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became sensible that they had made a mistake in his appointment. He never viewed any subject in its true, light; he was always occupied with subtilties; his notions were all problematic, and he carried the spirit of the infinitely small into the administration." After six weeks, therefore, Lucien Bonaparte received his port-folio. Napoleon made Laplace a senator, vice-chancellor and chancellor of the senate, and member of the legion of honor. In a report to the senate in 1805, Laplace proved the necessity of restoring the Gregorian calendar, and abolishing that of the republic. His principal works are his Traité de Mécanique céleste (1799 -1805, four volumes, 4to.); his Théorie du Mouvement des Planètes; Essai sur les Probabilités; and Théorie analytique des Probabilités. In 1814, Laplace voted for the abdication of Napoleon, and the king, created him a peer, with the title of marquis. During the hundred days, he did not appear at the Tuileries. He died March 5, 1827. His Mécanique céleste has been translated, with a commentary, by doctor Bowditch of Boston (Hilliard, Gray, & Co., 1830, 4to., first volume.) The amount of matter in the commentary is much greater than that in the text, and the calculations are so happily elucidated, that a student moderately versed in mathematics may follow the great astronomer with pleasure to his beautiful results.*

LAPLAND; the most northern country in Europe, bounded north by the Arctic ocean, east by the White sea, south by Sweden, and west by Norway and the Atlantic. Its extreme breadth is estimated to be 500 miles, and its length, from cape Orlov, on the White sea, to the entrance of Saltersfiord, on the Atlantic, about 700. Lapland is divided into three parts, called Russian, Swedish, and Danish or Norwegian. The part of Lapland lying along the northern shore of the gulf of Bothnia, consists of an extensive plain, abounding in immense forests of spruce and Scots fir; but at the distance of 80 miles from that inland sea, the ground becomes gradually elevated, and is at last full of lofty mountains, which rise, between the latitude of 67° and 68° 30', to a height of from 5500 to 6200 feet, which, in this hyperborean region, is 2700 feet above the line of perpetual congelation. The principal rivers are the Torneo, the Kemi, the Lulea, and Pitea. The Yana, the principal river in the north-east, and the Alten, the principal in the north-west, *This work is, at the same time, one of the finest specimens of American typography.

both run into the. Northern ocean. In lakes, Lapland, particularly its mountainous part, abounds. In the maritime districts, there prevails an approach to uniformity of temperature; the winters are not severe, but the summers are raw and foggy; while, in the interior, the winter is intensely cold, but the heat of summer is steady and fructifying. The mean annual temperature at the North Cape (lat. 71° 11' 30") is six degrees higher than at Enontekis, in the interior (in lat. 68° 30′);, yet, at the latter, the thermometer rises, in July, to 64°, while, at the Cape, it seldom reaches 50. Lapland abounds in iron; and copper, lead, zinc and arsenic are not uncommon. Barley, or big, is the most common grain. In the low ground, rye is likewise cultivated, and occasionally oats. The berry-bearing plants also are numerous. The most common animals are hares; the others are bears, martens, gluttons, beavers, otters, ermines, squirrels, lemmings (or mountain rats), foxes and wolves. The domestic quadrupeds are oxen, cows, dogs, sheep and goats. The reindeer is the most valuable animal in Lapland. It serves as the principal beast of burden; its milk is highly valued, and its flesh supplies the chief nourishment of the inhabitants. The mountain Laplanders have no fixed habitation, but wander about in quest of food for their flocks of reindeer, and lodge in tents or huts, which are usually about 9 feet in height, and 12 in length. Their diet is chiefly of animal food. During winter, they carry on some traffic with the Swedes. This takes place at Torneo, and other towns on the gulf of Bothnia, and consists in exchanging skins, furs, dried fish, venison, and gloves, for flannel, cloth, hemp, copper, iron, and various utensils, but particularly for spirituous liquors, meal, salt and tobacco. The Laplanders, or, as they call themselves, Same (Laplander, or Lappe, being merely a nickname), are a nation of Finnish extraction. The population is estimated thus: 1900 in Swedish Lapland, nearly 5000 in Norwegian, and 8800 in Russian. Besides these, there are in the country several colonies of Swedes, Norwegians and Finns. The whole popula tion of the country, which is as large as France, cannot exceed 65,000. The height of the Laplanders is between four and five feet; often less. They are of a dark complexion, with black hair; strong, hardy and active. They are naturally gentle and mild; have no characteristic vices nor virtues. Generally speaking,

