by St Ours and belonged to the counts of Anjou from 886 till 1205. In
the latter year it was seized from King John of England by Philip
Augustus, and from the middle of the 13th century till after the time of
Charles IX. the castle was a residence of the kings of France.
LOCHGELLY, a police burgh of Fifeshire, Scotland, 7½ m. N.E. of
Dunfermline by the North British railway. Pop. (1901) 5472. The town is
modern and owes its prosperity to the iron-works and collieries in its
immediate vicinity. Loch Gelly, from which the town takes its name,
situated ½ m. S.E., measures ½ m. in length by ¾ m. in breadth, contains
some trout and pike, and has on its west banks Lochgelly House, a seat
of the earl of Minto. The Romans are said to have had a station at Loch
Ore in the parish of Ballingry, 2¼ m. N. by W., which was drained about
the end of the 18th century and then cultivated. To the N.E. rises the
hill of Benarty (1131 ft.). Hallyards, about 2 m. S.E. of Lochgelly, is
a ruined house that once belonged to Sir William Kirkaldy of Grange, who
held Edinburgh Castle for Queen Mary. Here James V. was received after
his defeat at Solway Moss in 1542, and here a few Jacobites used to meet
in 1715.
LOCHGILPHEAD, a municipal and police burgh of Argyllshire, Scotland, at
the head of Loch Gilp, a small arm on the western side of Loch Fyne.
Pop. (1901) 1313. The herring-fishery is the chief industry, but there
is some weaving of woollens and, in summer, a considerable influx of
visitors. Ardrishaig (pop. 1285), a seaport on the west of the mouth of
Loch Gilp, is the east terminus of the Crinan Canal. It is the place of
transhipment from the large Glasgow passenger steamers to the small
craft built for the navigation of the canal. It is an important harbour
in connexion with the Loch Fyne herring-fishery, and there is also a
distillery. During the summer there is a coach service to Ford at the
lower end of Loch Awe.
LOCHMABEN, a royal and police burgh of Dumfriesshire, Scotland, 8 m.
N.E. of Dumfries, with a station on the Caledonian railway company's
branch from Dumfries to Locherbie. Pop. (1901) 1328. It is delightfully
situated, there being eight lakes in the immediate neighbourhood, while
the river Annan, and the Waters of Ae, Kinnel and Dryfe are in the
vicinity. The town hall is a handsome edifice with clock tower. At the
south end of Castle Loch, the chief lake, stand the ruins, a mere shell,
of Lochmaben Castle, dating from the 13th century, where local tradition
declares that Robert Bruce was born--an honour which is also claimed,
however, for Turnberry Castle on the coast of Ayrshire. In the parish
church is a bell said to have been presented to King Robert by the pope
after reconciliation with him. A statue of the king stands in front of
the town hall. Whether it were his birthplace or not, the associations
of Bruce with Lochmaben were intimate. He exempted his followers in the
district from feudal service and their descendants--the "kindly tenants
of Lochmaben"--were confirmed in their tenure by the court of session in
1824. The Castle Loch is the only fresh water in Scotland, and possibly
in the British Isles, where the vendace (_coregonus vandesius_) occurs.
This fish, which is believed to be growing scarcer, is alleged on
doubtful authority to have been introduced by Queen Mary. It is captured
by the sweep-net in August, and is esteemed as a delicacy. The lakes
adjoining the town afford the inhabitants exceptional advantages for the
game of curling. There was once a team of Lochmaben Curlers entirely
composed of shoemakers (souters) who held their own against all comers,
and their prowess added the phrase "to souter" to the vocabulary of the
sport, the word indicating a match in which the winners scored "game" to
their opponents' "love." Lochmaben unites with Annan, Dumfries,
Kirkcudbright and Sanquhar (the Dumfries burghs) in returning one member
to parliament.
