OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Baffin, William

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​BAFFIN, WILLIAM (1584–1622), English navigator and discoverer. Nothing is known of his early life, but it is conjectured that he was born in London of humble origin, and gradually raised himself by his diligence and perseverance. The earliest mention of his name occurs in 1612, in connexion with an expedition in search of a North-West Passage, under the orders of Captain James Hall, whom he accompanied as chief pilot. Captain Hall was murdered in a fight with the natives on the west coast of Greenland, and during the two following years Baffin served in the Spitsbergen whale-fishery, at that time controlled by the Muscovy Company. In 1615 he entered the service of the Company for the discovery of the North-West Passage, and accompanied Captain Robert Bylot as pilot of the little ship “Discovery,” and now carefully examined Hudson Strait. The accuracy of Baffin’s tidal and astronomical observations on this voyage was confirmed in a remarkable manner by Sir Edward Parry, when passing over the same ground, two centuries later (1821). In the following year Baffin again sailed as pilot of the “Discovery,” and passing up Davis Strait discovered the fine bay to the north which now bears his name, together with the magnificent series of straits which radiate from its head and were named by him Lancaster, Smith and Jones Sounds, in honour of the generous patrons of his voyages. On this voyage he had sailed over 300 m. farther north than his predecessor Davis, and for 236 years his farthest north (about lat. 77° 45′) remained unsurpassed in that sea. All hopes, however, seemed now ended of discovering a passage to India by this route, and in course of time even Baffin’s discoveries came to be doubted until they were re-discovered by Captain Ross in 1818. Baffin next took service with the East India Company, and in 1617–1619 performed a voyage to Surat in British India, and on his return received the special recognition of the Company for certain valuable surveys of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf which he had made in the course of the voyage. Early in 1620 he again sailed to the East, and in the Anglo-Persian attack on Kishm in the Persian Gulf, preparatory to the reduction of Ormuz, he received his death-wound and died on the 23rd of January 1622. Besides the importance of his geographical discoveries, Baffin is to be remembered for the importance and accuracy of his numerous scientific and magnetic observations, for one of which (the determination of longitude at sea by lunar observation) the honour is claimed of being the first of its kind on record.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Baeyer, Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von

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​BAEYER, JOHANN FRIEDRICH WILHELM ADOLF VON (1835– ), German chemist, was born at Berlin on the 31st of October 1835, his father being Johann Jacob von Baeyer (1794–1885), chief of the Berlin Geodetical Institute from 1870. He studied chemistry under R. W. Bunsen and F. A. Kekulé, and in 1858 took his degree as Ph.D. at Berlin, becoming privat-docent a few years afterwards and assistant professor in 1866. Five years later he was appointed professor of chemistry at Strassburg, and in 1875 he migrated in the same capacity to Munich. He devoted himself mainly to investigations in organic chemistry, and in particular to synthetical studies by the aid of “condensation” reactions. The Royal Society of London awarded him the Davy medal in 1881 for his researches on indigo, the nature and composition of which he did more to elucidate than any other single chemist, and which he also succeeded in preparing artificially, though his methods were not found commercially practicable. To celebrate his seventieth birthday his scientific papers were collected and published in two volumes (Gesammelte Werke, Brunswick, 1905), and the names of the headings under which they are grouped give some idea of the range and extent of his chemical work:—(1) organic arsenic compounds, (2) uric acid group, (3) indigo, (4) papers arising from indigo researches, (5) pyrrol and pyridine bases, (6) experiments on the elimination of water and on condensation, (7) the phthaleins, (8) the hydro-aromatic compounds, (9) the terpenes, (10) nitroso compounds, (11) furfurol, (12) acetylene compounds and “strain” (Spannungs) theory, (13) peroxides, (14) basic properties of oxygen, (15) dibenzalacetone and triphenylamine, (16) various researches on the aromatic and (17) the aliphatic series.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Baffin Bay and Baffin Land

