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Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 16, Slice 1 - "L" to "Lamellibranchia"
Author: Various
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 16, Slice 1 - "L" to "Lamellibranchia"" ***
Transcriber's notes:
(1) Numbers following letters (without space) like C2 were originally
printed in subscript. Letter subscripts are preceded by an
underscore, like C_n.
(2) Characters following a carat (^) were printed in superscript.
(3) Side-notes were relocated to function as titles of their respective
paragraphs.
(4) Macrons and breves above letters and dots below letters were not
inserted.
(5) [root] stands for the root symbol; [alpha], [beta], etc. for greek
letters.
(6) The following typographical errors have been corrected:
ARTICLE LABYRINTHULIDEA: "From each cyst ultimately emerges a
single amoeba, or more rarely four (figs. 6, 7)." 'amoeba' amended
from 'amoebae'.
ARTICLE LACE: "... upon the lace-making industry in
Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire contains many
illustrations of laces made in these counties from the 17th century
to the present time." 'Bedfordshire' amended from 'Bedforshire'.
ARTICLE LACONIA: "The coast, especially on the east, is rugged and
dangerous." 'especially' amended from 'expecially'.
ARTICLE LA FARGE, JOHN: "Hokusai: A Talk about Hokusai (New York,
1897), and An Artist's Letters from Japan (New York, 1897)."
'Hokusai' amended from 'Hoksuai'.
ARTICLE LAMELLIBRANCHIA: "The series of oval holes on the back of
the lamella are the water-pores which open between the filaments in
irregular rows separated horizontally by the transverse
inter-filamentar junctions." 'filamentar' amended from 'filmentar'.
THE
ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA
ELEVENTH EDITION
FIRST edition, published in three volumes, 1768-1771.
SECOND " " ten " 1777-1784.
THIRD " " eighteen " 1788-1797.
FOURTH " " twenty " 1801-1810.
FIFTH " " twenty " 1815-1817.
SIXTH " " twenty " 1823-1824.
SEVENTH " " twenty-one " 1830-1842.
EIGHTH " " twenty-two " 1853-1860.
NINTH " " twenty-five " 1875-1889.
TENTH " ninth edition and eleven
supplementary volumes, 1902-1903.
ELEVENTH " published in twenty-nine volumes, 1910-1911.
COPYRIGHT
in all countries subscribing to the Bern Convention
by
THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS
of the
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
_All rights reserved_
THE
ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA
A DICTIONARY OF
ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE AND GENERAL INFORMATION
ELEVENTH EDITION
VOLUME XVI
L to LORD ADVOCATE
New York
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
342 Madison Avenue
Copyright, in the United States of America, 1910,
by
The Encyclopædia Britannica Company.
VOLUME XVI, SLICE I
L to Lamellibranchia
ARTICLES IN THIS SLICE:
L LA FARINA, GIUSEPPE
LAACHER SEE LA FAYETTE, GILBERT MOTIER DE
LAAGER LA FAYETTE, LOUISE DE
LAAS, ERNST LA FAYETTE, ROCH GILBERT DU MOTIER
LA BADIE, JEAN DE LA FAYETTE, PIOCHE DE LA VERGNE
LABEL LAFAYETTE
LABEO, MARCUS ANTISTIUS LA FERTÉ
LABERIUS, DECIMUS LA FERTÉ-BERNARD
LABIATAE LA FERTÉ-MILON
LABICANA, VIA LAFFITTE, JACQUES
LABICHE, EUGÈNE MARIN LAFFITTE, PIERRE
LABICI LA FLÈCHE
LABID LAFONT, PIERRE CHÉRI
LABIENUS LA FONTAINE, JEAN DE
LABLACHE, LUIGI LAFONTAINE, SIR LOUIS HIPPOLYTE
LABOR DAY LAFOSSE, CHARLES DE
LA BOURBOULE LAGARDE, PAUL ANTON DE
LABOUR CHURCH, THE LAGASH
LA BOURDONNAIS, FRANÇOIS LAGHMAN
LABOUR EXCHANGE LAGOON
LABOUR LEGISLATION LAGOS (province of Nigeria)
LABOUR PARTY LAGOS (seaport of Nigeria)
LABRADOR LAGOS (seaport of Portugal)
LABRADORITE LA GRÂCE
LABRADOR TEA LA GRAND' COMBE
LABRUM LAGRANGE, JOSEPH LOUIS
LA BRUYÈRE, JEAN DE LAGRANGE-CHANCEL, FRANÇOIS JOSEPH
LABUAN LA GRANJA
LABURNUM LAGRENÉE, LOUIS JEAN FRANÇOIS
LABYRINTH LA GUAIRA
LABYRINTHULIDEA LA GUÉRONNIÈRE, DUBREUIL HÉLION
LAC LAGUERRE, JEAN HENRI GEORGES
LACAILLE, NICOLAS LOUIS DE LAGUNA
LACAITA, SIR JAMES LA HARPE, JEAN FRANÇOIS DE
LA CALLE LAHIRE, LAURENT DE
LA CALPRENÈDE, COSTES LAHN
LA CARLOTA LAHNDA
LACCADIVE ISLANDS LA HOGUE, BATTLE OF
LACCOLITE LAHORE
LACE LA HOZ Y MOTA, JUAN CLAUDIO DE
LACE-BARK TREE LAHR
LACEDAEMON LAIBACH
LACÉPÈDE, BERNARD DE LA VILLE LAIDLAW, WILLIAM
LACEWING-FLY LAING, ALEXANDER GORDON
LA CHAISE, FRANÇOIS DE LAING, DAVID
LA CHAISE-DIEU LAING, MALCOLM
LA CHALOTAIS, DE CARADEUC DE LAING, SAMUEL
LA CHARITÉ LAING'S NEK
LA CHAUSSÉE, NIVELLE DE LAIRD, MACGREGOR
LACHES LAÏS
LACHINE LAISANT, CHARLES ANNE
LACHISH LAI-YANG
LACHMANN, FRIEDRICH WILHELM LAKANAL, JOSEPH
LACINIUM, PROMUNTURIUM LAKE, GERARD LAKE
LA CIOTAT LAKE
LA CLOCHE, JAMES DE LAKE CHARLES
LA CONDAMINE, CHARLES MARIE DE LAKE CITY
LACONIA (Peloponnese district) LAKE DISTRICT
LACONIA (New Hampshire, U.S.A.) LAKE DWELLINGS
LACONICUM LAKE GENEVA
LACORDAIRE, JEAN BAPTISTE HENRI LAKE OF THE WOODS
LACQUER LAKE PLACID
LACRETELLE, PIERRE LOUIS DE LAKEWOOD
LACROIX, ANTOINE FRANÇOIS ALFRED LAKH
LACROIX, PAUL LAKHIMPUR
LACROMA LAKSHMI
LA CROSSE LALAING, JACQUES DE
LACROSSE LALANDE, JOSEPH JÉRÔME LEFRANÇAIS DE
LA CRUZ, RAMÓN DE LALÍN
LACRYMATORY LA LINEA
LACTANTIUS FIRMIANUS LALITPUR
LACTIC ACID LALLY, THOMAS ARTHUR
LACTONES LALLY-TOLLENDAL, TROPHIME GÉRARD
LA CUEVA, JUAN DE LALO, EDOUARD
LACUNAR LA MADDALENA
LACUZON LAMAISM
LACY, FRANZ MORITZ LAMALOU-LES-BAINS
LACY, HARRIETTE DEBORAH LAMA-MIAO
LACY, MICHAEL ROPHINO LAMAR, LUCIUS QUINTUS CINCINNATUS
LACYDES OF CYRENE LAMARCK, ANTOINE DE MONET
LADAKH AND BALTISTAN LA MARGHERITA, CLEMENTE SOLARO
LADD, GEORGE TRUMBULL LA MARMORA, ALFONSO FERRERO
LADDER LAMARTINE, LOUIS DE PRAT DE
LADING LAMB, CHARLES
LADISLAUS I LAMB
LADISLAUS IV. LAMBALLE, LOUISE OF SAVOY-CARIGNANO
LADISLAUS V. LAMBALLE
LA DIXMERIE, NICOLAS BRICAIRE DE LAMBAYEQUE
LADO ENCLAVE LAMBEAUX, JEF
LADOGA LAMBERMONT, AUGUSTE
LADY LAMBERT, DANIEL
LADYBANK LAMBERT, FRANCIS
LADYBRAND LAMBERT, JOHANN HEINRICH
LADY-CHAPEL LAMBERT, JOHN (English martyr)
LADY DAY LAMBERT, JOHN (English general)
LADYSMITH LAMBERT OF HERSFELD
LAELIUS LAMBESSA
LAENAS LAMBETH
LAER, PIETER VAN LAMBETH CONFERENCES
LAESTRYGONES LAMBINUS, DIONYSIUS
LAETUS, JULIUS POMPONIUS LAMBOURN
LAEVIUS LAMECH
LAEVULINIC ACID LAMEGO
LA FARGE, JOHN LAMELLIBRANCHIA
INITIALS USED IN VOLUME XVI. TO IDENTIFY INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTORS,[1]
WITH THE HEADINGS OF THE ARTICLES IN THIS VOLUME SO SIGNED.
A. B. Ch.
A. B. CHATWOOD, B.SC., A.M.INST.C.E., M.INST.ELEC.E.
Lock.
A. B. R.
ALFRED BARTON RENDLE, M.A., D.SC, F.R.S., F.L.S.
Keeper, Department of Botany, British Museum. Author of _Text Book
on Classification of Flowering Plants, &c._
Leaf.
A. C. F.
ALEXANDER CAMPBELL FRASER, LL.D.
See the biographical article: FRASER, A. C.
Locke, John.
A. C. S.
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.
See the biographical article: SWINBURNE, A. C.
Landor.
A. D.
HENRY AUSTIN DOBSON, LL.D.
See the biographical article: Dobson, HENRY AUSTIN.
Locker-Lampson.
A. Fi.
PIERRE MARIE AUGUSTE FILON.
See the biographical article: FILON, P. M. A.
Labiche.
A. F. P.
ALBERT FREDERICK POLLARD, M.A., F.R.HIST.SOC.
Professor of English History in the University of London. Fellow
of All Souls' College, Oxford. Assistant editor of the Dictionary
of National Biography, 1893-1901. Lothian Prizeman, Oxford, 1892;
Arnold Prizeman, 1898. Author of _England under the Protector
Somerset_; _Henry VIII._; _Life of Thomas Cranmer_; &c.
Lambert, Francis;
Lambert, Nicholson.
A. Gl.
ARNOLD GLOVER, M.A., LL.B. (d. 1905)
Trinity College, Cambridge; Joint-editor of _Beaumont and
Fletcher_ for the Cambridge University Press.
Layard.
A. Go.*
REV. ALEXANDER GORDON, M.A.
Lecturer in Church History in the University of Manchester.
Laurentius, Paul;
Libertines.
A. G. D.
ARTHUR GEORGE DOUGHTY, C.M.G., M.A., LITT.D., F.R.HIST.S.,
F.R.S.(Canada).
Dominion Archivist of Canada. Member of the Geographical Board of
Canada. Author of _The Cradle of New France_; &c. Joint editor of
_Documents relating to the Constitutional History of Canada_.
Lafontaine.
A. H. S.
REV. ARCHIBALD HENRY SAYCE, LITT.D., LL.D.
See the biographical article: SAYCE, A. H.
Laodicea.
A. J. G.
REV. ALEXANDER JAMES GRIEVE, M.A., B.D.
Professor of New Testament and Church History, Yorkshire United
Independent College, Bradford. Sometime Registrar of Madras
University, and Member of Mysore Educational Service.
Logos (_in part_).
A. J. L.
ANDREW JACKSON LAMOUREUX.
Librarian, College of Agriculture, Cornell University. Editor of
the _Rio News_ (Rio de Janeiro), 1879-1901.
Lima (_Peru_).
A. L.
ANDREW LANG.
See the biographical article: LANG, ANDREW.
La Cloche.
A. M. An.
ADELAIDE MARY ANDERSON, M.A.
H.M. Principal Lady Inspector of Factories, Home Office. Clerk to
the Royal Commission on Labour, 1892-1894. Gamble Gold Medallist,
Girton College, Cambridge, 1893. Author of various articles on
Industrial Life and Legislation, &c.
Labour Legislation.
A. M. C.
AGNES MARY CLERKE.
See the biographical article: CLERKE, A. M.
Lagrange;
Laplace;
Leverrier.
A. N.
ALFRED NEWTON, F.R.S.
See the biographical article: NEWTON, ALFRED.
Lämmergeyer;
Lapwing;
Lark;
Linnet;
Loom.
A. P. C.
ARTHUR PHILEMON COLEMAN, M.A., PH.D., F.R.S.
Professor of Geology in the University of Toronto. Geologist,
Bureau of Mines, Toronto, 1893-1910. Author of _Reports of the
Bureau of Mines of Ontario_.
Labrador (_in part_).
A. P. Lo.
ALBERT PETER LOW.
Deputy Minister of Department of Mines, Canada. Member of
Geological Survey of Canada. Author of _Report on the Exploration
in the Labrador Peninsula_; &c.
Labrador (_in part_).
A. Se.*
ADAM SEDGWICK, M.A., F.R.S.
Professor of Zoology at the Imperial College of Science and
Technology, London. Fellow, and formerly Tutor, of Trinity
College, Cambridge. Professor of Zoology in the University of
Cambridge, 1907-1909.
Larval Forms.
A. Sl.
ARTHUR SHADWELL, M.A., M.D., LL.D., F.R.C.P.
Member of Council of Epidemiological Society. Author of _The
London Water-Supply_; _Industrial Efficiency_; _Drink, Temperance
and Legislation_.
Liquor Laws.
A. So.
ALBRECHT SOCIN, PH.D. (1844-1899).
Formerly Professor of Semitic Philology in the Universities of
Leipzig and Tübingen. Author of _Arabische Grammatik_; &c.
Lebanon (_in part_).
A. S. C.
ALAN SUMMERLY COLE, C.B.
Assistant Secretary for Art, Board of Education, 1900-1908. Author
of _Ancient Needle Point and Pillow Lace_; _Embroidery and Lace_;
_Ornament in European Silks_; &c.
Lace.
A. St H. G.
ALFRED ST HILL GIBBONS.
Major, East Yorkshire Regiment. Explorer in South Central Africa.
Author of _Africa from South to North through Marotseland._
Lewanika.
A. S. M.
ALEXANDER STUART MURRAY, LL.D.
See the biographical article: MURRAY, ALEXANDER STUART.
Lamp.
A. S. W.
AUGUSTUS SAMUEL WILKINS, M.A., LL.D., LITT.D. (1843-1905).
Professor of Latin, Owens College, Manchester, 1869-1905. Author
of _Roman Literature_; &c.
Latin Language (_in part_).
A. T. T.
A. T. THORSON.
Official in Life Saving Service, U.S.A.
Life-boat: _United States_.
A. W. H.*
ARTHUR WILLIAM HOLLAND.
Formerly Scholar of St John's College, Oxford. Bacon Scholar of
Gray's Inn, 1900.
Leopold I. (_Roman Emperor_);
Levellers.
A. W. Hu.
REV. ARTHUR WOLLASTON HUTTON, M.A.
Rector of Bow Church, Cheapside. Librarian National Liberal Club,
1889-1899. Author of _Life of Cardinal Newman_; _Life of Cardinal
Manning_; &c.
Leo XIII.
A. W. R.
ALEXANDER WOOD RENTON, M.A., LL.B.
Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court of Ceylon. Editor of
_Encyclopaedia of the Laws of England_.
Landlord and Tenant;
Letters Patent;
Lodger and Lodgings.
A. W. W.
ADOLPHUS WILLIAM WARD, LITT.D., LL.D.
See the biographical article: WARD, ADOLPHUS WILLIAM.
Lodge, Thomas.
B. D. J.
BENJAMIN DAYDON JACKSON, PH.D.
General Secretary of the Linnean Society. Secretary to
Departmental Committee of H.M. Treasury on Botanical Work,
1900-1901. Author of _Glossary of Botanic Terms_; &c.
Linnaeus.
C.
THE RT. HON. THE EARL OF CREWE.
See the biographical article: CREWE, 1ST EARL OF.
Laprade.
C. C. W.
CHARLES CRAWFORD WHINERY, A.M.
Cornell University. Assistant editor 11th Edition of the
_Encyclopaedia Britannica_.
La Salle;
Lincoln, Abraham (_in part_).
C. Di.
CHARLES DIBDIN. F.R.G.S.
Secretary of the Royal National Life-boat Institution. Hon.
Secretary of the Civil Service Life-boat Fund, 1870-1906.
Life-boat: _British_.
C. D. W.
HON. CARROLL DAVIDSON WRIGHT.
See the biographical article: WRIGHT, HON. CARROLL DAVIDSON.
Labour Legislation: _United States_.
C. E.*
CHARLES EVERITT. M.A., F.C.S., F.G.S., F.R.A.S.
Formerly Scholar of Magdalen College, Oxford.
Light: _Introduction and History_.
C. F. A.
CHARLES FRANCIS ATKINSON.
Formerly Scholar of Queen's College, Oxford. Captain, 1st City of
London (Royal Fusiliers). Author of _The Wilderness and Cold
Harbour_.
Long Island (_Battle_).
C. F.-Br.
CHARLES FORTESCUE-BRICKDALE.
Barrister-at-Law, Lincoln's Inn. Registrar of the Office of the
Land Registry, Lincoln's Inn Fields. Author of _Registration of
Title to Land_; _The Practice of the Land Registry_; _Land
Transfer in Various Countries_; &c.
Land Registration.
C. H.*
SIR CHARLES HOLROYD.
See the biographical article: HOLROYD, SIR CHARLES.
Legros.
C. H. Ha.
CARLTON HUNTLEY HAYES, A.M., PH.D.
Assistant Professor of History in Columbia University, New York
City. Member of the American Historical Association.
Leo I.-X. (_Popes_).
C. J. B.*
REV. CHARLES JAMES BALL, M.A.
University Lecturer in Assyriology, Oxford. Author of _Light from
the East_.
Lamentations.
C. L. K.
CHARLES LETHBRIDGE KINGSFORD, MA., F.R.HIST.S., F.S.A.
Assistant Secretary, Board of Education. Author of _Life of Henry
V._ Editor of _Chronicles of London_ and Stow's _Survey of
London_.
Lancaster, John of Gaunt, duke of.
C. M.
CARL THEODOR MIRBT, D.TH.
Professor of Church History in the University of Marburg. Author
of _Publizistik im Zeitalter Gregor VII._; _Quellen zur Geschichte
des Papstthums_; &c.
Lateran Councils.
C. Mo.
WILLIAM COSMO MONKHOUSE.
See the biographical article: MONKHOUSE, W. C.
Leighton, Lord.
C. R. B.
CHARLES RAYMOND BEAZLEY, M.A., D.LITT., F.R.G.S., F.R.HIST.S.
Professor of Modem History in the University of Birmingham.
Formerly Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, and University Lecturer
in the History of Geography. Lothian Prizeman, Oxford, 1889.
Lowell Lecturer, Boston, 1908. Author of _Henry the Navigator_;
_The Dawn of Modern Geography_; &c.
Leif Ericsson;
Leo, Johannes.
De B.
HENRI G. S. A. DE BLOWITZ.
See the biographical article: BLOWITZ, H. DE.
Lesseps, Ferdinand de.
D. F. T.
DONALD FRANCIS TOVEY.
Author of _Essays in Musical Analysis_: comprising _The Classical
Concerto_, _The Goldberg Variations_, and analysis of many other
classical works.
Lasso, Orlando.
D. G. H.
DAVID GEORGE HOGARTH, M.A.
Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Fellow of Magdalen
College, Oxford. Fellow of the British Academy. Excavated at
Paphos, 1888; Naucratis, 1899 and 1903; Ephesus, 1904-1905;
Assiut, 1906-1907; Director, British School at Athens, 1897-1900;
Director, Cretan Exploration Fund, 1899.
Latakia;
Lebanon (_in part_).
D. H.
DAVID HANNAY.
Formerly British Vice-Consul at Barcelona. Author of _Short
History of the Royal Navy_; _Life of Emilio Castelar_; &c.
La Hogue, Battle of;
Lauria, Roger de;
Lepanto, Battle of;
Lissa.
D. Ll. T.
DANIEL LLEUFER THOMAS.
Barrister-at-Law, Lincoln's Inn. Stipendiary Magistrate at
Pontypridd and Rhondda.
Llantwit Major.
D. Mn.
REV. DUGALD MACFADYEN, M.A.
Minister of South Grove Congregational Church, Highgate. Author of
_Constructive Congregational Ideals_; &c.
Leighton, Robert (_in part_).
D. M. W.
SIR DONALD MACKENZIE WALLACE, K.C.I.E., K.C.V.O.
Extra Groom of the Bedchamber to H.M. King George V. Director of
the Foreign Department of _The Times_, 1891-1899. Member of the
Institut de Droit International and Officier de l'Instruction
Publique (France). Joint-editor of New Volumes (10th ed.) of the
_Encyclopaedia Britannica_. Author of _Russia_; _Egypt and the
Egyptian Question_; _The Web of Empire_; &c.
Lobánov-Rostovski.
E. B.*
ERNEST CHARLES FRANÇOIS BABELON.
Professor at the Collège de France. Keeper of the department of
Medals and Antiquities at the Bibliothèque Nationale. Member of
the Académie des Inscriptions et de Belles Lettres, Paris.
Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. Author of _Descriptions
Historiques des Monnaies de la République Romaine_; _Traités des
Monnaies Grecques et Romaines_; _Catalogue des Camées de la
Bibliothèque Nationale_.
Leptis.
E. C. B.
EDWARD CUTHBERT BUTLER, O.S.B., M.A., D.LITT. (Dublin).
Abbot of Downside Abbey, Bath. Author of "The Lausiac History of
Palladius," in _Cambridge Texts and Studies_, vol. vi.
Leo, Brother.
E. Da.
EDWARD GEORGE DANNREUTHER (1844-1905).
Member of Board of Professors, Royal College of Music, 1895-1905.
Conducted the first Wagner Concerts in London, 1873-1874. Author
of _The Music of the Future_; &c. Editor of a critical edition of
Liszt's _Etudes_.
Liszt.
E. D. J. W.
EDWARD D. J. WILSON.
Formerly Leader-writer on _The Times_.
Londonderry, 2nd Marquess of.
E. G.
EDMUND GOSSE, LL.D., D.C.L.
See the biographical article: GOSSE, EDMUND.
Lampoon;
Lie, Jonas L. E.
E. Ga.
EMILE GARCKE, M.INST.E.E.
Managing Director of British Electric Traction Co., Ltd. Author of
_Manual of Electrical Undertakings_; &c.
Lighting: _Electric (Commercial Aspects)_.
E. He.
EDWARD HEAWOOD, M.A.
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Librarian of the Royal
Geographical Society, London.
Livingstone Mountains.
E. J. D.
EDWARD JOSEPH DENT, M.A., MUS.BAC.
Formerly Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. Author of _A.
Scarlatti: his Life and Works_.
Leo, Leonardo.
E. O.*
EDMUND OWEN, M.B., F.R.C.S., LL.D., D.SC.
Consulting Surgeon to St Mary's Hospital, London, and to the
Children's Hospital, Great Ormond Street, London. Chevalier of the
Legion of Honour. Late Examiner in Surgery at the Universities of
Cambridge, London and Durham. Author of _A Manual of Anatomy for
Senior Students_.
Liver: _Surgery of Liver and Gall Bladder_.
E. Pr.
EDGAR PRESTAGE.
Special Lecturer in Portuguese Literature in the University of
Manchester. Examiner in Portuguese in the Universities of London,
Manchester, &c. Commendador, Portuguese Order of S. Thiago.
Corresponding Member of Lisbon Royal Academy of Sciences, Lisbon
Geographical Society, &c. Author of _Letters of a Portuguese Nun_;
_Azurara's Chronicle of Guinea_; &c.
Lobo, F. R.;
Lopes, Fernão.
E. R. L.
SIR EDWIN RAY LANKESTER, K.C.B., F.R.S., D.SC.
Hon. Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. Director of the Natural
History Departments of the British Museum, 1898-1907. President of
the British Association, 1906. Professor of Zoology and
Comparative Anatomy in University College, London, 1874-1890.
Linacre Professor of Comparative Anatomy at Oxford, 1891-1898.
Vice-President of the Royal Society, 1896. Romanes Lecturer at
Oxford, 1905. Author of _Degeneration_; _The Advancement of
Science_; _The Kingdom of Man_; &c.
Lamellibranchia (_in part_).
E. V. L.
EDWARD VERRALL LUCAS.
Editor of _Works of Charles Lamb_. Author of _Life of Charles
Lamb_.
Lamb, Charles.
F. E. B.
FRANK EVERS BEDDARD, M.A., F.R.S.
Prosector of Zoological Society, London. Formerly Lecturer in
Biology at Guy's Hospital, London. Naturalist to "Challenger"
Expedition Commission, 1882-1884. Author of _Monograph of the
Oligochaeta_; _Animal Colouration_; &c.
Leech.
F. E. W.
REV. FREDERICK EDWARD WARREN, M.A., B.D., F.S.A.
Rector of Bardwell, Bury St Edmunds. Fellow of St John's College,
Oxford, 1865-1882. Author of _The Old Catholic Ritual done into
English and compared with the Corresponding Offices in the Roman
and Old German Manuals_; _The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic
Church_; &c.
Lection, Lectionary;
Lector;
Litany;
Liturgy.
F. G. M. B.
FREDERICK GEORGE MEESON BECK, M.A.
Fellow and Lecturer in Classics, Clare College, Cambridge.
Lombards (_in part_).
F. G. P.
FREDERICK GYMER PARSONS, F.R.C.S., F.Z.S., F.R.ANTHROP.INST.
Vice-President, Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland.
Lecturer on Anatomy at St Thomas's Hospital and the London School
of Medicine for Women. Formerly Hunterian Professor at the Royal
College of Surgeons.
Liver: _Anatomy_.
F. J. H.
FRANCIS JOHN HAVERFIELD, M.A., LL.D., F.S.A.
Camden Professor of Ancient History in the University of Oxford.
Fellow of Brasenose College. Ford's Lecturer, 1906-1907. Fellow of
the British Academy. Author of Monographs on Roman History,
especially Roman Britain; &c.
Legion (_in part_);
Limes Germanicus.
F. L.*
SIR FRANKLIN LUSHINGTON, M.A.
Formerly Chief Police Magistrate for London. Author of Wagers of
Battle.
Lear, Edward.
F. V. B.
F. VINCENT BROOKS.
Lithography.
F. v. H.
BARON FRIEDRICH VON HÜGEL.
Member of Cambridge Philological Society; Member of Hellenic
Society. Author of _The Mystical Element of Religion_.
Loisy.
F. Wa.
FRANCIS WATT, M.A.
Barrister-at-Law, Middle Temple. Author of _Law's Lumber Room_;
_Scotland of to-day_; &c.
Law, John.
F. W. R.*
FREDERICK WILLIAM RUDLER, I.S.O., F.G.S.
Curator and Librarian of the Museum of Practical Geology, London,
1879-1902. President of the Geologists' Association, 1887-1889.
Labradorite;
Lapis Lazuli.
F. W. Ra.
FRANCIS WILLIAM RAIKES, K.C., LL.D. (1842-1906).
Judge of County Courts, Hull, 1898-1906. Joint-author of _The New
Practice_; &c.
Lien.
G. A. Gr.
GEORGE ABRAHAM GRIERSON, C.I.E., PH.D., D.LITT. (Dubl.).
Member of the Indian Civil Service, 1873-1903. In charge of
Linguistic Survey of India, 1898-1902. Gold Medallist, Royal
Asiatic Society, 1909. Vice-President of the Royal Asiatic
Society. Formerly Fellow of Calcutta University. Author of _The
Languages of India_; &c.
Lahnda.
G. E.
REV. GEORGE EDMUNDSON. M.A., F.R.HIST.S.
Formerly Fellow and Tutor of Brasenose College, Oxford. Ford's
Lecturer, 1909-1910. Employed by British Government in preparation
of the British Case in the British Guiana-Venezuelan and British
Guiana-Brazilian boundary arbitrations.
Limburg.
G. F. B.
GEORGE FREDERICK BARWICK.
Assistant-Keeper of Printed Books and Superintendent of
Reading-room, British Museum.
Lavigerie.
G. F. K.
GEORGE FREDERICK KUNZ, A.M., PH.D., D.SC.
Gem Expert to Messrs Tiffany & Co., New York. Hon. Curator of
Precious Stones, American Museum of Natural History, New York.
Fellow of Geological Society of America. Author of _Precious
Stones of North America_; &c. Senior Editor of _Book of the
Pearl_.
Lapidary and Gem-cutting.
G. H. C.
GEORGE HERBERT CARPENTER, B.SC.
Professor of Zoology in the Royal College of Science, Dublin.
Author of _Insects: Their Structure and Life_.
Lepidoptera.
G. Sa.
GEORGE SAINTSBURY, D.C.L., LL.D.
See the biographical article: SAINTSBURY, GEORGE E. B.
La Bruyère;
La Fontaine;
Lamartine;
La Rochefoucauld;
Le Sage.
G. S. L.
GEORGE SOMES LAYARD.
Trinity College, Cambridge. Barrister-at-Law, Inner Temple. Author
of _Charles Keene_; _Shirley Brooks_; &c.
Linton, William James.
G. W. T.
REV. GRIFFITHES WHEELER THATCHER, M.A., B.D.
Warden of Camden College, Sydney, N.S.W. Formerly Tutor in Hebrew
and Old Testament History at Mansfield College, Oxford.
Labid.
H. A. L.
HENDRIK ANTOON LORENTZ.
Professor of Physics in the University of Leiden. Author of _La
théorie electromagnétique de Maxwell et son application aux corps
mouvants_.
Light: _Nature of_.
H. B. W.*
HENRY BENJAMIN WHEATLEY, F.S.A.
Assistant Secretary, Royal Society of Arts, 1879-1909. President
of the Samuel Pepys Club, 1903-1910. Vice-President of the
Bibliographical Society, 1908-1910. Author of _The Story of
London_; _London Past and Present_; &c.
London: _History_.
H. B. Wo.
HORACE BOLINGBROKE WOODWARD, F.R.S., F.G.S.
Formerly Assistant Director of the Geological Survey of England
and Wales. President Geologists' Association, 1893-1894. Wollaston
Medallist, 1908.
Logan, Sir William E.;
Lonsdale, William.
H. Ch.
HUGH CHISHOLM, M.A.
Formerly Scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Editor of the
11th edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_; Co-editor of the
10th edition.
Lloyd George, D.
H. De.
REV. HIPPOLYTE DELEHAYE, S.J.
Bollandist. Joint-author of the _Acta Sanctorum_.
Lawrence, St;
Linus.
H. F. G.
HANS FRIEDRICH GADOW, M.A., F.R.S., PH.D.
Strickland Curator and Lecturer on Zoology in the University of
Cambridge. Author of _Amphibia and Reptiles_ (Cambridge Natural
History).
Lizard.
H. F. P.
HENRY FRANCIS PELHAM, LL.D.
See the biographical article: PELHAM, H. F.
Livy (_in part_).
H. H. J.
SIR HENRY HAMILTON JOHNSTON, K.C.B., G.C.M.G.
See the biographical article: JOHNSTON, SIR HENRY HAMILTON.
Liberia.
H. M. S.
HENRY MORSE STEPHENS, M.A., LITT.D.
Professor of History and Director of University Extension,
University of California. Author of _History of the French
Revolution_; _Revolutionary Europe_; &c.
Littré.
H. R. T.
HENRY RICHARD TEDDER, F.S.A.
Secretary and Librarian of the Athenaeum Club, London.
Libraries (_in part_).
H. St.
HENRY STURT, M.A.
Author of _Idola Theatri_; _The Idea of a Free Church_; and
_Personal Idealism_.
Lange, Friedrich Albert.
H. T. A.
REV. HERBERT THOMAS ANDREWS.
Professor of New Testament Exegesis, New College, London. Author
of the "Commentary on Acts," in the _Westminster New Testament_;
_Handbook on the Apocryphal Books_ in the "Century Bible."
Logia.
H. W. B.*
HERBERT WILLIAM BLUNT, M.A.
Student, Tutor, and Librarian, Christ Church, Oxford. Formerly
Fellow of All Souls' College.
Logic: _History_.
H. W. C. D.
HENRY WILLIAM CARLESS DAVIS, M.A.
Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, Oxford. Fellow of All Souls'
College, Oxford, 1895-1902. Author of _Charlemagne_; _England
under the Normans and Angevins_; &c.
Lanfranc;
Langton, Stephen.
H. Y.
SIR HENRY YULE, K.C.S.I.
See the biographical article: YULE, SIR HENRY.
Lhasa (_in part_).
I. A.
ISRAEL ABRAHAMS.
Reader in Talmudic and Rabbinic Literature in the University of
Cambridge. Formerly President, Jewish Historical Society of
England. Author of _A Short History of Jewish Literature_; _Jewish
Life in the Middle Ages_; _Judaism_; &c.
Lazarus, Emma;
Leon, Moses;
Leon of Modena.
J. An.
JOSEPH ANDERSON, LL.D.
Keeper of the National Museum of Antiquities, Edinburgh. Assistant
Secretary to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and Rhind
Lecturer, 1879-1882 and 1892. Editor of Drummond's _Ancient
Scottish Weapons_; &c.
Lake Dwellings.
J. A. F.
JOHN AMBROSE FLEMING, M.A., D.SC., F.R.S.
Pender Professor of Electrical Engineering in the University of
London. Fellow of University College, London. Formerly Fellow of
St John's College, Cambridge. Vice-President of the Institution of
Electrical Engineers. Author of _The Principles of Electric Wave
Telegraphy_; _Magnets and Electric Currents_; &c.
Leyden Jar;
Lighting: _Electric_.
J. A. F. M.
JOHN ALEXANDER FULLER MAITLAND, M.A., F.S.A.
Musical critic of _The Times_. Author of _Life of Schumann_; _The
Musician's Pilgrimage_; _Masters of German Music_; _English Music
in the Nineteenth Century_; _The Age of Bach and Handel_. Editor
of _Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians_; &c.
Lind, Jenny.
J. A. H.
JOHN ALLEN HOWE, B.SC.
Curator and Librarian of the Museum of Practical Geology, London.
Author of _The Geology of Building Stones_; &c.
Lias;
Llandovery Group.
J. Dr.
SIR JAMES DEWAR, F.R.S., LL.D.
See the biographical article: DEWAR, SIR J.
Liquid Gases.
J. D. B.
JAMES DAVID BOURCHIER, M.A., F.R.G.S.
King's College, Cambridge. Correspondent of _The Times_ in
South-Eastern Europe. Commander of the Orders of Prince Danilo of
Montenegro and of the Saviour of Greece, and Officer of the Order
of St Alexander of Bulgaria.
Larissa.
J. D. Br.
JAMES DUFF BROWN.
Borough Librarian, Islington Public Libraries. Vice-President of
the Library Association. Author of _Guide to Librarianship_; &c.
Libraries (_in part_).
J. F.-K.
JAMES FITZMAURICE-KELLY, LITT.D., F.R.HIST.S.
Gilmour Professor of Spanish Language and Literature, Liverpool
University. Norman McColl Lecturer, Cambridge University. Fellow
of the British Academy. Member of the Royal Spanish Academy.
Knight Commander of the Order of Alphonso XII. Author of _A
History of Spanish Literature_; &c.
La Cueva;
Larra;
Literature.
J. F. St.
JOHN FREDERICK STENNING, M.A.
Dean and Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford. University Lecturer in
Aramaic, Lecturer in Divinity and Hebrew at Wadham College.
Leviticus.
J. Ga.
JAMES GAIRDNER, C.B., LL.D.
See the biographical article: GAIRDNER, JAMES.
Lancaster, House of;
Leicester, Robert Dudley, earl of.
J. G. F.
SIR JOSHUA GIRLING FITCH, LL.D.
See the biographical article: FITCH, SIR J. G.
Lancaster, Joseph.
J. G. N.
JOHN GEORGE NICOLAY (1832-1901).
Marshal of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1872-1887. Joint-author of
_Abraham Lincoln_: &c.
Lincoln, Abraham (_in part_).
J. G. P.*
JAMES GORDON PARKER, D.SC., F.C.S.
Principal of Leathersellers Technical College, London. Gold
Medallist, Society of Arts. Author of _Leather for Libraries_;
_Principles of Tanning_; &c.
Leather.
J. G. R.
JOHN GEORGE ROBERTSON, M.A., PH.D.
Professor of German Language and Literature, University of London.
Editor of the _Modern Language Journal_. Author of _History of
German Literature_; _Schiller after a Century_; &c.
Lessing (_in part_).
J. Hn.
JUSTUUS HASHAGEN, PH.D.
Privat-dozent in Medieval and Modern History, University of Bonn.
Author of _Das Rheinland unter der französische Herrschaft_.
Lang, Karl Heinrich;
Ledochowski;
Leo, Heinrich.
J. H. F.
JOHN HENRY FREESE, M.A.
Formerly Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge.
Leo VI. (_Emperor of the East_).
J. Hl. R.
JOHN HOLLAND ROSE, M.A., LITT.D.
Lecturer on Modern History to the Cambridge University Local
Lectures Syndicate. Author of _Life of Napoleon I._; _Napoleonic
Studies_; _The Development of the European Nations_; _The Life of
Pitt_; &c.
Las Casas.
J. J. L.*
REV. JOHN JAMES LIAS, M.A.
Chancellor of Llandaff Cathedral. Formerly Hulsean Lecturer in
Divinity and Lady Margaret Preacher, University of Cambridge.
Langen.
J. K. I.
JOHN KELLS INGRAM, LL.D.
See the biographical article: INGRAM, J. K.
Leslie, Thomas E. C.
J. Le.
REV. JAMES LEGGE, M.A.
See the biographical article: LEGGE, JAMES.
Lâo-Tsze.
J. L. M.
JOHN LINTON MYRES, M.A., F.S.A., F.R.G.S.
Wykeham Professor of Ancient History in the University of Oxford.
Formerly Gladstone Professor of Greek and Lecturer in Ancient
Geography, University of Liverpool. Lecturer in Classical
Archaeology in University of Oxford.
Leleges;
Locri (_Greece_).
J. L. W.
JESSIE LAIDLAY WESTON.
Author of _Arthurian Romances unrepresented in Malory_.
Lancelot.
J. Mu.
SIR JOHN MURRAY, K.C.B., F.R.S.
See the biographical article: MURRAY, SIR JOHN.
Lake.
J. M. C.
REV. JAMES M. CROMBIE.
Author of _Braemar: its Topography and Natural History_; _Lichenes
Britannici_.
Lichens (_in part_).
J. M. G.
JOHN MILLER GRAY (1850-1894).
Art Critic and Curator of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery,
1884-1894. Author of _David Scott, R.S.A._; _James and William
Tassie_.
Leech, John.
J. P. E.
JEAN PAUL HIPPOLYTE EMMANUEL ADHÉMAR ESMEIN.
Professor of Law in the University of Paris. Officer of the Legion
of Honour. Member of the Institute of France. Author of _Cours
élémentaire d'histoire du droit français_; &c.
Lettres de Cachet.
J. P. P.
JOHN PERCIVAL POSTGATE, M.A., LITT.D.
Professor of Latin in the University of Liverpool. Fellow of
Trinity College, Cambridge. Fellow of the British Academy. Editor
of the _Classical Quarterly_. Editor-in-chief of the _Corpus
Poetarum Latinorum_; &c.
Latin Literature (_in part_).
J. P. Pe.
REV. JOHN PUNNETT PETERS, PH.D., D.D.
Canon Residentiary, P. E. Cathedral of New York. Formerly
Professor of Hebrew in the University of Pennsylvania. Director of
the University Expedition to Babylonia, 1888-1895. Author of
_Nippur, or Explorations and Adventures on the Euphrates_;
_Scriptures, Hebrew and Christian_.
Lagash;
Larsa.
J. S.
JAMES SULLY, LL.D.
See the biographical article: SULLY, JAMES.
Lewes, George Henry (_in part_).
J. Si.
JAMES SIME, M.A. (1843-1895).
Author of _A History of Germany_; &c.
Lessing (_in part_).
J. S. F.
JOHN SMITH FLETT, D.SC., F.G.S.
Petrographer to the Geological Survey. Formerly Lecturer on
Petrology in Edinburgh University. Neill Medallist of the Royal
Society of Edinburgh. Bigsby Medallist of the Geological Society
of London.
Laccolite;
Lamprophyres;
Laterite;
Leucite: _Leucite Rocks_;
Limestone.
J. S. K.
JOHN SCOTT KELTIE, LL.D., F.S.S., F.S.A. (Scot.).
Secretary, Royal Geographical Society. Hon. Member, Geographical
Societies of Paris, Berlin, Rome, &c. Editor of the _Statesman's
Year Book_. Editor of the _Geographical Journal_.
Livingstone.
J. S. W.
JOHN STEPHEN WILLISON, LL.D., F.R.S. (Canada).
Editor of _The News_ (Toronto). Canadian Correspondent of _The
Times_. Author of _Sir Wilfrid Laurier and the Liberal Party_; &c.
Laurier.
J. T. Be.
JOHN THOMAS BEALBY.
Joint-author of Stanford's _Europe_. Formerly Editor of the
_Scottish Geographical Magazine_. Translator of Sven Hedin's
_Through Asia, Central Asia and Tibet_; &c.
Ladoga (_in part_);
Livonia (_in part_);
Lop-nor.
J. T. Br.
J. TAYLOR BROWN.
Leighton, Robert (_in part_).
J. T. C.
JOSEPH THOMAS CUNNINGHAM, M.A., F.Z.S.
Lecturer on Zoology at the South-Western Polytechnic, London.
Formerly Fellow of University College, Oxford. Assistant Professor
of Natural History in the University of Edinburgh. Naturalist to
the Marine Biological Association.
Lamellibranchia (_in part_).
J. T. S.*
JAMES THOMSON SHOTWELL, PH.D.
Professor of History in Columbia University, New York City.
Languedoc.
J. V.*
JULES VIARD.
Archivist at the National Archives, Paris. Officer of Public
Instruction. Author of _La France sous Philippe VI. de Valois_;
&c.
Le Maçon.
J. W. D.
CAPTAIN J. WHITLY DIXON, R.N.
Nautical Assessor to the Court of Appeal.
Log.
J. W. He.
JAMES WYCLIFFE HEADLAM, M.A.
Staff Inspector of Secondary Schools under the Board of Education.
Formerly Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. Professor of Greek
and Ancient History at Queen's College, London. Author of
_Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire_; &c.
Lasker.
J. W. L. G.
JAMES WHITBREAD LEE GLAISHER, M.A., D.SC., F.R.S.
Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Formerly President of the
Cambridge Philosophical Society, and the Royal Astronomical
Society. Editor of _Messenger of Mathematics_ and the _Quarterly
Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics_.
Legendre, A. M.;
Logarithm.
K. H.
KILLINGWORTH HEDGES, M.INST.C.E., M.INST.ELECT.E.
Hon. Secretary of the Lightning Research Committee. Author of
_Modern Lightning Conductors_; &c.
Lightning Conductor.
K. S.
KATHLEEN SCHLESINGER.
Editor of _The Portfolio of Musical Archaeology_. Author of _The
Instruments of the Orchestra_.
Lituus.
L. A. W.
LAURENCE AUSTINE WADDELL, C.B., C.I.E., LL.D., M.B.
Lieut.-Colonel I.M.S. (retired). Author of _Lhasa and its
Mysteries_; &c.
Lhasa (_in part_).
L. B.
LAURENCE BINYON.
See the biographical article: BINYON, L.
Lawson, Cecil Gordon.
L. D.*
LOUIS MARIE OLIVIER DUCHESNE.
See the biographical article: DUCHESNE, L. M. O.
Liberius.
L. J. S.
LEONARD JAMES SPENCER, M.A.
Assistant in the Department of Mineralogy, British Museum.
Formerly Scholar of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and Harkness
Scholar. Editor of the _Mineralogical Magazine_.
Leadhillite;
Lepidolite;
Leucite (_in part_);
Liroconite.
L. T. D.
SIR LEWIS TONNA DIBDIN, M.A., D.C.L., F.S.A.
Dean of the Arches; Master of the Faculties; and First Church
Estates Commissioner. Bencher of Lincoln's Inn. Author of
_Monasticism in England_; &c.
Lincoln Judgment, The.
L. V.*
LUIGI VILLARI.
Italian Foreign Office (Emigration Dept.). Formerly Newspaper
Correspondent in east of Europe. Italian Vice-Consul in New
Orleans, 1906, Philadelphia, 1907, and Boston, U.S.A., 1907-1910.
Author of _Italian Life in Town and Country_; &c.
Leopold II. (_Grand Duke of Tuscany_).
M. Br.
MARGARET BRYANT.
Landor: _Bibliography_;
La Sale.
M. Ca.
MORITZ CANTOR, PH.D.
Honorary Professor of Mathematics in the University of Heidelberg.
Author of _Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Mathematik_; &c.
Leonardo of Pisa.
M. H. S.
MARION H. SPIELMANN, F.S.A.
Formerly Editor of the _Magazine of Art_. Member of Fine Art
Committee of International Exhibitions of Brussels, Paris, Buenos
Aires, Rome, and the Franco-British Exhibition, London. Author of
_History of "Punch"_; _British Portrait Painting to the Opening of
the Nineteenth Century_; _Works of G. F. Watts, R.A._; _British
Sculpture and Sculptors of To-day_; _Henriette Ronner_; &c.
Line Engraving (_in part_).
M. N. T.
MARCUS NIEBUHR TOD, M.A.
Fellow and Tutor of Oriel College, Oxford. University Lecturer in
Epigraphy. Joint-author of _Catalogue of the Sparta Museum_.
Laconia;
Leonidas;
Leotychides.
M. O. B. C.
MAXIMILIAN OTTO BISMARCK CASPARI, M.A.
Reader in Ancient History at London University. Lecturer in Greek
at Birmingham University, 1905-1908.
Leo I.-V. (_Emperors of the East_);
Lesbos;
Leuctra.
M. P.*
LEON JACQUES MAXIME PRINET.
Formerly Archivist to the French National Archives. Auxiliary of
the Institute of France (Academy of Moral and Political Sciences).
L'Aubespine.
N. G. G.
NICHOLAS G. GEDYE.
Chief Engineer to the Tyne Improvement Commission.
Lighthouse (_in part_).
O. Hr.
OTTO HENKER, PH.D.
On the Staff of the Carl Zeiss Factory, Jena, Germany.
Lens.
P. A. K.
PRINCE PETER ALEXEIVITCH KROPOTKIN.
See the biographical article: KROPOTKIN, PRINCE P. A.
Ladoga (_in part_);
Lithuanians and Letts: _History_;
Livonia (_in part_).
P. C. M.
PETER CHALMERS MITCHELL, M.A., F.R.S., D.SC., LL.D.
Secretary to the Zoological Society of London. University
Demonstrator in Comparative Anatomy and Assistant to Linacre
Professor at Oxford, 1888-1891. Lecturer on Biology at Charing
Cross Hospital, 1892-1894; at London Hospital, 1894. Examiner in
Biology to the Royal College of Physicians, 1892-1896, 1901-1903.
Examiner in Zoology to the University of London, 1903.
Life;
Longevity.
P. C. Y.
PHILIP CHESNEY YORKE, M.A.
Magdalen College, Oxford.
Laud, Archbishop;
Lauderdale, Duke of;
Leeds, 1st Duke of.
P. G.
PERCY GARDNER. LITT.D., LL.D., F.S.A.
See the biographical article: GARDNER, PERCY.
Leochares.
P. Gi.
PETER GILES, M.A., LL.D., LITT.D.
Fellow and Classical Lecturer of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and
University Reader in Comparative Philology. Late Secretary of the
Cambridge Philological Society. Author of _Manual of Comparative
Philology_; &c.
L.
P. G. H.
PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON.
See the biographical article: Hamerton, PHILIP GILBERT.
Line Engraving (_in part_).
R. A. S. M.
ROBERT ALEXANDER STEWART MACALISTER, M.A., F.S.A.
St John's College, Cambridge. Director of Excavations for the
Palestine Exploration Fund.
Lachish.
R. G.
RICHARD GARNETT, LL.D.
See the biographical article: GARNETT, RICHARD.
Leopardi.
R. I. P.
REGINALD INNES POCOCK, F.Z.S.
Superintendent of the Zoological Gardens, London.
Leaf-insect;
Locust (_in part_).
R. J. M.
RONALD JOHN MCNEILL, M.A.
Christ Church, Oxford. Barrister-at-Law. Formerly Editor of the
_St James's Gazette_, London.
Lawn Tennis;
Leicester, R. Sidney, earl of;
Lockhart, George.
R. K. D.
SIR ROBERT KENNAWAY DOUGLAS.
