spain to settle in that country, with
a liberal salary, and full liberty of conscience, but he declined on the
ground that whatever merits he possessed should be devoted to his
country's service, and Löfling was sent instead. He was enabled now to
purchase the estates of Säfja and Hammarby; at the latter he built his
museum of stone, to guard against loss by fire. His lectures at the
university drew men from all parts of the world; the normal number of
students at Upsala was five hundred, but while he occupied the chair of
botany there it rose to fifteen hundred. In 1761 he was granted a patent
of nobility, antedated to 1757, from which time he was styled Carl von
Linné. To his great delight the tea-plant was introduced alive into
Europe in 1763; in the same year his surviving son Carl (1741-1783) was
allowed to assist his father in his professorial duties, and to be
trained as his successor. At the age of sixty his memory began to fail;
an apoplectic attack in 1774 greatly weakened him; two years after he
lost the use of his right side; and he died on the 10th of January 1778
at Upsala, in the cathedral of which he was buried.
With Linnaeus arrangement seems to have been a passion; he delighted
in devising classifications, and not only did he systematize the three
kingdoms of nature, but even drew up a treatise on the _Genera
Morborum_. When he appeared upon the scene, new plants and animals
were in course of daily discovery in increasing numbers, due to the
increase of trading facilities; he devised schemes of arrangement by
which these acquisitions might be sorted provisionally, until their
natural affinities should have become clearer. He made many mistakes;
but the honour due to him for having first enunciated the principles
for defining genera and species, and his uniform use of specific
names, is enduring. His style is terse and laconic; he methodically
treated of each organ in its proper turn, and had a special term for
each, the meaning of which did not vary. The reader cannot doubt the
author's intention; his sentences are business-like and to the point.
The omission of the verb in his descriptions was an innovation, and
gave an abruptness to his language which was foreign to the writing of
his time; but it probably by its succinctness added to the popularity
of his works.
No modern naturalist has impressed his own character with greater
force upon his pupils than did Linnaeus. He imbued them with his own
intense acquisitiveness, reared them in an atmosphere of enthusiasm,
trained them to close and accurate observation, and then despatched
them to various parts of the globe.
His published works amount to more than one hundred and eighty,
including the _Amoenitates Academicae_, for which he provided the
material, revising them also for press; corrections in his handwriting
may be seen in the Banksian and Linnean Society's libraries. Many of
his works were not published during his lifetime; those which were are
enumerated by Dr Richard Pulteney in his _General View of the Writings
of Linnaeus_ (1781). His widow sold his collections and books to Sir
J. E. Smith, the first president of the Linnean Society of London.
When Smith died in 1828, a subscription was raised to purchase the
herbarium and library for the Society, whose property they became. The
manuscripts of many of Linnaeus's publications, and the letters he
received from his contemporaries, also came into the possession of the
Society. (B. D. J.)
LINNELL, JOHN (1792-1882), English painter, was born in London on the
16th of June 1792. His father being a carver and gilder, Linnell was
early brought into contact with artists, and when he was ten years old
he was drawing and selling his portraits in chalk and pencil. His first
artistic instruction was received from Benjamin West, and he spent a
year in the house of John Varley the water-colour painter, where he had
William Hunt and Mulready as fellow-pupils, and made the acquaintance of
Shelley, Godwin and other men of mark. In 1805 he was admitted a student
of the Royal Academy, where he obtained medals for drawing, modelling
and sculpture. He was also trained as an engraver, and executed a
transcript of Varley's "Burial of Saul." In after life he frequently
occupied himself with the burin, publishing, in 1834, a series of
outlines from Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine chapel, and, in
1840, superintending the issue of a selection of plates from the
pictures in Buckingham Palace, one of them, a Titian landscape, being
mezzotinted by himself. At first he supported himself mainly by
miniature painting, and by the execution of larger portraits, such as
the likenesses of Mulready, Whately, Peel and Carlyle. Several of his
portraits he engraved with his own hand in line and mezzotint. He also
painted many subjects like the "St John Preaching," the "Covenant of
Abraham," and the "Journey to Emmaus," in which, while the landscape is
usually prominent the figures are yet of sufficient importance to supply
the title of the work. But it is mainly in connexion with his paintings
of pure landscape that his name is known. His works commonly deal with
some scene of typical uneventful English landscape, which is made
impressive by a gorgeous effect of sunrise or sunset. They are full of
true poetic feeling, and are rich and glowing in colour. Linnell was
able to command very large prices for his pictures, and about 1850 he
purchased a property at Redhill, Surrey, where he resided till his death
on the 20th of January 1882, painting with unabated power till within
the last few years of his life. His leisure was greatly occupied with a
study of the Scriptures in the original, and he published several
pamphlets and larger treatises of Biblical criticism. Linnell was one of
the best friends and kindest patrons of William Blake. He gave him the
two largest commissions he ever received for single series of
designs--£150 for drawings and engravings of _The Inventions to the Book
of Job_, and a like sum for those illustrative of Dante.
LINNET, O. Eng. _Linete_ and _Linet-wige_, whence seems to have been
corrupted the old Scottish "Lintquhit," and the modern northern English
"Lintwhite"--originally a somewhat generalized bird's name, but latterly
specialized for the _Fringilla cannabina_ of Linnaeus, the _Linota
cannabina_ of recent ornithologists. This is a common song-bird,
frequenting almost the whole of Europe south of lat. 64°, and in Asia
extending to Turkestan. It is known as a winter visitant to Egypt and
Abyssinia, and is abundant at all seasons in Barbary, as well as in the
Canaries and Madeira. Though the fondness of this species for the seeds
of flax (_Linum_) and hemp (_Cannabis_) has given it its common name in
so many European languages,[1] it feeds largely, if not chiefly in
Britain on the seeds of plants of the order _Compositae_, especially
those growing on heaths and commons. As these waste places have been
gradually brought under the plough, in England and Scotland
particularly, the haunts and means of subsistence of the linnet have
been curtailed, and hence its numbers have undergone a very visible
diminution throughout Great Britain. According to its sex, or the season
of the year, it is known as the red, grey or brown linnet, and by the
earlier English writers on birds, as well as in many localities at the
present time, these names have been held to distinguish at least two
species; but there is now no question among ornithologists on this
point, though the conditions under which the bright crimson-red
colouring of the breast and crown of the cock's spring and summer
plumage is donned and doffed may still be open to discussion. Its
intensity seems due, however, in some degree at least, to the weathering
of the brown fringes of the feathers which hide the more brilliant hue,
and in the Atlantic islands examples are said to retain their gay tints
all the year round, while throughout Europe there is scarcely a trace of
them visible in autumn and winter; but, beginning to appear in spring,
they reach their greatest brilliancy towards midsummer; they are never
assumed by examples in confinement. The linnet begins to breed in April,
the nest being generally placed in a bush at no great distance from the
ground. It is nearly always a neat structure composed of fine twigs,
roots or bents, and lined with wool or hair. The eggs, often six in
number, are of a very pale blue marked with reddish or purplish brown.
Two broods seem to be common in the course of the season, and towards
the end of summer the birds--the young greatly preponderating in
number--collect in large flocks and move to the sea-coast, whence a
large proportion depart for more southern latitudes. Of these emigrants
some return the following spring, and are recognizable by the more
advanced state of their plumage, the effect presumably of having
wintered in countries enjoying a brighter and hotter sun.
Nearly allied to the foregoing species is the twite, so named from its
ordinary call-note, or mountain-linnet, the _Linota flavirostris_, or
_L. montium_ of ornithologists, which can be distinguished by its yellow
bill, longer tail and reddish-tawny throat. This bird never assumes any
crimson on the crown or breast, but the male has the rump at all times
tinged more or less with that colour. In Great Britain in the
breeding-season it seems to affect exclusively hilly and moorland
districts from Herefordshire northward, in which it partly or wholly
replaces the common linnet, but is very much more local in its
distribution, and, except in the British Islands and some parts of
Scandinavia, it only appears as an irregular visitant in winter. At that
season it may, however, be found in large flocks in the low-lying
countries, and as regards England even on the sea-shore. In Asia it
seems to be represented by a kindred form _L. brevirostris_.
The redpolls form a little group placed by many authorities in the genus
_Linota_, to which they are unquestionably closely allied, and, as
stated elsewhere (see FINCH), the linnets seem to be related to the
birds of the genus _Leucosticte_, the species of which inhabit the
northern parts of North-West America and of Asia. _L. tephrocotis_ is
generally of a chocolate colour, tinged on some parts with pale crimson
or pink, and has the crown of the head silvery-grey. Another species,
_L. arctoa_, was formerly said to have occurred in North America, but
its proper home is in the Kurile Islands or Kamchatka. This has no red
in its plumage. The birds of the genus _Leucosticte_ seem to be more
terrestrial in their habit than those of _Linota_, perhaps from their
having been chiefly observed where trees are scarce; but it is possible
that the mutual relationship of the two groups is more apparent than
real. Allied to _Leucosticte_ is _Montifringilla_, to which belongs the
snow-finch of the Alps, _M. nivalis_, often mistaken by travellers for
the snow-bunting, _Plectrophanes nivalis_. (A. N.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] E.g. Fr. _Linotte_, Ger. _Hänfling_, Swed. _Hämpling_.
LINSANG, the native name of one of the members of the viverrine genus
_Linsanga_. There are four species of the genus, from the Indo-Malay
countries. Linsangs are civet-like creatures, with the body and tail
greatly elongated; and the ground colour fulvous marked with bold black
patches, which in one species (_L. pardicolor_) are oblong. In West
Africa the group is represented by the smaller and spotted _Poiana
richardsoni_ which has a genet-like hind-foot. (See CARNIVORA.)
LINSEED, the seed of the common flax (q.v.) or lint, _Linum
usitatissimum_. These seeds, the linseed of commerce, are of a lustrous
brown colour externally, and a compressed and elongated oval form, with
a slight beak or projection at one extremity. The brown testa contains,
in the outer of the four coats into which it is microscopically
distinguishable, an abundant secretion of mucilaginous matter; and it
has within it a thin layer of albumen, enclosing a pair of large oily
cotyledons. The seeds when placed in water for some time become coated
with glutinous matter from the exudation of the mucilage in the external
layer of the epidermis; and by boiling in sixteen parts of water they
exude sufficient mucilage to form with the water a thick pasty
decoction. The cotyledons contain the valuable linseed oil referred to
below. Linseed grown in tropical countries is much larger and more plump
than that obtained in temperate climes, but the seed from the colder
countries yields a finer quality of oil.
Linseed formed an article of food among the Greeks and Romans, and it is
said that the Abyssinians at the present day eat it roasted. The oil is
to some extent used as food in Russia and in parts of Poland and
Hungary. The still prevalent use of linseed in poultices for open wounds
is entirely to be reprobated. It has now been abandoned by
practitioners. The principal objections to this use of linseed is that
it specially favours the growth of micro-organisms. There are numerous
clean and efficient substitutes which have all its supposed advantages
and none of its disadvantages. There are now no medicinal uses of this
substance. Linseed cake, the marc left after the expression of the oil,
is a most valuable feeding substance for cattle.
