[1] See Robert Peter, _Transylvania University: Its Origin, Rise,
Decline and Fall_ (Louisville, 1896), and his _History of the Medical
Department of Transylvania University_ (Louisville, 1905).
LEXINGTON, a township of Middlesex county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., about
11 m. N.W. of Boston. Pop. (1900) 3831, (1910 U.S. census) 4918. It is
traversed by the Boston & Maine railroad and by the Lowell & Boston
electric railway. Its area is about 17 sq. m., and it contains three
villages--Lexington, East Lexington and North Lexington. Agriculture is
virtually the only industry. Owing to its historic interest the village
of Lexington is visited by thousands of persons annually, for it was on
the green or common of this village that the first armed conflict of the
American War of Independence occurred. On the green stand a monument
erected by the state in 1799 to the memory of the minute-men who fell in
that engagement, a drinking fountain surmounted by a bronze statue
(1900, by Henry Hudson Kitson) of Captain John Parker, who was in
command of the minute-men, and a large boulder, which marks the position
of the minute-men when they were fired upon by the British. Near the
green, in the old burying-ground, are the graves of Captain Parker and
other American patriots--the oldest gravestone is dated 1690. The
Hancock-Clarke House (built in part in 1698) is now owned by the
Lexington Historical Society and contains a museum of revolutionary and
other relics, which were formerly exhibited in the Town Hall. The
Buckman Tavern (built about 1690), the rendezvous of the minute-men, and
the Munroe Tavern (1695), the headquarters of the British, are still
standing, and two other houses, on the common, antedate the War of
Independence. The Cary Library in this village, with 23,000 volumes
(1908), was founded in 1868, and was housed in the Town Hall from 1871
until 1906, when it was removed to the Cary Memorial Library building.
In the library are portraits of Paul Revere, William Dawes and Lord
Percy. The Town Hall (1871) contains statues of John Hancock (by Thomas
R. Gould) and Samuel Adams (by Martin Millmore), of the "Minute-Man of
1775" and the "Soldier of 1861," and a painting by Henry Sandham, "The
Battle of Lexington."
Lexington was settled as a part of Cambridge as early as 1642. It was
organized as a parish in 1691 and was made a township (probably named in
honour of Lord Lexington) in 1713. In the evening of the 18th of April
1775 a British force of about 800 men under Lieut.-Colonel Francis Smith
and Major John Pitcairn was sent by General Thomas Gage from Boston to
destroy military stores collected by the colonists at Concord, and to
seize John Hancock and Samuel Adams, then at Parson Clarke's house (now
known as the Hancock-Clarke House) in Lexington. Although the British
had tried to keep this movement a secret, Dr Joseph Warren discovered
their plans and sent out Paul Revere and William Dawes to give warning
of their approach. The expedition had not proceeded far when Smith,
discovering that the country was aroused, despatched an express to
Boston for reinforcements and ordered Pitcairn to hasten forward with a
detachment of light infantry. Early in the morning of the 19th Pitcairn
arrived at the green in the village of Lexington, and there found
between sixty and seventy minute-men under Captain John Parker drawn up
in line of battle. Pitcairn ordered them to disperse, and on their
refusal to do so his men fired a volley. Whether a stray shot preceded
the first volley, and from which side it came, are questions which have
never been determined. After a second volley from the British, Parker
ordered his men to withdraw. The engagement lasted only a few minutes,
but eight Americans were killed and nine were wounded; not more than two
or three of the British were wounded. Hancock and Adams had escaped
before the British troops reached Lexington. The British proceeded from
Lexington to Concord (q.v.). On their return they were continually fired
upon by Americans from behind trees, rocks, buildings and other
defences, and were threatened with complete destruction until they were
rescued at Lexington by a force of 1000 men under Lord Hugh Percy
(later, 1786, duke of Northumberland). Percy received the fugitives
within a hollow square, checked the onslaught for a time with two
field-pieces, used the Munroe Tavern for a hospital, and later in the
day carried his command with little further injury back to Boston. The
British losses for the entire day were 73 killed, 174 wounded and 26
missing; the American losses were 49 killed, 39 wounded and 5 missing.