Formerly Professor of Chinese, King's College, London. Keeper of
Oriental Printed Books and MSS. at British Museum, 1892-1907.
Member of the Chinese Consular Service, 1858-1865. Author of _The
Language and Literature of China_; _Europe and the Far East_; &c.
Li Hung Chang.
R. L.*
RICHARD LYDEKKER, F.R.S., F.G.S., F.Z.S.
Member of the Staff of the Geological Survey of India, 1874-1882.
Author of _Catalogue of Fossil Mammals, Reptiles and Birds in the
British Museum_; _The Deer of all Lands_; _The Game Animals of
Africa_; &c.
Langur;
Lemming (_in part_);
Lemur;
Leopard (_in part_);
Lion (_in part_);
Litopterna.
R. M'L.
ROBERT M'LACHLAN.
Editor of the _Entomologists' Monthly Magazine_.
Locust (_in part_).
R. M. B.
ROBERT MICHAEL BALLANTYNE.
See the biographical article: BALLANTYNE, R. M.
Life-boat: _British (in part)_.
R. N. B.
ROBERT NISBET BAIN (d. 1909).
Assistant Librarian, British Museum, 1883-1909. Author of
_Scandinavia: the Political History of Denmark, Norway and Sweden,
1513-1900_; _The First Romanovs, 1613-1725_; _Slavonic Europe: the
Political History of Poland and Russia from 1469 to 1796_; &c.
Ladislaus I. and IV. of Hungary;
Laski.
R. S. C.
ROBERT SEYMOUR CONWAY, M.A., D.LITT. (Cantab.).
Professor of Latin and Indo-European Philology in the University
of Manchester. Formerly Professor of Latin in University College,
Cardiff; and Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.
Author of _The Italic Dialects_.
Latin Language (_in part_);
Liguria: _Archaeology and Philology_.
R. We.
RICHARD WEBSTER, A.M.
Formerly Fellow in Classics, Princeton University. Editor of _The
Elegies of Maximianus_; &c.
Long Island.
R. W. C.
THE VERY REV. R. W. CHURCH, D.D.
See the biographical article: CHURCH, R. W.
Lombards: _The Kingdom in Italy_.
S. A. C.
STANLEY ARTHUR COOK, M.A.
Lecturer in Hebrew and Syriac, and formerly Fellow, Gonville and
Caius College, Cambridge. Editor for Palestine Exploration Fund.
Examiner in Hebrew and Aramaic, London University, 1904-1908.
Author of _Glossary of Aramaic Inscriptions_; _The Laws of Moses
and the Code of Hammurabi_; _Critical Notes on Old Testament
History_; _Religion of Ancient Palestine_; &c.
Levites.
S. C.
SIDNEY COLVIN, LL.D.
See the biographical article: COLVIN, SIDNEY.
Leonardo da Vinci.
St C.
VISCOUNT ST CYRES.
See the biographical article: IDDESLEIGH, 1ST EARL OF.
Liguori.
S. D. F. S.
REV. STEWART DINGWALL FORDYCE SALMON, M.A., D.D. (1838-1905).
Professor of Systematic Theology and Exegesis of the Epistles,
U.F.C. College Aberdeen, 1876-1905. Author of _The Parables of our
Lord_; &c. Editor of _The International Library of Theology_; &c.
Logos (_in part_).
S. N.
SIMON NEWCOMB, LL.D., D.SC.
See the biographical article: NEWCOMB, SIMON.
Latitude;
Light: _Velocity_.
T. As.
THOMAS ASHBY, M.A., D.LITT., F.S.A.
Director of the British School of Archaeology at Rome.
Corresponding Member of the Imperial German Archaeological
Institute. Formerly Scholar of Christ Church, Oxford. Craven
Fellow, Oxford, 1897. Author of _The Classical Topography of the
Roman Campagna_; &c.
Labicana, Via;
Labici;
Lampedusa;
Lanciano;
Lanuvium;
Larino;
Latina, Via;
Latium;
Laurentina, Via;
Lavinium;
Lecce;
Leghorn;
Leontini;
Licodia Eubea;
Ligures Baebiani;
Liguria: _History_;
Locri: _Italy_.
T. A. I.
THOMAS ALLAN INGRAM, M.A., LL.D.
Trinity College, Dublin.
Livery Companies;
London: _Finance_.
T. Ca.
THOMAS CASE, M.A.
President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Formerly Waynflete
Professor of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy at Oxford and
Fellow of Magdalen College. Author of _Physical Realism_; &c.
Logic.
T. C. A.
SIR THOMAS CLIFFORD ALLBUTT, K.C.B., M.A., M.D., D.SC., LL.D.,
F.R.S.
Regius Professor of Physic in the University of Cambridge.
Physician to Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge. Fellow of Gonville
and Caius College, Cambridge. Editor of _Systems of Medicine_.
Lister, 1st Baron.
T. Da.
THOMAS DAVIDSON, LL.D.
Longfellow.
T. F. C.
THEODORE FREYLINGHUYSEN COLLIER, PH.D.
Assistant Professor of History, Williams College, Williamstown,
Mass., U.S.A.
Laodicea, Synod of.
T. F. H.
THOMAS F. HENDERSON.
Author of _Mary Queen of Scots and the Casket Letters_; &c.
Latimer.
T. H. H.*
SIR THOMAS HUNGERFORD HOLDICH, K.C.M.G., K.C.I.E., D.SC., F.R.G.S.
Colonel in the Royal Engineers. Superintendent, Frontier Surveys,
India, 1892-1898. Gold Medallist, R.G.S. (London), 1887. H.M.
Commissioner for the Perso-Beluch Boundary, 1896. Author of _The
Indian Borderland_; _The Gates of India_; &c.
Ladakh and Baltistan
T. K.
THOMAS KIRKUP, M.A., LL.D.
Author of _An Inquiry into Socialism_; _Primer of Socialism_; &c.
Lassalle.
T. Mo.
THOMAS MOORE, F.L.S. (1821-1887).
Curator of the Garden of the Apothecaries Company at Chelsea,
1848-1887. Editor of the _Gardeners' Magazine of Botany_; Author
of _Handbook of British Ferns_; _Index Filicum_; _Illustrations of
Orchidaceous Plants_.
Labyrinth.
T. M. L.
REV. THOMAS MARTIN LINDSAY, LL.D., D.D.
Principal of the United Free Church College, Glasgow. Formerly
Assistant to the Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in the
University of Edinburgh. Author of _History of the Reformation_;
_Life of Luther_; &c.
Lollards.
T. Se.
THOMAS SECCOMBE, M.A.
Lecturer in History, East London and Birkbeck Colleges, University
of London. Stanhope Prizeman, Oxford, 1887. Assistant Editor of
_Dictionary of National Biography_, 1891-1900. Author of _The Age
of Johnson_; &c.
Lever, Charles.
T. W. R. D.
THOMAS WILLIAM RHYS DAVIDS, LL.D., PH.D.
Professor of Comparative Religion, Manchester University.
Professor of Pali and Buddhist Literature, University College,
London, 1882-1904. President of the Pali Text Society. Fellow of
the British Academy. Secretary and Librarian of Royal Asiatic
Society, 1885-1902. Author of _Buddhism_; _Sacred Books of the
Buddhists_; _Early Buddhism_; _Buddhist India_; _Dialogues of the
Buddha_; &c.
Lamaism.
T. Wo.
THOMAS WOODHOUSE.
Head of the Weaving and Textile Designing Department, Technical
College, Dundee.
Linen and Linen Manufactures.
V. B. L.
VIVIAN BYAM LEWES, F.I.C., F.C.S.
Professor of Chemistry, Royal Naval College. Chief Superintendent
Gas Examiner to the Corporation of the City of London.
Lighting: _Oil and Gas_.
V. H. B.
VERNON HERBERT BLACKMAN, M.A., D.SC.
Professor of Botany in the University of Leeds. Formerly Fellow of
St John's College, Cambridge.
Lichens (_in part_).
W. A. B. C.
REV. WILLIAM AUGUSTUS BREVOORT COOLIDGE, M.A., F.R.G.S.
Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. Professor of English History,
St David's College, Lampeter, 1880-1881. Author of _Guide to
Switzerland_; _The Alps in Nature and in History_; &c. Editor of
_The Alpine Journal_, 1880-1889.
Lausanne;
Leuk;
Liechtenstein;
Linth;
Locarno;
Locle, Le.
W. A. P.
WALTER ALISON PHILLIPS, M.A.
Formerly Exhibitioner of Merton College and Senior Scholar of St
John's College, Oxford. Author of _Modern Europe_; &c.
Laibach, Congress of;
Lights, Ceremonial use of.
W. E. Co.
THE RT. REV. WILLIAM EDWARD COLLINS, M.A., D.D.
Bishop of Gibraltar. Formerly Professor of Ecclesiastical History,
King's College, London. Lecturer of Selwyn and St John's Colleges,
Cambridge. Author of _The Study of Ecclesiastical History_;
_Beginnings of English Christianity_; &c.
Libellatici.
W. F. I.
WILLIAM FERGUSSON IRVINE, HON. M.A. (Liverpool).
Hon. Secretary and General Editor of Historical Society of
Lancashire and Cheshire. Hon. Local Secretary for Cheshire of the
Society of Antiquaries. Author of _Liverpool in the reign of
Charles II._; _Old Halls of Wirral_; &c.
Liverpool.
W. H. Be.
WILLIAM HENRY BENNETT, M.A., D.D., D.LITT. (Cantab.).
Professor of Old Testament Exegesis in New and Hackney Colleges,
London. Formerly Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. Lecturer
in Hebrew at Firth College, Sheffield. Author of _Religion of the
Post-Exilic Prophets_; &c.
Lamech.
W. H. F.
SIR WILLIAM HENRY FLOWER, F.R.S.
See the biographical article: FLOWER, SIR W. H.
Lemming (_in part_);
Leopard (_in part_);
Lion (_in part_).
W. M. R.
WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI.
See the biographical article: ROSSETTI, DANTE GABRIEL.
Lely, Sir Peter;
Lippi.
W. P. T.
WILLIAM PETERFIELD TRENT, LL.D., D.C.L.
Professor of English Literature. Columbia University. Author of
_English Culture in Virginia_; _A Brief History of American
Literature_; &c.
Lanier.
W. R. So.
WILLIAM RITCHIE SORLEY, M.A., LITT.D., LL.D.
Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Cambridge.
Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. Fellow of the British
Academy. Formerly Fellow of Trinity College. Author of _The Ethics
of Naturalism_; _The Interpretation of Evolution_; &c.
Leibnitz.
W. R. S.-R.
WILLIAM RALSTON SHEDDEN-RALSTON, M.A.
Formerly Assistant in the Department of Printed Books, British
Museum. Author of _Russian Folk Tales_; &c.
Lermontov.
W. T. Ca.
WILLIAM THOMAS CALMAN. D.SC., F.Z.S.
Assistant in charge of Crustacea, Natural History Museum, South
Kensington. Author of "Crustacea" in _A Treatise on Zoology_,
edited by Sir E. Ray Lankester.
Lobster.
W. T. D.
WILLIAM TREGARTHEN DOUGLASS, M.INST.C.E., M.I.M.E.
Consulting Engineer to Governments of Western Australia, New South
Wales, Victoria, Cape of Good Hope, &c. Erected the Eddystone and
Bishop Rock Lighthouses. Author of _The New Eddystone Lighthouse_;
&c.
Lighthouse (_in part_).
W. W. R.*
WILLIAM WALKER ROCKWELL, LIC.THEOL.
Assistant Professor of Church History, Union Theological Seminary,
New York.
Leo XI. and XII. (_popes_).
W. W. S.
WALTER WILLIAM SKEAT, LITT.D., LL.D., D.C.L.
See the biographical article: SKEAT, W. W.
Layamon.
W. Y. S.
WILLIAM YOUNG SELLAR, LL.D.
See the biographical article: SELLAR, WILLIAM YOUNG.
Latin Literature (_in part_).
PRINCIPAL UNSIGNED ARTICLES
Labiatae. Larch. Leprosy.
Lacrosse. Lead Poisoning. Libel.
Lagos. Leeds. Liberal Party.
Lahore. Legitimacy. Liliaceae.
Lake District. Leguminosae. Lille.
Lambeth Conferences. Leicestershire. Lily.
Lanarkshire. Leipzig. Limitation, Statutes of.
Lancashire. Leith. Lincoln.
Lantern. Lemnos. Lincolnshire.
Lapland. Lemon. Lippe.
Larceny. Lent. Lisbon.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] A complete list, showing all individual contributors, appears in
the final volume.
ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA
ELEVENTH EDITION
VOLUME XVI
L a letter which was the twelfth letter of the Phoenician alphabet. It
has in its history passed through many changes of form, ending curiously
enough in its usual manuscript form with a shape almost identical with
that which it had about 900 B.C. ([symbol] L). As was the case with B
and some other letters the Greeks did not everywhere keep the symbol in
the position in which they had borrowed it [symbol]. This, which was its
oldest form in Attica and in the Chalcidian colonies of Italy, was the
form adopted by the Romans, who in time converted it into the rectangle
L, which passed from them to the nations of western Europe. In the Ionic
alphabet, however, from which the ordinary Greek alphabet is derived it
appeared as [symbol]. A still more common form in other parts of Greece
was [symbol], with the legs of unequal length. The editors of Herodotus
have not always recognized that the name of Labda, the mother of
Cypselus, in the story (v. 92) of the founding of the great family of
Corinthian despots, was derived from the fact that she was lame and so
suggested the form of the Corinthian [symbol]. Another form [symbol] or
[symbol] was practically confined to the west of Argolis. The name of
the Greek letter is ordinarily given as _Lambda_, but in Herodotus
(above) and in Athenaeus x. p. 453 _e_, where the names of the letters
are given, the best authenticated form is _Labda_. The Hebrew name,
which was probably identical with the Phoenician, is _Lamed_, which,
with a final vowel added as usual, would easily become _Lambda_, _b_
being inserted between m and another consonant. The pronunciation of _l_
varies a great deal according to the point at which the tongue makes
contact with the roof of the mouth. The contact, generally speaking, is
at the same point as for _d_, and this accounts for an interchange
between these sounds which occurs in various languages, e.g. in Latin
_lacrima_ from the same root as the Greek [Greek: dakru] and the English
_tear_. The change in Latin occurs in a very limited number of cases and
one explanation of their occurrence is that they are borrowed (Sabine)
words. In pronunciation the breath may be allowed to escape at one or
both sides of the tongue. In most languages _l_ is a fairly stable
sound. Orientals, however, have much difficulty in distinguishing
between _l_ and _r_. In Old Persian _l_ is found in only two foreign
words, and in Sanskrit different dialects employ _r_ and _l_ differently
in the same words. Otherwise, however, the interchanges between _r_ and
_l_ were somewhat exaggerated by the older philologists. Before other
consonants _l_ becomes silent in not a few languages, notably in French,
where it is replaced by _u_, and in English where it has occasionally
been restored in recent times, e.g. in _fault_ which earlier was spelt
without _l_ (as in French whence it was borrowed), and which Goldsmith
could still rhyme with _aught_. In the 15th century the Scottish dialect
of English dropped _l_ largely both before consonants and finally after
_a_ and _u_, _a'_ = all, _fa'_ = fall, _pu'_ = pull, _'oo'_ = wool,
_bulk_ pronounced like _book_, &c., while after _o_ it appears as _w_,
_row_ (pronounced _rau_) = roll, _know_ = knoll, &c. It is to be
observed that L = 50 does not come from this symbol, but was an
adaptation of [symbol], the western Greek form of [chi], which had no
corresponding sound in Latin and was therefore not included in the
ordinary alphabet. This symbol was first rounded into [symbol] and then
changed first to [symbol], and ultimately to L. (P. Gi.)
LAACHER SEE, a lake of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine Province, 5 m. W.
of Brohl on the Rhine, and N. of the village of Niedermendig. It
occupies what is supposed to be a crater of the Eifel volcanic
formation, and the pumice stone and basalt found in great quantities
around it lend credence to this theory. It lies 850 ft. above the sea,
is 5 m. in circumference and 160 ft. deep, and is surrounded by an
amphitheatre of high hills. The water is sky blue in colour, very cold
and bitter to the taste. The lake has no natural outlet and consequently
is subjected to a considerable rise and fall. On the western side lies
the Benedictine abbey of St Maria Laach (_Abballa Lacensis_) founded in
1093 by Henry II., count palatine of the Rhine. The abbey church, dating
from the 12th century, was restored in 1838. The history of the
monastery down to modern times appears to have been uneventful. In 1802
it was abolished and at the close of the Napoleonic wars it became a
Prussian state demesne. In 1863 it passed into the hands of the Jesuits,
who, down to their expulsion in 1873, published here a periodical, which
still appears, entitled _Stimmen aus Maria Laach_. In 1892 the monastery
was again occupied by the Benedictines.
LAAGER, a South African Dutch word (Dutch _leger_, Ger. _lager_,
connected with Eng. "lair") for a temporary defensive encampment, formed
by a circle of wagons. The English word is "leaguer," an armed camp,
especially that of a besieging or "beleaguering" army. The Ger. _lager_,
in the sense of "store," is familiar as the name of a light beer (see
BREWING).
LAAS, ERNST (1837-1885), German philosopher, was born on the 16th of
June 1837 at Fürstenwalde. He studied theology and philosophy under
Trendelenburg at Berlin, and eventually became professor of philosophy
in the new university of Strassburg. In _Kant's Analogien der Erfahrung_
(1876) he keenly criticized Kant's transcendentalism, and in his chief
work _Idealismus und Positivismus_ (3 vols., 1879-1884), he drew a
clear contrast between Platonism, from which he derived
transcendentalism, and positivism, of which he considered Protagoras the
founder. Laas in reality was a disciple of Hume. Throughout his
philosophy he endeavours to connect metaphysics with ethics and the
theory of education.
His chief educational works were _Der deutsche Aufsatz in den obern
Gymnasialklassen_ (1868; 3rd ed., part i., 1898, part ii, 1894), and
_Der deutsche Unterricht auf höhern Lehranstalten_ (1872; 2nd ed.
1886). He contributed largely to the _Vierteljahrsschr. f. wiss.
Philos._ (1880-1882); the _Litterarischer Nachlass_, a posthumous
collection, was published at Vienna (1887). See Hanisch, _Der
Positivismus von Ernst Laas_ (1902); Gjurits, _Die Erkenntnistheorie
des Ernst Laas_ (1903); Falckenberg, _Hist. of Mod. Philos._ (Eng.
trans., 1895).
LA BADIE, JEAN DE (1610-1674), French divine, founder of the school
known as the Labadists, was born at Bourg, not far from Bordeaux, on the
13th of February 1610, being the son of Jean Charles de la Badie,
governor of Guienne. He was sent to the Jesuit school at Bordeaux, and
when fifteen entered the Jesuit college there. In 1626 he began to study
philosophy and theology. He was led to hold somewhat extreme views about
the efficacy of prayer and the direct influence of the Holy Spirit upon
believers, and adopted Augustinian views about grace, free will and
predestination, which brought him into collision with his order. He
therefore separated from the Jesuits, and then became a preacher to the
people, carrying on this work in Bordeaux, Paris and Amiens. At Amiens
in 1640 he was appointed a canon and teacher of theology. The hostility
of Cardinal Mazarin, however, forced him to retire to the Carmelite
hermitage at Graville. A study of Calvin's _Institutes_ showed him that
he had more in common with the Reformed than with the Roman Catholic
Church, and after various adventures he joined the Reformed Church of
France and became professor of theology at Montauban in 1650. His
reasons for doing so he published in the same year in his _Déclaration
de Jean de la Badie_. His accession to the ranks of the Protestants was
deemed a great triumph; no such man since Calvin himself, it was said,
had left the Roman Catholic Church. He was called to the pastorate of
the church at Orange on the Rhone in 1657, and at once became noted for
his severity of discipline. He set his face zealously against dancing,
card-playing and worldly entertainments. The unsettled state of the
country, recently annexed to France, compelled him to leave Orange, and
in 1659 he became a pastor in Geneva. He then accepted a call to the
French church in London, but after various wanderings settled at
Middelburg, where he was pastor to the French-speaking congregation at a
Walloon church. His peculiar opinions were by this time (1666) well
known, and he and his congregation found themselves in conflict with the
ecclesiastical authorities. The result was that la Badie and his
followers established a separate church in a neighbouring town. In 1669
he moved to Amsterdam. He had enthusiastic disciples, Pierre Yvon
(1646-1707) at Montauban, Pierre Dulignon (d. 1679), François Menuret
(d. 1670), Theodor Untereyk (d. 1693), F. Spanheim (1632-1701), and,
more important than any, Anna Maria v. Schürman (1607-1678), whose book
_Eucleria_ is perhaps the best exposition of the tenets of her master.
At the head of his separatist congregation, la Badie developed his views
for a reformation of the Reformed Churches: the church is a communion of
holy people who have been born again from sin; baptism is the sign and
seal of this regeneration, and is to be administered only to believers;
the Holy Spirit guides the regenerate into all truth, and the church
possesses throughout all time those gifts of prophecy which it had in
the ancient days; the community at Jerusalem is the continual type of
every Christian congregation, therefore there should be a community of
goods, the disciples should live together, eat together, dance together;
marriage is a holy ordinance between two believers, and the children of
the regenerate are born without original sin, marriage with an
unregenerate person is not binding. They did not observe the Sabbath,
because--so they said--their life was a continual Sabbath. The life and
separatism of the community brought them into frequent collision with
their neighbours and with the magistrates, and in 1670 they accepted
Society is in Miss Edith Sichel's _Women and Men of the French
Renaissance_ (1901). See also J. Favre, _Olivier de Magny_ (1885).
LABEL (a French word, now represented by _lambeau_, possibly a variant;
it is of obscure origin and may be connected with a Teutonic word
appearing in the English "lap," a flap or fold), a slip, ticket, or card
of paper, metal or other material, attached to an object, such as a
parcel, bottle, &c., and containing a name, address, description or
other information, for the purpose of identification. Originally the
word meant a band or ribbon of linen or other material, and was thus
applied to the fillets (_infulae_) attached to a bishop's mitre. In
heraldry the "label" is a mark of "cadency."
In architecture the term "label" is applied to the outer projecting
moulding over doors, windows, arches, &c., sometimes called "Dripstone"
or "Weather Moulding," or "Hood Mould." The former terms seem scarcely
applicable, as this moulding is often inside a building where no rain
could come, and consequently there is no drip. In Norman times the label
frequently did not project, and when it did it was very little, and
formed part of the series of arch mouldings. In the Early English styles
they were not very large, sometimes slightly undercut, sometimes deeply,
sometimes a quarter round with chamfer, and very frequently a "roll" or
"scroll-moulding," so called because it resembles the part of a scroll
where the edge laps over the body of the roll. Labels generally resemble
the string-courses of the period, and, in fact, often return
horizontally and form strings. They are less common in Continental
architecture than in English.
LABEO, MARCUS ANTISTIUS (c. 50 B.C.-A.D. 18), Roman jurist, was the son
of Pacuvius Antistius Labeo, a jurist who caused himself to be slain
after the defeat of his party at Philippi. A member of the plebeian
nobility, and in easy circumstances, the younger Labeo early entered
public life, and soon rose to the praetorship; but his undisguised
antipathy to the new régime, and the somewhat brusque manner in which in
the senate he occasionally gave expression to his republican
sympathies--what Tacitus (_Ann._ iii. 75) calls his _incorrupta
libertas_--proved an obstacle to his advancement, and his rival, Ateius
Capito, who had unreservedly given in his adhesion to the ruling powers,
was promoted by Augustus to the consulate, when the appointment should
have fallen to Labeo; smarting under the wrong done him, Labeo declined
the office when it was offered to him in a subsequent year (Tac. _Ann._
iii. 75; Pompon, in fr. 47, _Dig._ i. 2). From this time he seems to
have devoted his whole time to jurisprudence. His training in the
science had been derived principally from Trebatius Testa. To his
knowledge of the law he added a wide general culture, devoting his
attention specially to dialectics, philology (_grammatica_), and
antiquities, as valuable aids in the exposition, expansion, and
application of legal doctrine (Gell. xiii. 10). Down to the time of
Hadrian his was probably the name of greatest authority; and several of
his works were abridged and annotated by later hands. While Capito is
hardly ever referred to, the dicta of Labeo are of constant recurrence
in the writings of the classical jurists, such as Gaius, Ulpian and
Paul; and no inconsiderable number of them were thought worthy of
preservation in Justinian's _Digest_. Labeo gets the credit of being the
founder of the Proculian sect or school, while Capito is spoken of as
the founder of the rival Sabinian one (Pomponius in fr. 47, _Dig._ i.
2); but it is probable that the real founders of the two _scholae_ were
Proculus and Sabinus, followers respectively of the methods of Labeo and
Capito.
Labeo's most important literary work was the _Libri Posteriorum_, so
called because published only after his death. It contained a
systematic exposition of the common law. His _Libri ad Edictum_
embraced a commentary, not only on the edicts of the urban and
peregrine praetors, but also on that of the curule aediles. His
_Probabilium_ ([Greek: pithanôn]) _lib. VIII._, a collection of
definitions and axiomatic legal propositions, seems to have been one
of his most characteristic productions.
See van Eck, "De vita, moribus, et studiis M. Ant. Labeonis"
(Franeker, 1692), in Oelrichs's _Thes. nov._, vol. i.; Mascovius, _De
sectis Sabinianor. et Proculianor._ (1728); Pernice, _M. Antistius
Labeo. Das röm. Privatrecht im ersten Jahrhunderte der Kaizerzeit_
(Halle, 1873-1892).
LABERIUS, DECIMUS (c. 105-43 B.C.), Roman knight and writer of mimes. He
seems to have been a man of caustic wit, who wrote for his own pleasure.
In 45 Julius Caesar ordered him to appear in one of his own mimes in a
public contest with the actor Publilius Syrus. Laberius pronounced a
dignified prologue on the degradation thus thrust on his sixty years,
and directed several sharp allusions against the dictator. Caesar
awarded the victory to Publilius, but restored Laberius to his
equestrian rank, which he had forfeited by appearing as a mimus
(Macrobius, _Sat._ ii. 7). Laberius was the chief of those who
introduced the mimus into Latin literature towards the close of the
republican period. He seems to have been a man of learning and culture,
but his pieces did not escape the coarseness inherent to the class of
literature to which they belonged; and Aulus Gellius (xvi. 7, 1) accuses
him of extravagance in the coining of new words. Horace (_Sat._ i. 10)
speaks of him in terms of qualified praise.
In addition to the prologue (in Macrobius), the titles of forty-four
of his mimi have been preserved; the fragments have been collected by
O. Ribbeck in his _Comicorum Latinorum reliquiae_ (1873).
LABIATAE (i.e. "lipped," Lat. _labium_, lip), in botany, a natural order
of seed-plants belonging to the series Tubiflorae of the dicotyledons,
and containing about 150 genera with 2800 species. The majority are
annual or perennial herbs inhabiting the temperate zone, becoming
shrubby in warmer climates. The stem is generally square in section and
the simple exstipulate leaves are arranged in decussating pairs (i.e.
each pair is in a plane at right angles to that of the pairs immediately
above and below it); the blade is entire, or toothed, lobed or more or
less deeply cut. The plant is often hairy, and the hairs are frequently
glandular, the secretion containing a scent characteristic of the genus
or species. The flowers are borne in the axils of the leaves or bracts;
they are rarely solitary as in _Scutellaria_ (skull-cap), and generally
form an apparent whorl (_verticillaster_) at the node, consisting of a
pair of cymose inflorescences each of which is a simple three-flowered
dichasium as in _Brunella_, _Salvia_, &c., or more generally a dichasium
passing over into a pair of monochasial cymes as in _Lamium_ (fig. 1),
_Ballota_, _Nepeta_, &c. A number of whorls may be crowded at the apex
of the stem and the subtending leaves reduced to small bracts, the whole
forming a raceme- or spike-like inflorescence as in _Mentha_ (fig. 2, 5)
_Brunella_, &c.; the bracts are sometimes large and coloured as in
_Monarda_, species of _Salvia_, &c., in the latter the apex of the stem
is sometimes occupied with a cluster of sterile coloured bracts. The
plan of the flower is remarkably uniform (fig. 1, 3); it is bisexual,
and zygomorphic in the median plane, with 5 sepals united to form a
persistent cup-like calyx, 5 petals united to form a two-lipped gaping
corolla, 4 stamens inserted on the corolla-tube, two of which, generally
the anterior pair, are longer than the other two (didynamous
arrangement)--sometimes as in _Salvia_, the posterior pair is
aborted--and two superior median carpels, each very early divided by a
constriction in a vertical plane, the pistil consisting of four cells
each containing one erect anatropous ovule attached to the base of an
axile placenta; the style springs from the centre of the pistil between
the four segments (_gynobasic_), and is simple with a bifid apex. The
fruit comprises four one-seeded nutlets included in the persistent
calyx; the seed has a thin testa and the embryo almost or completely
fills it. Although the general form and plan of arrangement of the
flower is very uniform, there are wide variations in detail. Thus the
calyx may be tubular, bell-shaped, or almost spherical, or straight or
bent, and the length and form of the teeth or lobes varies also; it may
be equally toothed as in mint (_Mentha_) (fig. 2, 3), and marjoram
(_Origanum_), or two-lipped as in thyme (_Thymus_), _Lamium_ (fig. 1)
and _Salvia_ (fig. 2, 1); the number of nerves affords useful characters
for distinction of genera, there are normally five main nerves between
which simple or forked secondary nerves are more or less developed. The
shape of the corolla varies widely, the differences being doubtless
intimately associated with the pollination of the flowers by
insect-agency. The tube is straight or variously bent and often widens
towards the mouth. Occasionally the limb is equally five-toothed, or
forms, as in _Mentha_ (fig. 2, 3, 4) an almost regular four-toothed
corolla by union of the two posterior teeth. Usually it is two-lipped,
the upper lip being formed by the two posterior, the lower lip by the
three anterior petals (see fig. 1, and fig. 2, 1, 6); the median lobe of
the lower lip is generally most developed and forms a resting-place for
the bee or other insect when probing the flower for honey, the upper lip
shows great variety in form, often, as in _Lamium_ (fig. 1), _Stachys_,
&c., it is arched forming a protection from rain for the stamens, or it
may be flat as in thyme. In the tribe _Ocimoideae_ the four upper petals
form the upper lip, and the single anterior one the lower lip, and in
_Teucrium_ the upper lip is absent, all five lobes being pushed forward
to form the lower. The posterior stamen is sometimes present as a
staminode, but generally suppressed; the upper pair are often reduced to
staminodes or more or less completely suppressed as in _Salvia_ (fig. 2,
2, 6); rarely are these developed and the anterior pair reduced. In
_Coleus_ the stamens are monadelphous. In _Nepeta_ and allied genera the
posterior pair are the longer, but this is rare, the didynamous
character being generally the result of the anterior pair being the
longer. The anthers are two-celled, each cell splitting lengthwise; the
connective may be more or less developed between the cells; an extreme
case is seen in _Salvia_ (fig. 2, 2), where the connective is filiform
and jointed to the filament, while the anterior anther-cell is reduced
to a sterile appendage. Honey is secreted by a hypogynous disk. In the
more general type of flower the anthers and stigmas are protected by the
arching upper lip as in dead-nettle (fig. 1) and many other British
genera; the lower lip affords a resting-place for the insect which in
probing the flower for the honey, secreted on the lower side of the
disk, collects pollen on its back. Numerous variations in detail are
found in the different genera; in _Salvia_ (fig. 2), for instance, there
is a lever mechanism, the barren half of each anther forming a knob at
the end of a short arm which when touched by the head of an insect
causes the anther at the end of the longer arm to descend on the
insect's back. In the less common type, where the anterior part of the
flower is more developed, as in the _Ocimoideae_, the stamens and style
lie on the under lip and honey is secreted on the upper side of the
hypogynous disk; the insect in probing the flower gets smeared with
pollen on its belly and legs. Both types include brightly-coloured
flowers with longer tubes adapted to the visits of butterflies and
moths, as species of _Salvia_, _Stachys_, _Monarda_, &c.; some South
American species of _Salvia_ are pollinated by humming-birds. In
_Mentha_ (fig. 2, 3), thyme, marjoram (_Origanum_), and allied genera,
the flowers are nearly regular and the stamens spread beyond the
corolla.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Flowering Shoot of Dead-nettle (_Lamium album_).
1, Flower cut lengthwise, enlarged; 2 calyx, enlarged; 3, floral
diagram.]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--1, Flower of Sage (_Salvia officinalis_); 2,
Corolla of same cut open showing the two stamens; 3, flower of spearmint
(_Mentha viridis_); 4, corolla of same cut open showing stamens; 5,
flowering shoot of same, reduced; 6, floral diagram of _Salvia_.]
The persistent calyx encloses the ripe nutlets, and aids in their
distribution in various ways, by means of winged spiny or hairy lobes or
teeth; sometimes it forms a swollen bladder. A scanty endosperm is
sometimes present in the seed; the embryo is generally parallel to the
fruit axis with a short inferior radicle and generally flat cotyledons.
The order occurs in all warm and temperate regions; its chief centre
is the Mediterranean region, where some genera such as _Lavandula_,
_Thymus_, _Rosmarinus_ and others form an important feature in the
vegetation. The tribe _Ocimoideae_ is exclusively tropical and
subtropical and occurs in both hemispheres. The order is well
represented in Britain by seventeen native genera; _Mentha_ (mint)
including also _M. piperita_ (peppermint) and _M. Pulegium_
(pennyroyal); _Origanum vulgare_ (marjoram); _Thymus Serpyllum_
(thyme); _Calamintha_ (calamint), including also _C. Clinopodium_
(wild basil) and _C. Acinos_ (basil thyme); _Salvia_ (sage), including
_S. Verbenaca_ (clary); _Nepeta Cataria_ (catmint), _N. Glechoma_
(ground-ivy); _Brunella_ (self-heal); _Scutellaria_ (skull-cap);
_Stachys (woundwort); _S. Betonica_ is wood betony; _Galeopsis_
(hemp-nettle); Lamium_ (dead-nettle); _Ballota_ (black horehound);
_Teucrium_ (germander); and _Ajuga_ (bugle).
Labiatae are readily distinguished from all other orders of the series
excepting Verbenaceae, in which, however, the style is terminal; but
several genera, e.g. _Ajuga_, _Teucrium_ and _Rosmarinus_, approach
Verbenaceae in this respect, and in some genera of that order the
style is more or less sunk between the ovary lobes. The
fruit-character indicates an affinity with Boraginaceae from which,
however, they differ in habit and by characters of ovule and embryo.
The presence of volatile oil renders many genera of economic use, such
are thyme, marjoram (_Origanum_), sage (_Salvia_), lavender
(_Lavandula_), rosemary (_Rosmarinus_), patchouli (_Pogostemon_). The
tubers of _Stachys Sieboldi_ are eaten in France.
LABICANA, VIA, an ancient highroad of Italy, leading E.S.E. from Rome.
It seems possible that the road at first led to Tusculum, that it was
then prolonged to Labici, and later still became a road for through
traffic; it may even have superseded the Via Latina as a route to the
S.E., for, while the distance from Rome to their main junction at Ad
Bivium (or to another junction at Compitum Anagninum) is practically
identical, the summit level of the former is 725 ft. lower than that of
the latter, a little to the west of the pass of Algidus. After their
junction it is probable that the road bore the name Via Latina rather
than Via Labicana. The course of the road after the first six miles from
Rome is not identical with that of any modern road, but can be clearly
traced by remains of pavement and buildings along its course.
See T. Ashby in _Papers of the British School at Rome_, i. 215 sqq.
(T. As.)
LABICHE, EUGÈNE MARIN (1815-1888), French dramatist, was born on the 5th
of May 1815, of _bourgeois_ parentage. He read for the bar, but
literature had more powerful attractions, and he was hardly twenty when
he gave to the _Chérubin_--an impertinent little magazine, long vanished
and forgotten--a short story, entitled, in the cavalier style of the
period, _Les plus belles sont les plus fausses_. A few others followed
much in the same strain, but failed to catch the attention of the
public. He tried his hand at dramatic criticism in the _Revue des
théâtres_, and in 1838 made a double venture on the stage. The small
Théâtre du Panthéon produced, amid some signs of popular favour, a drama
of his, _L'Avocat Loubet_, while a vaudeville, _Monsieur de Coislin ou
l'homme infiniment poli_, written in collaboration with Marc Michel, and
given at the Palais Royal, introduced for the first time to the
Parisians a provincial actor who was to become and to remain a great
favourite with them, Grassot, the famous low comedian. In the same year
Labiche, still doubtful about his true vocation, published a romance
called _La Clé des champs_. M. Léon Halévy, his successor at the Academy
and his panegyrist, informs us that the publisher became a bankrupt soon
after the novel was out. "A lucky misadventure, for," the biographer
concludes, "this timely warning of Destiny sent him back to the stage,
where a career of success was awaiting him." There was yet another
obstacle in the way. When he married, he solemnly promised his wife's
parents that he would renounce a profession then considered incompatible
with moral regularity and domestic happiness. But a year afterwards his
wife spontaneously released him from his vow, and Labiche recalled the
incident when he dedicated the first edition of his complete works: "To
my wife." Labiche, in conjunction with Varin,[1] Marc Michel,[2]
Clairville,[3] Dumanoir,[4] and others contributed comic plays
interspersed with couplets to various Paris theatres. The series
culminated in the memorable farce in five acts, _Un Chapeau de paille
d'Italie_ (August 1851). It remains an accomplished specimen of the
French _imbroglio_, in which some one is in search of something, but
does not find it till five minutes before the curtain falls. Prior to
that date Labiche had been only a successful _vaudevilliste_ among a
crowd of others; but a twelvemonth later he made a new departure in _Le
Misanthrope et l'Auvergnat_. All the plays given for the next
twenty-five years, although constructed on the old plan, contained a
more or less appreciable dose of that comic observation and good sense
which gradually raised the French farce almost to the level of the
comedy of character and manners. "Of all the subjects," he said, "which
offered themselves to me, I have selected the _bourgeois_. Essentially
mediocre in his vices and in his virtues, he stands half-way between the
hero and the scoundrel, between the saint and the profligate." During
the second period of his career Labiche had the collaboration of
Delacour,[5] Choler,[6] and others. When it is asked what share in the
authorship and success of the plays may be claimed for those men, we
shall answer in Émile Augier's words: "The distinctive qualities which
secured a lasting vogue for the plays of Labiche are to be found in all
the comedies written by him with different collaborators, and are
conspicuously absent from those which they wrote without him." A more
useful and more important collaborator he found in Jean Marie Michel
Geoffroy (1813-1883) whom he had known as a _débutant_ in his younger
days, and who remained his faithful interpreter to the last. Geoffroy
impersonated the _bourgeois_ not only to the public, but to the author
himself; and it may be assumed that Labiche, when writing, could see and
hear Geoffroy acting the character and uttering, in his pompous, fussy
way, the words that he had just committed to paper. _Célimare le
bien-aimé_ (1863), _Le Voyage de M. Perrichon_ (1860), _La Grammaire_,
_Un Pied dans le crime_, _La Cagnotte_ (1864), may be quoted as the
happiest productions of Labiche.
In 1877 he brought his connexion with the stage to a close, and retired
to his rural property in Sologne. There he could be seen, dressed as a
farmer, with low-brimmed hat, thick gaiters and an enormous stick,
superintending the agricultural work and busily engaged in reclaiming
land and marshes. His lifelong friend, Augier, visited him in his
principality, and, being left alone in the library, took to reading his
host's dramatic productions, scattered here and there in the shape of
theatrical _brochures_. He strongly advised Labiche to publish a
collected and revised edition of his works. The suggestion, first
declined as a joke and long resisted, was finally accepted and carried
into effect. Labiche's comic plays, in ten volumes, were issued during
1878 and 1879. The success was even greater than had been expected by
the author's most sanguine friends. It had been commonly believed that
these plays owed their popularity in great measure to the favourite
actors who had appeared in them; but it was now discovered that all,
with the exception of Geoffroy, had introduced into them a grotesque and
caricatural element, thus hiding from the spectator, in many cases, the
true comic vein and delightful delineation of human character. The
amazement turned into admiration, and the _engouement_ became so general
that very few dared grumble or appear scandalized when, in 1880, Labiche
was elected to the French Academy. It was fortunate that, in former
years, he had never dreamt of attaining this high distinction; for, as
M. Pailleron justly observed, while trying to get rid of the little
faults which were in him, he would have been in danger of losing some of
his sterling qualities. But when the honour was bestowed upon him, he
enjoyed it with his usual good sense and quiet modesty. He died in Paris
on the 23rd of January 1888.
Some foolish admirers have placed him on a level with Molière, but it
will be enough to say that he was something better than a public
_amuseur_. Many of his plays have been transferred to the English stage.
They are, on the whole, as sound as they are entertaining. Love is
practically absent from his theatre. In none of his plays did he ever
venture into the depths of feminine psychology, and womankind is only
represented in them by pretentious old maids and silly, insipid, almost
dumb, young ladies. He ridiculed marriage according to the invariable
custom of French playwrights, but in a friendly and good-natured manner
which always left a door open to repentance and timely amendment. He is
never coarse, never suggestive. After he died the French farce, which he
had raised to something akin to literature, relapsed into its former
grossness and unmeaning complexity. (A. Fi.)
His _Théâtre complet_ (10 vols., 1878-1879) contains a preface by
Émile Augier.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Victor Varin, pseudonym of Charles Voirin (1798-1869).
[2] Marc Antoine Amédée Michel (1812-1868), vaudevillist.
[3] Louis François Nicolaise, called Clairville (1811-1879),
part-author of the famous _Fille de Mme Angot_ (1872).
[4] Philippe François Pinel, called Dumanoir (1806-1865).
[5] Alfred Charlemagne Lartigue, called Delacour (1815-1885). For a
list of this author's pieces see O. Lorenz, _Catalogue Général_ (vol.
ii., 1868).
[6] Adolphe Joseph Choler (1822-1889).
LABICI, an ancient city of Latium, the modern Monte Compatri, about 17
m. S.E. from Rome, on the northern slopes of the Alban Hills, 1739 ft.
above sea-level. It occurs among the thirty cities of the Latin League,
and it is said to have joined the Aequi in 419 B.C. and to have been
captured by the Romans in 418. After this it does not appear in history,
and in the time of Cicero and Strabo was almost entirely deserted if not
destroyed. Traces of its ancient walls have been noticed. Its place was
taken by the _respublica Lavicanorum Quintanensium_, the post-station
established in the lower ground on the Via Labicana (see LABICANA, VIA),
a little S.W. of the modern village of Colonna, the site of which is
attested by various inscriptions and by the course of the road itself.
See T. Ashby in _Papers of the British School at Rome_, i. 256 sqq.
(T. As.)
LABID (Abu 'Aqil Labid ibn Rabi'a) (_c._ 560-_c._ 661), Arabian poet,
belonged to the Bani 'Amir, a division of the tribe of the Hawazin. In
his younger years he was an active warrior and his verse is largely
concerned with inter-tribal disputes. Later, he was sent by a sick uncle
to get a remedy from Mahomet at Medina and on this occasion was much
influenced by a part of the Koran. He accepted Islam soon after, but
seems then to have ceased writing. In Omar's caliphate he is said to
have settled in Kufa. Tradition ascribes to him a long life, but dates
given are uncertain and contradictory. One of his poems is contained in
the _Mo'allakat_ (q.v.).
Twenty of his poems were edited by Chalidi (Vienna, 1880); another
thirty-five, with fragments and a German translation of the whole,
were edited (partly from the remains of A. Huber) by C. Brockelmann
(Leiden, 1892); cf. A. von Kremer, _Über die Gedichte des Lebyd_
(Vienna, 1881). Stories of Labid are contained in the
_Kitabul-Aghani_, xiv. 93 ff. and xv. 137 ff. (G. W. T.)
LABIENUS, the name of a Roman family, said (without authority) to belong
to the gens Atia. The most important member was TITUS LABIENUS. In 63
B.C., at Caesar's instigation, he prosecuted Gaius Rabirius (q.v.) for
treason; in the same year, as tribune of the plebs, he carried a
plebiscite which indirectly secured for Caesar the dignity of pontifex
maximus (Dio Cassius xxxvii. 37). He served as a legatus throughout
Caesar's Gallic campaigns and took Caesar's place whenever he went to
Rome. His chief exploits in Gaul were the defeat of the Treviri under
Indutiomarus in 54, his expedition against Lutetia (Paris) in 52, and
his victory over Camulogenus and the Aedui in the same year. On the
outbreak of the civil war, however, he was one of the first to desert
Caesar, probably owing to an overweening sense of his own importance,
not adequately recognized by Caesar. He was rapturously welcomed on the
Pompeian side; but he brought no great strength with him, and his ill
fortune under Pompey was as marked as his success had been under Caesar.
From the defeat at Pharsalus, to which he had contributed by affecting
to despise his late comrades, he fled to Corcyra, and thence to Africa.
There he was able by mere force of numbers to inflict a slight check
upon Caesar at Ruspina in 46. After the defeat at Thapsus he joined the
younger Pompey in Spain, and was killed at Munda (March 17th, 45).
LABLACHE, LUIGI (1794-1858), Franco-Italian singer, was born at Naples
on the 6th of December 1794, the son of a merchant of Marseilles who had
married an Irish lady. In 1806 he entered the Conservatorio della Pieta
de Turchini, where he studied music under Gentili and singing under
Valesi, besides learning to play the violin and violoncello. As a boy he
had a beautiful alto voice, and by the age of twenty he had developed a
magnificent bass with a compass of two octaves from E[flat] below to
E[flat] above the bass stave. After making his first appearance at
Naples he went to Milan in 1817, and subsequently travelled to Turin,
Venice and Vienna. His first appearances in London and Paris in 1830 led
to annual engagements in both the English and French capitals. His
reception at St Petersburg a few years later was no less enthusiastic.
In England he took part in many provincial musical festivals, and was
engaged by Queen Victoria to teach her singing. On the operatic stage he
was equally successful in comic or tragic parts, and with his
wonderfully powerful voice he could express either humour or pathos.
Among his friends were Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Mercadante. He
was one of the thirty-two torch-bearers chosen to surround the coffin at
Beethoven's funeral in 1827. He died at Naples on the 23rd of January
1858 and was buried at Maison Lafitte, Paris. Lablache's Leporello in
_Don Giovanni_ was perhaps his most famous impersonation; among his
principal other rôles were Dandini in _Cenerentola_ (Rossini), Assur in
_Semiramide_ (Rossini), Geronimo in _La Gazza Ladra_ (Rossini), Henry
VIII. in _Anna Bolena_ (Donizetti), the Doge in _Marino Faliero_
(Donizetti), the title-rôle in _Don Pasquale_ (Donizetti), Geronimo in
_Il Matrimonio Segreto_ (Cimarosa), Gritzenko in _L'Étoile du Nord_
(Meyerbeer), Caliban in _The Tempest_ (Halévy).
LABOR DAY, in the United States, a legal holiday in nearly all of the
states and Territories, where the first Monday in September is observed
by parades and meetings of labour organizations. In 1882 the Knights of
Labor paraded in New York City on this day; in 1884 another parade was
held, and it was decided that this day should be set apart for this
purpose. In 1887 Colorado made the first Monday in September a legal
holiday; and in 1909 Labor Day was observed as a holiday throughout the
United States, except in Arizona and North Dakota; in Louisiana it is a
holiday only in New Orleans (Orleans parish), and in Maryland, Wyoming
and New Mexico it is not established as a holiday by statute, but in
each may be proclaimed as such in any year by the governor.
LA BOURBOULE, a watering-place of central France, in the department of
Puy-de-Dôme, 4½ m. W. by N. of Mont-Dore by road. Pop. (1906) 1401. La
Bourboule is situated on the right bank of the Dordogne at a height of
2790 ft. Its waters, of which arsenic is the characteristic constituent,
are used in cases of diseases of the skin and respiratory organs,
rheumatism, neuralgia, &c. Though known to the Romans they were not in
much repute till towards the end of the 19th century. The town has three
thermal establishments and a casino.
LABOUR CHURCH, THE, an organization intended to give expression to the
religion of the labour movement. This religion is not theological--it
leaves theological questions to private individual conviction--but
"seeks the realization of universal well-being by the establishment of
Socialism--a commonwealth founded upon justice and love." It asserts
that "improvement of social conditions and the development of personal
character are both essential to emancipation from social and moral
bondage, and to that end insists upon the duty of studying the economic
and moral forces of society." The first Labour Church was founded at
Manchester (England) in October 1891 by a Unitarian minister, John
Trevor. This has disappeared, but vigorous successors have been
established not only in the neighbourhood, but in Bradford, Birmingham,
Nottingham, London, Wolverhampton and other centres of industry, about
30 in all, with a membership of 3000. Many branches of the Independent
Labour Party and the Social Democratic Federation also hold Sunday
gatherings for adults and children, using the Labour Church hymn-book
and a similar form of service, the reading being chosen from Dr Stanton
Coit's _Message of Man_. There are special forms for child-naming,
marriages and burials. The separate churches are federated in a Labour
Church Union, which holds an annual conference and business meeting in
March. At the conference of 1909, held in Ashton-under-Lyne, the name
"Labour Church" was changed to "Socialist Church."