they have little excitability, but love their country, and are happy in their way. They tan hides, make twine of the sinews of the reindeer, weave coverings for their tents, knit gloves, make wooden utensils, canoes, sledges, and the necessary articles of dress. The dress, of both sexes is nearly the same; that of the women is almost solely distinguished by their ornaments. Both sexes wear caps, coats, trowsers and boots, either of leather or fur and coarse cloth. In summer, they live in tents; in winter, in huts built of poles covered with birch twigs and earth, having at the top a hole for the smoke. They live on fish and the flesh of reindeer. According to their food, the Laplanders are divided into Reindeer Laplanders or Mountain Laplanders, and Fishing Laplanders. The former wander from pasture to pasture with their reindeer. A wealthy Laplander possesses a thousand or more of these animals, which are used to draw the sledges, and to carry loads. The Fishing Laplanders, however, who possess few or no reindeer, live almost entirely on fish. They kill sables and birds, and catch the eider-duck, as do also the Reindeer Laplanders, if, by disease or other misfortunes, they lose their reindeer. The Laplanders formerly worshipped fetiches. At present, they are all baptized, but they have mixed their old superstitions with Christianity, which has been forced upon them; and it is not uncommon for a Laplander to be baptized whenever he comes to a populous place where there are missionaries.

LAPO, Arnolph, a celebrated sculptor and architect, born at Florence, 1232, first introduced a better taste into architecture by his great works, and very happily united solidity and grace. He began the building of the cathedral of Florence (to which Brunelleschi afterwards added the admirable dome), the strong walls of Florence, the convent at Assisi, and several churches and other edifices at Florence, He died in 1300.

LAPSE, in ecclesiastical law; a slip or omission of a patron to present a clerk to a benefice within six months of its being void; in which case, the benefice is said to be in lapse, or lapsed, and the right of presentation devolves to the ordinary.

LAPSED LEGACY is where the legatee dies before the testator, or where a legacy is given upon a future contingency, and the legatee dies before the contingency happens.

LAPSIDED; the state of a ship which is built in such a manner as to have one

side heavier than the other, and, by consequence, to retain a constant heel or inclination towards the heavier side; unless when she is brought upright by placing a greater quantity of the cargo or ballast on the other side.

LAPWING (tringa vanellus, Lin.). This bird is about the size of a pigeon, and belongs to the snipe and plover tribe. It is found in Europe in large flocks, except during the pairing season, when it separates for the purposes of incubation. The female lays four eggs, of a dirty olive, spotted with black: she makes no nest, but deposits them upon a little dry grass, rudely scraped together: the young birds run about very soon after they are hatched. During this period, the old ones are very assiduous in their attention to their charge: on the approach of any person to the place of their deposit, they flutter round his head with great inquietude, and, if he persists in advancing, they will endeavor to draw him away, by running off as if lame, and inviting pursuit. These birds have a singular mode of collecting their food, which consists of worms When they observe the small elevation in the ground which the worm makes before it returns below ground, in the morning, by emptying itself, they gently open it at top with their hill, and tap on the ground, at the side of it. This attracts the worm to the surface, when it becomes the prey of the ingenious hunter. These birds are very lively and active, being almost continually in motion, sporting and frolicking in the air, in all directions, and assuming a variety of attitudes. They run along the ground very nimbly; and spring and bound from spot to spot with great agility. In the month of October, they are very fat, and are then said to be excellent eating. Their eggs are considered a great delicacy, and bring high prices in the London markets.

