LICHTENBERG, formerly a small German principality on the west bank of the Rhine, enclosed by the Nahe, the Blies, and the Gian, now forms the circle of St Wendel in the government district of Treves, Rhenish Prussia. T,he principality was constructed of parts of the old electorate of Treves, Pfalz-Zweibrücken, and Salm, and lay between Rhenish Bavaria and the old Prussian province of the Rhine. Originally called the lordship of Baumholder, it owed the name of Lichtenberg and its elevation to a principality to Ernest, duke of Saxe-Coburg, to whom it was presented by Prussia in 1815 in accordance with terms agreed upon at the congress of Vienna. The duke, however, restored it to Prussia in 1834, in return for an annual pension of £26,000 sterling. The area is 210 square miles, and the population 45,000.

LICHTENBERG, Georg Christoph (1744-1799), physicist and satirical writer, was born at Oberramstadt, near Darmstadt, July 1, 1744. In 1763 he entered Göttingen university, where in 1770, after spending several years in England, he became extraordinary professor of physics, and five years later ordinary professor. This post he continued to hold till his death, February 24, 1799. As a physicist he is best known for his investigations in electricity, more especially as to the so-called Lichtenberg figures (see vol. viii. p. 66), which are fully described in two memoirs De nova methodo naturam ac motum fluidi electrici investigandi (Göttingen, 1778-79). He sent many excellent contributions to the Göttingen Τasch j enkalender from 1778 onwards, and to the G'ottingische Magazin der Literatur und Wissenschaft, which he edited for three years (1780-82) along with J. G. A. Forster....