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​BAFFIN BAY and BAFFIN LAND, an arctic sea and an insular tract named after the explorer William Baffin. Baffin or Baffin’s Bay is part of the long strait which separates Baffin Land from Greenland. It extends from about 69° to 78° N. and from 54° to 76° W. From the northern end it is connected (1) with the polar sea northward by Smith Sound, prolonged by Kane Basin and Kennedy and Robeson Channels; (2) with the straits which ramify through the archipelago to the north-west by narrow channels at the head of Jones Sound, from which O. Sverdrup and his party conducted explorations in 1900–1902; (3) with the more southerly part of the same archipelago by Lancaster Sound. Baffin Bay was explored very fully in 1616 by Baffin. The coasts are generally high, precipitous and deeply indented. The most important island on the east side is Disco, to the north of Disco Bay, Greenland. During the greater part of the year this sea is frozen, but, while hardly ever free of ice, there are normally navigable channels along the coasts from the beginning of June to the end of September connected by transverse channels. The bay is noted as a centre of the whale and seal fishery. At more than one point a depth exceeding 1000 fathoms has been ascertained.
Baffin Land is a barren insular tract, included in Franklin district, Canada, with an approximate area of 236,000 sq. m., situated between 61° and 90° W. and 62° and 74° N. The eastern and northern coasts are rocky and mountainous, and are deeply indented by large bays including Frobisher and Home Bays, Cumberland Sound and Admiralty Inlet. Baffin Land is separated from Greenland by Baffin Bay and Davis Strait, from Ungava by Hudson Strait, from Keewatin and Melville Peninsula by Fox Channel and Fury-and-Hecla Strait, from Boothia Peninsula and North Somerset by the Gulf of Boothia and Prince Regent Inlet, and from North Devon by Lancaster Sound. Various names are given to various parts of the land—thus the north-western part is called Cockburn Land, farther ​east is North Galloway; on the extreme eastern peninsula are Cumberland and Penny Lands, while the southern is called Meta Incognita; in the west is Fox Land. In the southern part of the interior are two large lakes, Amadjuak, which lies at an altitude of 289 ft., and Nettiling or Kennedy.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lydd

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​LYDD, a market town and municipal borough in the southern parliamentary division of Kent, England, 711/2 m. S.E. by E. of London by a branch of the South-Eastern & Chatham railway. Pop. (1901) 2675. It lies in the open lowland of Dunge Marsh. To the south-east are the bare shingle banks of the promontory of Dungeness. Its church of All Saints has a beautiful Perpendicular tower with rich vaulting within. The neighbourhood affords pasture for large flocks of sheep. On the land known as the Rypes, in the neighbourhood, there is a military camp, with artillery and rifle ranges; hence the name given to the explosive “lyddite.” The town is governed by a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 12,043 acres.
The first settlement at Lydd (Hlide, Lide, Lyde) was probably due to its convenience as a fishing-station. After the Conquest it became a seaport of some consequence and although now, owing to the alteration of the coast, it stands nearly 3 m. inland a number of its inhabitants are still fishermen. In 774 land in Lydd was granted by Offa to the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, and the archbishop of Canterbury evidently held the lordship of the town from an early date. At some time before the reign of Edward I. Lydd was made a member of the Cinque Port of Romney, and in 1290 was granted the same liberties and free customs as the Cinque Ports on condition of aiding the service of its head-port to the crown with one ship. This charter was confirmed by Edward III. in 1365. The corporation also possesses documents of 1154, 1399 and 1413, granting to the archbishop’s men of Lydd the privileges enjoyed by the Cinque Ports and confirming all former privileges. Lydd is called a borough in the Hundred Rolls. Its incorporation under a bailiff, of which there is evidence in the 15th century, may have been due to the archbishop or to the court of Shepway, but it was not incorporated by the crown until 1885, when, by a charter under the Municipal Acts, the last bailiff was elected the first mayor. In 1494 a grant was made to the bailiff, jurats and commonalty of a yearly fair on the 12th of July and two days following. A fair was held under this grant until 1874.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lye

