LIVONIA (1,260), Russian Baltic province on the Gulf of Riga; is flat and marshy, and only moderately fertile; produces rye, barley, and potatoes; its chief industries are distilling, brewing, and iron-founding, and fishing; four-fifths of the population are Letts and Esthonians, only 5 per cent. are Russian; the original Finnic Livonians are almost extinct; capital Riga (180).

LIVRAISON, part of a serial issued from time to time.

LLANDUDNO (6), a fashionable watering-place at the foot of Great Ormes Head, Carnarvon, frequented by people from Yorkshire and Lancashire.

LLANELLY (32), a manufacturing seaport in Carmarthenshire for shipping coal, iron, and copper.

LLANOS, vast level plains twice the size of Great Britain in the N. of South America, in the basin of the Orinoco, covered in great part with tall grass and stocked in the rainy season with herds of cattle; during the dry season they are a desert.

LLORENTE, JUAN ANTONIO, Spanish historian, is the author of several works, but his celebrity is mainly due to his “History of the Spanish Inquisition,” of which in 1789 he became the secretary (1760-1823).

LLOYD’S, a part of the Royal Exchange, London, appropriated to the use of underwriters and for marine intelligence, frequented by those interested in merchant shipping; so called from Lloyd’s Coffee-house, formerly the head-quarters of the class.

LOAD-LINE, line painted on the outside of a vessel to mark the extreme of immersion in loading her with a cargo.

LOADSTONE or LODESTONE, an iron ore remarkable for its magnetic quality or power of attracting iron; it derived its name from its use as a leading stone in the compass to mariners.

LOBBY, THE, hall connected with a legislative assembly to which the public have access.

LOCAL OPTION, licence granted to the inhabitants of a district to extinguish or reduce the sale of intoxicants in their midst.

LOCHABER, a Highland district in the S. of Inverness-shire.

LOCHABER AXE, an axe with a broad blade and a long handle formerly in use among the Highlanders as a weapon.

LOCHIEL, a Highland chief, Sir Evan Cameron his name, head of the Cameron clan, who held out against William III.’s rule in the Highlands, but ultimately took the oath of allegiance; d. 1719.

LOCHINVAR, hero of a ballad in Scott’s “Marmion,” who carries off his sweetheart just as she is about to be sacrificed in marriage to another whom she loathes.

LOCHLEVEN, Scottish lake in Kinross-shire overshadowed by Benarty and the West Lomond, is 23 m.  NW. of Edinburgh; in a castle on one of its islands Mary Stuart was imprisoned 1567-68; it is now famous for its trout.