LIVER. In Anatomy, a very large viscus, of a red color, serving for the secretion of the bile or gall. Its figure is irregular; the upper surface being convex, smooth, and equal; the lower, hollow and unequal. There is also a remarkable eminence, called the porta, where the vena porta enters it. fastening doors, chests, &c., generally opened by a key. The principle on which all locks depend, is the application of a lever to an interior bolt, by means of a communication from without; so that, by means of the latter, the lever acts upon the bolt, and moves it in such a manner as to secure the lid or door from being opened by any pull or push from without. The security of locks, in general, therefore, depends on the number of impediments we can interpose between the lever (the key) and the bolt which secures the door; and these impednumber and intricacy of which are supposed to distinguish a good lock from a bad one. If these wards, however, do not, in an effectual manner, preclude the access of all other instruments besides the proper key, it is still possible for a mechanic, of equal skill with the lock-maker, to open it without the key, and thus to elude the labor of the other. LIVERYMEN. (Of London.) A certain number of persons chosen from among the freemen of each company in the city. Out of this body are chosen the common council, sheriff, and other su-iments are well known by the name of wards, the perior officers of the city, and they alone have the privilege of voting at the election of members of parliament. LIZARD. An extensive tribe of animals, classed by Linnæus under the genus lacesta, comprehending the crocodile, basilisk, chameleon, and salamander. The lizard, properly so called, is a little reptile of a green color, and is frequently to be met with in gardens or under dunghills, &c. LLAMA. In Natural History, an animal of the camel kind in Peru and Chili, which has a bunch on the breast, long, soft hair, and defends itself by ejecting its saliva. LOADSTONE. A sort of ore dug out of iron mines, on which the needle of the mariner's compass is touched, to give it a direction north or south. It is a peculiarly rich ore of iron, found in large masses in England, and most other places where there are mines of that metal. It is of a deep iron gray, and when fresh broken, it is often tinged with a brownish or reddish color. LOAM, or LOME. A particular kind of fat, unctuous, and tenacious earth, that is used much by gardeners in making compost. 2 LOAN. A sum of money confided to another, generally on the security of a promissory note or bond, the guarantee of a third party, or the possession or assignment of property. Sometimes it is effected by governments on the pledge of certain | taxes to pay the interest. In England this has been carried to a frightful extent, and the debt amounts to a larger sum than could be paid by all the money in existence, certain taxes, called the consolidated fund, being appropriated to pay an annual interest, nominally about three per centum, and which amounts to above thirty millions. LOBBY. An opening before a room, or an entrance into a principal, where there is a considerable space between that and the portico or vestibule. It is also a small hall or waiting room. And in a ship an apartment close to the cabin is called a lobby. LOBSTER. A small crustaceous fish, having a cylindrical body, with a long tail and long antennr. Lobsters are found on most of the rocky coasts of England, and are abundant in this country. Various complicated and difficult locks have been constructed by Messrs. Bramah, Taylor, Spears, and others. In a very ingenious lock, invented by Mr. Perkins, twenty-four small blocks of metal, of different sizes, are introduced, corresponding to the letters of the alphabet. Out of these, an indefinite number of combinations may be made. The person locking the door selects and places the blocks necessary to spell a particular word, known only to himself, and no other person, even if in possession of the key, can open the door, without a knowledge of the same word. LOCKS. When a canal changes from one level to another of different elevation, the place where the change of level takes place, is commanded by a lock. Locks are tight, oblong enclosures, in the bed of the canal, furnished with gates at each end, which separate the higher from the lower parts of the canal. When a boat passes up the canal, the lower gates are opened, and the boat glides into the lock, after which the lower gates are shut. A sluice, communicating with the upper part of the canal, is then opened, and the lock rapidly fills with water, elevating the boat on its surface. When the lock is filled to the highest water level, the upper gates are opened, and the boat, being now on the level of the upper part of the canal, passes on its way. The reverse of this process is performed when the boat is descending the canal. Locks are made of stone or brick, sometimes of wood. The gates are commonly double, resembling folding doors. They meet each other, in most instances, at