LA BOURDONNAIS, BERTRAND FRANÇOIS, COUNT MAHÉ de (1699-1753), French
naval commander, was born at Saint Malo on the 11th of February 1699. He
went to sea when a boy, and in 1718 entered the service of the French
India Company as a lieutenant. In 1724 he was promoted captain, and
displayed such bravery in the capture of Mahé of the Malabar coast that
the name of the town was added to his own. For two years he was in the
service of the Portuguese viceroy of Goa, but in 1735 he returned to
French service as governor of the Île de France and the Île de Bourbon.
His five years' administration of the islands was vigorous and
successful. A visit to France in 1740 was interrupted by the outbreak of
hostilities with Great Britain, and La Bourdonnais was put at the head
of a fleet in Indian waters. He saved Mahé, relieved General Dupleix at
Pondicherry, defeated Lord Peyton, and in 1746 participated in the siege
of Madras. He quarrelled with Dupleix over the conduct of affairs in
India, and his anger was increased on his return to the Île de France at
finding a successor to himself installed there by his rival. He set sail
on a Dutch vessel to present his case at court, and was captured by the
British, but allowed to return to France on parole. Instead of securing
a settlement of his quarrel with Dupleix, he was arrested (1748) on a
charge of gubernatorial peculation and maladministration, and secretly
imprisoned for over two years in the Bastille. He was tried in 1751 and
acquitted, but his health was broken by the imprisonment and by chagrin
at the loss of his property. To the last he made unjust accusations
against Dupleix. He died at Paris on the 10th of November 1753. The
French government gave his widow a pension of 2400 livres.
La Bourdonnais wrote _Traité de la mâture des vaisseaux_ (Paris 1723),
and left valuable memoirs which were published by his grandson, a
celebrated chess player, Count L. C. Mahé de la Bourdonnais (1795-1840)
(latest edition, Paris, 1890). His quarrel with Dupleix has given rise
to much debate; for a long while the fault was generally laid to the
arrogance and jealousy of Dupleix, but W. Cartwright and Colonel
Malleson have pointed out that La Bourdonnais was proud, suspicious and
over-ambitious.
See P. de Gennes, _Mémoire pour le sieur de la Bourdonnais, avec les
pièces justificatives_ (Paris, 1750); _The Case of Mde la Bourdonnais,
in a Letter to a Friend_ (London, 1748); Fantin des Odoards,
_Révolutions de l'Inde_ (Paris, 1796); Collin de Bar, _Histoire de
l'Inde ancienne et moderne_ (Paris, 1814); Barchou de Penhoën,
_Histoire de la conquête et de la fondation de l'empire anglais dans
l'Inde_ (Paris, 1840); Margry, "Les Isles de France et de Bourbon sous
le gouvernement de La Bourdonnais," in _La Revue maritime et
coloniale_ (1862); W. Cartwright, "Dupleix et l'Inde française," in
_La Revue britannique_ (1882); G. B. Malleson, _Dupleix_ (Oxford,
1895); Anandaranga Pillai, _Les Français dans l'Inde_, _Dupleix et
Labourdonnais, extraits du journal d'Anandaran-gappoullé 1736-1748_,
trans. in French by Vinsor in _École spéciale des langues orientales
vivantes_, séries 3, vol. xv. (Paris, 1894).
LABOUR EXCHANGE, a term very frequently applied to registries having for
their principal object the better distribution of labour (see
UNEMPLOYMENT). Historically the term is applied to the system of
equitable labour exchanges established in England between 1832 and 1834
by Robert Owen and his followers. The idea is said to have originated
with Josiah Warren, who communicated it to Owen. Warren tried an
experiment in 1828 at Cincinnati, opening an exchange under the title of
a "time store." He joined in starting another at Tuscarawas, Ohio, and a
third at Mount Vernon, Indiana, but none were quite on the same line as
the English exchanges. The fundamental idea of the English exchanges was
to establish a currency based upon labour; Owen in _The Crisis_ for June
1832 laid down that all wealth proceeded from labour and knowledge; that
labour and knowledge were generally remunerated according to the time
employed, and that in the new exchanges it was proposed to make _time_
the standard or measure of wealth. This new currency was represented by
"labour notes," the notes being measured in hours, and the hour reckoned
as being worth sixpence, this figure being taken as the mean between the
wage of the best and the worst paid labour. Goods were then to be
exchanged for the new currency. The exchange was opened in extensive
premises in the Gray's Inn Road, near King's Cross, London, on the 3rd
of September 1832. For some months the establishment met with
considerable success, and a considerable number of tradesmen agreed to
take labour notes in payment for their goods. At first, an enormous
number of deposits was made, amounting in seventeen weeks to 445,501
hours. But difficulties soon arose from the lack of sound practical
valuators, and from the inability of the promoters to distinguish
between the labour of the highly skilled and that of the unskilled.
Tradesmen, too, were quick to see that the exchange might be worked to
their advantage; they brought unsaleable stock from their shops,
exchanged it for labour notes, and then picked out the best of the
saleable articles. Consequently the labour notes began to depreciate;
trouble also arose with the proprietors of the premises, and the
experiment came to an untimely end early in 1834.
See F. Podmore's _Robert Owen_, ii. c. xvii. (1906); B. Jones,
_Co-operative Production_, c. viii. (1894); G. J. Holyoake, _History
of Co-operation_, c. viii. (1906).
LABOUR LEGISLATION. Regulation of labour,[1] in some form or another,
whether by custom, royal authority, ecclesiastical rules or by formal
legislation in the interests of a community, is no doubt as old as the
most ancient forms of civilization. And older than all civilization is
the necessity for the greater part of mankind to labour for maintenance,
whether freely or in bonds, whether for themselves and their families or
for the requirements or superfluities of others. Even while it is clear,
however, that manual labour, or the application of the bodily
forces--with or without mechanical aid--to personal maintenance and the
production of goods, remains the common lot of the majority of citizens
of the most developed modern communities, still there is much risk of
confusion if modern technical terms such as "labour," "employer,"
"labour legislation" are freely applied to conditions in bygone
civilizations with wholly different industrial organization and social
relationships. In recent times in England there has been a notable
disappearance from current use of correlative terms implying a social
relationship which is greatly changed, for example, in the rapid passage
from the Master and Servant Act 1867 to the Employer and Workman Act
1875. In the 18th century the term "manufacturer" passed from its
application to a working craftsman to its modern connotation of at least
some command of capital, the employer being no longer a small working
master. An even more significant later change is seen in the steady
development of a labour legislation, which arose in a clamant social
need for the care of specially helpless "protected" persons in factories
and mines, into a wider legislation for the promotion of general
industrial health, safety and freedom for the worker from fraud in
making or carrying out wage contracts.
If, then, we can discern these signs of important changes within so
short a period, great caution is needed in rapidly reviewing long
periods of time prior to that industrial revolution which is traced
mainly to the application of mechanical power to machinery in aid of
manual labour, practically begun and completed within the second half of
the 18th century. "In 1740 save for the fly-shuttle the loom was as it
had been since weaving had begun ... and the law of the land was" (under
the Act of Apprentices of 1503) "that wages in each district should be
assessed by Justices of the Peace."[2] Turning back to still earlier
times, legislation--whatever its source or authority--must clearly be
devoted to aims very different from modern aims in regulating labour,
when it arose before the labourer, as a man dependent on an "employer"
for the means of doing work, had appeared, and when migratory labour was
almost unknown through the serfdom of part of the population and the
special status secured in towns to the artisan.
In the great civilizations of antiquity there were great aggregations of
labour which was not solely, though frequently it was predominantly,
slave labour; and some of the features of manufacture and mining on a
great scale arose, producing the same sort of evils and industrial
maladies known and regulated in our own times. Some of the maladies were
described by Pliny and classed as "diseases of slaves." And he gave
descriptions of processes, for example in the metal trades, as belonging
entirely to his own day, which modern archaeological discoveries trace
back through the earliest known Aryan civilizations to a prehistoric
origin in the East, and which have never died out in western Europe, but
can be traced in a concentrated manufacture with almost unchanged
methods, now in France, now in Germany, now in England.
Little would be gained in such a sketch as this by an endeavour to piece
together the scattered and scanty materials for a comparative history of
the varying conditions and methods of labour regulation over so enormous
a range. While our knowledge continually increases of the remains of
ancient craft, skill and massed labour, much has yet to be discovered
that may throw light on methods of organization of the labourers. While
much, and in some civilizations most, of the labour was compulsory or
forced, it is clear that too much has been sometimes assumed, and it is
by no means certain that even the pyramids of Egypt, much less the
beautiful earliest Egyptian products in metal work, weaving and other
skilled craft work, were typical products of slave labour. Even in Rome
it was only at times that the proportion of slaves valued as property
was greater than that of hired workers, or, apart from capture in war or
self-surrender in discharge of a debt, that purchase of slaves by the
trader, manufacturer or agriculturist was generally considered the
cheapest means of securing labour. As in early England the various
stages of village industrial life, medieval town manufacture, and
organization in craft gilds, and the beginnings of the mercantile
system, were parallel with a greater or less prevalence of serfdom and
even with the presence in part of slavery, so in other ages and
civilizations the various methods of organization of labour are found to
some extent together. The Germans in their primitive settlements were
accustomed to the notion of slavery, and in the decline of the Roman
Empire Roman captives from among the most useful craftsmen were carried
away by their northern conquerors.
The history and present details of the labour laws of various countries
are dealt with below in successive sections: (1) history of legislation
in the United Kingdom; (2) the results as shown by the law in force in
1909, with the corresponding facts for (3) Continental Europe and (4)
the United States. Under other headings (TRADE-UNIONS, STRIKES AND
LOCK-OUTS, ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION, &c., &c.) are many details on
cognate subjects.
I. HISTORY IN THE UNITED KINGDOM
1. _Until the Close of the 15th Century._--Of the main conditions of
industrial labour in early Anglo-Saxon England details are scanty.
Monastic industrial communities were added in Christian times to village
industrial communities. While generally husbandry was the first object
of toil, and developed under elaborate regulation in the manorial
system, still a considerable variety of industries grew up, the aim
being expressly to make each social group self-sufficing, and to protect
and regulate village artisans in the interest of village resources. This
protective system, resting on a communal or co-operative view of labour
and social life, has been compared as analogous to the much later and
wider system under which the main purpose was to keep England as a whole
self-sufficing.[3] It has also been shown how greatly a fresh spirit of
enterprise in industry and trade was stimulated first by the Danish and
next by the Norman invasion; the former brought in a vigour shown in
growth of villages, increase in number of freemen, and formation of
trading towns; the latter especially opened up new communications with
the most civilized continental people, and was followed by a
considerable immigration of artisans, particularly of Flemings. In Saxon
England slavery in the strictest sense existed, as is shown in the
earliest English laws, but it seems that the true slave class as
distinct from the serf class was comparatively small, and it may well be
that the labour of an ordinary serf was not practically more severe, and
the remuneration in maintenance and kind not much less than that of
agricultural labourers in recent times. In spite of the steady protest
of the Church, slavery (as the exception, not the general rule) did not
die out for many centuries, and was apt to be revived as a punishment
for criminals, e.g. in the fierce provisions of the statute of Edward
VI. against beggars, not repealed until 1597. At no time, however, was
it general, and as the larger village and city populations grew the
ratio of serfs and slaves to the freemen in the whole population rapidly
diminished, for the city populations "had not the habit and use of
slavery," and while serfs might sometimes find a refuge in the cities
from exceptionally severe taskmasters, "there is no doubt that freemen
gradually united with them under the lord's protection, that strangers
engaged in trade sojourned among them, and that a race of artisans
gradually grew up in which original class feelings were greatly
modified." From these conditions grew two parallel tendencies in
regulation of labour. On the one hand there was, under royal charters,
the burgh or municipal organization and control of artisan and craft
labour, passing later into the more specialized organization in craft
gilds; on the other hand, there was a necessity, sometimes acute, to
prevent undue diminution in the numbers available for husbandry or
agricultural labour. To the latter cause must be traced a provision
appearing in a succession of statutes (see especially an act of Richard
II., 1388), that a child under twelve years once employed in agriculture
might never be transferred to apprenticeship in a craft. The steady
development of England, first as a wool-growing, later as a
cloth-producing country, would accentuate this difficulty. During the
13th century, side by side with development of trading companies for the
export of wool from England, may be noted many agreements on the part of
monasteries to sell their wool to Florentines, and during the same
century absorption of alien artisans into the municipal system was
practically completed. Charters of Henry I. provided for naturalization
of these aliens. From the time of Edward I. to Edward III. a gradual
transference of burgh customs, so far as recognized for the common good,
to statute law was in progress, together with an assertion of the rights
of the crown against ecclesiastical orders. "The statutes of Edward I.,"
says Dr. Cunningham, "mark the first attempt to deal with Industry and
Trade as a public matter which concerns the whole state, not as the
particular affair of leading men in each separate locality." The first
direct legislation for labour by statute, however, is not earlier than
the twenty-third year of the reign of Edward III., and it arose in an
attempt to control the decay and ruin, both in rural and urban
districts, which followed the Hundred Years' War, and the pestilence
known as the Black Death. This first "Statute of Labourers" was designed
for the benefit of the community, not for the protection of labour or
prevention of oppression, and the policy of enforcing customary wages
and compelling the able-bodied labourer, whether free or bond, not
living in merchandise or exercising any craft, to work for hire at
recognized rates of pay, must be reviewed in the circumstances and
ideals of the time. Regulation generally in the middle ages aimed at
preventing any individual or section of the community from making what
was considered an exceptional profit through the necessity of others.[4]
The scarcity of labour by the reduction of the population through
pestilence was not admitted as a justification for the demands for
increased pay, and while the unemployed labourer was liable to be
committed to gaol if he refused service at current rates, the lords of
the towns or manors who promised or paid more to their servants were
liable to be sued treble the sum in question. Similar restrictions were
made applicable to artificers and workmen. By another statute, two years
later, labourers or artificers who left their work and went into another
county were liable to be arrested by the sheriff and brought back. These
and similar provisions with similar aims were confirmed by statutes of
1360, 1368 and 1388, but the act of 1360, while prohibiting "all
alliances and covins of masons, carpenters, congregations, chapters,
ordinances and oaths betwixt them made," allowed "every lord to bargain
or covenant for their works in gross with such labourers and artificers
when it pleaseth them, so that they perform such works well and lawfully
according to the bargain and covenant with them thereof made." Powers
were given by the acts of 1368 and 1388 to justices to determine matters
under these statutes and to fix wages. Records show that workmen of
various descriptions were pressed by writs addressed to sheriffs to work
for their king at wages regardless of their will as to terms and place
of work. These proceedings were founded on notions of royal prerogative,
of which impressment of seamen survived as an example to a far later
date. By an act of 1388 no servant or labourer, man or woman, however,
could depart out of the hundred to serve elsewhere unless bearing a
letter patent under the king's seal stating the cause of going and time
of return. Such provisions would appear to have widely failed in their
purpose, for an act of 1414 declares that the servants and labourers
fled from county to county, and justices were empowered to send writs to
the sheriffs for fugitive labourers as for felons, and to examine
labourers, servants and their masters, as well as artificers, and to
punish them on confession. An act of 1405, while putting a property
qualification on apprenticeship and requiring parents under heavy
penalties to put their children to such labour as their estates
required, made a reservation giving freedom to any person "to send their
children to school to learn literature." Up to the end of the 15th
century a monotonous succession of statutes strengthening, modifying,
amending the various attempts (since the first Statute of Labourers) to
limit free movement of labour, or demands by labourers for increased
wages, may be seen in the acts of 1411, 1427, 1444, 1495. It was clearly
found extremely difficult, if not impracticable, to carry out the minute
control of wages considered desirable, and exceptions in favour of
certain occupations were in some of the statutes themselves. In 1512 the
penalties for giving wages contrary to law were repealed so far as
related to masters, but it also appears that London workmen would not
endure the prevalent restrictions as to wages, and that they secured in
practice a greater freedom to arrange rates when working within the
city. Several of these statutes, and especially one of 1514, fixed the
hours of labour when limiting wages. During March to September the
limits were 5 A.M. to 7 or 8 P.M., with half an hour off for breakfast
and an hour and a half off for mid-day dinner. In winter the outside
limits were fixed by the length of daylight.
Throughout the 15th century the rapidly increasing manufacture of cloth
was subject to a regulation which aimed at maintaining the standard of
production and prevention of bad workmanship, and the noteworthy statute
4 Edward IV. c. 1, while giving power to royal officers to supervise
size of cloths, modes of sealing, &c., also repressed payment to workers
in "pins, girdles and unprofitable wares," and ordained payment in true
and lawful money. This statute (the first against "Truck") gives an
interesting picture of the way in which clothiers--or, as we should call
them, wholesale merchants and manufacturers--delivered wool to spinners,
carders, &c., by weight, and paid for the work when brought back
finished. It appears that the work was carried on in rural as well as
town districts. While this industry was growing and thriving other
trades remained backward, and agriculture was in a depressed condition.
Craft gilds had primarily the same purpose as the Edwardian statutes,
that is, of securing that the public should be well served with good
wares, and that the trade and manufacture itself should be on a sound
basis as to quality of products and should flourish. Incidentally there
was considerable regulation by the gilds of the conditions of labour,
but not primarily in the interests of the labourer. Thus night work was
prohibited because it tended to secrecy and so to bad execution of work;
working on holidays was prohibited to secure fair play between craftsmen
and so on. The position of apprentices was made clear through
indentures, but the position of journeymen was less certain. Signs are
not wanting of a struggle between journeymen and masters, and towards
the end of the 15th century masters themselves, in at least the great
wool trade, tended to develop from craftsmen into something more like
the modern capitalist employer; from an act of 1555 touching weavers it
is quite clear that this development had greatly advanced and that
cloth-making was carried on largely by employers with large capitals.
Before this, however, while a struggle went on between the town
authorities and the craft gilds, journeymen began to form companies of
their own, and the result of the various conflicts may be seen in an act
of Henry VI., providing that in future new ordinances of gilds shall be
submitted to justices of the peace--a measure which was strengthened in
1503.
2. _From Tudor Days until the Close of the 18th Century._--A detailed
history of labour regulation in the 16th century would include some
account of the Tudor laws against vagrancy and methods of dealing with
the increase of pauperism, attributable, at least in part, to the
dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII., and to the
confiscation of craft gild funds, which proceeded under Somerset and
Edward VI. It is sufficient here to point to the general recognition of
the public right to compel labourers to work and thus secure control of
unemployed as well as employed. The statutes of Henry VIII. and Edward
VI. against vagrancy differed rather in degree of severity than in
principle from legislation for similar purposes in previous and
subsequent reigns. The Statute of Labourers, passed in the fifth year of
Elizabeth's reign (1562), as well as the poor law of the same year, was
to a considerable extent both a consolidating and an amending code of
law, and was so securely based on public opinion and deeply rooted
custom that it was maintained in force for two centuries. It avowedly
approves of principles and aims in earlier acts, regulating wages,
punishing refusal to work, and preventing free migration of labour. It
makes, however, a great advance in its express aim of protecting the
poor labourer against insufficient wages, and of devising a machinery,
by frequent meeting of justices, which might yield "unto the hired
person both in time of scarcity and in time of plenty a convenient
proportion of wages." Minute regulations were made governing the
contract between master and servant, and their mutual rights and
obligations on parallel lines for (a) artificers, (b) labourers in
husbandry. Hiring was to be by the year, and any unemployed person
qualified in either calling was bound to accept service on pain of
imprisonment, if required, unless possessed of property of a specified
amount or engaged in art, science or letters, or being a "gentleman."
Persons leaving a service were bound to obtain a testimonial, and might
not be taken into fresh employment without producing such testimonial,
or, if in a new district, until after showing it to the authorities of
the place. A master might be fined £5, and a labourer imprisoned, and if
contumacious, whipped, for breach of this rule. The carefully devised
scheme for technical training of apprentices embodied to a considerable
extent the methods and experiences of the craft gilds. Hours of labour
were as follows: "All artificers and labourers being hired for wages by
the day or week shall, betwixt the midst of the months of March and
September, be and continue at their work at or before 5 o'clock in the
morning and continue at work and not depart until betwixt 7 and 8
o'clock at night, except it be in the time of breakfast, dinner or
drinking, the which time at the most shall not exceed two hours and a
half in a day, that is to say, at every drinking half an hour, for his
dinner one hour and for his sleep when he is allowed to sleep, the which
is from the midst of May to the midst of August, half an hour; and all
the said artificers and labourers betwixt the midst of September and the
midst of March shall be and continue at their work from the spring of
the day in the morning until the night of the same day, except it be in
time afore appointed for breakfast and dinner, upon pain to lose and
forfeit one penny for every hour's absence, to be deducted and defaulked
out of his wages that shall so offend." Although the standpoint of the
Factory Act and Truck Act in force at the beginning of the 20th century
as regards hours of labour or regulation of fines deducted from wages is
completely reversed, yet the difference is not great between the average
length of hours of labour permissible under the present law for women
and those hours imposed upon the adult labourer in Elizabeth's statute.
Apart from the standpoint of compulsory imposition of fines, one
advantage in the definiteness of amount deductable from wages would
appear to lie on the side of the earlier statute.
Three points remain to be touched on in connexion with the Elizabethan
poor law. In addition to (a) consolidation of measures for setting
vagrants to work, we find the first compulsory contributions from the
well-to-do towards poor relief there provided for, (b) at least a
theoretical recognition of a right as well as an obligation on the part
of the labourer to be hired, (c) careful provision for the apprenticing
of destitute children and orphans to a trade.
One provision of considerable interest arose in Scotland, which was
nearly a century later in organizing provisions for fixing conditions of
hire and wages of workmen, labourers and servants, similar to those
consolidated in the Elizabethan Statute of Labourers. In 1617 it was
provided (and reaffirmed in 1661) that power should be given to the
sheriffs to compel payment of wages, "that servants may be the more
willing to obey the ordinance." The difficulties in regulation of
compulsory labour in Scotland must, however, have been great, for in
1672 houses of correction were erected for disobedient servants, and
masters of these houses were empowered to force them to work and to
correct them according to their demerits. While servants in manufacture
were compelled to work at reasonable rates they might not enter on a new
hire without their previous master's consent.
Such legislation continued, at least theoretically, in force until the
awakening effected by the beginning of the industrial revolution--that
is, until the combined effects of steady concentration of capital in the
hands of employers and expansion of trade, followed closely by an
unexampled development of invention in machinery and application of
power to its use. completely altered the face of industrial England.
From time to time, in respect of particular trades, provisions against
truck and for payment of wages in current coin, similar to the act of
Edward IV. in the woollen industry, were found necessary, and this
branch of labour legislation developed through the reigns of Anne and
the four Georges until consolidation and amendment were effected, after
the completion of the industrial revolution, in the Truck Act of 1831.
From the close of the 17th century and during the 18th century the
legislature is no longer mainly engaged in devising means for compelling
labourers and artisans to enter into involuntary service, but rather in
regulating the summary powers of justices of the peace in the matter of
dispute between masters and servants in relation to contracts and
agreements, express or implied, presumed to have been entered into
voluntarily on both sides. While the movement to refer labour questions
to the jurisdiction of the justices thus gradually developed, the main
subject matter for their exercise of jurisdiction in regard to labour
also changed, even when theoretically for a time the two sets of
powers--such as (a) moderation of craft gild ordinances and punishment
of workers refusing hire, or (b) fixing scales of wages and enforcement
of labour contracts--might be concurrently exercised. Even in an act of
George II. (1746) for settlement of disputes and differences as to wages
or other conditions under a contract of labour, power was retained for
the justices, on complaint of the masters of misdemeanour or
ill-behaviour on the part of the servant, to discharge the latter from
service or to send him to a house of correction "there to be corrected,"
that is, to be held to hard labour for a term not exceeding a month or
to be corrected by whipping. In an act with similar aims of George IV.
(1823), with a rather wider scope, the power to order corporal
punishment, and in 1867 to hard labour, for breach of labour contracts
had disappeared, and soon after the middle of the 19th century the right
to enforce contracts of labour also disappeared. Then breach of such
labour contracts became simply a question of recovery of damages, unless
both parties agreed that security for performance of the contract shall
be given instead of damages.
While the endeavour to enforce labour apart from a contract died out in
the latter end of the 18th century, sentiment for some time had strongly
grown in favour of developing early industrial training of children. It
appears to have been a special object of charitable and philanthropic
endeavour in the 17th century, as well as the 18th, to found houses of
industry, in which little children, even under five years of age, might
be trained for apprenticeship with employers. Connected as this
development was with poor relief, one of its chief aims was to prevent
future unemployment and vagrancy by training in habits and knowledge of
industry, but not unavowed was another motive: "from children thus
trained up to constant labour we may venture to hope the lowering of its
price."[5] The evils and excesses which lay enfolded within such a
movement gave the first impulse to the new ventures in labour
legislation which are specially the work of the 19th century. Evident as
it is "that before the Industrial Revolution very young children were
largely employed both in their own homes and as apprentices under the
Poor Law," and that "long before Peel's time there were misgivings about
the apprenticeship system," still it needed the concentration and
prominence of suffering and injury to child life in the factory system
to lead to parliamentary intervention.
3. _From 1800 to the Codes of 1872 and 1878._--A serious outbreak of
fever in 1784 in cotton mills near Manchester appears to have first
drawn widespread and influential public opinion to the overwork of
children, under terribly dangerous and insanitary conditions, on which
the factory system was then largely being carried on. A local inquiry,
chiefly by a group of medical men presided over by Dr Percival, was
instituted by the justices of the peace for Lancashire, and in the
forefront of the resulting report stood a recommendation for limitation
and control of the working hours of the children. A resolution by the
county justices followed, in which they declared their intention in
future to refuse "indentures of parish Apprentices whereby they shall be
bound to Owners of Cotton Mills and other works in which children are
obliged to work in the night or more than ten hours in the day." In 1795
the Manchester Board of Health was formed, which, with fuller
information, more definitely advised legislation for the regulation of
the hours and conditions of labour in factories. In 1802 the Health and
Morals of Apprentices Act was passed, which in effect formed the first
step towards prevention of injury to and protection of labour in
factories. It was directly aimed only at evils of the apprentice system,
under which large numbers of pauper children were worked in cotton and
woollen mills without education, for excessive hours, under wretched
conditions. It did not apply to places employing fewer than twenty
persons or three apprentices, and it applied the principle of limitation
of hours (to twelve a day) and abolition of night work, as well as
educational requirements, only to apprentices. Religious teaching and
suitable sleeping accommodation and clothing were provided for in the
act, also as regards apprentices. Lime-washing and ventilation
provisions applied to all cotton and woollen factories employing more
than twenty persons. "Visitors" were to be appointed by county justices
for repression of contraventions, and were empowered to "direct the
adoption of such sanitary regulations as they might on advice think
proper." The mills were to be registered by the clerk of the peace, and
justices had power to inflict fines of from £2 to £5 for contraventions.
Although enforcement of the very limited provisions of the act was in
many cases poor or non-existent, in some districts excellent work was
done by justices, and in 1803 the West Riding of Yorkshire justices
passed a resolution substituting the ten hours' limit for the twelve
hours' limit of the act, as a condition of permission for indenturing of
apprentices in mills.
Rapid development of the application of steam power to manufacture led
to growth of employment of children in populous centres, otherwise than
on the apprenticeship system, and before long the evils attendant on
this change brought the general question of regulation and protection of
child labour in textile factories to the front. The act of 1819, limited
as it was, was a noteworthy step forward, in that it dealt with this
wider scope of employment of children in cotton factories, and it is
satisfactory to record that it was the outcome of the efforts and
practical experiments of a great manufacturer, Robert Owen. Its
provisions fell on every point lower than the aims he put forward on his
own experience as practicable, and notably in its application only to
cotton mills instead of all textile factories. Prohibition of child
labour under nine years of age and limitation of the working day to
twelve in the twenty-four (without specifying the precise hour of
beginning and closing) were the main provisions of this act. No
provision was made for enforcement of the law beyond such as was
attempted in the act of 1802. Slight amendments were attempted in the
acts of 1825 and 1831, but the first really important factory act was in
1833 applying to textile factories generally, limiting employment of
young persons under eighteen years of age, as well as children,
prohibiting night work between 8.30 P.M. and 5.30 A.M., and first
providing for "inspectors" to enforce the law. This is the act which was
based on the devoted efforts of Michael Sadler, with whose name in this
connexion that of Lord Ashley, afterwards earl of Shaftesbury, was from
1832 associated. The importance of this act lay in its provision for
skilled inspection and thus for enforcement of the law by an independent
body of men unconnected with the locality in which the manufactures lay,
whose specialization in their work enabled them to acquire information
needed for further development of legislation for protection of labour.
Their powers were to a certain extent judicial, being assimilated to
those possessed by justices; they could administer oaths and make such
"rules, regulations and orders" as were necessary for execution of the
act, and could hear complaints and impose penalties under the act. In
1844 a textile factory act modified these extensive inspectoral powers,
organizing the service on lines resembling those of our own time, and
added provision for certifying surgeons to examine workers under sixteen
years of age as to physical fitness for employment and to grant
certificates of age and ordinary strength. Hours of labour, by the act
of 1833, were limited for children under eleven to 9 a day or 48 in the
week, and for young persons under eighteen to 12 a day or 69 in the
week. Between 1833 and 1844 the movement in favour of a ten hours' day,
which had long been in progress, reached its height in a time of great
commercial and industrial distress, but could not be carried into effect
until 1847. By the act of 1844 the hours of adult women were first
regulated, and were limited (as were already those of "young persons")
to 12 a day; children were permitted either to work the same hours on
alternate days or "half-time," with compulsory school attendance as a
condition of their employment. The aim in thus adjusting the hours of
the three classes of workers was to provide for a practical standard
working-day. For the first time detailed provisions for health and
safety began to make their appearance in the law. Penal compensation for
preventible injuries due to unfenced machinery was also provided, and
appears to have been the outcome of a discussion by witnesses before the
Royal Commission on Labour of Young Persons in Mines and Manufactures in
1841.
From this date, 1841, begin the first attempts at protective legislation
for labour in mining. The first Mines Act of 1842 following the terrible
revelations of the Royal Commission referred to excluded women and girls
from underground working, and limited the employment of boys, excluding
from underground working those under ten years, but it was not until
1850 that systematic reporting of fatal accidents and until 1855 that
other safeguards for health, life and limb in mines were seriously
provided by law. With the exception of regulations against truck there
was no protection for the miner before 1842; before 1814 it was not
customary to hold inquests on miners killed by accidents in mines. From
1842 onwards considerable interaction in the development of the two sets
of acts (mines and factories), as regards special protection against
industrial injury to health and limb, took place, both in parliament and
in the department (Home Office) administering them. Another strong
influence tending towards ultimate development of scientific protection
of health and life in industry began in the work and reports of the
series of sanitary commissions and Board of Health reports from 1843
onwards. In 1844 the mines inspector made his first report, but two
years later women were still employed to some extent underground.
Organized inspection began in 1850, and in 1854 the Select Committee on
Accidents adopted a suggestion of the inspectors for legislative
extension of the practice of several colliery owners in framing special
safety rules for working in mines. The act of 1855 provided seven
general rules, relating to ventilation, fencing of disused shafts,
proper means for signalling, proper gauges and valve for steam-boiler,
indicator and brake for machine lowering and raising; also it provided
that detailed special rules submitted by mine-owners to the secretary of
state, might, on his approval, have the force of law and be enforceable
by penalty. The Mines Act of 1860, besides extending the law to
ironstone mines, following as it did on a series of disastrous accidents
and explosions, strengthened some of the provisions for safety. At
several inquests strong evidence was given of incompetent management and
neglect of rules, and a demand was made for enforcing employment only of
certificated managers of coal mines. This was not met until the act of
1872, but in 1860 certain sections relating to wages and education were
introduced. Steady development of the coal industry, increasing
association among miners, and increased scientific knowledge of means of
ventilation and of other methods for securing safety, all paved the way
to the Coal Mines Act of 1872, and in the same year health and safety in
metalliferous mines received their first legislative treatment in a code
of similar scope and character to that of the Coal Mines Act. This act
was amended in 1886, and repealed and recodified in 1887; its principal
provisions are still in force, with certain revised special rules and
modifications as regards reporting of accidents (1906) and employment of
children (1903). It was based on the recommendations of a Royal
Commission, which had reported in 1864, and which had shown the grave
excess of mortality and sickness among metalliferous miners, attributed
to the inhalation of gritty particles, imperfect ventilation, great
changes of temperature, excessive physical exertion, exposure to wet,
and other causes. The prohibition of employment of women and of boys
under ten years underground in this class of mines, as well as in coal
mines, had been effected by the act of 1842, and inspection had been
provided for in the act of 1860; these were in amended form included in
the code of 1872, the age of employment of boys underground being raised
to twelve. In the Coal Mines Act of 1872 we see the first important
effort to provide a complete code of regulation for the special dangers
to health, life and limb in coal mines apart from other mines; it
applied to "mines of coal, mines of stratified ironstone, mines of shale
and mines of fire-clay." Unlike the companion act--applying to all other
mines--it maintained the age limit of entering underground employment
for boys at ten years, but for those between ten and twelve it provided
for a system of working analogous to the half-time system in factories,
including compulsory school attendance. The limits of employment for
boys from twelve to sixteen were 10 hours in any one day and 54 in
anyone week. The chief characteristics of the act lay in extension of
the "general" safety rules, improvement of the method of formulating
"special" safety rules, provision for certificated and competent
management, and increased inspection. Several important matters were
transferred from the special to the general rules, such as compulsory
use of safety lamps where needed, regulation of use of explosives, and
securing of roofs and sides. Special rules, before being submitted to
the secretary of state for approval, must be posted in the mine for two
weeks, with a notice that objections might be sent by any person
employed to the district inspector. Wilful neglect of safety provisions
became punishable in the case of employers as well as miners by
imprisonment with hard labour. But the most important new step lay in
the sections relating to daily control and supervision of every mine by
a manager holding a certificate of competency from the secretary of
state, after examination by a board of examiners appointed by the
secretary of state, power being retained for him to cause later inquiry
into competency of the holder of the certificate, and to cancel or
suspend the certificate in case of proved unfitness.
Returning to the development of factory and workshop law from the year
1844, the main line of effort--after the act of 1847 had restricted
hours of women and young persons to 10 a day and fixed the daily limits
between 6 A.M. and 6 P.M. (Saturday 6 A.M. to 2 P.M.)--lay in bringing
trade after trade in some degree under the scope of this branch of law,
which had hitherto only regulated conditions in textile factories.
Bleaching and dyeing works were included by the acts of 1860 and 1862;
lace factories by that of 1861; calendering and finishing by acts of
1863 and 1864; bakehouses became partially regulated by an act of 1863,
with special reference to local authorities for administration of its
clauses. The report of the third Children's Employment Commission
brought together in accessible form the miserable facts relating to
child labour in a number of unregulated industries in the year 1862, and
the act of 1864 brought some of (these earthenware-making, lucifer
match-making, percussion cap and cartridge making, paper-staining, and
fustian cutting) partly under the scope of the various textile factory
acts in force. A larger addition of trades was made three years later,
but the act of 1864 is particularly interesting in that it first
embodied some of the results of inquiries of expert medical and sanitary
commissioners, by requiring ventilation to be applied to the removal of
injurious gases, dust, and other impurities generated in manufacture,
and made a first attempt to engraft part of the special rules system
from the mines acts. The provisions for framing such rules disappeared
in the Consolidating Act of 1878, to be revived in a better form later.
The Sanitary Act of 1866, administered by local authorities, provided
for general sanitation in any factories and workshops not under existing
factory acts, and the Workshops Regulation Act of 1867, similarly to be
administered by local authorities, amended in 1870, practically
completed the application of the main principle of the factory acts to
all places in which manual labour was exercised for gain in the making
or finishing of articles or parts of articles for sale. A few specially
dangerous or injurious trades brought under regulation in 1864 and 1867
(e.g. earthenware and lucifer match making, glass-making) ranked as
"factories," although not using mechanical power, and for a time
employment of less than fifty persons relegated certain workplaces to
the category of "workshops," but broadly the presence or absence of such
motor power in aid of process was made and has remained the distinction
between factories and workshops. The Factory Act of 1874, the last of
the series before the great Consolidating Act of 1878, raised the
minimum age of employment for children to ten years in textile
factories. In most of the great inquiries into conditions of child
labour the fact has come clearly to light, in regard to textile and
non-textile trades alike, that parents as much as any employers have
been responsible for too early employment and excessive hours of
employment of children, and from early times until to-day in factory
legislation it has been recognized that they must to some extent be held
responsible for due observation of the limits imposed. For example, in
1831 it was found necessary to protect occupiers against parental
responsibility for false certificates of age, and in 1833 parents of a
child or "any Person having any benefit from the wages of such child"
were made to share responsibility for employment of children without
school attendance or beyond legal hours.
During the discussions on the bill which became law in 1874, it had
become apparent that revision and consolidation of the multiplicity of
statutes then regulating manufacturing industry had become pressingly
necessary; modifications and exceptions for exceptional conditions in
separate industries needed reconsideration and systematization on clear
principles, and the main requirements of the law could with great
advantage be applied more generally to all the industries. In
particular, the daily limits as to period of employment, pauses for
meals, and holidays, needed to be unified for non-textile factories and
workshops, so as to bring about a standard working-day, and thus prevent
the tendency in "the larger establishments to farm out work among the
smaller, where it is done under less favourable conditions both sanitary
and educational."[6] In these main directions, and that of simplifying
definitions, summarizing special sanitary provisions that had been
gradually introduced for various trades, and centralizing and improving
the organization of the inspectorate, the Commission of 1876 on the
Factory Acts made its recommendations, and the Factory Act of 1878 took
effect. In the fixed working-day, provisions for pauses, holidays,
general and special exceptions, distinctions between systems of
employment for children, young persons and women, education of children
and certificates of fitness for children and young persons, limited
regulation of domestic workshops, general principles of administration
and definitions, the law of 1878 was made practically the same as that
embodied in the later principal act of 1901. More or less completely
revised are: (a) the sections in the 1878 act relating to mode of
controlling sanitary conditions in workshops (since 1891 primarily
enforced by the local sanitary authority); (b) provision for reporting
accidents and for enforcing safety (other than fencing of mill gearing
and dangerous machinery); (c) detailed regulation of injurious and
dangerous process and trades; (d) powers of certifying surgeons; (e)
amount of overtime permissible (greatly reduced in amount and now
confined to adults); (f) age for permissible employment of a child has
been raised from ten years to twelve years. Entirely new since the act
of 1878 are the provisions: (a) for control of outwork; (b) for
supplying particulars of work and wages to piece-workers, enabling them
to compute the total amount of wages payable to them; (e) extension of
the act to laundries; (f) a tentative effort to limit the too early
employment of mothers after childbirth.
II. LAW OF UNITED KINGDOM, 1910
_Factories and Workshops._--The act of 1878 remained until 1901,
although much had been meanwhile superimposed, a monument to the efforts
of the great factory reformers of the first half of the 19th century,
and the general groundwork of safety for workers in factories and
workshops in the main divisions of sanitation, security against
accidents, physical fitness of workers, general limitation of hours and
times of employment for young workers and women. The act of 1901, which
came into force 1st January 1902 (and became the principal act), was an
amending as well as a consolidating act. Comparison of the two acts
shows, however, that, in spite of the advantages of further
consolidation and helpful changes in arrangement of sections and
important additions which tend towards a specialized hygiene for factory
life, the fundamental features of the law as fought out in the 19th
century remain undisturbed. So far as the law has altered in character,
it has done so chiefly by gradual development of certain sanitary
features, originally subordinate, and by strengthening provision for
security against accidents and not by retreat from its earlier aims. At
the same time a basis for possible new developments can be seen in the
protection of "outworkers" as well as factory workers against fraudulent
or defective particulars of piece-work rates of wages.
Later acts directly and indirectly affecting the law are certain acts of
1903, 1906, 1907, to be touched on presently.
Additions to act of 1878.
The act of 1878, in a series of acts from 1883 to 1895, received
striking additions, based (1) on the experience gained in other branches
of protective legislation, e.g. development of the method of regulation
of dangerous trades by "special rules" and administrative inquiry into
accidents under Coal Mines Acts; (2) on the findings of royal
commissions and parliamentary inquiries, e.g. increased control of
"outwork" and domestic workshops, and limitation of "overtime"; (3) on
the development of administrative machinery for enforcing the more
modern law relating to public health, e.g. transference of
administration of sanitary provisions in workshops to the local sanitary
authorities; (4) on the trade-union demand for means for securing
trustworthy records of wage-contracts between employer and workman, e.g.
the section requiring particulars of work and wages for piece-workers.
The first additions to the act of 1878 were, however, almost purely
attempts to deal more adequately than had been attempted in the code of
1878 with certain striking instances of trades injurious to health. Thus
the Factory and Workshop Act of 1883 provided that white-lead factories
should not be carried on without a certificate of conformity with
certain conditions, and also made provision for special rules, on lines
later superseded by those laid down in the act of 1891, applicable to
any employment in a factory or workshop certified as dangerous or
injurious by the secretary of state. The act of 1883 also dealt with
sanitary conditions in bakehouses. Certain definitions and explanations
of previous enactments touching overtime and employment of a child in
any factory or workshop were also included in the act. A class of
factories in which excessive heat and humidity seriously affected the
health of operatives was next dealt with in the Cotton Cloth Factories
Act 1889. This provided for special notice to the chief inspector from
all occupiers of cotton cloth factories (i.e. any room, shed, or
workshop or part thereof in which weaving of cotton cloth is carried on)
who intend to produce humidity by artificial means; regulated both
temperature of workrooms and amount of moisture in the atmosphere, and
provided for tests and records of the same; and fixed a standard minimum
volume of fresh air (600 cub. ft.) to be admitted in every hour for
every person employed in the factory. Power was retained for the
secretary of state to modify by order the standard for the maximum limit
of humidity of the atmosphere at any given temperature. A short act in
1870 extended this power to other measures for the protection of
health.
The special measures from 1878 to 1889 gave valuable precedents for
further developments of special hygiene in factory life, but the next
advance in the Factory and Workshop Act 1891, following the House of
Lords Committee on the sweating system and the Berlin International
Labour Conference, extended over much wider ground. Its principal
objects were: (a) to render administration of the law relating to
workshops more efficient, particularly as regards sanitation; with this
end in view it made the primary controlling authority for sanitary
matters in workshops the local sanitary authority (now the district
council), acting by their officers, and giving them the powers of the
less numerous body of factory inspectors, while at the same time the
provisions of the Public Health Acts replaced in workshops the very
similar sanitary provisions of the Factory Acts; (b) to provide for
greater security against accidents and more efficient fencing of
machinery in factories; (c) to extend the method of regulation of
unhealthy or dangerous occupations by application of special rules and
requirements to any incident of employment (other than in a domestic
workshop) certified by the secretary of state to be dangerous or
injurious to health or dangerous to life or limb; (d) to raise the age
of employment of children and restrict the employment of women
immediately after childbirth; (e) to require particulars of rate of
wages to be given with work to piece-workers in certain branches of the
textile industries; (f) to amend the act of 1878 in various subsidiary
ways, with the view of improving the administration of its principles,
e.g. by increasing the means of checking the amount of overtime worked,
empowering inspectors to enter workplaces used as dwellings without a
justice's warrant, and the imposition of minimum penalties in certain
cases. On this act followed four years of greatly accelerated
administrative activity. No fewer than sixteen trades were scheduled by
the secretary of state as dangerous to health. The manner of preparing
and establishing suitable rules was greatly modified by the act of 1901
and will be dealt with in that connexion.
The Factory and Workshop Act 1895 followed thus on a period of exercise
of new powers of administrative regulation (the period being also that
during which the Royal Commission on Labour made its wide survey of
industrial conditions), and after two successive annual reports of the
chief inspector of factories had embodied reports and recommendations
from the women inspectors, who in 1893 were first added to the
inspectorate. Again, the chief features of an even wider legislative
effort than that of 1891 were the increased stringency and definiteness
of the measures for securing hygienic and safe conditions of work. Some
of these measures, however, involved new principles, as in the provision
for the prohibition of the use of a dangerous machine or structure by
the order of a magistrate's court, and the power to include in the
special rules drawn up in pursuance of section 8 of the act of 1891, the
prohibition of the employment of any class of persons, or the limitation
of the period of employment of any class of persons in any process
scheduled by order of the secretary of state. These last two powers have
both been exercised, and with the exercise of the latter passed away,
without opposition, the absolute freedom of the employer of the adult
male labourer to carry on his manufacture without legislative limitation
of the hours of labour. Second only in significance to these new
developments was the addition, for the first time since 1867, of new
classes of workplaces not covered by the general definitions in section
93 of the Consolidating Act of 1878, viz.: (a) laundries (with special
conditions as to hours, &c.); (b) docks, wharves, quays, warehouses and
premises on which machinery worked by power is temporarily used for the
purpose of the construction of a building or any structural work in
connexion with the building (for the purpose only of obtaining security
against accidents). Other entirely new provisions in the act of 1895,
later strengthened by the act of 1901, were the requirement of a
reasonable temperature in workrooms, the requirement of lavatories for
the use of persons employed in any department where poisonous substances
are used, the obligation on occupiers and medical practitioners to
report cases of industrial poisoning; and the penalties imposed on an
employer wilfully allowing wearing apparel to be made, cleaned or
repaired in a dwelling-house where an inmate is suffering from
infectious disease. Another provision empowered the secretary of state
to specify classes of outwork and areas with a view to the regulation of
the sanitary condition of premises in which outworkers are employed.
Owing to the conditions attached to its exercise, no case was found in
which this power could come into operation, and the act of 1901 deals
with the matter on new lines. The requirement of annual returns from
occupiers of persons employed, and the competency of the person charged
with infringing the act to give evidence in his defence, were important
new provisions, as was also the adoption of the powers to direct a
formal investigation of any accident on the lines laid down in section
45 of the Coal Mines Regulation Act 1887. Other sections, relating to
sanitation and safety, were developments of previous regulations, e.g.
the fixing of a standard of overcrowding, provision of sanitary
accommodation separate for each sex where the standard of the Public
Health Act Amendment Act of 1890 had not been adopted by the competent
local sanitary authority, power to order a fan or other mechanical means
to carry off injurious gas, vapour or other impurity (the previous power
covering only dust). The fencing of machinery and definition of
accidents were made more precise, young persons were prohibited from
cleaning dangerous machinery, and additional safeguards against risk of
injury by fire or panic were introduced. On the question of employment
the foremost amendments lay in the almost complete prohibition of
overtime for young persons, and the restriction of the power of an
employer to employ protected persons outside his factory or workshop on
the same day that he had employed them in the factory or workshop. Under
the head of particulars of work and wages to piece-workers an important
new power, highly valued by the workers, was given to apply the
principle with the necessary modifications by order of the secretary of
state to industries other than textile and to outworkers as well as to
those employed inside factories and workshops.
The act of 1901.
In 1899 an indirect modification of the limitation to employment of
children was effected by the Elementary Education Amendment Act, which,
by raising from eleven to twelve the minimum age at which a child may,
by the by-laws of a local authority, obtain total or partial exemption
from the obligation to attend school, made it unlawful for an occupier
to take into employment any child under twelve in such a manner as to
prevent full-time attendance at school. The age of employment became
generally thereby the same as it has been for employment at a mine above
ground since 1887. The act of 1901 made the prohibition of employment of
a child under twelve in a factory or workshop direct and absolute. Under
the divisions of sanitation, safety, fitness for employment, special
regulation of dangerous trades, special control of bakehouses,
exceptional treatment of creameries, new methods of dealing with home
work and outworkers, important additions were made to the general law by
the act of 1901, as also in regulations for strengthened administrative
control. New general sanitary provisions were those prescribing: (a)
ventilation _per se_ for every workroom, and empowering the secretary of
state to fix a standard of sufficient ventilation; (b) drainage of wet
floors; (c) the power of the secretary of state to define in certain
cases what shall constitute sufficient and suitable sanitary
accommodation. New safety provisions were those relating to--(a)
Examination and report on steam boilers; (b) prohibition of employment
of a child in cleaning below machinery in motion; (c) power of the
district council to make by-laws for escape in case of fire. The most
important administrative alterations were: (a) a justice engaged in the
same trade as, or being officer of an association of persons engaged in
the same trade as, a person charged with an offence may not act at the
hearing and determination of the charge; (b) ordinary supervision of
sanitary conditions under which outwork is carried on was transferred to
the district council, power being reserved to the Home Office to
intervene in case of neglect or default by any district council.
