washing the shores of N. Africa, from the E. coast of the Roman province of Africa (the territory of Carthage, or Africa proper) to the S. coast of Crete and the frontier of Egypt. The two Syrtes belonged to it. LICATA, or Alicata, a seaport of Sicily, in the province and 26 m. S. E. of the city of Girgenti; pop. about 17,000. It is at the mouth of the Salso, the largest river of Sicily, and is built partly on the shore of a small peninsula and partly on the slope of a rugged hill which is crowned by an ancient fortress, the castle of Sant' Angelo standing on the opposite height. The town is in a dilapidated condition. The harbor is so shallow that large vessels have to anchor a mile from the shore; still it has a large trade in grain, fruits, wines, macaroni, soda, and sulphur. There are four churches, containing several ancient paintings and inscriptions.-Licata probably occupies the site of Phintias, which was built by the tyrant of that name about 280 B. C. (See GELA.) The height had been previously fortified, and the castle of Sant' Angelo is supposed to stand on the spot where Phalaris kept the brazen bull. In the middle ages Licata was frequently plundered by the corsairs, and in 1553 it was fired by a French and Turkish fleet and almost entirely destroyed. LICENSE, in law, may be simply and well defined as a permission. Thus, a permission to go upon the land or enter the house of him who gives it, the permission accorded by a belligerent power to its own subjects or to those of the enemy to carry on a trade interdicted by war, and the permission granted by a state to its citizens to sell certain wares or exercise certain callings, are familiar examples of licenses. The most common and important of these are licenses to keep a tavern, to sell spirituous liquor, to peddle out goods, to sell by auction, and the like. All of these are governed and regulated exclusively by statutes in the different states. In each state, the amount paid by way of tax for the license, if any, the privileges conferred by it, and the precautions against abuse, are determined only by the judgment of the legislature, in reference to the wants or peculiar circumstances of its people. It is universally admitted that each state has full power to enact general police regulations for the preservation of the public health and morals, and for this purpose it may require persons proposing to follow particular occupations, where abuses are liable to creep in, to obtain a license from the proper public authority. When, however, a license fee is imposed for the purpose of regulation merely, it should not exceed in amount the cost of the license and of a proper proportion of the expense of enforcing the law; but a license fee may also be imposed for the purposes of revenue, and then it is a tax, and can only be limited by the needs of government and the legislative discretion. For shipping licenses, see SHIPPING. -A mere and proper license to do anything upon or with one's property transfers no interest and vests no right. It simply authorizes, or so to speak pardons, an unlawful act. Being a mere permission, it is evident that a license cannot permit anything which the licenser himself cannot do; so that if one permits another simply to go upon his land, the alienation of the land will necessarily extinguish the privilege. Further, it is clear that the benefit of a license is limited to him who receives it; for as the license transfers no property or interest, the licensee has nothing to assign. Finally, it is characteristic of a license that it rests wholly in the indulgence and will of the licenser, and is revocable at his pleasure. These are the incidents of every mere license; but if the license be supported by the grant of an interest, or be necessary to the enjoyment of a right, it attaches inseparably to it, and partakes of its incidents. It may not only cease to be revocable, but may become capable of assignment. Thus, to borrow a familiar illustration, a permission to hunt in a park, and to carry away the deer killed, is a license so far as it concerns the mere privilege of hunting; but it includes also a grant of the deer. If in such a case the grant of the property be well made, the license is irrevocable. So if one make a sale or gift of a chattel which is situated on his land or in his shop, the license to remove, though not express, but implied in such a case by law, is yet irrevocable, because the licensee has an interest in the chattel which can only be enjoyed by taking it away. The enjoyment of a mere parol license cannot be pushed so far as to create an easement; for such a continuing interest in lands can be legally raised only by deed, that is, by a formal instrument under seal. So that when one licenses another, by a mere parol permission, to keep hay stacks on his land, or allows the licensee to dig a ditch across it, the privilege in both cases is equally