In 1839 a state normal school for women (the first in Massachusetts and
the first public training school for teachers in the United States) was
opened at Lexington; it was transferred to West Newton in 1844 and to
Framingham in 1853.
See Charles Hudson, _History of the Town of Lexington_ (Boston, 1868),
and the publications of the Lexington Historical Society, (1890 seq.).
LEXINGTON, a city and the county-seat of Lafayette county, Missouri,
U.S.A., situated on the S. bank of the Missouri river, about 40 m. E. of
Kansas City. Pop. (1900) 4190, including 1170 negroes and 283
foreign-born; (1910) 5242. It is served by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa
Fé, the Wabash (at Lexington Junction, 4 m. N.W.), and the Missouri
Pacific railway systems. The city lies for the most part on high broken
ground at the summit of the river bluffs, but in part upon their face.
Lexington is the seat of the Lexington College for Young Women (Baptist,
established 1855), the Central College for Women (Methodist Episcopal,
South; opened 1869), and the Wentworth Military Academy (1880). There
are steam flour mills, furniture factories and various other small
manufactories; but the main economic interest of the city is in
brickyards and coal-mines in its immediate vicinity. It is one of the
principal coal centres of the state, Higginsville (pop. in 1910, 2628),
about 12 m. S.E., in the same county, also being important. Lexington
was founded in 1819, was laid out in 1832, and, with various additions,
was chartered as a city in 1845. A new charter was received in 1870.
Lexington succeeded Sibley as the eastern terminus of the Santa Fé
trade, and was in turn displaced by Independence; it long owed its
prosperity to the freighting trade up the Missouri, and at the opening
of the Civil War it was the most important river town between St Louis
and St Joseph and commanded the approach by water to Fort Leavenworth.
After the Confederate success at Wilson's Creek (Aug. 10, 1861), General
Sterling Price advanced northward, and with about 15,000 men arrived in
the vicinity of Lexington on the 12th of September. Here he found a
Federal force of about 2800 men under Colonel James A. Mulligan
(1830-1864) throwing up intrenchments on Masonic College Hill, an
eminence adjoining Lexington on the N.E. An attack was made on the same
day and the Federals were driven within their defences, but at night
General Price withdrew to the Fair-grounds not far away and remained
there five days waiting for his wagon train and for reinforcements. On
the 18th the assault was renewed, and on the 20th the Confederates,
advancing behind movable breastworks of water-soaked bales of hemp,
forced the besieged, now long without water, to surrender. The losses
were: Confederate, 25 killed and 75 wounded; Federal, 39 killed and 120
wounded. At the end of September General Price withdrew, leaving a guard
of only a few hundred in the town, and on the 16th of the next month a
party of 220 Federal scouts under Major Frank J. White (1842-1875)
surprised this guard, released about 15 prisoners, and captured 60 or
more Confederates. Another Federal raid on the town was made in December
of the same year by General John Pope's cavalry. Again, during General
Price's Missouri expedition in 1864, a Federal force entered Lexington
on the 16th of October, and three days later there was some fighting
about 4 m. S. of the town.
LEXINGTON, a town and the county-seat of Rockbridge county, Virginia,
U.S.A., on the North river (a branch of the James), about 30 m. N.N.W.