LOCK, MATTHIAS, English 18th-century furniture designer and
cabinet-maker. The dates of his birth and death are unknown; but he was
a disciple of Chippendale, and subsequently of the Adams, and was
possibly in partnership with Henry Copeland (q.v.). During the greater
part of his life he belonged to that flamboyant school which derived its
inspiration from Louis XV. models; but when he fell under the influence
of Robert Adam he absorbed his manner so completely that it is often
difficult to distinguish between them, just as it is sometimes easy to
confound Lock's work with the weaker efforts of Chippendale. Thus from
being extravagantly rococo he progressed to a simple ordered classicism.
His published designs are not equal to his original drawings, many of
which are preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington,
while the pieces themselves are often bolder and more solid than is
suggested by the author's representations of them. He was a clever
craftsman and holds a distinct place among the minor furniture designers
of the second half of the 18th century.
Among his works, some of which were issued in conjunction with
Copeland, are: _A New Drawing Book of Ornaments_ (n. d.); _A New Book
of Ornaments_ (1768); _A New Book of Pier Frames, Ovals, Girandoles,
Tables, &c._ (1769); and _A New Book of Foliage_ (1769).
LOCK (from the O. Eng. _loc._; the word appears, in different forms, in
many Teutonic languages, but with such various meanings as "hole," Ger.
_Loch_, "lid," Swed. _lock_, &c.; probably the original was a root
meaning "to enclose"), a fastening, particularly one which consists of a
bolt held in a certain position by one or more movable parts which
require to be placed in definite positions by the aid of a key or of a
secret arrangement of letters, figures or signs, before the bolt can be
moved. It is with such fastenings that the present article chiefly
deals.
The word is also used, in the original sense of an enclosure or
barrier, for a length of water in a river or canal, or at the entrance
of a dock, enclosed at both ends by gates, the "lock-gates," and
fitted with sluices, to enable vessels to be raised from a lower to a
higher level or vice versa (see CANAL and DOCK). In guns and rifles
the lock is the mechanism which effects the firing of the charge; it
thus appears in the names of old types of weapons, such as wheel-lock,
match-lock, flint-lock (see ARMS AND ARMOUR, § _Firearms_; also GUN
and RIFLE). Lock (Ger. _Locke_) in the sense of a curl or tuft of
hair, the separate groups in which the hair naturally grows, may be,
in ultimate origin, connected with the root of the main word. Lockjaw
is the popular name of the disease known as tetanus (q.v.). The name
"Lock Hospital" is frequently used in English for a hospital for
patients suffering from venereal diseases. According to the _New
English Dictionary_ there was in Southwark as early as 1453 a
leper-hospital, known as the Lock Lazar House, which later was used
for the treatment of venereal diseases. The name appears to have
become used in the present sense as early as the end of the 17th
century. Lock hospitals were established in London in 1745-1747 and in
Dublin in 1754-1755.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
The forms in which locks are manufactured, such as padlock, rim-lock,
mortise-lock, one-sided or two-sided, &c., are necessarily extremely
numerous; and the variations in the details of construction of any one
of these forms are still more numerous, so that it is impossible to do
more here than describe the main types which have been or are in common
use. Probably the earliest locks were of Chinese origin. Specimens of
these still extant are quite as secure as any locks manufactured in
Europe up to the 18th century, but it is impossible to ascertain the
date of their manufacture. With the exception, in all probability, of
these Chinese examples, the earliest lock of which the construction is
known is the Egyptian, which was used four thousand years ago. In fig.
1, _aa_ is the body of the lock, _bb_ the bolt and _cc_ the key. The
three pins _p, p, p_ drop into three holes in the bolt when it is pushed
in, and so hold it fast; and they are raised again by putting in the key
through the large hole in the bolt and raising it a little, so that the
pins in the key push the locking pins up out of the way of the bolt. It
was evidently to locks and keys of this nature that the prophet alluded:
"And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder" (Isaiah
xxii. 22), the word _muftah_ used in this passage being the common word
for key to this day.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
[Illustration: FIG. 3.]