revocable even though it have been executed by the licensee. An easement would have been irrevocable, but that could have been created only by deed. But let it be supposed that one has, with another's permission, erected a building on the land of the latter; a revocation of the license in such a case would cause the licensee material injury, and in extreme cases a court of equity will sometimes interpose for the protection of the licensee. Courts of law have generally adhered to the strict law doctrines; and, in respect to permanent structures, though there are some decisions which regard the license as coextensive with the duration of the building to which it relates, yet the weight of authority is adverse to this view, and in favor of limiting the licensee's privilege to a right of entry and removal, as in the case of ordinary chattels. The more favorable decisions rest on the doctrine of equitable estoppel, which has been borrowed from the chancery practice, and now forms a means of remedying by common law many wrongs which otherwise would not fall within the range of the common law jurisdiction. The general rule then, in the United States as well as in England, respecting licenses which concern the enjoyment of interests in lands, maintains their revocability, no matter what may have been done in reliance upon them; and no matter whether the question arise between the original parties, or be complicated by conveyance to third persons.-In international law, licenses are permissions to carry on a trade interdicted during war. The power to grant them rests naturally with the sovereign; but in time of actual hostilities they may be immediately issued by generals or other high military or naval officers. These licenses are liberally construed, but no advantage must be taken of the indulgence which they grant; as for example, by carrying a different kind of goods from that expressly permitted, or by changing, without the consent of the granting power, the person by whom the license was to be used; for, if it be not expressly transferable, the license is personal only.-In American constitutional law questions of conflict between state and federal authority sometimes arise in regard to licenses, but they are not often difficult of solution. Thus, it is clear that a license granted by federal authority, within the sphere of congressional power, must be paramount to any state law or state regulation; while, on the other hand, a state license to do what would conflict with any federal authority must be void. This subject received thorough examination in the case of Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheaton's Reports, 1, in which a law of New York giving exclusive privileges in the public waters of that state was held void as conflicting with the power of congress over commerce. But when a license fee is imposed by federal authority for revenue purposes only, being but a tax, it interferes with nothing allowed or prohibited under state laws. Thus, liquor dealers are now required to pay a federal license tax; but this does not license the sale of liquors in any state where it is forbidden, or relieve from any state requirement of license or other state regulation. It gives no permission to carry on the business, but taxes it if carried on. (License Tax Cases, 5 Wallace, 462.) LICHENS. In the classification of plants we have the two great sub-kingdoms of flowering and flowerless plants; the flowerless or cryptogamous plants are subdivided into acrogens, which are mostly herbaceous, with a distinct axis of growth, having foliaceous appendages and growing from the apex, and thallogens, which are seldom herbaceous or with foliaceous appendages, the growth taking place periphically or horizontally. To the thallogens belong the algae, the fungi, and the lichens. These orders are usually readily distinguished. But there are some lichens which approach algæ, and others so near fungi as to make their classification difficult without careful study. The vegetative portion of a lichen is the thallus, which may be regarded as the plant proper, as it performs all the functions of root, stem, FIG. 1.-Tree Lungwort (Sticta pulmonacea). and leaves; it is exceedingly variable in form, texture, and color. When the thallus forms a flat expansion it is called foliaceous, as in sticta (fig. 1); if erect and cylindrical, as in cladonia (fig. 2), it is fruticulose; in some it forms a mere crust on the soil or other surface, when it is called crustaceous; and when concealed beneath the fibres of the bark of trees, it is hypophleous. Whatever the form of the thallus, it consists wholly of cellular tissue, and its surface is destitute of stomata. (See LEAF.) The structure of the thallus is not homogeneous, but FIG. 2.-Cladonia coccinia. FIG. 3.