Acts of 1903, 1906, 1907.
The Employment of Children Act 1903, while primarily providing for
industries outside the scope of the Factory Act, incidentally secured
that children employed as half-timers should not also be employed in
other occupations. The Notice of Accidents Act 1906 amended the whole
system of notification of accidents, simultaneously in mines, quarries,
factories and workshops, and will be set out in following paragraphs.
The Factory and Workshop Act of 1907 amended the law in respect of
laundries by generally applying the provisions of 1901 to trade
laundries while granting them choice of new exceptional periods, and by
extending the provisions of the act (with certain powers to the Home
Office by Orders laid before parliament to allow variations) to
institution laundries carried on for charitable or reformatory purposes.
The Employment of Women Act 1907 repealed an exemption in the act of
1901 (and earlier acts) relating to employment of women in flax scutch
mills, thus bringing this employment under the ordinary provisions as to
period of employment.
The following paragraphs aim at presenting an idea of the scope of the
modified and amended law, as a whole, adding where clearly necessary
reference to the effect of acts, which ceased to apply after the 31st of
December 1901:--
Definitions.
The workplaces to which the act applies are, first, "factories" and
"workshops"; secondly, laundries, docks, wharves, &c., enumerated
above as introduced and regulated partially only by the act of 1895
and subsequent acts. Apart from this secondary list, and having regard
to workplaces which remain undefined by the law, the act may broadly
be said to apply to premises, rooms or places in which manual labour,
with or without the aid of mechanical power, is exercised for gain in
or incidental to the making, altering, repairing, ornamenting,
washing, cleaning or finishing or adapting for sale of any article or
part of any article. If steam, water or other mechanical power is used
in aid of the manufacturing process, the workplace is a factory; if
not, it is a workshop. There is, however, a list of eighteen classes
of works (brought under the factory law for reasons of safety, &c.,
before workshops generally were regulated) which are defined as
factories whether power is used in them or not. Factories are, again,
subdivided into textile and non-textile: they are textile if the
machinery is employed in preparing, manufacturing or finishing cotton,
wool, hair, silk, flax, hemp, jute, tow, China grass, cocoanut fibre
or other like material either separately or mixed together, or mixed
with any other material, or any fabric made thereof; all other
factories are non-textile. The distinction turns on the historical
origin of factory regulation and the regulations in textile factories
remain in some respects slightly more stringent than in the
non-textile factories and workshops, though the general provisions are
almost the same. Three special classes of workshops have for certain
purposes to be distinguished from ordinary workshops, which include
tenement workshops: (a) Domestic workshops, i.e. any private house,
room or place, which, though used as a dwelling, is by reason of the
work carried on there a workshop, and in which the only persons
employed are members of the same family, dwelling there alone--in
these women's hours are unrestricted; (b) Women's workshops, in which
neither children nor young persons are employed--in these a more
elastic arrangement of hours is permissible than in ordinary
workshops; (c) Workshops in which men only are employed--these come
under the same general regulations in regard to sanitation as other
workshops, also under the provisions of the Factory Act as regards
security, and, if certified by the secretary of state, may be brought
under special regulations. They are otherwise outside the scope of the
act of 1901.
The person to whom the regulations apply in the above-defined
workplaces are _children_, i.e. persons between the ages of twelve and
fourteen, _young persons_, i.e. boys or girls between the ages of
fourteen (or if an educational certificate has been obtained,
thirteen) and eighteen years of age, and _women_, i.e. females above
the age of eighteen; these are all "protected" persons to whom the
general provisions of the act, inclusive of the regulation of hours
and times of employment, apply. To adult men generally those
provisions broadly only apply which are aimed at securing sanitation
and safety in the conduct of the manufacturing process.
The person generally responsible for observance of the provisions of
the law, whether these relate to health, safety, limitation of the
hours of labour or other matters, is the _occupier_ (a term undefined
in the act) of the factory, workshop or laundry. There are, however,
limits to his responsibility: (a) generally, where the occupier has
used due diligence to enforce the execution of the act, and can show
that another person, whether agent, servant, workman or other person,
is the real offender; (b) specially in a factory the sections relating
to employment of protected persons, where the owner or hirer of a
machine or implement driven by mechanical power is some person other
than the occupier of the factory, the owner or hirer, so far as
respects any offence against the act committed in relation to a person
who is employed in connexion with the machine or implement, and is in
the employment or pay of the owner or hirer, shall be deemed to be the
occupier of the factory; (c) for the one purpose of reporting
accidents, the actual employer of the person injured in any factory or
workshop is bound under penalty immediately to report the same to the
occupier; (d) so far as relates to sanitary conditions, fencing of
machinery, affixing of notices in _tenement_ factories, the _owner_
(as defined by the Public Health Act 1875), generally speaking, takes
the place of the occupier.
Employment in a factory or workshop includes work whether for wages or
not: (a) in a manufacturing process or handicraft, (b) in cleaning any
place used for the same, (c) in cleaning or oiling any part of the
machinery, (d) any work whatsoever incidental to the process or
handicraft, or connected with the article made. Persons found in any
part of the factory or workshop, where machinery is used or
manufacture carried on, except at meal-times, or when machinery is
stopped, are deemed to be employed until the contrary is proved. The
act, however, does not apply to employment for the sole purpose of
repairing the premises or machinery, nor to the process of preserving
and curing fish immediately upon its arrival in the fishing boats in
order to prevent the fish from being destroyed or spoiled, nor to the
process of cleaning and preparing fruit so far as is necessary to
prevent it from spoiling during the months of June, July, August and
September. Certain light handicrafts carried on by a family only in a
private house or room at irregular intervals are also outside the
scope of the act.
Sanitation.
The foremost provisions are those relating to the sanitary condition
of the workplaces and the general security of every class of worker.
Every factory must be kept in a cleanly condition, free from noxious
effluvia, ventilated in such a manner as to render harmless, so far as
practicable, gases, vapours, dust or other impurities generated in the
manufacture; must be provided with sufficient and suitable sanitary
conveniences separate for the sexes; must not be overcrowded (not less
than 250 cubic ft. during the day, 400 during overtime, for each
worker). In these matters the law of public health takes in workshops
the place of the Factory Act, the requirements being substantially the
same. Although, however, primarily the officers of the district
council enforce the sanitary provisions in workshops, the government
factory inspectors may give notice of any defect in them to the
district council in whose district they are situate; and if
proceedings are not taken within one month by the latter, the factory
inspector may act in default and recover expenses from the district
council. This power does not extend to domestic workshops which are
under the law relating to public health so far as general sanitation
is concerned. General powers are reserved to the secretary of state,
where he is satisfied that the Factory Act or law relating to public
health as regards workplaces has not been carried out by any district
council, to authorize a factory inspector during a period named in his
order to act instead of the district council. Other general sanitary
provisions administered by the government inspectors are the
requirement in factories and workshops of washing conveniences where
poisonous substances are used; adequate measures for securing and
maintaining a reasonable temperature of such a kind as will not
interfere with the purity of the air in each room in which any person
is employed; maintenance of sufficient means of ventilation in every
room in a factory or workshop (in conformity with such standard as may
be prescribed by order of the secretary of state); provision of a fan
to carry off injurious dust, gas or other impurity, and prevent their
inhalation in any factory or workshop; drainage of floors where wet
processes are carried on. For laundries and bakehouses there are
further sanitary regulations; e.g. in laundries all stoves for heating
irons shall be sufficiently separated from any ironing-room or
ironing-table, and the floors shall be "drained in such a manner as
will allow the water to flow off freely"; and in bakehouses a cistern
supplying water to a bakehouse must be quite separate from that
supplying water to a water-closet, and the latter may not communicate
directly with the bakehouse. Use of underground bakehouses (i.e. a
baking room with floor more than 3 ft. below the ground adjoining) is
prohibited, except where already used at the passing of the act;
further, in these cases, after 1st January 1904, a certificate as to
suitability in light, ventilation, &c., must be obtained from the
district council. In other trades certified by the secretary of state
further sanitary regulations may be made to increase security for
health by special rules to be presently touched on. The secretary of
state may also make sanitary requirements a condition of granting such
exceptions to the general law as he is empowered to grant. In
factories, as distinct from workshops, a periodical lime washing (or
washing with hot water and soap where paint and varnish have been
used) of all inside walls and ceilings once at least in every fourteen
months is generally required (in bakehouses once in six months). As
regards sufficiency and suitability of sanitary accommodation, the
standards determined by order of the secretary of state shall be
observed in the districts to which it is made applicable. An order was
made called the Sanitary Accommodation Order, on the 4th of February
1903, the definitions and standards in which have also been widely
adopted by local sanitary authorities in districts where the Order
itself has no legal force, the local authority having parallel power
under the Public Health Act of 1890.
Security and accidents.
Security in the use of machinery is provided for by precautions as
regards the cleaning of machinery in motion and working between the
fixed and traversing parts of self-acting machines driven by power, by
fencing of machinery, and by empowering inspectors to obtain an order
from a court of summary jurisdiction to prohibit the use, temporarily
or absolutely, of machinery, ways, works or plant, including use of a
steam boiler, which cannot be used without danger to life and limb.
Every hoist and fly-wheel directly connected with mechanical power,
and every part of a water-wheel or engine worked by mechanical power,
and every wheel race, must be fenced, whatever its position, and every
part of mill-gearing or dangerous machinery must either be fenced or
be in such position that it is as safe as if fenced. No protected
persons may clean any part of mill-gearing in motion, and children may
further not clean any part of or below manufacturing machinery in
motion by aid of mechanical power; young persons further may not clean
any machinery if the inspector notifies it to the occupier as
dangerous. Security as regards the use of dangerous premises is
provided for by empowering courts of summary jurisdiction, on the
application of an inspector, to prohibit their use until the danger
has been removed. The district council, or, in London, the county
council, or in case of their default the factory inspector, can
require certain provisions for escape in case of fire in factories and
workshops in which more than forty persons are employed; special
powers to make by-laws for means of escape from fire in any factory or
workshop are, in addition to any powers for prevention of fire that
they possess, given to every district council, in London to the county
council. The means of escape must be kept free from obstruction.
Provisions are made for doors to open outwards in each room in which
more than ten persons are employed, and to prevent the locking,
bolting or fastening of doors so that they cannot easily be opened
from inside when any person is employed or at meals inside the
workplace. Further, provisions for security may be provided in special
regulations. Every boiler for generating steam in a factory or
workshop or place where the act applies must have a proper safety
valve, a steam gauge, and a water gauge, and every such boiler, valve
and gauge must be maintained in proper condition. Examination by a
competent person must take place at least once in every fourteen
months. The occupier of any factory or workshop may be liable for
penal compensation not exceeding £100 in case of injury or death due
to neglect of any provision or special rule, the whole or any part of
which may be applied for the benefit of the injured person or his
family, as the secretary of state determines. When a death has
occurred by accident in a factory or workshop, the coroner must advise
the factory inspector for the district of the place and time of the
inquest. The secretary of state may order a formal investigation of
the circumstances of any accident as in the case of mines. Careful and
detailed provisions are made for the reporting by occupiers to
inspectors, and entry in the registers at factories and workshops of
accidents which occur in a factory or workshop and (a) cause loss of
life to a person employed there, or (b) are due to machinery moved by
mechanical power, molten metal, hot liquid, explosion, escape of gas
or steam, electricity, so disabling any person employed in the factory
or workshop as to cause him to be absent throughout at least one whole
day from his ordinary work, (c) are due to any other special cause
which the secretary of state may determine, (d) not falling under the
previous heads and yet cause disablement for more than seven days'
ordinary work to any person working in the factory or workshop. In the
case of (a) or (b) notice has also to be sent to the certifying
surgeon by the occupier. Cases of lead, phosphorus, arsenical and
mercurial poisoning, or anthrax, contracted in any factory or workshop
must similarly be reported and registered by the occupier, and the
duty of reporting these cases is also laid on medical practitioners
under whose observation they come. The list of classes of poisoning
can be extended by the secretary of state's order.
Physical fitness of workers.
Certificates of physical fitness for employment must be obtained by
the occupier from the certifying surgeon for the district for all
persons under sixteen years of age employed in a factory, and in any
class of workshops to which the requirement has been extended by order
of the secretary of state, and an inspector may suspend any such
persons for re-examination in a factory, or for examination in a
workshop, when "disease or bodily infirmity" unfits the person, in his
opinion, for the work of the place. The certifying surgeon may examine
the process as well as the person submitted, and may qualify the
certificate he grants by conditions as to the work on which the person
is fit to be employed. An occupier of a factory or workshop or laundry
shall not knowingly allow a woman to be employed therein within four
weeks after childbirth.
Hours of protected persons.
The employment of children, young persons and women is regulated as
regards ordinary and exceptional hours of work, ordinary and
exceptional meal-times, length of spells and holidays. The outside
limits of ordinary periods of employment and holidays are, broadly,
the same for textile factories as for non-textile factories and
workshops; the main difference lies in the requirement of not less
than a total two hours' interval for meals out of the twelve, and a
limit of four and a half hours for any spell of work, a longer weekly
half holiday, and a prohibition of overtime, in textile factories, as
compared with a total one and a half hours' interval for meals and a
limit of five hours for spells and (conditional) permission of
overtime in non-textile factories. The hours of work must be
specified, and from Monday to Friday may be between 6 A.M. and 6 P.M.,
or 7 A.M. to 7 P.M.; in non-textile factories and workshops the hours
also may be taken between 8 A.M. and 8 P.M. or by order of the
secretary of state for special industries 9 A.M. to 9 P.M. Between
these outside limits, with the proviso that meal-times must be fixed
and limits as to spells observed, women and young persons may be
employed the full time, children on the contrary only half time, on
alternate days, or in alternate sets attending school half time
regularly. On Saturdays, in textile factories in which the period
commences at 6 A.M. all manufacturing work must cease at 12 if not
less than one hour is given for meals, or 11.30 if less than one hour
is given for meals (half an hour extra allowed for cleaning), and in
non-textile factories and workshops at 2 P.M., 3 P.M. or 4 P.M.,
according as the hour of beginning is 6 A.M., 7 A.M. or 8 A.M. In
"domestic workshops" the total number of hours for young persons and
children must not exceed those allowed in ordinary workshops, but the
outside limits for beginning and ending are wider; and the case is
similar as regards hours of women in "women's workshops." Employment
outside a factory or workshop in the business of the same is limited
in a manner similar to that laid down in the Shop Hours Act, to be
touched on presently. Overtime in certain classes of factories,
workshops and warehouses attached to them is permitted, under
conditions specified in the acts, for women, to meet seasonal or
unforeseen pressure of business, or where goods of a perishable nature
are dealt with, for young persons only in a very limited degree in
factories liable to stoppage for drought or flood, or for an
unfinished process. These and other cases of exceptional working are
under minute and careful administrative regulations. Broadly these
same regulations as to exceptional overtime may apply in _laundries_
but the act of 1907 granted to laundries not merely ancillary to the
manufacture carried on in a factory or workshop (e.g. shirt and collar
factories), additional power to fix different periods of employment
for different days of the week, and to make use of one or other of two
exceptional methods of arranging the daily periods so as to permit of
periods of different length on different days; these exceptional
periods cannot be worked in addition to overtime permissible under the
general law. Laundries carried on in connexion with charitable or
reformatory institutions were brought in 1907 within the scope of the
law, but special schemes for regulation as to hours, meals, holidays,
&c., may be submitted by the managers to the secretary of state, who
is empowered to approve them if he is satisfied that they are not less
favourable than the corresponding provisions of the principal act;
such schemes shall be laid as soon as possible before both Houses of
Parliament.
Dangerous and unhealthy industries.
Night work is allowed in certain specified industries, under
conditions, for male young persons, but for no other workers under
eighteen, and overtime for women may never be later than 10 P.M. or
before 6 A.M. Sunday work is prohibited except, under conditions, for
Jews; and in factories, workshops and laundries six holidays
(generally the Bank holidays) must be allowed in the year. In
creameries in which women and young persons are employed the secretary
of state may by special order vary the beginning and end of the daily
period of employment, and allow employment for not more than three
hours on Sundays and holidays.
The general provisions of the act may be supplemented where specially
dangerous or unhealthy trades are carried on, by special regulations.
This was provided for in the law in force until 31st December 1901, as
in the existing principal act, and the power to establish rules had
been exercised between 1892 and 1901 in twenty-two trades or processes
where injury arose either from handling of dangerous substances, such
as lead and lead compounds, phosphorus, arsenic or various chemicals,
or where there is inhalation of irritant dust or noxious fumes, or
where there is danger of explosion or infection of anthrax. Before the
rule could be drawn up under the acts of 1891 to 1895, the secretary
of state had to certify that in the particular case or class of cases
in question (e.g. process or machinery), there was, in his opinion,
danger to life or limb or risk of injury to health; thereupon the
chief inspector might propose to the occupier of the factory or
workshop such special rules or measures as he thought necessary to
meet the circumstances. The occupier might object or propose
modifications, but if he did not the rules became binding in
twenty-one days; if he objected, and the secretary of state did not
assent to any proposed modification, the matters in difference had to
be referred to arbitration, the award in which finally settled the
rules or requirement to be observed. In November 1901, in the case of
the earthenware and china industry, the last arbitration of the kind
was opened and was finally concluded in 1903. The parties to the
arbitration were the chief inspector, on behalf of the secretary of
state, and the occupier or occupiers, but the workmen interested might
be and were represented on the arbitration. In the establishing of the
twenty-two sets of existing special rules only thrice has arbitration
been resorted to, and only on two of these occasions were workmen
represented. The provisions as to the arbitration were laid down in
the first schedule to the Act of 1891, and were similar to those under
the Coal Mines Regulation Acts. Many of these codes have still the
force of law and will continue until in due course revised under the
amended procedure of the act of 1901. They might not only regulate
conditions of employment, but also restrict or prohibit employment of
any class of workers; where such restriction or prohibition affected
adult workers the rules had to be laid for forty days before both
Houses of Parliament before coming into operation. The obligation to
observe the rules in detail lies on workers as well as on occupiers,
and the section in the act of 1891 providing a penalty for
non-observance was drafted, as in the case of the mines, so as to
provide for a simultaneous fine for each (not exceeding two pounds for
the worker, not exceeding ten pounds for the employer).
The provisions as to special regulations of the act of 1901 touch
primarily the method of procedure for making the regulations, but they
also covered for the first time domestic workshops and added a power
as to the kind of regulations that may be made; further, they
strengthened the sanction for observance of any rules that may be
established, by placing the occupier in the same general position as
regards penalty for non-observance as in other matters under the act.
On the certificate of the secretary of state that any manufacture,
machinery, plant, process or manual labour used in factories or
workshops is dangerous or injurious to life, health or limb, such
regulations as appear to the secretary of state to meet the necessity
of the case may be made by him after he has duly published notice: (1)
of his intention; (2) of the place where copies of the draft
regulations can be obtained; and (3) of the time during which
objections to them can be made by persons affected. The secretary of
state may modify the regulations to meet the objections made. If not,
unless the objection is withdrawn or appears to him frivolous, he
shall, before making the regulations, appoint a competent person to
hold a public inquiry with regard to the draft regulations and to
report to him thereon. The inquiry is to be made under such rules as
the secretary of state may lay down, and when the regulations are
made, they must be laid as soon as possible before parliament. Either
House may annul these regulations or any of them, without prejudice to
the power of the secretary of state to make new regulations. The
regulations may apply to all factories or workshops in which the
certified manufacture, process, &c., is used, or to a specified class.
They may, among other things, (a) prohibit or limit employment of any
person or class of persons; (b) prohibit, limit, or control use of any
material or process; (c) modify or extend special regulations
contained in the Act. Regulations have been established among others
in the following trades and processes: felt hat-making where any
inflammable solvent is used; file-cutting by hand; manufacture of
electric accumulators; docks, processes of loading, unloading, &c.;
tar distilling; factories in which self-acting mules are used; use of
locomotives; spinning and weaving of flax, hemp and jute; manufacture
of paints and colours; heading of yarn dyed by means of lead
compounds.
Measures and particulars to piece-workers.
Although the Factory and Workshop Acts have not directly regulated
wages, they have made certain provision for securing to the worker
that the amount agreed upon shall be received: (a) by extending every
act in force relating to the inspection of weights, measures and
weighing machines for use in the sale of goods to those used in a
factory or workshop for checking or ascertaining the wages of persons
employed; (b) by ensuring that piece-workers in the textile trades
(and other trades specified by the secretary of state) shall receive,
before commencing any piece of work, clear particulars of the wages
applicable to the work to be done and of the work to which that rate
is to be applied. Unless the particulars of work are ascertainable by
an automatic indicator, they must be given to textile workers in
writing, and in the case of weavers in the cotton, worsted and woollen
trades the particulars of wages must be supplied separately to each
worker, and also shown on a placard in a conspicuous position. In
other textile processes, it is sufficient to furnish the particulars
separately to each worker. The secretary of state has used his powers
to extend this protection to non-textile workers, with suitable
modifications, in various hardware industries, including pen-making,
locks, chains, in wholesale tailoring and making of wearing apparel,
in fustian cutting, umbrella-making, brush-making and a number of
other piece-work trades. He further has in most of these and other
trades used his power to extend this protection to outworkers.
Administration.
With a view to efficient administration of the act (a) certain notices
have to be conspicuously exhibited at the factory or workshop, (b)
registers and lists kept, and (c) notices sent to the inspector by the
occupier. Among the first the most important are the prescribed
abstract of the act, the names and addresses of the inspector and
certifying surgeon, the period of employment, and specified meal-times
(which may not be changed without fresh notice to the inspector), the
air space and number of persons who may legally be employed in each
room, and prescribed particulars of exceptional employment; among the
second are the general registers of children and young persons
employed, of accidents, of lime-washing, of overtime, and lists of
outworkers; among the third are the notice of beginning to occupy a
factory or workshop, which the occupier must send within one month,
report of overtime employment, notice of accident, poisoning or
anthrax, and returns of persons employed, with such other particulars
as may be prescribed. These must be sent to the chief inspector at
intervals of not less than one and not more than three years, as may
be directed by the secretary of state.
The secretary of state for the Home Department controls the
administration of the acts, appoints the inspectors referred to in the
acts, assigns to them their duties, and regulates the manner and cases
in which they are to exercise the powers of inspectors. The act,
however, expressly assigns certain duties and powers to a chief
inspector and certain to district inspectors. Many provisions of the
acts depend as to their operation on the making of orders by the
secretary of state. These orders may impose special obligations on
occupiers and increase the stringency of regulations, may apply
exceptions as to employment, and may modify or relax regulations to
meet special classes of circumstances. In certain cases, already
indicated, his orders guide or determine the action of district
councils, and, generally, in case of default by a council he may
empower his inspectors to act as regards workplaces, instead of the
council, both under the Factory Acts and Public Health Acts.
The powers of an inspector are to enter, inspect and examine, by day
or by night, at any reasonable time, any factory or workshop (or
laundry, dock, &c.), or part of one, when he has reason to believe
that any person is employed there; to take with him a constable if he
has reasonable cause to expect obstruction; to require production of
registers, certificates, &c., under the acts; to examine, alone or in
the presence of any other person, as he sees fit, every person in the
factory or workshop, or in a school where the children employed are
being educated; to prosecute, conduct or defend before a court of
summary jurisdiction any proceeding under the acts; and to exercise
such other powers as are necessary for carrying the act into effect.
The inspector has also the duty of enforcing the Truck Acts in places,
and in respect of persons, under the Factory Acts. Certifying surgeons
are appointed by the chief inspector subject to the regulations of the
secretary of state, and their chief duties are (a) to examine workers
under sixteen, and persons under special rules, as to physical fitness
for the daily work during legal periods, with power to grant qualified
certificates as to the work for which the young worker is fit, and (b)
to investigate and report on accidents and cases of lead, phosphorus
or other poisoning and anthrax.
In 1907 there were registered as under inspection 110,276 factories,
including laundries with power, 146,917 workshops (other than men's
workshops), including laundries without power; of works under special
rules or regulations (included in the figures just given) there were
10,586 and 19,687 non-textile works under orders for supply of
particulars to piece-workers. Of notices of accidents received there
were 124,325, of which 1179 were fatal; of reported cases of poisoning
there were 653, of which 40 were fatal. Prosecutions were taken by
inspectors in 4474 cases and convictions obtained in 4211 cases. Of
persons employed there were, according to returns of occupiers, 1904,
4,165,791 in factories and 688,756 in workshops.
_Coal Mines._--The mode of progress to be recorded in the regulation of
coal mines since 1872 can be contrasted in one aspect with the progress
just recorded of factory legislation since 1878. Consolidation was again
earlier adopted when large amendments were found necessary, with the
result that by far the greater part of the law is to be found in the act
of 1887, which repealed and re-enacted, with amendments, the Coal Mines
Acts of 1872 and 1886, and the Stratified Ironstone Mines (Gunpowder)
Act, 1881. The act of 1881 was simply concerned with rules relating to
the use of explosives underground. The act of 1886 dealt with three
questions: (a) The election and payment of checkweighers (i.e. the
persons appointed and paid by miners in pursuance of section 13 of the
act of 1887 for the purpose of taking a correct account on their behalf
of the weight of the mineral gotten by them, and for the correct
determination of certain deductions for which they may be liable); (b)
provision for new powers of the secretary of state to direct a formal
investigation of any explosion or accident, and its causes and
circumstances, a provision which was later adopted in the law relating
to factories; (c) provision enabling any relatives of persons whose
death may have been caused by explosions or accidents in or about mines
to attend in person, or by agent, coroners' inquests thereon, and to
examine witnesses. The act of 1887, which amended, strengthened and
consolidated these acts and the earlier Consolidating Act of 1872, may
also be contrasted in another aspect with the general acts of factory
legislation. In scope it formed, as its principal forerunner had done, a
general code; and in some measure it went farther in the way of
consolidation than the Factory Acts had done, inasmuch as certain
questions, which in factories are dealt with by statutes distinct from
the Factory Acts, have been included in the Mines Regulation Acts, e.g.
the prohibition of the payment of wages in public-houses, and the
machinery relating to weights and measures whereby miners control their
payment; further, partly from the less changing nature of the industry,
but probably mainly from the power of expression gained for miners by
their organization, the code, so far as it went, at each stage answered
apparently on the whole more nearly to the views and needs of the
persons protected than the parallel law relating to factories. This was
strikingly seen in the evidence before the Royal Commission on Labour in
1892-1894, where the repeated expression of satisfaction on the part of
the miners with the provisions as distinct from the administration of
the code ("with a few trifling exceptions") is in marked contrast with
the long and varied series of claims and contentions put forward for
amendment of the Factory Acts.
Since the act of 1887 there have followed five minor acts, based on the
recommendation of the officials acting under the acts, while two of them
give effect to claims made by the miners before the Royal Commission on
Labour. Thus, in 1894, the Coal Mines (Checkweigher) Act rendered it
illegal for an employer ("owner, agent, or manager of any mine, or any
person employed by or acting under the instructions of any such owner,
agent, or manager") to make the removal of a particular checkweigher a
condition of employment, or to exercise improper influence in the
appointment of a checkweigher. The need for this provision was
demonstrated by a decision of the Court of Session in Edinburgh, which
upheld an employer in his claim to the right of dismissing all the
workmen and re-engaging them on condition that they would dismiss a
particular checkweigher. In 1896 a short act extended the powers to
propose, amend and modify special rules, provided for representation of
workmen on arbitration under the principal act on any matter in
difference, modified the provision for plans of mines in working and
abandoned mines, amended three of the general rules (inspection before
commencing work, use of safety lamp and non-inflammable substances for
stemming), and empowered the secretary of state by order to prohibit or
regulate the use of any explosive likely to become dangerous. In 1900
another brief act raised the age of employment of boys underground from
twelve to thirteen. In 1903 another amending act allowed as an
alternative qualification for a manager's certificate a diploma in
scientific and mining training after at least two years' study at a
university mining school or other educational institution approved by
the secretary of state, coupled with practical experience of at least
three years in a mine. In the same year the Employment of Children Act
affected children in mines to the extent already indicated in connexion
with factories. In 1905 a Coal Mines (Weighing of Minerals) Act improved
some provisions relating to appointment and pay of checkweighers and
facilities for them and their duly appointed deputies in carrying out
their duties. In 1906 the Notice of Accidents Act provided for improved
annual returns of accidents and for immediate reporting to the district
inspector of accidents under newly-defined conditions as they arise in
coal and metalliferous mines.
Act of 1887.
While the classes of mines regulated by the act of 1887 are the same
as those regulated by the act of 1872 (i.e. mines of coal, of
stratified ironstone, of shale and of fire-clay, including works above
ground where the minerals are prepared for use by screening, washing,
&c.) the interpretation of the term "mine" is wider and simpler,
including "every shaft in the course of being sunk, and every level
and inclined plane in the course of being driven, and all the shafts,
levels, planes, works, tramways and sidings, both below ground and
above ground, in and adjacent to and belonging to the mine." Of the
persons responsible under penalty for the observance of the acts the
term "owner" is defined precisely as in the act of 1872, but the term
"agent" is modified to mean "any person appointed as the
representative of the owner in respect of any mine or any part
thereof, and, as such, superior to a manager appointed in pursuance of
this act." Of the persons protected, the term "young person"
disappeared from the act, and "boy," i.e. "a male under the age of
sixteen years," and "girl," i.e. "a female under the age of sixteen
years," take their place, and the term "woman" means, as before, "a
female of the age of sixteen years and upwards." The prohibition of
employment underground of women and girls remains untouched, and the
prohibition of employment underground of boys has been successively
extended from boys of the age of ten in 1872 to boys of twelve in 1887
and to boys of thirteen in 1900. The age of employment of boys and
girls above ground in connexion with any mine is raised from ten years
in 1872 to twelve years since 1887. The hours of employment of a boy
below ground may not exceed fifty-four in any one week, nor ten in any
one day from the time of leaving the surface to the time of returning
to the surface. Above ground any boy or girl under thirteen (and over
twelve) may not be employed on more than six days in any one week; if
employed on more than three days in one week, the daily total must not
exceed six hours, or in any other case ten hours. Protected persons
above thirteen are limited to the same daily and weekly total of hours
as boys below ground, but there are further provisions with regard to
intervals for meals and prohibiting employment for more than five
hours without an interval of at least half an hour for a meal.
Registers must be kept of all protected persons, whether employed
above or below ground. Section 38 of the Public Health Act 1875, which
requires separate and sufficient sanitary conveniences for persons of
each sex, was first extended by the act of 1887 to the portions of
mines above ground in which girls and women are employed; underground
this matter is in metalliferous mines in Cornwall now provided for by
special rules. Ventilation, the only other requirement in the acts
that can be classed as sanitary, is provided for in every mine in the
"general rules" which are aimed at securing safety of mines, and
which, so far as ventilation is concerned, seek to dilute and render
harmless noxious or inflammable gases. The provision which prohibits
employment of any persons in mines not provided with at least two
shafts is made much more stringent by the act of 1887 than in the
previous code, by increasing the distance between the two shafts from
10 to 15 yds., and increasing the height of communications between
them. Other provisions amended or strengthened are those relating to
the following points: (a) Daily personal supervision of the mine by
the certificated manager; (b) classes of certificates and constitution
of board for granting certificates of competency; (c) plan of workings
of any mine to be kept up to a date not more than three months
previously at the office of the mine; (d) notice to be given to the
inspector of the district by the owner, agent or manager, of accidents
in or about any mine which cause loss of life or serious personal
injury, or are caused by explosion of coal or coal dust or any
explosive or electricity or any other special cause that the secretary
of state specifies by order, and which causes any personal injury to
any person employed in or about the mine; it is provided that the
place where an explosion or accident occurs causing loss of life or
serious personal injury shall be left for inspection for at least
three days, unless this would tend to increase or continue a danger or
impede working of the mine: this was new in the act of 1887; (e)
notice to be given of opening and abandonment of any mine: this was
extended to the opening or abandonment of any seam; (f) plan of an
abandoned mine or seam to be sent within three months; (g) formal
investigation of any explosion or accident by direction of the
secretary of state: this provision, first introduced by the act of
1886, was modified in 1887 to admit the appointment by the secretary
of state of "any competent person" to hold the investigation, whereas
under the earlier section only an inspector could be appointed.
General rules.
The "general rules" for safety in mines have been strengthened in many
ways since the act of 1872. Particular mention may be made of rule 4
of the act of 1887, relating to the inspection of conditions as to gas
ventilation beyond appointed stations at the entrance to the mine or
different parts of the mine; this rule generally removed the earlier
distinction between mines in which inflammable gas has been found
within the preceding twelve months, and mines in which it has not been
so found; of rules 8, 9, 10 and 11, relating to the construction, use,
&c., of safety lamps, which are more detailed and stringent than rule
7 of the act of 1872, which they replaced; of rule 12, relating to the
use of explosives below ground; of rule 24, which requires the
appointment of a competent male person not less than twenty-two years
of age for working the machinery for lowering and raising persons at
the mine; of rule 34, which first required provision of ambulances or
stretchers with splints and bandages at the mine ready for immediate
use; of rule 38, which strengthened the provision for periodical
inspection of the mine by practical miners on behalf of the workmen at
their own cost. With reference to the last-cited rule, during 1898 a
Prussian mining commission visited Great Britain, France and Belgium,
to study and compare the various methods of inspection by working
miners established in these three countries. They found that, so far
as the method had been applied, it was most satisfactory in Great
Britain, where the whole cost is borne by the workers' own
organizations, and they attributed part of the decrease in number of
accidents per thousand employed since 1872 to the inauguration of this
system.
Special rules.
The provisions as to the proposal, amendment and modification of
"special rules," last extended by the act of 1896, may be contrasted
with those of the Factory Act. In the latter it is not until an
industry or process has been scheduled as dangerous or injurious by
the secretary of state's order that occasion arises for the formation
of special rules, and then the initiative rests with the Factory
Department whereas in mines it is incumbent in every case on the
owner, agent or manager to propose within three months of the
commencement of any working, for the approval of the secretary of
state, special rules best calculated to prevent dangerous accidents,
and to provide for the safety, convenience and proper discipline of
the persons employed in or about the mine. These rules may, if they
relate to lights and lamps used in the mine, description of
explosives, watering and damping of the mine, or prevention of
accidents from inflammable gas or coal dust, supersede any general
rule in the principal act. Apart from the initiation of the rules, the
methods of establishing them, whether by agreement or by resort to
arbitration of the parties (i.e. the mine owners and the secretary of
state), are practically the same as under the Factory Act, but there
is special provision in the Mines Acts for enabling the persons
working in the mine to transmit objections to the proposed rules, in
addition to their subsequent right to be represented on the
arbitration, if any.
Of the sections touching on wages questions, the prohibition of the
payment of wages in public-houses remains unaltered, being re-enacted
in 1887; the sections relating to payment by weight for amount of
mineral gotten by persons employed, and for checkweighing the amount
by a "checkweigher" stationed by the majority of workers at each place
appointed for the weighing of the material, were revised, particularly
as to the determination of deductions by the act of 1887, with a view
to meeting some problems raised by decisions on cases under the act of
1872. The attempt seems not to have been wholly successful, the
highest legal authorities having expressed conflicting opinions on the
precise meaning of the terms "mineral contracted to be gotten." The
whole history of the development of this means of securing the
fulfilment of wage contract to the workers may be compared with the
history of the sections affording protection to piece-workers by
particulars of work and wages in the textile trades since the Factory
Act of 1891.
Administration.
As regards legal proceedings, the chief amendments of the act of 1872
are: the extension of the provision that the "owner, agent, or
manager" charged in respect of any contravention by another person
might be sworn and examined as an ordinary witness, to any person
charged with any offence under the act. The result of the proceedings
against workmen by the owner, agent or manager in respect of an
offence under the act is to be reported within twenty-one days to the
inspector of the district. The powers of inspectors were extended to
cover an inquiry as to the care and treatment of horses and other
animals in the mine, and as to the control, management or direction of
the mine by the manager.
An important act was passed in 1908 (Coal Mines Regulation Act 1908)
limiting the hours of work for workmen below ground. It enacted that,
subject to various provisions, a workman was not to be below ground in a
mine for the purpose of his work, and of going to and from his work, for
more than eight hours in any consecutive twenty-four hours. Exception
was made in the case of those below ground for the purpose of rendering
assistance in the event of an accident, or for meeting any danger, or
for dealing with any emergency or work incompleted, through unforeseen
circumstances, which requires to be dealt with to avoid serious
interference in the work of the mine. The authorities of every mine must
fix the times for the lowering and raising of the men to begin and be
completed, and such times must be conspicuously posted at the pit head.
These times must be approved by an inspector. The term "workman" in the
act means any person employed in a mine below ground who is not an
official of the mine (other than a fireman, examiner or deputy), or a
mechanic or a horse keeper or a person engaged solely in surveying or
measuring. In the case of a fireman, examiner, deputy, onsetter, pump
minder, fanman or furnace man, the maximum period for which he may be
below ground is nine hours and a half. A register must be kept by the
authorities of the mine of the times of descent and ascent, while the
workmen may, at their own cost, station persons (whether holding the
office of checkweigher or not) at the pit head to observe the times. The
authorities of the mine may extend the hours of working by one hour a
day on not more than sixty days in one calendar year (s. 3). The act may
be suspended by order in council in the event of war or of imminent
national danger or great emergency, or in the event of any grave
economic disturbance due to the demand for coal exceeding the supply
available at any time. The act came into force on the 1st of July 1909
except for the counties of Northumberland and Durham where its operation
was postponed until the 1st of January 1910.
In 1905 the number of coal-mines reported on was 3126, and the number
of persons employed below ground was 691,112 of whom 43,443 were under
16 years of age. Above ground 167,261 were employed, of whom 6154 were
women and girls. The number of separate fatal accidents was 1006,
causing the loss of 1205 lives. Of prosecutions by far the greater
number were against workmen, numbering in coal and metalliferous mines
953; owners and managers were prosecuted in 72 cases, and convictions
obtained in 43 cases.
_Quarries._--From 1878 until 1894 open quarries (as distinct from
underground quarries regulated by the Metalliferous Mines Regulation
Act) were regulated only by the Factory Acts so far as they then
applied. It was laid down in section 93 of the act of 1878 (41 Vict. c.
16), that "any premises or place shall not be excluded from the
definition of a factory or workshop by reason only that such premises,
&c., are or is in the open air," thereby overruling the decision in
_Kent_ v. _Astley_ that quarries in which the work, as a whole, was
carried on in the open air were not factories; in a schedule to the same
act quarries were defined as "any place not being a mine in which
persons work in getting slate, stone, coprolites or other minerals." The
Factory Act of 1891 made it possible to bring these places in part under
"special rules" adapted to meet the special risks and dangers of the
operations carried on in them, and by order of the secretary of state
they were certified, December 1892, as dangerous, and thereby subject to
special rules. Until then, as reported by one of the inspectors of
factories, quarries had been placed under the Factory Acts without
insertion of appropriate rules for their safe working, and many of them
were "developed in a most dangerous manner without any regard for
safety, but merely for economy," and managers of many had "scarcely seen
a quarry until they became managers." In his report for 1892 it was
recommended by the chief inspector of factories that quarries should be
subject to the jurisdiction of the government inspectors of mines. At
the same time currency was given, by the published reports of the
evidence before the Royal Commission on Labour, to the wish of large
numbers of quarrymen that open as well as underground quarries should
come under more specialized government inspection. In 1893 a committee
of experts, including inspectors of mines and of factories, was
appointed by the Home Office to investigate the conditions of labour in
open quarries, and in 1894 the Quarries Act brought every quarry, as
defined in the Factory Act 1878, any part of which is more than 20 ft.
deep, under certain of the provisions of the Metalliferous Mines Acts,
and under the inspection of the inspectors appointed under those acts;
further, it transferred the duty of enforcing the Factory and Workshop
Acts, so far as they apply in quarries over 20 ft. deep, from the
Factory to the Metalliferous Mines inspectors.
The provisions of the Metalliferous Mines Acts 1872 and 1875, applied to
quarries, are those relating to payment of wages in public-houses,
notice of accidents to the inspector, appointment and powers of
inspectors, arbitration, coroners' inquests, special rules, penalties,
certain of the definitions, and the powers of the secretary of state
finally to decide disputed questions whether places come within the
application of the acts. For other matters, and in particular fencing of
machinery and employment of women and young persons, the Factory Acts
apply, with a proviso that nothing shall prevent the employment of young
persons (boys) in three shifts for not more than eight hours each. In
1899 it was reported by the inspectors of mines that special rules for
safety had been established in over 2000 quarries. In the reports for
1905 it was reported that the accounts of blasting accidents indicated
that there was "still much laxity in observance of the Special rules,
and that many irregular and dangerous practices are in vogue." The
absence or deficiency of external fencing to a quarry dangerous to the
public has been since 1887 (50 & 51 Vict. c. 19) deemed a nuisance
liable to be dealt with summarily in the manner provided by the Public
Health Act 1875.
In 1905, 94,819 persons were employed, of whom 59,978 worked inside
the actual pits or excavations, and 34,841 outside. Compared with
1900, there was a total increase of 924 in the number of persons
employed. Fatal accidents resulted in 1900 in 127 deaths; compared
with 1899 there was an increase of 10 in the number of deaths, and, as
Professor Le Neve Foster pointed out, this exceeded the average
death-rate of underground workers at mines under the Coal Mines Acts
during the previous ten years, in spite of the quarrier "having
nothing to fear from explosions of gas, underground fires or
inundations." He attributed the difference to a lax observance of
precautions which might in time be remedied by stringent
administration of the law. In 1905 there were 97 fatal accidents
resulting in 99 deaths. In 1900 there were 92 prosecutions against
owners or agents, with 67 convictions, and 13 prosecutions of workers,
with 12 convictions, and in 1905 there were 45 prosecutions of owners
or agents with 43 convictions and 9 prosecutions of workmen with 5
convictions.
Payment of wages in public-houses.
In 1883 a short act extended to all "workmen" who are manual labourers
other than miners, with the exception of domestic or menial servants,
the prohibition of payment of wages in public-houses, beer-shops and
other places for the sale of spirituous or fermented liquor, laid down
in the Coal Mines Regulations and Metalliferous Mines Regulation Acts.
The places covered by the prohibition include any office, garden or
place belonging to or occupied with the places named, but the act does
not apply to such wages as are paid by the resident, owner or occupier
of the public-house, beer-shop and other places included in the
prohibition to any workman _bona fide_ employed by him. The penalty
for an offence against this act is one not exceeding £10 (compare the
limit of £20 for the corresponding offence under the Coal Mines Act),
and all offences may be prosecuted and penalties recovered in England
and Scotland under the Summary Jurisdiction Acts. The act does not
apply to Ireland, and no special inspectorate is charged with the duty
of enforcing its provisions.
_Shop Hours._--In four brief acts, 1892 to 1899, still in force, the
first very limited steps were taken towards the positive regulation of
the employment of shop assistants. In the act of 1904 certain additional
optional powers were given to any local authority making a "closing
order" fixing the hour (not earlier than 7 P.M. or on one day in the
week 1 P.M.) at which shops shall cease to serve customers throughout
the area of the authority or any specified part thereof as regards all
shops or as regards any specified class of shops. Before such an order
can be made (1) a prima facie case for it must appear to the local
authority; (2) the local authority must inquire and agree; (3) the order
must be drafted and sent for confirmation or otherwise to the central
authority, that is, the secretary of state for the Home Department; (4)
the order must be laid before both Houses of Parliament. The Home Office
has given every encouragement to the making of such orders, but their
number in England is very small, and the act is practically inoperative
in London and many large towns where the need is greatest. As the
secretary of state pointed out in the House of Commons on the 1st of May
1907, the local authorities have not taken enough initiative, but at the
same time there is a great difficulty for them in obtaining the required
two-thirds majority, among occupiers of the shops to be affected, in
favour of the order, and at the same time shop assistants have no power
to set the law in motion. In England 364 local authorities have taken no
steps, but in Scotland rather better results have been obtained. The
House resolved, on the date named, that more drastic legislation is
required. As regards shops, therefore, in place of such general codes as
apply to factories, laundries, mines--only three kinds of protective
requirement are binding on employers of shop assistants: (1) Limitation
of the weekly total of hours of work of persons under eighteen years of
age to seventy-four inclusive of meal-times; (2) prohibition of the
employment of such persons in a shop on the same day that they have, to
the knowledge of the employer, been employed in any factory or workshop
for a longer period than would, in both classes of employment together,
amount to the number of hours permitted to such persons in a factory or
workshop; (3) provision for the supply of seats by the employer, in all
rooms of a shop or other premises where goods are retailed to the
public, for the use of female assistants employed in retailing the
goods--the seats to be in the proportion of not fewer than one to every
three female assistants. The first two requirements are contained in the
act of 1892, which also prescribed that a notice, referring to the
provisions of the act, and stating the number of hours in the week
during which a young person may be lawfully employed in the shop, shall
be kept exhibited by the employer; the third requirement was first
provided by the act of 1899. The intervening acts of 1893 and 1895 are
merely supplementary to the act of 1892; the former providing for the
salaries and expenses of the inspectors which the council of any county
or borough (and in the City of London the Common Council) were
empowered by the act of 1892 to appoint; the latter providing a penalty
of 40s. for failure of an employer to keep exhibited the notice of the
provisions of the acts, which in the absence of a penalty it had been
impossible to enforce. The penalty for employment contrary to the acts
is a fine not exceeding £1 for each person so employed, and for failure
to comply with the requirements as to seats, a fine not exceeding £3 for
a first offence, and for any subsequent offence a fine of not less than
£1 and not exceeding £5.
Meaning of "shop."
A wide interpretation is given by the act of 1892 to the class of
workplace to which the limitation of hours applies. "Shop" means
retail and wholesale shops, markets, stalls and warehouses in which
assistants are employed for hire, and includes licensed public-houses
and refreshment houses of any kind. The person responsible for the
observance of the acts is the "employer" of the "young persons" (i.e.
persons under the age of eighteen years), whose hours are limited, and
of the "female assistants" for whom seats must be provided. Neither
the term "employer" nor "shop assistant" (used in the title of the act
of 1899) is defined; but other terms have the meaning assigned to them
in the Factory and Workshop Act 1878. The "employer" has, in case of
any contravention alleged, the same power as the "occupier" in the
Factory Acts to exempt himself from fine on proof of due diligence and
of the fact that some other person is the actual offender. The
provisions of the act of 1892 do not apply to members of the same
family living in a house of which the shop forms part, or to members
of the employer's family, or to any one wholly employed as a domestic
servant.
In London, where the County Council has appointed men and women
inspectors to apply the acts of 1892 to 1899, there were, in 1900,
73,929 premises, and in 1905, 84,269, under inspection. In the latter
year there were 22,035 employing persons under 18 years of age. In
1900 the number of young persons under the acts were: indoors, 10,239
boys and 4428 girls; outdoors, 35,019 boys, 206 girls. In 1905 the
ratio between boys and girls had decidedly altered: indoors, 6602
boys, 4668 girls; outdoors, 22,654 boys, 308 girls. The number of
irregularities reported in 1900 were 9204 and the prosecutions were
117; in 1905 the irregularities were 6966 and the prosecutions
numbered 34. As regards the act of 1899, in only 1088 of the 14,844
shops affected in London was there found in 1900 to be failure to
provide seats for the women employed in retailing goods. The chief
officer of the Public Control Department reported that with very few
exceptions the law was complied with at the end of the first year of
its application.
As regards cleanliness, ventilation, drainage, water-supply and
sanitary condition generally, shops have been since 1878 (by 41 Vict.
c. 16, s. 101) subject to the provisions of the Public Health Act
1875, which apply to all buildings, except factories under the Factory
Acts, in which any persons, whatever their number be, are employed.
Thus, broadly, the same sanitary provisions apply in shops as in
workshops, but in the former these are enforced solely by the officers
of the local authority, without reservation of any power, as in
workshops for the Home Office inspectorate, to act in default of the
local authority.
Shop assistants, so far as they are engaged in manual, not merely
clerical labour, come under the provisions of the Truck Acts 1831 to
1887, and in all circumstances they fall within the sections directed
against unfair and unreasonable fines in the Truck Act of 1896; but,
unlike employés in factories, workshops, laundries and mines, they are
left to apply these provisions so far as they can themselves, since
neither Home Office inspectors nor officers of the local authority
have any specially assigned powers to administer the Truck Acts in
shops.
The Truck Act 1887.
Persons benefited by Truck Acts.
_Truck._--Setting aside the special Hosiery Manufacture (Wages) Act
1874, aimed at a particular abuse appearing chiefly in the hosiery
industry--the practice of making excessive charges on wages for
machinery and frame rents--only two acts, those of 1887 and 1896, have
been added to the general law against truck since the act of 1831, which
repealed all prior Truck Acts and which remains the principal act.
