engagements. The management of the establishment is delegated by the members to certain of their number selected as a “committee for managing the affairs of Lloyd’s.” With this body lies the appointment of all the officials and agents of the institution, the daily routine of duty being entrusted to a secretary and a large staff of clerks and other assistants. The mode employed in effecting an insurance at Lloyd’s is simple. The business is done entirely by brokers, who write upon a slip of paper the name of the ship and shipmaster, the nature of the voyage, the subject to be insured, and the amount at which it is valued. If the risk is accepted, each underwriter subscribes his name and the amount he agrees to take or underwrite, the insurance being effected as soon as the total value is made up.
See F. Martin, History of Lloyd’s and of Marine Insurance in Great Britain (1876).
LLWYD, EDWARD (1660–1709), British naturalist and
antiquary, was born in Cardiganshire in 1660. He was educated
at Jesus College, Oxford, but did not graduate; he received the
degree of M.A. however in 1701. In 1690, after serving for six
years as assistant, he succeeded R. Plot as keeper of the Ashmolean
museum, a position which he retained until 1709. In 1699 he
published Lithophylacii Britannici Ichnographia, in which he
described and figured various fossils, personally collected or
received from his friends, and these were arranged in cabinets in
the museum. They were obtained from many parts of England,
but mostly from the neighbourhood of Oxford. A second edition
was prepared by Llwyd, but not published until 1760. He issued
in 1707 the first volume of Archaeologia Britannica (afterwards
discontinued). He was elected F.R.S. in 1708. He died at
Oxford on the 30th of June 1709.
LOACH. The fish known as loaches (Cobitinae) form a very
distinct subfamily of the Cyprinidae, and are even regarded
by some authors as constituting a family. Characters: Barbels,
three to six pairs; pharyngeal teeth in one row, in moderate
number; anterior part of the air-bladder divided into a right
and left chamber, separated by a constriction, and enclosed in a
bony capsule, the posterior part free or absent. They are more
or less elongate in form, often eel-shaped, and naked or covered
with minute scales. Most of the species are small, the largest
known measuring 12 (the European Misgurnus fossilis), 13 (the
Chinese Botia variegata), or 14 in. (the Central Asian Nemachilus
siluroides). They mostly live in small streams and ponds, and
many are mountain forms. They are almost entirely confined
to Europe and Asia, but one species (Nemachilus abyssinicus)
has recently been discovered in Abyssinia. About 120 species
are known, mostly from Central and South-Eastern Asia. Only
two species occur in Great Britain: the common Nemachilus
barbatulus and the rarer and more local Cobitis taenia. The latter
extends across Europe and Asia to Japan. Many of these fishes
delight in the mud at the bottom of ponds, in which they move
like eels. In some cases the branchial respiration appears to be
insufficient, and the intestinal tract acts as an accessory breathing
organ. The air-bladder may be so reduced as to lose its hydrostatic
function and become subservient to a sensory organ, its
outer exposed surface being connected with the skin by a meatus
between the bands of muscle, and conveying the thermo-barometrical
impressions to the auditory nerves. Loaches are
known in some parts of Germany as “Wetterfisch.”
LOAD; LODE. The O.E. lád, from which both these words
are derived, meant “way,” “journey,” “conveyance,” and
is cognate with Ger. Leite. The Teutonic root is also seen
in the O. Teut. laidjan, Ger. leiten, from which comes “to lead.”
The meanings of the word have been influenced by a supposed
connexion with “lade,” O.E. hladan, a word common
to many old branches of Teutonic languages in the sense
of “to place,” but used in English principally of the placing
of cargo in a ship, hence “bill of lading,” and of emptying
liquor or fluid out of one vessel into another; it is from the
word in this sense that is derived “ladle,” a large spoon or cup-like
pan with a long handle. The two words, though etymologically
one, have been differentiated in meaning, the influence
of the connexion with “lade” being more marked in “load”
than in “lode,” a vein of metal ore, in which the original meaning
of “way” is clearly marked. A “load” was originally a
“carriage,” and its Latin equivalent in the Promptorium Parvulorum
is vectura. From that it passed to that which is laid on an
animal or vehicle, and so, as an amount usually carried, the
word was used of a specific quantity of anything, a unit of weight,
varying with the locality and the commodity. A “load” of
wheat = 40 bushels, of hay = 36 trusses. Other meanings of
“load” are: in electricity, the power which an engine or dynamo
has to furnish; and in engineering, the weight to be supported by
a structure, the “permanent load” being the weight of the
structure itself, the “external load” that of anything which
may be placed upon it.