-Microscopic View of Transverse Section of the Thal el, the cortical layer; g, gonidia; m medullary layer; h, the lower layer or hypothallus. the microscope shows several distinct layers. A magnified cross section, as given in fig. 3, presents first a layer of cells of colorless cellular tissue, the cortical layer (c ). Beneath this is the gonidial layer, made up of opaque cells, not altogether continuous, called gonidia (g); these are usually bright green or olivegreen, and their presence is characteristic of lichens, serving to distinguish them from fungi. Next below the gonidia is the medullary layer (m), consisting of elongated cells, which are either (1) felted or interlaced to form a loose web, (2) crustaceous, when the filaments are fewer, accompanied by white granules and crystals of oxalate of lime, or (3) cellular, when rounded or angular utricles are associated with the filaments. The lower layer of the thallus, called the hypothallus (h), is of cells or filaments, and is usually darker than the upper surface; it sometimes gives off rootlike hairs (rhizines) which serve to attach the lichen to its matrix. Various modifications of this structure are met with; in some the cortical and in others the lower layer is wanting; in the erect lichens the medullary layer serves as an axis around which the gonidia are arranged, and in some of the crustaceous lichens it is difficult to distinguish any other elements than the gonidia. The organs of fructification, called apothecia, are FIG. 4.-Graphis elegans. FIG. 5.-Microscopic View of the Cross Section of an Apo- sometimes con- in color from brownish cealed within the tissues of the thallus, but are commonly upon its surface or margin, where they appear as variously shaped disks, to the different forms of which the descriptive names of peltate, scutellate, &c., are given; sometimes, as in what are called the "written " lichens, graphis (fig. 4), for example, the apothecia are elongated or branching irregular spots, which have been compared to Japanese letters; similar lichens of related genera are quite common on the bark of oak and other forest trees. Apothecia are rarely of the same color as the thallus, and are black, brown, yellow, or red of various shades. A general idea of the structure of an apothecium may be had from fig. 5, showing a magnified section. The microscope shows a number of oblong or club-shaped bodies, the spore cases (8 c) or asci, to which all other parts of the apothecium are subordinate; these spore cases (also called theca and sporangia) are surrounded by numerous filaments, the paraphyses (par); the exterior of the apothecium has a cortical layer (c), below which are gonidia (g), as in the thallus. Other apothecia vary in form and details from the one figured, but their office is the same, the protection and development of the spore cases, which contain the spores. Though lichens multiply by other methods, yellow to nearly black. FIG. 6.-Spore Cases with paraphyses, highly magnified. larger and more conspicuous are found in temperate and moist climates, choosing in the northern hemisphere northern and western exposures; and even at the equator there are species rich and gorgeous in colors. The prevailing tints in lichen are gray, white, black, dark brown, rich green, pale yellow, and orange red. From mere specks or patches of hard, seemingly inanimate matter, the lichens assume sizes of considerable magnitude. The change produced by moisture in the same plant is very striking: dull and inconspicuous in dry weather, it assumes bright colors in a prolonged season of dampness, and appears endowed with life. Lichens grow upon almost every substance where alternate dryness and moisture can be found, a very few only passing much of their existence in a submerged state. Destitute of roots and dependent upon the atmosphere for their nutrition, it seems to matter little with them upon what matrix they fix. Some have even been found attached to the glass in the windows of old and deserted buildings. In so wide a geographical range as that over which they are spread, the same identical species must be found occurring upon very distinct kinds of trees and soils, yet maintaining their specific characters. Thus there are some species which are most commonly to be expected upon rocks, yet which frequently grow upon the bark of trees. Many species are excessively polymorphous, and present themselves under so many varieties as to small black dots, either upon the margin only or scattered over its surface, called spermogonia. A magnified cross section (fig. 7) shows a great number of needle-shaped, extremely minute bodies, the spermatia, which are borne by branched or simple filaments called sterigmata. The spermatia are present or absent in different species, and vary considerably in form, which is constant for each species in which they occur. Reasoning from analogy, the spermatia have been supposed to be equivalent to the antheridia in ferns and mosses, and to play the part of the male organ in fertilizing the spores; but as