Further amendments of the law have been widely and strenuously demanded,
and are hoped for as the result of the long inquiry by a departmental
committee appointed early in 1906. The Truck Act Amendment Act 1887,
amended and extended the act without adding any distinctly new
principle; the Truck Act of 1896 was directed towards providing remedies
for matters shown by decisions under the earlier Truck Acts to be
outside the scope of the principles and provisions of those acts. Under
the earlier acts the main objects were: (1) to make the wages of
workmen, i.e. the reward of labour, payable only in current coin of the
realm, and to prohibit whole or part payment of wages in food or drink
or clothes or any other articles; (2) to forbid agreements, express or
implied, between employer and workmen as to the manner or place in
which, or articles on which, a workman shall expend his wages, or for
the deduction from wages of the price of articles (other than materials
to be used in the labour of the workmen) supplied by the employer. The
act of 1887 added a further prohibition by making it illegal for an
employer to charge interest on any advance of wages, "whenever by
agreement, custom, or otherwise a workman is entitled to receive in
anticipation of the regular period of the payment of his wages an
advance as part or on account thereof." Further, it strengthened the
section of the principal act which provided that no employer shall have
any action against his workman for goods supplied at any shop belonging
to the employer, or in which the employer is interested, by (a) securing
any workman suing an employer for wages against any counter-claim in
respect of goods supplied to the workman by any person under any order
or direction of the employer, and (b) by expressly prohibiting an
employer from dismissing any worker on account of any particular time,
place or manner of expending his wages. Certain exemptions to the
prohibition of payment otherwise than in coin were provided for in the
act of 1831, if an agreement were made in writing and signed by the
worker, viz. rent, victuals dressed and consumed under the employer's
roof, medicine, fuel, provender for beasts of burden used in the trade,
materials and tools for use by miners, advances for friendly societies
or savings banks; in the case of fuel, provender and tools there was
also a proviso that the charge should not exceed the real and true
value. The act of 1887 amended these provisions by requiring a correct
annual audit in the case of deductions for medicine or tools, by
permitting part payment of servants in husbandry in food, drink (not
intoxicants) or other allowances, and by prohibiting any deductions for
sharpening or repairing workmen's tools except by agreement not forming
part of the condition of hiring. Two important administrative amendments
were made by the act of 1887: (1) a section similar to that in the
Factory and Mines Acts was added, empowering the employer to exempt
himself from penalty for contravention of the acts on proof that any
other person was the actual offender and of his own due diligence in
enforcing the execution of the acts; (2) the duty of enforcing the acts
in factories, workshops, and mines was imposed upon the inspectors of
the Factory and Mines Departments, respectively, of the Home Office, and
to their task they were empowered to bring all the authorities and
powers which they possessed in virtue of the acts under which they are
appointed; these inspectors thus prosecute defaulting employers and
recover penalties under the Summary Jurisdiction Acts, but they do not
undertake civil proceedings for improper deductions or payments,
proceedings for which would lie with workmen under the Employers and
Workmen Act 1875. The persons to whom the benefits of the act applied
were added to by the act of 1887, which repealed the complicated list of
trades contained in the principal act and substituted the simpler
definition of the Employers and Workmen Act, 1875. Thus the acts 1831 to
1887, and also the act of 1896, apply to all workers (men, women and
children) engaged in manual labour, except domestic servants; they apply
not only in mines, factories and workshops, but, to quote the published
Home Office Memorandum on the acts, "in all places where workpeople are
engaged in manual labour under a contract with an employer, whether or
no the employer be an owner or agent or a parent, or be himself a
workman; and therefore a workman who employs and pays others under him
must also observe the Truck Acts." The law thus in certain circumstances
covers outworkers for a contractor or sub-contractor. A decision of the
High Court at Dublin in 1900 (_Squire_ v. _Sweeney_) strengthened the
inspectors in investigation of offences committed amongst outworkers by
supporting the contention that inquiry and exercise of all the powers of
an inspector could legally take place in parts of an employer's premises
other than those in which the work is given out. It defined for Ireland,
in a narrower sense than had hitherto been understood and acted upon by
the Factory Department, the classes of outworkers protected, by
deciding that only such as were under a contract personally to execute
the work were covered. In 1905 the law in England was similarly declared
in the decided case of _Squire_ v. _The Midland Lace Co._ The judges
(Lord Alverstone, C.J.; and Kennedy and Ridley, J.J.) stated that they
came to the conclusion with "reluctance," and said: "We venture to
express the hope that some amendment of the law may be made so as to
extend the protection of the Truck Act to a class of workpeople
indistinguishable from those already within its provisions." The workers
in question were lace-clippers taking out work to do in their homes, and
in the words of the High Court decision "though they do sometimes employ
assistants are evidently, as a class, wage-earning manual labourers and
not contractors in the ordinary and popular sense." The principle relied
on in the decision was that in the case of _Ingram_ v. _Barnes_.
Meaning of "wages."
The Truck Act 1896.
At the time of the passing of the act of 1887 it seems to have been
generally believed that the obligation under the principal act to pay
the "entire amount of wages earned" in coin rendered illegal any
deductions from wages in respect of fines. Important decisions in 1888
and 1889 showed this belief to have been ill-founded. The essential
point lies in the definition of the word "wages" as the "recompense,
reward or remuneration of labour," which implies not necessarily any
gross sum in question between employer and workmen where there is a
contract to perform a certain piece of work, but that part of it, the
real _net_ wage, which the workman was to get as his _recompense_ for
the labour performed. As soon as it became clear that excessive
deductions from wages as well as payments by workers for materials
used in the work were not illegal, and that deductions or payments by
way of compensation to employers or by way of discipline might legally
(with the single exception of fines for lateness for women and
children, regulated by the Employers and Workmen Act 1875) even exceed
the degree of loss, hindrance or damage to the employer, it also came
clearly into view that further legislation was desirable to extend the
principles at the root of the Truck Acts. It was desirable, that is to
say, to hinder more fully the unfair dealing that may be encouraged by
half-defined customs in workplaces, on the part of the employer in
making a contract, while at the same time leaving the principle of
freedom of contract as far as possible untouched. The Truck Act of
1896 regulates the conditions under which deductions can be made by or
payments made to the employer, out of the "sum contracted to be paid
to the worker," i.e. out of any gross sum whatever agreed upon between
employer and workman. It makes such deductions or payments illegal
unless they are in pursuance of a contract; and it provides that
deductions (or payments) for (a) fines, (b) bad work and damaged
goods, (c) materials, machines, and any other thing provided by the
employer in relation to the work shall be reasonable, and that
particulars of the same in writing shall be given to the workman. In
none of the cases mentioned is the employer to make any profit;
neither by fines, for they may only be imposed in respect of acts or
omissions which cause, or are likely to cause, loss or damage; nor by
sale of materials, for the price may not exceed the cost to the
employer; nor by deductions or payments for damage, for these may not
exceed the actual or estimated loss to the employer. Fines and charges
for damage must be "fair and reasonable having regard to all the
circumstances of the case," and no contract could make legal a fine
which a court held to be unfair to the workman in the sense of the
act. The contract between the employer and workman must either be in
writing signed by the workman, or its terms must be clearly stated in
a notice constantly affixed in a place easily accessible to the
workman to whom, if a party to the contract, a copy shall be given at
the time of making the contract, and who shall be entitled, on
request, to obtain from the employer a copy of the notice free of
charge. On each occasion when a deduction or payment is made, full
particulars in writing must be supplied to the workman. The employer
is bound to keep a register of deductions or payments, and to enter
therein particulars of any fine made under the contract, specifying
the amount and nature of the act or omission in respect of which the
fine was imposed. This register must be at all times open to
inspectors of mines or factories, who are entitled to make a copy of
the contract or any part of it. This act as a whole applies to all
workmen included under the earlier Truck Acts; the sections relating
to fines apply also to shop assistants. The latter, however,
apparently are left to enforce the provisions of the law themselves,
as no inspectorate is empowered to intervene on their behalf. In these
and other cases a prosecution under the Truck Acts may be instituted
by any person. Any workman or shop assistant may recover any sum
deducted by or paid to his employer contrary to the act of 1896,
provided that proceedings are commenced within six months, and that
where he has acquiesced in the deduction or payment he shall only
recover the excess over the amount which the court may find to have
been fair and reasonable in all the circumstances of the case. It is
expressly declared in the act that nothing in it shall affect the
provisions of the Coal Mines Acts with reference to payment by
weight, or legalize any deductions, from payments made, in pursuance
of those provisions. The powers and duties of inspectors are extended
to cover the case of a laundry, and of any place where work is given
out by the occupier of a factory or workshop or by a contractor or
sub-contractor. Power is reserved for the secretary of state to exempt
by order specified trades or branches of them in specified areas from
the provisions of the act of 1896, if he is satisfied that they are
unnecessary for the protection of the workmen. This power has been
exercised only in respect of one highly organized industry, the
Lancashire cotton industry. The effect of the exemption is not to
prevent fines and deductions from being made, but the desire for it
demonstrated that there are cases where leaders among workers have
felt competent to make their own terms on their own lines without the
specific conditions laid down in this act. The reports of the
inspectors of factories have demonstrated that in other industries
much work has had to be done under this act, and knowledge of a highly
technical character to be gradually acquired, before opinions could be
formed as to the reasonableness and fairness, or the contrary, of many
forms of deduction. Owing partly to difficulties of legal
interpretation involving the necessity of taking test cases into
court, partly to the margin for differences of opinion as to what
constitutes "reasonableness" in a deduction, the average number of
convictions obtained on prosecutions is not so high as under the
Factory Acts, though the average penalty imposed is higher. In 1904,
61 cases were taken into court resulting in 34 convictions with an
average penalty of £1, 10s. In 1905, 38 cases resulting in 34
convictions were taken with an average penalty of £1, 3s. In 1906, 37
cases resulting in 25 convictions were taken with an average penalty
of £1, 10s.
Reference should here be made to the Shop Clubs Act of 1902 as closely
allied with some of the provisions of the Truck Acts by its provision
that employers shall not make it a condition of employment that any
workman shall become a member of a shop club unless it is registered
under the Friendly Societies Act of 1896. As in the case of payment of
wages in Public Houses Act, no special inspectorate has the duty of
enforcing this act.
III. CONTINENTAL EUROPE
In comparing legislation affecting factories, mines, shops and truck in
the chief industrial countries of the continent with that of Great
Britain, it is essential to a just view that inquiry should be extended
beyond the codes themselves to the general social order and system of
law and administration in each country. Further, special comparison of
the definitions and the sanctions of each industrial code must be
recognized as necessary, for these vary in all. In so brief a summary as
is appended here no more is possible than an outline indication of the
main general requirements and prohibitions of the laws as regards: (1)
hours and times of employment, (2) ordinary sanitation and special
requirements for unhealthy and dangerous industries, (3) security
against accidents, and (4) prevention of fraud and oppression in
fulfilment of wage contracts. As regards the first of these
subdivisions, in general in Europe the ordinary legal limit is rather
wider than in Great Britain, being in several countries not less than 11
hours a day, and while in some, as in France, the normal limit is 10
hours daily, yet the administrative discretion in granting exceptions is
rather more elastic. The weekly half-holiday is a peculiarly British
institution. On the other hand, in several European countries, notably
France, Austria, Switzerland and Russia, the legal maximum day applies
to adult as well as youthful labour, and not only to specially protected
classes of persons. As regards specialized sanitation for unhealthy
factory industries, German regulations appear to be most nearly
comparable with British. Mines' labour regulation in several countries,
having an entirely different origin linked with ownership of mines, is
only in few and most recent developments comparable with British Mines
Regulation Acts. In regulation of shops, Germany, treating this matter
as an integral part of her imperial industrial code, has advanced
farther than has Great Britain. In truck legislation most European
countries (with the exception of France) appear to have been influenced
by the far earlier laws of Great Britain, although in some respects
Belgium, with her rapid and recent industrial development, has made
interesting original experiments. The rule of Sunday rest (see SUNDAY)
has been extended in several countries, most recently in Belgium and
Spain. In France this partially attempted rule has been so modified as
to be practically a seventh day rest, not necessarily Sunday.
_France._--Hours of labour were, in France, first limited in factories
(_usines et manufactures_) for adults by the law of the 9th of
September 1848 to 12 in the 24. Much uncertainty existed as to the
class of workplaces covered. Finally, in 1885, an authoritative
decision defined them as including: (1) Industrial establishments with
motor power or continual furnaces, (2) workshops employing over 20
workers. In 1851, under condition of notification to the local
authorities, exceptions, still in force, were made to the general
limitation, in favour of certain industries or processes, among others
for letterpress and lithographic printing, engineering works, work at
furnaces and in heating workshops, manufacture of projectiles of war,
and any work for the government in the interests of national defence
or security. The limit of 12 hours was reduced, as regards works in
which women or young workers are employed, in 1900 to 11, and was to
be successively reduced to 10½ hours and to 10 hours at intervals of
two years from April 1900. This labour law for adults was preceded in
1841 by one for children, which prevented their employment in
factories before 8 years of age and prohibited night labour for any
child under 13. This was strengthened in 1874, particularly as regards
employment of girls under 21, but it was not until 1892 that the
labour of women was specially regulated by a law, still in force, with
certain amendments in 1900. Under this law factory and workshop labour
is prohibited for children under 13 years, though they may begin at 12
if qualified by the prescribed educational certificate and medical
certificate of fitness. The limit of daily hours of employment is the
same as for adult labour, and, similarly, from the 1st of April 1902
was 10½, and two years later became 10 hours in the 24. Notice of the
hours must be affixed, and meal-times or pauses with absolute
cessation of work of at least one hour must be specified. By the act
of 1892 one day in the week, not necessarily Sunday, had to be given
for entire absence from work, in addition to eight recognized annual
holidays, but this was modified by a law of 1906 which generally
requires Sunday rest, but allows substitution of another day in
certain industries and certain circumstances. Night labour--work
between 9 P.M. and 5 A.M.--is prohibited for workers under 18, and
only exceptionally permitted, under conditions, for girls and women
over 18 in specified trades. In mines and underground quarries
employment of women and girls is prohibited except at surface works,
and at the latter is subject to the same limits as in factories. Boys
of 13 may be employed in certain work underground, but under 16 may
not be employed more than 8 hours in the 24 from bank to bank. A law
of 1905 provided for miners a 9 hours' day and in 1907 an 8 hours' day
from the foot of the entrance gallery back to the same point.
As in Great Britain, distinct services of inspection enforce the law
in factories and mines respectively. In factories and workshops an
inspector may order re-examination as to physical fitness for the work
imposed of any worker under 16; certain occupations and processes are
prohibited--e.g. girls under 16 at machines worked by treadles, and
the weights that may be lifted, pushed or carried by girls or boys
under 18 are carefully specified. The law applies generally to
philanthropic and religious institutions where industrial work is
carried on, as in ordinary trading establishments; and this holds good
even if the work is by way of technical instruction. Domestic
workshops are not controlled unless the industry is classed as
dangerous or unhealthy; introduction of motor power brings them under
inspection. General sanitation in industrial establishments is
provided for in a law of 1893, amended in 1903, and is supplemented by
administrative regulations for special risks due to poisons, dust,
explosive substances, gases, fumes, &c. Ventilation, both general and
special, lighting, provision of lavatories, cloakrooms, good drinking
water, drainage and cleanliness are required in all workplaces, shops,
warehouses, restaurant kitchens, and where workers are lodged by their
employers hygienic conditions are prescribed for dormitories. In many
industries women, children and young workers are either absolutely
excluded from specified unhealthy processes, or are admitted only
under conditions. As regards shops and offices, the labour laws are:
one which protects apprentices against overwork (law of 22nd February
1851), one (law of 29th December 1900) which requires that seats shall
be provided for women and girls employed in retail sale of articles,
and a decree of the 28th of July 1904 defining in detail conditions of
hygiene in dormitories for workmen and shop assistants. The law
relating to seats is enforced by the inspectors of factories. In
France there is no special penal legislation against abuses of the
truck system, or excessive fines and deductions from wages, although
bills with that end in view have frequently been before parliament.
Indirect protection to workers is no doubt in many cases afforded in
organized industries by the action of the _Conseils de Prud'hommes_.
_Belgium._--In 1848 in Belgium the Commission on Labour proposed
legislation to limit, as in France, the hours of labour for adults,
but this proposal was never passed. Belgian regulation of labour in
industry remains essentially, in harmony with its earliest beginnings
in 1863 and onwards, a series of specialized provisions to meet
particular risks of individual trades, and did not, until 1889, give
any adherence to a common principle of limitation of hours and times
of labour for "protected" persons. This was in the law of the 13th of
December 1889, which applies to mines, quarries, factories, workshops
classed as unhealthy, wharves and docks, transports. As in France,
industrial establishments having a charitable or philanthropic or
educational character are included. The persons protected are girls
and women under 21 years, and boys under 16; and women over 21 only
find a place in the law through the prohibition of their employment
within four weeks after childbirth. As the hours of labour of adult
women remain ordinarily unlimited by law, so are the hours of boys
from 16 to 21. The law of Sunday rest dated the 17th of July 1905,
however, applies to labour generally in all industrial and commercial
undertakings except transport and fisheries, with certain regulated
exceptions for (a) cases of breakdown or urgency due to _force
majeure_, (b) certain repairs and cleaning, (c) perishable materials,
(d) retail food supply. Young workers are excluded from the
exceptions. The absolute prohibitions of employment are: for children
under 12 years in any industry, manufacturing or mining or transport,
and for women and girls under 21 years below the surface in working of
mines. Boys under 16 years and women and girls under 21 years may in
general not be employed before 5 A.M. or after 9 P.M., and one day in
the seven is to be set apart for rest from employment; to these rules
exception may be made either by royal decree for classes or groups of
processes, or by local authorities in exceptional cases. The
exceptions may be applied, generally, only to workers over 14 years,
but in mines, by royal decree, boys over 12 years may be employed from
4 A.M. The law of 1889 fixes only a maximum of 12 hours of effective
work, to be interrupted by pauses for rest of not less than 1½ hours,
empowering the king by decree to formulate more precise limits suited
to the special circumstances of individual industries. Royal decrees
have accordingly laid down the conditions for many groups, including
textile trades, manufacture of paper, pottery, glass, clothing, mines,
quarries, engineering and printing works. In some the daily limit is
10 hours, but in more 10½ or 11 hours. In a few exceptionally
unhealthy trades, such as the manufacture of lucifer matches,
vulcanization of india-rubber by means of carbon bi-sulphide, the age
of exclusion from employment has been raised, and in the last-named
process hours have been reduced to 5, broken into two spells of 2½
hours each. As a rule the conditions of health and safeguarding of
employments in exceptionally injurious trades have been sought by a
series of decrees under the law of 1863 relating to public health in
such industries. Special regulations for safety of workers have been
introduced in manufactures of white-lead, oxides of lead, chromate of
lead, lucifer match works, rag and shoddy works; and for dangers
common to many industries, provisions against dust, poisons, accidents
and other risks to health or limb have been codified in a decree of
1896. A royal decree of the 31st of March 1903 prohibits employment of
persons under 16 years in fur-pulling and in carotting of rabbit
skins, and another of the 13th of May 1905 regulates use of lead in
house-painting. In 1898 a law was passed to enable the authorities to
deal with risks in quarries under the same procedure. Safety in mines
(which are not private property, but state concessions to be worked
under strict state control) has been provided for since 1810. In
matters of hygiene, until 1899 the powers of the public health
authorities to intervene were insufficient, and a law was passed
authorizing the government to make regulations for every kind of risk
in any undertaking, whether classed under the law of public health or
not. By a special law of 1888 children and young persons under 18
years are excluded from employment as pedlars, hawkers or in circuses,
except by their parents, and then only if they have attained 14 years.
Abuses of the truck system have, since 1887, been regulated with care.
The chief objects of the law of 1887 were to secure payment in full to
all workers, other than those in agriculture or domestic service, of
wages in legal tender, to prohibit payment of wages in public-houses,
and to secure prompt payment of wages. Certain deductions were
permitted under careful control for specific customary objects:
lodging, use of land, uniforms, food, firing. A royal order of the
10th of October 1903 required use of automatic indicators for
estimating wages in certain cases in textile processes. The law of the
15th of June 1896 regulates the affixing in workplaces, where at least
five workers are employed, of a notice of the working rules, the
nature and rate of fines, if any, and the mode of their application.
Two central services the mines inspectorate and the factory and
workshop inspectorate, divide the duties above indicated. There is
also a system of local administration of the regulations relating to
industries classed as unhealthy, but the tendency has been to give the
supreme control in these matters to the factory service, with its
expert staff.
_Holland._--The first law for regulation of labour in manufacture was
passed in 1874, and this related only to employment of children. The
basis of all existing regulations was established in the law of the
5th of May 1889, which applies to all industrial undertakings,
excluding agriculture and forestry, fishing, stock-rearing. Employment
of children under 12 years is prohibited, and hours are limited for
young persons under 16 and for women of any age. These protected
persons may be excluded by royal decree from unhealthy industries, and
such industries are specified in a decree of 1897 which supersedes
other earlier regulations. Hours of employment must not exceed 11 in
the 24, and at least one hour for rest must be given between 11 A.M.
and 3 P.M., which hour must not be spent in a workroom. Work before 5
A.M. or after 7 P.M., Sunday work, and work on recognized holidays is
generally prohibited, but there are exceptions. Overtime from 7 to 10
P.M., under conditions, is allowed for women and young workers, and
Sunday work for women, for example, in butter and cheese making, and
night work for boys over 14 in certain industries. Employment of women
within four weeks of childbirth is prohibited. Notices of working
hours must be affixed in workplaces. Underground work in mines is
prohibited for women and young persons under 16, but in Holland mining
is a very small industry. In 1895 the first legislative provision was
made for protection of workers against risk of accident or special
injury to health. Sufficient cubic space, lighting, ventilation,
sanitary accommodation, reasonable temperature, removal of noxious
gases or dust, fencing of machinery, precautions against risk from
fire and other matters are provided for. The manufacture of lucifer
matches by means of white phosphorus was forbidden and the export,
importation and sale was regulated by a law of the 28th of May 1901.
By a regulation of the 16th of March 1904 provisions for safety and
health of women and young workers were strengthened in processes where
lead compounds or other poisons are used, and their employment at
certain dangerous machines and in cleaning machinery or near driving
belts was prohibited. No penal provision against truck exists in
Holland, but possibly abuses of the system are prevented by the
existence of industrial councils representing both employers and
workers, with powers to mediate or arbitrate in case of disputes.
_Switzerland._--In Switzerland separate cantonal legislation prepared
the way for the general Federal labour law of 1877 on which subsequent
legislation rests. Such legislation is also cantonal as well as
Federal, but in the latter there is only amplification or
interpretation of the principles contained in the law of 1877, whereas
cantonal legislation covers industries not included under the Federal
law, e.g. single workers employed in a trade (_métier_) and employment
in shops, offices and hotels. The Federal law is applied to factories,
workshops employing young persons under 18 or more than 10 workers,
and workshops in which unhealthy or dangerous processes are carried
on. Mines are not included, but are regulated in some respects as
regards health and safety by cantonal laws. Further, the Law of
Employers' Liability 1881-1887, which requires in all industries
precautions against accidents and reports of all serious accidents to
the cantonal governments, applies to mines. This led, in 1896, to the
creation of a special mining department, and mines, of which there are
few, have to be inspected once a year by a mining engineer. The
majority of the provisions of the Federal labour law apply to adult
workers of both sexes, and the general limit of the 11-hours' day,
exclusive of at least one hour for meals, applies to men as well as
women. The latter have, however, a legal claim, when they have a
household to manage, to leave work at the dinner-hour half an hour
earlier than the men. Men and unmarried women may be employed in such
subsidiary work as cleaning before or after the general legal limits.
On Saturdays and eves of the eight public holidays the 11-hours' day
is reduced to 10. Sunday work and night work are forbidden, but
exceptions are permitted conditionally. Night work is defined as 8
P.M. to 5 A.M. in summer, 8 P.M. to 6 A.M. in winter. Children are
excluded from employment in workplaces under the law until 14 years of
age, and until 16 must attend continuation schools. Zürich canton has
fixed the working day for women at 10 hours generally, and 9 hours on
Saturdays and eves of holidays. Bâle-Ville canton has the same limits
and provides that the very limited Sunday employment permitted shall
be compensated by double time off on another day. In the
German-speaking cantons girls under 18 are not permitted to work
overtime; in all cantons except Glarus the conditional overtime of 2
hours must be paid for at an enhanced wage.
Sanitary regulations and fencing of machinery are provided for with
considerable minuteness in a Federal decree of 1897. The plans of
every new factory must be submitted to the cantonal government. In the
case of lucifer match factories, not only the building but methods of
manufacture must be submitted. Since 1901 the manufacture, sale and
import of matches containing white phosphorus have been forbidden.
Women must be absent from employment during eight weeks before and
after childbirth. In certain dangerous occupations, e.g. where lead or
lead compounds are in use, women may not legally be employed during
pregnancy. A resolution of the federal council in 1901 classed
thirty-four different substances in use in industry as dangerous and
laid down that in case of clearly defined illness of workers directly
caused by use of any of these substances the liability provided by
article 3 of the law of the 25th of June 1881, and article 1 of the
law of the 26th of April 1887, should apply to the manufacture.
Legislative provision against abuses of the truck system appears to be
of earlier origin in Switzerland (17th century) than any other
European country outside England (15th century). The Federal Labour
Law 1877 generally prohibits payment of wages otherwise than in
current coin, and provides that no deduction shall be made without an
express contract. Some of the cantonal laws go much farther than the
British act of 1896 in forbidding certain deductions; e.g. Zürich
prohibits any charge for cleaning, warming or lighting workrooms or
for hire of machinery. By the Federal law fines may not exceed half a
day's wage. Administration of the Labour laws is divided between
inspectors appointed by the Federal Government and local authorities,
under supervision of the cantonal governments. The Federal Government
forms a court of appeal against decisions of the cantonal
governments.
_Germany._--Regulation of the conditions of labour in industry
throughout the German empire is provided for in the Imperial
Industrial Code and the orders of the Federal Council based thereon.
By far the most important recent amendment socially is the law
regulating child-labour, dated the 30th of March 1903, which relates
to establishments having industrial character in the sense of the
Industrial Code. This Code is based on earlier industrial codes of the
separate states, but more especially on the Code of 1869 of the North
German Confederation. It applies in whole or in part to all trades and
industrial occupations, except transport, fisheries and agriculture.
Mines are only included so far as truck, Sunday and holiday rest,
prohibition of employment underground of female labour, limitation of
the hours of women and young workers are concerned; otherwise the
regulations for protection of life and limb of miners vary, as do the
mining laws of the different states. To estimate the force of the
Industrial Code in working, it is necessary to bear in mind the
complicated political history of the empire, the separate
administration by the federated states, and the generally considerable
powers vested in administration of initiating regulations. The
Industrial Code expressly retains power for the states to initiate
certain additions or exceptions to the Code which in any given state
may form part of the law regulating factories there. The Code (unlike
the Austrian Industrial Code) lays down no general limit for a normal
working day for adult male workers, but since 1891 full powers were
given to the Imperial government to limit hours for any classes of
workers in industries where excessive length of the working day
endangers the health of the worker (R.G.O. § 120e). Previously
application had been made of powers to reduce the working day in such
unhealthy industries as silvering of mirrors by mercury and the
manufacture of white-lead. Separate states had, under mining laws,
also limited hours of miners. Sunday rest was, in 1891, secured for
every class of workers, commercial, industrial and mining. Annual
holidays were also secured on church festivals. These provisions,
however, are subject to exceptions under conditions. An important
distinction has to be shown when we turn to the regulations for hours
and times of labour for protected persons (women, young persons and
children). Setting aside for the moment hours of shop assistants
(which are under special sections since 1900), it is to "factory
workers" and not to industrial workers in general that these limits
apply, although they may be, and in some instances have been, further
extended--for instance, in ready-made clothing trades--by imperial
decree to workshops, and by the Child Labour Law of 1903 regulation of
the scope and duration of employment of children is much strengthened
in workshops, commerce, transport and domestic industries. The term
"factory" (_Fabrik_) is not defined in the Code, but it is clear from
various decisions of the supreme court that it only in part coincides
with the English term, and that some workplaces, where processes are
carried on by aid of mechanical power, rank rather as English
workshops. The distinction is rather between wholesale manufacturing
industry, with subdivision of labour, and small industry, where the
employer works himself. Certain classes of undertaking, viz. forges,
timber-yards, dockyards, brickfields and open quarries, are
specifically ranked as factories. Employment of protected persons at
the surface of mines and underground quarries, and in salt works and
ore-dressing works, and of boys underground comes under the factory
regulations. These exclude children from employment under 13 years,
and even later if an educational certificate has not been obtained;
until 14 years hours of employment may not exceed 6 in the 24. In
processes and occupations under the scope of the Child Labour Law
children may not be employed by their parents or guardians before 10
years of age or by other employers before 12 years of age; nor between
the hours of 8 P.M. and 8 A.M., nor otherwise than in full compliance
with requirements of educational authorities for school attendance and
with due regard to prescribed pauses. In school term time the daily
limit of employment for children is three hours, in holiday time three
hours. As regards factories Germany, unlike Great Britain, France and
Switzerland, requires a shorter day for young persons than for
women--10 hours for the former, 11 hours for the latter. Women over 16
years may be employed 11 hours. Night work is forbidden, i.e. work
between 8.30 P.M. and 5.30 A.M. Overtime may be granted to meet
unforeseen pressure or for work on perishable articles, under
conditions, by local authorities and the higher administrative
authorities. Prescribed meal-times are--an unbroken half-hour for
children in their 6 hours; for young persons a mid-day pause of one
hour, and half an hour respectively in the morning and afternoon
spells; for women, an hour at mid-day, but women with the care of a
household have the claim, on demand, to an extra half-hour, as in
Switzerland. No woman may be employed within four weeks after
childbirth, and unless a medical certificate can then be produced, the
absence must extend to six weeks. Notice of working periods and
meal-times must be affixed, and copies sent to the local authorities.
Employment of protected persons in factory industries where there are
special risks to health or morality may be forbidden or made dependent
on special conditions. By the Child Labour Law employment of children
is forbidden in brickworks, stone breaking, chimney sweeping, street
cleaning and other processes and occupations. By an order of the
Federal Council in 1902 female workers were excluded from main
processes in forges and rolling mills. All industrial employers alike
are bound to organize labour in such a manner as to secure workers
against injury to health and to ensure good conduct and propriety.
Sufficient light, suitable cloakrooms and sanitary accommodation, and
ventilation to carry off dust, vapours and other impurities are
especially required. Dining-rooms may be ordered by local authorities.
Fencing and provision for safety in case of fire are required in
detail. The work of the trade accident insurance associations in
preventing accidents is especially recognized in provisions for
special rules in dangerous or unhealthy industries. Officials of the
state factory departments are bound to give opportunity to trustees of
the trade associations to express an opinion on special rules. In a
large number of industries the Federal Council has laid down special
rules comparable with those for unhealthy occupations in Great
Britain. Among the regulations most recently revised and strengthened
are those for manufacture of lead colours and lead compounds, and for
horse-hair and brush-making factories. The relations between the state
inspectors of factories and the ordinary police authorities are
regulated in each state by its constitution. Prohibitions of truck in
its original sense--that is, payment of wages otherwise than in
current coin--apply to any persons under a contract of service with an
employer for a specified time for industrial purposes; members of a
family working for a parent or husband are not included; outworkers
are covered. Control of fines and deductions from wages applies only
in factory industries and shops employing at least 20 workers. Shop
hours are regulated by requiring shops to be closed generally between
9 P.M. and 5 A.M., by requiring a fixed mid-day rest of 1½ hours and
at least 10 hours' rest in the 24 for assistants. These limits can be
modified by administrative authority. Notice of hours and working
rules must be affixed. During the hours of compulsory closing sale of
goods on the streets or from house to house is forbidden. Under the
Commercial Code, as under the Civil Code, every employer is bound to
adopt every possible measure for maintaining the safety, health and
good conduct of his employés. By an order of the Imperial Chancellor
under the Commercial Code seats must be provided for commercial
assistants and apprentices.
_Austria._--The Industrial Code of Austria, which in its present
outline (modified by later enactments) dates from 1883, must be
carefully distinguished from the Industrial Code of the kingdom of
Hungary. The latter is, owing to the predominantly agricultural
character of the population, of later origin, and hardly had practical
force before the law of 1893 provided for inspection and prevention of
accidents in factories. No separate mining code exists in Hungary, and
conditions of labour are regulated by the Austrian law of 1854. The
truck system is repressed on lines similar to those in Austria and
Germany. As regards limitation of hours of adult labour, Hungary may
be contrasted with both those empires in that no restriction of hours
applies either to men's or women's hours, whereas in Austrian
factories both are limited to an 11-hours' day with exceptional
overtime for which payment must always be made to the worker. The
Austrian Code has its origin, however, like the British Factory Acts,
in protection of child labour. Its present scope is determined by the
Imperial "Patent" of 1859, and all industrial labour is included
except mining, transport, fisheries, forestry, agriculture and
domestic industries. Factories are defined as including industries in
which a "manufacturing process is carried on in an enclosed place by
the aid of not less than twenty workers working with machines, with
subdivision of labour, and under an employer who does not himself
manually assist in the work." In smaller handicraft industries the
compulsory gild system of organization still applies. In every
industrial establishment, large or small, the sanitary and safety
provisions, general requirement of Sunday rest, and annual holidays
(with conditional exceptions), prohibition of truck and limitation of
the ages of child labour apply. Night work for women, 8 P.M. to 5
A.M., is prohibited only in factory industries; for young workers it
is prohibited in any industry. Pauses in work are required in all
industries; one hour at least must be given at mid-day, and if the
morning and afternoon spells exceed 5 hours each, another half-hour's
rest at least must be given. Children may not be employed in
industrial work before 12 years, and then only 8 hours a day at work
that is not injurious and if educational requirements are observed.
The age of employment is raised to 14 for "factories," and the work
must be such as will not hinder physical development. Women may not be
employed in regular industrial occupation within one month after
childbirth. In certain scheduled unhealthy industries, where
certificates of authorization from local authorities must be obtained
by intending occupiers, conditions of health and safety for workers
can be laid down in the certificate. The Minister of the Interior is
empowered to draw up regulations prohibiting or making conditions for
the employment of young workers or women in dangerous or unhealthy
industries. The provisions against truck cover not only all industrial
workers engaged in manual labour under a contract with an employer,
but also shop-assistants; the special regulations against fines and
deductions apply to factory workers and shops where at least 20
workers are employed. In mines under the law of 1884, which
supplements the general mining law, employment of women and girls
underground is prohibited; boys from 12 to 16 and girls from 12 to 18
may only be employed at light work above ground; 14 is the earliest
age of admission for boys underground. The shifts from bank to bank
must not exceed 12 hours, of which not more than 10 may be effective
work. Sunday rest must begin not later than 6 A.M., and must be of 24
hours' duration. These last two provisions do not hold in case of
pressing danger for safety, health or property. Sick and accident
funds and mining associations are legislated for in minutest detail.
The general law provides for safety in working, but special rules
drawn up by the district authorities lay down in detail the conditions
of health and safety. As regards manufacturing industry, the
Industrial Code lays no obligation on employers to report accidents,
and until the Accident Insurance Law of 1889 came into force no
statistics were available. In Austria, unlike Germany, the factory
inspectorate is organized throughout under a central chief inspector.
_Scandinavian Countries._--In Sweden the Factory Law was amended in
January 1901; in Denmark in July 1901. Until that year, however,
Norway was in some respects in advance of the other two countries by
its law of 1892, which applied to industrial works, including metal
works of all kinds and mining. Women were thereby prohibited from
employment: (a) underground; (b) in cleaning or oiling machinery in
motion; (c) during six weeks after childbirth, unless provided with a
medical certificate stating that they might return at the end of four
weeks without injury to health; (d) in dangerous, unhealthy or
exhausting trades during pregnancy. Further, work on Sundays and
public holidays is prohibited to all workers, adult and youthful, with
conditional exceptions under the authority of the inspectors. Children
over 12 are admitted to industrial work on obtaining certificates of
birth, of physical fitness and of elementary education. The hours of
children are limited to 6, with pauses, and of young persons (of 14 to
18 years) to 10, with pauses. Night work between 8 P.M. and 6 A.M. is
prohibited. All workers are entitled to a copy of a code of factory
rules containing the terms of the contract of work drawn up by
representatives of employés with the employers and sanctioned by the
inspector. Health and safety in working are provided for in detail in
the same law of 1892. Special rules may be made for dangerous trades,
and in 1899 such rules were established for match factories, similar
to some of the British rules, but notably providing for a dental
examination four times yearly by a doctor. In Denmark, regulation
began with unhealthy industries, and it was not until the law of 1901
came into force, on the 1st of January 1902, that children under 12
years have been excluded from factory labour. Control of child labour
can be strengthened by municipal regulation, and this has been done in
Copenhagen by an order of the 23rd of May 1903. In Sweden the 12
years' limit had for some time held in the larger factories; the scope
has been extended so that it corresponds with the Norwegian law. The
hours of children are, in Denmark, 6½ for those under 14 years; in
Sweden 6 for those under 13 years. Young persons may not in either
country work more than 10 hours daily, and night work, which is
forbidden for persons under 18 years, is now defined as in Norway.
Women may not be employed in industry within four weeks of childbirth,
except on authority of a medical certificate. All factories in Sweden
where young workers are employed are subject to medical inspection
once a year. Fencing of machinery and hygienic conditions
(ventilation, cubic space, temperature, light) are regulated in
detail. In Denmark the use of white phosphorus in manufacture of
lucifer matches has been prohibited since 1874, and special
regulations have been drawn up by administrative orders which
strengthen control of various unhealthy or dangerous industries, e.g.
dry-cleaning works, printing works and type foundries, iron foundries
and engineering works. A special act of the 6th of April 1906
regulates labour and sanitary conditions in bakehouses and
confectionery works.
_Italy and Spain._--The wide difference between the industrial
development of these southern Latin countries and the two countries
with which this summary begins, and the far greater importance of the
agricultural interests, produced a situation, as regards labour
legislation until as recently as 1903, which makes it convenient to
touch on the comparatively limited scope of their regulations at the
close of the series. It was stated by competent and impartial
observers from each of the two countries, at the International
Congress on Labour Laws held at Brussels in 1897, that the lack of
adequate measures for protection of child labour and inefficient
administration of such regulations as exist was then responsible for
abuse of their forces that could be found in no other European
countries. "Their labour in factories, workshops, and mines
constitutes a veritable martyrdom" (Spain). "I believe that there is
no country where a sacrifice of child life is made that is comparable
with that in certain Italian factories and industries" (Italy). In
both countries important progress has since been made in organizing
inspection and preventing accidents. In Spain the first step in the
direction of limitation of women's hours of labour was taken by a law
of 1900, which took effect in 1902, in regulations for reduction of
hours of labour for adults to 11, normally, in the 24. Hours of
children under 14 must not exceed 6 in any industrial work nor 8 in
any commercial undertaking. Labour before the age of 10 years and
night work between 6 P.M. and 5 A.M. was prohibited, and powers were
taken to extend the prohibition of night work to young persons under
16 years. The labour of children in Italy was until 1902 regulated in
the main by a law of 1886, but a royal decree of 1899 strengthened it
by classing night work for children under 12 years as "injurious,"
such work being thereby generally prohibited for them, though
exceptions are admitted; at the same time it was laid down that
children from 12 to 15 years might not be employed for more than 6
hours at night. The law of 1886 prohibits employment of children
under 9 years in industry and under 10 years in underground mining.
Night work for women was in Italy first prohibited by the law of the
19th of June 1902, and at the same time also for boys under 15, but
this regulation was not to take full effect for 5 years as regards
persons already so employed; by the same law persons under 15 and
women of any age were accorded the claim to one day's complete rest of
24 hours in the week; the age of employment of children in factories,
workshops, laboratories, quarries, mines, was raised to 12 years
generally and 14 years for underground work; the labour of female
workers of any age was prohibited in underground work, and power was
reserved to further restrict and regulate their employment as well as
that of male workers under 15. Spain and Italy, the former by the law
of the 13th of March 1900, the latter by the law of the 19th of June
1902, prohibit the employment of women within a fixed period of
childbirth; in Spain the limit is three weeks, in Italy one month,
which may be reduced to three weeks on a medical certificate of
fitness. Sunday rest is secured in industrial works, with regulated
exceptions in Spain by the law of the 3rd of March 1904. It is in the
direction of fencing and other safeguards against accidents and as
regards sanitary provisions, both in industrial workplaces and in
mines, that Italy has made most advance since her law of 1890 for
prevention of accidents. Special measures for prevention of malaria
are required in cultivation of rice by a ministerial circular of the
23rd of April 1903; work may not begin until an hour after sunrise and
must cease an hour before sunset; children under 13 may not be
employed in this industry. (A. M, An.)
IV. UNITED STATES
History.
Under the general head of Labour Legislation all American statute laws
regulating labour, its conditions, and the relation of employer and
employé must be classed. It includes what is properly known as factory
legislation. Labour legislation belongs to the latter half of the 19th
century, so far as the United States is concerned. Like England in the
far past, the Americans in colonial days undertook to regulate wages and
prices, and later the employment of apprentices. Legislation relating to
wages and prices was long ago abandoned, but the laws affecting the
employment of apprentices still exist in some form, although conditions
of employment have changed so materially that apprenticeships are not
entered as of old; but the laws regulating the employment of apprentices
were the basis on which English legislation found a foothold when
parliament wished to regulate the labour of factory operatives. The code
of labour laws of the present time is almost entirely the result of the
industrial revolution during the latter part of the 18th century, under
which the domestic or hand-labour system was displaced through the
introduction of power machinery. As this revolution took place in the
United States at a somewhat later date than in England, the labour
legislation necessitated by it belongs to a later date. The factory, so
far as textiles are concerned, was firmly established in America during
the period from 1820 to 1840, and it was natural that the English
legislation found friends and advocates in the United States, although
the more objectionable conditions accompanying the English factory were
not to be found there.
Early attempts to regulate hours.
The first attempt to secure legislation regulating factory employment
related to the hours of labour, which were very long--from twelve to
thirteen hours a day. As machinery was introduced it was felt that the
tension resulting from speeded machines and the close attention required
in the factory ought to be accompanied by a shorter work-day. This view
took firm hold of the operatives, and was the chief cause of the
agitation which has resulted in a great body of laws applying in very
many directions. As early as 1806 the caulkers and shipbuilders of New
York City agitated for a reduction of hours to ten per day, but no
legislation followed. There were several other attempts to secure some
regulation relative to hours, but there was no general agitation prior
to 1831. As Massachusetts was the state which first recognized the
necessity of regulating employment (following in a measure, and so far
as conditions demanded, the English labour or factory legislation), the
history of such legislation in that state is indicative of that in the
United States, and as it would be impossible in this article to give a
detailed history of the origin of laws in the different states, the
dates of their enactment, and their provisions, it is best to follow
primarily the course of the Eastern states, and especially that of
Massachusetts, where the first general agitation took place and the
first laws were enacted. That state in 1836 regulated by law the
question of the education of young persons employed in manufacturing
establishments. The regulation of hours of labour was warmly discussed
in 1832, and several legislative committees and commissions reported
upon it, but no specific action on the general question of hours of
labour secured the indorsement of the Massachusetts legislature until
1874, although the day's labour of children under twelve years of age
was limited to ten hours in 1842. Ten hours constituted a day's labour,
on a voluntary basis, in many trades in Massachusetts and other parts of
the country as early as 1853, while in the shipbuilding trades this was
the work-day in 1844. In April 1840 President Van Buren issued an order
"that all public establishments will hereafter be regulated, as to
working hours, by the ten-hours system." The real aggressive movement
began in 1845, through numerous petitions to the Massachusetts
legislature urging a reduction of the day's labour to eleven hours, but
nothing came of these petitions at that time. Again, in 1850, a similar
effort was made, and also in 1851 and 1852, but the bills failed. Then
there was a period of quiet until 1865, when an unpaid commission made a
report relative to the hours of labour, and recommended the
establishment of a bureau of statistics for the purpose of collecting
data bearing upon the labour question. This was the first step in this
direction in any country. The first bureau of the kind was established
in Massachusetts in 1869, but meanwhile, in accordance with reports of
commissions and the address of Governor Bullock in 1866, and the general
sentiment which then prevailed, the legislature passed an act regulating
in a measure the conditions of the employment of children in
manufacturing establishments; and this is one of the first laws of the
kind in the United States, although the first legislation in the United
States relating to the hours of labour which the writer has been able to
find, and for which he can fix a date, was enacted by the state of
Pennsylvania in 1849, the law providing that ten hours should be a day's
work in cotton, woollen, paper, bagging, silk and flax factories.
Employment of children.
The Massachusetts law of 1866 provided, firstly, that no child under ten
should be employed in any manufacturing establishment, and that no child
between ten and fourteen should be so employed unless he had attended
some public or private school at least six months during the year
preceding such employment, and, further, that such employment should not
continue unless the child attended school at least six months in each
and every year; secondly, a penalty not exceeding $50 for every owner or
agent or other person knowingly employing a child in violation of the
act; thirdly, that no child under the age of fourteen should be employed
in any manufacturing establishment more than eight hours in any one day;
fourthly, that any parent or guardian allowing or consenting to
employment in violation of the act should forfeit a sum not to exceed
$50 for each offence; fifthly, that the Governor instruct the state
constable and his deputies to enforce the provisions of all laws for
regulating the employment of children in manufacturing establishments.
The same legislature also created a commission of three persons, whose
duty it was to investigate the subject of hours of labour in relation to
the social, educational and sanitary condition of the working classes.
In 1867 a fundamental law relating to schooling and hours of labour of
children employed in manufacturing and mechanical establishments was
passed by the Massachusetts legislature. It differed from the act of the
year previous in some respects, going deeper into the general question.
It provided that no child under ten should be employed in any
manufacturing or mechanical establishment of the commonwealth, and that
no child between ten and fifteen should be so employed unless he had
attended school, public or private, at least three months during the
year next preceding his employment. There were provisions relating to
residence, &c., and a further provision that no time less than 120
half-days of actual schooling should be deemed an equivalent of three
months, and that no child under fifteen should be employed in any
manufacturing or mechanical establishment more than sixty hours any one
week. The law also provided penalties for violation. It repealed the
act of 1866.
In 1869 began the establishment of that chain of offices in the United
States, the principle of which has been adopted by other countries,
known as bureaus of statistics of labour, their especial purpose being
the collection and dissemination of information relating to all features
of industrial employment. As a result of the success of the first
bureau, bureaus are in existence in thirty-three states, in addition to
the United States Bureau of Labour.
A special piece of legislation which belongs to the commonwealth of
Massachusetts, so far as experience shows, was that in 1872, providing
for cheap morning and evening trains for the accommodation of working
men living in the vicinity of Boston. Great Britain had long had such
trains, which were called parliamentary trains. Under the Massachusetts
law some of the railways running out of Boston furnished the
accommodation required, and the system has since been in operation.
Factory legislation, 1877.
In different parts of the country the agitation to secure legislation
regulating the hours of labour became aggressive again in 1870 and the
years immediately following, there being a constant repetition of
attempts to secure the enactment of a ten-hours law, but in
Massachusetts all the petitions failed till 1874, when the legislature
of that commonwealth established the hours of labour at sixty per week
not only for children under eighteen, but for women, the law providing
that no minor under eighteen and no woman over that age should be
employed by any person, firm or corporation in any manufacturing
establishment more than ten hours in any one day. In 1876 Massachusetts
reconstructed its laws relating to the employment of children, although
it did not abrogate the principles involved in earlier legislation,
while in 1877 the commonwealth passed Factory Acts covering the general
provisions of the British laws. It provided for the general inspection
of factories and public buildings, the provisions of the law relating to
dangerous machinery, such as belting, shafting, gearing, drums, &c.,
which the legislature insisted must be securely guarded, and that no
machinery other than steam engines should be cleaned while running. The
question of ventilation and cleanliness was also attended to. Dangers
connected with hoistways, elevators and well-holes were minimized by
their protection by sufficient trap-doors, while fire-escapes were made
obligatory on all establishments of three or more storeys in height. All
main doors, both inside and outside, of manufacturing establishments, as
well as those of churches, school-rooms, town halls, theatres and every
building used for public assemblies, should open outwardly whenever the
factory inspectors of the commonwealth deemed it necessary. These
provisions remain in the laws of Massachusetts, and other states have
found it wise to follow them.
The labour legislation in force in 1910 in the various states of the
Union might be classified in two general branches: (A) protective
labour legislation, or laws for the aid of workers who, on account of
their economic dependence, are not in a position fully to protect
themselves; (B) legislation having for its purpose the fixing of the
legal status of the worker as an employé, such as laws relating to the
making and breaking of the labour contract, the right to form
organizations and to assemble peaceably, the settlement of labour
disputes, the licensing of occupations, &c.
