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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ossington, John Evelyn Denison, Viscount

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See also Evelyn Denison, 1st Viscount Ossington on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​OSSINGTON, JOHN EVELYN DENISON, Viscount (1800–1873), English statesman, was the eldest son of John Denison (d. 1820) of Ossington, Nottinghamshire, where he was born on the 27th of January 1800. Educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, he became member of parliament for Newcastle-under-Lyme in 1823, being returned for Hastings three years later, and holding for a short time a subordinate position in Canning’s ministry. Defeated in 1830 both at Newcastle-under-Lyme and then at Liverpool, Denison secured a seat as one of the members for Nottinghamshire in 1831; and after the great Reform Act he represented the southern division of that county from 1832 until the general election of 1837. He represented Malton from 1841 to 1857, and North Nottinghamshire from 1857 to 1872. In April 1857 Denison was chosen Speaker of the House of Commons. Re-elected at the beginning of three successive parliaments he retained this position until February 1872, when he resigned and was created Viscount Ossington. He refused, however, to accept the pension usually given to retiring Speakers. In 1827 he had married Charlotte (d. 1889), daughter of William, 4th duke of Portland, but he left no children. He died on the 7th of March 1873, and his title became extinct.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Osnaburg

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​OSNABURG, the name given to a coarsish type of plain fabric, originally made from flax yarns. It is now made from either flax, tow or jute yarns—sometimes flax or tow warp with mixed or jute weft, and often entirely of jute. The finer and better qualities form a kind of common sheeting, and the various kinds may contain from 20 to 36 threads per inch and 10 to 15 picks per inch.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ossett

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​OSSETT, a municipal borough in the Morley parliamentary division of the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, 3 m. W. of Wakefield, on the Great Northern and (Horbury and Ossett station) the Lancashire and Yorkshire railways. Pop. (1901) 12,903. It includes the contiguous townships of Ossett, South Ossett and Gawthorpe. The church of the Holy Trinity, a fine cruciform structure in the Early Decorated style, was erected in 1865. Woollen cloth mills, and extensive collieries in the neighbourhood, employ the large industrial population. There are medicinal springs similar in their properties to those of Cheltenham. The municipal borough, incorporated in 1890, is under a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area 3238 acres.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ossa

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​OSSA (mod. Kissovo or Kissavo), a mountain in the district of Magnesia in Thessaly, between Pelion and Olympus, from which it is separated by the valley of Tempe. Height about 6400 ft. The Giants are said to have piled Pelion upon it in their attempt to scale Olympus.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Luxor

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​LUXOR, more properly El-Aksur, “The Castles” (plur. of kasr), a town of Upper Egypt, on the east bank of the Nile 450 m. above Cairo by river and 418 by rail. Pop. (1907 census) 12,644. It is the centre for visitors to the ruins of and about Thebes, and is frequented by travellers and invalids in the winter season, several fine hotels having been built for their accommodation. There are Anglican and Roman Catholic churches, and a hospital for natives, opened in 1891. The district is the seat of an extensive manufacture of forged antiques.
The temple of Luxor is one of the greatest of the monuments of Thebes (q.v.). It stands near the river bank on the S.W. side of the town and measures nearly 300 yds. from back to front. There may have been an earlier temple here, but the present structure, dedicated to the Theban triad of Ammon, Mut and ​Khons, was erected by Amenophis III. The great colonnade, which is its most striking feature, was apparently intended for the nave of a hypostyle hall like that of Karnak, but had to be hastily finished without the aisles. After the heresy of Amenophis IV. (Akhenaton), the decoration of this incomplete work was taken in hand by Tutenkhamun and Haremhib. The axis of the temple ran from S.W. to N.E.; a long paved road bordered by recumbent rams led from the façade to the temples of Karnak (q.v.) in a somewhat more easterly direction, and Rameses II. adopted the line of this avenue in adding an extensive court to the work of Amenophis, producing a curious change of axis. He embellished the walls and pylons of his court with scenes from his victories over Hittites and Syrians, and placed a number of colossal statues within it. In front of the pylon Rameses set up colossi and a pair of obelisks (one of which was taken to Paris in 1831 and re-erected in the Place de la Concorde). A few scenes and inscriptions were added by later kings, but the above is practically the history of the temple until Alexander the Great rebuilt the sanctuary itself. The chief religious festival of Thebes was that of “Southern Opi,” the ancient name of Luxor. The sacred barks of the divinities preserved in the sanctuary of Karnak were then conveyed in procession by water to Luxor and back again; a representation of the festal scenes is given on the walls of the great colonnade. The Christians built churches within the temple. The greater part of the old village of Luxor lay inside the courts: it was known also as Abu ’l Haggag from a Moslem saint of the 7th century, whose tomb-mosque, mentioned by Ibn Batuta, stands on a high heap of débris in the court of Rameses. This is the last of the buildings and rubbish which encumbered the temple before the expropriation and clearances by the Service des Antiquités began in 1885. The principal street of Luxor follows the line of the ancient avenue.
See G. Daressy, Notice explicative des ruines du temple de Louxor (Cairo, 1893); Baedeker’s Egypt. (F. Ll. G.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Luxorius