Linseed is subject to extensive and detrimental adulterations, resulting
not only from careless harvesting and cleaning, whereby seeds of the
flax dodder, and other weeds and grasses are mixed with it, but also
from the direct admixture of cheaper and inferior oil-seeds, such as
wild rape, mustard, sesame, poppy, &c., the latter adulterations being
known in trade under the generic name of "buffum." In 1864, owing to the
serious aspect of the prevalent adulteration, a union of traders was
formed under the name of the "Linseed Association." This body samples
all linseed oil arriving in England and reports on its value.
_Linseed oil_, the most valuable drying oil, is obtained by expression
from the seeds, with or without the aid of heat. Preliminary to the
operation of pressing, the seeds are crushed and ground to a fine
meal. Cold pressing of the seeds yields a golden-yellow oil, which is
often used as an edible oil. Larger quantities are obtained by heating
the crushed seeds to 160° F. (71° C.), and then expressing the oil. So
obtained, it is somewhat turbid and yellowish-brown in colour. On
storing, moisture and mucilaginous matter gradually settle out. After
storing several years it is known commercially as "tanked oil," and
has a high value in varnish-making. The delay attendant on this method
of purification is avoided by treating the crude oil with 1 to 2% of a
somewhat strong sulphuric acid, which chars and carries down the bulk
of the impurities. For the preparation of "artist's oil," the finest
form of linseed oil, the refined oil is placed in shallow trays
covered with glass, and exposed to the action of the sun's rays.
Numerous other methods of purification, some based on the oxidizing
action of ozone, have been suggested. The yield of oil from different
classes of seed varies, but from 23 to 28% of the weight of the seed
operated on should be obtained. A good average quality of seed
weighing about 392 lb. per quarter has been found in practice to give
out 109 lb. of oil.
Commercial linseed oil has a peculiar, rather disagreeable sharp taste
and smell; its specific gravity is given as varying from 0.928 to
0.953, and it solidifies at about -27°. By saponification it yields a
number of fatty acids--palmitic, myristic, oleic, linolic, linolenic
and isolinolenic. Exposed to the air in thin films, linseed oil
absorbs oxygen and forms "linoxyn," a resinous semi-elastic,
caoutchouc-like mass, of uncertain composition. The oil, when boiled
with small proportions of litharge and minium, undergoes the process
of resinification in the air with greatly increased rapidity.
Its most important use is in the preparation of oil paints and
varnishes. By painters both raw and boiled oil are used, the latter
forming the principal medium in oil painting, and also serving
separately as the basis of all oil varnishes. Boiled oil is prepared
in a variety of ways--that most common being by heating the raw oil in
an iron or copper boiler, which, to allow for frothing, must only be
about three-fourths filled. The boiler is heated by a furnace, and the
oil is brought gradually to the point of ebullition, at which it is
maintained for two hours, during which time moisture is driven off,
and the scum and froth which accumulate on the surface are ladled out.
Then by slow degrees a proportion of "dryers" is added--usually equal
weights of litharge and minium being used to the extent of 3% of the
charge of oil; and with these a small proportion of umber is generally
thrown in. After the addition of the dryers the boiling is continued
two or three hours; the fire is then suddenly withdrawn, and the oil
is left covered up in the boiler for ten hours or more. Before sending
out, it is usually stored in settling tanks for a few weeks, during
which time the uncombined dryers settle at the bottom as "foots."
Besides the dryers already mentioned, lead acetate, manganese borate,
manganese dioxide, zinc sulphate and other bodies are used.
Linseed oil is also the principal ingredient in printing and
lithographic inks. The oil for ink-making is prepared by heating it in
an iron pot up to the point where it either takes fire spontaneously
or can be ignited with any flaming substance. After the oil has been
allowed to burn for some time according to the consistence of the
varnish desired, the pot is covered over, and the product when cooled
forms a viscid tenacious substance which in its most concentrated form
may be drawn into threads. By boiling this varnish with dilute nitric
acid vapours of acrolein are given off, and the substance gradually
becomes a solid non-adhesive mass the same as the ultimate oxidation
product of both raw and boiled oil.
Linseed oil is subject to various falsifications, chiefly through the
addition of cotton-seed, niger-seed and hemp-seed oils; and rosin oil
and mineral oils also are not infrequently added. Except by smell, by
change of specific gravity, and by deterioration of drying properties,
these adulterations are difficult to detect.
LINSTOCK (adapted from the Dutch _lontstok_, i.e. "matchstick," from
_lont_, a match, _stok_, a stick; the word is sometimes erroneously
spelled "lintstock" from a supposed derivation from "lint" in the sense
of tinder), a kind of torch made of a stout stick a yard in length, with
a fork at one end to hold a lighted match, and a point at the other to
stick in the ground. "Linstocks" were used for discharging cannon in the
early days of artillery.
LINT (in M. Eng. _linnet_, probably through Fr. _linette_, from _lin_,
the flax-plant; cf. "line"), properly the flax-plant, now only in Scots
dialect; hence the application of such expressions as "lint-haired,"
"lint white locks" to flaxen hair. It is also the term applied to the
flax when prepared for spinning, and to the waste material left over
which was used for tinder. "Lint" is still the name given to a specially
prepared material for dressing wounds, made soft and fluffy by scraping
or ravelling linen cloth.
LINTEL (O. Fr. _lintel_, mod. _linteau_, from Late Lat. _limitellum_,
_limes_, boundary, confused in sense with _limen_, threshold; the Latin
name is _supercilium_, Ital. _soprasogli_, and Ger. _Sturz_), in
architecture, a horizontal piece of stone or timber over a doorway or
opening, provided to carry the superstructure. In order to relieve the
lintel from too great a pressure a "discharging arch" is generally built
over it.
LINTH, or LIMMAT, a river of Switzerland, one of the tributaries of the
Aar. It rises in the glaciers of the Tödi range, and has cut out a deep
bed which forms the Grossthal that comprises the greater portion of the
canton of Glarus. A little below the town of Glarus the river, keeping
its northerly direction, runs through the alluvial plain which it has
formed, towards the Walensee and the Lake of Zürich. But between the
Lake of Zürich and the Walensee the huge desolate alluvial plain grew
ever in size, while great damage was done by the river, which overflowed
its bed and the dykes built to protect the region near it. The Swiss
diet decided in 1804 to undertake the "correction" of this turbulent
stream. The necessary works were begun in 1807 under the supervision of
Hans Conrad Escher of Zürich (1767-1823). The first portion of the
undertaking was completed in 1811, and received the name of the "Escher
canal," the river being thus diverted into the Walensee. The second
portion, known as the "Linth canal," regulated the course of the river
between the Walensee and the Lake of Zürich and was completed in 1816.
Many improvements and extra protective works were carried out after
1816, and it was estimated that the total cost of this great engineering
undertaking from 1807 to 1902 amounted to about £200,000, the date for
the completion of the work being 1911. To commemorate the efforts of
Escher, the Swiss diet in 1823 (after his death) decided that his male
descendants should bear the name of "Escher von der Linth." On issuing
from the Lake of Zürich the Linth alters its name to that of "Limmat,"
it does not appear wherefore, and, keeping the north-westerly direction
it had taken from the Walensee, joins the Aar a little way below Brugg,
and just below the junction of the Reuss with the Aar. (W. A. B. C.)
LINTON, ELIZA LYNN (1822-1898), English novelist, daughter of the Rev.
J. Lynn, vicar of Crosthwaite, in Cumberland, was born at Keswick on the
10th of February 1822. She early manifested great independence of
character, and in great measure educated herself from the stores of her
father's library. Coming to London about 1845 with a large stock of
miscellaneous erudition, she turned this to account in her first novels,
_Azeth the Egyptian_ (1846) and _Amymone_ (1848), a romance of the days
of Pericles. Her next story, _Realities_, a tale of modern life (1851),
was not successful, and for several years she seemed to have abandoned
fiction. When, in 1865, she reappeared with _Grasp your Nettle_, it was
as an expert in a new style of novel-writing--stirring, fluent,
ably-constructed stories, retaining the attention throughout, but
affording little to reflect upon or to remember. Measured by their
immediate success, they gave her an honourable position among the
writers of her day, and secure of an audience, she continued to write
with vigour nearly until her death. _Lizzie Lorton of Greyrigg_ (1866),
_Patricia Kemball_ (1874), _The Atonement of Leam Dundas_ (1877) are
among the best examples of this more mechanical side of her talent, to
which there were notable exceptions in _Joshua Davidson_ (1872), a bold
but not irreverent adaptation of the story of the Carpenter of Nazareth
to that of the French Commune; and _Christopher Kirkland_, a veiled
autobiography (1885). Mrs Linton was a practised and constant writer in
the journals of the day; her articles on the "Girl of the Period" in the
_Saturday Review_ produced a great sensation, and she was a constant
contributor to the _St James's Gazette_, the _Daily News_ and other
leading newspapers. Many of her detached essays have been collected. In
1858 she married W. J. Linton, the engraver, but the union was soon
terminated by mutual consent; she nevertheless brought up one of Mr
Linton's daughters by a former marriage. A few years before her death
she retired to Malvern. She died in London on the 14th of July 1898.
Her reminiscences appeared after her death under the title of _My
Literary Life_ (1899) and her life has been written by G. S. Layard
(1901).
LINTON, WILLIAM JAMES (1812-1897), English wood-engraver, republican and
author, was born in London. He was educated at Stratford, and in his
sixteenth year was apprenticed to the wood-engraver G. W. Bonner. His
earliest known work is to be found in Martin and Westall's _Pictorial
Illustrations of the Bible_ (1833). He rapidly rose to a place amongst
the foremost wood-engravers of the time. After working as a journeyman
engraver with two or three firms, losing his money over a cheap
political library called the "National," and writing a life of Thomas
Paine, he went into partnership (1842) with John Orrin Smith. The firm
was immediately employed on the _Illustrated London News_, just then
projected. The following year Orrin Smith died, and Linton, who had
married a sister of Thomas Wade, editor of _Bell's Weekly Messenger_,
found himself in sole charge of a business upon which two families were
dependent. For years he had concerned himself with the social and
European political problems of the time, and was now actively engaged in
the republican propaganda. In 1844 he took a prominent part in exposing
the violation by the English post-office of Mazzini's correspondence.
This led to a friendship with the Italian revolutionist, and Linton
threw himself with ardour into European politics. He carried the first
congratulatory address of English workmen to the French Provisional
Government in 1848. He edited a twopenny weekly paper, _The Cause of the
People_, published in the Isle of Man, and he wrote political verses for
the Dublin _Nation_, signed "Spartacus." He helped to found the
"International League" of patriots, and, in 1850, with G. H. Lewes and
Thornton Hunt, started _The Leader_, an organ which, however, did not
satisfy his advanced republicanism, and from which he soon withdrew. The
same year he wrote a series of articles propounding the views of Mazzini
in _The Red Republican_. In 1852 he took up his residence at Brantwood,
which he afterwards sold to John Ruskin, and from there issued _The
English Republic_, first in the form of weekly tracts and afterwards as
a monthly magazine--"a useful exponent of republican principles, a
faithful record of republican progress throughout the world; an organ of
propagandism and a medium of communication for the active republicans in
England." Most of the paper, which never paid its way and was abandoned
in 1855, was written by himself. In 1852 he also printed for private
circulation an anonymous volume of poems entitled _The Plaint of
Freedom_. After the failure of his paper he returned to his proper work
of wood-engraving. In 1857 his wife died, and in the following year he
married Eliza Lynn (afterwards known as Mrs Lynn Linton) and returned to
London. In 1864 he retired to Brantwood, his wife remaining in London.