Factory and workshop acts.
(A) The first class includes factory and workshop acts, laws relating
to hours of labour, work on Sundays and holidays, the payment of
wages, the liability of employers for injuries to their employés, &c.
Factory acts have been passed by nearly all the states of the Union.
These may be considered in two groups--first, laws which relate to
conditions of employment and affect only children, young persons and
women; and second, laws which relate to the sanitary condition of
factories and workshops and to the safety of employés generally. The
states adopting such laws have usually made provision for factory
inspectors, whose duties are to enforce these laws and who have power
to enter and inspect factories and workshops. The most common
provisions of the factory acts in the various states are those which
fix an age limit below which employment is unlawful. All but five
states have enacted such provisions, and these five states have
practically no manufacturing industries. In some states the laws
fixing an age limit are restricted in their application to factories,
while in others they extend also to workshops, bakeries, mercantile
establishments and other work places where children are employed. The
prescribed age limit varies from ten to fourteen years. Provisions
concerning the education of children in factories and workshops may be
considered in two groups, those relating to apprenticeship and those
requiring a certain educational qualification as a pre-requisite to
employment. Apprenticeship laws are numerous, but they do not now have
great force, because of the practical abrogation of the apprenticeship
system through the operation of modern methods of production. Most
states have provisions prohibiting illiterates under a specified age,
usually sixteen, from being employed in factories and workshops. The
provisions of the factory acts relating to hours of labour and night
work generally affect only the employment of women and young persons.
Most of the states have enacted such provisions, those limiting the
hours of children occurring more frequently than those limiting the
hours of women. The hour limit for work in such cases ranges from six
per day to sixty-six per week. Where the working time of children is
restricted, the minimum age prescribed for such children ranges from
twelve to twenty-one years. In some cases the restriction of the hours
of labour of women and children is general, while in others it applies
only to employment in one or more classes of industries. Other
provisions of law for the protection of women and children, but not
usually confined in their operation to factories and workshops, are
such as require seats for females and separate toilet facilities for
the sexes, and prohibit employment in certain occupations as in mines,
places where intoxicants are manufactured or sold, in cleaning or
operating dangerous machinery, &c. Provisions of factory acts relating
to the sanitary condition of factories and workshops and the safety of
employés have been enacted in nearly all the manufacturing states of
the Union. They prohibit overcrowding, and require proper ventilation,
sufficient light and heat, the lime-washing or painting of walls and
ceilings, the provision of exhaust fans and blowers in places where
dust or dangerous fumes are generated, guards on machinery, mechanical
belts and gearing shifters, guards on elevators and hoistways,
hand-rails on stairs, fire-escapes, &c.
Hours of labour.
The statutes relating to hours of labour may be considered under five
groups, namely: (1) general laws which merely fix what shall be
regarded as a day's labour in the absence of a contract; (2) laws
defining what shall constitute a day's work on public roads; (3) laws
limiting the hours of labour per day on public works; (4) laws
limiting the hours of labour in certain occupations; and (5) laws
which specify the hours per day or per week during which women and
children may be employed. The statutes included in the first two
groups place no restrictions upon the number of hours which may be
agreed upon between employers and employés, while those in the other
three groups usually limit the freedom of contract and provide
penalties for their violation. A considerable number of states have
enacted laws which fix a day's labour in the absence of any contract,
some at eight and others at ten hours, so that when an employer and an
employé make a contract and they do not specify what shall constitute
a day's labour, eight or ten hours respectively would be ruled as the
day's labour in an action which might come before the courts. In a
number of the states it is optional with the citizens to liquidate
certain taxes either by cash payments or by rendering personal
service. In the latter case the length of the working day is defined
by law, eight hours being usually specified. The Federal government
and nearly one-half of the states have laws providing that eight hours
shall constitute a day's work for employés on public works. Under the
Federal Act it is unlawful for any officer of the government or of any
contractor or sub-contractor for public works to permit labourers and
mechanics to work longer than eight hours per day. The state laws
concerning hours of labour have similar provisions. Exceptions are
provided for cases of extraordinary emergencies, such as danger to
human life or property. In many states the hours of labour have been
limited by law in occupations in which, on account of their dangerous
or insanitary character, the health of the employés would be
jeopardized by long hours of labour, or in which the fatigue
occasioned by long hours would endanger the lives of the employés or
of the public. The occupations for which such special legislation has
been enacted are those of employés on steam and street railways, in
mines and other underground workings, smelting and refining works,
bakeries and cotton and woollen mills. Laws limiting the hours of
labour of women and children have been considered under factory and
workshop acts.
Sunday labour.
Nearly all states and Territories of the Union have laws prohibiting
the employment of labour on Sunday. These laws usually make it a
misdemeanour for persons either to labour themselves or to compel or
permit their apprentices, servants or other employés, to labour on the
first day of the week. Exceptions are made in the case of household
duties or works of necessity or charity, and in the case of members of
religious societies who observe some other than the first day of the
week.
Payment of wages.
Statutes concerning the payment of wages of employés may be considered
in two groups: (1) those which relate to the employment contract, such
as laws fixing the maximum period of wage payments, prohibiting the
payment of wages in scrip or other evidences of indebtedness in lieu
of lawful money, prohibiting wage deductions on account of fines,
breakage of machinery, discounts for prepayments, medical attendance,
relief funds or other purposes, requiring the giving of notice of
reduction of wages, &c.; (2) legislation granting certain privileges
or affording special protection to working people with respect to
their wages, such as laws exempting wages from attachment, preferring
wage claims in assignments, and granting workmen liens upon buildings
and other constructions on which they have been employed.
Employers' liability.
Employers' liability laws have been passed to enable an employé to
recover damages from his employer under certain conditions when he has
been injured through accident occurring in the works of the employer.
The common-law maxim that the principal is responsible for the acts of
his agent does not apply where two or more persons are working
together under the same employer and one of the employés is injured
through the carelessness of his fellow-employé, although the one
causing the accident is the agent of the principal, who under the
common law would be responsible. The old Roman law and the English and
American practice under it held that the co-employé was a party to the
accident. The injustice of this rule is seen by a single illustration.
A weaver in a cotton factory, where there are hundreds of operatives,
is injured by the neglect or carelessness of the engineer in charge of
the motive power. Under the common law the weaver could not recover
damages from the employer, because he was the co-employé of the
engineer. So, one of thousands of employés of a railway system,
sustaining injuries through the carelessness of a switchman whom he
never saw, could recover no damages from the railway company, both
being co-employés of the same employer. The injustice of this
application of the common-law rule has been recognized, but the only
way to avoid the difficulty was through specific legislation providing
that under such conditions as those related, and similar ones, the
doctrine of co-employment should not apply, and that the workman
should have the same right to recover damages as a passenger upon a
railway train. This legislation has upset some of the most notable
distinctions of law.
The first agitation for legislation of this character occurred in
England in 1880. A number of states in the Union have now enacted
statutes fixing the liability of employers under certain conditions
and relieving the employé from the application of the common-law rule.
Where the employé himself is contributory to the injuries resulting
from an accident he cannot recover, nor can he recover in some cases
where he knows of the danger from the defects of tools or implements
employed by him. The legislation upon the subject involves many
features of legislation which need not be described here, such as
those concerning the power of employés to make a contract, and those
defining the conditions, often elaborate, which lead to the liability
of the employer and the duties of the employé, and the relations in
which damages for injuries sustained in employment may be recovered
from the employer.
(B) The statutes thus far considered may be regarded as protective
labour legislation. There is, besides, a large body of statutory laws
enacted in the various states for the purpose of fixing the legal
status of employers and employés and defining their rights and
privileges as such.
Labour contract.
A great variety of statutes have been enacted in the various states
relating to the labour contract. Among these are laws defining the
labour contract, requiring notice of termination of contract, making
it a misdemeanour to break a contract of service and thereby endanger
human life or expose valuable property to serious injury, or to make a
contract of service and accept transportation or pecuniary
advancements with intent to defraud, prohibiting contracts of
employment whereby employés waive the right to damages in case of
injury, &c. A Federal statute makes it a misdemeanour for any one to
prepay the transportation or in any way assist or encourage the
importation of aliens under contract to perform labour or service of
any kind in the United States, exceptions being made in the case of
skilled labour that cannot otherwise be obtained, domestic servants
and persons belonging to any of the recognized professions.
Licensed occupations.
The Federal government and nearly all the states and territories have
statutory provisions requiring the examination and licensing of
persons practising certain trades other than those in the class of
recognized professions. The Federal statute relates only to engineers
on steam vessels, masters, mates, pilots, &c. The occupations for
which examinations and licences are required by the various state laws
are those of barbers, horseshoers, elevator operators, plumbers,
stationary firemen, steam engineers, telegraph operators on railroads
and certain classes of mine workers and steam and street railway
employés.
Labour organizations.
The right of combination and peaceable assembly on the part of employés
is recognized at common law throughout the United States. Organizations
of working-men formed for their mutual benefit, protection and
improvement, such as for endeavouring to secure higher wages, shorter
hours of labour or better working conditions, are nowhere regarded as
unlawful. A number of states and the Federal government have enacted
statutes providing for the incorporation of trade unions, but owing to
the freedom from regulation or inspection enjoyed by unincorporated
trade unions, very few have availed themselves of this privilege. A
number of states have enacted laws tending to give special protection to
and encourage trade unions. Thus, nearly one-half of the states have
passed acts declaring it unlawful for employers to discharge workmen for
joining labour organizations, or to make it a condition of employment
that they shall not belong to such bodies. Laws of this kind have
generally been held to be unconstitutional. Nearly all the states have
laws protecting trade unions in the use of the union label, insignia of
membership, credentials, &c., and making it a misdemeanour to
counterfeit or fraudulently use them. A number of the states exempt
labour organizations from the operations of the anti-trust and insurance
acts.
Labour disputes.
Until recent years all legal action concerning labour disturbances was
based upon the principles of the common law. Some of the states have now
fairly complete statutory enactments concerning labour disturbances,
while others have little or no legislation of this class. The right of
employés to strike for any cause or for no cause is sustained by the
common law everywhere in the United States. Likewise an employer has a
right to discharge any or all of his employés when they have no contract
with him, and he may refuse to employ any person or class of persons for
any reason or for no reason. Agreements among strikers to take peaceable
means to induce others to remain away from the works of an employer
until he yields to the demands of the strikers are not held to be
conspiracies under the common law, and the carrying out of such a
purpose by peaceable persuasion and without violence, intimidation or
threats, is not unlawful. However, any interference with the
constitutional rights of another to employ whom he chooses or to labour
when, where or on what terms he pleases, is illegal. The boycott has
been held to be an illegal conspiracy in restraint of trade. The
statutory enactments of the various states concerning labour
disturbances are in part re-enactments of the rules of common law and in
part more or less departures from or additions to the established
principles. The list of such statutory enactments is a large one, and
includes laws relating to blacklisting, boycotting, conspiracy against
working-men, interference with employment, intimidation, picketing and
strikes of railway employés; laws requiring statements of causes of
discharge of employés and notice of strikes in advertisements for
labour; laws prohibiting deception in the employment of labour and the
hiring of armed guards by employers; and laws declaring that certain
labour agreements do not constitute conspiracy. Some of these laws have
been held to be unconstitutional, and some have not yet been tested in
the courts.
Arbitration and conciliation.
The laws just treated relate almost entirely to acts either of
employers or of employés, but there is another form of law, namely,
that providing for action to be taken by others in the effort to
prevent working people from losing employment, either by their own
acts or by those of their employers, or to settle any differences
which arise out of controversies relating to wages, hours of labour,
terms and conditions of employment, rules, &c. These laws provide for
the mediation and the arbitration of labour disputes (see ARBITRATION
AND CONCILIATION). Twenty-three states and the Federal government have
laws or constitutional provisions of this nature. In some cases they
provide for the appointment of state boards, and in others of local
boards only. A number of states provide for local or special boards in
addition to the regular state boards. In some states it is required
that a member of a labour organization must be a member of the board,
and, in general, both employers and employés must be represented.
Nearly all state boards are required to attempt to mediate between the
parties to a dispute when information is received of an actual or
threatened labour trouble. Arbitration may be undertaken in some
states on application from either party, in others on the application
of both parties. An agreement to maintain the _status quo_ pending
arbitration is usually required. The modes of enforcement of obedience
to the awards of the boards are various. Some states depend on
publicity alone, some give the decisions the effect of judgments of
courts of law which may be enforced by execution, while in other
states disobedience to such decisions is punishable as for contempt of
court. The Federal statute applies only to common carriers engaged in
interstate commerce, and provides for an attempt to be made at
mediation by two designated government officials in controversies
between common carriers and their employés, and, in case of the
failure of such an attempt, for the formation of a board of
arbitration consisting of the same officials together with certain
other parties to be selected. Such arbitration boards are to be formed
only at the request or upon the consent of both parties to the
controversy.
The judicial enforcement of labour laws.
The enforcement of laws by executive or judicial action is an important
matter relating to labour legislation, for without action such laws
would remain dead letters. Under the constitutions of the states, the
governor is the commander-in-chief of the military forces, and he has
the power to order the militia or any part of it into active service in
case of insurrection, invasion, tumult, riots or breaches of the peace
or imminent danger thereof. Frequent action has been taken in the case
of strikes with the view of preventing or suppressing violence
threatened or happening to persons or property, the effect being,
however, that the militia protects those working or desiring to work, or
the employers. The president of the United States may use the land and
naval forces whenever by reason of insurrection, domestic violence,
unlawful obstructions, conspiracy, combinations or assemblages of
persons it becomes impracticable to enforce the laws of the land by the
ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or when the execution of the
laws is so hindered by reason of such events that any portion or class
of the people are deprived thereby of their rights and privileges under
the constitution and laws of the country. Under this general power the
United States forces have been used for the protection of both employers
and employés indirectly, the purpose being to protect mails and, as in
the states, to see that the laws are carried out.
The power of the courts to interfere in labour disputes is through the
injunction and punishment thereunder for contempt of court. It is a
principle of law that when there are interferences, actual or
threatened, with property or with rights of a pecuniary nature, and the
common or statute law offers no adequate and immediate remedy for the
prevention of injury, a court of equity may interpose and issue its
order or injunction as to what must or must not be done, a violation of
which writ gives the court which issued it the power to punish for
contempt. The doctrine is that something is necessary to be done to stop
at once the destruction of property and the obstruction of business, and
the injunction is immediate in its action. This writ has been resorted
to frequently for the indirect protection of employés and of employers.
(C. D. W.)
AUTHORITIES.--ENGLISH: (a) Factory Legislation: Abraham and Davies,
_Law relating to Factories and Workshops_ (London, 1897 and 1902);
Redgrave, _Factory Acts_ (London, 1897); Royal Commission on Labour,
_Minutes of Evidence and Digests_, Group "C" (3 vols., 1892-1893),
_Assistant Commissioner's Report on Employment of Women_ (1893),
_Fifth and Final Report of the Commission_ (1894); International
Labour Conference at Berlin, _Correspondence, Commercial Series_ (C,
6042) (1890); House of Lords Committee on the Sweating System,
_Report_ (1891); _Home Office Reports_: Annual Reports of H.M. Chief
Inspector of Factories (1879 to 1901), Committee on White Lead and
Various Lead Industries (1894), Working of the Cotton Cloth Factories
Acts (1897), Dangerous Trades (Anthrax) Committee, Do., Miscellaneous
Trades (1896-97-98-99), Conditions of Work in Fish-Curing Trade
(1898), Lead Compounds in Pottery (1899), Phosphorus in Manufacture of
Lucifer Matches (1899), &c., &c.; Whately Cooke-Taylor, _Modern
Factory System_ (London, 1891); Oliver, _Dangerous Trades_ (London,
1902); Cunningham, _Growth of English Commerce and Industry_ (1907);
Hutchins and Harrison, _History of Factory Legislation_ (1903);
Traill, _Social England, &c., &c._ (b) Mines and Quarries: _Statutes_:
Coal Mines Regulation Acts 1886, 1894, 1896, 1899; Metalliferous Mines
Regulation Acts 1872, 1875; Quarries Act 1894; Royal Commission on
Labour, _Minutes of Evidence and Digests_, Group "A" (1892-1893, 3
vols.); Royal Commission on Mining Royalties, _Appendices_ (1894);
_Home Office Reports_: Annual General Report upon the Mining Industry
(1894-1897), Mines and Quarries, General Reports and Statistics (1898
to 1899), Annual Reports of H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories
(1893-1895) (Quarries); Macswinney and Bristowe, _Coal Mines
Regulation Act_ 1887 (London, 1888). (c) Shops: _Statutes_: Shop Hours
Acts 1892, 1893, 1896, Seats for Shop Assistants Act 1899; _Report of
Select Committee of House of Commons on the Shop Hours Regulation Bill
1886_ (Eyre and Spottiswoode). (d) Truck: _Home Office Reports_:
Annual Reports of H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories, especially
1895-1900, Memorandum on the Law relating to Truck and Checkweighing
Clauses of the Coal Mines Acts 1896, Memorandum relating to the Truck
Acts, by Sir Kenelm Digby, with text of Acts (1897).
CONTINENTAL EUROPE: _Annuaire de la législation du travail_
(Bruxelles, 1898-1905); _Hygiène et sécurité des travailleurs dans les
ateliers industriels_ (Paris, 1895); _Bulletin de l'inspection du
travail_ (Paris, 1895-1902); _Bulletin de l'office international du
travail_ (Paris, 1902-1906); _Congrès international de législation du
travail_ (1898); _Die Gewerbeordnung für das deutsche Reich_. (1)
Landmann (1897); (2) Neukamp (1901); _Gesetz betr. Kinderarbeit in
gewerblichen Betrieben_, 30. _März 1903_; Konrad Agahd, _Manz'sche
Gesetzausgabe_, erster Band und siebenter Band (Wien, 1897-1898);
_Legge sugli infortunii del lavoro_ (Milan, 1900).
UNITED STATES: See the _Twenty-Second Annual Report of the
Commissioner of Labor_ (1907) giving all labour laws in force in the
United States in 1907, with annotations of decisions of courts;
bimonthly _Bulletins_ of the U.S. Bureau of Labor, containing laws
passed since those published in the foregoing, and decisions of courts
relating to employers and employés; also special articles in these
_Bulletins_ on "Employer and Employé under the Common Law" (No. 1),
"Protection of Workmen in their Employment" (No. 26), "Government
Industrial Arbitration" (No. 60), "Laws relating to the Employment of
Women and Children, and to Factory Inspection and the Health and
Safety of Employés" (No. 74), "Wages and Hours of Labor in
Manufacturing Industries, 1890 to 1907" (No. 77), "Review of Labor
Legislation of 1908 and 1909" (No. 85); also "Report of the Industrial
Commission on Labor Legislation" (vol. v., _U.S. Commission's
Report_); C. D. Wright, _Industrial Evolution in the United States_
(1887); Stimson, _Handbook to the Labor Laws of the United States_,
and _Labor in its Relation to Law_; Adams and Sumner, _Labor
Problems_; Labatt, _Commentaries on the Law of Master and Servant_.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The term "labour" (Lat. _labor_) means strictly any energetic
work, though in general it implies hard work, but in modern parlance
it is specially confined to industrial work of the kind done by the
"working-classes."
[2] H. D. Traill, _Social England_, v. 602 (1896).
[3] W. Cunningham, _Growth of English Commerce and Industry_.
[4] W. Cunningham, _Growth of English Commerce and Industry_.
[5] From an "Essay on Trade" (1770), quoted in _History of Factory
Legislation_, by B. L. Hutchins and A. Harrison (1903), pp. 5, 6.
[6] Minutes of Evidence, House of Commons, 1876; quoted in _History
of Factory Legislation_, by Harrison and Hutchinson, p. 179.
LABOUR PARTY, in Great Britain, the name given to the party in
parliament composed of working-class representatives. As the result of
the Reform Act of 1884, extending the franchise to a larger new
working-class electorate, the votes of "labour" became more and more a
matter of importance for politicians; and the Liberal party, seeking for
the support of organized labour in the trade unions, found room for a
few working-class representatives, who, however, acted and voted as
Liberals. It was not till 1893 that the Independent Labour party,
splitting off under Mr J. Keir Hardie (b. 1856) from the socialist
organization known as the Social Democratic Federation (founded 1881),
was formed at Bradford, with the object of getting independent
candidates returned to parliament on a socialist programme. In 1900 Mr
Keir Hardie, who as secretary of the Lanarkshire Miners' Union had stood
unsuccessfully as a labour candidate for Mid-Lanark in 1888, and sat as
M.P. for West Ham in 1892-1895, was elected to parliament for
Merthyr-Tydvil by its efforts, and in 1906 it obtained the return of 30
members, Mr Keir Hardie being chairman of the group. Meanwhile in 1899
the Trade Union Congress instructed its parliamentary committee to call
a conference on the question of labour representation; and in February
1900 this was attended by trade union delegates and also by
representatives of the Independent Labour party, the Social Democratic
Federation and the Fabian Society. A resolution was carried "to
establish a distinct labour group in parliament, who shall have their
own whips, and agree upon their own policy, which must embrace a
readiness to co-operate with any party which for the time being may be
engaged in promoting legislation in the direct interest of labour," and
the committee (the Labour Representation Committee) was elected for the
purpose. Under their auspices 29 out of 51 candidates were returned at
the election of 1906. These groups were distinct from the Labour members
("Lib.-Labs") who obeyed the Liberal whips and acted with the Liberals.
In 1908 the attempts to unite the parliamentary representatives of the
Independent Labour party with the Trades Union members were successful.
In June of that year the Miners' Federation, returning 15 members,
joined the Independent Labour party, now known for parliamentary
purposes as the "Labour Party"; other Trades Unions, such as the
Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, took the same step. This
arrangement came into force at the general election of 1910, when the
bulk of the miners' representatives signed the constitution of the
Labour party, which after the election numbered 40 members of
parliament.
LABRADOR,[1] a great peninsula in British North America, bounded E. by
the North Atlantic, N. by Hudson Strait, W. by Hudson and James Bays,
and S. by an arbitrary line extending eastwards from the south-east
corner of Hudson Bay, near 51° N., to the mouth of the Moisie river, on
the Gulf of St Lawrence, in 50° N., and thence eastwards by the Gulf of
St Lawrence. It extends from 50° to 63° N., and from 55° to 80° W., and
embraces an approximate area of 511,000 sq. m. Recent explorations and
surveys have added greatly to the knowledge of this vast region, and
have shown that much of the peninsula is not a land of "awful
desolation," but a well-wooded country, containing latent resources of
value in its forests, fisheries and minerals.
_Physical Geography._--Labrador forms the eastern limb of the V in the
Archaean protaxis of North America (see CANADA), and includes most of
the highest parts of that area. Along some portions of the coasts of
Hudson and also of Ungava Bay there is a fringe of lowland, but most
of the interior is a plateau rising toward the south and east. The
highest portion extends east and west between 52° and 54° N., where an
immense granite area lies between the headwaters of the larger rivers
of the four principal drainage basins; the lowest area is between
Hudson Bay and Ungava Bay in the north-west, where the general level
is not more than 500 ft. above the sea. The only mountains are the
range along the Atlantic coast, extending from the Strait of Belle
Isle to Cape Chidley; in their southern half they rarely exceed 1500
ft., but increase in the northern half to a general elevation of
upwards of 2000 ft., with numerous sharp peaks between 3000 and 5000
ft., some say 7000 or 8000 ft. The coasts are deeply indented by
irregular bays and fringed with rocky islands, especially along the
high Atlantic coast, where long narrow fiords penetrate inland.
Hamilton Inlet, 250 m. north of the Strait of Belle Isle, is the
longest of these bays, with a length of 150 m. and a breadth varying
from 2 to 30 m. The surface of the outer portions of the plateau is
deeply seamed by valleys, cut into the crystalline rocks by the
natural erosion of rivers, depending for their length and depth upon
the volume of water flowing through them. The valley of the Hamilton
river is the greatest, forms a continuation of the valley of the Inlet
and extends 300 m. farther inland, while its bottom lies from 500 to
1500 ft. below the surface of the plateau into which it is cut. The
depressions between the low ridges of the interior are occupied by
innumerable lakes, many of great size, including Mistassini,
Mishikamau, Clearwater, Kaniapiskau and Seal, all from 50 to 100 m.
long. The streams discharging these lakes, before entering their
valleys, flow on a level with the country and occupy all depressions,
so that they frequently spread out into lake-expansions and are often
divided into numerous channels by large islands. The descent into the
valleys is usually abrupt, being made by heavy rapids and falls; the
Hamilton, from the level interior, in a course of 12 m. falls 760 ft.
into the head of its valley, this descent including a sheer drop of
315 ft. at the Grand Falls, which, taken with the large volume of the
river, makes it the greatest fall in North America. The rivers of the
northern and western watersheds drain about two-thirds of the
peninsula; the most important of the former are the Koksoak, the
largest river of Labrador (over 500 m. long), the George, Whale and
Payne rivers, all flowing into Ungava Bay. The large rivers flowing
westwards into Hudson Bay are the Povungnituk, Kogaluk, Great Whale,
Big, East Main and Rupert, varying in length from 300 to 500 m. The
rivers flowing south are exceedingly rapid, the Moisie, Romaine,
Natashkwan and St Augustine being the most important; all are about
300 m. long. The Atlantic coast range throws most of the drainage
northwards into the Ungava basin, and only small streams fall into the
ocean, except the Hamilton, North-west and Kenamou, which empty into
the head of Hamilton Inlet.
_Geology._--The peninsula is formed largely of crystalline schists and
gneisses associated with granites and other igneous rocks, all of
archaean age; there are also large areas of non-fossiliferous,
stratified limestones, cherts, shales and iron ores, the unaltered
equivalents of part of the schists and gneisses. Narrow strips of
Animikie (Upper Huronian or perhaps Cambrian) rocks occur along the
low-lying southern and western shores, but there are nowhere else
indications of the peninsula having been below sea-level since an
exceedingly remote time. During the glacial period the country was
covered by a thick mantle of ice, which flowed out radially from a
central collecting-ground. Owing to the extremely long exposure to
denudation, to the subsequent removal of the greater part of the
decomposed rock by glaciers, and to the unequal weathering of the
component rocks, it is now a plateau, which ascends somewhat abruptly
within a few miles of the coast-line to heights of between 500 and
2000 ft. The interior is undulating, and traversed by ridges of low,
rounded hills, seldom rising more than 500 ft. above the surrounding
general level.
_Minerals._--The mineral wealth is undeveloped. Thick beds of
excellent iron ore cover large areas in the interior and along the
shores of Hudson and Ungava Bays. Large areas of mineralized Huronian
rocks have also been discovered, similar to areas in other parts of
Canada, where they contain valuable deposits of gold, copper, nickel
and lead; good prospects of these metals have been found.
_Climate._--The climate ranges from cold temperate on the southern
coasts to arctic on Hudson Strait, and is generally so rigorous that
it is doubtful if the country is fit for agriculture north of 51°,
except on the low grounds near the coast. On James Bay good crops of
potatoes and other roots are grown at Fort George, 54° N., while about
the head of Hamilton Inlet, on the east coast, and in nearly the same
latitude, similar crops are easily cultivated. On the outer coasts the
climate is more rigorous, being affected by the floating ice borne
southwards on the Arctic current. In the interior at Mistassini, 50°
30´ N, a crop of potatoes is raised annually, but they rarely mature.
No attempts at agriculture have been made elsewhere inland. Owing to
the absence of grass plains, there is little likelihood that it will
ever be a grazing district. There are only two seasons in the
interior: winter begins early in October, with the freezing of the
small lakes, and lasts until the middle of June, when the ice on
rivers and lakes melts and summer suddenly bursts forth. From
unconnected observations the lowest temperatures of the interior range
from -50° F. to -60° F., and are slightly higher along the coast. The
mean summer temperature of the interior is about 55° F., with frosts
during every month in the northern portion. On the Atlantic coast and
in Hudson Bay the larger bays freeze solid between the 1st and 15th of
December, and these coasts remain ice-bound until late in June. Hudson
Strait is usually sufficiently open for navigation about the 10th of
July.
_Vegetation._--The southern half is included in the sub-Arctic forest
belt, and nine species of trees constitute the whole arborescent flora
of this region; these species are the white birch, poplar, aspen,
cedar. Banksian pine, white and black spruce, balsam fir and larch.
The forest is continuous over the southern portion to 53° N., the only
exceptions being the summits of rocky hills and the outer islands of
the Atlantic and Hudson Bay, while the low margins and river valleys
contain much valuable timber. To the northward the size and number of
barren areas rapidly increase, so that in 55° N. more than half the
country is treeless, and two degrees farther north the limit of trees
is reached, leaving, to the northward, only barrens covered with low
Arctic flowering plants, sedges and lichens.
_Fisheries._--The fisheries along the shores of the Gulf of St
Lawrence and of the Atlantic form practically the only industry of the
white population scattered along the coasts, as well as of a large
proportion of the inhabitants of Newfoundland. The census (1891) of
Newfoundland gave 10,478 men, 2081 women and 828 children employed in
the Labrador fishery in 861 vessels, of which the tonnage amounted to
33,689; the total catch being 488,788 quintals of cod, 1275 tierces of
salmon and 3828 barrels of herring, which, compared with the customs
returns for 1880, showed an increase of cod and decreases of salmon
and herring. The salmon fishery along the Atlantic coast is now very
small, the decrease being probably due to excessive use of cod-traps.
The cod fishery is now carried on along the entire Atlantic coast and
into the eastern part of Ungava Bay, where excellent catches have been
made since 1893. The annual value of the fisheries on the Canadian
portion of the coast is about $350,000. The fisheries of Hudson Bay
and of the interior are wholly undeveloped, though both the bay and
the large lakes of the interior are well stocked with several species
of excellent fish, including Arctic trout, brook trout, lake trout,
white fish, sturgeon and cod.
_Population._--The population is approximately 14,500, or about one
person to every 35 sq. m.; it is made up of 3500 Indians, 2000 Eskimo
and 9000 whites. The last are confined to the coasts and to the Hudson
Bay Company's trading posts of the interior. On the Atlantic coast they
are largely immigrants from Newfoundland, together with descendants of
English fishermen and Hudson Bay Company's servants. To the north of
Hamilton Inlet they are of more or less mixed blood from marriage with
Eskimo women. The Newfoundland census of 1901 gave 3634 as the number of
permanent white residents along the Atlantic coast, and the Canadian
census (1891) gave a white population of 5728, mostly French Canadians,
scattered along the north shore of the Gulf of St Lawrence, while the
whites living at the inland posts did not exceed fifty persons. It is
difficult to give more than a rough approximation of the number of the
native population, owing to their habits of roving from one trading post
to another, and the consequent liability of counting the same family
several times if the returns are computed from the books of the various
posts, the only available data for an enumeration. The following
estimate is arrived at in this manner: Indians--west coast, 1200;
Ungava Bay, 200; east coast, 200; south coast, 1900. Eskimo--Atlantic
coast, 1000; south shore of Hudson Strait, 800; east coast of Hudson
Bay, 500. The Indians roam over the southern interior in small bands,
their northern limit being determined by that of the trees on which they
depend for fuel. They live wholly by the chase, and their numbers are
dependent upon the deer and other animals; as a consequence there is a
constant struggle between the Indian and the lower animals for
existence, with great slaughter of the latter, followed by periodic
famines among the natives, which greatly reduce their numbers and
maintain an equilibrium. The native population has thus remained about
stationary for the last two centuries. The Indians belong to the
Algonquin family, and speak dialects of the Cree language. By contact
with missionaries and fur-traders they are more or less civilized, and
the great majority of them are Christians. Those living north of the St
Lawrence are Roman Catholic, while the Indians of the western watershed
have been converted by the missionaries of the Church Mission Society;
the eastern and northern bands have not yet been reached by the
missionaries, and are still pagans. The Eskimo of the Atlantic coast
have long been under the guidance of the Moravian missionaries, and are
well advanced in civilization; those of Hudson Bay have been taught by
the Church Mission Society, and promise well; while the Eskimo of Hudson
Strait alone remain without teachers, and are pagans. The Eskimo live
along the coasts, only going inland for short periods to hunt the
barren-ground caribou for their winter clothing; the rest of the year
they remain on the shore or the ice, hunting seals and porpoises, which
afford them food, clothing and fuel. The christianized Indians and
Eskimo read and write in their own language; those under the teaching of
the Church Mission Society use a syllabic character, the others make use
of the ordinary alphabet.
_Political Review._--The peninsula is divided politically between the
governments of Canada, Newfoundland and the province of Quebec. The
government of Newfoundland, under Letters Patent of the 28th of March
1876, exercises jurisdiction along the Atlantic coast; the boundary
between its territory and that of Canada is a line running due north and
south from Anse Sablon, on the north shore of the Strait of Belle Isle,
to 52° N., the remainder of the boundary being as yet undetermined. The
northern boundary of the province of Quebec follows the East Main river
to its source in Patamisk lake, thence by a line due east to the
Ashuanipi branch of the Hamilton river; it then follows that river and
Hamilton Inlet to the coast area under the jurisdiction of Newfoundland.
The remainder of the peninsula, north of the province of Quebec, by
order in council dated the 18th of December 1897, was constituted Ungava
District, an unorganized territory under the jurisdiction of the
government of the Dominion of Canada.
AUTHORITIES.--W. T. Grenfell and others, _Labrador: the Country and
the People_ (New York, 1909); R. F. Holmes, "A Journey in the Interior
of Labrador," Proc. _R.G.S._ x. 189-205 (1887); A. S. Packard, _The
Labrador Coast_ (New York, 1891); Austen Cary, "Exploration on Grand
River, Labrador," _Bul. Am. Geo. Soc._ vol. xxiv., 1892; R. Bell, "The
Labrador Peninsula," _Scottish Geo. Mag._ July 1895. Also the
following reports by the Geological Survey of Canada:--R. Bell,
"Report on an Exploration of the East Coast of Hudson Bay," 1877-1878;
"Observations on the Coast of Labrador and on Hudson Strait and Bay,"
1882-1884; A. P. Low, "Report on the Mistassini Expedition," 1885;
"Report on James Bay and the Country East of Hudson Bay," 1887-1888;
"Report on Explorations in the Labrador Peninsula, 1892-1895," 1896;
"Report on a Traverse of the Northern Part of the Labrador Peninsula,"
1898; "Report on the South Shore of Hudson Strait," 1899. For History:
W. G. Gosling, _Labrador_ (1910). (A. P. Lo.; A. P. C.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] From the Portuguese _llavrador_ (a yeoman farmer). The name was
originally given to Greenland (1st half of 16th century) and was
transferred to the peninsula in the belief that it formed part of the
same country as Greenland. The name was bestowed "because he who
first gave notice of seeing it [Greenland] was a farmer (_llavrador_)
from the Azores." See the historical sketch of Labrador by W. S.
Wallace in Grenfell's _Labrador, &c._, 1909.
LABRADORITE, or LABRADOR SPAR, a lime-soda felspar of the plagioclase
(q.v.) group, often cut and polished as an ornamental stone. It takes
its name from the coast of Labrador, where it was discovered, as
boulders, by the Moravian Mission about 1770, and specimens were soon
afterwards sent to the secretary in London, the Rev. B. Latrobe. The
felspar itself is generally of a dull grey colour, with a rather greasy
lustre, but many specimens exhibit in certain directions a magnificent
play of colours--blue, green, orange, purple or red; the colour in some
specimens changing when the stone is viewed in different directions.
This optical effect, known sometimes as "labradorescence," seems due in
some cases to the presence of minute laminae of certain minerals, like
göthite or haematite, arranged parallel to the surface which reflects
the colour; but in other cases it may be caused not so much by
inclusions as by a delicate lamellar structure in the felspar. An
aventurine effect is produced by the presence of microscopic enclosures.
The original labradorite was found in the neighbourhood of Nain, notably
in a lagoon about 50 m. inland, and in St Paul's Island. Here it occurs
with hypersthene, of a rich bronzy sheen, forming a coarse-grained
norite. When wet, the stones are remarkably brilliant, and have been
called by the natives "fire rocks." Russia has also yielded chatoyant
labradorite, especially near Kiev and in Finland; a fine blue
labradorite has been brought from Queensland; and the mineral is also
known in several localities in the United States, as at Keeseville, in
Essex county, New York. The ornamental stone from south Norway, now
largely used as a decorative material in architecture, owes its beauty
to a felspar with a blue opalescence, often called labradorite, but
really a kind of orthoclase which Professor W. C. Brögger has termed
cryptoperthite, whilst the rock in which it occurs is an augite-syenite
called by him laurvigite, from its chief locality, Laurvik in Norway.
Common labradorite, without play of colour, is an important constituent
of such rocks as gabbro, diorite, andesite, dolerite and basalt. (See
PLAGIOCLASE.) Ejected crystals of labradorite are found on Monti Rossi,
a double parasitic cone on Etna.
The term labradorite is unfortunately used also as a rock-name, having
been applied by Fouqué and Lévy to a group of basic rocks rich in augite
and poor in olivine. (F. W. R.*)
LABRADOR TEA, the popular name for a species of _Ledum_, a small
evergreen shrub growing in bogs and swamps in Greenland and the more
northern parts of North America. The leaves are tough, densely covered
with brown wool on the under face, fragrant when crushed and have been
used as a substitute for tea. The plant is a member of the heath family
(Ericaceae).
LABRUM (Lat. for "lip"), the large vessel of the warm bath in the Roman
thermae. These were cut out of great blocks of marble and granite, and
have generally an overhanging lip. There is one in the Vatican of
porphyry over 12 ft. in diameter. The term _labrum_ is used in zoology,
of a lip or lip-like part; in entomology it is applied specifically to
the upper lip of an insect, the lower lip being termed _labium_.
LA BRUYÈRE, JEAN DE (1643-1696), French essayist and moralist, was born
in Paris on the 16th of August 1645, and not as was once the common
statement, at Dourdan (Seine-et-Oise) in 1639. His family was of the
middle class, and his reference to a certain Geoffroy de la Bruyère, a
crusader, is only a satirical illustration of a method of
self-ennoblement common in France as in some other countries. Indeed he
himself always signed the name Delabruyère in one word, thus avowing his
_roture_. His progenitors, however, were of respectable position, and he
could trace them back at least as far as his great-grandfather, who had
been a strong Leaguer. La Bruyère's own father was controller-general of
finance to the Hôtel de Ville. The son was educated by the Oratorians
and at the university of Orleans; he was called to the bar, and in 1673
bought a post in the revenue department at Caen, which gave the status
of noblesse and a certain income. In 1687 he sold this office. His
predecessor in it was a relation of Bossuet, and it is thought that the
transaction was the cause of La Bruyère's introduction to the great
orator. Bossuet, who from the date of his own preceptorship of the
dauphin, was a kind of agent-general for tutorships in the royal family,
introduced him in 1684 to the household of the great Condé, to whose
grandson Henri Jules de Bourbon as well as to that prince's girl-bride
Mlle de Nantes, one of Louis XIV.'s natural children, La Bruyère became
tutor. The rest of his life was passed in the household of the prince or
else at court, and he seems to have profited by the inclination which
all the Condé family had for the society of men of letters. Very little
is known of the events of this part--or, indeed, of any part--of his
life. The impression derived from the few notices of him is of a silent,
observant, but somewhat awkward man, resembling in manners Joseph
Addison, whose master in literature La Bruyère undoubtedly was. Yet
despite the numerous enemies which his book raised up for him, most of
these notices are favourable--notably that of Saint-Simon, an acute
judge and one bitterly prejudiced against _roturiers_ generally. There
is, however, a curious passage in a letter from Boileau to Racine in
which he regrets that "nature has not made La Bruyère as agreeable as he
would like to be." His _Caractères_ appeared in 1688, and at once, as
Nicolas de Malezieu had predicted, brought him "bien des lecteurs et
bien des ennemis." At the head of these were Thomas Corneille,
Fontenelle and Benserade, who were pretty clearly aimed at in the book,
as well as innumerable other persons, men and women of letters as well
as of society, on whom the cap of La Bruyère's fancy-portraits was
fitted by manuscript "keys" compiled by the scribblers of the day. The
friendship of Bossuet and still more the protection of the Condés
sufficiently defended the author, and he continued to insert fresh
portraits of his contemporaries in each new edition of his book,
especially in the 4th (1689). Those, however, whom he had attacked were
powerful in the Academy, and numerous defeats awaited La Bruyère before
he could make his way into that guarded hold. He was defeated thrice in
1691, and on one memorable occasion he had but seven votes, five of
which were those of Bossuet, Boileau, Racine, Pellisson and
Bussy-Rabutin. It was not till 1693 that he was elected, and even then
an epigram, which, considering his admitted insignificance in
conversation, was not of the worst, _haesit lateri_:--
"Quand la Bruyère se présente
Pourquoi faut il crier haro?
Pour faire un nombre de quarante
Ne falloit il pas un zéro?"
His unpopularity was, however, chiefly confined to the subjects of his
sarcastic portraiture, and to the hack writers of the time, of whom he
was wont to speak with a disdain only surpassed by that of Pope. His
description of the _Mercure galant_ as "_immédiatement au dessous de
rien_" is the best-remembered specimen of these unwise attacks; and
would of itself account for the enmity of the editors, Fontenelle and
the younger Corneille. La Bruyère's discourse of admission at the
Academy, one of the best of its kind, was, like his admission itself,
severely criticized, especially by the partisans of the "Moderns" in the
"Ancient and Modern" quarrel. With the _Caractères_, the translation of
Theophrastus, and a few letters, most of them addressed to the prince de
Condé, it completes the list of his literary work, with the exception of
a curious and much-disputed posthumous treatise. La Bruyère died very
suddenly, and not long after his admission to the Academy. He is said to
have been struck with dumbness in an assembly of his friends, and, being
carried home to the Hôtel de Condé, to have expired of apoplexy a day or
two afterwards, on the 10th of May 1696. It is not surprising that,
considering the recent panic about poisoning, the bitter personal
enmities which he had excited and the peculiar circumstances of his
death, suspicions of foul play should have been entertained, but there
was apparently no foundation for them. Two years after his death
appeared certain _Dialogues sur le Quiétisme_, alleged to have been
found among his papers incomplete, and to have been completed by the
editor. As these dialogues are far inferior in literary merit to La
Bruyère's other works, their genuineness has been denied. But the
straightforward and circumstantial account of their appearance given by
this editor, the Abbé du Pin, a man of acknowledged probity, the
intimacy of La Bruyère with Bossuet, whose views in his contest with
Fénelon these dialogues are designed to further, and the entire absence,
at so short a time after the alleged author's death, of the least
protest on the part of his friends and representatives, seem to be
decisive in their favour.
Although it is permissible to doubt whether the value of the
_Caractères_ has not been somewhat exaggerated by traditional French
criticism, they deserve beyond all question a high place. The plan of
the book is thoroughly original, if that term may be accorded to a novel
and skilful combination of existing elements. The treatise of
Theophrastus may have furnished the first idea, but it gave little more.
With the ethical generalizations and social Dutch painting of his
original La Bruyère combined the peculiarities of the Montaigne essay,
of the _Pensées_ and _Maximes_ of which Pascal and La Rochefoucauld are
the masters respectively, and lastly of that peculiar 17th-century
product, the "portrait" or elaborate literary picture of the personal
and mental characteristics of an individual. The result was quite unlike
anything that had been before seen, and it has not been exactly
reproduced since, though the essay of Addison and Steele resembles it
very closely, especially in the introduction of fancy portraits. In the
titles of his work, and in its extreme desultoriness, La Bruyère reminds
the reader of Montaigne, but he aimed too much at sententiousness to
attempt even the apparent continuity of the great essayist. The short
paragraphs of which his chapters consist are made up of maxims proper,
of criticisms literary and ethical, and above all of the celebrated
sketches of individuals baptized with names taken from the plays and
romances of the time. These last are the great feature of the work, and
that which gave it its immediate if not its enduring popularity. They
are wonderfully piquant, extraordinarily life-like in a certain sense,
and must have given great pleasure or more frequently exquisite pain to
the originals, who were in many cases unmistakable and in most
recognizable.
But there is something wanting in them. The criticism of Charpentier,
who received La Bruyère at the Academy, and who was of the opposite
faction, is in fact fully justified as far as it goes. La Bruyère
literally "est [trop] descendu dans le particulier." He has neither,
like Molière, embodied abstract peculiarities in a single life-like
type, nor has he, like Shakespeare, made the individual pass _sub
speciem aeternitatis_, and serve as a type while retaining his
individuality. He is a photographer rather than an artist in his
portraiture. So, too, his maxims, admirably as they are expressed, and
exact as their truth often is, are on a lower level than those of La
Rochefoucauld. Beside the sculpturesque precision, the Roman brevity,
the profoundness of ethical intuition "piercing to the accepted hells
beneath," of the great Frondeur, La Bruyère has the air of a literary
_petit-maître_ dressing up superficial observation in the finery of
_esprit_. It is indeed only by comparison that he loses, but then it is
by comparison that he is usually praised. His abundant wit and his
personal "malice" have done much to give him his rank in French
literature, but much must also be allowed to his purely literary merits.
With Racine and Massillon he is probably the very best writer of what is
somewhat arbitrarily styled classical French. He is hardly ever
incorrect--the highest merit in the eyes of a French academic critic. He
is always well-bred, never obscure, rarely though sometimes "precious"
in the turns and niceties of language in which he delights to indulge,
in his avowed design of attracting readers by form, now that, in point
of matter, "tout est dit." It ought to be added to his credit that he
was sensible of the folly of impoverishing French by ejecting old words.
His chapter on "Les ouvrages de l'esprit" contains much good criticism,
though it shows that, like most of his contemporaries except Fénelon, he
was lamentably ignorant of the literature of his own tongue.
The editions of La Bruyère, both partial and complete, have been
extremely numerous. _Les Caractères de Théophraste traduits du Grec,
avec les caractères et les moeurs de ce siècle_, appeared for the
first time in 1688, being published by Michallet, to whose little
daughter, according to tradition, La Bruyère gave the profits of the
book as a dowry. Two other editions, little altered, were published in
the same year. In the following year, and in each year until 1694,
with the exception of 1693, a fresh edition appeared, and, in all
these five, additions, omissions and alterations were largely made. A
ninth edition, not much altered, was put forth in the year of the
author's death. The Academy speech appeared in the eighth edition. The
Quietist dialogues were published in 1699; most of the letters,
including those addressed to Condé, not till 1867. In recent times
numerous editions of the complete works have appeared, notably those
of Walckenaer (1845), Servois (1867, in the series of _Grands
écrivains de la France_), Asselineau (a scholarly reprint of the last
original edition, 1872) and finally Chassang (1876); the last is one
of the most generally useful, as the editor has collected almost
everything of value in his predecessors. The literature of "keys" to
La Bruyère is extensive and apocryphal. Almost everything that can be
done in this direction and in that of general illustration was done by
Edouard Fournier in his learned and amusing _Comédie de La Bruyère_
(1866); M. Paul Morillot contributed a monograph on La Bruyère to the
series of _Grands écrivains français_ in 1904. (G. Sa.)
LABUAN (a corruption of the Malay word _labuh-an_, signifying an
"anchorage"), an island of the Malay Archipelago, off the north-west
coast of Borneo in 5° 16´ N., 115° 15´ E. Its area is 30.23 sq. m.; it
is distant about 6 m. from the mainland of Borneo at the nearest point,
and lies opposite to the northern end of the great Brunei Bay. The
island is covered with low hills rising from flats near the shore to an
irregular plateau near the centre. About 1500 acres are under rice
cultivation, and there are scattered patches of coco-nut and sago palms
and a few vegetable gardens, the latter owned for the most part by
Chinese. For the rest Labuan is covered over most of its extent by
vigorous secondary growth, amidst which the charred trunks of trees rise
at frequent intervals, the greater part of the forest of the island
having been destroyed by great accidental conflagrations. Labuan was
ceded to Great Britain in 1846, chiefly through the instrumentality of
Sir James Brooke, the first raja of Sarawak, and was occupied two years
later.
