Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 12.djvu/476

LOMONOSOFF. 422 LONDON. appointed ailjunct in cliomistry and physics (1742), and professor of tlicniistry in 174.'). His first sucoessful verse was his Ode on the Capture of lihotin (1731J), which lie sent from abroad, along with a Letter on the Kulcs of 'Sew Russian Versificatimi. He left numerous odes, epiij;rams, dramas, etc., mostly in the pseudo-classical style ; his importance in Russian poetry is due to the new versification he introduced, liis greatest ser- vices to Kussia lie in the sphere of philolog;v: his Russian (Irummar (1755), an essay on Tlic Im- portance of I^cclesinst irtil liooks' for the Uussian Tongue (1755), and his I'hctoric (1748) have laid down the very foundations of the latter-day Kussian by drawing a distinct line of demarca- tion between Kussian and Cluirch Slavonic. For this he is deservedly called 'the father of new Russian literature.' The best edition of LomonosofT's works is that of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, with a coni- nientary Ijy the Academician Sukhomlinotr. Only four volumes have appeared (Saint Petersburg, 1891-08). The best biography is by Pekarski in his llistoni of the Academy of Sciences, vol. ii. (Saint Petersburg, 1873). LOMZA, lom'zha. A small government of Russian Poland, bounded on the north by Prus- sia; area, about 4079 square miles. Its surface is mostly flat and partly marshy and to some extent covered with forests. It is watered by the Narev and the Bug and has a moderate cli- mate. Agriculture engages the attention of most of the inhabitants. Population, in 1897, 585,781, composed principally of Poles and .Tews. LOMZA. The capital of the government of the same name, situated on the Narev, an affluent of the Bug, 96 miles northeast of Warsaw. It has <a gj'mnasium, a theatre, and Goveninicnt buildings (Map: Russia, B 4). Its industrial .activity is on a small scale. Populatinn, in 1897, 21,400, chielly Poles and Jews. Lomza ex- isted as early as the tenth century, and was a place of considerable commercial importance in the sixteenth century. LONDON, Inn'don (British Lunddtjn, or lAin- dcin ; Saxon l.undon, Liindonc. and other forms; in Tacitus and other Latin writers, Londinium, and Lundinum. Various derivations have been as- signed to the name, among which is the old Brit- ish lyn-. lake, and din. town, a landing-jilace; 'as until recent dates, the south side of the river was often a lake in sonic parts and a swamp in others, the name might easily hi' changed from Ijyndin to London and be dcscrijitivo of its local position'). The capital of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the largest city in the world. It is situated at the head of tidewater on the river Thames, where in the days before the Roman occupancy there was a conven- ient crossing place, the swamps on the south and the forests on the north being so situated as naturally to cause the northern and soiithern routes to converge upon this crossing, with the result that a thriving town or trading point was developed. The parallel of latitude of 51° .30' N. bisects the city. London occupies both banks of the Thames River about 50 miles above its estuary, the river, spanned by numerous fine bridges, flowing through the more southern part of the city with sluggish current and in long, winding reaches, its breadth being from 600 to 900 feet. Below London the land adjoining the Tliaiiies is flat, low, and marshy; and the site of the city, wlio.se special characteristic on the left or northern bank of the Thames is that of a gently undulating plain, is the first upland above the estuary, and a particularly healthful and favorable position for urban development. Most of the city stands upon the sands and gravels of the glacial epoch, which are underlaid by the London clay that outcrops in some localities. The Fleet River and all the other streams that reached the Thames within the present city limits have disappeared in the .sewerage system of the metropolis. Many factors have contributed to make the greatness of London and its supremacy in the trade of the world. In the course of some cen- turies, and particularly of the last century, the Thames was deepened and provided with aile(|iiatc dockage, so that the port of London was made available to the largest shipping of the world. From its docks extends an unsurjias.sed waterway by river and sea to all the coasts of Northwest and West Europe, always one of the most impor- tant elements in the trade of Great Britain. Its southerly maritime position, in the best-developed part of the British Islands, gave it the mastery both in the home and foreign trade ; and from the time when Alfred the (ireat made London the capital of his kingdom, it became the great centre of British social and political interests. With the growth of its world-wide business relations and the greater intensity of its industrial activ- i. ity the centrifugal tendency of its population in- ■ creased. In 1888 London was politically re- ii stricted to London County, made up of parts of JMiddlesex, Surrey, and Kent, covering an area of 118 square miles, and for administrative pur- poses, besides the nucleus known as the City of London, was divided into the metro])olitau boroughs of Battcrsea, Bethnal Cireen, Camber- well, Chelsea, Deptford, Finsburv. Fiilliam, Greenwich, Hackney, Hamniersmitli. Ilampstead, Holborn, Islington, Kensington. Lambetli, Lewis- ham, Marylebone. Paddiiigton, Saint Pancras, Poplar, Shoreditch, Southwark Fast, South- ^ wark West, Ste]mey, Stoke Newington. 'ands- worth, Westminster, and Woolwich. Jlost of these, formerly villages and suburbs of historical in- terest, are treated under separate titles, to which refer. But many square miles of houses had already been added to the outer edge of this dis- trict ; the market-roads leading into the city were streets lined with bouses; suburb after suburb became merged with the city by the building operations that overtook and passed beyond them. Thvis the large towns of Edmonton, Enlicld, Hornsey, Tottenham, and Willcsdcn in Middlesex, Croydon and Wimbledon in Surrey, and East and West Ham, Ilford, and Walthamstow in Cssex (qq.v.), ranging in 1901 from 40,000 to over 260,000 population, and scores of smaller places, practically lost their identity, because they be- came merely parts of the one great urban aggre- gate. London County and these wide-spreading ac- cretions on all sides of it form Greater London. This area, which is accurately defined by the boundaries embracing the Metropolitan and City of London police districts, covers an area of 693 square miles, and had a population in 1891 of 5.683.800, and in 1901 of 6..580.816. It includes all the territory within a radius of about 14 miles from Trafalgar Square, the county of Lon-