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​LUXORIUS, Roman writer of epigrams, lived in Africa during the reigns of the Vandal kings Thrasamund, Hilderic and Gelimer (A.D. 496–534). He speaks of his poor circumstances, but from the superscription clarissimus and spectabilis in one MS., he seems to have held a high official position. About a hundred epigrams by him in various metres (the elegiac predominating) have been preserved. They are after the manner of Martial, and many of them are coarse. They deal chiefly with the games of the circus and works of art, and the language shows the author to have been well acquainted with the legends and antiquities of the classical period of Rome.
Luxorius also wrote on grammatical subjects (see R. Ellis in Journal of Philology, viii., 1879). The epigrams are contained in the Anthologia Latina, edited by F. Bücheler and A. Riese (1894).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Luz-Saint-Sauveur

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​LUZ-SAINT-SAUVEUR, a town of south-western France in the department of Hautes-Pyrénées, 21 m. S. of Lourdes by rail. Pop. (1906) 1069. Luz is beautifully situated at a height of 2240 ft. on the Bastan. It has a remarkable church, built by the Templars in the 12th and 13th centuries and fortified later. The crenelated ramparts with which it is surrounded, and the tower to the north of the apse resembling a keep, give it the aspect of a fortress; other interesting features are the Romanesque north door and a chapel of the 16th century. The village of St Sauveur lies a little above Luz on the left bank of the gorge of the Gave de Pau, which is crossed higher up by the imposing Pont Napoléon (1860). It is a pleasant summer resort, and is visited for its warm sulphurous springs. Discovered in the 16th century, the waters came into vogue after 1820, in which year they were visited by the duchesses of Angoulême and Berry. There is much picturesque mountain scenery in the vicinity; 12 m. to the south is the village of Gavarnie, above which is the magnificent rock amphitheatre or cirque of Gavarnie, with its cascade, one of the highest in Europe.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Luzzatti, Luigi

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​LUZZATTI, LUIGI (1841– ), Italian economist and financier, was born of Jewish parents at Venice on the 11th of March 1841. After completing his studies in law at the university of Padua, he attracted the attention of the Austrian police by his lectures on political economy, and was obliged to emigrate. In 1863 he obtained a professorship at the Milan Technical Institute; in 1867 he was appointed professor of constitutional law at Padua, whence he was transferred to the university of Rome. Gifted with eloquence and energy, he popularized in Italy the economic ideas of Schultze-Delitzsch, worked for the establishment of a commercial college at Venice, and contributed to the spread of people’s banks on a basis of limited liability throughout the country. In 1869 he was appointed by Minghetti under secretary of state to the ministry of agriculture and commerce, in which capacity he abolished government control over commercial companies and promoted a state inquiry into the conditions of industry. Though theoretically a free trader, he was largely instrumental in creating the Italian protective system. In 1877 he participated in the commercial negotiations with France, in 1878 compiled the Italian customs tariff, and subsequently took a leading part in the negotiations of all the commercial treaties between Italy and other countries. Appointed minister of the treasury in the first Di Rudini cabinet of 1891, he imprudently abolished the system of frequent clearings of bank-notes between the state banks, a measure which facilitated the duplication of part of the paper currency and hastened the bank crisis of 1893. In 1896 he entered the second Di Rudini cabinet as minister of the treasury, and by timely legislation helped to save the bank of Naples from failure. After his fall from office in June 1898, his principal achievement was the negotiation of the Franco-Italian commercial treaty, though, as deputy, journalist and professor, he continued to take an active part in all political and economic manifestations. He was again minister of the treasury from November 1903 to March 1905 in Giolitti’s second administration, and for the third time from February to May 1906, under Sonnino’s premiership. During the latter term of office he achieved the conversion of the Italian 5% debt (reduced to 4% by the tax) to 33/4% to be eventually lowered to 31/2%, an operation which other ministers had attempted without success; although the actual conversion was not completed until after the fall of the cabinet of which he formed part the merit is entirely his. In 1907 he was president of the co-operative congress at Cremona.
See L. Carpi’s Risorgimento Italiano, vol. ii. (Milan, 1886), which contains a biographical sketch of Luzzatti.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Luxemburg (city)