In the 18th century the European lock was nothing better than a mere
bolt, held in its place, either shut or open, by a spring b (fig. 2),
which pressed it down, and so held it at either one end or the other of
the convex notch _aa_; and the only impediment to opening it was the
wards which the key had to pass before it could turn in the keyhole. But
it was always possible to find the shape of the wards by merely putting
in a blank key covered with wax, and pressing it against them; and when
this had been done it was unnecessary to cut out the key into the
complicated form of the wards (such as fig. 3), because no part of that
key does any work except the edge _bc_ farthest from the pipe a; and so
a key of the form fig. 4 would do just as well. Thus a small collection
of skeleton keys, as they are called, of a few different patterns, was
all the stock in trade that a lock-picker required.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.]
[Illustration: FIG. 5.]
Lever locks.
The common single-tumbler lock (fig. 5) requires two operations instead
of one to open it. The tumbler _at_ turns on a pivot at t, and has a
square pin at a, which drops into a notch in the bolt _bb_, when it is
either quite open or quite shut, and the tumbler must be lifted by the
key before the bolt can be moved again. The tumbler offered little
resistance to picking, as the height to which it might be lifted was not
limited and the bolt would operate provided only that this height was
sufficient; the improvement which formed the foundation of the modern
key lock was the substitution of what is known as the "lever" for the
tumbler, the difference being that the lever must be lifted to _exactly_
the right height to allow the bolt to pass. This improvement, together
with the obvious one of using more than one lever, was introduced in
1778 by Robert Barron, and is illustrated in figs. 6 and 7. Unless the
square pin a (fig. 6) is lifted by the key to the proper height and no
higher, the bolt cannot move. Fig. 8 illustrates the key of such a lock
with four levers, the different distances between the centre of the key
barrel and the edge of the bit being adapted to lift the levers to the
respective heights required. This lock differs from the modern lever
lock only in the fact that Barron made his gating in the bolt and
carried stumps on his levers, instead of having the main stump riveted
into the bolt and the gatings in the levers as is the modern practice.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.]
[Illustration: FIG. 7.]
[Illustration: FIG. 8.]
A lock operating on exactly the same principle but entirely different in
construction (fig. 9) was invented by Joseph Bramah in 1784. It consists
of an outer barrel _aaaa_, within which is a revolving barrel, _cccc_,
held in place by a steel disk, _dd_, and provided with a pin b fixed
eccentrically for operating the bolt; the barrel is prevented from
turning by sheet metal sliders _ss_, which slide axially in radial
grooves in the barrel and project into slots cut into the steel disk
which is fastened to the case of the lock. Each slider has a gating cut
in its outer edge sufficiently deep to allow it to embrace the inwardly
projecting steel plate and turn on it with the barrel. The key is of
tubular form having slots cut in its end, each of a depth corresponding
to the position of the gating in one of the sliders; so that, on
inserting the key, each slider is pushed in--against a spring--exactly
far enough to bring its slot opposite the steel disk; in this position
the barrel carrying the sliders is turned by the key and actuates the
bolt.
[Illustration: FIG. 9.]
Up to 1851 it was generally believed that well-made lever locks of all
types were practically unpickable, but at this time Alfred Charles
Hobbs--an American--demonstrated, by picking the locks of Barron, Chubb,
Bramah and others, that this belief was a fallacy. The method of Hobbs
became widely known as the "tickling" or "tentative" method. In the
modern lever lock the bolt carries a projecting piece--the "main
stump"--which, when the levers are all raised to the proper height,
enters the slots--"gatings"--in their faces. If, when the levers are not
in this position, pressure is applied to the bolt, the main stump will
press against the face of the levers; but owing to inaccuracies of
workmanship and other causes the pressure will not be equal on all the
levers. If now, the pressure on the bolt being maintained, each lever in
turn is carefully raised a little, one will be found on which the
pressure of the stump is greatest; this one is lifted till it becomes
easy and then carefully lowered till it is sustained by the pressure of
the stump in a new position. Another lever now bears the greatest
pressure, and this in its turn is similarly treated. By this gradual or
"tentative" process the levers will in time all be raised to the correct
height and the bolt will slip back without, if sufficient care has been
exercised, any of the levers having been raised above its correct
position. Although this method of picking only became generally known in
1851, it is evident that it was not novel, since in 1817 one of Bramah's
workmen, named Russell, invented the use of false notches or gatings,
which were slots similar to the true gating but of small depth cut in
the face of the levers. Similar false gatings were used in Anthony
Radford Strutt's lock in 1819. The only possible object of these
gatings--two of which are shown in each of the sliders of Bramah's
lock--was to prevent the tentative method of picking. They are, however,
not efficient for their purpose although they render the operation more
difficult and tedious.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.]
