OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Allyl Alcohol

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​ALLYL ALCOHOL, C$_3$H$_5$OH or CH$_2$:CH·CH$_2$OH, a compound which occurs in very small quantities in wood spirit. It may be prepared from allyl iodide by the action of moist silver oxide; by the reduction of acrolein; or by heating glycerin with oxalic acid and a little ammonium chloride to 260° C. In this last reaction glycerol monoformin is produced as an intermediate product, but is decomposed as the temperature rises:—
C$_3$H$_5$(OH)$_3$＋H$_2$C$_2$O$_4$＝C$_3$H$_5$(OH)$_2$·O·CHO＋CO$_2$＋H$_2$O glycerol monoformin C$_3$H$_5$(OH)$_3$·O·CHO＝C$_3$H$_5$OH＋CO$_2$＋H$_2$O
It is a colourless mobile liquid of pungent smell, boiling at 97° C. Being an unsaturated compound it combines readily with the halogens. Oxidation by strong oxidizing agents converts it successively into its aldehyde, acrolein, and into acrylic acid. By gentle oxidation with potassium permanganate it may be converted into glycerin.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Almandine

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​ALMANDINE, or Almandite, a name applied to certain kinds of precious garnet, being apparently a corruption of alabandicus, which is the name applied by Pliny to a stone found or worked at Alabanda, a town in Caria in Asia Minor. Almandine is an iron alumina garnet, of deep red colour inclining to purple. It is frequently cut with a convex face, or en cabochon, and is then known as carbuncle. Viewed through the spectroscope in a strong light, it generally shows three characteristic absorption bands, as first pointed out by Prof. A. H. Church.
Almandine occurs rather abundantly in the gem-gravels of Ceylon, whence it has sometimes been called Ceylon-ruby. When the colour inclines to a violet tint, the stone is often called Syrian garnet, a name said to be taken from Syriam, an ancient town of Pegu. Large deposits of fine almandine-garnets were found, some years ago, in the Northern Territory of South Australia, and were at first taken for rubies, whence they were known in trade for some time afterwards as Australian rubies.
Almandine is widely distributed. Fine rhombic dodecahedra occur in the schistose rocks of the Zillerthal, in Tyrol, and are sometimes cut and polished. An almandine in which the ferrous oxide is replaced partly by magnesia is found at Luisenfeld in German East Africa. In the United States there are many localities which yield almandine. Dr G. F. Kunz has figured a crystal of coarse almandine weighing 92/3 ℔. from New York city. Fine crystals of almandine embedded in mica-schist occur near Fort Wrangell in Alaska. The coarse varieties of almandine are often crushed for use as an abrasive agent. (See Garnet.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Almack's

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​ALMACK’S, formerly the name of a famous London club and assembly rooms. The founder, known as William Almack, is usually said to have been one Macall, or McCaul, of which name Almack is an anagram. In 1764 he founded a gentlemen’s club in Pall Mall, where the present Marlborough Club stands. It was famous for its high play. In 1778 it was taken over by one Brooks, and established as Brooks’s Club in St James’s Street, where it still exists. In 1765 Almack built a suite of assembly rooms in King’s Street, St James’s. Here for a ten-guinea subscription a series of weekly balls was given for twelve weeks. They were managed by a committee of ladies of rank, and admission was exceedingly difficult. At Almack’s death in 1781 they were left to his niece Mrs Willis. As “Willis’s Rooms” they lasted till 1890, when they became a restaurant, but as “Almack’s” they ceased in 1863. Several clubs, including a mixed club for ladies and gentlemen, held meetings at Almack’s during the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries. A new London social club (1904) has also adopted the name of Almack’s.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Almagro, Diego de

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​ALMAGRO, DIEGO DE (1475–1538), Spanish commander, the companion and rival of Pizarro (q.v.), was born at Aldea del Rey in 1475. According to another account he was a foundling in the village from which he derived his name. In 1525 he joined Pizarro and Hernando de Luque at Panama in a scheme for the conquest of Peru (see Peru: History). He was executed by order of Pizarro in 1538 in consequence of a dispute as to their respective territories.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lamia

