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 Millstone grit series crops in a belt which may be traced from the mouth of the Avon southwards to Whitburn. This is followed by the true coal-measures with the Boghead or Torbanehill coal, the Colinburn, Main, Ball, Mill and Upper Cannel or Shotts gas coals of Armadale, Torbanehill and Fauldhouse.

Climate and Agriculture.—The average rainfall for the year is 29.9 in., and the average temperature 47.5° F. (January 38° F.; July 59.5° F.). More than three-fourths of the county, the agriculture of which is highly developed, is under cultivation. The best land is found along the coast, as at Carriden and Dalmeny. The farming is mostly arable, permanent pasture being practically stationary (at about 22,000 acres). Oats is the principal grain crop, but barley and wheat are also cultivated. Farms between 100 and 300 acres are the most common. Turnips and potatoes are the leading green crops. Much land has been reclaimed; the parish of Livingston, for example, which in the beginning of the 18th century was covered with heath and juniper, is now under rotation. In Torphichen and Bathgate, however, patches of peat moss and swamp occur, and in the south there are extensive moors at Fauldhouse and Polkemmet. Live stock does not count for so much in West Lothian as in other Scottish counties, though a considerable number of cattle are fattened and dairy farming is followed successfully, the fresh butter and milk finding a market in Edinburgh. There is some sheep-farming, and horses and pigs are reared. The wooded land occurs principally in the parks and “policies” surrounding the many noblemen’s mansions and private estates.

Other Industries.—The shale-oil trade flourishes at Bathgate, Broxburn, Armadale, Uphall, Winchburgh, Philpstoun and Dalmeny. There are important iron-works with blast furnaces at Bo’ness, Kinneil, Whitburn and Bathgate, and coal is also largely mined at these places. Coal-mining is supposed to have been followed since Roman times, and the earliest document extant regarding coalpits in Scotland is a charter granted about the end of the 12th century to William Oldbridge of Carriden. Fire-clay is extensively worked in connexion with the coal, and ironstone employs many hands. Limestone, freestone and whinstone are all quarried. Binny freestone was used for the Royal Institution and the National Gallery in Edinburgh, and many important buildings in Glasgow. Some fishing is carried on from Queensferry, and Bo’ness is the principal port.

Communications.—The North British Railway Company’s line from Edinburgh to Glasgow runs across the north of the county, it controls the approaches to the Forth Bridge, and serves the rich mineral district around Airdrie and Coatbridge in Lanarkshire via Bathgate. The Caledonian Railway Company’s line from Glasgow to Edinburgh touches the extreme south of the shire. The Union Canal, constructed in 1818–1822 to connect Edinburgh with the Forth and Clyde Canal near Camelon in Stirlingshire, crosses the county, roughly following the N.B.R. line to Falkirk. The Union Canal, which is 31 m. long and belongs to the North British railway, is carried across the Almond and Avon on aqueducts designed by Thomas Telford, and near Falkirk is conveyed through a tunnel 2100 ft. long.

Population and Administration.—In 1891 the population amounted to 52,808, and in 1901 to 65,708, showing an increase of 24.43% in the decennial period, the highest of any Scottish county for that decade, and a density of 547 persons to the sq. m. In 1901 five persons spoke Gaelic only, and 575 Gaelic and English. The chief towns, with populations in 1901, are Bathgate (7549), Borrowstounness (9306), Broxburn (7099) and Linlithgow (4279). The shire returns one member to parliament. Linlithgowshire is part of the sheriffdom of the Lothians and Peebles, and a resident sheriff-substitute sits at Linlithgow and Bathgate. The county is under school-board jurisdiction, and there are academies at Linlithgow, Bathgate and Bo’ness. The local authorities entrust the bulk of the “residue” grant to the County Secondary Education Committee, which subsidizes elementary technical classes (cookery, laundry and dairy) and science and art and technological classes, including their equipment.

