played upon instruments in the temple and other places. They applied themselves to the study of the law, and were the ordinary judges of the country, but always subordinate to the priests. Their subsistence was the tithes of corn, fruit, and cattle, throughout Israel: but the priests were entitled to a tenth of their tithes, by way of first-fruits to the Lord: forty-eight cities were assigned for the residence of the Levites, of which the priests claimed thirteen, six of which were appointed cities of refuge. They were consecrated, before they entered upon their ministry, by shaving their flesh, washing their clothes, and sprinkling with the water of expiation. Imposition of hands was used in consecration, and two bullocks were offered at the door of the tabernacle. They waited weekly, and by turns, in the temple, beginning their attendance on one sabbath and ending the next. In the time of Solomon the number of Levites, above the age of twenty, capable of serving, was thirty-eight thousand.

cylindrical part, and having a wire with a brass ball at its extremity. This wire passes through a cork or piece of wood, and at its lower extremity is a small chain, or wire, that touches the inside coating in several places, and serves as a conductor to charge the jar with electric fluid. On bringing the ball of the jar near the prime conductor, after a few turns of the machine, the jar will be charged. The discharging rod consists of two brass balls attached to the ends of a wire, bent in the form of a semicircle, and fixed to a glass handle. When one of the balls of the discharging rod is applied to the ball of the jar, and the other to the outside coating, a communication is made between the outside and inside of the jar, by which the equilibrium is instantly restored by the superabundant electricity passing from one side to the other, appearing in the form of a vivid flash, and accompanied with a loud report. Any number of persons may receive the shock together by laying hold of each other's hands, the person at one end touching the outside of the jar, and the person at the other end bringing his hand near the ball of the jar. If there were a hundred persons so situated, they would every one feel the shock at the Archimedes has demonstrated, that a solid body same instant. The electric fluid may be thus conwill float any where in a fluid of the same specific veyed many miles in a moment of time. When gravity; and that a lighter body will keep above a great force is required from the electric fluid, a heavier. The reason is, that of bodies falling to- number of jars of the above description are conwards the earth, those which have a like number nected together by making a cominunication beof equal parts, have equal gravity; since the grav-tween all their outsides, and another between all ity of the whole is the sum of the gravity of all its parts. Now two bodies have an equal number of equal parts, if under the same dimensions there be no intervals destitute of matter; whence it follows, that as no portion of matter is so small, but that the body wherein it is contained may be wholly divided into parts equally small, there can be no reason for the descent of these, which will not equally hold for the descent of that.

LEVITY. The privation or want of weight in any body, when compared with another that is heavier.

Hence it may be concluded, that those bodies which do not equally gravitate under the same dimensions, do not contain equal portions of matter; and, therefore, when we see, that a cube of gold subsides in water, at the same time that an equal bulk of cork swims upon it, it is evident, that the gold must have a greater number of equal parts of matter, under the same bulk, than the cork; or the cork must have a greater number of vacuities than the gold; and that there is also in the water a greater number of vacuities than in gold.

LEVIGATION. The mechanical process of grinding the parts of bodies to a fine paste, by rubbing the flat face of a stone called the muller, upon a table or slab called a stone. Some fluid is always added in this process. The advantage of levigation with a stone and muller, beyond that of triturating in a mortar, is, that the materials can more easily be scraped together, and subjected to the action of the muller, than in the other case to that of the pestle; and, from the flatness of the two surfaces, they cannot elude the pressure.

their insides. In this manner any number of jars may be charged with the same facility as a single one, and from the powerful effect of the electric fluid, when it is thus collected, it is called an electrical battery.

The Leyden phial received its name from the birthplace of the discoverer, who was a native of Leyden in Holland. But the greatest discovery that was ever made in electricity was reserved for Dr. Franklin, in America. It had been imagined before his time that a similarity existed between lightning and the electric fluid; but Franklir. brought this supposition to the test, and proved the truth of it by the simple means of a boy's kite covered with a silk handkerchief instead of paper, and some wire fastened in the upper part, whick served to collect and conduct the fluid. When he had raised this machine into the atmosphere, he drew electric fluid from the passing clouds, which descended through the flaxen string of the kite as a conductor, and was afterwards drawn from an iron key which he tied to the line at a small distance from his hand. This important experiment immediately led to the formation of conductors to secure buildings from the effects of lightning.