In 1867, pressed by financial difficulties, he determined to try his
fortune in America, and finally separated from his wife, with whom,
however, he always corresponded affectionately. With his children he
settled at Appledore, New Haven, Connecticut, where he set up a
printing-press. Here he wrote _Practical Hints on Wood-Engraving_
(1879), _James Watson, a Memoir of Chartist Times_ (1879), _A History of
Wood-Engraving in America_ (1882), _Wood-Engraving, a Manual of
Instruction_ (1884), _The Masters of Wood-Engraving_, for which he made
two journeys to England (1890), _The Life of Whittier_ (1893), and
_Memories_, an autobiography (1895). He died at New Haven on the 29th of
December 1897. Linton was a singularly gifted man, who, in the words of
his wife, if he had not bitten the Dead Sea apple of impracticable
politics, would have risen higher in the world of both art and letters.
As an engraver on wood he reached the highest point of execution in his
own line. He carried on the tradition of Bewick, fought for intelligent
as against merely manipulative excellence in the use of the graver, and
championed the use of the "white line" as well as of the black,
believing with Ruskin that the former was the truer and more telling
basis of aesthetic expression in the wood-block printed upon paper.
See W. J. Linton, _Memories_; F. G. Kitton, article on "Linton" in
_English Illustrated Magazine_ (April 1891); G. S. Layard, _Life of
Mrs Lynn Linton_ (1901). (G. S. L.)
LINTOT, BARNABY BERNARD (1675-1736), English publisher, was born at
Southwater, Sussex, on the 1st of December 1675, and started business as
a publisher in London about 1698. He published for many of the leading
writers of the day, notably Vanbrugh, Steele, Gay and Pope. The latter's
_Rape of the Lock_ in its original form was first published in _Lintot's
Miscellany_, and Lintot subsequently issued Pope's translation of the
_Iliad_ and the joint translation of the _Odyssey_ by Pope, Fenton and
Broome. Pope quarrelled with Lintot with regard to the supply of free
copies of the latter translation to the author's subscribers, and in
1728 satirized the publisher in the _Dunciad_, and in 1735 in the
_Prologue to the Satires_, though he does not appear to have had any
serious grievance. Lintot died on the 3rd of February 1736.
LINUS, one of the saints of the Gregorian canon, whose festival is
celebrated on the 23rd of September. All that can be said with certainty
about him is that his name appears at the head of all the lists of the
bishops of Rome. Irenaeus (_Adv. Haer._ iii. 3. 3) identifies him with
the Linus mentioned by St Paul in 2 Tim. iv. 21. According to the _Liber
Pontificalis_, Linus suffered martyrdom, and was buried in the Vatican.
In the 17th century an inscription was found near the confession of St
Peter, which was believed to contain the name Linus; but it is not
certain that this epitaph has been read correctly or completely. The
apocryphal Latin account of the death of the apostles Peter and Paul is
falsely attributed to Linus.
See _Acta Sanctorum_, Septembris, vi. 539-545; C. de Smedt,
_Dissertatione selectae in primam aetatem hist. eccl._ pp. 300-312
(Ghent, 1876); L. Duchesne's edition of the _Liber Pontificalis_, i.
121 (Paris, 1886); R. A. Lipsius, _Die apokryphen Apostelgeschichten_,
ii. 85-96 (Brunswick, 1883-1890); J. B. de Rossi, _Bullettino di
archeologia cristiana_, p. 50 (1864). (H. De.)
LINUS, one of a numerous class of heroic figures in Greek legend, of
which other examples are found in Hyacinthus and Adonis. The connected
legend is always of the same character: a beautiful youth, fond of
hunting and rural life, the favourite of some god or goddess, suddenly
perishes by a terrible death. In many cases the religious background of
the legend is preserved by the annual ceremonial that commemorated it.
At Argos this religious character of the Linus myth was best preserved:
the secret child of Psamathe by the god Apollo, Linus is exposed, nursed
by sheep and torn in pieces by sheep-dogs. Every year at the festival
Arnis or Cynophontis, the women of Argos mourned for Linus and
propitiated Apollo, who in revenge for his child's death had sent a
female monster (Poine), which tore the children from their mothers'
arms. Lambs were sacrificed, all dogs found running loose were killed,
and women and children raised a lament for Linus and Psamathe (Pausanias
i. 43. 7; Conon, _Narrat._ 19). In the Theban version, Linus, the son of
Amphimarus and the muse Urania, was a famous musician, inventor of the
Linus song, who was said to have been slain by Apollo, because he had
challenged him to a contest (Pausanias ix. 29. 6). A later story makes
him the teacher of Heracles, by whom he was killed because he had
rebuked his pupil for stupidity (Apollodorus ii. 4. 9). On Mount Helicon
there was a grotto containing his statue, to which sacrifice was offered
every year before the sacrifices to the Muses. From being the inventor
of musical methods, he was finally transformed by later writers into a
composer of prophecies and legends. He was also said to have adapted the
Phoenician letters introduced by Cadmus to the Greek language. It is
generally agreed that Linus and Ailinus are of Semitic origin, derived
from the words _ai lanu_ (woe to us), which formed the burden of the
Adonis and similar songs popular in the East. The Linus song is
mentioned in Homer; the tragedians often use the word [Greek: ailinos]
as the refrain in mournful songs, and Euripides calls the custom a
Phrygian one. Linus, originally the personification of the song of
lamentation, becomes, like Adonis, Maneros, Narcissus, the
representative of the tender life of nature and of the vegetation
destroyed by the fiery heat of the dog-star.
The chief work on the subject is H. Brugsch, _Die Adonisklage und das
Linoslied_ (1852); see also article in Roscher's _Lexikon der
Mythologie_; J. G. Frazer, _Golden Bough_ (ii. 224, 253), where, the
identity of Linus with Adonis (possibly a corn-spirit) being assumed,
the lament is explained as the lamentation of the reapers over the
dead corn-spirit; W. Mannhardt, _Wald- und Feldculte_, ii. 281.
LINZ, capital of the Austrian duchy and crownland of Upper Austria, and
see of a bishop, 117 m. W. of Vienna by rail. Pop. (1900) 58,778. It
lies on the right bank of the Danube and is connected by an iron bridge,
308 yds. long, with the market-town of Urfahr (pop. 12,827) on the
opposite bank. Linz possesses two cathedrals, one built in 1669-1682 in
rococo style, and another in early Gothic style, begun in 1862. In the
Capuchin church is the tomb of Count Raimondo Montecucculi, who died at
Linz in 1680. The museum Francisco-Carolinum, founded in 1833 and
reconstructed in 1895, contains several important collections relating
to the history of Upper Austria. In the Franz Josef-Platz stands a
marble monument, known as Trinity Column, erected by the emperor Charles
VI. in 1723, commemorating the triple deliverance of Linz from war,
fire, and pestilence. The principal manufactories are of tobacco,
boat-building, agricultural implements, foundries and cloth factories.
Being an important railway junction and a port of the Danube, Linz has a
very active transit trade.
Linz is believed to stand on the site of the Roman station _Lentia_. The
name of Linz appears in documents for the first time in 799 and it
received municipal rights in 1324. In 1490 it became the capital of the
province above the Enns. It successfully resisted the attacks of the
insurgent peasants under Stephen Fadinger on the 21st and 22nd of July
1626, but its suburbs were laid in ashes. During the siege of Vienna in
1683, the castle of Linz was the residence of Leopold I. In 1741, during
the War of the Austrian Succession, Linz was taken by the Bavarians, but
was recovered by the Austrians in the following year. The bishopric was
established in 1784.
See F. Krackowitzer, _Die Donaustadt Linz_ (Linz, 1901).
LION (Lat. _leo_, _leonis_; Gr. [Greek: leôn]). From the earliest
historic times few animals have been better known to man than the lion.
Its habitat made it familiar to all the races among whom human
civilization took its origin. The literature of the ancient Hebrews
abounds in allusions to the lion; and the almost incredible numbers
stated to have been provided for exhibition and destruction in the Roman
amphitheatres (as many as six hundred on a single occasion by Pompey,
for example) show how abundant these animals must have been within
accessible distance of Rome.
Even within the historic period the geographical range of the lion
covered the whole of Africa, the south of Asia, including Syria, Arabia,
Asia Minor, Persia and the greater part of northern and central India.
Professor A. B. Meyer, director of the zoological museum at Dresden, has
published an article on the alleged existence of the lion in historical
times in Greece, a translation of which appears in the _Report_ of the
Smithsonian Institution for 1905. Meyer is of opinion that the writer of
the _Iliad_ was probably acquainted with the lion, but this does not
prove its former existence in Greece. The accounts given by Herodotus
and Aristotle merely go to show that about 500 B.C. lions existed in
some part of eastern Europe. The Greek name for the lion is very
ancient, and this suggests, although by no means demonstrates, that it
refers to an animal indigenous to the country. Although the evidence is
not decisive, it seems probable that lions did exist in Greece at the
time of Herodotus; and it is quite possible that the representation of a
lion-chase incised on a Mycenean dagger may have been taken from life.
In prehistoric times the lion was spread over the greater part of
Europe; and if, as is very probable, the so-called _Felis atrox_ be
inseparable, its range also included the greater part of North America.
At the present day the lion is found throughout Africa (save in places
where it has been exterminated by man) and in Mesopotamia, Persia, and
some parts of north-west India. According to Dr W. T. Blanford, lions
are still numerous in the reedy swamps, bordering the Tigris and
Euphrates, and also occur on the west flanks of the Zagros mountains and
the oak-clad ranges near Shiraz, to which they are attracted by the
herds of swine which feed on the acorns. The lion nowhere exists in the
table-land of Persia, nor is it found in Baluchistan. In India it is
confined to the province of Kathiawar in Gujerat, though within the 19th
century it extended through the north-west parts of Hindustan, from
Bahawalpur and Sind to at least the Jumna (about Delhi) southward as far
as Khandesh, and in central India through the Sagur and Narbuda
territories, Bundelkund, and as far east as Palamau. It was extirpated
in Hariana about 1824. One was killed at Rhyli, in the Dumaoh district,
Sagur and Narbuda territories, so late as in the cold season of
1847-1848; and about the same time a few still remained in the valley of
the Sind river in Kotah, central India.
[Illustration: After a Drawing by Woll in Elliot's Monograph of the
_Felidae_.
FIG. 1.--Lion and Lioness (_Felis leo_).]
The variations in external characters which lions present, especially in
the colour and the amount of mane, as well as in the general colour of
the fur, indicate local races, to which special names have been given;
the Indian lion being _F. leo gujratensis_. It is noteworthy, however,
that, according to Mr F. C. Selous, in South Africa the black-maned lion
and others with yellow scanty manes are found, not only in the same
locality, but even among individuals of the same parentage.