of Lynchburg. Pop. (1900) 3203 (1252 negroes); (1910) 2931. It is served
by the Chesapeake & Ohio and the Baltimore & Ohio railways. The famous
Natural Bridge is about 16 m. S.W., and there are mineral springs in the
vicinity--at Rockbridge Baths, 10 m. N., at Wilson's Springs, 12 m. N.,
and at Rockbridge Alum Springs, 17 m. N.W. Lexington is best known as
the seat of Washington and Lee University, and of the Virginia Military
Institute. The former grew out of Augusta Academy, which was established
in 1749 in Augusta county, about 15 m. S.W. of what is now the city of
Staunton, was renamed Liberty Hall and was established near Lexington
in 1780, and was chartered as Liberty Hall Academy in 1782. In 1798 its
name was changed to Washington Academy, in recognition of a gift from
George Washington of some shares of canal stock, which he refused to
receive from the Virginia legislature. In 1802 the Virginia branch of
the Society of the Cincinnati disbanded and turned over to the academy
its funds, about $25,000; in 1813 the academy took the name Washington
College; and in 1871 its corporate name was changed to Washington and
Lee University, the addition to the name being made in honour of General
Robert E. Lee, who was the president of the college from August 1865
until his death in 1870. He was succeeded by his son, General George
Washington Custis Lee (b. 1832), president from 1871 to 1897, and Dr
William Lyne Wilson (1843-1900), the eminent political leader and
educator, was president from 1897 to 1900. In 1908-1909 the university
comprised a college, a school of commerce, a school of engineering and a
school of law, and had a library of 47,000 volumes, 23 instructors and
565 students. In the Lee Memorial chapel, on the campus, General Robert
E. Lee is buried, and over his grave is a notable recumbent statue of
him by Edward Virginius Valentine (b. 1838). The Virginia Military
Institute was established in March 1839, when its cadet corps supplanted
the company of soldiers maintained by the state to garrison the Western
Arsenal at Lexington. The first superintendent (1839-1890) was General
Francis Henney Smith (1812-1890), a graduate (1833) of the United States
Military Academy; and from 1851 until the outbreak of the Civil War
"Stonewall" Jackson was a professor in the Institute--he is buried in
the Lexington cemetery and his grave is marked by a monument. On the
campus of the institute is a fine statue, "Virginia Mourning Her Dead,"
by Moses Ezekiel (b. 1844), which commemorates the gallantry of a
battalion of 250 cadets from the institute, more than 50 of whom were
killed or wounded during the engagement at New Market on the 15th of May
1864. In 1908-1909 the institute had 21 instructors and 330 cadets.
Flour is manufactured in Lexington and lime in the vicinity. The town
owns and operates its water-works. The first settlers of Rockbridge
county established themselves in 1737 near the North river, a short
distance below Lexington. The first permanent settlement on the present
site was made about 1778. On the 11th of June 1864, during the
occupation of the town by Federal troops under General David Hunter,
most of the buildings in the town and those of the university were
damaged and all those of the institute, except the superintendent's
headquarters, were burned.
LEYDEN, JOHN (1775-1811), British orientalist and man of letters, was
born on the 8th of September 1775 at Denholm on the Teviot, not far from
Hawick. Leyden's father was a shepherd, but contrived to send his son to
Edinburgh University to study for the ministry. Leyden was a diligent
but somewhat miscellaneous student, reading everything apparently,
except theology, for which he seems to have had no taste. Though he
completed his divinity course, and in 1798 received licence to preach
from the presbytery of St Andrews, it soon became clear that the pulpit
was not his vocation. In 1794 Leyden had formed the acquaintance of Dr
Robert Anderson, editor of _The British Poets_, and of _The Literary
Magazine_. It was Anderson who introduced him to Dr Alexander Murray,
and Murray, probably, who led him to the study of Eastern languages.
They became warm friends and generous rivals, though Leyden excelled,
perhaps, in the rapid acquisition of new tongues and acquaintance with
their literature, while Murray was the more scientific philologist.
Through Anderson also he came to know Richard Heber, by whom he was
brought under the notice of Sir Walter Scott, who was then collecting
materials for his _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_. Leyden was
admirably fitted for helping in this kind of work, for he was a borderer
himself, and an enthusiastic lover of old ballads and folk-lore. Scott
tells how, on one occasion, Leyden walked 40 m. to get the last two
verses of a ballad, and returned at midnight, singing it all the way
with his loud, harsh voice, to the wonder and consternation of the poet
and his household.