LAQUERING; the laying on metals colored or transparent varnishes, to produce the appearance of a different color in the metal, or to preserve it from rust. Thus laquered brass appears gilt, and tin is made yellow. Seed-lac is the chief composition for laquers, but turpentine makes a cheaper laquer.

LARBOARD; a name given by seamen to the left side of a ship, when the spectator's face is turned in the direction of the head.

Larboard-Tack is when a ship is closehauled, with the wind blowing on her larboard side.

LARCENY is the fraudulent taking by a

person of the goods of another, without his consent, with the intent, on the part of the taker, to appropriate them to his own use. As to the taking, the mere removing of the goods is sufficient to constitute the crime; as, where the thief took down goods and put them into a parcel, for the purpose of carrying them away, but was detected and arrested before carrying them away, this was held to be a sufficient taking to constitute larceny. But, where a person only changed the position of a package of cloth, by raising it on end, for the purpose of taking out the cloth from the bale, and was detected in his purpose before he had opened the bale, this was held not to be a sufficient taking to amount to this offence. The doctrine, in this respect, is, that, to make the crime of larceny, the person committing it must get the article into his possession. The intent is a material circumstance; for, if one person takes the goods of another openly, before his eyes, though with the design of appropriating them to his own use, it is not larceny, but only a trespass: so, if goods be taken by negligence or mistake, it is not larceny; as if sheep stray into one's flock, and he shears them by mistake, as his own. The necessity of an intention to steal, in order to constitute larceny, is illustrated by the case of a servant's assisting some thieves to steal his master's goods, with the consent of his master, merely that the thieves, who had previously formed the design of committing the theft, might be detected: it was held not larceny on the part of the servant, but it was held to be so on the part of the others, though it was objected, in their behalf, that the taking was not against the consent of the master, it being essential to larceny, that it should be committed against the owner's consent; but the court held it to come under this description of crime, for the thieves had previously formed the design of stealing the goods, and the master did not consent to their appropriating them to their own use, but only to their proceeding so far that they might be detected and convicted of the crime. If a person has property in goods, and a right to the possession of them, he cannot, in general, commit the crime of larceny in taking them; but, if he only has the custody of them, and no property in them, he may steal them. Thus, if a bailee or lessee of chattels appropriates them to his own use, it is not, in general, larceny. Yet it has been held that, when a common carrier, having charge of a package or box of goods,

opens it, and takes out a part of the goods, with the intent to steal them, this is theft. But the common law makes a very subtile distinction in this respect; for, though breaking the package, and taking a part, with the design of appropriating the articles, is theft, yet selling the whole package entire has been held not to be so, but only the violation of a trust. The cases where a chattel is taken by a person to whom it has been intrusted, and who converts it to his own use, present very nice discriminations of larceny from mere breaches of trust, in regard to which the distinction is made by various circumstances. If the person gets possession of the goods under a false pretence, with the design of stealing them, yet, if they come into his possession on a contract or trust, it has been held, in many cases, not to be a larceny; as, where a horse was bargained for at a fair, and the purchaser rode him off, saying he would return directly and pay the purchase money, but did not come back at all, having intended to swindle the vender, it was held not to be theft. If, however, the purpose for which the article was intrusted to another is accomplished, and he afterwards converts it to his own use, with the intention of stealing it, this is larceny; as, where a horse was let to go to a certain place and back, and the hirer, having gone and returned, then sold the horse, it was held to be theft, for the particular purpose for which the horse had been intrusted to him, had been served. And the courts generally lean towards construing the offence to be a larceny, and not merely a trespass, where the party gains possession by some false pretence, with the original intent to steal; and with good reason, since it is adding a breach of trust to the crime of larceny. If the owner does not part with the possession of the goods, though the person, intending to steal them, contrives to bring them within his reach by some false pretence, this raises no doubt of its being a larceny; as, where one sent to a hosier's for a quantity of stockings, under pretence of wishing to purchase some, and having selected a part out of a parcel brought by a servant, which he pretended he was going to purchase, under some pretence, sent the servant away, and then decamped with the whole parcel, it was held to be larceny, for the owner had never intrusted him with the parcel, or consented to part with the possession. The same construction was put upon the case, when a servant was sent with some goods to a certain person, and another, pretending to be the

