ENCYCLOPEDIA AMERICANA. LINNEUS. (See Linné.) LINNÉ, Charles, but more generally designated by his Latinized name, Linnæus, the most celebrated naturalist of his age, was a native of Sweden. He was the son of a clergyman, and was born May 13, old style, 1707, at Roshult, in the province of Smaland. His father was fond of gardening, and his little domain was stocked with plants not commonly cultivated-a circumstance to which the prevailing taste of the son may be fairly attributed. He was sent to the grammar-school, and afterwards to the gymnasium of Wexio, to be educated for the ministry; but, as he disliked the studies of the school, and preferred to collect plants and catch butterflies, he remained behind his fellow-pupils in Latin and Greek, and the teachers declared to his father that he was only fit for a mechanic. The father sent him to a shoemaker; but the physician Rothmann, having discovered talents in the boy, induced his parents to let him study. As botany afforded him no prospect of a support, Linné was obliged to study medicine. In 1727, he entered at the university of Lund in Scania, whence he removed, the following year, to Upsal. During his early residence there, the narrowness of his father's circumstances exposed him to great difficulties, from which he was relieved by the patronage of Celsius, the theological professor, an eminent naturalist, who had become acquainted with him in the botanical garden at Upsal, and through whose recommendation he obtained some private pupils. He also formed a friendship with Artedi, a medical student like himself, devoted to the cultivation of natural history. He now, in his 24th year, conceived the idea of a new arrangement of plants, or tne sexual sys- suc re was printed in the form of tables, filling 12 folio pages. He became acquainted with John Frederic Gronovius, Boerhaave, and John Burman of Amsterdam; and he then published a work, entitled Fundamenta Botanica, exhibiting the basis of his botanical system. Mr. Clifford, a rich merchant of Amsterdam, made him superintendent of his garden at Hartecamp, near Haerlem, rich in curious exotics, of which Linné drew up a systematic catalogue. In 1736, he made a visit to England. He returned to Holland with many new plants for Mr. Clifford's garden, his description of which, entitled Hortus Cliffortianus, with 37 plates, was now published in a most splendid form. He also published the first edition of his Genera Plantarum. In 1738, he made an excursion to Paris, and, towards the end of that year, returned to his native country, and settled as a physician at Stockholm. At first, he experienced neglect; but, through the influence of count Tessin, he was appointed physician to the navy, and had a salary for giving public lectures on botany in the summer, and on mineralogy in the winter. The establishment of the royal academy of Stockholm, of which he was one of the first members, contributed to the advancement of his reputation, by the opportunities which it afforded for the display of his abilities. In 1741, he succeeded Roberg in the professorship of medicine at Upsal, to which was added the superintendence of the botanic garden, to the new arrangement and augmentation of which he devoted much of his time and attention. In 1745, appeared his Flora Suecica, and the next year his catalogue of Swedish animals, entitled Fauna Suecica. He was elected to the post of secretary of the academy of sciences at Upsal. In 1746, an honorary medal of him was struck at the expense of some noblemen; and, in 1747, he was nominated royal archiater. Through his influence, many young naturalists were sent to explore various countries; and to his zeal in the cause of science we owe the discoveries in natural history made by Kalm, Osbeck, Hasselquist and Loefling. He was employed by the queen of Sweden to describe her museum at Drottningholm, when he made a new scientific arrangement of the shells contained in it. About 1751, he published his Philosophia Botanica, and, in 1753, his Species Plantarum, containing a description of every known plant, arranged according to the sexual system. This work of Linné, which Haller terms his Maximum Opus et Æternum, appeared originally in two volumes, &vo. ; but the edition published by Willdenow at Berlin, 1799-1810, is extended to ten volumes. In 1753, this great naturalist was created a knight of the polar star—an honor never before bestowed on a literary man. In 1761, he was elevated to the rank of nobility. Literary honors were also conferred on him by scientific societies in foreign countries. In 1768, he completed the plan of his Systema Naturæ, which, through successive editions, had been enlarged to three octavo volumes. Linné acquired a moderate degree of opulence, sufficient to enable him to purchase an estate and mansion at Hammarby, near Upsal, where he chiefly resided during the last 15 years of his life. There he had a museum of natural history, on which he gave lectures, and to which he was constantly making additions, from the contributions of travellers and men of science in various parts of the world. His health, during a great part of his life, enabled him to pursue his researches with vigor and activity; but in May, 1774, he had an apoplectic attack, which obliged him to relinquish the most laborious part of his professorial duties, and close his literary labors. A second