Leyden meanwhile compiled a work on the _Discoveries and Settlements of
Europeans in Northern and Western Africa_, suggested by Mungo Park's
travels, edited _The Complaint of Scotland_, printed a volume of
Scottish descriptive poems, and nearly finished his _Scenes of Infancy_,
a diffuse poem based on border scenes and traditions. He also made some
translations from Eastern poetry, Persian and Arabic. At last his
friends got him an appointment in India on the medical staff, for which
he qualified by a year's hard work. In 1803 he sailed for Madras, and
took his place in the general hospital there. He was promoted to be
naturalist to the commissioners going to survey Mysore, and in 1807 his
knowledge of the languages of India procured him an appointment as
professor of Hindustani at Calcutta; this he soon after resigned for a
judgeship, and that again to be a commissioner in the court of requests
in 1809, a post which required a familiarity with several Eastern
tongues. In 1811 he joined Lord Minto in the expedition to Java. Having
entered a library which was said to contain many Eastern MSS., without
having the place aired, he was seized with Batavian fever, and died,
after three days' illness, on the 28th of August 1811.
LEYDEN JAR, or CONDENSER, an electrical appliance consisting in one form
of a thin glass jar partly coated inside and outside with tin foil, or
in another of a number of glass plates similarly coated. When the two
metal surfaces are connected for a short time with the terminals of some
source of electromotive force, such as an electric machine, an induction
coil or a voltaic battery, electric energy is stored up in the condenser
in the form of electric strain in the glass, and can be recovered again
in the form of an electric discharge.
Early history.
The earliest form of Leyden jar consisted of a glass vial or thin
Florence flask, partly full of water, having a metallic nail inserted
through the cork which touched the water. The bottle was held in the
hand, and the nail presented to the prime conductor of an electrical
machine. If the person holding the bottle subsequently touched the nail,
he experienced an electric shock. This experiment was first made by E.
G. von Kleist of Kammin in Pomerania in 1745,[1] and it was repeated in
another form in 1746 by Cunaeus and P. van Musschenbroek, of the
university of Leyden (Leiden), whence the term Leyden jar.[2] J. H.
Winkler discovered that an iron chain wound round the bottle could be
substituted for the hand, and Sir William Watson in England shortly
afterward showed that iron filings or mercury could replace the water
within the jar. Dr John Bevis of London suggested, in 1746, the use of
sheet lead coatings within and without the jar, and subsequently the use
of tin foil or silver leaf made closely adherent to the glass. Benjamin
Franklin and Bevis devised independently the form of condenser known as
a Franklin or Leyden pane, which consists of a sheet of glass, partly
coated on both sides with tin foil or silver leaf, a margin of glass all
round being left to insulate the two tin foils from each other. Franklin
in 1747 and 1748 made numerous investigations on the Leyden jar, and
devised a method of charging jars in series as well as in parallel. In
the former method, now commonly known as charging in _cascade_, the jars
are insulated and the outside coating of one jar is connected to the
inside coating of the next and so on for a whole series, the inside
coating of the first jar and the outside coating of the last jar being
the terminals of the condenser. For charging in parallel a number of
jars are collected in a box, and all the outside coatings are connected
together metallically and all the inside coatings brought to one common
terminal. This arrangement is commonly called a battery of Leyden jars.
To Franklin also we owe the important knowledge that the electric charge
resides really in the glass and not in the metal coatings, and that when
a condenser has been charged the metallic coatings can be exchanged for
fresh ones and yet the electric charge of the condenser remains.
Modern construction.
In its modern form the Leyden jar consists of a wide-mouthed bottle of
thin English flint glass of uniform thickness, free from flaws. About
half the outside and half the inside surface is coated smoothly with tin
foil, and the remainder of the glazed surface is painted with shellac
varnish. A wooden stopper closes the mouth of the jar, and through it a
brass rod passes which terminates in a chain, or better still, three
elastic brass springs, which make good contact with the inner coating.
The rod terminates externally in a knob or screw terminal. The jar has a
certain capacity C which is best expressed in microfarads or
electrostatic units (see ELECTROSTATICS), and is determined by the
surface of the tin foil and thickness and quality of the glass. The jar
can be charged so that a certain potential difference V, reckoned in
volts, exists between the two coatings. If a certain critical potential
is exceeded, the glass gives way under the electric strain and is
pierced. The safe voltage for most glass jars is about 20,000 volts for
glass {1/10}th in. in thickness; this corresponds with an electric spark
of about 7 millimetres in length. When the jar is charged, it is usually
discharged through a metallic arc called the discharging tongs, and this
discharge is in the form of an oscillatory current (see
ELECTROKINETICS). The energy stored up in the jar in joules is expressed
by the value of ½ CV², where C is the capacity measured in farads and V
the potential difference of the coatings in volts. If the capacity C is
reckoned in microfarads then the energy storage is equal to CV²/2 × 10^6
joules or 0.737 CV²/2 × 10^6 foot-pounds. The size of jar commonly known
as a quart size may have a capacity from {1/400}th to {1/800}th of a
microfarad, and if charged to 20,000 volts stores up energy from a
quarter to half a joule or from {3/16}ths to {3/8}ths of a foot-pound.