an obtuse angle, and the pressure of the water serves to keep them firmly in contact. Cast iron gates are sometimes used in England, curved in the form of a horizontal arch, with their convex side opposed to the water. In China, inclined planes are said to be used instead of locks, along which the boats are drawn up or let down. They have also been used in Europe, and on the Morris canal, in New Jersey, LOCKED JAW. A spasmodic affection which prevents the motion of the jaws. LOCOMOTION. The chief obstacles which LOCK. A well known instrument, used for oppose locomotion, or change of place, are gravity and friction, the last of which is, in most cases, a | extend a part of their body forwards, and draw up the rest to overtake it, some performing this motion in a direct line, others in curves. When land animals swim in water, they are supported, because their whole weight, with the lungs expanded with air, is less than that of an equal bulk of water. The head, however, or a part of it, must be kept above water, to enable the animal to breathe; and to effect this, and also to make progress in the water, the limbs are exerted, in successive impulses, against the fluid. Quadrupeds and birds swim with less effort than man, because the weight of the head, which is carried above water, is, in them, a smaller proportional part of the whole than it is in man. As the feet move in separate lines, the body has also a lateral, vibratory notion. A man, in walk- All animals are provided, by nature, with organs jug, puts down one foot before the other is raised, of locomotion best adapted to their structure and but not in running. Quadrupeds, in walking, have situation; and it is probable that no animal, man three feet upon the ground for most of the time; not being excepted, can exert his strength more in trotting, only two. Animals which walk against advantageously by any other than the natural mode, gravity, as the common fly, the tree-toad, &c., in moving himself over the common surface of the support themselves by suction, using cavities on ground. Thus walking cars, velocipedes, &c., althe under side of their feet, which they enlarge, at though they may enable a man to increase his vepleasure, till the pressure of the atmosphere causes locity, in favorable situations, for a short time, yet them to adhere. In other respects their locomotion they actually require an increased expenditure of is effected like that of other walking animals. power, for the purpose of transporting the machine Birds perform the motion of flying by striking the inade use of, in addition to the weight of the body. air with the broad surface of their wings in a When, however, a great additional load is to be downward and backward direction, thus propelling transported with the body, a man, or animal, may the body upward and forward. After each stroke, derive much assistance from mechanical arrangethe wings are contracted, or slightly turned, to ments. For moving weights over the common lessen their resistance to the atmosphere, then ground, with its ordinary asperities and inequalities raised, and spread anew. The downward stroke of substance and structure, no piece of inert mealso, being more sudden than the upward, is more chanism is so favorably adapted as the wheel car. resisted by the atmosphere. The tail of birds serves riage. It was introduced into use in very early as a rudder to direct the course upward or down-ages. Wheels diminish friction, and also surmount ward. When a bird sails in the air without mov- obstacles or inequalities of the road, with more ing the wings, it is done in some cases by the ve-advantage than bodies of any other form, in their locity previously acquired, and an oblique direction place, could do. The friction is diminished by of the wings upward; in others, by a gradual de- transferring it from the surface of the ground to scent, with the wings slightly turned, in an oblique | the centre of the wheel, or, rather, to the place of direction, downwards. Fishes, in swimming for- contact between the axle-tree and the box of the ward, are propelled chiefly by strokes of the tail, wheel; so that it is lessened by the mechanical the extremity of which being bent into an oblique advantage of the lever, in the proportion which position, propels the body forward and laterally at the diameter of the axle-tree bears to the diameter the same time. The lateral motion is corrected by of the wheel. The rubbing surfaces, also, being the next stroke, in the opposite direction, while the kept polished and smeared with some unctuous forward course continues. The fins serve partly substance, are in the best possible condition to reto assist in swimming, but chiefly to balance the sist friction. body, or keep it upright; for, the centre of gravity being nearest the back, a fish turns over, when it is dead or disabled. Some other aquatic animals, as leeches, swim with a sinuous or undulating motion of the body, in which several parts at once are made to act obliquely against the water. Serpents, in like