attack occurred in 1776, and he afterwards experienced a third; but his death did not take place till January 11, 1778. Besides his works on natural history, he published. a classified Materia Medica, and a systematic treatise on nosology, entitled Genera Morborum. Few men in the history of science have shown such boldness, zeal, activity and sagacity as Linné: natural science is under unspeakable obligations to him, though the different systems established by him may be superseded by more perfect ones. Charles XIV, king of Sweden, in 1819, ordered a monument to be erected to him in his native place. By his wife, the daughter of a physician at Fahlun, he had a son and four daugh ters. The former, Charles von Linné, jun. was joint-professor of botany, and afterwards professor of medicine at Upsal. He was well acquainted with science, but distinguished himself by no discoveries of importance. On his death, without issue, in 1783, the family became extinct. -Elizabeth Christina von Linné, one of the daughters of the great naturalist, studied botany, and became known oy her discovery of the luminous property of the flower of the tropaolum, of which an account was communicated to the academy of Stockholm. LINSEED OIL. (See Flax.) LINT-LION. LINT, in surgery, is the scrapings of fine linen, used by surgeons in dressing wounds. It is made into various forms, which have different names, according to the difference of the figures. Lint, made up in an oval or orbicular form, is called a pledgit; if in a cylindrical form, or in shape of a date or olive stone, it is called a dossil. These different forms of lint are required for many purposes; as, 1. to stop blood in fresh wounds, by filling them up before the application of a bandage; though, if scraped lint be not at hand, a piece of fine linen may be torn into small rags, and applied in the same manner: in very large hemorrhages, the lint or rags should be first dipped in some styptic liquor, as alcohol, or oil of turpentine, or sprinkled with some styptic powder: 2. to agglutinate or heal wounds; to which end lint is very serviceable, if spread with some digestive ointment, balsam, or vulnerary liquor: 3. in drying up wounds and ulcers, and forwarding the formation of a cicatrix: 4. in keeping the lips of wounds at a proper distance, that they may not hastily unite before the bottom is well digested and healed: 5. they are highly necessary to preserve wounds from the injuries of the air.-Surgeons of former ages used compresses of sponge, wool, feathers, or cotton, linen being less plentiful than in later times; but lint is far preferable to all these, and is, at present, universally used. LINTZ, capital of Upper Austria, on the Danube, at the influx of the Traun, is well built, with a bridge 400 paces long, and has, exclusive of the garrison, a population of 18,700 inhabitants; houses, 1000. Here is the largest woollen manufactory in Austria, in which fine carpets are made. Much gunpowder is also manufactured here. In 1784, Lintz was made a bishop's see. In 1674, the lyceum was founded by Leopold, and, in 1824, institutions for the deaf and dumb, and one for the blind, were erected. The Northern Institute is a college for the Catholics of the north of Germany. Lon. 14° 16′ 45′′ E.; lat. 48° 18′ 54′′ N. LINUS; the name of a celebrated musician of antiquity, to whom Diodorus Siculus, quoting Dionysius of Mitylene, attributes the introduction of verse and music into Greece. He was a native of Chalcis, and to him are ascribed a poem on the exploits of Bacchus in India, a treatise on mythology, the addition of a string to the lyre then in use, and the invention of melody and rhythm. Suidas also joins in giving him credit for the last 5 mentioned improvements, and calls him the first lyric poet. A few fragnients of poetry, under his name, are to be found in Stobæus. LION (felis leo). The lion, like all other cats, is armed, in each jaw, with six strong and exceedingly sharp cutting teeth, two formidable canine, and six others, occupying the usual place of the molars, but differing from these by terminating in sharp protuberances. Besides these, there is a small tooth, or tubercle, on each side of the upper jaw, immediately posterior to all the others. The tongue is covered with rough and elevated papillæ, with their points directed backwards. The claws, which are five in number on the fore feet, and four on the hinder, are of great length, extremely powerful, and much curved; like those of the other cats, they are retractile within a sheath enclosed in the skin covering the paws. The lion is distinguished from his kindred species by the uniformity of his color, which is pale tawny above, becoming somewhat lighter beneath, and never, except while very young, exhibiting any markings; and also by the long and flowing mane of the old male, which, covering the whole head, extends backwards over his shoulders. over his shoulders. Notwithstanding the praises that have, from time immemorial, been bestowed on this animal, for grateful affection, dauntless courage, and merciful forbearance, he is nothing more, in moral and intellectual faculties, than a cat of immense size and strength, and endowed with all the guileful and treacherous qualities of that treacherous tribe. His dauntless courage is a mere consciousness of superiority over the animals by which he is surrounded, and