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​LAMIA, in Greek mythology, queen of Libya. She was beloved by Zeus, and when Hera robbed her of her children out of jealousy, she killed every child she could get into her power (Diod. Sic. xx. 41; Schol. Aristophanes, Pax, 757). Hence Lamia came to mean a female bogey or demon, whose name was used by Greek mothers to frighten their children; from the Greek she passed into Roman demonology. She was represented with a woman’s face and a serpent’s tail. She was also known as a sort of fiend, the prototype of the modern vampire, who in the form of a beautiful woman enticed young men to her embraces, in order that she might feed on their life and heart’s blood. In this form she appears in Goethe’s Die Braut von Corinth, and Keats’s Lamia. The name Lamia is clearly the feminine form of Lamus, king of the Laestrygones (q.v.). At some early period, or in some districts, Lamus and Lamia (both, according to some accounts, children of Poseidon) were worshipped as gods; but the names did not attain general currency. Their history is remarkably like that of the malignant class of demons in Germanic and Celtic folk-lore. Both names occur in the geographical nomenclature of Greece and Asia Minor; and it is probable that the deities belong to that religion which spread from Asia Minor over Thrace into Greece.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lammas

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​LAMMAS (O. Eng. hlammaesse, hlafmaesse, from hlaf, loaf, and maesse, mass, “loaf-mass”), originally in England the festival of the wheat harvest celebrated on the 1st of August, O.S. It was one of the old quarter-days, being equivalent to midsummer, the others being Martinmas, equivalent to Michaelmas, Candlemas (Christmas) and Whitsuntide (Easter). Some rents are still payable in England at Lammastide, and in Scotland it is generally observed, but on the 12th of August, since the alteration of the calendar in George II.’s reign. Its name was in allusion to the custom that each worshipper should present in the church a loaf made of the new wheat as an offering of the first-fruits.
A relic of the old “open-field” system of agriculture survives in the so-called “Lammas Lands.” These were lands enclosed and held in severalty during the growing of corn and grass and thrown open to pasturage during the rest of the year for those who had common rights. These commoners might be the several owners, the inhabitants of a parish, freemen of a borough, tenants of a manor, &c. The opening of the fields by throwing down the fences took place on Lammas Day (12th of August) for corn-lands and on Old Midsummer Day (6th of July) for grass. They remained open until the following Lady Day. Thus, in law, “lammas lands” belong to the several owners in fee-simple subject for half the year to the rights of pasturage of other people (Baylis v. Tyssen-Amherst, 1877, 6 Ch. D., 50).
See further F. Seebohm, The English Village Community; C. I. Elton, Commons and Waste Lands; P. Vinogradoff, Villainage in England.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lamoignon

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​LAMOIGNON, a French family, which takes its name from Lamoignon, a place said to have been in its possession since the 13th century. One of its several branches is that of Lamoignon de Malesherbes. Several of the Lamoignons have played important parts in the history of France and the family has been specially distinguished in the legal profession. Guillaume de Lamoignon (1617–1677), attained eminence as a lawyer and became president of the parlement of Paris in 1658. First on the popular, and later on the royalist side during the Fronde, he presided at the earlier sittings of the trial of Fouquet, whom he regarded as innocent, and he was associated with Colbert, whom he was able more than once to thwart. Lamoignon tried to simplify the laws of France and sought the society of men of letters like Boileau and Racine. Having received rich rewards for his public services, he died in Paris on the 10th of December 1677. Guillaume’s second son, Nicolas de Lamoignon (1648–1724), took the surname of Basville. Following his hereditary calling he filled many public offices, serving as intendant of Montauban, of Pau, of Poitiers and of Languedoc before his retirement in 1718. His administration of Languedoc was chiefly remarkable for vigorous measures against the Camisards and other Protestants, but in other directions his work in the south of France was more beneficent, as, following the example of Colbert, he encouraged agriculture and industry generally and did something towards improving the means of communication. He wrote a Mémoire, which contains much interesting information about his public work. This was published at Amsterdam in 1724. Lamoignon, who is called by Saint Simon, “the king and tyrant of Languedoc,” died in Paris on the 17th of May 1724. Chrétien François de Lamoignon (1735–1789) entered public life at an early age and was an actor in the troubles which heralded the Revolution. First on the side of the parlement and later on that of the king he was one of the assistants of Loménie de Brienne, whose unpopularity and fall he shared. He committed suicide on the 15th of May 1789.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lamettrie, Julien Offray de