The lion belongs to the genus _Felis_ of Linnaeus (for the characters
and position of which see CARNIVORA), and differs from the tiger and
leopard in its uniform colouring, and from all the other _Felidae_ in
the hair of the top of the head, chin and neck, as far back as the
shoulder, being not only much longer, but also differently disposed from
the hair elsewhere, being erect or directed forwards, and so
constituting the characteristic ornament called the mane. There is also
a tuft of elongated hairs at the end of the tail, one upon each elbow,
and in most lions a copious fringe along the middle line of the under
surface of the body, wanting, however, in some examples. These
characters are, however, peculiar to the adults of the male sex; and
even as regards coloration young lions show indications of the darker
stripes and mottlings so characteristic of the greater number of the
members of the genus. The usual colour of the adult is yellowish-brown,
but it may vary from a deep red or chestnut brown to an almost silvery
grey. The mane, as well as the long hair of the other parts of the body,
sometimes scarcely differs from the general colour, but is usually
darker and not unfrequently nearly black. The mane begins to grow when
the animal is about three years old, and is fully developed at five or
six.
In size the lion is only equalled or exceeded by the tiger among
existing _Felidae_; and though both species present great variations,
the largest specimens of the latter appear to surpass the largest lions.
A full-sized South African lion, according to Selous, measures slightly
less than 10 ft. from nose to tip of tail, following the curves of the
body. Sir Cornwallis Harris gives 10 ft. 6 in., of which the tail
occupies 3 ft. The lioness is about a foot less.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Front View of Skull of Lion.]
The internal structure of the lion, except in slight details,
resembles that of other _Felidae_, the whole organization being that
of an animal adapted for an active, predaceous existence. The teeth
especially exemplify the carnivorous type in its highest condition of
development. The most important function they have to perform, that of
seizing and holding firmly animals of considerable size and strength,
violently struggling for life, is provided for by the great,
sharp-pointed and sharp-edged canines, placed wide apart at the angles
of the mouth, the incisors between them being greatly reduced in size
and kept back nearly to the same level, so as not to interfere with
their action. The jaws are short and strong, and the width of the
zygomatic arches, and great development of the bony ridges on the
skull, give ample space for the attachment of the powerful muscles by
which they are closed. In the cheek-teeth the sectorial or
scissor-like cutting function is developed at the expense of the
tubercular or grinding, there being only one rudimentary tooth of the
latter form in the upper jaw, and none in the lower. They are,
however, sufficiently strong to break bones of large size. The tongue
is long and flat, and remarkable for the development of the papillae
of the anterior part of the dorsal surface, which (except near the
edge) are modified so as to resemble long, compressed, recurved, horny
spines or claws, which, near the middle line, attain the length of
one-fifth of an inch. They give the part of the tongue on which they
occur the appearance and feel of a coarse rasp. The feet are furnished
with round soft pads or cushions covered with thick, naked skin, one
on the under surface of each of the principal toes, and one larger one
of trilobed form, behind these, under the lower ends of the metacarpal
and metatarsal bones, which are placed nearly vertically in ordinary
progression. The claws are large, strongly compressed, sharp, and
exhibit the retractile condition in the highest degree, being drawn
backwards and upwards into a sheath by the action of an elastic
ligament so long as the foot is in a state of repose, but exerted by
muscular action when the animal strikes its prey.
The lion lives chiefly in sandy plains and rocky places interspersed
with dense thorn-thickets, or frequents the low bushes and tall rank
grass and reeds that grow along the sides of streams and near the
springs where it lies in wait for the larger herbivorous animals on
which it feeds. Although occasionally seen abroad during the day,
especially in wild and desolate regions, where it is subject to little
molestation, the night is, as in the case of so many other predaceous
animals, the period of its greatest activity. It is then that its
characteristic roar is chiefly heard, as thus graphically described by
Gordon-Cumming:--
"One of the most striking things connected with the lion is his voice,
which is extremely grand and peculiarly striking. It consists at times
of a low deep moaning, repeated five or six times, ending in faintly
audible sighs; at other times he startles the forest with loud,
deep-toned, solemn roars, repeated in quick succession, each
increasing in loudness to the third or fourth, when his voice dies
away in five or six low muffled sounds very much resembling distant
thunder. At times, and not unfrequently, a troop may be heard, roaring
in concert, one assuming the lead, and two, three or four more
regularly taking up their parts, like persons singing a catch. Like
our Scottish stags at the rutting season, they roar loudest in cold
frosty nights; but on no occasions are their voices to be heard in
such perfection, or so intensely powerful, as when two or three troops
of strange lions approach a fountain to drink at the same time. When
this occurs, every member of each troop sounds a bold roar of defiance
at the opposite parties; and when one roars, all roar together, and
each seems to vie with his comrades in the intensity and power of his
voice. The power and grandeur of these nocturnal concerts is
inconceivably striking and pleasing to the hunter's ear."
"The usual pace of a lion," C. J. Andersson says, "is a walk, and,
though apparently rather slow, yet, from the great length of his body,
he is able to get over a good deal of ground in a short time.
Occasionally he trots, when his speed is not inconsiderable. His
gallop--or rather succession of bounds--is, for a short distance, very
fast--nearly or quite equal to that of a horse."
"The lion, as with other members of the feline family," the same writer
says, "seldom attacks his prey openly, unless compelled by extreme
hunger. For the most part he steals upon it in the manner of a cat, or
ambushes himself near to the water or a pathway frequented by game. At
such times he lies crouched upon his belly in a thicket until the animal
approaches sufficiently near, when, with one prodigious bound, he pounces
upon it. In most cases he is successful, but should his intended victim
escape, as at times happens, from his having miscalculated the distance,
he may make a second or even a third bound, which, however, usually prove
fruitless, or he returns disconcerted to his hiding-place, there to wait
for another opportunity." His food consists of all the larger herbivorous
animals of the country in which he resides--buffaloes, antelopes, zebras,
giraffes or even young elephants or rhinoceroses. In cultivated districts
cattle, sheep, and even human inhabitants are never safe from his
nocturnal ravages. He appears, however, as a general rule, only to kill
when hungry or attacked, and not for the mere pleasure of killing, as
with some other carnivorous animals. He, moreover, by no means limits
himself to animals of his own killing, but, according to Selous, often
prefers eating game that has been killed by man, even when not very
fresh, to taking the trouble to catch an animal himself.
The lion appears to be monogamous, a single male and female continuing
attached to each other irrespectively of the pairing season. At all
events the lion remains with the lioness while the cubs are young and
helpless, and assists in providing her and them with food, and in
educating them in the art of providing for themselves. The number of
cubs at a birth is from two to four, usually three. They are said to
remain with their parents till they are about three years old.
Though not strictly gregarious, lions appear to be sociable towards
their own species, and often are found in small troops sometimes
consisting of a pair of old ones with their nearly full-grown cubs, but
occasionally of adults of the same sex; and there seems to be evidence
that several lions will associate for the purpose of hunting upon a
preconcerted plan. Their natural ferocity and powerful armature are
sometimes turned upon one another; combats, often mortal, occur among
male lions under the influence of jealousy; and Andersson relates an
instance of a quarrel between a hungry lion and lioness over the carcase
of an antelope which they had just killed, and which did not seem
sufficient for the appetite of both, ending in the lion not only
killing, but devouring his mate. Old lions, whose teeth have become
injured with constant wear, become "man-eaters," finding their easiest
means of obtaining a subsistence in lurking in the neighbourhood of
villages, and dashing into the tents at night and carrying off one of
the sleeping inmates. Lions never climb.
With regard to the character of the lion, those who have had
opportunities of observing it in its native haunts differ greatly. The
accounts of early writers as to its courage, nobility and magnanimity
have led to a reaction, causing some modern authors to accuse it of
cowardice and meanness. Livingstone goes so far as to say, "nothing that
I ever learned of the lion could lead me to attribute to it either the
ferocious or noble character ascribed to it elsewhere," and he adds that
its roar is not distinguishable from that of the ostrich. These different
estimates depend to a great extent upon the particular standard of the
writer, and also upon the circumstance that lions, like other animals,
show considerable individual differences in character, and behave
differently under varying circumstances. (W. H. F.; R. L.*)
LIONNE, HUGUES DE (1611-1671), French statesman, was born at Grenoble on
the 11th of October 1611, of an old family of Dauphiné. Early trained
for diplomacy, his remarkable abilities attracted the notice of Cardinal
Mazarin, who sent him as secretary of the French embassy to the congress
of Münster, and, in 1642, on a mission to the pope. In 1646 he became
secretary to the queen regent; in 1653 obtained high office in the
king's household; and in 1654 was ambassador extraordinary at the
election of Pope Alexander VII. He was instrumental in forming the
league of the Rhine, by which Austria was cut off from the Spanish
Netherlands, and, as minister of state, was associated with Mazarin in
the Peace of the Pyrenees (1659), which secured the marriage of Louis
XIV. to the infanta Maria Theresa. At the cardinal's dying request he
was appointed his successor in foreign affairs, and, for the next ten
years, continued to direct French foreign policy. Among his most
important diplomatic successes were the treaty of Breda (1667), the
treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668) and the sale of Dunkirk. He died in
Paris on the 1st of September 1671, leaving memoirs. He was a man of
pleasure, but his natural indolence gave place to an unflagging energy
when the occasion demanded it; and, in an age of great ministers, his
consummate statesmanship placed him in the front rank.
See Ulysse Chevalier, _Lettres inédites de Hugues de Lionne ...
précédées d'une notice historique sur la famille de Lionne_ (Valence,
1879); J. Valfrey, _La diplomatie française au XVIII^e siècle:
Hugues de Lionne, ses ambassadeurs_ (2 vols., Paris, 1877-1881). For
further works see Rochas, _Biogr. du Dauphiné_ (Paris, 1860), tome ii.
p. 87.
LIOTARD, JEAN ETIENNE (1702-1789), French painter, was born at Geneva.
He began his studies under Professor Gardelle and Petitot, whose enamels
and miniatures he copied with considerable skill. He went to Paris in
1725, studying under J. B. Massé and F. le Moyne, on whose
recommendation he was taken to Naples by the Marquis Puysieux. In 1735
he was in Rome, painting the portraits of Pope Clement XII. and several
cardinals. Three years later he accompanied Lord Duncannon to
Constantinople, whence he went to Vienna in 1742 to paint the portraits
of the imperial family. His eccentric adoption of oriental costume
secured him the nickname of "the Turkish painter." Still under
distinguished patronage he returned to Paris in 1744, visited England,
where he painted the princess of Wales in 1753, and went to Holland in
1756, where, in the following year, he married Marie Fargues. Another
visit to England followed in 1772, and in the next two years his name
figures among the Royal Academy exhibitors. He returned to his native
town in 1776 and died at Geneva in 1789.