person to whom they were sent, received them, with the intent of stealing them. The cases of ring-dropping are instances of it; such getting possession of money or goods by false pretences, being held to be larceny, though the goods come into the possession of the thief by consent of the owner; that is, when a person, in company with another, pretends to find a ring, which was previously dropped for the purpose, and the companion, being imposed upon, proposes to share in the good fortune, to which the finder consents; but, not having money, proposes to his companion to take the ring, giving cash, a watch, or something of half the supposed value of the ring, as a pledge, until he can dispose of the ring, when its value is to be equally divided.' The transfer having been made, the swindler goes off with the article that he has received, and his companion finds the ring is of little value. This is held to be larceny. As to the kinds of things, the taking of which is larceny, they must, according to the common law, be personal property, it being a maxim that, though real estate may be trespassed upon, it cannot be stolen; and so fixtures, and whatever is a part of the realty, as it is called, could not be subjects of larceny. Thus it was held that a standing tree, fruit upon the tree, ore in a mine, a fence, lead, brass, or other metal, attached to a building, a copper boiler set in bricks, and whatever else would pass by a conveyance of an estate, was not a subject of larceny, and the taking of such things was only a trespass on the real estate. But this distinction is mostly abolished by statutes, for which there was the stronger reason, as many of these things were such as were peculiarly exposed to be stolen. So, again, by the common law, the feloniously taking of written instruments, they not being considered as property, but merely as evidence of contracts, was held not to be larceny; but this doctrine has been partially abrogated by statutes, and the felonious taking of bonds, bills of exchange, &c., is larceny, both in England and the U. States, As to animals, birds, &c., the felonious taking of domes ticated ones is felony; but it is not so with those esteemed to be of a wild nature, as bears, foxes, &c., although they may belong to, or have been purchased by some individual, unless they are tamed, or are in the possession and under the control of some one. The felonious taking of a hive of bees is held to be larceny, unless it be a wild hive in the forest, the taking of which is held, in Pennsylvania, not to be larceny,

Nothing can be stolen which is not a subject of property; but the crime of larceny is not confined to the depriving of the owner of the possession of the article. It is sufficient to constitute the offence, to take the article from the possession of one having only a special property, as a carrier or other bailee; and it is a sufficient allegation of the ownership, in the indictment, to state that the article belonged to such person having a special property. In regard to shrouds and coffins of lead, or other materials of value, the question of ownership has heretofore been made, and they are held to belong to the heirs, executors or legatees of the person deceased, and it may be so alleged in the indictment. Larceny was formerly divided, in England, into two kinds, grand and petty; the former being the stealing of an article over the value of one shilling, the latter, that of an article not over that value. The same division of the kinds of the offence, according to the value of the thing stolen, is made in some of the U. States. But this distinction is abolished in England by a statute of 7 and 8 George IV. In England, the punishment for grand larceny was death; but, most frequently, of late years, it has been commuted for transportation; and, now, the punishment of all simple larceny, of whatever value, is, by the statute above-mentioned, imprisonment or transportation. In the U. States, the punishment is usually imprisonment in the common jail, or penitentiary, for a longer or shorter period, whipping and branding being now mostly, but not universally, abolished. Great discretion is necessarily left with the court, in regard to the punishment of this offence. Some species of larceny, as from the person, are more severely punished than others, by the English law; and a larceny committed in a dwelling-house, by night, is generally considered an aggravated crime, and is punished accordingly. A severer punishment is awarded, both in England and the U. States, on a second or third conviction of the same offender.

LARCH (larix); a genus of plants, included, by many able botanists, together with the spruces, under pinus; and, indeed, there seems to be no essential difference in the parts of fructification; the leaves, however, are in separate sheaths, and differ from those both of pines and spruces, in being fasciculate and deciduous. The American larch, or hackmatack, is a noble trée, with a straight trunk, often rising to the height of 100 feet, and giving out numerous slender branches.

