Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 20.djvu/576

WHITE LADT. 486 WHITE MOUNTAINS. German prinees and nobles by night as well as by day, when any important event is imminent, whether joyful or sad, but particularly when the death of any member of the family is near. She is regarded" as the ancestress of the race, shows herself always in snow-white garments, and car- ries a bunch of keys at her side. The Hohen- zollern family possesses a white lady. A similar legend was current in Scotland, where it was believed that many of the chiefs had some kind spirit to watch over the fortunes of their house. The entire cycle may apparently be traced back to a goddess of German mythology who influences birth and death, and presides over the ordering of the household. Still more distinctly the ap- pellation white lady and the name Bertha point back to the Germanic nature-goddess Berchta (q.v.). WHITE LEAD. A name applied to hydrated basic carbonate of lead used in the manufacture of paints. It usually forms a heavy white mass made up, as shown b.y microscopic examination, of minute, transparent, amorphous globules. It may be made by passing carbonic acid gas through a solution of basic lead acetate, obtained by saturating vinegjir with ordinary lead oxide (litharge) ; after the white lead has been precip- itated out, a new quantity of litharge may be introduced into the mother-liquor, carbonic acid gas may again be passed through the solution, and so on. This is known as the 'French method.' Benson's so-called 'English method' consists in triturating litharge with I per cent. of its weight of lead acetate dissolved in water, and exposing the paste thus obtained, under con- stant stirring, to the action of carbonic acid gas for several days. When carefully prepared, and free from neutral lead carbonate, white lead has a greater coating power than any other white pigment known. An excellent white lead may also be obtained by saturating a solution of magnesium acetate with litharge and passing carbonic acid gas into it until the alkaline re- action has disappeared. The terra 'white lead' is sometimes, in commercial usage, applied also to other lead pigments besides the basic car- bonate described above. WHITE LEAGUE. An organization formed by white citizens of Louisiana to counteract by force of arms the political power secured by the negroes as a result of the Civil War. WHITE LEG. See PiiLEfiMASiA. WHITELOCKE, liwit'lok, BiLSTRonE (100.')- 75). An English lawyer and statesman, born in London. He was educated at Saint John's College, Oxford; read law in the Temple, and in ]()2fi was called to the bar and elected memlx'r of Parliament for StafVord. In KitO he was elected to the Long Parliament from Marlow, and, as chairman of the impeachment committee, e(mducted the prosecution of the Earl of Straf- ford. He was also one of the Oxford commis- sioners appointed to treat with Charles I.; an opponent of Presbyterianism in the West- minster Assembly, 1043; Governor of Wind- sor, 1044; commissioner of the great seal, 1649; and in 10.').3 went as .Ambassador to .Sweden. He refused to take part in the trial of the King. In Ifi.'JO he was Speaker of the House of Com- mons; was one of Cromwell's lords, and after Cromwell's death commissioner of the great seal to Richard Cromwell. He left the manuscripts of an autobiography and other works, the most note- worthy of which are Memorials of the English Affairs from the beginning of the Reign of King Charles I. to the happy Restoration of King Charles II. (1682; new ed., 4 vols., 1853) ; Jour- nal of the Swedish Embassy in 16i3 and 165^ (1772; new ed. 1855); and Memorials of the English Affairs from the supposed Expedition of Brute to this Island to the end of the Reign of James I. WHITE MOUNTAIN BUTTERFLY. A delicate, brownish sat.yrine butterfly (CEneis scniidra). which occupies a very restricted range above 5000 feet elevation in the White Moun- tains of New Hampshire, most abundantly about half a mile from the summit of ilount Washing- ton. It al.so occurs in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, and some of its varieties or close rela- tives in Alaska and on Mount Katahdin, Maine. Its larvae feed upon a species of sedge during mid-summer, and pupate, it is believed, for two years. A closely allied butterfly ((Eneis aello) occurs in the Alps in Switzerland. Consult Scudder. The Butterflies of New England (Cam- bridge. 1880). WHITE MOUNTAINS. A rugged group of monadnocks occupying the north central part of New Hampshire, where they cover an area of about 1300 square miles (Map: New Hampshire, J 4 ) . They belong to the older or crystalline belt of the Appalachian system, and form the highest of a number of more or less isolated lesidual portions of a former plateau which all around them has been worn down to the pres- ent Arcl^Tan pene|dain of New England, a con- tinuation of the Piedmont Plain of the Southern States. The White Mountains proper extend from Squam Lake in the south to the transverse valley of the Androscoggin and Ammonoosae rivers on the north. North of that depression there is another highland region which belongs rather to the Green Jlountain system of Ver- mont. Several small and distant outlying monad- nocks are, however, regarded as belonging to the White ilountain group, such as ^tount Kearsarge and Mount Jlonndnock in .southern New Hamp- shire, and Saddleback Mountain and Mount Katahdin in Maine. The group is divided into two main portions by a grand and rugged defile known as the Crawford Notch, which gives passage to the Saco River. West of this notch the principal group is called the Eranconia Mountains, whose highest point, !Minint Lafayette, has an altitude of 5269 feet. The highest peaks, however, rise to the east of the notch in llie Presidential Range, so called because its chief snnuuits are named after Presidents of the I'nited States. The culminating peak is ilount Washington (q.v.), 0203 feet high. Other sunnnits with their alti- tudes are Mount Adams. 5805 feet; Mount .Tefl'erson, 5725 feet; Blount Clay, 5554 feet; Boot Spur. 5520 feet: Mount Jlonroe, 5390 feet; and Mount :Ia<lison, 5380 feet high. The Wliite Mountains are composed wholly of ancient melamorphic rocks, chiefly gneisses in the outskirts, with a central core of granite forming the higlicst jiortion. The soil is poor and gravelly, but the slopes and lower |)eaks are forest -covered, only I lie higlier peaks raising their bare, rocky summits above the