Liotard was an artist of great versatility, and though his fame depends
largely on his graceful and delicate pastel drawings, of which "La
Liseuse," the "Chocolate Girl," and "La Belle Lyonnaise" at the Dresden
Gallery are delightful examples, he achieved distinction by his enamels,
copper-plate engravings and glass painting. He also wrote a _Treatise on
the Art of Painting_, and was an expert collector of paintings by the
old masters. Many of the masterpieces he had acquired were sold by him
at high prices on his second visit to England. The museums of Amsterdam,
Berne, and Geneva are particularly rich in examples of his paintings and
pastel drawings. A picture of a Turk seated is at the Victoria and
Albert Museum, while the British Museum owns two of his drawings. The
Louvre has, besides twenty-two drawings, a portrait of General Hérault
and a portrait of the artist is to be found at the Sala dei pittori, in
the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
See _La Vie et les oeuvres de Jean Etienne Liotard (1702-1789), étude
biographique et iconographique_, by E. Humbert, A. Revilliod, and J.
W. R. Tilanus (Amsterdam, 1897).
LIP (a word common in various forms, to Teutonic languages, cf Ger.
_Lippe_, Dan. _laebe_; Lat. _labium_ is cognate), one of the two fleshy
protuberant edges of the mouth in man and other animals, hence
transferred to such objects as resemble a lip, the edge of a circular or
other opening, as of a shell, or of a wound, or of any fissure in
anatomy and zoology; in this last usage the Latin _labium_ is more
usually employed. It is also used of any projecting edge, as in
coal-mining, &c. Many figurative uses are derived from the connexion
with the mouth as the organ of speech. In architecture "lip moulding" is
a term given to a moulding employed in the Perpendicular period, from
its resemblance to an overhanging lip. It is often found in base
mouldings, and is not confined to England, there being similar examples
in France and Italy.
LIPA, a town of the province of Batangas, Luzon, Philippine Islands,
about 90 m. S. by E. of Manila. Pop. (1903) 37,934. Lipa is on high
ground at the intersection of old military roads, is noted for its cool
and healthy climate, and is one of the largest and wealthiest inland
towns of the archipelago. Many of its houses have two storeys above the
ground-floor, and its church and convent together form a very large
building. The surrounding country is very fertile, producing sugar-cane,
Indian corn, cacao, tobacco and indigo. The cultivation of coffee was
begun here on a large scale about the middle of the 19th century and was
increased gradually until 1889-1890 when an insect pest destroyed the
trees. The language of Lipa is Tagalog.
LIPAN, a tribe of North American Indians of Athabascan stock. Their
former range was central Texas. Later they were driven into Mexico. They
were pure nomads, lived entirely by hunting, and were perhaps the most
daring of the Texas Indians. A few survivors were brought back from
Mexico in 1905 and placed on a reservation in New Mexico.
LIPARI ISLANDS (anc. [Greek: Aiolou nêsoi], or _Aeoliae Insulae_), a
group of volcanic islands N. of the eastern portion of Sicily. They are
seven in number--Lipari (_Lipara_, pop. in 1901, 15,290), Stromboli
(_Strongyle_), Salina (_Didyme_, pop. in 1901, 4934), Filicuri
(_Phoenicusa_), Alicuri (_Ericusa_), Vulcano (_Hiera_, _Therasia_ or
_Thermissa_), the mythical abode of Hephaestus, and Panaria
(_Euonymus_). The island of Aiolie, the home of Aiolos, lord of the
winds, which Ulysses twice visited in his wanderings, has generally been
identified with one of this group. A colony of Cnidians and Rhodians was
established on Lipara in 580-577 B.C.[1] The inhabitants were allied
with the Syracusans, and were attacked by the Athenian fleet in 427
B.C., and by the Carthaginians in 397 B.C., while Agathocles plundered a
temple on Lipara in 301 B.C. During the Punic wars the islands were a
Carthaginian naval station of some importance until the Romans took
possession of them in 252 B.C. Sextus Pompeius also used them as a naval
base. Under the Empire the islands served as a place of banishment for
political prisoners. In the middle ages they frequently changed hands.
The island of Lipari contains the chief town (population in 1901, 5855),
which bears the same name and had municipal rights in Roman times. It is
the seat of a bishop. It is fertile and contains sulphur springs and
vapour baths, which were known and used in ancient times. Pumicestone is
exported.
Stromboli, 22 m. N.E. of Lipari, is a constantly active volcano,
ejecting gas and lava at brief intervals, and always visible at night.
Salina, 3 m. N.W. of Lipari, consisting of the cones of two extinct
volcanoes, that on the S.E., Monte Salvatore (3155 ft.), being the
highest point in the islands, is the most fertile of the whole group and
produces good Malmsey wine: it takes its name from the salt-works on the
south coast. Vulcano, ½ m. S. of Lipari, contains a still smoking
crater. Sulphur works were started in 1874, have since been abandoned.
See Archduke Ludwig Salvator of Austria, _Die Liparischen Inseln_, 8
vols. (for private circulation) (Prague, 1893 seqq.).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Greek coins of the Lipari Islands are preserved in the museum at
Cefalù.
LIPETSK, a town of Russia, in the government of Tambov, 108 m. by rail
W. of the city of Tambov, on the right bank of the river Voronezh. Pop.
(1897) 16,353. The town is built of wood and the streets are unpaved.
There are sugar, tallow, and leather works, and distilleries, and an
active trade in horses, cattle, tallow, skins, honey and timber. The
Lipetsk mineral springs (chalybeate) came into repute in the time of
Peter the Great and attract a good many visitors.
LIPPE, a river of Germany, a right-bank tributary of the Rhine. It rises
near Lippspringe under the western declivity of the Teutoburger Wald,
and, after being joined by the Alme, the Pader and the Ahse on the left,
and by the Stever on the right, flows into the Rhine near Wesel, after a
course of 154 m. It is navigable downwards from Lippstadt, for boats and
barges, by the aid of twelve locks, drawing less than 4 ft. of water.
The river is important for the transport facilities it affords to the
rich agricultural districts of Westphalia.
LIPPE, a principality of Germany and constituent state of the German
empire, bounded N.W., W. and S. by the Prussian province of Westphalia
and N.E. and E. by the Prussian provinces of Hanover and Hesse-Nassau
and the principality of Waldeck-Pyrmont. It also possesses three small
enclaves--Kappel and Lipperode in Westphalia and Grevenhagen near
Höxter. The area is 469 sq. m., and the population (1905) 145,610,
showing a density of 125 to the sq. m. The greater part of the surface
is hilly, and in the S. and W., where the Teutoburger Wald practically
forms its physical boundary, mountainous. The chief rivers are the
Weser, which crosses the north extremity of the principality, and its
affluents, the Werre, Exter, Kalle and Emmer. The Lippe, which gives its
name to the country, is a purely Westphalian river and does not touch
the principality at any point. The forests of Lippe, among the finest in
Germany, produce abundance of excellent timber. They occupy 28% of the
whole area, and consist mostly of deciduous trees, beech preponderating.
The valleys contain a considerable amount of good arable land, the
tillage of which employs the greater part of the inhabitants. Small
farms, the larger proportion of which are under 2½ acres, are numerous,
and their yield shows a high degree of prosperity among the peasant
farmers. The principal crops are potatoes, beetroot (for sugar), hay,
rye, oats, wheat and barley. Cattle, sheep and swine are also reared,
and the "Senner" breed of horses, in the stud farm at Lopshorn, is
celebrated. The industries are small and consist mainly in the
manufacture of starch, paper, sugar, tobacco, and in weaving and
brewing. Lemgo is famous for its meerschaum pipes and Salzuflen for its
brine-springs, producing annually about 1500 tons of salt, which is
mostly exported. Each year, in spring, about 15,000 brickmakers leave
the principality and journey to other countries, Hungary, Sweden and
Russia, to return home in the late autumn.
The roads are well laid and kept in good repair. A railway intersects
the country from Herford (on the Cologne-Hanover main line) to
Altenbeken; and another from Bielefeld to Hameln traverses it from W. to
E. More than 95% of the population in 1905 were Protestants. Education
is provided for by two gymnasia and numerous other efficient schools.
The principality contains seven small towns, the chief of which are
Detmold, the seat of government, Lemgo, Horn and Blomberg. The present
constitution was granted in 1836, but it was altered in 1867 and again
in 1876. It provides for a representative chamber of twenty-one members,
whose functions are mainly consultative. For electoral purposes the
population is divided into three classes, rated according to taxation,
each of which returns seven members. The courts of law are centred at
Detmold, whence an appeal lies to the court of appeal at Celle in the
Prussian province of Hanover. The estimated revenue in 1909 was £113,000
and the expenditure £116,000. The public debt in 1908 was £64,000. Lippe
has one vote in the German Reichstag, and also one vote in the
Bundesrat, or federal council. Its military forces form a battalion of
the 6th Westphalian infantry.
_History._--The present principality of Lippe was inhabited in early
times by the Cherusii, whose leader Arminius (Hermann) annihilated in
A.D. 9 the legions of Varus in the Teutoburger Wald. It was afterwards
occupied by the Saxons and was subdued by Charlemagne. The founder of
the present reigning family, one of the most ancient in Germany, was
Bernard I. (1113-1144), who received a grant of the territory from the
emperor Lothair, and assumed the title of lord of Lippe (_edler Herr von
Lippe_). He was descended from a certain Hoold who flourished about 950.
Bernard's successors inherited or obtained several counties, and one of
them, Simon III. (d. 1410), introduced the principles of primogeniture.
Under Simon V. (d. 1536), who was the first to style himself count, the
Reformation was introduced into the country. His grandson, Simon VI.
(1555-1613), is the ancestor of both lines of the princes of Lippe. In
1613 the country, as it then existed, was divided among his three sons,
the lines founded by two of whom still exist, while the third (Brake)
became extinct in 1709. Lippe proper was the patrimony of the eldest
son, Simon VII. (1587-1627), upon whose descendant Frederick William
Leopold (d. 1802) the title of prince of the empire was bestowed in
1789, a dignity already conferred, though not confirmed, in 1720.
Philip, the youngest son of Simon VI., received but a scanty part of his
father's possessions, but in 1640 he inherited a large part of the
countship of Schaumburg, including Bückeburg, and adopted the title of
count of Schaumburg-Lippe. The ruler of this territory became a
sovereign prince in 1807. Simon VII. had a younger son, Jobst Hermann
(d. 1678), who founded the line of counts of Lippe-Biesterfeld, and a
cadet branch of this family were the counts of Lippe-Weissenfeld. In
1762 these two counties--Biesterfeld and Weissenfeld--passed by
arrangement into the possession of the senior and ruling branch of the
family. Under the prudent government of the princess Pauline (from 1802
to 1820), widow of Frederick William Leopold, the little state enjoyed
great prosperity. In 1807 it joined the Confederation of the Rhine and
in 1813 the German Confederation. Pauline's son, Paul Alexander Leopold,
who reigned from 1820 to 1851, also ruled in a wise and liberal spirit,
and in 1836 granted the charter of rights upon which the constitution is
based. In 1842 Lippe entered the German Customs Union (_Zollverein_),
and in 1866 threw in its lot with Prussia and joined the North German
Confederation.
The Lippe succession dispute.