manner, advance by means of the winding or serpentine direction which they give to their bodies, and by which a succession of oblique forces are brought to act against the ground. Sir Everard Home is of opinion that serpents use their ribs in the manner of legs, and propel the body forwards by bringing the plates on the under surface of the body to act, successively, like feet against the ground. This he deduces, from the anatomy of the animal, and from the movements wich he perceived in suffering a large coluber to crawl over his hand. Some worms and larve of slow inotion, In like manner, the common obstacles that present themselves in the public roads, are surmounted by a wheel with peculiar facility. As soon as the wheel strikes against a stone or similar hard body, it is converted into a lever for lifting the load over the resisting object. If an obstacle eight or ten inches in height were presented to the body of a carriage unprovided with wheels, it would stop its progress, or subject it to such violence as would endanger its safety. But by the action of a wheel, the load is lifted, and its centre of gravity passes over in the direction of an easy arc, the obstacle furnishing the fulcrum on which the lever acts. Rollers placed under a heavy body diminish the friction in a greater degree than wheels, provided they are true spheres or cylinders, without any axis on which they are constrained to move; but a cylindrical roller occasions friction, whenever its path deviates in the least from a straight line. The mechanical advantages of a wheel are pro- | length, by knots or pieces of knotted twine, uff portionate to its size, and the larger it is, the more reeved between the strands of the line, which show, effectually does it diminish the ordinary resistances. by means of a half-minute glass, how many of A large wheel will surmount stones and similar these spaces or knots are run out in half a minute, obstacles better than a small one, since the arm and as the distance of the knots bears the same of the lever on which the force acts is longer, and proportion to a mile that half a minute does to an the curve described by the centre of the load is the hour, whatever number of knots the ship runs in arc of a larger circle, and, of course, the ascent is half a minute, the same number of miles she runs more gradual and easy. In passing over holes, in an hour. ruts or excavations, also, a large wheel sinks less than a small one, and consequently occasion less LOGOGRAPHY. A method of printing in jolting and expenditure of power. The wear also which the types form whole words instead of letof large wheels is less than that of small ones, for ters. By this method the memory of the composif we suppose a wheel to be three feet in diameter,itor is less burdened, and the business proceeds it will turn round twice, while one of six feet in with more expedition and less liability to err. It diameter turns round once; so that its tire will is also said that the logographic method is not come twice as often in contact with the ground, more expensive than the cominon method. and its spokes will twice as often have to support the weight of the load. In practice, however, it is LOGWOOD. Logwood is used in great quanfound necessary to confine the size of wheels with- tities for dyeing purple, and more especially black. in certain limits, partly because the materials used All the colors, however, which can be prepared would make wheels of great size heavy and cum- from it, are of a fading nature, and cannot, by any bersome, since the separate parts would necessari-art, be made equally durable with those prepared ly be of large proportions to have the requisite from some other materials. Of all the colors prestrength, and partly because they would be dispro-pared from logwood, the black is the most durable. portioned to the size of the animals employed in Dr. Lewis recommends it as an ingredient in makdraught, and compel them to pull obliquely down-ing ink. Logwood is also found to have a considwards, and therefore to expend a part of their force erable astringent virtue as a medicine, and an exin acting against the ground. tract of it is sometimes given with great success in diarrhoeas. LOCUST. A voracious insect, like the grashopper, which in some parts, particularly in Africa and Asia Minor, fall like a cloud upon the country, and lay waste all before them. They are no less terrible dead than alive, for their putrified carcasses cause a pestilence where they happen to alight. LOG. In Navigation, a machine for measuring the rate of a ship's velocity through the water. The common log is a piece of board, forming the quadrant of a circle of about six inches radius, balanced by a small plate of lead nailed on the circular part, so as to swim perpendicularly. LOGARITHMS. The indices of the ratios of numbers to one another; being a series of numbers in arithmetical progression, corresponding to others in geometrical progression; by ineans of which, arithmetical calculations can be made with much more ease and