LOAF, properly the mass of bread made at one baking, hence
the smaller portions into which the bread is divided for retailing.
These are of uniform size (see Baking) and are named according
to shape (“tin loaf,” “cottage loaf,” &c.), weight (“quartern
loaf,” &c.), or quality of flour (“brown loaf,” &c.). “Loaf,”
O.E. hláf, is a word common to Teutonic languages; cf. Ger.
Laib, or Leib, Dan. lev, Goth, hlaifs; similar words with the
same meaning are found in Russian, Finnish and Lettish, but
these may have been adapted from Teutonic. The ultimate
origin is unknown, and it is uncertain whether “bread” (q.v.)
or “loaf” is the earlier in usage. The O.E. hláf is seen in
“Lammas” and in “lord,” i.e. hlaford for hlafweard, the loaf-keeper,
or “bread-warder”; cf. the O.E. word for a household
servant hláf-æta, loaf-eater. The Late Lat. companio, one who
shares, panis, bread, Eng. “companion,” was probably an
adaptation of the Goth, gahlaiba, O.H. Ger. gileipo, messmate,
comrade. The word “loaf” is also used in sugar manufacture,
and is applied to sugar shaped in a mass like a cone, a “sugar-loaf,”
and to the small knobs into which refined sugar is cut, or
“loaf-sugar.”
The etymology of the verb “to loaf,” i.e. to idle, lounge about, and the substantive “loafer,” an idler, a lazy vagabond, has been much discussed. R. H. Dana (Two Years before the Mast, 1840) called the word “a newly invented Yankee word.” J. R. Lowell (Biglow Papers, 2nd series, Introd.) explains it as German in origin, and connects it with laufen, to run, and states that the dialectical form lofen is used in the sense of “saunter up and down.” This explanation has been generally accepted. The New English Dictionary rejects it, however, and states that laufen is not used in this sense, but points out that the German Landläufer, the English obsolete word “landlouper,” or “landloper,” one who wanders about the country, a vagrant or vagabond, has a resemblance in meaning. J. S. Farmer and W. E. Henley’s Dictionary of Slang and its Analogues gives as French synonyms of “loafer,” chevalier de la loupe and loupeur.
LOAM (O.E. lám; the word appears in Dut. leem and Ger.
Lehm; the ultimate origin is the root lai-, meaning “to be
sticky,” which is seen in the cognate “lime,” Lat. limus, mud,
clay), a fertile soil composed of a mixture of sand, clay, and
decomposed vegetable matter, the quantity of sand being
sufficient to prevent the clay massing together. The word is
also used of a mixture of sand, clay and straw, used for making
casting-moulds and bricks, and for plastering walls, &c. (see
Soil).
LOAN (adapted from the Scandinavian form of a word common
to Teutonic languages, cf. Swed. lån, Icel. lán, Dut. leen; the O.E.
laén appears in “lend,” the ultimate source is seen in the root
of Gr. λείπειν and Lat. linquere, to leave), that which is lent; a
sum of money or something of value lent for a specific or indefinite
period when it or its equivalent is to be repaid or returned,
usually at a specified rate of interest (see Usury and Money-Lending).
For public loans see Finance, National Debt,
and the various sections on finance under the names of the
various countries.
LOANDA (São Paulo de Loanda), a seaport of West Africa,
capital of the Portuguese province of Angola, situated in 8° 48′ S.,
13° 7′ E., on a bay between the rivers Bango and Kwanza. The
bay, protected from the surf by a long narrow island of sand, is
backed by a low sandy cliff which at its southern end sweeps out
with a sharp curve and terminates in a bold point crowned by
Fort San Miguel. The depth of water at the entrance to the bay
is 20 fathoms or more. The bay has silted up considerably, but