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​LAMETTRIE, JULIEN OFFRAY DE (1709–1751), French physician and philosopher, the earliest of the materialistic writers of the Illumination, was born at St Malo on the 25th of December 1709. After studying theology in the Jansenist schools for some years, he suddenly decided to adopt the profession of medicine. In 1733 he went to Leiden to study under Boerhaave, and in 1742 returned to Paris, where he obtained the appointment of surgeon to the guards. During an attack of fever he made observations on himself with reference to the action of quickened circulation upon thought, which led him to the conclusion that psychical phenomena were to be accounted for as the effects of organic changes in the brain and nervous system. This conclusion he worked out in his earliest philosophical work, the Histoire naturelle de l’âme, which appeared about 1745. So great was the outcry caused by its publication that Lamettrie was forced to take refuge in Leiden, where he developed his doctrines still more boldly and completely, and with great originality, in L’Homme machine (Eng. trans., London, 1750; ed. with introd. and notes, J. Assézat, 1865), and L’Homme plante, treatises based upon principles of the most consistently materialistic character. The ethics of these principles were worked out in Discours sur le bonheur, La Volupté, and L’Art de jouir, in which the end of life is found in the pleasures of the senses, and virtue is reduced to self-love. Atheism is the only means of ensuring the happiness of the world, which has been rendered impossible by the wars brought about by theologians. The soul is only the thinking part of the body, and with the body it passes away. When death comes, the farce is over (la farce est jouée), therefore let us take our pleasure while we can. Lamettrie has been called “the Aristippus of modern materialism.” So strong was the feeling against him ​ that in 1748 he was compelled to quit Holland for Berlin, where Frederick the Great not only allowed him to practise as a physician, but appointed him court reader. He died on the 11th of November 1751. His collected Œuvres philosophiques appeared after his death in several editions, published in London, Berlin and Amsterdam respectively.
The chief authority for his life is the Éloge written by Frederick the Great (printed in Assézat’s ed. of Homme machine). In modern times Lamettrie has been judged less severely; see F. A. Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus (Eng. trans. by E. C. Thomas, ii. 1880); Nérée Quépat (i.e. René Paquet), La Mettrie, sa vie et ses œuvres (1873, with complete history of his works); J. E. Poritzky, J. O. de Lamettrie, Sein Leben und seine Werke (1900); F. Picavet, “La Mettrie et la critique allemande,” in Compte rendu des séances de l’Acad. des Sciences morales et politiques, xxxii. (1889), a reply to German rehabilitations of Lamettrie.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lamego

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​LAMEGO, a city of northern Portugal, in the district of Vizeu and formerly included in the province of Beira; 6 m. by road S. of the river Douro and 42 m. E. of Oporto. Pop. (1900) 9471. The nearest railway station is Peso da Regoa, on the opposite side of the Douro and on the Barca d’Alva-Oporto railway. Lamego is an ancient and picturesque city, in the midst of a beautiful mountain region. Its principal buildings are the 14th-century Gothic cathedral, Moorish citadel, Roman baths and a church which occupies the site of a mosque, and, though intrinsically commonplace, is celebrated in Portugal as the seat of the legendary cortes of 1143 or 1144 (see Portugal, History). The principal industries are viticulture and the rearing of swine, which furnish the so-called “Lisbon hams.” Lamego was a Moorish frontier fortress of some importance in the 9th and 10th centuries. It was captured in 1057 by Ferdinand I. of Castile and Leon.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lameth, Alexandre Théodore Victor, Comte de

