- Industry: Library & information science
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Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks. It was founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books. The ...
Or Isle of France, a volcanic island in the Indian Ocean, 550 m. E. of Madagascar, as large as Caithness, with mountains 3000 feet high, a tableland in the centre, and many short streams; the climate is cool in winter, hot in the rainy season, and subject to cyclones; formerly well wooded, the forests have been cut down to make room for sugar, coffee, maize, and rice plantations; sugar is the main export; the population is very mixed; African and Eastern races predominate; descendants of French settlers and Europeans number 110,000; discovered by the Portuguese in 1510, they abandoned it 90 years later; the Dutch held it for 112 years, and abandoned it in turn; occupied by the French in 1721, it was captured by Britain in 1810, and is now, with some other islands, a crown colony, under a governor and council. Port Louis, on the NW., is the capital, and a British naval coaling station.
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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.
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Or Lotophagi, an ancient people inhabiting a district of Cyrenaica, on the NE. coast of Africa, who lived on the fruit of the lotus-tree, from which they made wine. Ulysses and his companions in their wanderings landed on their shores, but the soothing influence of the lotus fruit so overpowered them with languor, that they felt no inclination to leave, or any more a desire to pursue the journey homewards. See Tennyson's poem "The Lotus-eaters."
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Or Lucanus, author of the third Gospel, as well as the Acts, born in Antioch, a Greek by birth and a physician by profession, probably a convert, as he was a companion, of St. Paul; is said to have suffered martyrdom and been buried at Constantinople; is the patron saint of artists, and represented in Christian art with an ox lying near him, or in the act of painting; his Gospel appears to have been written before the year 63, and shows a Pauline interest in Christ, who is represented as the Saviour of Jew and Gentile alike; it was written for a Gentile Christian and in correspondence with eye-witnesses of Christ's life and death.
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Or Lurlei, a famous steep rock, 430 ft. high, on the Rhine, near St. Goar; dangerous to boatmen, on which it was fabled a siren sat combing her hair and singing to lure them to ruin; the subject of an exquisite Volkslied by Heine.
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Or Lusiades, a poem of Camoens in ten cantos, in celebration of the discoveries of the Portuguese in the East Indies, and in which Vasco da Gama is the principal figure; it is a genuine national epic, in which the poet passes in review all the celebrated exploits and feats that glorify the history of Portugal.
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Or Maelstrom, a dangerous whirlpool off the coast of Norway, caused by the rushing of the currents of the ocean in a channel between two of the Loffoden Islands, and intensified at times by contrary winds, to the destruction often of particularly small craft caught in the eddies of it, and sometimes of whales attempting to pass through it.
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Or Manichaeans, the founder of the Manichaeans, a native of Persia, and who died A.D. 274.
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Or Maud, daughter of Henry I. of England and wife of the Emperor Henry V., on whose decease she was married to Geoffrey Plantagenet of Anjou and became mother of Henry II.; on the death of her father succeeded to the English throne, but was supplanted by Stephen, whom she defeated and who finally defeated her (1103-1167).
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Or Mayence, in Hesse-Darmstadt, on the Rhine, opposite the mouth of the Main, is an important German fortress and one of the oldest cities in Germany; it has a magnificent cathedral, restored in 1878, and is a stronghold of Catholicism; a large transit trade is done, and the making of furniture, leather goods, and machinery are important industries; Gutenberg was a native.
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