History.—Traces of the Pictish inhabitants still exist. Near Inveravon is an accumulation of shells—mostly oysters, which have long ceased to be found so far up the Forth—considered by geologists to be a natural bed, but pronounced by antiquaries to be a kitchen midden. Stone cists have been discovered at Carlowrie, Dalmeny, Newliston and elsewhere; on Cairnnaple is a circular structure of remote but unknown date; and at Kipps is a cromlech that was once surrounded by stones. The wall of Antoninus lies for several miles in the shire. The discovery of a fine legionary tablet at Bridgeness in 1868 is held by some to be conclusive evidence that the great rampart terminated at that point and not at Carriden. Roman camps can be distinguished at several spots. On the hill of Bowden is an earthwork, which J. Stuart Glennie and others connect with the struggle of the ancient Britons against the Saxons of Northumbria. The historical associations of the county mainly cluster round the town of (q.v.). Kingscavil (pop. 629) disputes with Stonehouse in Lanarkshire the honour of being the birthplace of Patrick Hamilton, the martyr (1504–1528).

See Sir R. Sibbald, History of the Sheriffdoms of Linlithgow and Stirlingshire (Edinburgh, 1710); G. Waldie, Walks along the Northern Roman Wall (Linlithgow, 1883); R. J. H. Cunningham, Geology of the Lothians (Edinburgh, 1838).

 LINNAEUS, the name usually given to (1707–1778), Swedish botanist, who was born on the 13th of May, O.S. (May 23, N.S.) 1707 at Råshult, in the province of Småland, Sweden, and was the eldest child of Nils Linnaeus the comminister, afterwards pastor, of the parish, and Christina Brodersonia, the daughter of the previous incumbent. In 1717 he was sent to the primary school at Wexiö, and in 1724 he passed to the gymnasium. His interests were centred on botany, and his progress in the studies considered necessary for admission to holy orders, for which he was intended, was so slight that in 1726 his father was recommended to apprentice him to a tailor or shoemaker. He was saved from this fate through Dr Rothman, a physician in the town, who expressed the belief that he would yet distinguish himself in medicine and natural history, and who further instructed him in physiology. In 1727 he entered the university of Lund, but removed in the following year to that of Upsala. There, through lack of means, he had a hard struggle until, in 1729, he made the acquaintance of Dr Olaf Celsius (1670–1756), professor of theology, at that time working at his Hierobotanicon, which saw the light nearly twenty years later. Celsius, impressed with Linnaeus’s knowledge and botanical collections, and finding him necessitous, offered him board and lodging.

During this period, he came upon a critique which ultimately led to the establishment of his artificial system of plant classification. This was a review of Sébastien Vaillant’s Sermo de Structura Florum (Leiden, 1718), a thin quarto in French and Latin; it set him upon examining the stamens and pistils of flowers, and, becoming convinced of the paramount importance of these organs, he formed the idea of basing a system of arrangement upon them. Another work by Wallin, , sive Nuptiae Arborum Dissertatio (Upsala, 1729), having fallen into his hands, he drew up a short treatise on the sexes of plants, which was placed in the hands of the younger Olaf Rudbeck (1660–1740), the professor of botany in the university. In the following year Rudbeck, whose advanced age compelled him to lecture by deputy, appointed Linnaeus his adjunctus; in the spring of 1730, therefore, the latter began his lectures. The academic garden was entirely remodelled under his auspices, and furnished with many rare species. In the preceding year he had solicited appointment to the vacant post of gardener, which was refused him on the ground of his capacity for better things.

In 1732 he undertook to explore Lapland, at the cost of the Academy of Sciences of Upsala; he traversed upwards of 4600 m., and the cost of the journey is given at 530 copper dollars, or about £25 sterling. His own account was published in English by Sir J. E. Smith, under the title Lachesis Lapponica, in 1811; the scientific results were published in his Flora Lapponica (Amsterdam, 1737). In 1733 Linnaeus was engaged at Upsala in teaching the methods of assaying ores, but was prevented from delivering lectures on botany for academic reasons. At this juncture the governor of Dalecarlia invited him to travel through his province, as he had done through Lapland. Whilst on this journey, he lectured at Fahlun to large audiences; and J. Browallius (1707–1755), the chaplain there, afterwards bishop of Åbo, strongly urged him to go abroad and take his degree of M.D. at a foreign university, by which means he could afterwards settle where he pleased. Accordingly he left Sweden in 1735. Travelling by Lübeck and Hamburg,