expedition, than otherwise. This was an invention of Baron Napier, of Scotland, in 1618. LOMBARDS, (or rather LANGOBARDS, which was their original name, deduced from the peculiar length and fashion of their beards: lang, signifying long, and bært, beard; whereas the corrupt appellation of Lombards was diffused in the thirteenth century by the merchants and bankers, who were the Italian posterity of the savage warriors to whom the name originally belonged.) Denote a tribe of people who arose from an obscure and small beginning to occupy the most considerable rank in Europe. The Scandinavian origin of these people is maintained by Paul the deacon, contested by Claverius and defended by Grotius. It would be tedious, and also unsatisfactory to the reader, if we were to make an attempt at pursuing the migrations of the Lombards through unknown regions and marvellous adventures. About the time of Augustus and Trajan these fierce people were discovered between the Elbe and the Oder. They were fierce beyond the example of the Germans, and they took pleasure in propagating the tremendous belief, that their heads were formed LOGBOOK. The book in which the account like the heads of dogs, and that they drank the of the log is transcribed. LOGIC. The art of thinking justly. Or it may be defined, the science or history of the human mind, as it traces the progress of our knowledge from our first conceptions through their different combinations, and the numerous deductions that result from comparing them with one another. Correct reasoning implies legitimate inferences from premises, which are principles assumed or admitted to be just. LOG LINE. The line fastened to the log, which is divided into certain spaces fifty feet in blood of their enemies whom they vanquished in battle. From the north they gradually descended towards the south and the Danube; and after an interval of four hundred years, they again appear with their ancient valor and renown. Their manners were not less ferocious. The assassination of a royal guest was executed in the presence, and by the command, of the king's daughter, who had been provoked by some words of insult, and disappointed by his diminutive stature. LONGEVITY. It is a law of nature, though a melancholy one, that all organized bodies should be dissolved. The periods of dissolution, however, Margaret Foster, aged one hundred and thirtysix, and her daughter, aged one hundred and four, were natives of Cumberland, and both alive in the year 1771. William Evans, aged one hundred and forty-five, lived in Caernarvon, and still existed in the year 1782. Dumiter Radaloy, aged one hundred and forty, lived in Harmenstead, and died on the sixteenth day of January, 1782. James Bowels, aged one hundred and fifty-two, lived in Killingworth, and died on the fifteenth day of August, 1656. The Countess of Desmond, in Ireland, saw her one hundred and fortieth year. Mr. Ecleston, a native of Ireland, lived to the age of one hundred and forty-three, and died in the year 1691. John Mount, a native of Scotland, saw his one hundred and thirty-sixth year, and died on the twenty-seventh day of February, 1776. are as various as the species, and the intentions of | Parre, who was a native of Shropshire, and died nature in producing them. on the sixteenth day of November, 1635, at the In the human kind, the brevity of life is regard-age of one hundred and fifty-two. ed as an object of regret. One half of mankind | Francis Consist, a native of Yorkshire, aged one die before they arrive at eight years of age. Froin hundred and fifty, died in January, 1768. that early period to eighty, beside the destruction of war, and other accidents, nature kills them annually in millions. Some instances may be given of men whose lives were prolonged beyond the usual period of human existence. Such men are not to be envied; nor should they be considered as favorites of nature. With respect to maturity of judgment, and a knowledge of the world, no man can be said to exist till he passes thirty years of age. Give him thirty or thirty-five more, and, in general, both mind and body are visibly declined. Those people, therefore, who arrive at an extraordinary age, may be said to exist, but they do not live. All intellectual enjoyments and exertions, which constitute the chief dignity and happiness of man, are gone. There are exceptions; but these exceptions are confirmations of what we have advanced. Mankind, in the early ages of the world, have been said to live for several centuries. We mean not to contradict the assertion. But we must remark, that, if ever men lived so long, they must have been very different, both in the structure of their bodies, and in their manners, from those who now exist. From infancy to manhood, there is a gradual growth or extension of our organs. After this period, and when we advance in years, the bones harden, the muscles become stiff, the cartilages are converted into bones, the membranes into cartilages, the stomach and bowels lose their tone, and the whole fabric, instead of being