When aqueous vapor is condensed, the clouds formed are usually more or less electrical, and the earth below them being brought into an opposite state, a discharge takes place when the clouds approach within a certain distance, constituting lightning; and the collapsing of the air, which is rare fied in the electrical circuit, is the cause of the thunder, which is more or less intense, and of longer or shorter duration, according to the quanLEYDEN PHIAL. The Leyden phial is a tity of the air acted upon, and the distance of the glass jar coated with tin foil on the inside and out-place where the report is heard from the point of side within about three inches of the top of its the discharge.

LIBATION, LIBATIO. A ceremony in the heathen sacrifices, wherein the priest spilt some water, wine, milk, or other liquor, in honor of the deity to whom the sacrifice was offered; after having first tasted it himself.

Alexander is said to have sacrificed a bull to Neptune; and, for an offering to the sea gods, to have thrown the golden vessels used for the libation into the sea.

LIBEL. In Law, an injurious reproach or accusation written or published against the government, a magistrate, or a private person.

LIBELLATICI. An ancient kind of apostates, from Christianity, under the persecution of Decius; who, to prevent their being obliged to renounce the faith, and sacrifice to idols in public, made application to the magistrates, and abjured their faith in private; obtaining certificates of them, either by entreaty, or by money; by which they were attested to have complied with the orders of the emperor, and were thereby sheltered from any farther molestation on account of their religion.

LIBERTY, NATURAL. The absolute rights of man, considered as a free agent, endowed with discernment to know good from evil, and with power of choosing those measures which appear to him to be most desirable, are usually summed up in one general appellation, and denominated the natural liberty of mankind. This natural liberty consists properly in a power of acting as one thinks fit, without any restraint or control, unless by the law of nature; being a right inherent in us by birth, and one of the gifts of God to man at his creation, when he endued him with the faculty of free will. But every man, when he enters into society, gives up a part of his natural liberty, and, in consideration of receiving the advantages of mutual commerce, obliges himself to conform to those laws which the community has thought proper to establish. And this species of legal obedience, and conformity, is infinitely more desirable than that wild and savage liberty which is sacrificed to obtain it. For no inan, who considers a moment, would wish to retain the absolute and uncontrolled power of doing whatever he pleases: the consequence of which would be, that every other man would also have the same power; and that there would be no security to individuals in any of the enjoyments of life.

revolution, (1789) the same emblem was adopted. A liberty tree was planted by the Jacobins in Paris, and many other cities of France followed their example. The same ceremony was practised by the French troops, on their entrance into foreign countries.

LIBERTINES. In Scripture History, the denomination of a class of Jews, or Jewish proselytes, who had a synagogue at Jerusalem, which is mentioned in the book of Acts. Libertinus, or Libertine, denoted a person who had been a slave, but who had obtained his freedom; or one who was the son of a person that had been a slave, and was afterwards made free. Several learned men have supposed, that the libertines above mentioned were Jews or proselytes of the Jewish religion, who had been slaves to Roman masters, and had been made free, or the children of such. In proof of this, the learned Lardner alleges, that there was a great number of Jews at Rome; and, according to Philo, they occupied a large quarter of the city; and they were chiefly such as had been taken captive at several times, and had been carried into Italy, and were made free by their Roman masters. That these Jews were called Libertines, appears plainly from passages, which Lardner has cited from Tacitus, Josephus, and Suetonius, in which they speak of the banishment of the Jews from Rome in the reign of Tiberius. Josephus and Suetonius expressly call those Jews, whom Tacitus calls men of the Libertine race; and as there were many of them at Rome, it is not at all unlikely that they had a synagogue at Jerusalem.

LIBRA. In Astronomy, one of the twelve signs of the zodiac, and exactly opposite to Aries: so called, because when the sun is in this sign, at the autumnal equinox, the days and nights are equal, as if weighed in a balance.