The best-known locks up to 1851 were those of Jeremiah Chubb, their
popularity being due to their superior workmanship and probably still
more to their title "detector." His lock, patented in 1818, contained a
device intended to frustrate attempts at picking, and further to detect
if such an attempt had been made. This device, at any rate as far as
detecting was concerned, had been anticipated by the patent of Thomas
Ruxton in 1816. Since the device only comes into operation when any
lever is raised too high, it is not effective against a skilful
application of the tentative method. The original form of this lock is
shown in fig. 10, when the lever DT, which turns on a pin in the middle,
is acted upon at its end T by a spring S, which will evidently allow
some play to the lever on either side of the corner X; but the moment it
is pushed past that point the spring will carry it farther in the same
direction, like what is called in clock-work a jumper. In its proper
position that end always remains above the turning-point; but, if any
one of the tumblers is raised too high, the other end D of the detector,
which reaches over all the levers, is lifted so far that the end T is
sent down below the corner, and the tooth T then falls into a notch in
the bolt, and so prevents it from being drawn back, even though all the
levers are raised properly by the right key. It thus at once becomes
obvious that somebody has been trying to pick the lock. The way to open
it, then, is to turn the key the other way, as if to overlock the bolt;
a short piece of gating near the end of the levers allows the bolt to
advance just far enough to push the tooth of the detector up again by
means of its inclination there, and then the lock can be opened as
usual. To render the mechanism of locks more inaccessible for picking
purposes, two devices, the "curtain" and the "barrel," were in use;
these devices were simply the one a disk and the other a cylinder
carrying a keyhole which revolved with the key and so closed the fixed
keyhole in the case.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.]
It is to Hobbs himself that we are indebted for the invention of the
movable stump, since called the safety lever, the only device
introduced rendering the tentative method of picking inoperative. This
invention was incorporated in the "protector" locks of Hobbs, Hart &
Co.; it consists in the employment of a movable main stump which is
not riveted into the bolt as usual, but is set on the end b of a bent
lever _abc_ (fig. 11) which lies in a hollow of the bolt A behind it,
turning on a pivot in the bolt itself, and kept steady by a small
friction-spring e. The stump comes through a hole in the bolt large
enough to let it have a little play; and the long end a of the lever
stands just above the edge of a square pin d, which is fixed in the
back plate of the lock. When the lock is locked, if the bolt be pushed
back, no sensible pressure on the levers is produced, but only just
enough to turn this protector lever, as Hobbs called it, on its pivot
c, and so bring down its end a in front of the square pin, and then
the bolt can no more be pushed back than when held by Chubb's
detector. The protector is set free again by merely pushing the bolt
forward with the key, without reference to the levers. However, the
protector could be prevented from acting by a method used by the
inventor himself for another purpose, viz., by pushing a piece of
watch-spring through the keyhole, and up behind the bolt, so as to
reach the protector at a, and keep it up while the bolt was pushed
back, or, again, by pushing up the watch-spring between any two of the
levers, and holding the end b of the protector with it, so as to press
the stump against the levers. Both these devices, however, are
prevented now by letting in a feather FF in a groove between the bolt
and the back of the lock, which no watch-spring can pass, and also
bringing a piece of the feather forward through the front gating of
the levers just under the stump. In this form the lock is safe against
any mode of picking known. A lock possessing valuable features was
invented in 1852 by Sir Edmund Beckett--afterwards Lord
Grimthorpe--but did not come into general use for commercial reasons.