The line of rulers in Lippe dates back, as already mentioned, to Simon
VI. But besides this, the senior line, the two collateral lines of
counts, Lippe-Biesterfeld and Lippe-Weissenfeld and the princely line of
Schaumburg-Lippe, also trace their descent to the same ancestor, and
these three lines stand in the above order as regards their rights to
the Lippe succession, the counts being descended from Simon's eldest son
and the princes from his youngest son. These facts were not in dispute
when in March 1895 the death of Prince Woldemar, who had reigned since
1875, raised a dispute as to the succession. Woldemar's brother
Alexander, the last of the senior line, was hopelessly insane and had
been declared incapable of ruling. On the death of Woldemar, Prince
Adolph of Schaumburg-Lippe, fourth son of Prince Adolph George of that
country and brother-in-law of the German emperor, took over the regency
by virtue of a decree issued by Prince Woldemar, but which had until the
latter's death been kept secret. The Lippe house of representatives
consequently passed a special law confirming the regency in the person
of Prince Adolph, but with the proviso that the regency should be at an
end as soon as the disputes touching the succession were adjusted; and
with a further proviso that, should this dispute not have been settled
before the death of Prince Alexander, then, if a competent court of law
had been secured before that event happened, the regency of Prince
Adolph should continue until such court had given its decision. The
dispute in question had arisen because the heads of the two collateral
countly lines had entered a _caveat_. In order to adjust matters the
Lippe government moved the _Bundesrat_, on the 5th of July 1895, to pass
an imperial law declaring the _Reichsgericht_ (the supreme tribunal of
the empire) a competent court to adjudicate upon the claims of the rival
lines to the succession. In consequence the Bundesrat passed a
resolution on the 1st of February 1896, requesting the chancellor of the
empire to bring about a compromise for the appointment of a court of
arbitration between the parties. Owing to the mediation of the
chancellor a compact was on the 3rd of July 1896 concluded between the
heads of the three collateral lines of the whole house of Lippe, binding
"both on themselves and on the lines of which they were the heads." By
clause 2 of this compact, a court of arbitration was to be appointed,
consisting of the king of Saxony and six members selected by him from
among the members of the supreme court of law of the empire. This court
was duly constituted, and on the 22nd of June 1897 delivered judgment to
the effect that Count Ernest of Lippe-Biesterfeld, head of the line of
Lippe-Biesterfeld, was entitled to succeed to the throne of Lippe on the
death of Prince Alexander. In consequence of this judgment Prince Adolph
resigned the regency and Count Ernest became regent in his stead. On the
26th of September 1904 Count Ernest died and his eldest son, Count
Leopold, succeeded to the regency; but the question of the succession
was again raised by the prince of Schaumburg-Lippe, who urged that the
marriage of Count William Ernest, father of Count Ernest, with Modeste
von Unruh, and that of the count regent Ernest himself with Countess
Carline von Wartensleben were not _ebenbürtig_ (equal birth), and that
the issue of these marriages were therefore excluded from the
succession. Prince George of Schaumburg-Lippe and the count regent,
Leopold, thereupon entered into a compact, again referring the matter to
the Bundesrat, which requested the chancellor of the empire to agree to
the appointment of a court of arbitration consisting of two civil
senates of the supreme court, sitting at Leipzig, to decide finally the
matter in dispute. It was further provided in the compact that Leopold
should remain as regent, even after the death of Alexander, until the
decision of the court had been given. Prince Alexander died on the 13th
of January 1905; Count Leopold remained as regent, and on the 25th of
October the court of arbitration issued its award, declaring the
marriages in question (which were, as proved by document, contracted
with the consent of the head of the house in each case) _ebenbürtig_,
and that in pursuance of the award of the king of Saxony the family of
Lippe-Biesterfeld, together with the collateral lines sprung from Count
William Ernest (father of the regent, Count Ernest) were in the order of
nearest agnates called to the succession. Leopold (b. 1871) thus became
prince of Lippe.
See A. Falkmann, _Beiträge zur Geschichte des Fürstenthums Lippe_
(Detmold, 1857-1892; 6 vols.); Schwanold, _Das Fürstentum Lippe, das
Land und seine Bewohner_ (Detmold, 1899); Piderit, _Die lippischen
Edelherrn im Mittelalter_ (Detmold, 1876); A. Falkmann and O. Preuss,
_Lippische Regenten_ (Detmold, 1860-1868); H. Triepel, _Der Streit um
die Thronfolge im Fürstentum Lippe_ (Leipzig, 1903); and P. Laband,
_Die Thronfolge im Fürstentum Lippe_ (Freiburg, 1891); and
_Schiedsspruch in dem Rechtstreit über die Thronfolge im Fürstentum
Lippe vom 25 Okt. 1905_ (Leipzig, 1906).
LIPPI, the name of three celebrated Italian painters.
I. FRA FILIPPO LIPPI (1406-1469), commonly called Lippo Lippi, one of
the most renowned painters of the Italian quattrocento, was born in
Florence--his father, Tommaso, being a butcher. His mother died in his
childhood, and his father survived his wife only two years. His aunt, a
poor woman named Monna Lapaccia, then took charge of the boy; and in
1420, when fourteen years of age, he was registered in the community of
the Carmelite friars of the Carmine in Florence. Here he remained till
1432, and his early faculty for fine arts was probably developed by
studying the works of Masaccio in the neighbouring chapel of the
Brancacci. Between 1430 and 1432 he executed some works in the
monastery, which were destroyed by a fire in 1771; they are specified by
Vasari, and one of them was particularly marked by its resemblance to
Masaccio's style. Eventually Fra Filippo quitted his convent, but it
appears that he was not relieved from some sort of religious vow; in a
letter dated in 1439 he speaks of himself as the poorest friar of
Florence, and says he is charged with the maintenance of six
marriageable nieces. In 1452 he was appointed chaplain to the convent of
S. Giovannino in Florence, and in 1457 rector (_Rettore Commendatario_)
of S. Quirico at Legania, and his gains were considerable and uncommonly
large from time to time; but his poverty seems to have been chronic, the
money being spent, according to one account, in frequently recurring
amours.
Vasari relates some curious and romantic adventures of Fra Filippo,
which modern biographers are not inclined to believe. Except through
Vasari, nothing is known of his visits to Ancona and Naples, and his
intermediate capture by Barbary pirates and enslavement in Barbary,
whence his skill in portrait-sketching availed to release him. This
relates to a period, 1431-1437, when his career is not otherwise clearly
accounted for. The doubts thrown upon his semi-marital relations with a
Florentine lady appear, however, to be somewhat arbitrary; Vasari's
account is circumstantial, and in itself not greatly improbable. Towards
June 1456 Fra Filippo was settled in Prato (near Florence) for the
purpose of fulfilling a commission to paint frescoes in the choir of the
cathedral. Before actually undertaking this work he set about painting,
in 1458, a picture for the convent chapel of S. Margherita of Prato, and
there saw Lucrezia Buti, the beautiful daughter of a Florentine,
Francesco Buti; she was either a novice or a young lady placed under the
nuns' guardianship. Lippi asked that she might be permitted to sit to
him for the figure of the Madonna (or it might rather appear of S.
Margherita); he made passionate love to her, abducted her to his own
house, and kept her there spite of the utmost efforts the nuns could
make to reclaim her. The fruit of their loves was a boy, who became the
painter, not less celebrated than his father, Filippino Lippi (noticed
below). Such is substantially Vasari's narrative, published less than a
century after the alleged events; it is not refuted by saying, more than
three centuries later, that perhaps Lippo had nothing to do with any
such Lucrezia, and perhaps Lippino was his adopted son, or only an
ordinary relative and scholar. The argument that two reputed portraits
of Lucrezia in paintings by Lippo are not alike, one as a Madonna in a
very fine picture in the Pitti gallery, and the other in the same
character in a Nativity in the Louvre, comes to very little; and it is
reduced to nothing when the disputant adds that the Louvre painting is
probably not done by Lippi at all. Besides, it appears more likely that
not the Madonna in the Louvre but a S. Margaret in a picture now in the
Gallery of Prato is the original portrait (according to the tradition)
of Lucrezia Buti.
The frescoes in the choir of Prato cathedral, being the stories of the
Baptist and of St Stephen, represented on the two opposite wall spaces,
are the most important and monumental works which Fra Filippo has left,
more especially the figure of Salome dancing, and the last of the
series, showing the ceremonial mourning over Stephen's corpse. This
contains a portrait of the painter, but which is the proper figure is a
question that has raised some diversity of opinion. At the end wall of
the choir are S. Giovanni Gualberto and S. Alberto, and on the ceiling
the four evangelists.
The close of Lippi's life was spent at Spoleto, where he had been
commissioned to paint, for the apse of the cathedral, some scenes from
the life of the Virgin. In the semidome of the apse is Christ crowning
the Madonna, with angels, sibyls and prophets. This series, which is not
wholly equal to the one at Prato, was completed by Fra Diamante after
Lippi's death. That Lippi died in Spoleto, on or about the 8th of
October 1469, is an undoubted fact; the mode of his death is again a
matter of dispute. It has been said that the pope granted Lippi a
dispensation for marrying Lucrezia, but that, before the permission
arrived, he had been poisoned by the indignant relatives either of
Lucrezia herself, or of some lady who had replaced her in the inconstant
painter's affections. This is now generally regarded as a fable; and
indeed a vendetta upon a man aged sixty-three for a seduction committed
at the already mature age of fifty-two seems hardly plausible. Fra
Filippo lies buried in Spoleto, with a monument erected to him by
Lorenzo the Magnificent; he had always been zealously patronized by the
Medici family, beginning with Cosimo, Pater Patriae. Francesco di
Pesello (called Pesellino) and Sandro Botticelli were among his most
distinguished pupils.
In 1441 Lippi painted an altarpiece for the nuns of S. Ambrogio which
is now a prominent attraction in the Academy of Florence, and has been
celebrated in Browning's well-known poem. It represents the coronation
of the Virgin among angels and saints, of whom many are Bernardine
monks. One of these, placed to the right, is a half-length portrait of
Lippo, pointed out by an inscription upon an angel's scroll "Is
perfecit opus." The price paid for this work in 1447 was 1200
Florentine lire, which seems surprisingly large. For Germiniano
Inghirami of Prato he painted the "Death of St Bernard," a fine
specimen still extant. His principal altarpiece in this city is a
Nativity in the refectory of S. Domenico--the Infant on the ground
adored by the Virgin and Joseph, between Sts George and Dominic, in a
rocky landscape, with the shepherds playing and six angels in the sky.
In the Uffizi is a fine Virgin adoring the infant Christ, who is held
by two angels; in the National Gallery, London, a "Vision of St
Bernard." The picture of the "Virgin and Infant with an Angel," in
this same gallery, also ascribed to Lippi, is disputable.
Few pictures are so thoroughly enjoyable as those of Lippo Lippi; they
show the naiveté of a strong, rich nature, redundant in lively and
somewhat whimsical observation. He approaches religious art from its
human side, and is not pietistic though true to a phase of Catholic
devotion. He was perhaps the greatest colourist and technical adept of
his time, with good draughtsmanship--a naturalist, with less vulgar
realism than some of his contemporaries, and with much genuine
episodical animation, including semi-humorous incidents and low
characters. He made little effort after perspective and none for
foreshortenings, was fond of ornamenting pilasters and other
architectural features. Vasari says that Lippi was wont to hide the
extremities in drapery to evade difficulties. His career was one of
continual development, without fundamental variation in style or in
colouring. In his great works the proportions are larger than life.