LIBRARIES. The first person who formed a library at Athens was Pisistratus, which was transported by Xerxes into Persia, and afterwards brought back by Seleucus Nicanor to Athens, Plutarch says, there was a library at Pergamus that contained two hundred thousand books. The library of Ptolemy Philadelphus, according to Gellius, contained seven hundred thousand, which were all burned by the soldiers of Cæsar. Constantine and his successors erected a magnificent one at Constantinople, which, in the eighth century, contained three hundred thousand volumes, LIBERTY TREE. At the time of the distur- and among the rest, one in which the Iliad and bances excited in the American colonies by the Odyssey were written in letters of gold, on the enstamp act, a large American elm was used, in Bos-trails of a serpent; but this library was burned by ton, to hang obnoxious characters in effigy, and to order of Leo Isaurus. The most celebrated libramake known the intentions of the sons of liberty, ries in ancient Rome were the Alpian and the (as the patriots were called) who also held their Palatine. meetings under it. The following inscription was placed upon it. 'This tree was planted in the year 1646, and pruned by order of the sons of liberty, February 14, 1766. It was thenceforward called the liberty tree, but, in 1774, was cut down by the English troops, by whom the town was occupied. The example was imitated in other parts of the country, most of the towns having their liberty tree; and, on the breaking out of the French

The following table exhibits the most celebrated libraries of modern times, throughout the world, so far as they are known.

Library of the Vatican, at Rome,
Royal Library of Munich,
Royal Library of Paris,

Also in Manuscripts,
Engravings,

Volumes,

500,000

400,000

360,000

72,000

5,000

Volumes. display—they have rather aimed at works of gen300,000 eral utility. Instead of erecting those immense 300,000 establishments which are principally for ostentation 300,000 and the gratification of the curious, they have

Grand Duke of Constantine's Library, at do. 300,000 formed numerous social libraries, as they are

It will be seen from the above tabular view, that the libraries in Europe are the most valuable. In the United States, we have no libraries that can be called large when compared with those of older countries. All our public libraries together do not contain as many volumes as a single one of the largest in Europe. The people of this country have not yet been inclined to make much literary

suppose hostilities to continue, the latter are calcu- | apparatus, which he calls a Nautilus, consists of lated to terminate or suspend them. H. As there three distinct parts, and are to be thus constructed. may be falsehoods which are not lies, so there may be lies without literal or direct falsehood. An opening is always left for this species of prevarication, when the literal and grammatical signification of a sentence is different from the popular and customary meaning. It is the wilful deceit that makes the lie; and we wilfully deceive, when our expressions are not true, in the sense in which we believe the hearer apprehends them. Besides, it is absurd to contend for any sense of words, in opposition to usage; for all senses of all words are founded upon usage, and upon nothing else. Or a man may act a lie; as by pointing his finger in a wrong direction, when a traveller inquires of him his road; or when a tradesman shuts up his windows, to induce his creditors to believe that he is abroad; for to all moral purposes, and therefore as to veracity, speech and actions are the same; speech being only a mode of action.

The Buoyant is made of copper, in the form of a tube, to fit the round of the body, about six inches diameter, the seam brazed with hard solder. It should be made in three lengths, the ends quite flat, to fit each other exactly, so that, when put together, they form a ring or belt. This is in case of accident happening to one part by leaking, that it may not extend to the other two, which will be sufficient to prevent sinking. Each of these parts is sewed up in baize, with three strong tapes near the end of each piece, by which all of them are securely tied together. A flexible pipe, of the thickness of a quill, is inserted in each piece, from the upper side to the bottom, so that if any leakage happens, the water is readily drawn out by the mouth and discharged. The buoyant, thus prepared, must be securely tied with strong tapes, crossed round and over the shoulders, to prevent it getting down. It cannot get over the arms. When it is thus fixed, the body will, by its own gravity, be erect in the water, with the feet downwards, and will always retain this position unless force is applied to alter it, and which it will again recover when the force ceases to act. The second LIEUTENANT. In Military and Naval affairs, the part, which is for the hands, is a pair of oiled silk officer next in rank and power to a captain; also gloves, which, after being made in the usual way, one who commands in the absence of his superior the fingers are opened to their full extent breadthofficer, as the lieutenant-general, the officer next ways, and a piece of the same material sewed over to the general, who in battle commands one of the them on the under side. Tapes are sewed at the wings, in a march a detachment, at a siege a quar-top to tie them round the wrist, ter, when it is his day of duty; so likewise the lieutenant-general of the artillery, the lieutenantcolonel, &c. Lieutenants in ships of war are next in rank to the captain,