At the time of its cession the island was uninhabited, but in 1881 the
population numbered 5731, though it had declined to 5361 in 1891. The
census returns for 1901 give the population at 8411. The native
population consists of Malay fishermen, Chinese, Tamils and small
shifting communities of Kadayans, Tutongs and other natives of the
neighbouring Bornean coast. There are about fifty European residents. At
the time of its occupation by Great Britain a brilliant future was
predicted for Labuan, which it was thought would become a second
Singapore. These hopes have not been realized. The coal deposits, which
are of somewhat indifferent quality, have been worked with varying
degrees of failure by a succession of companies, one of which, the
Labuan & Borneo Ltd., liquidated in 1902 after the collapse of a shaft
upon which large sums had been expended. It was succeeded by the Labuan
Coalfields Ltd. The harbour is a fine one, and the above-named company
possesses three wharves capable of berthing the largest Eastern-going
ocean steamers. To-day Labuan chiefly exists as a trading depôt for the
natives of the neighbouring coast of Borneo, who sell their
produce--beeswax, edible birds-nests, camphor, gutta, trepang, &c.,--to
Chinese shopkeepers, who resell it in Singapore. There is also a
considerable trade in sago, much of which is produced on the mainland,
and there are three small sago-factories on the island where the raw
product is converted into flour. The Eastern Extension Telegraph Company
has a central station at Labuan with cables to Singapore, Hong-Kong and
British North Borneo. Monthly steam communication is maintained by a
German firm between Labuan, Singapore and the Philippines. The colony
joined the Imperial Penny Postage Union in 1889. There are a few miles
of road on the island and a metre-gauge railway from the harbour to the
coal mines, the property of the company. There is a Roman Catholic
church with a resident priest, an Anglican church, visited periodically
by a clergyman from the mainland, two native and Chinese schools, and a
sailors' club, built by the Roman Catholic mission. The bishop of
Singapore and Sarawak is also bishop of Labuan. The European graveyard
has repeatedly been the scene of outrages perpetrated, it is believed,
by natives from the mainland of Borneo, the graves being rifled and the
hair of the head and other parts of the corpses being carried off to
furnish ornaments to weapons and ingredients in the magic philtres of
the natives. Pulau Dat, a small island in the near neighbourhood of
Labuan, is the site of a fine coco-nut plantation whence nuts and copra
are exported in bulk. The climate is hot and very humid.
Until 1869 the expenditure of the colony was partly defrayed by
imperial grants-in-aid, but after that date it was left to its own
resources. A garrison of imperial troops was maintained until 1871,
when the troops were withdrawn after many deaths from fever and
dysentery had occurred among them. Since then law and order have been
maintained without difficulty by a small mixed police force of
Punjabis and Malays. From the 1st of January 1890 to the 1st of
January 1906 Labuan was transferred for administrative purposes to the
British North Borneo Company, the governor for the time being of the
company's territories holding also the royal commission as governor of
Labuan. This arrangement did not work satisfactorily and called forth
frequent petitions and protests from the colonists. Labuan was then
placed under the government of the Straits Settlements, and is
administered by a deputy governor who is a member of the Straits Civil
Service.
LABURNUM, known botanically as _Laburnum vulgare_ (or _Cytisus
Laburnum_), a familiar tree of the pea family (Leguminosae); it is also
known as "golden chain" and "golden rain." It is a native of the
mountains of France, Switzerland, southern Germany, northern Italy, &c.,
has long been cultivated as an ornamental tree throughout Europe, and
was introduced into north-east America by the European colonists. Gerard
records it as growing in his garden in 1597 under the names of anagyris,
laburnum or beane trefoyle (_Herball_, p. 1239), but the date of its
introduction into England appears to be unknown. In France it is called
_l'aubour_--a corruption from laburnum according to Du Hamel--as also
_arbois_, i.e. _arc-bois_, "the wood having been used by the ancient
Gauls for bows. It is still so employed in some parts of the Mâconnois,
where the bows are found to preserve their strength and elasticity for
half a century" (Loudon, _Arboretum_, ii. 590).
Several varieties of this tree are cultivated, differing in the size of
the flowers, in the form of the foliage, &c., such as the "oak-leafed"
(_quercifolium_), _pendulum_, _crispum_, &c.; var. _aureum_ has golden
yellow leaves. One of the most remarkable forms is _Cytisus Adami (C.
purpurascens)_, which bears three kinds of blossoms, viz. racemes of
pure yellow flowers, others of a purple colour and others of an
intermediate brick-red tint. The last are hybrid blossoms, and are
sterile, with malformed ovules, though the pollen appears to be good.
The yellow and purple "reversions" are fertile. It originated in Paris
in 1828 by M. Adam, who inserted a "shield" of the bark of Cytisus
purpureus into a stock of Laburnum. A vigorous shoot from this bud was
subsequently propagated. Hence it would appear that the two distinct
species became united by their cambium layers, and the trees propagated
therefrom subsequently reverted to their respective parentages in
bearing both yellow and purple flowers, but produce as well blossoms of
an intermediate or hybrid character. Such a result may be called a
"graft-hybrid." For full details see Darwin's _Animals and Plants under
Domestication_.
The laburnum has highly poisonous properties. The roots taste like
liquorice, which is a member of the same family as the laburnum. It has
proved fatal to cattle, though hares and rabbits eat the bark of it with
avidity (_Gardener's Chronicle_, 1881, vol. xvi. p. 666). The seeds also
are highly poisonous, possessing emetic as well as acrid narcotic
principles, especially in a green state. Gerard (loc. cit.) alludes to
the powerful effect produced on the system by taking the bruised leaves
medicinally. Pliny states that bees will not visit the flowers (_N.H._
xvi. 31), but this is an error, as bees and butterflies play an
important part in the fertilization of the flowers, which they visit for
the nectar.
The heart wood of the laburnum is of a dark reddish-brown colour, hard
and durable, and takes a good polish. Hence it is much prized by
turners, and used with other coloured woods for inlaying purposes. The
laburnum has been called false ebony from this character of its wood.
LABYRINTH (Gr. [Greek: labyrinthos], Lat. _labyrinthus_), the name given
by the Greeks and Romans to buildings, entirely or partly subterranean,
containing a number of chambers and intricate passages, which rendered
egress puzzling and difficult. The word is considered by some to be of
Egyptian origin, while others connect it with the Gr. [Greek: laura],
the passage of a mine. Another derivation suggested is from [Greek:
labrys], a Lydian or Carian word meaning a "double-edged axe" (_Journal
of Hellenic Studies_, xxi. 109, 268), according to which the Cretan
labyrinth or palace of Minos was the house of the double axe, the symbol
of Zeus.
Pliny (_Nat. Hist._ xxxvi. 19, 91) mentions the following as the four
famous labyrinths of antiquity.
1. The Egyptian: of which a description is given by Herodotus (ii. 148)
and Strabo (xvii. 811). It was situated to the east of Lake Moeris,
opposite the ancient site of Arsinoë or Crocodilopolis. According to
Egyptologists, the word means "the temple at the entrance of the lake."
According to Herodotus, the entire building, surrounded by a single
wall, contained twelve courts and 3000 chambers, 1500 above and 1500
below ground. The roofs were wholly of stone, and the walls covered with
sculpture. On one side stood a pyramid 40 orgyiae, or about 243 ft.
high. Herodotus himself went through the upper chambers, but was not
permitted to visit those underground, which he was told contained the
tombs of the kings who had built the labyrinth, and of the sacred
crocodiles. Other ancient authorities considered that it was built as a
place of meeting for the Egyptian nomes or political divisions; but it
is more likely that it was intended for sepulchral purposes. It was the
work of Amenemhe III., of the 12th dynasty, who lived about 2300 B.C. It
was first located by the Egyptologist Lepsius to the north of Hawara in
the Fayum, and (in 1888) Flinders Petrie discovered its foundation, the
extent of which is about 1000 ft. long by 800 ft. wide. Immediately to
the north of it is the pyramid of Hawara, in which the mummies of the
king and his daughter have been found (see W. M. Flinders Petrie,
_Hawara, Biahmu, and Arsinoë_, 1889).
2. The Cretan: said to have been built by Daedalus on the plan of the
Egyptian, and famous for its connexion with the legend of the Minotaur.
It is doubtful whether it ever had any real existence and Diodorus
Siculus says that in his time it had already disappeared. By the older
writers it was placed near Cnossus, and is represented on coins of that
city, but nothing corresponding to it has been found during the course
of the recent excavations, unless the royal palace was meant. The rocks
of Crete are full of winding caves, which gave the first idea of the
legendary labyrinth. Later writers (for instance, Claudian, _De sexto
Cons. Honorii_, 634) place it near Gortyna, and a set of winding
passages and chambers close to that place is still pointed out as the
labyrinth; these are, however, in reality ancient quarries.
3. The Lemnian: similar in construction to the Egyptian. Remains of it
existed in the time of Pliny. Its chief feature was its 150 columns.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Labyrinth of London and Wise.]
4. The Italian: a series of chambers in the lower part of the tomb of
Porsena at Clusium. This tomb was 300 ft. square and 50 ft. high, and
underneath it was a labyrinth, from which it was exceedingly difficult
to find an exit without the assistance of a clew of thread. It has been
maintained that this tomb is to be recognized in the mound named Poggio
Gajella near Chiusi.
Lastly, Pliny (xxxvi. 19) applies the word to a rude drawing on the
ground or pavement, to some extent anticipating the modern or garden
maze.
On the Egyptian labyrinth see A. Wiedemann, _Ägyptische Geschichte_
(1884), p. 258, and his edition of the second book of Herodotus
(1890); on the Cretan, C. Höck, _Kreta_ (1823-1829), and A. J. Evans
in _Journal of Hellenic Studies_; on the subject generally, articles
in Roscher's _Lexikon der Mythologie_ and Daremberg and Saglio's
_Dictionnaire des antiquités_.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Labyrinth of Batty Langley.]
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Labyrinth at Versailles.]
In gardening, a labyrinth or _maze_ means an intricate network of
pathways enclosed by hedges or plantations, so that those who enter
become bewildered in their efforts to find the centre or make their
exit. It is a remnant of the old geometrical style of gardening. There
are two methods of forming it. That which is perhaps the more common
consists of walks, or alleys as they were formerly called, laid out and
kept to an equal width or nearly so by parallel hedges, which should be
so close and thick that the eye cannot readily penetrate them. The task
is to get to the centre, which is often raised, and generally contains
a covered seat, a fountain, a statue or even a small group of trees.
After reaching this point the next thing is to return to the entrance,
when it is found that egress is as difficult as ingress. To every design
of this sort there should be a key, but even those who know the key are
apt to be perplexed. Sometimes the design consists of alleys only, as in
fig. 1, published in 1706 by London and Wise. In such a case, when the
farther end is reached, there only remains to travel back again. Of a
more pretentious character was a design published by Switzer in 1742.
This is of octagonal form, with very numerous parallel hedges and paths,
and "six different entrances, whereof there is but one that leads to the
centre, and that is attended with some difficulties and a great many
stops." Some of the older designs for labyrinths, however, avoid this
close parallelism of the alleys, which, though equally involved and
intricate in their windings, are carried through blocks of thick
planting, as shown in fig. 2, from a design published in 1728 by Batty
Langley. These blocks of shrubbery have been called wildernesses. To
this latter class belongs the celebrated labyrinth at Versailles (fig.
3), of which Switzer observes, that it "is allowed by all to be the
noblest of its kind in the world."
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Maze at Hampton Court.]
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Maze at Somerleyton Hall.]
Whatever style be adopted, it is essential that there should be a
thick healthy growth of the hedges or shrubberies that confine the
wanderer. The trees used should be impenetrable to the eye, and so
tall that no one can look over them; and the paths should be of gravel
and well kept. The trees chiefly used for the hedges, and the best for
the purpose, are the hornbeam among deciduous trees, or the yew among
evergreens. The beech might be used instead of the hornbeam on
suitable soil. The green holly might be planted as an evergreen with
very good results, and so might the American arbor vitae if the
natural soil presented no obstacle. The ground must be well prepared,
so as to give the trees a good start, and a mulching of manure during
the early years of their growth would be of much advantage. They must
be kept trimmed in or clipped, especially in their earlier stages;
trimming with the knife is much to be preferred to clipping with
shears. Any plants getting much in advance of the rest should be
topped, and the whole kept to some 4 ft. or 5 ft. in height until the
lower parts are well thickened, when it may be allowed to acquire the
allotted height by moderate annual increments. In cutting, the hedge
(as indeed all hedges) should be kept broadest at the base and
narrowed upwards, which prevents it from getting thin and bare below
by the stronger growth being drawn to the tops.
The maze in the gardens at Hampton Court Palace (fig. 4) is considered
one of the finest examples in England. It was planted in the early
part of the reign of William III., though it has been supposed that a
maze had existed there since the time of Henry VIII. It is constructed
on the hedge and alley system, and was, it is believed, originally
planted with hornbeam, but many of the plants have been replaced by
hollies, yews, &c., so that the vegetation is mixed. The walks are
about half a mile in length, and the ground occupied is a little over
a quarter of an acre. The centre contains two large trees, with a seat
beneath each. The key to reach this resting place is to keep the right
hand continuously in contact with the hedge from first to last, going
round all the stops.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Labyrinth in Horticultural Society's Garden.]
The maze in the gardens at Somerleyton Hall, near Lowestoft (fig. 5),
was designed by Mr John Thomas. The hedges are of English yew, are
about 6½ ft. high, and have been planted about sixty years. In the
centre is a grass mound, raised to the height of the hedges, and on
this mound is a pagoda, approached by a curved grass path. At the two
corners on the western side are banks of laurels 15 or 16 ft. high. On
each side of the hedges throughout the labyrinth is a small strip of
grass.
There was also a labyrinth at Theobald's Park, near Cheshunt, when
this place passed from the earl of Salisbury into the possession of
James I. Another is said to have existed at Wimbledon House, the seat
of Earl Spencer, which was probably laid out by Brown in the 18th
century. There is an interesting labyrinth, somewhat after the plan of
fig. 2, at Mistley Place, Manningtree.
When the gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society at South
Kensington were being planned, Albert, Prince Consort, the president
of the society, especially desired that there should be a maze formed
in the ante-garden, which was made in the form shown in fig. 6. This
labyrinth, designed by Lieut. W. A. Nesfield, was for many years the
chief point of attraction to the younger visitors to the gardens; but
it was allowed to go to ruin, and had to be destroyed. The gardens
themselves are now built over. (T. Mo.)
LABYRINTHULIDEA, the name given by Sir Ray Lankester (1885) to Sarcodina
(q.v.) forming a reticulate plasmodium, the denser masses united by fine
pseudopodical threads, hardly distinct from some Proteomyxa, such as
_Archerina_.
This is a small and heterogeneous group. _Labyrinthula_, discovered by
L. Cienkowsky, forms a network of relatively stiff threads on which are
scattered large spindle-shaped enlargements, each representing an
amoeba, with a single nucleus. The threads are pseudopods, very slowly
emitted and withdrawn. The amoebae multiply by fission in the active
state. The nearest approach to a "reproductive" state is the
approximation of the amoebae, and their separate encystment in an
irregular heap, recalling the Acrasieae. From each cyst ultimately
emerges a single amoeba, or more rarely four (figs. 6, 7). The
saprophyte _Diplophrys (?) stercorea_ (Cienk.) appears closely allied to
this.
[Illustration: Labyrinthulidea.
1. A colony or "cell-heap" of _Labyrinthula vitellina_, Cienk.,
crawling upon an Alga.
2. A colony or "cell-heap" of _Chlamydomyxa labyrinthuloides_, Archer,
with fully expanded network of threads on which the oat-shaped
corpuscles (cells) are moving. o, Is an ingested food particle; at c a
portion of the general protoplasm has detached itself and become
encysted.
3 A portion of the network of _Labyrinthula vitellina_, Cienk., more
highly magnified. p, Protoplasmic mass apparently produced by fusion
of several filaments. p´, Fusion of several cells which have lost
their definite spindle-shaped contour. s, Corpuscles which have become
spherical and are no longer moving (perhaps about to be encysted).
4. A single spindle cell and threads of _Labyrinthula macrocystis_,
Cienk. n, Nucleus.
5. A group of encysted cells of _L. Macrocystis_, embedded in a tough
secretion.
6, 7. Encysted cells of _L. macrocystis_, with enclosed protoplasm
divided into four spores.
8, 9. Transverse division of a non-encysted spindle-cell of _L.
macrocystis_.]
_Chlamydomyxa_ (W. Archer) resembles _Labyrinthula_ in its freely
branched plasmodium, but contains yellowish chromatophores, and minute
oval vesicles ("physodes") filled with a substance allied to
tannin--possibly phloroglucin--which glide along the plasmodial tracks.
The cell-body contains numerous nuclei; but in its active state is not
resolvable into distinct oval amoeboids. It is amphitrophic, ingesting
and digesting other Protista, as well as "assimilating" by its
chromatophores, the product being oil, not starch. The whole body may
form a laminated cellulose resting cyst, from which it may only
temporarily emerge (fig. 2), or it may undergo resolution into nucleate
cells which then encyst, and become multinucleate before rupturing the
cyst afresh.
_Leydenia_ (F. Schaudinn) is a parasite in malignant diseases of the
pleura. The pseudopodia of adjoining cells unite to form a network; but
its affinities seem to such social naked Foraminifera as _Mikrogromia_.
See Cienkowsky, _Archiv f. Microscopische Anatomie_, iii. 274 (1867),
xii. 44 (1876); W. Archer, _Quart. Jour. Microscopic Science_, xv. 107
(1875); E. R. Lankester, _Ibid._, xxxix., 233 (1896); Hieronymus and
Jenkinson, _Ibid._, xiii. 89 (1899); W. Zopf, _Beiträge zur
Physiologie und Morphologie niederer Organismen_, ii. 36 (1892), iv.
60 (1894); Pènard, _Archiv für Protistenkunde_, iv. 296 (1904); F.
Schaudinn and Leyden, _Sitzungsberichte der Königlich preussischen
Akademie der Wissenschaft_, vi. (1896).
LAC, a resinous incrustation formed on the twigs and young branches of
various trees by an insect, _Coccus lacca_, which infests them. The term
lac (_laksha_, Sanskrit; _lakh_, Hindi) is the same as the numeral
lakh--a hundred thousand--and is indicative of the countless hosts of
insects which make their appearance with every successive generation.
Lac is a product of the East Indies, coming especially from Bengal,
Pegu, Siam and Assam, and is produced by a number of trees of the
species _Ficus_, particularly _F. religiosa_. The insect which yields it
is closely allied to the cochineal insect, _Coccus cacti_; kermes, _C.
ilicis_ and Polish grains, _C. polonicus_, all of which, like the lac
insect, yield a red colouring matter. The minute larval insects fasten
in myriads on the young shoots, and, inserting their long proboscides
into the bark, draw their nutriment from the sap of the plant. The
insects begin at once to exude the resinous secretion over their entire
bodies; this forms in effect a cocoon, and, the separate exudations
coalescing, a continuous hard resinous layer regularly honeycombed with
small cavities is deposited over and around the twig. From this living
tomb the female insects, which form the great bulk of the whole, never
escape. After their impregnation, which takes place on the liberation of
the males, about three months from their first appearance, the females
develop into a singular amorphous organism consisting in its main
features of a large smooth shining crimson-coloured sac--the ovary--with
a beak stuck into the bark, and a few papillary processes projected
above the resinous surface. The red fluid in the ovary is the substance
which forms the lac dye of commerce. To obtain the largest amount of
both resin and dye-stuff it is necessary to gather the twigs with their
living inhabitants in or near June and November. Lac encrusting the
twigs as gathered is known in commerce as "stick lac"; the resin crushed
to small fragments and washed in hot water to free it from colouring
matter constitutes "seed lac"; and this, when melted, strained through
thick canvas, and spread out into thin layers, is known as "shellac,"
and is the form in which the resin is usually brought to European
markets. Shellac varies in colour from a dark amber to an almost pure
black; the palest, known as "orange-lac," is the most valuable; the
darker varieties--"liver-coloured," "ruby," "garnet," &c.--diminish in
value as the colour deepens. Shellac may be bleached by dissolving it in
a boiling lye of caustic potash and passing chlorine through the
solution till all the resin is precipitated, the product being known as
white shellac. Bleached lac takes light delicate shades of colour, and
dyed a golden yellow it is much used in the East Indies for working into
chain ornaments for the head and for other personal adornments. Lac is
a principal ingredient in sealing-wax, and forms the basis of some of
the most valuable varnishes, besides being useful in various cements,
&c. Average stick lac contains about 68% of resin, 10 of lac dye and 6
of a waxy substance. Lac dye is obtained by evaporating the water in
which stick lac is washed, and comes into commerce in the form of small
square cakes. It is in many respects similar to, although not identical
with, cochineal.
LACAILLE, NICOLAS LOUIS DE (1713-1762), French astronomer, was born at
Rumigny, in the Ardennes, on the 15th of March 1713. Left destitute by
the death of his father, who held a post in the household of the duchess
of Vendôme, his theological studies at the Collège de Lisieux in Paris
were prosecuted at the expense of the duke of Bourbon. After he had
taken deacon's orders, however, he devoted himself exclusively to
science, and, through the patronage of J. Cassini, obtained employment,
first in surveying the coast from Nantes to Bayonne, then, in 1739, in
remeasuring the French arc of the meridian. The success of this
difficult operation, which occupied two years, and achieved the
correction of the anomalous result published by J. Cassini in 1718, was
mainly due to Lacaille's industry and skill. He was rewarded by
admission to the Academy and the appointment of mathematical professor
in Mazarin college, where he worked in a small observatory fitted for
his use. His desire to observe the southern heavens led him to propose,
in 1750, an astronomical expedition to the Cape of Good Hope, which was
officially sanctioned, and fortunately executed. Among its results were
determinations of the lunar and of the solar parallax (Mars serving as
an intermediary), the first measurement of a South African arc of the
meridian, and the observation of 10,000 southern stars. On his return to
Paris in 1754 Lacaille was distressed to find himself an object of
public attention; he withdrew to Mazarin college, and there died, on the
21st of March 1762, of an attack of gout aggravated by unremitting toil.
Lalande said of him that, during a comparatively short life, he had made
more observations and calculations than all the astronomers of his time
put together. The quality of his work rivalled its quantity, while the
disinterestedness and rectitude of his moral character earned him
universal respect.
His principal works are: _Astronomiae Fundamenta_ (1757), containing a
standard catalogue of 398 stars, re-edited by F. Baily (_Memoirs Roy.
Astr. Society_, v. 93); Tabulae Solares (1758); _Coelum australe
stelliferum_ (1763) (edited by J. D. Maraldi), giving
zone-observations of 10,000 stars, and describing fourteen new
constellations; "Observations sur 515 étoiles du Zodiaque" (published
in t. vi. of his _Éphémérides_, 1763); _Leçons élémentaires de
Mathématiques_ (1741), frequently reprinted; ditto _de Mécanique_
(1743), &c.; ditto _d'Astronomie_ (1746), 4th edition augmented by
Lalande (1779); ditto _d'Optique_ (1750), &c. Calculations by him of
eclipses for eighteen hundred years were inserted in _L'Art de
vérifier les dates_ (1750); he communicated to the Academy in 1755 a
classed catalogue of forty-two southern nebulae, and gave in t. ii. of
his _Éphémérides_ (1755) practical rules for the employment of the
lunar method of longitudes, proposing in his additions to Pierre
Bouguer's _Traité de Navigation_ (1760) the model of a nautical
almanac.
See G. de Fouchy, "Éloge de Lacaille," _Hist. de l'Acad. des
Sciences_, p. 197 (1762); G. Brotier, Preface to Lacaille's _Coelum
australe_; Claude Carlier, _Discours historique_, prefixed to
Lacaille's _Journal historique du voyage fait au Cap_ (1763); J. J.
Lalande, _Connoissance des temps_, p. 185 (1767); _Bibl. astr._ pp.
422, 456, 461, 482; J. Delambre, _Hist. de l'astr. au XVIII^e siècle_,
pp. 457-542; J. S. Bailly, _Hist. de l'astr. moderne_, tomes ii.,
iii., _passim_; J. C. Poggendorff, _Biog. Lit. Handwörterbuch_; R.
Grant, _Hist. of Physical Astronomy_, pp. 486, &c.; R. Wolf,
_Geschichte der Astronomie_. A catalogue of 9766 stars, reduced from
Lacaille's observations by T. Henderson, under the supervision of F.
Baily, was published in London in 1847.
LACAITA, SIR JAMES [GIACOMO] (1813-1895), Anglo-Italian politician and
writer. Born at Manduria in southern Italy, he practised law in Naples,
and having come in contact with a number of prominent Englishmen and
Americans in that city, he acquired a desire to study the English
language. Although a moderate Liberal in politics, he never joined any
secret society, but in 1851 after the restoration of Bourbon autocracy
he was arrested for having supplied Gladstone with information on
Bourbon misrule. Through the intervention of the British and Russian
ministers he was liberated, but on the publication of Gladstone's
famous letters to Lord Aberdeen he was obliged to leave Naples. He first
settled in Edinburgh, where he married Maria Carmichael, and then in
London where he made numerous friends in literary and political circles,
and was professor of Italian at Queen's College from 1853 to 1856. In
the latter year he accompanied Lord Minto to Italy, on which occasion he
first met Cavour. From 1857 to 1863 he was private secretary
(non-political) to Lord Lansdowne, and in 1858 he accompanied Gladstone
to the Ionian Islands as secretary, for which services he was made a
K.C.M.G. the following year. In 1860 Francis II. of Naples had implored
Napoleon III. to send a squadron to prevent Garibaldi from crossing over
from Sicily to Calabria; the emperor expressed himself willing to do so
provided Great Britain co-operated, and Lord John Russell was at first
inclined to agree. At this juncture Cavour, having heard of the scheme,
entrusted Lacaita, at the suggestion of Sir James Hudson, the British
minister at Turin, with the task of inducing Russell to refuse
co-operation. Lacaita, who was an intimate friend both of Russell and
his wife, succeeded, with the help of the latter, in winning over the
British statesman just as he was about to accept the Franco-Neapolitan
proposal, which was in consequence abandoned. He returned to Naples late
in 1860 and the following year was elected member of parliament for
Bitonto, although he had been naturalized a British subject in 1855. He
took little part in parliamentary politics, but in 1876 was created
senator. He was actively interested in a number of English companies
operating in Italy, and was made one of the directors of the Italian
Southern Railway Co. He had a wide circle of friends in many European
countries and in America, including a number of the most famous men in
politics and literature. He died in 1895 at Posilipo near Naples.
An authority on Dante, he gave many lectures on Italian literature and
history while in England; and among his writings may be mentioned a
large number of articles on Italian subjects in the _Encyclopaedia
Britannica_ (1857-1860), and an edition of Benvenuto da Imola's Latin
lectures on Dante delivered in 1375; he co-operated with Lord Vernon
in the latter's great edition of Dante's _Inferno_ (London,
1858-1865), and he compiled a catalogue in four volumes of the duke of
Devonshire's library at Chatsworth (London, 1879).
LA CALLE, a seaport of Algeria, in the arrondissement of Bona,
department of Constantine, 56 m. by rail E. of Bona and 10 m. W. of the
Tunisian frontier. It is the centre of the Algerian and Tunisian coral
fisheries and has an extensive industry in the curing of sardines; but
the harbour is small and exposed to the N.E. and W. winds. The old
fortified town, now almost abandoned, is built on a rocky peninsula
about 400 yds. long, connected with the mainland by a bank of sand.
Since the occupation of La Calle by the French in 1836 a new town has
grown up along the coast. Pop. (1906) of the town, 2774; of the commune,
4612.
La Calle from the times of its earliest records in the 10th century has
been the residence of coral merchants. In the 16th century exclusive
privileges of fishing for coral were granted by the dey of Algiers to
the French, who first established themselves on a bay to the westward of
La Calle, naming their settlement Bastion de France; many ruins still
exist of this town. In 1677 they moved their headquarters to La Calle.
The company--_Compagnie d'Afrique_--who owned the concession for the
fishery was suppressed in 1798 on the outbreak of war between France and
Algeria. In 1806 the British consul-general at Algiers obtained the
right to occupy Bona and La Calle for an annual rent of £11,000; but
though the money was paid for several years no practical effect was
given to the agreement. The French regained possession in 1817, were
expelled during the wars of 1827, when La Calle was burnt, but returned
and rebuilt the place in 1836. The boats engaged in the fishery were
mainly Italian, but the imposition, during the last quarter of the 19th
century, of heavy taxes on all save French boats drove the foreign
vessels away. For some years the industry was abandoned, but was
restarted on a small scale in 1903.
See Abbé Poiret, _Voyage en Barbarie_ ... (Paris, 1789); E. Broughton,
_Six Years' Residence in Algiers_ (London, 1839) and Sir R. L.
Playfair, _Travels in the Footsteps of Bruce_ (London, 1877).
LA CALPRENÈDE, GAUTHIER DE COSTES, SEIGNEUR DE (_c._ 1610-1663), French
novelist and dramatist, was born at the Château of Tolgou, near Sarlat
(Dordogne), in 1609 or 1610. After studying at Toulouse, he came to
Paris and entered the regiment of the guards, becoming in 1650
gentleman-in-ordinary of the royal household. He died in 1663 in
consequence of a kick from his horse. He was the author of several long
heroic romances ridiculed by Boileau. They are: _Cassandre_ (10 vols.,
1642-1650); _Cléopatre_ (1648); _Faramond_ (1661); and _Les Nouvelles,
ou les Divertissements de la princesse Alcidiane_ (1661) published under
his wife's name, but generally attributed to him. His plays lack the
spirit and force that occasionally redeem the novels. The best is _Le
Comte d'Essex_, represented in 1638, which supplied some ideas to Thomas
Corneille for his tragedy of the same name.
LA CARLOTA, a town of the province of Negros Occidental, Philippine
Islands, on the W. coast of the island and the left bank of San Enrique
river, about 18 m. S. of Bacolod, the capital of the province. Pop.
(1903), after the annexation of San Enrique, 19,192. There are
fifty-four villages or barrios in the town; the largest had a population
in 1903 of 3254 and two others had each more than 1000 inhabitants. The
Panayano dialect of the Visayan language is spoken by most of the
inhabitants. At La Carlota the Spanish government established a station
for the study of the culture of sugar-cane; by the American government
this has been converted into a general agricultural experiment station,
known as "Government Farm."
LACCADIVE ISLANDS, a group of coral reefs and islands in the Indian
Ocean, lying between 10° and 12° 20´ N. and 71° 40´ and 74° E. The name
Laccadives (_laksha dwipa_, the "hundred thousand isles") is that given
by the people of the Malabar coast, and was probably meant to include
the Maldives; they are called by the natives simply _Divi_, "islands,"
or _Amendivi_, from the chief island. There are seventeen separate
reefs, "round each of which the 100-fathom line is continuous" (J. S.
Gardiner). There are, however, only thirteen islands, and of these only
eight are inhabited. They fall into two groups--the northern, belonging
to the collectorate of South Kanara, and including the inhabited islands
of Amini, Kardamat, Kiltan and Chetlat; and the southern, belonging to
the administrative district of Malabar, and including the inhabited
islands of Agatti, Kavaratti, Androth and Kalpeni. Between the
Laccadives and the Maldives to the south lies the isolated Minikoi,
which physically belongs to neither group, though somewhat nearer to the
Maldives (q.v.). The principal submerged banks lie north of the northern
group of islands; they are Munyal, Coradive and Sesostris, and are of
greater extent than those on which the islands lie. The general depth
over these is from 23 to 28 fathoms, but Sesostris has shallower
soundings "indicating patches growing up, and some traces of a rim" (J.
S. Gardiner). The islands have in nearly all cases emerged from the
eastern and protected side of the reef, the western being completely
exposed to the S.W. monsoon. The islands are small, none exceeding a
mile in breadth, while the total area is only about 80 sq. m. They lie
so low that they would be hardly discernible but for the coco-nut groves
with which they are thickly covered. The soil is light coral sand,
beneath which, a few feet down, lies a stratum of coral stretching over
the whole of the islands. This coral, generally a foot to a foot and a
half in thickness, has been in the principal islands wholly excavated,
whereby the underlying damp sand is rendered available for cereals.
These excavations--a work of vast labour--were made at a remote period,
and according to the native tradition by giants. In these spaces
(_totam_, "garden") coarse grain, pulse, bananas and vegetables are
cultivated; coco-nuts grow abundantly everywhere. For rice the natives
depend upon the mainland.
_Population and Trade._--The population in 1901 was 10,274. The people
are Moplas, i.e. of mixed Hindu and Arab descent, and are Mahommedans.
Their manners and customs are similar to those of the coast Moplas; but
they maintain their own ancient caste distinctions. The language spoken
is Malayalim, but it is written in the Arabic character. Reading and
writing are common accomplishments among the men. The chief industry is
the manufacture of coir. The various processes are entrusted to the
women. The men employ themselves with boatbuilding and in conveying the
island produce to the coast. The exports from the Laccadives are of the
annual value of about £17,000.
_History._--No data exist for determining at what period the
Laccadives were first colonized. The earliest mention of them as
distinguished from the Maldives seems to be by Albírúní (c. 1030), who
divides the whole archipelago (Díbaját) into the _Dívah Kúzah_ or
Cowrie Islands (the Maldives), and the _Divah Kanbar_ or Coir Islands
(the Laccadives). (See _Journ. Asiat. Soc._, September 1844, p. 265).
The islanders were converted to Islam by an Arab apostle named Mumba
Mulyaka, whose grave at Androth still imparts a peculiar sanctity to
that island. The kazee of Androth was in 1847 still a member of his
family, and was said to be the twenty-second who had held the office
in direct line from the saint. This gives colour to the tradition that
the conversion took place about 1250. It is also further corroborated
by the story given by the Ibn Batuta of the conversion of the
Maldives, which occurred, as he heard, four generations (say one
hundred and twenty years) before his visit to these islands in 1342.
The Portuguese discovered the Laccadives in May 1498, and built forts
upon them, but about 1545 the natives rose upon their oppressors. The
islands subsequently became a suzerainty of the raja of Cannanore, and
after the peace of Seringapatam, 1792 the southern group was permitted
to remain under the management of the native chief at a yearly
tribute. This was often in arrear, and on this account these islands
were sequestrated by the British government in 1877.
See _The Fauna and Geography of the Maldive and Laccadive
Archipelagoes_, ed. J. Stanley Gardiner (Cambridge 1901-1905);
_Malabar District Gazetteer_ (Madras, 1908); G. Pereira, "As Ilhas de
Dyve" (_Boletim da Soc. Geog._, Lisbon, 1898-1899) gives details
relating to the Laccadives from the 16th-century MS. volume _De
insulis et peregrinatione lusitanorum_ in the National Library,
Lisbon.
LACCOLITE (Gr. [Greek: lakkos], cistern, [Greek: lithos], stone), in
geology, the name given by Grove K. Gilbert to intrusive masses of
igneous rock possessing a cake-like form, which he first described from
the Henry Mountains of southern Utah. Their characteristic is that they
have spread out along the bedding planes of the strata, but are not so
broad and thin as the sheets or intrusive sills which, consisting
usually of basic rocks, have spread over immense distances without
attaining any great thickness. Laccolites cover a comparatively small
area and have greater thickness. Typically they have a domed upper
surface while their base is flat. In the Henry Mountains they are from 1
to 5 m. in diameter and range in thickness up to about 5000 ft. The
cause of their peculiar shape appears to be the viscosity of the rock
injected, which is usually of intermediate character and comparatively
rich in alkalis, belonging to the trachytes and similar lithological
types. These are much less fluid than the basalts, and the latter in
consequence spread out much more readily along the bedding planes,
forming thin flat-topped sills. At each side the laccolites thin out
rapidly so that their upper surface slopes steeply to the margins. The
strata above them which have been uplifted and bent are often cracked by
extension, and as the igneous materials well into the fissures a large
number of dikes is produced. At the base of the laccolite, on the other
hand, the strata are flat and dikes are rare, though there may be a
conduit up which the magma has flowed into the laccolite. The rocks
around are often much affected by contact alteration, and great masses
of them have sometimes sunk into the laccolite, where they may be partly
melted and absorbed.
Gilbert obtained evidence that these laccolites were filled at depths of
7000 to 10,000 ft. and did not reach the surface, giving rise to
volcanoes. From the effects on the drainage of the country it seemed
probable that above the laccolites the strata swelled up in flattish
eminences. Often they occur side by side in groups belonging to a single
period, though all the members of each group are not strictly of the
same age. One laccolite may be formed on the side of an earlier one, and
compound laccolites also occur. When exposed by erosion they give rise
to hills, and their appearance varies somewhat with the stage of
development.
In the western part of South America laccolites agreeing in all
essential points with those described by Gilbert occur in considerable
numbers and present some diversity of types. Occasionally they are
asymmetrical, or have one steep or vertical side while the other is
gently inclined. In other cases they split into a number of sheets
spreading outwards through the rocks around. But the term laccolite
has also been adopted by geologists in Britain and elsewhere to
describe a variety of intrusive masses not strictly identical in
character with those of the Henry Mountains. Some of these rest on a
curved floor, like the gabbro masses of the Cuillin Hills in Skye;
others are injected along a flattish plane of unconformability where
one system of rocks rests on the upturned and eroded edges of an older
series. An example of the latter class is furnished by the felsite
mass of the Black Hill in the Pentlands, near Edinburgh, which has
followed the line between the Silurian and the Old Red Sandstone,
forcing the rocks upwards without spreading out laterally to any great
extent.
The term laccolite has also been applied to many granite intrusions,
such as those of Cornwall. We know from the evidence of mining shafts
which have been sunk in the country near the edge of these granites
that they slope downwards underground with an angle of twenty to
thirty degrees. They have been proved also to have been injected along
certain wall-marked horizons; so that although the rocks of the
country have been folded in a very complicated manner the granite can
often be shown to adhere closely to certain members of the
stratigraphical sequence for a considerable distance. Hence it is
clear that their upper surfaces are convex and gently arched, and it
is conjectured that the strata must extend below them, though at a
great depth, forming a floor. The definite proof of this has not been
attained for no borings have penetrated the granites and reached
sedimentary rocks beneath them. But often in mountainous countries
where there are deep valleys the bases of great granite laccolites are
exposed to view in the hill sides. These granite sills have a
considerable thickness in proportion to their length, raise the rocks
above them and fill them with dikes, and behave generally like typical
laccolites. In contradistinction to intrusions of this type with a
well-defined floor we may place the batholiths, bysmaliths, plutonic
plugs and stocks, which have vertical margins and apparently descend
to unknown depths. It has been conjectured that masses of this type
eat their way upwards by dissolving the rock above them and absorbing
it, or excavate a passage by breaking up the roof of the space they
occupy while the fragments detached sink downwards and are lost in the
ascending magma. (J. S. F.)
LACE (corresponding to Ital. _merletto_, _trina_; Genoese _pizzo_; Ger.
_spitzen_; Fr. _dentelle_; Dutch _kanten_; Span. _encaje_; the English
word owes something to the Fr. _lassis_ or _lacis_, but both are
connected with the earlier Lat. _laqueus_; early French laces were also
called _passements_ or insertions and _dents_ or edgings), the name
applied to ornamental open work formed of threads of flax, cotton, silk,
gold or silver, and occasionally of mohair or aloe fibre, looped or
plaited or twisted together by hand, (1) with a needle, when the work is
distinctively known as "needlepoint lace"; (2) with bobbins, pins and a
pillow or cushion, when the work is known as "pillow lace"; and (3) by
steam-driven machinery, when imitations of both needlepoint and pillow
laces are produced. Lace-making implies the production of ornament and
fabric concurrently. Without a pattern or design the fabric of lace
cannot be made.
The publication of patterns for needlepoint and pillow laces dates from
about the middle of the 16th century. Before that period lace described
such articles as cords and narrow braids of plaited and twisted threads,
used not only to fasten shoes, sleeves and corsets together, but also in
a decorative manner to braid the hair, to wind round hats, and to be
sewn as trimmings upon costumes. In a Harleian MS. of the time of Henry
VI. and Edward IV., about 1471, directions are given for the making of
"lace Bascon, lace indented, lace bordered, lace covert, a brode lace, a
round lace, a thynne lace, an open lace, lace for hattys," &c. The MS.
opens with an illuminated capital letter, in which is the figure of a
woman making these articles. The MS. supplies a clear description how
threads in combinations of twos, threes, fours, fives, to tens and
fifteens, were to be twisted and plaited together. Instead of the
pillow, bobbins and pins with which pillow lace soon afterwards was
made, the hands were used, each finger of a hand serving as a peg upon
which was placed a "bowys" or "bow," or little ball of thread. Each ball
might be of different colour from the other. The writer of the MS. says
that the first finger next the thumb shall be called A, the next B, and
so on. According to the sort of cord or braid to be made, so each of the
four fingers, A, B, C, D might be called into service. A "thynne lace"
might be made with three threads, and then only fingers A, B, C would be
required. A "round" lace, stouter than the "thynne" lace, might require
the service of four or more fingers. By occasionally dropping the use of
threads from certain fingers a sort of indented lace or braid might be
made. But when laces of more importance were wanted, such as a broad
lace for "hattys," the fingers on the hands of assistants were required.
The smaller cords or "thynne laces," when fastened in simple or
fantastic loops along the edges of collars and cuffs, were called
"purls" (see the small edge to the collar worn by Catherine de' Medici,
Pl. II. fig. 4). In another direction from which some suggestion may be
derived as to the evolution of lace-making, notice should be taken of
the fact that at an early period the darning of varied ornamental
devices, stiff and geometric in treatment into hand-made network of
small square meshes (see squares of "lacis," Pl. I. fig. 1) became
specialized in many European countries. This is held by some writers to
be "opus filatorium," or "opus araneum" (spider work). Examples of this
"opus filatorium," said to date from the 13th century exist in public
collections. The productions of this darning in the early part of the
16th century came to be known as "punto a maglia quadra" in Italy and as
"lacis" in France, and through a growing demand for household and
wearing linen, very much of the "lacis" was made in white threads not
only in Italy and France but also in Spain. In appearance it is a filmy
fabric. With white threads also were the "purlings" above mentioned
made, by means of leaden bobbins or "fuxii," and were called "merletti a
piombini" (see lower border, Pl. II. fig. 3). Cut and drawn thread linen
work (the latter known as "tela tirata" in Italy and as "deshilado" in
Spain) were other forms of embroidery as much in vogue as the darning on
net and the "purling." The ornament of much of this cut and drawn linen
work (see collar of Catherine de' Medici, Pl. II. fig. 4), more
restricted in scope than that of the darning on net, was governed by the
recurrence of open squares formed by the withdrawal of the threads.
Within these squares and rectangles radiating devices usually were
worked by means of whipped and buttonhole stitches (Pl. fig. 5). The
general effect in the linen was a succession of insertions or borders of
plain or enriched reticulations, whence the name "punto a reticella"
given to this class of embroidery in Italy. Work of similar style and
especially that with whipped stitches was done rather earlier in the
Grecian islands, which derived it from Asia Minor and Persia. The close
connexion of the Venetian republic with Greece and the eastern islands,
as well as its commercial relations with the East, sufficiently explains
an early transplanting of this kind of embroidery into Venice, as well
as in southern Spain. At Venice besides being called "reticella," cut
work was also called "punto tagliato." Once fairly established as home
industries such arts were quickly exploited with a beauty and variety of
pattern, complexity of stitch and delicacy of execution, until
insertions and edgings made independently of any linen as a starting
base (see first two borders, Pl. II. fig. 3) came into being under the
name of "Punto in aria" (Pl. II. fig. 7). This was the first variety of
Venetian and Italian needlepoint lace in the middle of the 16th
century,[1] and its appearance then almost coincides in date with that
of the "merletti a piombini," which was the earliest Italian cushion or
pillow lace (see lower edging, Pl. II. fig. 3).
The many varieties of needlepoint and pillow laces will be touched on
under the heading allotted to each of these methods of making lace.
Here, however, the general circumstances of their genesis may be briefly
alluded to. The activity in cord and braid-making and in the particular
sorts of ornamental needlework already mentioned clearly postulated such
special labour as was capable of being converted into lace-making. And
from the 16th century onwards the stimulus to the industry in Europe was
afforded by regular trade demand, coupled with the exertions of those
who encouraged their dependents or protegés to give their spare time to
remunerative home occupations. Thus the origin and perpetuation of the
industry have come to be associated with the women folk of peasants and
fishermen in circumstances which present little dissimilarity whether in
regard to needle lace workers now making lace in whitewashed cottages
and cabins at Youghal and Kenmare in the south of Ireland, or those who
produced their "punti in aria" during the 16th century about the lagoons
of Venice, or Frenchwomen who made the sumptuous "Points de France" at
Alençon and elsewhere in the 17th and 18th centuries; or pillow lace
workers to be seen at the present day at little seaside villages tucked
away in Devonshire dells, or those who were engaged more than four
hundred years ago in "merletti a piombini" in Italian villages or on
"Dentelles au fuseau" in Flemish lowlands. The ornamental character,
however, of these several laces would be found to differ much; but
methods, materials, appliances and opportunities of work would in the
main be alike. As fashion in wearing laces extended, so workers came to
be drawn together into groups by employers who acted as channels for
general trade.[2] Nuns in the past as in the present have also devoted
attention to the industry, often providing in the convent precincts
workrooms not only for peasant women to carry out commissions in the
service of the church or for the trade, but also for the purpose of
training children in the art. Elsewhere lace schools have been founded
by benefactors or organized by some leading local lace-maker[3] as much
for trading as for education. In all this variety of circumstance,
development of finer work has depended upon the abilities of the workers
being exercised under sound direction, whether derived through their own
intuitions, or supplied by intelligent and tasteful employers. Where any
such direction has been absent the industry viewed commercially has
suffered, its productions being devoid of artistic effect or
adaptability to the changing tastes of demand.
It is noteworthy that the two widely distant regions of Europe where
pictorial art first flourished and attained high perfection, north Italy
and Flanders, were precisely the localities where lace-making first
became an industry of importance both from an artistic and from a
commercial point of view. Notwithstanding more convincing evidence as to
the earlier development of pillow lace making in Italy the invention of
pillow lace is often credited to the Flemings; but there is no distinct
trace of the time or the locality. In a picture said to exist in the
church of St Gomar at Lierre, and sometimes attributed to Quentin Matsys
(1495), is introduced a girl apparently working at some sort of lace
with pillow, bobbins, &c., which are somewhat similar to the implements
in use in more recent times.[4] From the very infancy of Flemish art an
active intercourse was maintained between the Low Countries and the
great centres of Italian art; and it is therefore only what might be
expected that the wonderful examples of the art and handiwork of Venice
in lace-making should soon have come to be known to and rivalled among
the equally industrious, thriving and artistic Flemings. At the end of
the 16th century pattern-books were issued in Flanders having the same
general character as those published for the guidance of the Venetian
and other Italian lace-makers.
[Illustration: PLATE I.
FIG. 1.--PORTION OF A COVERLET COMPOSED OF SQUARES OF "LACIS" OR
DARNED NETTING, DIVIDED BY LINEN CUT-WORK BANDS.
The squares are worked with groups representing the twelve months, and
with scenes from the old Spanish dramatic story "Celestina." Spanish
or Portuguese. 16th century. (Victoria and Albert Museum.)
FIG. 2.--CORNER OF A BED-COVER OF PILLOW-MADE LACE OF A TAPE-LIKE
TEXTURE WITH CHARACTERISTICS IN THE TWISTED AND PLAITED THREADS
RELATING THE WORK TO ITALIAN "MERLETTI A PIOMBINI" OR EARLY ENGLISH
"BONE LACE."
Possibly made in Flanders or Italy during the early part of the 17th
or at the end of the 16th century. The design includes the Imperial
double-headed eagle of Austria with the ancient crown of the German
Empire. (Victoria and Albert Museum.)]
[Illustration: PLATE II.
FIG. 3.--THREE VANDYKE OR DENTATED BORDERS OF ITALIAN LACE OF THE LATE
16TH CENTURY.
Style usually called "Reticella" on account of the patterns being
based on repeated squares or reticulations. The two first borders are
of needlepoint work; the lower border is of such pillow lace as was
known in Italy as "merletti a piombini."
FIG. 4.--CATHERINE DE MEDICI, WEARING A LINEN UPTURNED COLLAR OF CUT
WORK AND NEEDLEPOINT LACE.
Louvre. About 1540.
FIG. 5.--CORNER OF A NAPKIN OR HANDKERCHIEF BORDERED WITH "RETICELLA"
NEEDLEPOINT LACE IN THE DESIGN OF WHICH ACORNS AND CARNATIONS ARE
MINGLED WITH GEOMETRIC RADIATIONS.
Probably of English early 17th century.
FIG. 6.--AMELIE ELISABETH, COMTESSE DE HAINAULT, WEARING A RUFF OF
NEEDLEPOINT RETICELLA LACE.
By Morcelse. The Hague. About 1600.
FIG. 7.--BORDER OF FLAT NEEDLEPOINT LACE OF FULLER TEXTURE THAN THAT
OF FIG. 3, AND FROM A FREER STYLE OF DESIGN IN WHICH CONVENTIONALIZED
FLORAL FORMS HELD TOGETHER BY SMALL BARS OR TYES ARE USED.
Style called "Punto in Aria," chiefly on account of its independence
of squares or reticulations. Italian. Early 17th century.
(_Figs._ 4 _and_ 6 _by permission of Messrs Braun, Clement & Co.,
Dornach (Alsace), and Paris_.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 24.--Portion of a Flounce of Needlepoint Lace,
French, early 18th century, "Point de France." The honeycomb ground is
considered to be a peculiarity of "Point d'Argentan": some of the
fillings are made in the manner of the "Point d'Alençon" _réseau_.]
