LLOYD'S LONDON EXCHANGE
1105
LOCK
the hair of the llama is coarse and rough and suitable only for making string and very coarse fabrics. It is supposed to be descended from the wild guanaco, but has been domesticated for centuries. It is about three feet high at the shoulders. It is capable of carrying 100 to 200 pounds six to 12 miles a day. The males only are used as transport animals. If treated well, they are willing and docile. They gather their own food, are hardy, can travel over places too rough and steep for any other burden-bearing animal. If overloaded, they will lie down and refuse to move. When disturbed, they spit a ball of food and saliva with considerable force at their tormentor. Formerly they were used for transporting silver from the mines toward the seaboard and bringing back the necessaries of life. They are now being replaced by mules.
Lloyd=George, David, chancellor of the British exchequer (1908- ), was born in Manchester in 1863. His father was a school teacher. He is generally regarded as one of the greatest constructive statesmen in England's history. His epoch-making budget of 1909 shifted the tax burden from the poor to the rich and in 1911 came his National Insurance Act. This provides for unemployment benefits in certain trades up to 75 a week for not more than 15 weeks a year, out of an unemployment fund created by compulsory contributions of workmen, their employers and the nation. Similar provision is made for a health insurance fund. (See INSURANCE.) Lloyd-George was admitted a solicitor at 21 and in seven years had built up one of the largest practices in Wales. His oratorical powers are remarkable.
Lloyd's, London Exchange. An association of individuals and corporations engaged in the insurance (q. v.) business. It takes its name from a coffee house kept by Edward Lloyd in the iyth century, where persons interested in shipping and the insurance of marine risks collected. Originally devoted to marine insurance only, "Lloyd's" is now the source of insurance for an extraordinarily wide variety of risks, including almost any event against which one may wish to protect himself, such as insurance by tradesmen against bad weather on any great public occasion. The Exchange as an organization does not insure. When a risk is proposed it is passed around among the members and each decides the amount of the risk he will undertake. The aggregate value of property insured at "Lloyd's" annually amounts to over $2,000,-000,000. It maintains an enormous organization for the collection and distribution of shipping news.
Load'stone. See MAGNET.
Loan'da, St. Paul de, chief town of the Portuguese possession of Angola, on the west coast of Africa, lies on a small bay, 210 miles south of the mouth of the Kongo. The harbor is sanding up, so that vessels
lie one and a fourth miles from shore ta load and unload. In 1888 a railroad was projected and is now constructed from Loanda to Ambaca, 140 miles inland. Its exports embrace rum, coffee, wax, india-rubber and cocoa-nut. Population over 23,000, of whom 2,500 are European.
Lob'ster, a large crustacean living in salt water and resembling the crayfish in form. It is of a blue and greenish color, which turns red on boiling, and it usually is seen in the market in this condition. Lobsters are very important as food, the market-value of those handled in Boston for a single year being more than three and one half million dollars. They are protected by law, and reared artificially by the United States Pish-Commission. Those under six inches in length are not allowed to be taken by fishermen. Those commonly taken vary in weight from below a pound to three or four pounds. One weighing four pounds is rather rare and considered large, but monsters have been caught weighing as much as 39 pounds. Except that they are larger, they resemble the crayfish in form and structure. The head and thorax are covered by a buckler-like expanse of shell (carapace), while the abdomen is composed of six articulated joints or segments. They breathe by 20 pairs of feather-like gills, in-closed on each side of the body under the carapace. They have long antennae and prominent eyes. The front pair of legs ends in large powerful claws. One is blunt and used for anchoring, the other sharper and used for grasping food. Behind these are four pairs of walking-legs, the first two pairs of which also end in claws. Each joint of the abdomen has a pair of swim-merets, and the hind one has expanded plates which aid the animal in swimming backward. The female lays several thousand eggs, attached by a sort of glue to the swimmerets. These hatch into very small larval forms which are free-swimming. These grow and molt many times, and cease to be free-swimming. After becoming mature, they continue to molt or change the shell once a year. They are caught in a pot or trap baited with dead fish or decaying meat. See Herrick's The American Lobster, published by the United States Government.
Loch'invar', a favorite Scottish ballad, occurs in Scott's Marmion. The gallant young hero of the ballad, Lochinvar, comes to dance at the wedding of the maid whom he loves. He dances with the bride, whispers a word in her ear, and swings her to his saddle as they pass the door. Then follows an exciting and romantic ride, in which the young lovers make good their escape from, a furious pursuit.
Lock, an arrangement for fastening doors, drawers and other places which require a key or some other contrivance to open it.