High tension condensers.
Leyden jars are now much employed for the production of the high
frequency electric currents used in wireless telegraphy (see TELEGRAPHY,
WIRELESS). For this purpose they are made by Moscicki in the form of
glass tubes partly coated by silver chemically deposited on the glass on
the inner and outer surfaces. The tubes have walls thicker at the ends
than in the middle, as the tendency to puncture the glass is greatest at
the edges of the coatings. In other cases, Leyden jars or condensers
take the form of sheets of mica or micanite or ebonite partly coated
with tin foil or silver leaf on both sides; or a pile of sheets of
alternate tin foil and mica may be built up, the tin foil sheets having
lugs projecting out first on one side and then on the other. All the
lugs on one side are connected together, and so also are all the lugs on
the other side, and the two sets of tin foils separated by sheets of
mica constitute the two metallic surfaces of the Leyden jar condenser.
For the purposes of wireless telegraphy, when large condensers are
required, the ordinary Leyden jar occupies too much space in comparison
with its electrical capacity, and hence the best form of condenser
consists of a number of sheets of crown glass, each partly coated on
both sides with tin foil. The tin foil sheets have lugs attached which
project beyond the glass. The plates are placed in a vessel full of
insulating oil which prevents the glow or brush discharge taking place
over their edges. All the tin foils on one side of the glass plates are
connected together and all the tin foils on the opposite sides, so as to
construct a condenser of any required capacity. The box should be of
glass or stoneware or other non-conducting material. When glass tubes
are used it is better to employ tubes thicker at the ends than in the
middle, as it has been found that when the safe voltage is exceeded and
the glass gives way under electric strain, the piercing of the glass
nearly always takes place at the edges of the tin foil.
Compressed air condensers.
Glass is still commonly used as a dielectric because of its cheapness,
high dielectric strength or resistance to electric puncture, and its
high dielectric constant (see ELECTROSTATICS). It has been found,
however, that very efficient condensers can be made with compressed air
as dielectric. If a number of metal plates separated by small distance
pieces are enclosed in an iron box which is pumped full of air to a
pressure, say, of 100 lb. to 1 sq. in., the dielectric strength of the
air is greatly increased, and the plates may therefore be brought very
near to one another without causing a spark to pass under such voltage
as would cause discharge in air at normal pressure. Condensers of this
kind have been employed by R. A. Fessenden in wireless telegraphy, and
they form a very excellent arrangement for standard condensers with
which to compare the capacity of other Leyden jars. Owing to the
variation in the value of the dielectric constant of glass with the
temperature and with the frequency of the applied electromotive force,
and also owing to electric glow discharge from the edges of the tin foil
coatings, the capacity of an ordinary Leyden jar is not an absolutely
fixed quantity, but its numerical value varies somewhat with the method
by which it is measured, and with the other circumstances above
mentioned. For the purpose of a standard condenser a number of
concentric metal tubes may be arranged on an insulating stand, alternate
tubes being connected together. One coating of the condenser is formed
by one set of tubes and the other by the other set, the air between
being the dielectric. Paraffin oil or any liquid dielectric of constant
inductivity may replace the air.
See J. A. Fleming, _Electric Wave Telegraphy_ (London, 1906); R. A.
Fessenden, "Compressed Air for Condensers," _Electrician_, 1905, 55,
p. 795; Moscicki, "Construction of High Tension Condensers,"
_L'Éclairage électrique_, 1904, 41, p. 14, or _Engineering_, 1904, p.
865. (J. A. F.)