soft, flexible, and obedient to the inclinations, or even the commands, of the mind, becomes rigid, inactive, and feeble. These are the general and progressive causes of death, and they are common to all animals. There are modes of living more favorable to health, than others. But examples are not wanting of men who have arrived at an extreme old age, without observing either temperance, or any of the other modes of living which are generally supposed to be favorable to longevity. Some men, who lived temperately, and even abstemiously, reached to great ages; others, who observed the very opposite conduct, who lived freely and often intemperately, have had their existence equally prolonged. But, in general, notwithstanding a few exceptions, temperance, a placid and cheerful disposition, moderate exercise, and proper exertions of mind, contribute, in no uncommon degree, to the prolongation of life. A few examples of longevity in the human species, though no general conclusions can be drawn from them, may not be incurious to the reader. We shall not go back to a remote and obscure antiquity, but confine ourselves to more modern times, when the modes of living were nearly the same as they are at present. The most extraordinary instance of longevity in Great Britain, was exhibited in the person of Henry Jenkins. He was a native of Yorkshire, lived to the amazing age of one hundred and sixty-nine years, and died on the eighth day of December, 1670. Next to Jenkins, we have the famous Thomas William Ellis, of Liverpool, died on the sixteenth day of August, 1780, at the age of one hundred and thirty. Colonel Thomas Winsloe, a native of Ireland, aged one hundred and forty-six, died on the twenty-second day of August, 1766. An account is given by Professor Silliman, in his Journal of a Tour to Quebec, of a visit which he paid near Whitehall, in the state of New York, to a man who had reached the extreme age of one hundred and thirty-four years. His name was Henry Francisco, and he was a native of France. "He believes himself to be one hundred and thirty-four years old, and the country around believe him to be of this great age. When we arrived at his residence, (a plain farmer's house, not painted, rather out of repair, and much open to the wind) he was up stairs, at his daily work, of spooling and winding yarn. This occupation is auxiliary to that of his wife, who is a weaver, and although more than eighty years old, she weaves six yards a day, and the old man can supply her with more yarn than she can weave. Supposing he must be very feeble, we offered to go up stairs to him, but he soon came down, walking somewhat stooping, and supported by a staff, but with less apparent inconvenience, than most persons exhibit at eighty-five or ninety. His stature is of the middle size, and although his person is rather delicate and slender, he stoops but little, even when unsupported. His complexion is very fair and delicate, and his expression bright, cheerful, and intelligent; his features are handsome, and considering that they have endured through one third part of a second century, they are regular, comely, and wonderfully undisfigured by the hand of time; his eyes are of a lively blue; his profile is Grecian and very fine; his head is completely covered with the most beautiful and delicate white locks imaginable; they are so long and abundant as to fall gracefully from the crown of his head, parting regularly from a central point, and reaching down to his shoulders; count of a number of instances of longevity which have been known to occur in New Hampshire. Within the ten years from 1810 to 1820, eighty persons are recorded who died above the age of ninety, twenty-nine of whom reached or exceeded the age of one hundred. Besides these there have died in the state within the last century-one perdred and sixteen, one of one hundred and fifteen, one of one hundred and ten, one of one hundred and eight, one of one hundred and seven, one of one hundred and six, several of one hundred and five; and there were living, in 1822, at Chesterfield, a woman of one hundred and five, and, at Row, a man of one hundred and twelve. his hair is perfectly snow white, except where it is thick in his neck; when parted there, it shows some few dark shades, the remnants of a former century. He still retains the front teeth of his upper jaw; his mouth is not fallen in, like that of old people generally, and his lips particularly, are like those of middle life; his voice is strong and sweet-toned, although a little tremulous; his hear-son of one hundred and twenty, one of one buning very little impaired, so that a voice of usual strength, with distinct articulation, enables him to understand; his eyesight is sufficient for his work, and he distinguishes large print, such as the title page of the Bible, without glasses; his health is good, and has always been so, except that he has now a cough and expectoration." It appeared from his account of himself, which The general causes of death have already been was consistent and