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​LUXEMBURG, or Lützelburg (i.e. the little fortress or town), the capital of the grand-duchy of the same name (see above), situated on the Alzette, a tributary of the Sûre. Pop. (1905) 20,984. The situation is romantic, steep cliffs overhanging the winding river, and the principal portion of the town with the palace and public buildings covering a central plateau. The more densely populated parishes of Clausen, Pfaffenthal and Grund lie in the valley. As a fortress Luxemburg was considered the strongest in Europe after Gibraltar, which it was supposed to resemble because many of its casemates were cut into the rock. It was dismantled in 1867. Two colossal viaducts carry the railway and the approach from the railway station to the town. Since the place ceased to be a fortress the population has more than doubled, and the Alzette is lined with tanneries, breweries and distilleries. The Hôtel de Ville dates from 1844 and contains a collection of antiquities. The church of Notre Dame was built in 1613, and that of St Michael, with parts dating from 1320, contains the tomb of blind John of Luxemburg, king of Bohemia, slain at Crécy. There are two annual fête days, one in honour of Our Lady of Luxemburg, patroness of the city, held on the Sunday before Ascension Day, and the other the annual fair or Schobermesse (tent fair), instituted in 1340 and held each year on the 24th of August.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Luxeuil-les-Bains

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​LUXEUIL-LES-BAINS, a town of eastern France, in the department of Haute-Saône, 18 m. N.E. of Vesoul. Pop. (1906) 5195. It is situated in a region of forests on the right bank of the Breuchin. It has an abbey-church dating from the 13th and 14th centuries, containing a curious 17th-century organ loft in the form of an immense bracket supported by a colossal figure of Hercules. The abbot’s palace (16th and 18th centuries) serves as presbytery and town hall. A cloister of the 15th century and other buildings of the 17th century also remain. There are several mansions and houses dating from various periods from the 14th to the 16th century. The Maison Carrée, once the town hall, an interesting specimen of 15th-century architecture, was built by Perrin Jouffroy, father of Cardinal Jouffroy. The cardinal, who was born at Luxeuil in 1412, built the house with a graceful balcony and turret which faces the Maison Carrée. The Maison de la Baille and the Maison François I. are of the Renaissance period. The fine modern Grammont Hospital is in the style of Louis XIII. Luxeuil is renowned for its mineral springs, of which there are seventeen, two being ferruginous, and the rest charged with chloride of sodium; their temperatures range from 70° to 158° F. The water is employed for drinking and for baths. The bathing establishment contains a museum of Gallo-Roman antiquities and there are also remains of Roman baths and aqueducts to be seen in or near it. Luxeuil has a communal college. Copper-founding, the spinning and weaving of cotton, lace-making, dyeing and the distilling of kirsch are carried on.
Luxeuil was the Roman Lixovium and contained many fine buildings at the time of its destruction by the Huns under Attila in 451. In 590 St Columban here founded a monastery, afterwards one of the most famous in Franche Comté. In the 8th century it was destroyed by the Saracens; afterwards rebuilt, monastery and town were devastated by the Normans in the 9th century and pillaged on several occasions afterwards. The abbey schools were celebrated in the middle ages and the abbots had great influence; but their power was curtailed by the emperor Charles V. and the abbey was suppressed at the Revolution.
See H. Beaumont, Étude hist. sur l’abbaye de Luxeuil, 590–1790 (Lux. 1895); Grandmongin and A. Garnier, Hist. de la ville et des thermes de Luxeuil (Paris, 1866), with 16 plates.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Paarl

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​PAARL, a town of the Cape Province, South Africa, 36 m. by rail E.N.E. of Cape Town. Pop. (1904), 11,293. The town is situated on the west bank of the Berg river, some 400 ft. above the sea. It stands on the coast plain near the foot of the Drakenstein mountains. West of the town the Paarl Berg rises from the plain. The berg is crowned by three great granite boulders, known as the Paarl, Britannia and Gordon Rock. The town is beautifully situated amid gardens, orange groves and vineyards. The chief public buildings are the two Dutch Reformed churches, the old church being a good specimen of colonial Dutch architecture, with gables, curves and thatched roof. Paarl is a thriving agricultural and viticultural centre, among its industries being the manufacture of wine and brandy, wagon and carriage building and harness making. South-east of the town are granite quarries. The wines produced in the district are among the best in South Africa, ranking second only to those of Constantia.
The Paarl is one of the oldest European towns in South Africa. It dates from 1687, the site for the new settlement being chosen by the governor, Simon van der Stell. It was named Paarl by the first settlers from the fancied resemblance of one of the boulders on the top of the hill, when glistening in the sun, to a gigantic pearl. Shortly afterwards several of the Huguenots who had sought refuge at the Cape after the revocation of the edict of Nantes were placed in the new settlement. The present inhabitants are largely descended from these Huguenots.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/P

