LUXEMBOURG
1125
LYCURGUS
usefulness. He died at Eisleben, Saxony, on Feb. 18, 1546. Directly opposing estimates of Luther and his work are held by Roman Catholics and Protestants. To the latter he stands as a grand and epoch-making reformer. The former regard him as an heretical fanatic, who, instead of working patiently within the church for a reform which, they claim, was accomplished later through the Council of Trent, rashly led a revolt against the true church and needlessly and unwarrantably hindered the progress of Christianity. See Life by Koestlin and by Bayne and Essays by Carlyle, Froude and Tulloch.
Luxembourg (Inks'on'boor'), a palace in Paris, erected in 1615-20 for Maria dei Medici, queen-consort of Henry IV. Since the Revolution it has served the house of peers (the French senate), and for a time contained an interesting museum of art (now removed to an adjoining building) in the Petit-Luxembourg. Many of the apartments are splendidly decorated and enriched with paintings and sculptures. In exterior aspect, as seen from the finely colonnaded court, the palace is very elaborate.
Luxemburg (Itiks'em-bdrg) is an independent grand-duchy of Europe, lying between France, Prussia and Belgium. It consists of a plateau furrowed with valleys, and nearly all its streams flow to the Moselle. Area, 998 square miles. Population 236,543. The little state is ruled by a house of 45 representatives, elected by the communes for six years, half retiring every three years. For commercial purposes Luxemburg is included in the German zollverein. The chief town is Luxemburg; population 20,928. The grand-duchy has about 300 miles of railroad. Its industries are mining and smelting.
Luxfer Prisms are large sheets of glass flat on the surface exposed to the weather, but on the inner surface covered with small horizontal ribs or prisms of triangular cross-section, somewhat like the ribs of a washboard. The day-light of an ordinary room comes directly from the sky through the windows. If the glass in the windows is ordinary plate window-glass, this light passes through the windows in nearly straight lines and falls upon the floor near the windows. For this reason a room is much darker in the rear than in front near the windows, and this difference is much greater where there are buildings opposite the windows, shutting off some of the light from the sky. The purpose of the prisms placed in the windows is to bend the rays of light as they pass through the window, so that they shall go to different parts of the room. In this way the room is given a nearly uniform illumination from front to rear. If there are unusually high buildings opposite the windows, shutting off the most of the light from them, the prisms are placed in a sloping position outside, like awnings, and thus throw through the win-
dows much more light than originally fell upon them.
Luzon (loo-zon'), the largest of the Philippines (which see).
Lyall, Edna, the English novelist known by this pen-name, is Ada Ellen Bayly, daughter of a London barrister and bencher of Gray's Inn. She was born at Brighton, Sussex, and at an early age took to writing as a profession. Her first story, Won by Waiting, was published in 1879, which was followed by Donovan, We Two, In the Golden Days, Knight Errant, A Hardy Norseman and others. Her later novels are How the Children raised the Wind, Wayfaring Men and Hope the Hermit. Her books attained wide popularity. She died on Feb. 8, 1903. Lycopo'diales, plants forming one of the three great divisions of Pteridophytes, commonly called club-mosses and sometimes ground-pines. The plants have slender, branching, prostrate or erect stems completely clothed with small leaves, having a general moss-like appearance. The erect branches are often terminated by conspicuous cylindrical strobili, usually in pairs, which are the "clubs" referred to in the name club-mosses. The group is a very ancient one, and in the coal-measures con-tained large tree-forms, which were conspicuous members of the forests. The terminal strobili are composed of overlapping sporophylls, each spor-ophyll bearing a sporangium on its upper surface near the base. The two conspicuous genera are Ly-copodium and Selaginella. The former genus contains the coarser forms which are more characteristic of the temperate regions, being the ordinary club-mosses, and are homospor-ous, the spores produced by the sporangia being similar. Selaginella contains much more numerous species, is particularly developed in the tropics and includes the smaller and more delicate club-mosses. They are common in greenhouses as delicate, mossy, decorative plants. The most interesting feature of the genus is that its species are all heterosporous. The two kinds oi sporangia are found in the same strobilus, the megasporangia being associated with the lower sporophylls of the strobilus and usually containing four megaspores; while the microsporangia are associated with the upper sporophylls of the strobilus, and contain numerous microspores. In many respects Selaginella approaches very near the seed-plants. See PTERIDOPHYTES and HET-EROSPORY. ->
Lycurgus (li-kdr'gus), the lawgiver of Sparta, lived 800 or 900 B. C. He was uncle of the young King Charilaos, and governed
A CLUB-MOSS