intelligible, and confirmed by mentioned. But in women, the operation of these collateral historical facts, that his father was a causes is frequently retarded. In the female sex, French protestant who fled from France, in the the bones, the cartilages, the muscles, as well as latter part of the reign of Louis XIV, in conse- every other part of the body, are softer and less quence of the persecutions arising from the revo- solid than those of men; neither are they generally cation of the edict of Nantz, that he took refuge so much subjected to bodily exertions. Their in Holland, and afterwards in England; that Fran- constituent parts, accordingly, require more time cisco himself was born in the year 1686; that he in hardening to that degree which occasions death. recollects his emigration from France in 1691, and Women, of course, ought to live longer than men. the coronation of Queen Anne in 1702, at which | This reasoning is confirmed by the bills of mortaltime he says he was sixteen years old. He fought ity; for, upon consulting them, it appears, that, in all Queen Anne's wars, and exhibits the scars after women have passed a certain time, they live of many wounds, but only recollects the name of much longer than men who have reached the the Duke of Marlborough, among the commanders same period. The duration of the lives of animals under whom he served. He came out with his may, in some measure, be estimated by the time father to New York early in the last century, occupied in their growth. An animal, or even a though he cannot remember the date, and was plant, as we learn from experience, which acquires engaged in most of the wars which occurred until maturity in a short time, perishes much sooner that of the revolution. "He has had two wives than those which are longer in arriving at that and twenty-one children; the youngest child is the period. In the human species, when individuals daughter in whose house he lives, and she is fifty- | grow with uncommon rapidity, they generally die two years old; of course he was eighty-two when young. This circumstance seems to have given she was born." "He has been all his life, a very rise to the common proverbial expression, soon active and energetic, although not a stout framed ripe, soon rotten.' Man grows in stature till he is man. He was formerly fond of spirits, and did, sixteen or eighteen years of age; but the thickness for a certain period, drink more than was proper, of his body is not completely unfolded before that but that babit appears to have been long abandon- of thirty. Dogs acquire their full length in one ed. In other respects he has been remarkably ab- year; but their growth in thickness is not finished stemious, eating but little, and particularly abstain- till the end of the second. A man, who continues ing, almost entirely, from animal food; his favorite to grow for thirty years, may live ninety or a hunarticles being tea, bread and butter, and baked ap-dred; but a dog, whose growth terminates in two ples. His wife said that after such a breakfast, he would go out and work till noon; then dine upon the same if he could get it, and then take the same at night; and particularly, that he always drank tea, whenever he could obtain it, three cups at a time, three times a day." "The oldest people in the vicinity, remember Francisco, as being always, from their earliest recollection, much older than themselves; and a Mr. Fuller, who recently died here, between eighty and ninety years of age, thought Francisco was one hundred and forty." "He is really a most remarkable and interesting old man; there is nothing, either in his person or dress, of the negligence and squalidness of extreme age, especially when not in elevated circumstances; on the contrary, he is agreeable and attractive, and were he dressed in a superior manner, and placed in a handsome, well furnished apartment, he would be a most beautiful old man." or three years, lives only ten or twelve years. The same observation is applicable to most animals. Fishes continue to grow for a great number of years. Some of them, accordingly, live during several centuries; because their bones and cartilages seldom acquire the density of those of other animals. It may, therefore, be considered as a general fact, that large animals live longer than small ones, because the former require more time to complete their growth. Thus the causes of our dissolution are inevitable; and it is equally impossible to retard that fatal period, as to change the established laws of nature. When the constitution is sound, life may, perhaps, by moderating the passions, and by temperance, be prolonged for a few years. But the varieties of climate, and of the modes of living, make no material differences with regard to the period of our existence, which is nearly the same in the European, the Negro, the In the tenth Volume, second Series of the Mas- Asiatic, the American, the civilized man and the sachusetts Historical Collections, there is an ac-savage, the rich and the poor, the citizen and the |