wholly disappears in the neighborhood of man; his merciful forbearance is nothing more than that he never destroys more than satiates his hunger or revenge, and that, when under the dominion of man, he suffers his keeper to approach him without injury. The lion is only met with in the warmer regions of the old world, and more particularly of Africa, in whose vast forests and arid deserts he reigns supreme and uncontrolled. He is met with, but rarely, in parts of India, Arabia and Persia, but his range in these countries is becoming very limited. From Libya, whence the Romans obtained so many, he has almost disappeared; and in classic Greece, where, we are informed by Aristotle, he once occurred, none are to be found. In America, this species never occurred, its place being supplied by the puma. Naturalists have differed greatly as to the longevity of this often, lapping like a dog; but in this proanimal. Buffon stated it to be from 20 to cess his tongue is bent downward: his 22 years; but it far exceeds this, as the breath is very offensive, and the odor of one in the Tower of London, which died his urine insupportable. There is some in 1760, lived in captivity above 70 years; variation, in the lions of different countries and another died in the same place, at the in external appearance, though, in essenage of 63. The lioness brings forth from tial particulars, their habits are identical. three to four at a birth. The cubs, when The Asiatic variety seldom attains an first born, are about the size of a small equal size with the Cape lion; its color is pug dog, and continue to suck the mother a more uniform and pale yellow, and its for about a year. At this time, their color mane fuller and more complete, and being, is a mixture of reddish and gray, with a moreover, furnished with a peculiar apnumber of brown bands. The mane of pendage of long hairs, which, commencthe male begins to make its appearance ing beneath the neck, occupy the whole when the animal is about three to three of the middle line of the body beneath. years and a half old. The male attains Even the Cape lion presents two varieties, maturity in seven, and the female in six known as the pale and the black, distinyears. The strength of the lion is pro- guished, as their appellations imply, by digious, a single stroke with his paw the lighter or darker color of their coats. being sufficient to destroy most animals. The latter of these is the larger and more The bone of the fore leg is remarkably ferocious of the two. The Barbary lion fitted to sustain the great muscular strain has the same full mane as the Asiatic, but so powerful an exertion occasions. Its exceeds him in size. The number of texture is so compact, that it will strike lions, as has been observed, has greatly fire with steel. The lurking-place of the diminished, judging from the multitudes lion is generally chosen near a spring, or spoken of by ancient writers, and those by the side of a river, where he has an carried to Rome. Thus Sylla the dictator opportunity of surprising such animals as exhibited, during his pretorship, 100 of resort to the water to quench their thirst. these animals; and Pompey presented 600 Here he lies in wait, crouched in some in the circus. Lion-fights were common thicket, till his prey approaches, and then, under the consulate, and during the emwith a prodigious leap, seizes it at the first pire. Adrian, it is said, often caused 100 bound; if, however, unsuccessful in this, to be destroyed at one exhibition; and he immediately retires to wait another Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius opportunity. In the night, more particu- were equally prodigal in gratifying the larly, the lion prowls abroad in search of people. At the cape of Good Hope, lions his prey, the conformation of his eyes are hunted, not only for the purpose of being, like those of the common cat, well extermination, but also for their skins. fitted for seeing in a dim light. The roar In the day time, and in an open country, of the lion is loud and terrific, especially from 10 to 16 dogs will easily overcome a when heard in the solitary wilds he in- lion of the largest size; nor does there habits: this roar is his natural voice; for, appear to be any necessity that the dogs when enraged, he utters a short and sud- should be very large; as he is less swift denly-repeated cry, whilst the roar is a than these animals, they readily overtake prolonged effort, a kind of deep-toned him, on which the lion turns round, and grumbling, mixed with a sharp, vibrating waits for the attack, shaking his mane, noise. It has been usually stated, that the and roaring in a short and sharp tone, or lion had constant and stated times for sits down on his haunches to face them. roaring, especially when in captivity; but The dogs then surround him, and, simulthis has been shown to be erroneous in taneously rushing upon him, subdue him some degree. It appears, however, that, by their united efforts, though not before in summer time, and especially before at- he has destroyed several of them. But mospheric changes, he uniformly com- the mode of destroying them, usual among mences about dawn; at no other time is the Bushmen, is by shooting them, either there any regularity in his roar. When with fire-arms or poisoned arrows. The enraged, his cry is still more appalling inhabitants know that the