Along with Vasari's interesting and amusing, and possibly not very
unauthentic, account of Lippo Lippi, the work of Crowe and
Cavalcaselle should be consulted. Also: E. C. Strutt, _Fra Lippo
Lippi_ (1901); C. M. Phillimore, _Early Florentine Painters_ (1881);
B. Supino, _Fra Filippo Lippi_ (illustrated) (1902). It should be
observed that Crowe and Cavalcaselle give 1412 as the date of the
painter's birth, and this would make a considerable difference in
estimating details of his after career. We have preferred to follow
the more usual account. The self-portrait dated 1441 looks like a man
much older than twenty-nine.
II. FILIPPINO, or LIPPINO LIPPI (1460-1505), was the natural son of Fra
Lippo Lippi and Lucrezia Buti, born in Florence and educated at Prato.
Losing his father before he had completed his tenth year, the boy took
up his avocation as a painter, studying under Sandro Botticelli and
probably under Fra Diamante. The style which he formed was to a great
extent original, but it bears clear traces of the manner both of Lippo
and of Botticelli--more ornamental than the first, more realistic and
less poetical than the second. His powers developed early; for we find
him an accomplished artist by 1480, when he painted an altarpiece, the
"Vision of St Bernard," now in the Badia of Florence; it is in tempera,
with almost the same force as oil painting. Soon afterwards, probably
from 1482 to 1490, he began to work upon the frescoes which completed
the decoration of the Brancacci chapel in the Carmine, commenced by
Masolino and Masaccio many years before. He finished Masaccio's
"Resurrection of the King's Son," and was the sole author of "Paul's
Interview with Peter in Prison," the "Liberation of Peter," the "Two
Saints before the Proconsul" and the "Crucifixion of Peter." These works
are sufficient to prove that Lippino stood in the front rank of the
artists of his time. The dignified and expressive figure of St Paul in
the second-named subject has always been particularly admired, and
appears to have furnished a suggestion to Raphael for his "Paul at
Athens." Portraits of Luigi Pulci, Antonio Pollajuolo, Lippino himself
and various others are in this series. In 1485 he executed the great
altarpiece of the "Virgin and Saints," with several other figures, now
in the Uffizi Gallery. Another of his leading works is the altarpiece
for the Nerli chapel in S. Spirito--the "Virgin Enthroned," with
splendidly living portraits of Nerli and his wife, and a thronged
distance. In 1489 Lippino was in Rome, painting in the church of the
Minerva, having first passed through Spoleto to design the monument for
his father in the cathedral of that city. Some of his principal frescoes
in the Minerva are still extant, the subjects being in celebration of St
Thomas Aquinas. In one picture the saint is miraculously commended by a
crucifix; in another, triumphing over heretics. In 1496 Lippino painted
the "Adoration of the Magi" now in the Uffizi, a very striking picture,
with numerous figures. This was succeeded by his last important
undertaking, the frescoes in the Strozzi chapel, in the church of S.
Maria Novella in Florence--"Drusiana Restored to Life by St John, the
Evangelist," "St John in the Cauldron of Boiling Oil" and two subjects
from the legend of St Philip. These are conspicuous and attractive
works, yet somewhat grotesque and exaggerated--full of ornate
architecture, showy colour and the distinctive peculiarities of the
master. Filippino, who had married in 1497, died in 1505. The best
reputed of his scholars was Raffaellino del Garbo.
Like his father, Filippino had a most marked original genius for
painting, and he was hardly less a chief among the artists of his time
than Fra Filippo had been in his; it may be said that in all the
annals of the art a rival instance is not to be found of a father and
son each of whom had such pre-eminent natural gifts and leadership.
The father displayed more of sentiment and candid sweetness of motive;
the son more of richness, variety and lively pictorial combination. He
was admirable in all matters of decorative adjunct and presentment,
such as draperies, landscape backgrounds and accessories; and he was
the first Florentine to introduce a taste for antique details of
costume, &c. He formed a large collection of objects of this kind, and
left his designs of them to his son. In his later works there is a
tendency to a mannered development of the extremities, and generally
to facile overdoing. The National Gallery, London, possesses a good
and characteristic though not exactly a first-rate specimen of
Lippino, the "Virgin and Child between Sts Jerome and Dominic"; also
an "Adoration of the Magi," of which recent criticism contests the
authenticity. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, supplemented by the writings of
Berenson, should be consulted as to this painter. An album of his
works is in Newnes' Art-library.
III. LORENZO LIPPI (1606-1664), painter and poet, was born in Florence.
He studied painting under Matteo Rosselli, the influence of whose style,
and more especially of that of Santi di Tito, is to be traced in Lippi's
works, which are marked by taste, delicacy and a strong turn for
portrait-like naturalism. His maxim was "to poetize as he spoke, and to
paint as he saw." After exercising his art for some time in Florence,
and having married at the age of forty the daughter of a rich sculptor
named Susini, Lippi went as court painter to Innsbruck, where he has
left many excellent portraits. There he wrote his humorous poem named
_Malmantile Racquistato_, which was published under the anagrammatic
pseudonym of "Perlone Zipoli." Lippi was somewhat self-sufficient, and,
when visiting Parma, would not look at the famous Correggios there,
saying that they could teach him nothing. He died of pleurisy in 1664,
in Florence.
The most esteemed works of Lippi as a painter are a "Crucifixion" in
the Uffizi gallery at Florence, and a "Triumph of David" which he
executed for the saloon of Angiolo Galli, introducing into it
portraits of the seventeen children of the owner. The _Malmantile
Racquistato_ is a burlesque romance, mostly compounded out of a
variety of popular tales; its principal subject-matter is an
expedition for the recovery of a fortress and territory whose queen
had been expelled by a female usurper. It is full of graceful or racy
Florentine idioms, and is counted by Italians as a "testo di lingua."
Lippi is more generally or more advantageously remembered by this poem
than by anything which he has left in the art of painting. It was not
published until 1688, several years after his death. Lanzi as to
Lorenzo Lippi's pictorial work, and Tiraboschi and other literary
historians as to his writings, are among the best authorities.
(W. M. R.)
LIPPSPRINGE, a town and watering-place in the Prussian province of
Westphalia, lying under the western slope of the Teutoburger Wald, 5 m.
N. of Paderborn. Pop. (1905) 3100. The springs, the Arminius Quelle and
the Liborius Quelle, for which it is famous, are saline waters of a
temperature of 70° F., and are utilized both for bathing and drinking in
cases of pulmonary consumption and chronic diseases of the respiratory
organs. The annual number of visitors amounts to about 6000. Lippspringe
is mentioned in chronicles as early as the 9th century, and here in the
13th century the order of the Templars established a stronghold. It
received civic rights about 1400.
See Dammann, _Der Kurort Lippspringe_ (Paderborn, 1900); Königer,
_Lippspringe_ (Berlin, 1893); and Frey, _Lippspringe, Kurort für
Lungenkranke_ (Paderborn, 1899).
LIPPSTADT, a town in the Prussian province of Westphalia, on the river
Lippe, 20 m. by rail W. by S. of Paderborn, on the main line to
Düsseldorf. Pop. (1905) 15,436. The Marien Kirche is a large edifice in
the Transitional style, dating from the 13th century. It has several
schools, among them being one which was originally founded as a nunnery
in 1185. The manufactures include cigar-making, distilling,
carriage-building and metal-working.
Lippstadt was founded in 1168 by the lords of Lippe, the rights over one
half of the town passing subsequently by purchase to the counts of the
Mark, which in 1614 was incorporated with Brandenburg. In 1850 the
prince of Lippe-Detmold sold his share to Prussia when this joint
lordship ceased. In 1620 Lippstadt was occupied by the Spaniards and in
1757 by the French.
See Chalybäus, _Lippstadt, ein Beitrag zur deutschen Städtegeschichte_
(Lippstadt, 1876).
LIPSIUS, JUSTUS (1547-1606), the Latinized name of Joest (Juste or
Josse) Lips, Belgian scholar, born on the 18th of October (15th of
November, according to Amiel) 1547 at Overyssche, a small village in
Brabant, near Brussels. Sent early to the Jesuit college in Cologne, he
was removed at the age of sixteen to the university of Louvain by his
parents, who feared that he might be induced to become a member of the
Society of Jesus. The publication of his _Variarum Lectionum Libri Tres_
(1567), dedicated to Cardinal Granvella, procured him an appointment as
Latin secretary and a visit to Rome in the retinue of the cardinal. Here
Lipsius remained two years, devoting his spare time to the study of the
Latin classics, collecting inscriptions and examining MSS. in the
Vatican. A second volume of miscellaneous criticism (_Antiquarum
Lectionum Libri Quinque_, 1575), published after his return from Rome,
compared with the _Variae Lectiones_ of eight years earlier, shows that
he had advanced from the notion of purely conjectural emendation to that
of emending by collation. In 1570 he wandered over Burgundy, Germany,
Austria, Bohemia, and was engaged for more than a year as teacher in the
university of Jena, a position which implied an outward conformity to
the Lutheran Church. On his way back to Louvain, he stopped some time at
Cologne, where he must have comported himself as a Catholic. He then
returned to Louvain, but was soon driven by the Civil War to take refuge
in Antwerp, where he received, in 1579, a call to the newly founded
university of Leiden, as professor of history. At Leiden, where he must
have passed as a Calvinist, Lipsius remained eleven years, the period of
his greatest productivity. It was now that he prepared his _Seneca_,
perfected, in successive editions, his _Tacitus_ and brought out a
series of works, some of pure scholarship, others collections from
classical authors, others again of general interest. Of this latter
class was a treatise on politics (_Politicorum Libri Sex_, 1589), in
which he showed that, though a public teacher in a country which
professed toleration, he had not departed from the state maxims of Alva
and Philip II. He lays it down that a government should recognize only
one religion, and that dissent should be extirpated by fire and sword.
From the attacks to which this avowal exposed him, he was saved by the
prudence of the authorities of Leiden, who prevailed upon him to publish
a declaration that his expression, _Ure, seca_, was a metaphor for a
vigorous treatment. In the spring of 1590, leaving Leiden under pretext
of taking the waters at Spa, he went to Mainz, where he was reconciled
to the Roman Catholic Church. The event deeply interested the Catholic
world, and invitations poured in on Lipsius from the courts and
universities of Italy, Austria and Spain. But he preferred to remain in
his own country, and finally settled at Louvain, as professor of Latin
in the Collegium Buslidianum. He was not expected to teach, and his
trifling stipend was eked out by the appointments of privy councillor
and historiographer to the king of Spain. He continued to publish
dissertations as before, the chief being his _De militia romana_
(Antwerp, 1595) and _Lovanium_ (Antwerp, 1605; 4th ed., Wesel, 1671),
intended as an introduction to a general history of Brabant. He died at
Louvain on the 23rd of March (some give 24th of April) 1606.