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​P The sixteenth letter of the English alphabet, the fifteenth in the Latin and the sixteenth in the Greek alphabet, the latter in its ordinary form having the symbol for x before o. In the Phoenician alphabet, from which the Western alphabets are directly or indirectly derived, its shape, written from right to left, is . In the Greek alphabet, when written from left to right, it takes the form or , the second form being much rarer in inscriptions than the first. Only very rarely and only in inscriptions of the 7th and 6th centuries B.C. are rounded forms , found. In Italy the Etruscan and Umbrian form (written from right to left), though more angular than the Phoenician symbol, resembles it more closely than it does the Greek. The earliest Roman form—on the inscription found in the Forum in 1899—is Greek in shape , though the second leg is barely visible. The Oscan is identical with the rarer Greek form. As time goes on the Roman form becomes more and more rounded , but not till Imperial times is the semicircle completed so as to form the symbol in the shape which it still retains . The Semitic name Pē became in Greek πϵῖ, and has in the course of ages changed but little. The sound of p throughout has been that of the breathed labial stop, as in the English pin. At the end of English words like lip the breath is audible after the consonant, so that the sound is rather that of the ancient Greek ϕ, i.e. p-h, not f, as ϕ is ordinarily now pronounced. This sound is found initially also in some dialects of English, as in the Irish pronunciation of pig as p-hig. For a remarkable interchange between p and qu sounds which is found in many languages, see under Q. (P. Gi.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ozieri

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​OZIERI, a town of Sardinia in the province of Sassari, from which it is 34 m. E.S.E. by rail. Pop. (1901) 9555. It is situated 1280 ft. above sea-level on a steep slope, but faces north, and so is not very healthy. In the centre of the town is a square with a fine fountain of 1594. The cathedral was restored in 1848; it is the seat of the diocese of Bisarcio. The former cathedral of this diocese lies some distance to the N.W.; it is a fine Romanesque building of the 12th and 13th centuries. The district of Ozieri ​is famous for its butter—the only butter made in Sardinia—cheese and other pastoral products; cattle are also bred here.
See D. Scano, Storia dell’ arte in Sardegna dal xi. al xiv. secolo (Cagliari-Sassari, 1907), p. 200.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Oystermouth

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​OYSTERMOUTH, or The Mumbles, an urban district and seaside resort in the Gower division of Glamorganshire, south Wales, situated on the western bend of Swansea Bay, 41/2 m. S.W. of Swansea, with which it is connected by the steam-tramway of the Swansea and Mumbles Railway Company, constructed in 1804. The London and North-Western railway has also a station at Mumbles Road, 21/2 m. N. of Oystermouth. Pop. (1901) 4461. The castle, which belongs to the duke of Beaufort as lord of the seigniory of Gower, is an imposing ruin, nobly situated on a rocky knoll overlooking the bay. Its great hall and chapel with their traceried Gothic windows are fairly well preserved. The earliest structure (probably only a “peel” tower), built in the opening years of the 12th century, probably by Maurice de Londres, was destroyed by the Welsh in 1215. The early English features of the square keep indicate that it was soon rebuilt, by one of the De Breos lords (see Gower). In 1284 Edward I. stayed here two days as the guest of William de Breos, and from that time on it became the chief residence in Gower of the lords seignior and subsequently of their stewards, and their chancery was located here till its abolition in 1535. The parish church, which has an embattled tower, was restored in 1860, when fragments of Roman tessellated pavement were found in various parts of the churchyard. Roman coins were also found in the village in 1822 and 1837—all indicating that there had been a small settlement here in Roman times. The name of the castle appears in the Welsh chronicles as Ystum Llwynarth, which, by the elision of the penultimate, was probably changed by false analogy into Oystermouth—the bay being noted for its oyster beds. Its church is mentioned in the cartulary of Gloucester (1141) as Ostrenuwe.
The village itself is straggling and uninteresting, but the high ground between it and the pretty bays of Langland and Caswell on the southern side of the headland fronting the open channel is dotted with well-built villas and commands magnificent views. The headland terminates in two rocky islands, which to sailors coming up the channel would appear like the breasts of “mammals,” whence the comparatively modern name, The Mumbles, is supposed to be derived. On the outer of these rocks is a lighthouse erected in 1794 and maintained by the Swansea Harbour Trust. The district is rapidly increasing in popularity as a seaside resort. A pier was erected by the Mumbles Railway Company at a cost of £12,000 in 1898. The fishing industry, once prosperous, has much diminished in importance, but there are still oyster-beds in the bay.