LICHENS 



3406 



LICK OBSERVATORY 



made the United States prohibition territory 

 after January 16, 1920, thus placing liquor be- 

 yond license. 



LICHENS, li'kenz, strange and beautiful 

 flowerless plant formations which, needing no 

 soil, grow on and adorn bare rocks, tree stumps 



REINDEER LICHENS 



and waste places. They are usually dry, and 

 most of them crumble easily when touched. 

 Ruskin describes them as 



Meek creatures ; the first mercy of the earth, 

 veiling with hushed softness its dustless rocks ; 

 creatures full of pity, covering with strange and 

 tender honour the scarred disgrace of time. 



Lichens of gray, yellow, brown, greenish, 

 blue or black color are found the world over, 

 from the frozen north to the tropical south, 

 from the beaches to loftiest mountain peaks. 

 Probably 4,000 species have already been de- 

 scribed. 



Lichens are combinations of algae and fungi 

 (see ALGAE; FUNGI). In this unique plant-part- 

 nership the alga furnishes the food and the 

 fungus protects the alga from the sun's rays 

 and absorbs water for its companion. Lichens 

 have neither roots, stems nor leaves, but have 

 layers of variously-shaped expansions called 

 thalli. According to structure they are classed 

 as foliose, or leaflike, the kind which creeps 

 over fence-rails; crustaceans, or shell-like, the 

 form which paints big rocks with delicate pat- 

 terns in grays and greens; and fruticose, or 

 shrublike, that class which, mosslike, beards 

 trees, or clusters on barren ground. 



According to one accepted theory of lichen 

 growth, a fungus spore is carried on the winds 

 and finally lodges on a group of alga cells 

 with which it can live. Both spore and cells 

 continue to grow, thrive and reproduce. Be- 

 ing so constructed that all they, need for sur- 

 vival is the moisture they can gather from the 

 air, lichens can thrive where every other form 

 of vegetation must perish. 



Uses. Lichens not only make their chosen 

 places of abode more beautiful, but they help 

 pave the way for other forms of life. Growing 

 as they do upon exposed rocks and in barren 

 soil, they secrete an acid which dissolves the 

 rock and softens the soil, and in time when 

 they decay and mix with the soil, they enrich 

 it so that more highly-developed plants can 

 grow there. 



Some lichens containing quantities of starch 

 are valuable articles of food for man and beast. 

 Iceland moss and reindeer lichen, which grow 

 abundantly in Northern regions, not only form 

 the principal food for reindeer, but both have 

 been used as food for man. The manna of 

 Scripture is supposed to have been a species 

 of lichen. Some species furnish dyes, one of 

 the best-known of these being the litmus of 

 commerce, so extensively used in chemistry 

 (see LITMUS). Years ago lichens were used as 

 drugs. E.D.F. 



LICK OBSERVATORY, an observatory con- 

 ducted by the department of astronomy of the 

 University of California, is on Mount Hamil- 

 ton, of the Coast Range, 4,285 feet elevation. 

 The observatory is about twenty-six miles east 



LICK OBSERVATORY 



of San Jose and was completed in 1888. It 

 was named for James Lick, a California mil- 

 lionaire, who left the sum of $700,000 for its 

 erection and equipment (see below). The 

 telescope is the second largest one in the 

 world, with a refracting lens of thirty-six inches 

 and a focal length of over fifty-six feet. It is 

 only surpassed by the forty-inch telescope of 

 the Yerkes Observatory at Lake Geneva, near 

 Chicago. The dome and observation platform 

 are moved by water power, and the telescope 

 tube has a point of suspension thirty-six feet 

 from the floor. Among its modern appliances 



