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* LIBERTY PARTY. 193 LIBRARIES. States in a war with Muxioo, was checked by the publication of a letter written by Clay in which he had said that he would 'bo glad to see' Texas annexed some day. This turned the scale, and the nominations of Birney and Jlorris were confirmed. At the ensuing election the Liberty Party polled 02,300 votes, 15,812 of them in New York, almost all of them drawn from the Whig Party. The loss of these votes assured the election of Polk and Clay's defeat. The first actual ett'ects of the Liberty Partj''s action, therefore, were the election of Polk, the annexa- tion of Texas, and the addition of a considerable area of new slave territory to the LInion. Their last great efl'ort made in the elections of 1846 was attended with no success. Their last Na- tional Convention, held in Buflfalo, October 20, 1847, nominated .Tohn P. Hale and Leicester King for President and Mce-President, but the move- ment toward amalgamation with the new Free- Soil Party (q.v.) had already begun. The nomi- nees withdrew after Van Buren's nomination, and except for the continued activity of a small number who had adopted the view that slavery could be abolished under the Constitution by a simple act of Congress, the Liberty Party ceased i to exist. The best account of the Liberty Party is contained in T. C. Smith's Liberty and Free Soil Forties in the yorthn-ext (New York, 1897), "Harvard Historical Studies," vol. vi. Consult, also, William Birney, James G. Birney and His Times (New York, 1890) : Jlorris, Life of Thomas Morris (Cincinnati. 1856) ; Hart, Salmon P. Chase (Boston, 1899), in the "Ameri- can Statesmen Series;" and Hammond, History of PoHtieal Parties in the State of Neio York (Cooperstown, 1846). LIBERTY TREE. ( 1 ) An elm in Boston, upon which the citizens hung the effigies of the British stamp distributor and other unpopular persons during the excitement connected with the Stamp Act. The tree stood on Washington Street, and is recalled by an appropriate device on the building which occupies its site. (2) A Revolutionary War ballad by Thomas Paine (1775). puldislicd in the Pennsylvania Mayazine. LIBER VERITATIS (Lat.. Bonk of Truth). A series of original drawings made by Claude Lorrain for the purpose of protection against the imitation of his paintings by others. Only six copies of the work exist. LIBIDIBI, le'be-de'bA. A tropical tree whose pods are used in tanning. See Divt-Divr. LIB'ITI'NA. An old Italian goddess of vo- luptuous pleasure, of gardens and vineyards, and of the dead, hence identified both with Venus and with Proserpina. From her temple all the necessary apparatus for fiuierals had to be bought, and a piece of money was deposited there for every person dving in Rome. Under- takers were called liliifinarii, and the gate of the amphitheatre through which the dead were re- moved bore thi' name of Porta Libitinensis. LIBMANAN, leh'ma-niin'. A town of Luzon, Philippines, in the Province of Ambos Cama- rincs. It lies about 11 miles northwest of Nueva C.lceres and 41'j miles south of the Bay of San Miguel. It has a post-oflficp and a telegraph sta- tion. Population, in 1898. 14,512. LI'BOCE'DRtrS (Neo-Lat., from Gk. X(/3oi, libos. tears + K4Spos, kedrost, cedar) . A genus of evergreen trees, belonging to the Coniferie, resembling the arbur vit;e, but differing in the structure of the cones, the scales not overlapping as in that tree. There are two species in New Zealand, Libocedrus Uidireliii and Libocedrus Doniana; two in the mountains of Chile, Libo- cedrus Chilensis and Libocedrus tetragona; one in the Pacific Sierras of the United States, grow- ing usually at an elevation above 4000 feet; one in China, Libucedrus macrolepis ; and one in New Caledonia, Libocedrus austro-culidonicus. The Western United States species was named by Torrej' Libocedrus dccurrens, from the fact that the bases of the small scale-like leaves are decur- rent upon the stem. The tree attains a height of from 120 to 140 feet, and a trunk from 6 to 8 feet in diameter, without branches for 80 to 100 feet. It is found from Oregon to Lower California. Its beautiful, glossy green foliage and its graceful form when young make it one of the finest of ornamental evergreens. It has been confounded with the Thuya gigantea. but its decurrent leaves make an easy distinction. In California it is called white cedar. Its wood, of a yellowish color, surpasses redwood in dura- bility, and is valuable for various purposes. LIBOURNE, lo'bnnrn'. The capital of an arrondissement in the Department of Gironde, France, at the contluence of the Isle with the Dordogne, 17 miles east-northeast of Bordeaux (ilap: France. F 7). Its ancient features in- clude the fourteenth-century Tour de I'Horloge, the fifteenth-century Church of Saint .Jean Bap- tiste with a steeple over 230 feet high, and a sixteenth-century Hotel de Ville. Its mo<lern institutions comprise a conununal college, a school of hydrography, a nniseum, a library, a botanical garden, and a theatre. The sur- rounding district abounds in vineyards. The chief manufactures of Lil)ourne are liquors, sugar, woolen goods, etc.; it carries on a con- siderable trade in local manufactures and agri- cultural products. The harbor is accessible for small vessels. Population, in 1891, 17,867; in 1901, 19.175. LI'BRA (Lat., balance). The seventh sign in the zodiac. At the first point of Libra, the ecliptic passes across the eiiuator to the Southern Hemisphere, this point being thus the autumnal equinox. LIBRARIES. A term applied indifferently to buildings designed to contain bonks, ami to the books deposited in these buildings. In the present article it is used chiefly in the latter sense. History. Though there were libraries in an- cient times in Kg>pt, no remains of these col- lections have been found. From very early days P.abylonia was the seat of a learned and literary people, and almost every important temple con- tained its library of clay tablets with c ipi- form inscriptions', carefully shelved in regular order. Such a library was recently (1901) found at Nippur, in the great temple of Bel, which was destroyed in the Elamite invasion (c.1782 B.C.). It w'as from the treasures of such li- braries that King Assurbanipal of Assyria, in the seventh century n.c, caused copies to he made for the great library which he gathered in his palace at Nineveh. ' The tablets hero found by I.ayard and his successors contain history, sci- ence, religion, grammars, and dictionaries in the original languages of B.abylonia. and in translation Among the Greeks private libraries