LAND AND SEA BREEZES 



the Deacon who built Oliver Wendell Holmes' 

 Wonderful One-Horse Shay 



Sent for lancewood to make the thills. 

 Lancewood is light yellow in color, and re- 

 sembles boxwood. 



LAND AND SEA BREEZES are the shove 

 breezes which ' blow alternately from sea to 

 hind and from land to sea in warm climates, 

 and in temperate regions in summer. During 

 the day, as the land grows warmer the air 

 pressure becomes low r er and the air rushes in 

 from the sea, which for the most part remains 

 at the same temperature, and during the day 

 is usually much cooler than the land. This 

 breeze usually continues from noon into the 

 night, when the land cools rapidly. The at- 

 mospheric conditions are then reversed ; the 

 warmer ocean, being the area of atmosphere of 

 low pressure, receives the breeze from the 

 cooler land. This breeze lasts until the mid- 

 dle of the morning, when it dies, and the 

 calmer part of the day sets in, because the 

 temperature of the land and the sea are about 

 the same for several hours. 



These breezes are sometimes noticeable ten 

 miles inland, although two or three miles is 

 as far as they usually penetrate. Land and 

 sea breezes occur daily in the tropics, but are 

 not invariable in temperate regions. Similar 

 breezes blow on the shores of the Great Lakes. 

 See WIND. 



LAND CRAB, the name given to any sort 

 of crab which lives on land. There are a 

 number of such species, and they almost ex- 

 actly resemble common crabs. In spite of 

 living on dry land, these crabs breathe by 



gills, but they are provided with a moisture 

 chamber lined with spongy membrane which 

 keeps the gills damp indefinitely. Land crabs 

 are found in the warmer countries of both 

 hemispheres, burrowing beneath rocks, roots 

 or in the sand during the day, and coming out 

 only at night, except in rainy weather. All 

 land crabs carry their eggs to the water, and 

 at the beginning of the rainy season in May 



:;:;o: LANDS 



i he migration to the sea begins. The male 

 crabs start the march and are followed in two 

 or three days by the females. They have an 

 annoying habit of refusing to turn from their 

 path and of walking straight through, or under, 

 a house, where such a feat is possible. In 

 tropical countries the rattling of land crabs 

 over the floor at night is a common sound. 

 Several species are edible; in Jamaica they are 

 M regular article of food for the natives, but 

 are disliked by the whites. The most common 

 are the black crab, or mountain crab, of the 

 West Indies, and the white crab of Jamaica. 



LANDOR, lan'dawr, WALTER SAVAGE (1775- 

 1864), a graceful and forceful English writer, 

 whose fame rests chiefly on his dialogue essays 

 Imaginary Conversations between ancient and 

 modern celebrities, He studied at Rugby and 

 Oxford, but was expelled from both institutions 

 for unruliness. He published a small volume 

 of poems in 1795 and a long poem, Gebir, in 

 1798. The latter was afterwards translated 

 into Latin. Among his other poetical works 

 are Simonides; Count Julian, Hellenics; and 

 Collected Poeitis. His prose works include 

 /'(rides and Aspasia ; The Lost Fruit Off an 

 Old Tree; Dry Sticks Fagoted, and others. 



LANDS, PUBLIC. Parts of the national do- 

 main still under the ownership and control of 

 the government, but held for future sale or 

 other disposal are called public lands. Liter- 

 ally the term includes all lands owned by the 

 government; in common use, however, it is 

 applied only to land intended for development 

 or settlement, not to forest reserves (see FOR- 

 ESTS AND FORESTRY) and other restricted areas. 



In the United States. The public lands of 

 the United States were acquired by cessions 

 from the states and by purchase and conquest 

 from the Indians and from foreign nations. 

 In 1781, when the Confederation was organized, 

 the new government found itself the owner of 

 Xew York's claim to certain lands between 

 the Alleghany Mountains and the Mississippi 

 River. Between that date and 1802, when 

 Georgia relinquished its claims, all the At- 

 lantic coast states surrendered to the national 

 government the western lands which they 

 claimed under their colonial charters. Con- 

 necticut and several other states reserved a few 

 sections for the assistance of the Revolutionary 

 War veterans and for similar purposes, but 

 these areas were comparatively small. In 1803 

 the national domain was doubled by the 

 Louisiana Purchase, which added more than 

 1,000,000 square miles, if Oregon is included 



