Ancient Geography, a town of Rhodes, situated on a hill on the west side of the island. It was built by Telepomus the son of Hercules, according to Diodorus Siculus; by one of the Heliades, grandsons of the Sun, named Lindus, according to Strabo. It was the native place of Cleobulus, one of the wise men. Here we see the famous temple of the Lindian Minerva, which was built by the daughters of Danaus. Cadmus enriched this temple with many splendid offerings. The citizens dedicated and hung up here the seventh of Pindar's Olympic odes, written in letters of gold. The ruins of that superb edifice are still to be seen on the top of a high hill which overlooks the sea. Some remains of the walls, consisting of stones of an enormous size, still show it to have been built in the Egyptian style. The pillars and other ornaments have been carried off. On the most elevated peak of the rock are the ruins of a castle, which may have served as a fortress to the city. Its circumference is very extensive, and is filled with rubbish. Lindo, the modern city, stands at the foot of the hill. A bay of considerable wideness and depth serves as a harbour to the city. Ships find good anchorage there in twenty fathoms water. They are safely sheltered from the south-west winds, which constantly prevail through the severest season of the year. In the beginning of winter, they cast anchor off a small village named Maffary. Before the building of Rhodes, Lindus was the harbour which received the fleets of Egypt and Tyre. It was enriched by commerce. Mr Savary observes, that a judicious government, by taking advantage of its harbour and happy situation, might yet restore it to a flourishing state.

**Line**, in Geometry, a quantity extended in length only, without any breadth or thickness. It is formed by the flux or motion of a point. See Fluxions, and Geometry.

**Line**, in the art of war, is understood of the disposition of an army ranged in order of battle, with the front extended as far as may be, that it may not be flanked.

**Line of Battle**, is also understood of a disposition of the fleet in the day of engagement; on which occasion the vessels are usually drawn up as much as possible in a straight line, as well to gain and keep the advantage of the wind as to run the same board. See Naval Tactics.

**Horizontal Line**, in Geography and Astronomy, a line drawn parallel to the horizon of any part of the earth.

**Equinoctial Line**, in Geography, is a great circle on the earth's surface, exactly at the distance of 90° from each of the poles, and of consequence bisecting the earth in that part. From this imaginary line, the degrees of longitude and latitude are counted.—In astronomy, the equinoctial line is that circle which the sun seems to describe round the earth on the days of the equinox in March and September. See Astronomy and Geography.

**Meridian Line**, is an imaginary circle drawn through the two poles of the earth and any part of its surface. See Geography Index.

**Ship of the Line**, a vessel large enough to be drawn up in the line, and to have a place in a sea-fight.

**Line**, in Genealogy, a series or succession of relations in various degrees, all descending from the same common father. See Descent.

**Line**, also denotes a French measure containing the 12th part of an inch, or the 144th part of a foot. Geometers conceive the line subdivided into six points. The French line answers to the English barley-corn.

**Fishing Line**. See Fishing Line.

**Lines**, in Heraldry, the figures used in armories to divide the shield into different parts, and to compose different figures. These lines, according to their different forms and names, give denomination to the pieces or figures which they form, except the straight or plain lines. See Heraldry.

**Linea alba**, in Anatomy, the concourse of the tendons of the oblique and transverse muscles of the abdomen; dividing the abdomen in two, in the middle. It is called linea, line, as being straight; and alba, from its colour, which is white.—The linea alba receives a twig of a nerve from the intercostals in each of its dilineaments or indentings, which are visible to the eye, in lean persons especially.

**Lineament**, among painters, is used for the outlines of a face.

**Linear numbers**, in Mathematics, such as have relation to length only; such is a number which represents one side of a plain figure. If the plain figure be a square, the linear figure is called a root.

**Linear Problem**, that which may be solved geometrically by the intersection of two right lines. This is called a simple problem, and is capable but of one solution.

**Linens**, in commerce, a well known kind of cloth, chiefly made of flax.—Linens was not worn by the Jews, Greeks, or Romans, as any part of their ordinary dress. Under-wraps of a finer texture supplied the place of shirts: Hence the occasion for frequent bathing. Alexander Severus was the first emperor who wore a shirt: but the use of so necessary a garment did not become common till long after him.

The linen manufacture was probably introduced into Britain with the first settlements of the Romans. The flax was certainly first planted by that nation in the British soil. The plant itself indeed appears to have been originally a native of the east. The woollen-draper would naturally be prior in its origin to the linen; and the fibrous plants from which the threads of the latter are produced, seem to have been first noticed and worked by the inhabitants of Egypt. In Egypt, indeed, the linen manufacture appears to have been very early: for even in Joseph's time it had risen to a considerable height. From the Egyptians the knowledge of it proceeded probably to the Greeks, and from them to the Romans. Even at this day the flax is imported among us from the eastern nations; the western kind being merely a degenerate species of it.

In order to succeed in the linen manufacture, one set of people should be confined to the ploughing and preparing the soil, sowing and covering the seed, to the weeding, pulling, rippling, and taking care of the new seed, and watering and dressing the flax till it is lodged at home: others should be concerned in the drying, breaking, scutching, and heckling the flax, to fit it for the spinners; and others in spinning and reeling it, to fit it for the weaver; others should be concerned in taking due care of the weaving, bleaching, beating, and finishing the cloth for the market. It is reasonable to believe, that if these several branches of the manufacture were carried on by distinct dealers in Scotland and Ireland, where our home-made linens are manufactured, the several parts would be better executed, and the whole would be afforded cheaper, and with greater profit.

**Staining of Linen**. Linen receives a black colour with much more difficulty than woollen or cotton. The black struck on linen with common vitriol and galls, or logwood, is very perishable, and soon washes out.—Instead of the vitriol, a solution of iron in four strong beer is to be made use of. This is well known to all the calico-printers; and by the use of this, which they call their iron-liquor, and madder root, are the blacks and purples made which we see on the common printed linens. The method of making this iron-liquor is as follows: A quantity of iron is put into the four strong beer; and, to promote the diffusion of the metal, the whole is occasionally well stirred, the liquor occasionally drawn off, and the rust beat from the iron, after which the liquor is poured on again. A length of time is required to make the impregnation perfect; the solution being reckoned unfit for use till it has stood at least a twelve month. This solution stains the linen of a yellow, and different shades of buff-colour; and is the only known substance by which these colours can be fixed on linen. The cloth stained deep with the iron-liquor, and afterwards boiled with madder, without any other addition, becomes of the dark colour which we see on printed linens and cottons; which, if not a perfect black, has a very near resemblance to it. Others are stained paler with the same liquor diluted with water, and come out purple.