their action has not been observed, and they have not the locomotive power of the antheridia, their office is inferred rather than proven. Pycnidia are still other protuberances upon the surface of the thallus of some lichens; they are not of common occurrence, and their office is not well understood; as they contain spore-like bodies, they are regarded by Tulasne as supplementary means of propagation. The close relationship of lichens with algae and fungi has already been alluded to; indeed, Schwendener goes so far as to deny to lichens the rank of a distinct order, but regards them as compound organisms consisting of algæ held in captivity by the meshes of a fungus; a view which meets with but few adherents. -The essential elements of terrestrial vegetation are to be found in these plants, which hold such a subordinate rank in the scale of creation, being in fact rootless and cellular, subsisting upon the air, but furnished with stems, branch-render it difficult to reduce them to an original es, and parts which correspond to fruits and seeds; their position in the vegetable kingdom being intermediate between the floating tribes of the algae and the fugacious forms of the fungi, or, as Fries expresses it, "having the vegetation of the algals and the fructification of the fungals." Thus ingeniously contrived and admirably fitted for an especial office, we should expect to find them in situations suited to no other vegetation. Lichens play an important part in the economy of nature, and it is probable that they were the first forms of vegetation upon the dry rocks; and that by their decay and accompanying disintegration of the rocks they began the accumulation of soil. It is now well known that the pulverulent lichens are the first plants that clothe the bare rocks of newly formed islands in the midst of the ocean; the foliaceous lichens follow these, then mosses and liverworts, which by their decay prepare a soil for the growth of plants of the higher orders. The crustaceous lichens affect the very summits of mountains, growing near the limits of perpetual snow, and are seen very far north, so seemingly rudimentary as to appear like colored spots of the solid rocks. They are not, however, exclusively confined to such regions, being common in some instances on the margin of the sea in countries where granitic strata especially are to be found. The sides of buildings and the surfaces of sandstone rocks are favorite situations for many kinds. The type, the color of the thallus being often affected by the chemical composition of the rock on which they grow, or the color of the disk of the apothecia remarkably diverse. Several species are parasitical upon others, occurring upon their thalli in the reduced forms of mere fruits or of spermagonia; their own vegetative functions being supplied by the subject to which they have attached themselves.-The value of the lichens to man may be estimated from their uses as articles of food and of medicine, and from their employment in the arts. According to Linnæus, in the arctic regions of Lapland the reindeer lichen (cladonia rangiferina) grows in the utmost profusion, and overspreads plains hundreds of miles in extent. These are the fertile fields of the Laplanders, so that the possessor of such a barren tract thus covered with lichens considers himself fortunate; for when the cold of winter has withered up every sort of herbage, this lichen becomes the principal aliment of the herds in which consists his wealth, and on which depends the very existence of the natives of that country. The reindeer lichen was at one time by edict of Gustavus III. of Sweden used in the manufacture of flour, when grain was scarce. It also grows in this country as far south as Pennsylvania, and is especially abundant northward to Canada and arctic America. The Iceland moss (cetraria Islandica) fattens cattle, sheep, deer, and swine; and out of this and of the C. | peared in the "Annals of the New York Lyceum of Natural History," 1823. Various papers upon lichens by Profs. Edward Tuckerman and J. Lewis Russell are to be found in the "Boston Journal of Natural History " (1838 et seq.). Prof. Tuckerman, now of Amherst college, who has devoted himself more thoroughly than any other American botanist to these obscure plants, besides the memoirs above referred to and others in Silliman's "Journal of Science and Arts" (1858-'9), has published an "Enumeration of North American Lichens" (Cambridge, 1845), and a "Synopsis of the Lichens of New England and of the Northern States and British America" (Cambridge, 1848). The same author's Lichenes America Septentrionalis Exsiccati (1848-'51) consists of six fascicles of specimens, and is an important contribution to American lichenology. In an enumeration of this author's labors we should not omit a memoir in Agassiz's "Lake Superior" (Boston, 1850), and one in the "Botany of Wilkes's Exploring