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​LYE (O. Eng. léag, cf. Dutch loog, Ger. Lauge, from the root meaning to wash, see in Lat. lavare, and Eng. “lather,” froth of soap and water, and “laundry”), the name given to the solution of alkaline salts obtained by leaching or lixiviating wood ashes with water, and sometimes to a solution of a caustic alkali. Lixiviation (Lat. lixivium, lye, lix, ashes) is the action of separating, by the percolation of water, a soluble from an insoluble substance. “Leaching,” the native English term for this process, is from “leach,” to water, the root probably being the same as in “lake.”
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lydenburg

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​LYDENBURG, a town and district of the Transvaal, South Africa. The town is 60 m. by rail N.N.E. of Belfast on the Pretoria-Delagoa Bay railway. Pop. (1904) 1523. It is picturesquely situated on the Spekboom tributary of the Olifants river at an altitude of 4900 ft. Some 15 m. E. is the Mauchberg (8725 ft.), the highest point in the Transvaal. The town is the chief centre for the Lydenburg goldfields. Next to Lydenburg the most important settlement in these goldfields is Pilgrim’s Rest, pop. (1904) 1188, 23 m. N.E. of Lydenburg. Lydenburg (the town of suffering) was founded in 1846 by Boers who two years previously had established themselves farther north at Ohrigstad, which they abandoned on account of the fever endemic there. Lydenburg at once became the capital of a district (of the same name) which then embraced all the eastern part of the Transvaal. In 1856 the Boers of Lydenburg separated from their brethren and proclaimed an independent republic, which was, however, incorporated with the South African Republic in 1860. The discovery of gold near the town was made in 1869, and in 1873 the first successful goldfield in the Transvaal was opened here. It was not until 1910, however, that Lydenburg was placed in railway communication with the rest of the country. The present district of Lydenburg consists of the north-east and central parts of the original district. In the Lulu Mountains, a spur of the Drakensberg, and some 40 m. N.W. of Lydenburg, was the stronghold of the Kaffir chief Sikukuni, whose conflict with the Boers in 1876 was one of the causes which led to the annexation of the Transvaal by Great Britain in 1877. (See Transvaal: History.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lydford

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​LYDFORD, or Lidford, a village, once an important town, in the western parliamentary division of Devonshire, England, near the western confines of Dartmoor, 27 m. N. of Plymouth by the London & South-Western railway. From its Perpendicular church of St Petrock fine views of the Dartmoor tors are seen. The village stands on the small river Lyd, which traverses a deep narrow chasm, crossed by a bridge of single span; and at a little distance a tributary stream forms a cascade in an exquisite glen. Close to the church are slight remains of the castle of Lydford.
Lydford (Lideford) was one of the four Saxon boroughs of Devon, and possessed a mint in the days of Æthelred the Unready. It first appears in recorded history in 997, when the Danes made a plundering expedition up the Tamar and Tavy as far as “Hlidaforda.” In the reign of Edward the Confessor it was the most populous centre in Devonshire after Exeter, but the Domesday Survey relates that forty houses had been laid waste since the Conquest, and the town never recovered its former prosperity; the history from the 13th century centres round the castle, which is first mentioned in 1216, when it was granted to William Briwere, and was shortly afterwards fixed as the prison of the stannaries and the meeting-place of the Forest Courts of Dartmoor. A gild at Lideford is mentioned in 1180, and the pipe roll of 1195 records a grant for the reestablishment of the market. In 1238 the borough, which had hitherto been crown demesne, was bestowed by Henry III. on Richard, earl of Cornwall, who in 1268 obtained a grant of a Wednesday market and a three days’ fair at the feast of St Petrock. The borough had a separate coroner and bailiff in 1275, but it was never incorporated by charter, and only once, in 1300, returned members to parliament. Lydford prison is described in 1512 as “one of the most hainous, contagious and detestable places in the realm,” and “Lydford Law” was a by-word for injustice. At the time of the Commonwealth the castle was entirely in ruins, but in the 18th century it was restored and again used as a prison and as the meeting-place of the manor and borough courts.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lydus, Joannes Laurentius