lion generally than his roar; he then beats his sides with kills and devours his prey at sunrise and his tail, agitates his mane, moves the skin sunset. On this account, therefore, when of his face and his shaggy eyebrows, they intend to hunt them, they notice thrusts out his tongue, and protrudes his where the antelopes are feeding at day.. dreadful claws. The lion requires about break: if they perceive that these animals 15 pounds of raw flesh a day; he drinks are alarmed, they conclude that they have LION-LIPOGRAMMATIC COMPOSITIONS. been attacked by a lion. Marking the spot whence the alarm took place, about mid-day, when the sun is very powerful, and the object of their attack asleep, they carefully examine the ground, and, if they find him, they lodge a bullet or poisoned arrow in him. Sometimes, however, he is fairly brought to bay in the day time, by the hunter, as the following account from Pringle testifies. After his retreat is found, "the approved plan is to torment him with dogs till he abandons his covert, and stands at bay in the open plain. The whole band of hunters then march for ward together, and fire deliberately, one by one. If he does not speedily fall, but grows angry, and turns upon his enemies, they must then stand close in a circle, and turn their horses' rear outward, some holding them fast by the bridles, while the others kneel to take a steady aim at the lion as he approaches, sometimes up to the very horses' heels, crouching every now and then, as if to measure the distance and strength of his enemies. This is the moment to shoot him fairly in the forehead, or some other mortal part. If they continue to wound him ineffectually, till he becomes furious and desperate, or if the horses, startled by his terrific roar, grow frantic with terror, and burst loose, the business becomes rather serious, and may end in mischief, especially if all the party are not men of courage, coolness and experience." Very full accounts of the lion and his habits are to be found in the travels of Sparmann, Barlow, Levaillant, Burchell, &c., in Southern Africa, and also in the Library of Entertaining Knowledge, and the Tower Menagerie, from which the above account has been condensed. LION'S GULF. This is the proper spelling of the gulf generally called Gulf of Lyons. The name is derived from lion, on account of the fierceness of the gales, at some seasons, in this gulf. The proper mode of writing it in French is Golfe du Lion. (See Lyons, Gulf of.) LION'S SHARE; the whole, or a disproportionate share of the advantages of a contract, claimed by one of the parties, and supported by the right of the strongest. The phrase is derived from a fable of Æsop. LIPANO, COUNTESS OF (Caroline Annunziada); the widow of Murat (q. v.), and the sister of Napoleon. She be came grand-duchess of Berg, and queen of Naples. She was born March 26, 1782. LIPARI; a cluster of volcanic islands 7 in the Mediterranean, which take their name from the principal one of the group, about 24 miles from the north coast of Sicily. Lon. 15° 12′ E.; lat. 38° 34' E., population, about 20,000. These islands were called, by the ancients, Æolia, Vulcaniæ, and Insulæ Liparæorum, and feigned to be the residence of Æolus and Vulcan. Lipari, the largest, is populous and well cultivated, producing great quantities of corn and fruit, especially figs and raisins; it likewise produces alum, sulphur, nitre and cinnabar. It is about 15 miles in circumference; the air is healthy, and the inhabitants industrious and good seamen. On the eastern coast is situated a town of the same name. In this island were formerly pits, which emitted fire and smoke, but have long ceased to do either, Population, 15,000; square miles, 100. The other islands are Stromboli, Panaria, Vulcano, Salini, Alicudi and Felicudi, with two or three smaller ones. The volcanic eruptions, formerly frequent in the island of Lipari, ceased in the sixth century, but the whole island is composed of pumicestone, lava, volcanic glass, and black sand ; and the warm baths, and heated vapors of the Stoves (excavations which emit hot, sulphureous exhalations), prove the activity of the subterranean fires. The celebrated crater of Vulcano was visited by general Cockburn in 1812 (Voyage to Cadiz); the volcano is probably only slumbering, and not extinct. Stromboli is at present the most remarkable of the islands; its fires are in unremitting activity, the eruptions taking place at regular intervals, varying from three to eight minutes. (See the works of Dolomieu, Spallanzani, Brydone, &c.) LIPINSKI, Charles, one of the greatest violinists, was born in 1790, at Radeyn, Poland. His father gave him his first instruction in music. In 1810, he was appointed director of music at the German theatre in Lemberg, and gave up the violoncello, till then his chief instrument, and devoted himself more to the violin. In 1814, he was so attracted by Spohr's playing, that he resigned his place, in order to have leisure for practising that artist's manner. He remained in his native country until 1817, when he went to Italy to hear the celebrated Paganini. (q. v.) In Piacenza, he played with him in a concert. Since that time, he has travelled in Russia, Germany and France. His style inclines to the elevated. . LIPOGRAMMATIC COMPOSITIONS; those in which certain letters are purposely left out. Thus Lope de Vega wrote a |