All the locks containing many levers so far described have a common
defect in that the levers are moved in one direction by the key and in
the other by springs. But it not infrequently happens that dirt or
grease gets between the levers and causes two or more to stick
together, in which case one of them is lifted too high and the bolt is
prevented from operating. To overcome this difficulty locks,
especially those intended for safes, have been made so that alternate
levers move in opposite directions, the key having two bits on
opposite sides. This construction entails that the key enter the body
of the levers instead of passing below them, an arrangement that had
previously been in use to reduce the space into which gunpowder could
be packed through the keyhole.
[Illustration: FIG. 12.]
Key locks.
The key locks chiefly used in English safes have been the ordinary
lever lock with 6-8 or 10 levers, Chubb's "detector," Hobbs's
"protector" or variants of these. In the Yale lock, which reverts in
some degree to the idea of the ancient Egyptian lock, America has
produced one key lock which has come into almost universal use in that
country and is certainly worthy of note. The key of this lock, shown
full size at _ka_ in fig. 12, is remarkably small, being stamped from
a piece of flat steel and weighing only a small fraction of an ounce.
The barrel _abc_ has to turn, as in the Bramah lock, in order to move
the bolt, which is not shown in the figure. That may be done either as
in Bramah locks or by a tongue or bit attached to the end _ab_ of the
barrel as in several other locks. The barrel is prevented from being
turned, except by the proper key, thus. The (apparently) five plugs
with spiral springs over them in fig. 12 are really all divided at the
cross line _bc_, being all now lifted to the proper height by the key.
Consequently the barrel _abc_ can turn round, as there is no plug
either projecting from it or projecting into it. But when the key is
out, all the plugs are pushed down by the springs, and so the upper
ones descend into the barrel and hold it fast. And again, if any of
the steps of a false key are too high, some of the lower plugs will be
pushed up beyond the barrel into the holes above them, and so the
barrel cannot turn. The bevelled end of the key near a enables it to
be pushed in under the plugs, though with some friction and
resistance.
It is frequently convenient to have a number of different locks so
arranged that, whilst each has its own individual key, yet one special
or "master" key will operate any of the series. In warded locks this
is done by "differing" the wards of the individual locks so that each
key will only pass its own lock, and then filing away the bit of an
extra key so that it will pass all the wards; the objection to this
method is that any of the individual keys can easily be filed away and
so form a master key. A better method, which meets this objection,
consists in making all the levers except one--or if need be two--of
each lock alike and cutting another gating or widening the gating in
the differing levers, so as to pass the master key which has one--or
two--special steps.
The growth of safe deposits has called for special locks so that when a
box changes tenants the outgoing tenant's key shall be useless. In some
cases the lock has been taken off and another substituted, but this is a
clumsy makeshift now rarely employed, and has been superseded by the use
of changeable key locks.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.]
The first of these, invented by Robert Newell in 1841, was introduced
into Great Britain from America by Hobbs in 1851. A simpler form, the
construction of which is clearly shown by fig. 13, was brought out by
Hobbs, Hart & Co. The bolt of this lock, instead of the ordinary main
stump, carries a set of sliders, PPS, one corresponding to each lever
and each carrying a projection S corresponding to a portion of the
main stump. It will be seen that if any key having steps of certain
lengths is inserted when the lock is unlocked and the bolt B thrown
thereby, each slider will be raised to a height corresponding to that
to which its lever is raised by the key, and the two fixed teeth CC
will engage two of the teeth in the front of each slider, so that they
will be held in place ready to enter the lever gatings when the same
key is inserted.
[Illustration: FIG. 14.]
A changeable key lock introduced by the Chatwood Safe Co. has no
gatings in the levers, whose fronts are cut with teeth gearing into
similar teeth cut in a set of disks carrying the gatings. The disks
are mounted on a stud which can be moved by a key from the back of the
lock in such a way that while the main stump is in the
gatings--keeping the disks in position--the disks are carried forward
out of gear with the levers; the key can then be removed and another
having steps of suitable length inserted and turned so as to raise the
levers, the disks being then brought back into gear.
[Illustration: FIG. 15.]