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​LYDUS (“The Lydian”), JOANNES LAURENTIUS, Byzantine writer on antiquarian subjects, was born at Philadelphia in Lydia about A.D. 490. At an early age he set out to seek his fortune in Constantinople, and held high court and state offices under Anastasius and Justinian. In 552 he lost favour, and was dismissed. The date of his death is not known, but he was probably alive during the early years of Justin II. (reigned 565–578). During his retirement he occupied himself in the compilation of works on the antiquities of Rome, three of which have been preserved: (1) De Ostentis (Περὶ διοσημειῶν), on the origin and progress of the art of divination; (2) De Magistratibus reipublicae Romanae (Περὶ ἀρχῶν τῆς Ῥωμαίων πολιτείας), especially valuable for the administrative details of the time of Justinian; (3) De Mensibus (Περὶ μηνῶν), a history of the different festivals of the year. The chief value of these books consists in the fact that the author made use of the works (now lost) of old Roman writers on similar subjects. Lydus was also commissioned by Justinian to compose a panegyric on the emperor, and a history of his successful campaign against Persia; but these, as well as some poetical compositions, are lost.
Editions of (1) by C. Wachsmuth (1897), with full account of the authorities in the prolegomena; of (2) and (3) by R. Wünsch (1898–1903); see also the essay by C. B. Hase (the first editor of the De Ostentis) prefixed to I. Bekker’s edition of Lydus (1837) in the Bonn Corpus scriptorum hist. Byzantinae.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lysis of Tarentum

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​LYSIS OF TARENTUM (d. c. 390 B.C.), Greek philosopher. His life is obscure, but it is generally accepted, that in the persecution of the Pythagoreans at Crotona and Metapontum he escaped and went to Thebes, where he came under the influence of Philolaus. The friend and companion of Pythagoras, he has been credited with many of the works usually attributed to Pythagoras himself. Diogenes Laertius viii. 6 gives him three, and Mullach even assigns to him the Golden Verses. But it is generally held that these verses are a collection of lines by many authors rather than the work of one man.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lysanias

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​LYSANIAS, tetrarch of Abilene (see Abila), according to Luke iii. 1, in the time of John the Baptist. The only Lysanias mentioned in profane history as exercising authority in this district was executed in 36 B.C. by M. Antonius (Mark Antony). This Lysanias was the son of Ptolemy Mennaeus, the ruler of an independent state, of which Abilene formed only a small portion. According to Josephus (Ant. xix. 5, 1) the emperor Claudius in A.D. 42 confirmed Agrippa I. in the possession of “Abila of Lysanias” already bestowed upon him by Caligula, elsewhere described as “Abila, which had formed the tetrarchy of Lysanias.” It is argued that this cannot refer to the Lysanias executed by M. Antonius, since his paternal inheritance, even allowing for some curtailment by Pompey, must have been of far greater extent. It is therefore assumed by some authorities that the Lysanias in Luke (A.D. 28–29) is a younger Lysanias, tetrarch of Abilene only, one of the districts into which the original kingdom was split up after the death of Lysanias I. This younger Lysanias may have been a son of the latter, and identical with, or the father of, the Claudian Lysanias. On the other hand, Josephus knows nothing of a younger Lysanias, and it is suggested by others that he really does refer to Lysanias I. The explanation given by M. Krenkel (Josephus und Lucas, Leipzig, 1894, p. 97) is that Josephus does not mean to imply that Abila was the only possession of Lysanias, and that he calls it the tetrarchy or kingdom of Lysanias because it was the last remnant of the domain of Lysanias which remained under direct Roman administration until the time of Agrippa. The expression was borrowed from Josephus by Luke, who wrongly imagined that Lysanias I. had ruled almost up to the time of the bestowal of his tetrarchy upon Agrippa, and therefore to the days of John the Baptist. Two inscriptions are adduced as evidence for the existence of a younger Lysanias—Böckh, C.I.G. 4521 and 4523. The former is inconclusive, and in the latter the reading Ανσ[ανιου] is entirely conjectural; the name might equally well be Lysimachus or Lysias.
See E. Schürer, Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes (3rd ed., 1901), i. p. 712; and (especially on the inscriptional evidence) E. Renan, “Mémoire sur la dynastie des Lysanias d’Abilène” in Mémoires de l’institut impérial de France (xxvi., 1870); also P. W. Schmiedel in the Encyclopaedia Biblica, s.v.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lysistratus

