LIN 



LI1S 



called the line of the true syzygies : but a 

 right line imagined to pass through the 

 earth's centre, and the mean place of the 

 sun, is called the line of the mean syzy- 

 gies. 



LINK, in genealogy, a series or succes- 

 sion of relations in various degrees, all de- 

 scending from the same common father. 

 Direct line, is that which goes from father 

 to son ; being the order of ascendants 

 and descendants. Collateral line, is the 

 order of those who descend from some 

 common father related to the former, but 

 out of the line of ascendants and descend- 

 ants : in this are placed uncles, aunts, 

 cousins, nephews, &c. 



LINE was also formerly a French mea- 

 sure, containing the twelfth part of an 

 inch, or the hundred and forty-fourth part 

 of a foot. Geometricians conceive the 

 line, notwithstanding its smallness, to be 

 subdivided into six points. 



LINES, in music, the name of those 

 strokes drawn horizontally on a piece of 

 paper, on and between which the cha- 

 racters and notes of music are disposed : 

 their number is commonly five ; when 

 another is added, for one, two, or more 

 notes, it is called a ledger-line. 



LINES, in heraldry, the figures used in 

 armories, to divide 'the shield into differ- 

 ent parts, and to compose different 

 figures. These lines, according to their 

 different forms and names, give denomi- 

 nation to the pieces or figures which they 

 form, except the straight or plain lines. 



LINE All members, in mathematics, such 

 as have relation to length only ; such is a 

 number which represents one side of a 

 plane figure. If the plane figure be a 

 square, the linear number is called a 

 root. 



LINEAR problem, that which may be 

 solved geometrically, by the intersection 

 of two right lines. This is called a sim- 

 ple problem, and is capable but of one 

 solution. 



LINEN, in commerce. The linen ma- 

 nufacture was probably introduced in- 

 to Britain with the first settlements of 

 the Romans. The flax was certainly first 

 planted by that nation in the British soil. 

 The plant itself indeed appears to have 

 been originally a native of the east. The 

 woollen-drapery would naturally be prior 

 in its origin to the linen, and the fibrous 

 plants from which the threads of the lat- 

 ter are produced, seem to have been first 

 noticed and worked by the inhabitants of 

 Egypt. In Egypt, indeed, the linen ma- 

 nufacture appears to have been very ear- 

 ly ; for even in Joseph's time it had risen 

 to a considerable height. From the 



Egyptians live knowledge of it proceed- 

 ed probably to tiie Greeks, and from 

 them to the ] tomans. Even at this day 

 the flax is imported among us from the 

 eastern nations; the western kind being" 

 merely a degenerate species of it. In 

 order to succeed in the linen manufac- 

 ture, one set of people should be confin- 

 ed to the ploughing and preparing 1 the 

 soil, sowing and covering the seed, to the 

 weeding, pulling, rippling, and taking- 

 care of the new seed, and watering and 

 dressing the flax till it is lodged at home : 

 others should be concerned in the dry- 

 ing, breaking, scutching, and heckling 

 the flax, to fit it for the spinners ; and 

 others in spinning and reeling it, to fit it 

 for the weaver: others should be con- 

 cerned in taking due care of the weaving, 

 bleaching, beetling, and finishing the 

 cloth for the market. It is reasonable to 

 believe, that if these several branches of 

 the manufacture were carried on by dis- 

 tinct dealers in Scotland and Ireland, 

 where our home-made linens are manu- 

 factured, the several parts would be bet- 

 ter executed, and the whole would be af- 

 forded cheaper, and with greater profit. 



LING, in ichthyology, the cirrated ga- 

 dus with two black fins, and with the up- 

 per jaw longest ; a fish called by authors 

 asellus longus. See GADUS. 



LINGUATALA, in natural history, a 

 genus of the Vermes Intestina class and 

 order. Body depressed, oblong ; mouth 

 placed before, surrounded with four pas- 

 sages. There is but a single species, i'i-. 

 L. serrata, inhabiting the lungs of tho 

 hare. 



LINGUIFORM, in Nat. Hist, tongue- 

 shaped ; linear, with the extremity ob - 

 tusely rounded. 



LINNJEA, in botany, so named in ho- 

 nour of the celebrated Linnxus, a genus 

 of the Didjmamia Angiospermia class and 

 order. Natural order of Aggregate. Ca- 

 prifolise, Jussieu. Essential character : 

 calyx double, of the fruit two-leaved, of 

 the flower five-parted, superior ; corolla 

 bell-shaped berry dry, three-celled. 

 There is but one species, viz. L. borealis, 

 two-flowered linnxa, a native of the north 

 of Europe. 



LINNJSUS, CHAHLES, (Carl von Linne) 

 the most eminent naturalist of this age, 

 and the founder of modern botany, was 

 born in 1707, at Rashult, in the province 

 of Smaland, in Sweden, where his father 

 resided as assistant minister to the parish 

 of Stenbrohult. The father, Nils, who 

 was the son of a peasant named Bengtson, 

 had, on going into orders, assumed the 

 name of Linnseus, which was therefore the. 