Expedition," recently published. Since the publication of Prof. Tuckerman's earlier works much progress has been made in the study, and his promised work on the "Genera of North American Lichens" will no doubt embody whatever is now known of these obscure forms of vegetable life. nivalis the Icelanders make soup and even bread. According to Olafsen, one ton of Iceland moss is equal to half a ton of meal. (See ICELAND MOSS.) Lecanora esculenta, of the steppes of Asia, is eaten by the nomadic tribes of those regions. This occurs in masses about the size of a filbert, and so like the stones in appearance that it needs a practised eye to detect it; as it has never been found attached to any object, it is regarded as having fallen from heaven, like the manna of the Israelites. The tripe de roche (umbilicaria Muhlenbergii), mixed with the roe of fishes, assists in making nutritious food for the North American Indians. Sir John Franklin was indebted to this lichen for subsistence after a four days' abstinence when on his journey to the shores of the polar sea. Lichens afford valuable materials for dyeing, of which the parelle (lecanora parella) and cudbear (L. tartarea) may be cited as familiar instances. To these may be added urceolaria scruposa and cinerea, with parmelia saxatilis, omphalodes, conspersa, &c. Rocella tinctoria, fuciformis, intricata, &c., inhabitants of the shores of the Mediterranean or of the coast of Africa, Chili, &c., yield archil. Even the common yellow wall lichen (parmelia parietina), so abundant near our seacoasts, possesses a peculiar principle called parietine (Thompson), which forms a bright yel- LICHFIELD, an episcopal city and municipal low coloring matter; this is heightened by and parliamentary borough of Staffordshire, nitric, sulphuric, or muriatic acid, and alkalies England, and a county in itself, situated on a change it to a rich purplish red.--The chemical small branch of the Trent, and on the London constituents of lichens are phosphate of lime, and Northwestern railway, 110 m. N. W. of Lonsalt, manganese, iron; several principles, as don; pop. in 1871, 7,380. It is well paved and picrolichine, variolarine, orceine, cetrarine, inu- lighted, and amply supplied with water, and the line, erythrine, rocelline, picroerythrine; sev- principal streets are lined with handsome and eral acids, as parellic, usnic, orceic, and ery- well built houses. The most interesting public thrynic acid, and others; uncrystallizable su- edifice is the cathedral, parts of which display gar, oil, waxy matter, resinous matter; crystals, the early English architecture. It is 410 ft. long, and oxalate of lime in the tissues especially of 153 ft. wide across the transepts, and has three lecanora tartarea.—The name lichen was ori- spires, the central one of which is 280 ft. high. ginally given by the ancient naturalists to cer- It was founded in the 7th century, but the tain species, because of a fancied resemblance present building dates from the 12th and 13th to the cutaneous disease so called, whence they centuries. It occupies an elevated site, and is were supposed to be specifics for it.-The visible from a great distance. Its interior corworks of Acharius, though published early responds with the exterior in the magnificence in the present century, are still employed by of its architectural decorations. Among its students in lichenology; his Lichenographia numerous monuments are those of Dr. SamUniversalis (Göttingen, 1810) and Synopsis uel Johnson, Garrick, and Lady Mary Wortley Methodica Lichenum (Lund, 1814) are useful Montagu, and Chantrey's celebrated group of works of reference. Among other important the sleeping infants. The cathedral suffered European works upon the subject are Fries's much during the siege of the town by the Lichenographia Europaa reformata (Lund, parliamentary forces in 1643, but has since 1831); Nylander's Synopsis Methodica Liche- been twice thoroughly repaired. Other nonum (Paris, 1858); and Tulasne's Mémoire sur table churches are St. Chad's, St. Mary's, and les lichens (Paris, 1852). Berkeley's "Intro- St. Michael's, the first of which is the most duction to Cryptogamic Botany" (London, ancient in the city. There are also several 1857) treats of the structure in this and the national schools, a grammar school founded related families. The first enumeration of by Edward VI., a savings bank, a theatre, and American lichens is to be found in Gronovius's a guildhall. On the W. side of the market Flora Virginica (1761); Muhlenberg's Cata- place is the house in which Dr. Johnson was logus Plantarum (Lancaster, Pa., 1813) enu- born, and in the same street is his statue in merates 184 species; and several other works a sitting posture, 19 ft. high, on a pedestal record American lichens. Halsey's "Synop-ornamented with bass-reliefs illustrative of tical View of the Lichens of New York" ap- his life. The chief manufactures are paper, |