LIEUTENANT. In England, one who supplies the place of another, as the lord lieutenant of Ireland, who is a viceroy, or the lord lieutenant of a county, &c.

LIFE BOAT. A particular kind of boat used on the coast, to preserve persons from the wrecks of vessels.

LIFE PRESERVER. (Against Drowning.) Many different articles under this denomination have been made, particularly within these few years, by Collins, Spencer, Daniels, and others. But we believe they have all been copied, in a greater or less degree, from an apparatus constructed by John Bentley, Esq. about the year 1797. It is however remarkable, that although he exhibited it in public several times, some very important parts of it seem to have escaped their notice, or at least their application of them to their own purposes. The following is his account of it.

The third part, being for the feet, is made thus: take a piece of half-inch wainscot or mahogany, eleven inches long, and ten inches wide. Cut it longitudinally into three pieces, two of them three and three-quarter inches broad, and the other two and a half inches. Fasten them well together with two pair of brass hinges, and rule joints to fall and rise like a two-leaved table, the narrow piece being in the middle. On the under side of the middle piece, in the centre, a wooden turn buckle must be screwed, to prevent the side pieces from falling down, when walking to or from the water. Two wooden stops are so fixed upon this piece as to prevent the sides, when down, coming to a right angle with the middle piece, that the rising and falling may be duly performed with the action of the feet. To the upper side of the middle piece, a common leather shoe, (to fit the person) must be fastened on with two screws through the sole, and near each end of this middle piece two small holes are made with a centre-bit, through The human body in most instances is of the which good tapes are passed, to tie round the insame specific gravity as water; therefore, any sub-step and over the foot. A pair of these must of stance which is lighter than water, being attached to the body, must cause it to float. The situation best adapted for fixing it is round the body, immediately under the arms; and as it is desirable to be able to keep the head, neck, shoulders, and arms above water without any exertion, the article used must displace a bulk of water equal in weight to those parts. The next thing to be attended to, is to enable a person who cannot swim to make progress through the water. The hands and feet are too narrow to accomplish this without a knowledge of the art of swimming, therefore the fingers and feet must be artificially webbed. Thus the whole

course be provided; and a person thus equipped, being perfectly buoyant in water, and web-footed and web-fingered, will be able to outswim any other person, and may exist in the water as long as cold and hunger will permit.

By increasing the dimension of the buoyant, a proportionate quantity of provisions, or any other article, may be carried. The inventor has wrote a letter, and otherwise amused himself on the sea, with this apparatus, and believes he could cross from Dover to Calais in perfect safety. It is very convenient for crossing deep rivers, where there are neither boats nor bridges. It is procured at

little expense, very portable, and put on in one minute. Persons provided with it, and being shipwrecked near the coast, would seldom be lost.

LIGAMENTS. Strong, tendinous, inelastic, glistening bodies, which surround the joints, and connect bones together, or strengthen the attachments of various organs, or keep them in their places. Every joint is surrounded by a capsular ligament; the tendons at the wrist and ankle are bound down by what are called the annular ligaments. Poupart's ligament, under which the great nerves, artery, and vein pass out from the cavity of the abdomen to the fore part of the inferior extremity, is merely the lower border of the descending oblique muscle of the belly; which tendon is stretched from the fore part of the haunch-bone to the share-bone. In dislocations of joints the capsular ligament is often broken.

