LANTERN, or LANTHORN turn), a common contrivance used for carrying a lamp or candle in. consisting of a case or vessel made of tin, with sashes of some transparent substance, such as horn or glass. Lanterns are first spoken of by Theopompus, a Greek comic poet, and Empedocles of Agrigen tum. Lanterns were used by the an cients in augury. The only representa tion of an Egyptian lantern that has come down to us probably did not differ sensibly from those spoken of in St. John xviii : 3, where the party of men which went out of Jerusalem to apprehend Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane is de scribed as being provided "with lanterns and torches." In architecture, a small structure on the top of a dome, or in other similar situations, for the purpose of admitting light, promoting ventilation, or for orna ment, of which that on the top of the capitol at Washington may be referred to as an example. In Gothic architecture the term is sometimes applied to louvres on the roofs of halls, etc., but it usually signifies a tower which has the whole height, or a consid.rable portion of the
interior, open to Vi3W from the ground, and is lighted by an upper tier of win dows.
LAOCOoN (1A-oleo-on), according to classic legend, a priest of Apollo, after ward of Poseidon, in Troy, who married against the will of the former god, and who warned his countrymen against ad mitting the wooden horse into Troy. For one or both of these reasons he was de stroyed along with his two sons by two enormous serpents 1.vhich came up out of the sea. The subject is represented in one of the most famous works of ancient sculpture still in existence, a group dis covered in 1506 at Rome, and purchased by Pope Julius II. for the Vatican. It was carried by Bonaparte to Paris in 1796, but recovered in 1814. According to Pliny, it was the work of the Rhodian artists, Agesander, Polydorus, and Athe nodorus. The best authorities place its date at a little before 100 B. C.