LAUREL 429 LAURIER Greeks. Linnaeus called it nobilis be- cause it was anciently reserved for priests, heroes, and sacrifices. In its na- tive region — the S. of Europe — it is 30 or even 60 feet high, but sends forth so many suckers and low shoots as to have a shrubby appearance. The color is deep green, inclining to olive; the ripe berries dusk, purple, or black. There are glands on the backs of the leaves, which excrete nectar. The berries, the leaves, and the oil have a fragrant smell, an aromatic astringent taste, and narcotic and car- minative properties. Water distilled from them contains prussic acid. Cera- s'us laurocerasus, called the common or broad-leaved laurel, has oblong, remotely serrated^ pale-green evergreen leaves; flowers in racemes. A native of Trebi- zond, its leaves, bark, and fruit are viru- lent poisons. LAUREL, a city of Mississippi, the county-seat of Jones co. It is on the Mobile, Jackson, and Kansas City, the Gulf and Ship Island, and the Queen and Crescent railroads. It is an important commercial and manufacturing center, and has cotton mills, railroad shops, wagon works, and lumber mills. The city contains two parks, a city hall build- ing, and other notable public buildings. Pop. (1910) 8,465; (1920) 13,037. LAURENS, HENRY, an American statesman; born in Charleston, S. C, in 1724. Descended from a French Hugue- not family, he early realized a fortune in business. On the outbreak of the Amer- ican Revolution, Laurens, in 1776, was elected a delegate from his native State to the Continental Congress, and became its president, which office he held till the close of 1778. Next year, being ap- pointed minister-plenipotentiary to Hol- land, he was captured on his way thither by a British frigate, and taken to Lon- don, where he was confined as a prisoner in the Tower; and his papers having proved the complicity of Holland in the colonial revolt, a war between Great Britain and Holland followed. On his release, Laurens was appointed one of the commissioners for negotiating peace, and proceeded to Paris, where, Nov. 30, 1782, he, conjointly with Franklin and Jay, signed the preliminaries of the treaty. Died in Charleston, Dec. 8, 1792. LAURENS, JOHN, an American mili- tary officer; son of the preceding; born in South Carolina in 1754. After re- ceiving his education in England he joined the American Continental Army in 1777, becoming aide-de-camp and sec- retary to Washington. Laurens so highly distinguished himself in the battles of Vol. V— Germantown and Monmouth, and in other operations as to earn the title of the "Bayard of the Revolution." In 1780 he was sent to France to negotiate a loan. He was killed in action at the Combahee river, S. C, Aug. 27, 1782. LAURENTIAN GROUP, a vast series of rocks, 30,000 feet in thickness, and covering an area of at least 200,000 square miles N. of the St. Lawrence river. It is lower, and consequently older, than the Cambrian. It consists of an immense series of crystalline rocks, gneiss, micaschist, quartzite, and lime- stone. It is divided into Upper and Lower Laurentian. The Upper, more than 10,000 feet thick, consists of strati- fied crystalline rocks. It mainly con- sists of felspars. The Lower Lauren- tian, about 20,000 feet in thickness, is unconfoi-mable with the Upper. It con- sists mainly of a reddish gneiss, with orthoclase felspar; interstratified with thin hornblendic and micaceous schists, with beds of usually crystalline origin, and others of plumbago. The Lauren- tian volcanic rocks of Ottawa, Argen- teuil, etc., in Canada, consist of fine- grained dark greenstone or dolerite. LAURENTIAN MOUNTAINS, a range in Canada extending for over 3,000 miles from Labrador to the Arctic Ocean, forming the watershed between Hudson Bay, the St. Lawrence, and the Great Lakes, and dividing the same bay from the sources of the Mackenzie river. Some of the peaks attain a height of 4,000 feet. The rock formation belongs to the fundamental metamorphosed sedi- mentary deposits known as the Lauren- tian system. LAURIER, SIR WILFRID (l6-r>a'), a Canadian statesman; born in St. Lin, Quebec, Nov. 20, 1841. He was educated for the legal profession. He embarked on his political career in 1871, when he was elected as a Liberal to the Quebec Provincial Assembly; and here his elo- quence and ability at once brought him to the front. In 1874 he was elected to the Federal Assembly. From the first he advocated a policy of free trade, and, though a Catholic, his spirited resistance to the attempted dictation of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in regard to the Mani- toba school question, showed that he was independent of such influence in political affairs. In 1891 he was chosen as leader of the Liberal Party, and at the general election of 1896 he led his followers to a notable victory, becoming Premier of the Dominion. His tariff legislation during 1897, giving Great Britain the benefit of preferential trade with Canada, aroused much enthusiasm both in the colony and Cyc — BB