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​LYSISTRATUS, a Greek sculptor of the 4th century B.C., brother of Lysippus of Sicyon. We are told by Pliny (Nat. Hist. 35, 153) that he followed a strongly realistic line, being the first sculptor to take impressions of human faces in plaster.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lysippus

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​LYSIPPUS, Greek sculptor, was head of the school of Argos and Sicyon in the time of Philip and Alexander of Macedon. His works are said to have numbered 1500, some of them colossal. Some accounts make him the continuer of the school of Polyclitus; some represent him as self-taught. The matter in which he especially innovated was the proportions of the male human body; he made the head smaller than his predecessors, the body more slender and hard, so as to give the impression of greater height. He also took great pains with hair and other details. Pliny (N.H. 34, 61) and other writers mention many of his statues. Among the gods he seems to have produced new and striking types of Zeus (probably of the Otricoli class), of Poseidon (compare the Poseidon of the Lateran, standing with raised foot), of the Sun-god and others; many of these were colossal figures in bronze. Among heroes he was specially attracted by the mighty physique of Hercules. The Hercules Farnese of Naples, though signed by Glycon of Athens, and a later and exaggerated transcript, owes something, including the motive of rest after labour, to Lysippus. Lysippus made many statues of Alexander the Great, and so satisfied his patron, no doubt by idealizing him, that he became the court sculptor of the king, from whom and from whose generals he received many commissions. The extant portraits of Alexander vary greatly, and it is impossible to determine which among them go back to Lysippus. The remarkable head from Alexandria (Plate II. fig. 56, in Greek Art) has as good a claim as any.
As head of the great athletic school of Peloponnese Lysippus naturally sculptured many athletes; a figure by him of a man scraping himself with a strigil was a great favourite of the Romans in the time of Tiberius (Pliny, N.H. 34, 61); and this has been usually regarded as the original copied in the Apoxyomenus of the Vatican (Greek Art, Plate VI. fig. 79). If so, the copyist has modernized his copy, for some features of the Apoxyomenus belong to the Hellenistic age. With more certainty we may see a copy of an athlete by Lysippus in the statue of Agias found at Delphi (Greek Art, Plate V. fig. 74), which is proved by inscriptions to be a replica in marble of a bronze statue set up by Lysippus in Thessaly. And when the Agias and the Apoxyomenus are set side by side their differences are so striking that it is difficult to attribute them to the same author, though they may belong to the same school.  (P. G.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Fetters and Handcuffs

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​FETTERS AND HANDCUFFS, instruments for securing the feet and hands of prisoners under arrest, or as a means of punishment. The old names were manacles, shackbolts or shackles, gyves and swivels. Until within recent times handcuffs were of two kinds, the figure-8 ones which confined the hands close together either in front or behind the prisoner, or the rings from the wrists were connected by a short chain much on the model of the handcuffs in use by the police forces of to-day. Much improvement has been made in handcuffs of late. They are much lighter and they are adjustable, fitting any wrist, and thus the one pair will serve a police officer for any prisoner. For the removal of gangs of convicts an arrangement of handcuffs connected by a light chain is used, the chain running through a ring on each fetter and made fast at both ends by what are known as end-locks. Several recently invented appliances are used as handcuffs, e.g. snaps, nippers, twisters. They differ from handcuffs in being intended for one wrist only, the other portion being held by the captor. In the snap the smaller circlet is snapped to on the prisoner’s wrist. The nippers can be instantly fastened on the wrist. The twister, not now used in England as being liable to injure prisoners seriously, is a chain attached to two handles; the chain is put round the wrist and the two handles twisted till the chain is tight enough.
Leg-irons are anklets of steel connected by light chains long enough to permit of the wearer walking with short steps. An obsolete form was an anklet and chain to the end of which was attached a heavy weight, usually a round shot. The Spanish used to secure prisoners in bilboes, shackles round the ankles secured by a long bar of iron. This form of leg-iron was adopted in England, and was much employed in the services during the 17th and 18th centuries. An ancient example is preserved in the Tower of London. The French marine still use a kind of leg-iron of the bilbo type.