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​LAMETH, ALEXANDRE THÉODORE VICTOR, Comte de (1760–1829), French soldier and politician, was born in Paris on the 20th of October 1760. He served in the American War of Independence under Rochambeau, and in 1789 was sent as deputy to the States General by the nobles of the bailliage of Péronne. In the Constituent Assembly he formed with Barnave and Adrien Duport a sort of association called the “Triumvirate,” which controlled a group of about forty deputies forming the advanced left of the Assembly. He presented a famous report in the Constituent Assembly on the organization of the army, but is better known by his eloquent speech on the 28th of February 1791, at the Jacobin Club, against Mirabeau, whose relations with the court were beginning to be suspected, and who was a personal enemy of Lameth. However, after the flight of the king to Varennes, Lameth became reconciled with the court. He served in the army as maréchal-de-camp under Luckner and Lafayette, but was accused of treason on the 15th of August 1792, fled the country, and was imprisoned by the Austrians. After his release he engaged in commerce at Hamburg with his brother Charles and the duc d’Aiguillon, and did not return to France until the Consulate. Under the Empire he was made prefect successively in several departments, and in 1810 was created a baron. In 1814 he attached himself to the Bourbons, and under the Restoration was appointed prefect of Somme, deputy for Seine-Inférieure and finally deputy for Seine-et-Oise, in which capacity he was a leader of the Liberal opposition. He died in Paris on the 18th of March 1829. He was the author of an important History of the Constituent Assembly (Paris, 2 vols., 1828–1829).
Of his two brothers, Théodore Lameth (1756–1854) served in the American war, sat in the Legislative Assembly as deputy from the department of Jura, and became maréchal-de-camp; and Charles Malo François Lameth (1757–1832), who also served in America, was deputy to the States General of 1789, but emigrated early in the Revolution, returned to France under the Consulate, and was appointed governor of Würzburg under the Empire. Like Alexandre, Charles joined the Bourbons, succeeding Alexandre as deputy in 1829.
See F. A. Aulard, Les Orateurs de l’Assemblée Constituante (Paris, 1905); also M. Tourneux, Bibliog. de l’histoire de Paris (vol. iv., 1906, s.v. “Lameth”).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Fit

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​FIT, a word with several meanings. (1) A portion or division of a poem, a canto, in this sense often spelled “fytte.” (2) A sudden but temporary seizure or attack of illness, particularly one with convulsive paroxysms accompanied by unconsciousness, especially an attack of apoplexy or epilepsy, but also applied to a transitory attack of gout, of coughing, fainting, &c., also of an outburst of tears, of merriment or of temper. In a transferred sense, the word is also used of any temporary or irregular periods of action or inaction, and hence in such expressions as “by fits and starts.” (3) As an adjective, meaning suitable, proper, becoming, often with the idea of having necessary qualifications for a specific purpose, “a fit and proper person”; and also as prepared for, or in a good condition for, any enterprise. The verb “to fit” is thus used intransitively and transitively, to be adapted for, to suit, particularly to be of the right measurement or shape, of a dress, of parts of a mechanism, &c., and to make or render a thing in such a condition. Hence the word is used as a substantive.
The etymology of the word is difficult; the word may be one in origin, or may be a homonymous term, one in sound and spelling but with different origin in each different meaning. In Skeat’s Etymological Dictionary (ed. 1898) (1) and (2) are connected and derived from the root of “foot,” which appears in Lat. pes, pedis. The evolution of the word is: step, a part of a poem, a struggle, a seizure. (3) A word of Scandinavian origin, with the idea of “knitted together” (cf. Ice. fitja, to knit together, Goth, fetjan, to adorn); the ultimate origin is a Teutonic root meaning to seize (cf. “fetch”). The New English Dictionary suggests that this last root may be the origin of all the words, and that the underlying meaning is junction, meeting; the early use of “fit” (2) is that of conflict. It is also pointed out that the meanings of “fit,” suitable, proper, have been modified by “feat,” which comes through Fr. fait, from Lat. factum, facere, to do, make.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Fitchburg