LIGHT. In Botany. Without light, plants may be made to grow, but no longer exhibit the verdure, the texture, or any of the properties of health. Hereafter we shall probably learn, that while the atmosphere is contaminated by the respiration of animals, its purity is restored by the vegetation of plants. But secluded from the light, vegetables are no longer capable of converting a portion of the fixed air to their own use, or of supplying the atmosphere with oxygen, on which its importance to animal life, chiefly, if not entirely depends. By the action of light, the carbon of the fixed air is interwoven with the very texture of the plant, whereby it acquires a greater degree of firmness, and becomes more valuable in the arts. Through its agency, the aromatic and essential secretions are formed, and hence we find them existing in perfection, only in countries which are favored with the perpetual light of summer, or on elevated mountains, where the rays of light meet with no obstruction. There we find the Nutmeg, the Clove, the Cinnamon and the Peruvian barks, all designed to increase the comforts, or diminish the sufferings of humanity; and all owing their chief excellences to the light of the sun.

When prepared to investigate the geographical distribution of the vegetable kingdom, we shall learn the powerful effects of these united causes. Feeble and exhausted in Polar regions, vegetation acquires strength as we approach towards the equator; where its powers can be estimated, only by the magnificence of its productions. There the light of the sun is more vivid, its heat more permanent and intense, while the soil is equally fertile, and the atmosphere equally pure.

In southern Georgia, an island of the frozen ocean, only two plants have been discovered, and but thirty have been found to grow without cultivation, in the more temperate climate of Spitzberg. How contemptible are these productions, when compared with those of our own climate, or the still more fertile fields of Madagascar! But deprive Madagascar of its heat, and it becomes a second Greenland. Exclude the light of the sun, and like the dark caverns of the earth, it will produce only a few plants, and those of a sickly hue. Destitute of rain, it will be like the deserts of Africa, and unsupplied with air, it will exhibit no

vestige of life. We must therefore expect, as we recede from the equator, to meet with a constant succession of new plants, but as we advance, we shall find them less numerous and perhaps of inferior beauty and size. And as we ascend above the surface of the ocean, we must be prepared for a similar, though more rapid succession. This was long ago established by the observations of Tournefort, and it has more recently been verified, by the researches of Humboldt and Decandolle.

LIGHT. In Optics, the sensation which arises from beholding any object, or the cause of that sensation. The nature and properties of light, and the changes which it undergoes in passing through bodies, form a principal part of the science of optics.

LIGHTHOUSE. A building erected upon a cape or promontory on the seacoast, or upon some rock in the sea, and having on its top in the nighttime a great light formed by lamps, constantly attended by some careful person, so as to be seen at a great distance from the land. It is used to direct the shipping on the coast, that might otherwise run ashore, or steer an improper course, when the darkness of the night and the uncertainty of currents, &c., might render their situation with regard to the shore extremely doubtful.

LIGHTNING. That lightning is really an electrical phenomenon, is now universally admitted. Philosophers had not proceeded far in their experiments and inquiries on this subject, before they perceived the obvious analogy between lightning and electricity. But this hypothesis was first placed beyond a doubt by Dr. Franklin, who, about the close of the year 1740, conceived the practicability of drawing lightning down from the clouds. Various circumstances of resemblance between lightning and electricity were remarked by this philosopher, and have been abundantly confirmed by later discoveries. Such are the following: Flashes of lightning are usually seen crooked and waving in the air; so the electric spark drawn by a regular body at some distance, and when it is drawn by an irregular body, or through a space in which the best conductors are disposed in an irregular manner, always exhibit the same appearance. Lightning strikes the highest and most pointed objects in its course, in preference to others, as hills, trees, spires, and masts of ships; so all pointed conductors receive and throw off the electric fluid more readily than those that are terminated by flat surfaces. Lightning is observed to take and follow the readiest and best conductor; and the same is the case with electricity, in the discharge of the Leyden phial; from whence the Doctor infers, that in a thunder storm, it would be safer to have one's clothes wet than dry. Lightning burns, dissolves metals, rends some bodies, sometimes strikes persons blind, destroys animal life, deprives magnets of their virtue, or reverses their poles; and all these are well known properties of electricity. To demonstrate, however, by actual experiments, the identity of the electric fluid with the matter of lightning, Dr. Franklin contrived to bring lightning from the heavens, by means