It is a native of Canada, the northern parts of the U. States, and the higher region of the Alleghany mountains. Its southern limit along the sea-coast may be placed at about latitude 41°; but it is not very abundant even in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. In Canada, according to Michaux, it constitutes extensive masses of forest on the upper parts of the Saguenai and about lake Mistassins; and it was observed, by major Long, as far westward as lake Winnipeg. The wood, though heavy, is very highly valued, being remarkably strong and durable, and far superior to that of any pine or spruce. In Maine, it is always used for the knees of vessels, when it can be procured. The European larch, a tree very similar in stature and appearance, but having cones of double the size, is found throughout Siberia, and in most of the northern and mountainous parts of Europe. It is, however, entirely wanting in England and the Pyrenees. The wood is used for a variety of purposes, and is exceedingly durable. An instance is recorded of a vessel built of cypress and larch, which must have remained under water for a thousand years, and the timber of which had become so hard as to resist, entirely, the tools of the workmen. It is much used, in naval architecture, for masts and the frame-work of vessels, being capable of sustaining much greater pressure even than oak; and, in Switzerland, entire houses have been constructed of it, which, however, have the disadvantage of becoming brown, or even black, with age. It affords excellent staves for casks, capable of holding spirituous liquor. The article of commerce called Venice turpentine is obtained from this tree; and a single individual will yield seven or eight pounds, annually, for 40 or 50 years. The wood, however, is injured by the process. The celebrated cedar of Lebanon, the largest and most majestic of the conifere of the eastern continent, is also a species of larch. Besides mount Lebanon, where the few remaining stocks are preserved with religious veneration, it inhabits Siberia and the Himmalaya mountains. The cones are much larger than those of the preceding species. The wood is said to be soft, and of very little value.

LARCHER, Peter Henry, an eminent French scholar and translator, was born at Dijon, October 12, 1726. He was an intense student of Greek literature, and an assiduous collector of early editions. His first translation was the Electra of Euripides, which attracted little attention; but

he became a contributor to several literary journals, and translated from the English the Martinus Scriblerus, from Pope's Miscellanies, and sir John Pringle's Observations on the Diseases of the Army. He also wrote notes to the French version of Hudibras. He followed with a translation of the Greek romance of Chereas and Callirhoe, which was reprinted in the Bibliothèque des Romans. In 1767, a difference took place between him and Voltaire, on whose Philosophy of History he published remarks, under the title of a Supplement; to which the latter replied in his well known Défense de mon Oncle. Larcher rejoined in a Réponse à la Défense de mon Oncle, with which the controversy ceased on his part; but not so the merciless wit of his opponent. He soon after undertook a translation of Herodotus, and, in 1774, published his learned Mémoire sur Venus, to which the academy of inscriptions awarded their prize. His translation of Xenophon led to his being elected into that academy. His Herodotus was published in 1786, of which a new and very improved edition appeared in 1802. He was subsequently received into the institute, and finally ap pointed professor of Greek in the imperial university, but was too aged for active services. He died December 22, 1812, and was regretted as an accomplished scholar and amiable man.

LARD; the fat of swine, which differs in its situation from that of almost every other quadruped, as it covers the animal all over, and forms a thick, distinct and continued layer betwixt the flesh and the skin, somewhat like the blubber in whales, applicable to various purposes, both culinary and medicinal, and particularly to the composition of ointments. The usual mode of preparation is, to melt it in a jar placed in a kettle of water, and in this state to boil it, and run it into bladders that have been cleaned with great care. The smaller the bladders are, the better the lard will keep. The fat which adheres to the parts connected with the intestines, differs from common lard, and is preferable for the greasing of carriage wheels.

LARDNER, Nathaniel ; a learned divine, born, 1684, at Hawkhurst, in Kent. At the age of 16, he was sent to the university of Utrecht, and afterwards to that of Leyden. He returned to England in 1703, and commenced a preacher about the age of 25. In 1713, he went to reside in the fainily of lady Treby, as domestic chaplain, and tutor to her son, whom he after

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