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​FITCHBURG, a city and one of the county-seats of Worcester county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., situated, at an altitude varying from about 433 ft. to about 550 ft., about 23 m. N. of Worcester and about 45 m. W.N.W. of Boston. Pop. (1880) 12,429; (1890) 22,037; (1900) 31,531, of whom 10,917 were foreign-born, including 4063 French Canadians, 836 English Canadians, 2306 Irish and 963 Finns; (1910 census) 37,826. Fitchburg is traversed by the N. branch of the Nashua river, and is served by the Boston & Maine, and the New York, New Haven & Hartford railways, and by three interurban electric lines. The city area (27.7 sq.m.) is well watered, and is very uneven, with hill spurs running in all directions, affording picturesque scenery. The court house and the post office (in a park presented by the citizens) are the principal public buildings. Fitchburg is the seat of a state normal school (1895), with model and training schools; has a free public library (1859; in the Wallace library and art building), the Burbank hospital, the Fitchburg home for old ladies, and an extensive system of parks, in one of which is a fine fountain, designed by Herbert Adams. Fitchburg has large mercantile and financial interests, but manufacturing is the principal industry. The principal manufactures are paper and wood pulp, cotton and woollen goods, yarn and silk, machinery, saws, horn goods, and bicycles and firearms (the Iver Johnson Arms and Cycle Works being located here). In 1905 the city’s total factory product was valued at $15,390,507, of which $3,019,118 was the value of the paper and wood pulp product, $2,910,572 was the value of the cotton goods, and $1,202,421 was the value of the foundry and machine shop products. The municipality owns and operates its (gravity) water works system. Fitchburg was included in Lunenburg until 1764, when it was incorporated as a township and was ​named in honour of John Fitch, a citizen who did much to secure incorporation; it was chartered as a city in 1872.
See W. A. Emerson, Fitchburg, Massachusetts, Past and Present (Fitchburg, 1887).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Fittig, Rudolf

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​FITTIG, RUDOLF (1835– ), German chemist, was born at Hamburg on the 6th of December 1835. He studied chemistry at Göttingen, graduating as Ph.D. with a dissertation on acetone in 1858. He subsequently held several appointments at Göttingen, being privat docent (1860), and extraordinary professor (1870). In 1870 he obtained the chair at Tübingen, and in 1876 that at Strassburg, where the laboratories were erected from his designs. Fittig’s researches are entirely in organic chemistry, and cover an exceptionally wide field. The aldehydes and ketones provided material for his earlier work. He observed that aldehydes and ketones may suffer reduction in neutral, alkaline, and sometimes acid solution to secondary and tertiary glycols, substances which he named pinacones; and also that certain pinacones when distilled with dilute sulphuric acid gave compounds, which he named pinacolines. The unsaturated acids, also received much attention, and he discovered the internal anhydrides of oxyacids, termed lactones. In 1863 he introduced the reaction known by his name. In 1855 Adolph Wurtz had shown that when sodium acted upon alkyl iodides, the alkyl residues combined to form more complex hydrocarbons; Fittig developed this method by showing that a mixture of an aromatic and alkyl haloid, under similar treatment, yielded homologues of benzene. His investigations on Perkin’s reaction led him to an explanation of its mechanism which appeared to be more in accordance with the facts. The question, however, is one of much difficulty, and the exact course of the reaction appears to await solution. These researches incidentally solved the constitution of coumarin, the odoriferous principle of woodruff. Fittig and Erdmann’s observation that phenyl isocrotonic acid readily yielded α-naphthol by loss of water was of much importance, since it afforded valuable evidence as to the constitution of naphthalene. They also investigated certain hydrocarbons occurring in the high boiling point fraction of the coal tar distillate and solved the constitution of phenanthrene. We also owe much of our knowledge of the alkaloid piperine to Fittig, who in collaboration with Ira Remsen established its constitution in 1871. Fittig has published two widely used text-books; he edited several editions of Wohler’s Grundriss der organischen Chemie (11th ed., 1887) and wrote an Unorganische Chemie (1st ed., 1872; 3rd, 1882). His researches have been recognized by many scientific societies and institutions, the Royal Society awarding him the Davy medal in 1906.