Lipsius's knowledge of classical antiquity was extremely limited. He had
but slight acquaintance with Greek, and in Latin literature the poets
and Cicero lay outside his range. His greatest work was his edition of
Tacitus. This author he had so completely made his own that he could
repeat the whole, and offered to be tested in any part of the text, with
a poniard held to his breast, to be used against him if he should fail.
His _Tacitus_ first appeared in 1575, and was five times revised and
corrected--the last time in 1606, shortly before his death. His _Opera
Omnia_ appeared in 8 vols. at Antwerp (1585, 2nd ed., 1637).
A full list of his publications will be found in van der Aa,
_Biographisch Woordenboek der Nederlanden_ (1865), and in
_Bibliographie Lipsienne_ (Ghent, 1886-1888). In addition to the
biography by A. le Mire (Aubertus Miraeus) (1609), the only original
account of his life, see M. E. C. Nisard, _Le Triumvirat littéraire au
XVI^e siècle_ (1852); A. Räss, _Die Convertiten seit der
Reformation_ (1867); P. Bergman's _Autobiographie de J. Lipse_ (1889);
L. Galesloot, _Particularités sur la vie de J. Lipse_ (1877); E.
Amiel, _Un Publiciste du XVI^e siècle. Juste Lipse_ (1884); and L.
Müller, _Geschichte der klassischen Philologie in den Niederlanden_.
The articles by J. J. Thonissen of Louvain in the _Nouvelle Biographie
générale_, and L. Roersch in _Biographie nationale de Belgique_, may
also be consulted.
LIPSIUS, RICHARD ADELBERT (1830-1892), German Protestant theologian, son
of K. H. A. Lipsius (d. 1861), who was rector of the school of St Thomas
at Leipzig, was born at Gera on the 14th of February 1830. He studied at
Leipzig, and eventually (1871) settled at Jena as professor ordinarius.
He helped to found the "Evangelical Protestant Missionary Union" and the
"Evangelical Alliance," and from 1874 took an active part in their
management. He died at Jena on the 19th of August 1892. Lipsius wrote
principally on dogmatics and the history of early Christianity from a
liberal and critical standpoint. A Neo-Kantian, he was to some extent an
opponent of Albrecht Ritschl, demanding "a connected and consistent
theory of the universe, which shall comprehend the entire realm of our
experience as a whole. He rejects the doctrine of dualism in a truth,
one division of which would be confined to 'judgments of value,' and be
unconnected with our theoretical knowledge of the external world. The
possibility of combining the results of our scientific knowledge with
the declarations of our ethico-religious experience, so as to form a
consistent philosophy, is based, according to Lipsius, upon the unity of
the personal ego, which on the one hand knows the world scientifically,
and on the other regards it as the means of realizing the
ethico-religious object of its life" (Otto Pfleiderer). This, in part,
is his attitude in _Philosophie und Religion_ (1885). In his _Lehrbuch
der evang.-prot. Dogmatik_ (1876; 3rd ed., 1893) he deals in detail with
the doctrines of "God," "Christ," "Justification" and the "Church." From
1875 he assisted K. Hase, O. Pfleiderer and E. Schrader in editing the
_Jahrbücher für prot. Theologie_, and from 1885 till 1891 he edited the
_Theol. Jahresbericht_.
His other works include _Die Pilatusakten_ (1871, new ed., 1886),
_Dogmatische Beiträge_ (1878), _Die Quellen der ältesten
Ketzergeschichte_ (1875), _Die apokryphen Apostelgeschichten_
(1883-1890), _Hauptpunkte der christl. Glaubenslehre im Umriss
dargestellt_ (1889), and commentaries on the Epistles to the
Galatians, Romans and Philippians in H. J. Holtzmann's _Handkommentar
zum Neuen Testament_ (1891-1892).
LIPTON, SIR THOMAS JOHNSTONE, BART. (1850- ), British merchant, was
born at Glasgow in 1850, of Irish parents. At a very early age he was
employed as errand boy to a Glasgow stationer; at fifteen he emigrated
to America, where at first he worked in a grocery store, and afterwards
as a tram-car driver in New Orleans, as a traveller for a portrait firm,
and on a plantation in South Carolina. Eventually, having saved some
money, he returned to Glasgow and opened a small provision shop.
Business gradually increased, and by degrees Lipton had provision shops
first all over Scotland and then all over the United Kingdom. To supply
his retail shops on the most favourable terms, he purchased extensive
tea, coffee and cocoa plantations in Ceylon, and provided his own
packing-house for hogs in Chicago, and fruit farms, jam factories,
bakeries and bacon-curing establishments in England. In 1898 his
business was converted into a limited liability company. At Queen
Victoria's diamond jubilee in 1897 he gave £20,000 for providing dinners
for a large number of the London poor. In 1898 he was knighted, and in
1902 was made a baronet. In the world of yacht-racing he became well
known from his repeated attempts to win the America Cup.
LIQUEURS, the general term applied to perfumed or flavoured potable
spirits, sweetened by the addition of sugar. The term "liqueur" is also
used for certain wines and unsweetened spirits of very superior quality,
or remarkable for their bouquet, such as tokay or fine old brandy or
whisky. The basis of all the "liqueurs" proper consists of (a)
relatively strong alcohol or spirit, which must be as pure and neutral
as possible; (b) sugar or syrup; and (c) flavouring matters. There are
three distinct main methods of manufacturing liqueurs. The first, by
which liqueurs of the highest class are prepared, is the "distillation"
or "alcoholate" process. This consists in macerating various aromatic
substances such as seeds, leaves, roots and barks of plants, &c., with
strong spirit and subsequently distilling the infusion so obtained
generally in the presence of a whole or a part of the solid matter. The
mixture of spirit, water and flavouring matters which distils over is
termed the "alcoholate." To this is added a solution of sugar or syrup,
and frequently colouring matter in the shape of harmless vegetable
extracts or burnt sugar, and a further quantity of flavouring matter in
the shape of essential oils or clear spirituous vegetable extracts. The
second method of making liqueurs is that known as the "essence" process.
It is employed, as a rule, for cheap and inferior articles; the process
resolving itself into the addition of various essential oils, either
natural or artificially prepared, and of spirituous extracts to strong
spirit, filtering and adding the saccharine matter to the clear
filtrate. The third method of manufacturing liqueurs is the "infusion"
process, in which alcohol and sugar are added to various fresh fruit
juices. Liqueurs prepared by this method are frequently called
"cordials." It has been suggested that "cordials" are articles of home
manufacture, and that liqueurs are necessarily of foreign origin, but it
is at least doubtful whether this is entirely correct. The French, who
excel in the preparation of liqueurs, grade their products, according to
their sweetness and alcoholic strength, into _crêmes_, _huiles_ or
_baumes_, which have a thick, oily consistency; and _eaux_, _extraits_
or _élixirs_, which, being less sweetened, are relatively limpid.
Liqueurs are also classed, according to their commercial quality and
composition, as _ordinaires_, _demi-fines_, _fines_ and _sur-fines_.
Certain liqueurs, containing only a single flavouring ingredient, or
having a prevailing flavour of a particular substance, are named after
that body, for instance, _crême de vanille_, _anisette_, _kümmel_,
_crême de menthe_, &c. On the other hand, many well-known liqueurs are
compounded of very numerous aromatic principles. The nature and
quantities of the flavouring agents employed in the preparation of
liqueurs of this kind are kept strictly secret, but numerous "recipes"
are given in works dealing with this subject. Among the substances
frequently used as flavouring agents are aniseed, coriander, fennel,
wormwood, gentian, sassafras, amber, hyssop, mint, thyme, angelica,
citron, lemon and orange peel, peppermint, cinnamon, cloves, iris,
caraway, tea, coffee and so on. The alcoholic strength of liqueurs
ranges from close on 80% of alcohol by volume in some kinds of absinthe,
to 27% in anisette. The liqueur industry is a very considerable one,
there being in France some 25,000 factories. Most of these are small,
but some 600,000 gallons are annually exported from France alone. For
absinthe, benedictine, chartreuse, curaçoa, kirsch and vermouth see
under separate headings. Among other well-known trade liqueurs may be
mentioned maraschino, which takes its name from a variety of cherry--the
marasca--grown in Dalmatia, the centre of the trade being at Zara;
kümmel, the flavour of which is largely due to caraway seeds; allasch,
which is a rich variety of kümmel; and cherry and other "fruit" brandies
and whiskies, the latter being perhaps more properly termed cordials.
See Duplais, _La Fabrication des liqueurs_; and Rocques, _Les
Eaux-de-vie et liqueurs_.
LIQUIDAMBAR, LIQUID AMBER or SWEET GUM, a product of _Liquidambar
styraciflua_ (order Hamamelideae), a deciduous tree of from 80 to 140
ft. high, with a straight trunk 4 or 5 ft. in diameter, a native of the
United States, Mexico and Central America. It bears palmately-lobed
leaves, somewhat resembling those of the maple, but larger. The male and
female inflorescences are on different branches of the same tree, the
globular heads of fruit resembling those of the plane. This species is
nearly allied to _L. orientalis_, a native of a very restricted portion
of the south-west coast of Asia Minor, where it forms forests. The
earliest record of the tree appears to be in a Spanish work by F.
Hernandez, published in 1651, in which he describes it as a large tree
producing a fragrant gum resembling liquid amber, whence the name (_Nov.
Plant._, &c., p. 56). In Ray's _Historia Plantarum_ (1686) it is called
_Styrax liquida_. It was introduced into Europe in 1681 by John
Banister, the missionary collector sent out by Bishop Compton, who
planted it in the palace gardens at Fulham. The wood is very compact and
fine-grained--the heart-wood being reddish, and, when cut into planks,
marked transversely with blackish belts. It is employed for veneering in
America. Being readily dyed black, it is sometimes used instead of ebony
for picture frames, balusters, &c.; but it is too liable to decay for
outdoor work.
The gum resin yielded by this tree has no special medicinal virtues,
being inferior in therapeutic properties to many others of its class.
Mixed with tobacco, the gum was used for smoking at the court of the
Mexican emperors (Humboldt iv. 10). It has long been used in France as
a perfume for gloves, &c. It is mainly produced in Mexico, little
being obtained from trees growing in higher latitudes of North
America, or in England.
LIQUIDATION (i.e. making "liquid" or clear), in law, the clearing off or
settling of a debt. The word was more especially used in bankruptcy law
to define the method by which, under the Bankruptcy Act 1869, the
affairs of an insolvent debtor were arranged and a composition accepted
by his creditors without actual bankruptcy. It was abolished by the
Bankruptcy Act 1883 (see BANKRUPTCY). In a general sense, liquidation is
used for the act of adjusting debts, as the Egyptian Law of Liquidation,
July 1880, for a general settlement of the liabilities of Egypt. In
company law, liquidation is the winding up and dissolving a company. The
winding up may be either voluntary or compulsory, and an officer, termed
a liquidator, is appointed, who takes into his custody all the property
of the company and performs such duties as are necessary on its behalf
(see COMPANY).
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 16, Slice 6 - "Lightfoot, Joseph" to "Liquidation"" ***
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