France and England were not far behind Venice and Flanders in making
needle and pillow lace. Henry III. of France (1574-1589) appointed a
Venetian, Frederic Vinciolo, pattern maker for varieties of linen needle
works and laces to his court. Through the influence of this fertile
designer the seeds of a taste for lace in France were principally sown.
But the event which _par excellence_ would seem to have fostered the
higher development of the French art of lace-making was the aid
officially given it in the following century by Louis XIV., acting on
the advice of his minister Colbert. Intrigue and diplomacy were put into
action to secure the services of Venetian lace-workers; and by an edict
dated 1665 the lace-making centres at Alençon, Quesnoy, Arras, Reims,
Sedan, Château Thierry, Loudun and elsewhere were selected for the
operations of a company in aid of which the state made a contribution of
36,000 francs; at the same time the importation of Venetian, Flemish and
other laces was strictly forbidden.[5] The edict contained instructions
that the lace-makers should produce all sorts of thread work, such as
those done on a pillow or cushion and with the needle, in the style of
the laces made at Venice, Genoa, Ragusa and other places; these French
imitations were to be called "points de France." By 1671 the Italian
ambassador at Paris writes, "Gallantly is the minister Colbert on his
way to bring the 'lavori d'aria' to perfection." Six years later an
Italian, Domenigo Contarini, alludes to the "punto in aria," "which the
French can now do to admiration." The styles of design which emanated
from the chief of the French lace centre, Alençon, were more fanciful
and less severe than the Venetian, and it is evident that the Flemish
lace-makers later on adopted many of these French patterns for their own
use. The provision of French designs (fig. 24) which owes so much to the
state patronage, contrasts with the absence of corresponding provision
in England and was noticed early in the 18th century by Bishop Berkeley.
"How," he asks, "could France and Flanders have drawn so much money from
other countries for figured silk, lace and tapestry, if they had not had
their academies of design?"
The humble endeavours of peasantry in England (which could boast of no
schools of design), Germany, Sweden, Russia and Spain could not result
in work of so high artistic pretension as that of France and Flanders.
In the 18th century good lace was made in Devonshire, but it is only in
recent years that to some extent the hand lace-makers of England and
Ireland have become impressed with the necessity of well-considered
designs for their work. Pillow lace making under the name of "bone lace
making" was pursued in the 17th century in Buckinghamshire,
Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, and in 1724 Defoe refers to the
manufacture of bone lace in which villagers were "wonderfully exercised
and improved within these few years past." "Bone" lace dates from the
17th century in England and was practically the counterpart of Flemish
"dentelles au fuseau," and related also to the Italian "merletti a
piombini" (see Pl. fig. 10). In Germany, Barbara Uttmann, a native of
Nuremberg, instructed peasants of the Harz mountains to twist and plait
threads in 1561. She was assisted by certain refugees from Flanders. A
sort of "purling" or imitation of the Italian "merletti a piombini" was
the style of work produced then.
Lace of comparatively simple design has been made for centuries in
villages of Andalusia as well as in Spanish conventual establishments.
The "point d'Espagne," however, appears to have been a commercial name
given by French manufacturers of a class of lace made in France with
gold or silver threads on the pillow and greatly esteemed by Spaniards
in the 17th century. No lace pattern-books have been found to have been
published in Spain. The needle-made laces which came out of Spanish
monasteries in 1830, when these institutions were dissolved, were mostly
Venetian needle-made laces. The lace vestments preserved at the
cathedral at Granada hitherto presumed to be of Spanish work are
verified as being Flemish of the 17th century (similar in style to Pl.
fig. 14). The industry is not alluded to in Spanish ordinances of the
15th, 16th or 17th centuries, but traditions which throw its origin back
to the Moors or Saracens are still current in Seville and its
neighbourhood, where a twisted and knotted arrangement of fine cords is
often worked[6] under the name of "Morisco" fringe, elsewhere called
macramé lace. Black and white silk pillow laces, or "blondes," date from
the 18th century. They were made in considerable quantity in the
neighbourhood of Chantilly, and imported for mantillas by Spain, where
corresponding silk lace making was started. Although after the 18th
century the making of silk laces more or less ceased at Chantilly and
the neighbourhood, the craft is now carried on in Normandy--at Bayeux
and Caen--as well as in Auvergne, which is also noted for its simple
"torchon" laces. Silk pillow lace making is carried on in Spain,
especially at Barcelona. The patterns are almost entirely imitations
from 18th-century French ones of a large and free floral character.
Lace-making is said to have been promoted in Russia through the
patronage of the court, after the visit of Peter the Great to Paris in
the early days of the 18th century. Peasants in the districts of
Vologda, Balakhua (Nijni-Novgorod), Bieleff (Tula) and Mzensk (Orel)
make pillow laces of simple patterns. Malta is noted for producing a
silk pillow lace of black or white, or red threads, chiefly of patterns
in which repetitions of circles, wheels and radiations of shapes
resembling grains of wheat are the main features. This characteristic of
design, appearing in white linen thread laces of similar make which have
been identified as Genoese pillow laces of the early 17th century,
reappears in Spanish and Paraguayan work. Pillow lace in imitation of
Maltese, Buckinghamshire and Devonshire laces is made to a small extent
in Ceylon, in different parts of India and in Japan. A successful effort
has also been made to re-establish the industry in the island of Burano
near Venice, and pillow and needlepoint lace of good design is made
there.
At present the chief sources of hand-made lace are France, Belgium,
Ireland and England.
France is faithful to her traditions in maintaining a lively and
graceful taste in lace-making. Fashion of late years has called for
ampler and more boldly effective laces, readily produced with both
braids and cords and far less intricate needle or pillow work than was
required for the dainty and smaller laces of earlier date.
[Illustration: FIG. 25.--Collar and Berthe of Irish Crochet Lace.]
[Illustration: FIG. 26.--Collar of Irish Crochet Lace.]
In Belgium the social and economic conditions are, as they have been in
the past, more conducive and more favourable than elsewhere to
lace-making at a sufficiently remunerative rate of wages. The production
of hand-made laces in Belgium was in 1900 greater than that of France.
The principal modern needle-made lace of Belgium is the "Point de Gaze";
"Duchesse" and Bruges laces are the chief pillow-made laces; whilst
"Point Appliqué" and "Plat Appliqué" are frequently the results not only
of combining needle-made and pillow work, but also of using them in
conjunction with machine-made net. Ireland is the best producer of that
substantial looped-thread work known as crochet (see figs. 25, 26, 27),
which must be regarded as a hand-made lace fabric although not
classifiable as a needlepoint or pillow lace. It is also quite distinct
in character from pseudo-laces, which are really embroideries with a
lace-like appearance, e.g. embroideries on net, cut and embroidered
cambrics and fine linen. For such as these Ireland maintains a
reputation in its admirable Limerick and Carrickmacross laces, made not
only in Limerick and Carrickmacross, but also in Kinsale, Newry,
Crossmaglen and elsewhere. The demand from France for Irish crochet is
now far beyond the supply, a condition which leads not only to the rapid
repetition by Irish workers of old patterns, but tends also to a gradual
debasement of both texture and ornament. Attempts have been made to
counteract this tendency, with some success, as the specimens of Irish
crochet in figs. 25, 26 and 27 indicate.
[Illustration: PLATE III.
FIG. 8.--MARY, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE, WEARING A COIF AND CUFFS OF
RETICELLA LACE.
National Portrait Gallery. Dated 1614.
FIG. 9.--HENRI II., DUC DE MONTMORENCY, WEARING A FALLING LACE COLLAR.
By LE NAIN. Louvre. About 1628.
(_By permission of Messrs Braun, Clement & Co., Dornach (Alsace), and
Paris_.)
FIG. 10.--SCALLOPPED COLLAR OF TAPE-LIKE PILLOW-MADE LACE.
Possibly of English early 17th-century work. Its texture is typical of
a development in pillow-lace-making later than that of the lower edge
of "merletti a piombini" in Pl. II. fig. 3.
FIG. 11.--JAMES II. WEARING A JABOT AND CUFFS OF RAISED NEEDLEPOINT
LACE.
By RILEY. National Portrait Gallery. About 1685.
FIG. 12.--JABOT OF NEEDLEPOINT LACE WORKED PARTLY IN RELIEF, AND
USUALLY KNOWN AS "GROS POINT DE VENISE."
Middle of 17th century. Conventional scrolling stems with off-shooting
pseudo-blossoms and leafs are specially characteristic.
(_Figs._ 8 _and_ 11, _photo by Emery Walker_.)]
[Illustration: PLATE IV.
FIG. 13.--MME VERBIEST, WEARING PILLOW-MADE LACE _À RÉSEAU_.
From the family group by GONZALES COQUER. Buckingham Palace. About
1664.
(_By permission of Messrs Braun, Clement & Co., Dornach (Alsace), and
Paris_.)
FIG. 14.--PIECE OF PILLOW-MADE LACE USUALLY KNOWN AS "POINT DE
FLANDRES À BRIDES."
Of the middle of the 17th century, the designs for which were often
adaptations from those made for such needlepoint lace as that of the
Jabot in fig. 12.
FIG. 15.--PRINCESS MARIA TERESA STUART, WEARING A FLOUNCE OR TABLIER
OF LACE SIMILAR TO THAT IN FIG. 17. Dated 1695.
From a group by LARGILLIERE. National Portrait Gallery. (_Photo by
Emery Walker_.)
FIG. 16.--FLOUNCE OF PILLOW-MADE LACE _À RÉSEAU_.
Flemish, of the middle of the 17th century. This lace is usually
thought to be the earliest type of "Point d'Angleterre" in
contradistinction to the "Point de Flandres" (fig. 14).
FIG. 17--VERY DELICATE NEEDLEPOINT LACE WITH CLUSTERS OF SMALL RELIEF
WORK.
Venetian, middle of the 17th century, and often called "rose-point
lace," and sometimes "Point de Neige."]
[Illustration: FIG. 27.--Lady's Sleeve of Irish Crochet Lace.]
An appreciable amount of pillow-made lace is annually supplied from
Devonshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and Northampton, but it is
bought almost wholly for home use. The English laces are made almost
entirely in accordance with the precedents of the 19th century--that is
to say, in definite lengths and widths, as for borders, insertions and
flounces, although large shaped articles, such as panels for dresses,
long sleeves complete skirts, jackets, blouses, and fancifully shaped
collars of considerable dimensions have of late been freely made
elsewhere. To make such things entirely of lace necessitates many
modifications in the ordinary methods; the English lace-workers are slow
to adapt their work in the manner requisite, and hence are far behind in
the race to respond to the fashionable demand. No countries succeed so
well in promptly answering the variable call of fashion as France and
Belgium.
As regards trade in lace, America probably buys more from Belgium than
from France; France and England come next as purchasers of nearly
equal quantities, after which come Russia and Italy.
The greatest amount of lace now made is that which issues from
machines in England, France and Germany. The total number of persons
employed in the lace industry in England in 1871 was 49,370, and in
1901 about 34,929, of whom not more than 5000 made lace by hand.
The early history[7] of the lace-making machine coincides with that of
the stocking frame, that machine having been adapted about the year 1768
for producing open-looped fabrics which had a net-like appearance. About
1786 frames for making point nets by machinery first appear at Mansfield
and later at Ashbourne and Nottingham and soon afterwards modifications
were introduced into such frames in order to make varieties of meshes in
the point nets which were classed as figured nets. In 1808 and 1809 John
Heathcoat of Nottingham obtained patents for machines for making bobbin
net with a simpler and more readily produced mesh than that of the point
net just mentioned. For at least thirty years thousands of women had
been employed in and about Nottingham in the embroidery of simple
ornament on net. In 1813 John Leavers began to improve the figured net
weaving machines above mentioned, and from these the lace-making
machines in use at the present time were developed. But it was the
application of the celebrated Jacquard apparatus to such machines that
enabled manufacturers to produce all sorts of patterns in thread-work in
imitation of the patterns for hand-made lace. A French machine called
the "dentellière" was devised (see La Nature for the 3rd of March 1881),
and the patterns produced by it were of plaited threads. The expense,
however, attending the production of plaited lace by the "dentellière"
is as great as that of pillow lace made by the hand, and so the machine
has not succeeded for ordinary trade purposes. More successful results
have been secured by the new patent circular lace machine of Messrs.
Birkin & Co. of Nottingham, the productions of which, all of simple
design, cannot be distinguished from hand-made pillow lace of the same
style (see figs. 57, 58, 59).
Before dealing with technical details in processes of making lace
whether by hand or by the machine, the component parts of different
makes of lace may be considered. These are governed by the ornaments or
patterns, which may be so designed, as they were in the earlier laces,
that the different component parts may touch one another without any
intervening groundwork. But as a wish arose to vary the effect of the
details in a pattern ground-works were gradually developed and at first
consisted of links or ties between the substantial parts of the pattern.
The bars or ties were succeeded by grounds of meshes, like nets.
Sometimes the substantial parts of a pattern were outlined with a single
thread or by a strongly marked raised edge of buttonhole-stitched or of
plaited work. Minute fanciful devices were then introduced to enrich
various portions of the pattern. Some of the heavier needle-made laces
resemble low relief carving in ivory, and the edges of the relief
portions are often decorated with clusters of small loops. For the most
part all this elaboration was brought to a high pitch of variety and
finish by French designers and workers; and French terms are more usual
in speaking of details in laces. Thus the solid part of the pattern is
called the _toilé_ or clothing, the links or ties are called _brides_,
the meshed grounds are called _réseaux_, the outline to the edges of a
pattern is called _cordonnet_ or _brodé_, the insertions of fanciful
devices _modes_, the little loops _picots_. These terms are applicable
to the various portions of laces made with the needle, on the pillow or
by the machine.
The sequence of patterns in lace (which may be verified upon referring
to figs. 1 to 23) is roughly as follows. From about 1540 to 1590 they
were composed of geometric forms set within squares, or of crossed and
radiating line devices, resulting in a very open fabric, stiff and
almost wiry in effect, without _brides_ or _réseaux_. From 1590 may be
dated the introduction into patterns of very conventional floral and
even human and animal forms and slender scrolls, rendered in a tape-like
texture, held together by _brides_. To the period from 1620 to 1670
belongs the development of long continuous scroll patterns with
_réseaux_ and _brides_, accompanied in the case of needle-made laces
with an elaboration of details, e.g. _cordonnet_ with massings of
_picots_. Much of these laces enriched with fillings or _modes_ was made
at this time. From 1650 to 1700 the scroll patterns gave way to
arrangements of detached ornamental details (as in Pl. VI. fig. 22): and
about 1700 to 1760 more important schemes or designs were made (as in
Pl. fig. 19, and in fig. 24 in text), into which were introduced
naturalistic renderings of garlands, flowers, birds, trophies,
architectural ornament and human figures. Grounds composed entirely of
varieties of _modes_ as in the case of the _réseau rosacé_ (Pl. V. fig.
21) were sometimes made then. From 1760 to 1800 small details consisting
of bouquets, sprays of flowers, single flowers, leaves, buds, spots and
such like were adopted, and sprinkled over meshed grounds, and the
character of the texture was gauzy and filmy (as in figs. 40 and 42).
Since that time variants of the foregoing styles of pattern and textures
have been used according to the bent of fashion in favour of simple or
complex ornamentation, or of stiff, compact or filmy textures.
[Illustration: FIG. 28.]
[Illustration: FIG. 29.]
_Needlepoint Lace._--The way in which the early Venetian "punto in aria"
was made corresponds with that in which needlepoint lace is now worked.
The pattern is first drawn upon a piece of parchment. The parchment is
then stitched to two pieces of linen. Upon the leading lines drawn on
the parchment a thread is laid, and fastened through to the parchment
and linen by means of stitches, thus constructing a skeleton thread
pattern (see left-hand part of fig. 30). Those portions which are to be
represented as the "clothing" or _toilé_ are usually worked as indicated
in the enlarged diagram (fig. 29), and then edged as a rule with
buttonhole stitching (fig. 28). Between these _toilé_ portions of the
pattern are worked ties (_brides_) or meshes (_réseaux_), and thus the
various parts united into one fabric are wrought on to the face of the
parchment pattern and reproducing it (see right-hand part of fig. 30). A
knife is passed between the two pieces of linen at the back of the
parchment, cutting the stitches which have passed through the parchment
and linen, and so releasing the lace itself from its pattern parchment.
In the earlier stages, the lace was made in lengths to serve as
insertions (_passements_) and also in vandykes (_dentelles_) to serve as
edgings. Later on insertions and vandykes were made in one piece. All of
such were at first of a geometric style of pattern (Pl. figs. 3-5 and
6).
[Illustration: FIG. 30.--Parchment Pattern showing work in progress: the
more complete lace is on the right half of the pattern.]
[Illustration: FIG. 31.]
Following closely upon them came the freer style of design already
mentioned, without and then with links or ties--_brides_--interspersed
between the various details of the patterns (Pl. II. fig. 7), which were
of flat tape-like texture. In elaborate specimens of this flat point
lace some lace workers occasionally used gold thread with the white
thread. These flat laces ("Punto in Aria") are also called "flat
Venetian point." About 1640 "rose (raised) point" laces began to be made
(Pl. III. fig. 12). They were done in relief and those of bold design
with stronger reliefs are called "gros point de Venise." Lace of this
latter class was used for altar cloths, flounces, _jabots_ or neckcloths
which hung beneath the chin over the breast (Pl. III. fig. 11), as well
as for trimming the turned-over tops of jack boots. _Tabliers_ and
ladies' aprons were also made of such lace. In these no regular ground
was introduced. All sorts of minute embellishments, like little knots,
stars and loops or _picots_, were worked on to the irregularly arranged
_brides_ or ties holding the main patterns together, and the more dainty
of these raised laces (Pl. fig. 17) exemplify the most subtle uses to
which the buttonhole stitch appears capable of being put in making
ornaments. But about 1660 came laces with _brides_ or ties arranged in a
honeycomb reticulation or regular ground. To them succeeded lace in
which the compact relief gave place to daintier and lighter material
combined with a ground of meshes or _réseau_. The needle-made meshes
were sometimes of single and sometimes of double threads. A diagram is
given of an ordinary method of making such meshes (fig. 31). At the end
of the 17th century the lightest of the Venetian needlepoint laces were
made; and this class which was of the filmiest texture is usually known
as "point de Venise à réseau" (Pl. V. fig. 20a). It was contemporary
with the needle-made French laces of Alençon and Argentan[8] that became
famous towards the latter part of the 17th century (Pl. V. fig. 20b).
"Point d'Argentan" has been thought to be especially distinguished on
account of its delicate honeycomb ground of hexagonally arranged
_brides_ (fig. 32), a peculiarity already referred to in certain
antecedent Venetian point laces. Often intermixed with this hexagonal
_brides_ ground is the fine-meshed ground or _réseau_ (fig. 20b), which
has been held to be distinctive of "point d'Alençon." But the styles of
patterns and the methods of working them, with rich variety of
insertions or _modes_, with the _brodé_ or _cordonnet_ of raised
buttonhole stitched edging, are alike in Argentan and Alençon
needle-made laces (Pl. V. fig. 20b and fig. 32). Besides the hexagonal
_brides_ ground and the ground of meshes another variety of grounding
(_réseau rosacé_) was used in certain Alençon designs. This ground
consisted of buttonhole-stitched skeleton hexagons within each of which
was worked a small hexagon of _toilé_ connected with the outer
surrounding hexagon by means of six little ties or _brides_ (Pl. V. fig.
21). Lace with this particular ground has been called "Argentella," and
some writers have thought that it was a specialty of Genoese or Venetian
work. But the character of the work and the style of the floral patterns
are those of Alençon laces. The industry at Argentan was virtually an
offshoot of that nurtured at Alençon, where "lacis," "cut work" and
"vélin" (work on parchment) had been made for years before the
well-developed needle-made "point d'Alençon" came into vogue under the
favouring patronage of the state-aided lace company mentioned as having
been formed in 1665. Madame Despierre in her _Histoire du point
d'Alençon_ gives an interesting and trustworthy account of the industry.
[Illustration: FIG. 32.--Border of Needlepoint Lace made in France about
1740-1750, the clear hexagonal mesh ground, which is compactly stitched,
being usually regarded as characteristic of the point de France made at
Argentan.]
In Belgium, Brussels has acquired some celebrity for needle-made laces.
These, however, are chiefly in imitation of those made at Alençon, but
the _toilé_ is of less compact texture and sharpness in definition of
pattern. Brussels needlepoint lace is often worked with meshed grounds
made on a pillow, and a plain thread is used as a _cordonnet_ for their
patterns instead of a thread overcast with buttonhole stitches as in the
French needlepoint laces. Note the bright sharp outline to the various
ornamental details in Pl. V. fig. 20b.
[Illustration: FIG. 33.--Shirt decorated with Insertions of Flat
Needlepoint Lace. (English, 17th century. Victoria and Albert Museum.)]
[Illustration: PLATE IV.
FIG. 18.--CHARLES GASPARD GUILLAUME DE VINTI-MILLE, WEARING LACE
SIMILAR IN STYLE OF DESIGN SHOWN IN FIG. 19. About 1730.
FIG. 19.--PORTION OF FLOUNCE, NEEDLEPOINT LACE COPIED AT THE BURANO
LACE SCHOOL FROM THE ORIGINAL OF THE SO-CALLED "POINT DE VENISE À
BRIDES PICOTÉES."
17th century. Formerly belonging to Pope Clement XIII., but now the
property of the queen of Italy. The design and work, however, are
indistinguishable from those of important flounces of "Point de
France." The pattern consists of repetitions of two
vertically-arranged groups of fantastic pine-apples and vases with
flowers, intermixed with bold rococo bands and large leaf devices. The
hexagonal meshes of the ground, although similar to the Venetian
"brides picotées," are much akin to the buttonhole stitched ground of
"Point d'Argentan." (Victoria and Albert Museum.)
FIG. 20.
A.--A LAPPET OF "POINT DE VENISE À RÉSEAU."
The conventional character of the pseudo-leaf and floral forms
contrasts with that of the realistic designs of contemporary French
laces. Italian. Early 18th century.
B.--A LAPPET OF FINE "POINT D'ALENÇON." Louis XV. period. The variety
of the fillings of geometric design is particularly remarkable in this
specimen, as is the buttonhole stitched cordonnat or outline to the
various ornamental forms.
FIG. 21.--BORDER OF FRENCH NEEDLEPOINT LACE, WITH GROUND OF "RÉSEAU
ROSACÉ." 18th century.]
[Illustration: PLATE VI.
FIG. 22.--JABOT OR CRAVAT OF PILLOW-MADE LACE. Brussels. Late 17th
century. (Victoria and Albert Museum.)
FIG. 23.--JABOT OR CRAVAT OF PILLOW-MADE LACE OF FANTASTIC FLORAL
DESIGN, THE GROUND OF WHICH IS COMPOSED OF LITTLE FLOWERS AND LEAVES
ARRANGED WITHIN SMALL OPENWORK VERTICAL STRIPS.
Brussels. 18th century. (Victoria and Albert Museum.)]
Needlepoint lace has also been occasionally produced in England. Whilst
the character of its design in the early 17th century was rather more
primitive, as a rule, than that of the contemporary Italian, the method
of its workmanship is virtually the same and an interesting specimen of
English needle-made lace inset into an early 17th-century shirt is
illustrated in fig. 33. Specimens of needle-made work done by English
school children may be met with in samplers of the 17th and 18th
centuries. Needlepoint lace is successfully made at Youghal, Kenmare and
New Ross in Ireland, where of late years attention has been given to the
study of designs for it. The lace-making school at Burano near Venice
produces hand-made laces which are, to a great extent, careful
reproductions of the more celebrated classes of point laces, such as
"punto in aria," "rose point de Venise," "point de Venise à réseau,"
"point d'Alençon," "point d'Argentan" and others. Some good needlepoint
lace is made in Bohemia and elsewhere in the Austrian empire.
_Pillow-made Lace._--Pillow-made lace is built upon no substructure
corresponding with a skeleton thread pattern such as is used for
needlepoint lace, but is the representation of a pattern obtained by
twisting and plaiting threads.
These patterns were never so strictly geometric in style as those
adopted for the earliest point lace making from the antecedent cut linen
and drawn thread embroideries. Curved forms, almost at the outset of
pillow lace, seem to have been found easy of execution (see lower
border, Pl. II. fig. 3); its texture was more lissom and less crisp and
wiry in appearance than that of contemporary needle-made lace. The early
twisted and plaited thread laces, which had the appearance of small
cords merging into one another, were soon succeeded by laces of similar
make but with flattened and broader lines more like fine braids or tapes
(Pl. I. fig. 2, and Pl. fig. 10). But pillow laces of this tapey
character must not be confused with laces in which actual tape or braid
is used. That peculiar class of lace-work does not arise until after the
beginning of the 17th century when the weaving of tape is said to have
commenced in Flanders. In England this sort of tape-lace dates no
farther back than 1747, when two Dutchmen named Lanfort were invited by
an English firm to set up tape looms in Manchester.
[Illustration: FIG. 34.--Diagram showing six Bobbins in use.]
The process by which lace is made on the pillow is roughly and briefly
as follows. A pattern is first drawn upon a piece of paper or parchment.
It is then pricked with holes by a skilled "pattern pricker," who
determines where the principal pins shall be stuck for guiding the
threads. This pricked pattern is then fastened to the pillow. The pillow
or cushion varies in shape in different countries. Some lace-makers use
a circular pad, backed with a flat board, in order that it may be placed
upon a table and easily moved. Other lace-workers use a well-stuffed
round pillow or short bolster, flattened at the two ends, so that they
may hold it conveniently on their laps. From the upper part of pillow
with the pattern fastened on it hang the threads from the bobbins. The
bobbin threads thus hang across the pattern. Fig. 34 shows the
commencement, for instance, of a double set of three-thread plaitings.
The compact portion in a pillow lace has a woven appearance (fig. 35).
[Illustration: FIG. 35.]
About the middle of the 17th century pillow lace of formal scroll
patterns somewhat in imitation of those for point lace was made, chiefly
in Flanders. The earlier of these had grounds of ties or _brides_ and
was often called "point de Flandres" (Pl. fig. 14) in contradistinction
to scroll patterns with a mesh ground, which were called "point
d'Angleterre" (Pl. fig. 16). Into Spain and France much lace from Venice
and Flanders was imported as well as into England, where from the 16th
century the manufacture of the simple pattern "bone lace" by peasants in
the midland and southern counties was still being carried on. In Charles
II.'s time its manufacture was threatened with extinction by the
preference given to the more artistic and finer Flemish laces. The
importation of the latter was accordingly prohibited. Dealers in Flemish
lace sought to evade the prohibitions by calling certain of their laces
"point d'Angleterre," and smuggling them into England. But smuggling was
made so difficult that English dealers were glad to obtain the services
of Flemish lace-makers and to induce them to settle in England. It is
from some such cause that the better 17th- and 18th-century English
pillow laces bear resemblance to pillow laces of Brussels, of Mechlin
and of Valenciennes.
[Illustration: FIG. 36.--Border of English Pillow-made (Devonshire) Lace
in the style of a Brussels design of the middle of the 18th century.]
[Illustration: FIG. 37--Border of English (Bucks. or Beds.) Pillow-made
Lace in the Style of a Mechlin design of the latter part of the 18th
century.]
As skill in the European lace-making developed soon after the middle of
the 17th century, patterns and particular plaitings came to be
identified with certain localities. Mechlin, for instance, enjoyed a
high reputation for her productions. The chief technical features of
this pillow lace lie in the plaiting of the meshes, and the outlining of
the clothing or _toilé_ with a thread _cordonnet_. The ordinary Mechlin
mesh is hexagonal in shape. Four of the sides are of double twisted
threads, two are of four threads plaited three times (fig. 39).
[Illustration: FIG. 38--Border of Pillow-made Lace, Mechlin, from a
design similar to such as was used for point d'Alençon of the Louis XV.
period.]
[Illustration: FIG. 39.--Mechlin Mesh.]
In Brussels pillow lace, which has greater variety of design, the mesh
is also hexagonal; but in contrast with the Mechlin mesh whilst four of
its sides are of double-twisted threads the other two are of four
threads plaited four times (fig. 41). The finer specimens of Brussels
lace are remarkable for the fidelity and grace with which the botanical
forms in many of its patterns are rendered (Pl. VI. fig. 23). These are
mainly reproductions or adaptations of designs for point d'Alençon, and
the soft quality imparted to them in the texture of pillow-made lace
contrasts with the harder and more crisp appearance in needlepoint
lace. An example of dainty Brussels pillow lace is given in fig. 42. In
the Brussels pillow lace a delicate modelling effect is often imparted
to the close textures of the flowers by means of pressing them with a
bone instrument which gives concave shapes to petals and leaves, the
edges of which consist in part of slightly raised _cordonnet_ of compact
plaited work.
[Illustration: FIG. 40.--Border of Pillow-made Lace, Mechlin, end of the
18th century.]
[Illustration: FIG. 41.--Enlargement of Brussels Mesh.]
[Illustration: FIG. 42.--Portion of a Wedding Veil, 7 ft. 6 in. × 6 ft.
6 in., of Pillow-made Lace, Brussels, late 18th century. The design
consists of light leafy garlands of orange blossoms and other flowers
daintily festooned. Little feathery spirals and stars are powdered over
the ground, which is of Brussels _vrai réseau_. In the centre upon a
more open ground of pillow-made hexagonal _brides_ is a group of two
birds, one flying towards the other which appears ready to take wing
from its nest; an oval frame containing two hearts pierced by an arrow,
and a hymeneal torch. Throughout this veil is a profusion of pillow
renderings of various _modes_, the _réseau rosacé_, star devices, &c.
The ornamental devices are partly applied and partly worked into the
ground (Victoria and Albert Museum).]
Honiton pillow lace resembles Brussels lace, but in most of the English
pillow laces (Devonshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire) the _réseau_ is
of a simple character (fig. 43). As a rule, English lace is made with a
rather coarser thread than that used in the older Flemish laces. In real
Flemish Valenciennes lace there are no twisted sides to the mesh; all
are closely plaited (fig. 44) and as a rule the shape of the mesh is
diamond but without the openings as shown in fig. 44. No outline or
_cordonnet_ to define the pattern is used in Valenciennes lace (see fig.
45). Much lace of the Valenciennes type (fig. 54) is made at Ypres.
Besides these distinctive classes of pillow-like laces, there are others
in which equal care in plaiting and twisting threads is displayed,
though the character of the design is comparatively simple, as for
instance in ordinary pillow laces from Italy, from the Auvergne, from
Buckinghamshire, or rude and primitive as in laces from Crete, southern
Spain and Russia. Pillow lace-making in Crete is now said to be extinct.
The laces were made chiefly of silk. The patterns in many specimens are
outlined with one, two or three bright-coloured silken threads.
Uniformity in simple character of design may also be observed in many
Italian, Spanish, Bohemian, Swedish and Russian pillow laces (see the
lower edge of fig. 46).
[Illustration: FIG. 43.]
[Illustration: FIG. 44.]
[Illustration: FIG. 45.--Lappet of delicate Pillow-made Lace,
Valenciennes, about 1750. The peculiarity of Valenciennes lace is the
filmy cambric-like texture and the absence of any cordonnet to define
the separate parts of the ornament such as is used in needlepoint lace
of Alençon, and in pillow Mechlin and Brussels lace.]
_Guipure._--This name is often applied to needlepoint and pillow laces
in which the ground consists of ties or _brides_, but it more properly
designates a kind of lace or "passementerie," made with gimp of fine
wires whipped round with silk, and with cotton thread. An earlier kind
of gimp was formed with "Cartisane," a little strip of thin parchment or
vellum covered with silk, gold or silver thread. These stiff gimp
threads, formed into a pattern, were held together by stitches worked
with the needle. Gold and silver thread laces have been usually made on
the pillow, though gold thread has been used with fine effect in
17th-century Italian needlepoint laces.
[Illustration: FIG. 46.--Border to a Cloth. The wide part bearing the
double-headed eagle of Russia is of drawn thread embroidery: the
scalloped edging is of Russian pillow-made lace, though the style of its
pattern is often seen in pillow laces made by peasants in Danubian
provinces as well as in the south of Spain.]
[Illustration: FIG. 47.]
[Illustration: FIG. 48.]
[Illustration: FIG. 49.--Section of Lace Machine.]
[Illustration: FIG. 50.--Machine-made Lace in imitation of 16th-century
Needlepoint "Reticella" Lace.]
[Illustration: FIG. 51.--Border of Machine-made Lace in the style of
17th-century Pillow Guipure Lace.]
[Illustration: FIG. 52.--Border of Machine-made Lace in imitation of
17th-century Pillow Lace.]
[Illustration: FIG. 53.--Machine-made Trimming Border in imitation of
Irish Crochet Lace.]
[Illustration: FIG. 54.--A Piece of Hand-made Pillow Lace, Belgian
(Ypres), 20th century. (The machine imitation is given in fig. 55.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 55.--Machine-made Lace in imitation of the Hand-made
Specimen of fig. 54. (Nottingham, 20th century.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 56.--Small Borders (a) Hand-made and (b)
Machine-made Lace Valenciennes. (Nottingham, 20th century.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 57.--Specimen of Hand-made Pillow Lace.]
[Illustration: FIG. 58.--Specimen of Machine-made Lace in which the
twisting and plaiting of the threads are identical with those of the
hand-made specimen of fig. 57. (Nottingham, 20th century.)]
_Machine-made Lace._--We have already seen that a technical peculiarity
in making needlepoint lace is that a single thread and needle are alone
used to form the pattern, and that the buttonhole stitch and other
loopings which can be worked by means of a needle and thread mark a
distinction between lace made in this manner and lace made on the
pillow. For the process of pillow lace making a series of threads are in
constant employment, plaited and twisted the one with another. A
buttonhole stitch is not producible by it. The Leavers lace machine does
not make either a buttonhole stitch or a plait. An essential principle
of this machine-made work is that the threads are twisted together as in
stocking net. The Leavers lace machine is that generally in use at
Nottingham and Calais. French ingenuity has developed improvements in
this machine whereby laces of delicate thread are made; but as fast as
France makes an improvement England follows with another, and both
countries virtually maintain an equal position in this branch of
industry. The number of threads brought into operation in a Leavers
machine is regulated by the pattern to be produced, the threads being of
two sorts, beam or warp threads and bobbin or weft threads. Upwards of
8880 are sometimes used, sixty pieces of lace being made simultaneously,
each piece requiring 148 threads--100 beam threads and 48 bobbin
threads. The ends of both sets of threads are fixed to a cylinder upon
which as the manufacture proceeds the lace becomes wound. The supply of
the beam or warp threads is held upon reels, and that of the bobbins or
weft threads is held in bobbins. The beam or warp thread reels are
arranged in frames or trays beneath the stage, above which and between
it and the cylinder the twisting of the bobbin or weft with beam or warp
threads takes place. The bobbins containing the bobbin or weft threads
are flattened in shape so as to pass conveniently between the stretched
beam or warp threads. Each bobbin can contain about 120 yds. of thread.
By most ingenious mechanism varying degrees of tension can be imparted
to warp and weft threads as required. As the bobbins or weft threads
pass like pendulums between the warp threads the latter are made to
oscillate, thus causing them to become twisted with the bobbin threads.
As the twistings take place, combs passing through both warp and weft
threads compress the twistings. Thus the texture of the clothing or
_toilé_ in machine-made lace may generally be detected by its ribbed
appearance, due to the compressed twisted threads. Figs. 47 and 48 are
intended to show effects obtained by varying the tensions of weft and
warp threads. For instance, if the weft, as threads b, b, b, b in fig.
47, be tight and the warp thread slack, the warp thread a will be
twisted upon the weft threads. But if the warp thread a be tight and the
weft threads b, b, b, b, be slack, as in fig. 48, then the weft threads
will be twisted on the warp thread. At the same time the twisting in
both these cases arises from the conjunction of movements given to the
two sets of threads, namely, an oscillation or movement from side to
side of the beam or warp threads, and the swinging or pendulum-like
movement of the bobbin or weft threads between the warp threads. Fig. 49
is a diagram of a sectional elevation of a lace machine representing its
more essential parts. E is the cylinder or beam upon which the lace is
rolled as made, and upon which the ends of both warp and weft threads
are fastened at starting. Beneath are w, w, w, a series of trays or
beams, one above the other, containing the reels of the supplies of warp
threads; c, c represent the slide bars for the passage of the bobbin b
with its thread from k to k, the landing bars, one on each side of the
rank of warp threads; s, t are the combs which take it in turns to press
together the twistings as they are made. The combs come away clear from
the threads as soon as they have pressed them together and fall into
positions ready to perform their pressing operations again. The
contrivances for giving each thread a particular tension and movement at
a certain time are connected with an adaptation of the Jacquard system
of pierced cards. The machine lace pattern drafter has to calculate how
many holes shall be punched in a card, and to determine the position of
such holes. Each hole regulates the mechanism for giving movement to a
thread. Fig. 54 displays a piece of hand-made Valenciennes (Ypres) lace
and fig. 55 a corresponding piece woven by the machine. The latter shows
the advantage that can be gained by using very fine gauge machines, thus
enabling a very close imitation of the real lace to be made by securing
a very open and clear _réseau_ or net, such as would be made on a coarse
machine, and at the same time to keep the pattern fine and solid and
standing out well from the net, as is the case with the real lace, which
cannot be done by using a coarse gauge machine. In this example the
machine used is a 16 point (that is 32 carriages to the inch), and the
ground is made half gauge, that is 8 point, and the weaving is made the
full gauge of the machine, that is 16 point. Fig. 56 gives other
examples of hand- and machine-made Valenciennes lace. The machine-made
lace (b) imitating the real (a) is made on a 14-point machine (that is
28 carriages to the inch), the ground being 7 point and the pattern
being full gauge or 14 point. Although the principle in these examples
of machine work is exactly the same, in so far that they use half gauge
net and full gauge clothing to produce the contrast as mentioned above,
the fabrication of these two examples is quite different, that in fig.
55 being an example of tight bobbins or weft, and slack warp threads as
shown in fig. 47. Whereas the example in fig. 56 is made with slack
bobbins or weft threads and tight warp threads as in fig. 48. In fig. 57
is a piece of hand-made lace of stout thread, very similar to much Cluny
lace made in the Auvergne and to the Buckinghamshire "Maltese" lace.
Close to it are specimens of lace (figs. 58 and 59) made by the new
patent circular lace machine of Messrs Birkin of Nottingham. This
machine although very slow in production actually reproduces the real
lace, at a cost slightly below that of the hand-made lace. In another
branch of lace-making by machinery, mechanical ingenuity, combined with
chemical treatment, has led to surprising results (figs. 53 and 50).
Swiss, German and other manufacturers use machines in which a principle
of the sewing-machine is involved. A fine silken tissue is thereby
enriched with an elaborately raised cotton or thread embroidery. The
whole fabric is then treated with chemical mordants which, whilst
dissolving the silky web, do not attack the cotton or thread embroidery.
A relief embroidery possessing the appearance of hand-made raised
needlepoint lace is thus produced. Figs. 60 and 61 give some idea of
the high quality to which this admirable counterfeit has been brought.
[Illustration: FIG. 59.--Specimens of Machine-made Torchon Lace, in the
same manner as such lace is made on the pillow by hand. (Nottingham,
20th century.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 60.--Machine-made Lace of Modern Design.]
[Illustration: FIG. 61.--Machine-made Lace in imitation of 17th-century
Needlepoint Lace, "Gros point de Venise."]
Collections of hand-made lace chiefly exist in museums and technical
institutions, as for instance the Victoria and Albert Museum in London,
the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, and museums at Lyons, Nuremberg,
Berlin, Turin and elsewhere. In such places the opportunity is presented
of tracing in chronological sequence the stages of pattern and texture
development.
_Literature._--The literature of the art of lace-making is
considerable. The series of 16th- and 17th-century lace pattern-books,
of which the more important are perhaps those by F. Vinciolo (Paris,
1587), Cesare Vecellio (Venice, 1592), and Isabetta Catanea Parasole
(Venice, 1600), not to mention several kindred works of earlier and
later date published in Germany and the Netherlands, supplies a large
field for exploration. Signor Ongania of Venice published a limited
number of facsimiles of the majority of such works. M. Alvin of
Brussels issued a brochure in 1863 upon these patterns, and in the
same year the marquis Girolamo d'Adda contributed two bibliographical
essays upon the same subject to the _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_ (vol. xv.
p. 342 seq., and vol. xvii. p. 421 seq.). In 1864 Cavaliere A. Merli
wrote a pamphlet (with illustrations) entitled _Origine ed uso delle
trine a filo di rete_; Mons F. de Fertiault compiled a brief and
rather fanciful _Histoire de la dentelle_ in 1843, in which he
reproduced statements to be found in Diderot's _Encyclopédie_,
subsequently quoted by Roland de la Platière. The first _Report of the
Department of Practical Art_ (1853) contains a "Report on Cotton
Print Works and Lace-Making" by Octavius Hudson, and in the first
_Report of the Department of Science and Art_ are some "Observations
on Lace." Reports upon the International Exhibitions of 1851 (London)
and 1867 (Paris), by M. Aubry, Mrs Palliser and others contain
information concerning lace-making. The most important work first
issued upon the history of lace-making is that by Mrs Bury Palliser
(_History of Lace_, 1869). In this work the history is treated rather
from an antiquarian than a technical point of view; and wardrobe
accounts, inventories, state papers, fashionable journals, diaries,
plays, poems, have been laid under contribution with surprising
diligence. A new edition published in 1902 presents the work as
entirely revised, rewritten and enlarged under the editorship of M.
Jourdain and Alice Dryden. In 1875 the Arundel Society brought out
_Ancient Needlepoint and Pillow Lace_, a folio volume of permanently
printed photographs taken from some of the finest specimens of ancient
lace collected for the International Exhibition of 1874. These were
accompanied by a brief history of lace, written from the technical
aspect of the art, by Alan S. Cole. At the same time appeared a bulky
imperial 4to volume by Seguin, entitled _La Dentelle_, illustrated
with wood-cuts and fifty photo-typographical plates. Seguin divides
his work into four sections. The first is devoted to a sketch of the
origin of laces; the second deals with pillow laces, bibliography of
lace and a review of sumptuary edicts; the third relates to
needle-made lace; and the fourth contains an account of places where
lace has been and is made, remarks upon commerce in lace, and upon the
industry of lace makers. Without sufficient conclusive evidence Seguin
accords to France the palm for having excelled in producing
practically all the richer sorts of laces, notwithstanding that both
before and since the publication of his otherwise valuable work, many
types of them have been identified as being Italian in origin.
Descriptive catalogues are issued of the lace collections at South
Kensington Museum, at the Science and Art Museum, Dublin, and at the
Industrial Museum, Nuremberg. In 1881 a series of four Cantor Lectures
on the art of lace-making were delivered before the Society of Arts by
Alan S. Cole.
_A Technical History of the Manufacture of Venetian Laces_, by G. M.
Urbani de Gheltof, with plates, was translated by Lady Layard, and
published at Venice by Signor Ongania. The _History of Machine-wrought
Hosiery and Lace Manufacture_ (London, 1867), by Felkin, has already
been referred to. There is also a technological essay upon lace made
by machinery, with diagrams of lace stitches and patterns
(_Technologische Studien im sächsischen Erzgebirge_, Leipzig, 1878),
by Hugo Fischer. In 1886 the Libraire Renouard, Paris, published a
_History of Point d'Alençon_, written by Madame G. Despierres, which
gives a close and interesting account of the industry, together with a
list, compiled from local records, of makers and dealers from 1602
onwards.--_Embroidery and Lace: their manufacture and history from the
remotest antiquity to the present day_, by Ernest Lefebure, lace-maker
and administrator of the École des Arts Décoratifs, translated and
enlarged with notes by Alan S. Cole, was published in London in 1888.
It is a well-illustrated handbook for amateurs, collectors and general
readers.--Irish laces made from modern designs are illustrated in a
_Renascence of the Irish Art of Lace-making_, published in 1888
(London).--_Anciennes Dentelles belges formant la collection de feue
madame Augusta Baronne Liedts et données au Musée de Grunthuis à
Bruges_, published at Antwerp in 1889, consists of a folio volume
containing upwards of 181 phototypes--many full size--of fine
specimens of lace. The ascriptions of country and date of origin are
occasionally inaccurate, on account of a too obvious desire to credit
Bruges with being the birthplace of all sorts of lace-work, much of
which shown in this work is distinctly Italian in style.--The
_Encyclopaedia of Needlework_, by Thérèse de Dillmont-Dornach (Alsace,
1891), is a detailed guide to several kinds of embroidery, knitting,
crochet, tatting, netting and most of the essential stitches for
needlepoint lace. It is well illustrated with wood-cuts and process
blocks.--An exhaustive history of Russian lace-making is given in _La
Dentelle russe_, by Madame Sophie Davidoff, published at Leipzig,
1895. Russian lace is principally pillow-work with rather heavy
thread, and upwards of eighty specimens are reproduced by
photo-lithography in this book.
A short account of the best-known varieties of _Point and Pillow
Lace_, by A. M. S. (London, 1899), is illustrated with typical
specimens of Italian, Flemish, French and English laces, as well as
with magnified details of lace, enabling any one to identify the
plaits, the twists and loops of threads in the actual making of the
fabric.--_L'Industrie des tulles et dentelles mécaniques dans le
Pas de Calais_, 1815-1900, by Henri Hénon (Paris, 1900), is an
important volume of over 600 pages of letterpress, interspersed with
abundant process blocks of the several kinds of machine nets and laces
made at Calais since 1815. It opens with a short account of the Arras
hand-made laces, the production of which is now almost extinct. The
book was sold for the benefit of a public subscription towards the
erection of a statue in Calais to Jacquard, the inventor of the
apparatus by means of which all figured textile fabrics are
manufactured. It is of some interest to note that machine net and
lace-making at Calais owe their origin to Englishmen, amongst whom "le
sieur R. Webster arrivé à St Pierre-les-Calais en Décembre, 1816,
venant d'Angleterre, est l'un des premiers qui ont établi dans la
communauté une fabrique de tulles," &c. _Lace-making in the Midlands:
Past and Present_, by C. C. Channer and M. E. Roberts (London, 1900)
upon the lace-making industry in Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and
Northamptonshire contains many illustrations of laces made in these
counties from the 17th century to the present time. _Musée
rétrospectif. Dentelles à l'exposition universelle internationale de
1900 à Paris. Rapport de Mons. E. Lefebvre_ contains several good
illustrations, especially of important specimens of Point de France of
the 17th and 18th centuries. _Le Point de France et les autres
dentelliers au XVII^e et au XVIII^e siècles_, by Madame Laurence de
Laprade (Paris, 1905), brings together much hitherto scattered
information throwing light upon operations in many localities in
France where the industry has been carried on for considerable
periods. The book is well and usefully illustrated.
See also _Irische Spitzen_ (30 half-tone plates), with a short
historical introduction by Alan S. Cole (Stuttgart, 1902); _Pillow
Lace_, a practical handbook by Elizabeth Mincoff and Margaret S.
Marriage (London, 1907); _The Art of Bobbin Lace_, a practical
text-book of workmanship, &c., by Louisa Tebbs (London, 1907);
_Antiche trine italiane_, by Elisa Ricci (Bergamo, 1908), well
illustrated; _Seven Centuries of Lace_, by Mrs John Hungerford Pollen
(London and New York, 1908), very fully illustrated. (A. S. C.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The prevalence of fashion in the above-mentioned sorts of
embroidery during the 16th century is marked by the number of
pattern-books then published. In Venice a work of this class was
issued by Alessandro Pagannino in 1527; another of a similar nature,
printed by Pierre Quinty, appeared in the same year at Cologne; and
La _Fleur de la science de pourtraicture et patrons de broderie,
façon arabicque et ytalique_, was published at Paris in 1530. From
these early dates until the beginning of the 17th century
pattern-books for embroidery in Italy, France, Germany and England
were published in great abundance. The designs contained in many of
those dating from the early 16th century were to be worked for
costumes and hangings, and consisted of scrolls, arabesques, birds,
animals, flowers, foliage, herbs and grasses. So far, however, as
their reproduction as laces might be concerned, the execution of
complicated work was involved which none but practised lace-workers,
such as those who arose a century later, could be expected to
undertake.
[2] A very complete account of how these conditions began and
developed at Alençon, for instance, is given in Madame Despierre's
_Histoire du Point d'Alençon_ (1886) to which is appended an
interesting and annotated list of merchants, designers and makers of
Point d'Alençon.
[3] _E.g._ The family of Camusat at Alençon from 1602 until 1795.
[4] The picture, however, as Seguin has pointed out, was probably
painted some thirty years later, and by Jean Matsys.
[5] See the poetical skit _Révolte des passements et broderies_,
written by Mademoiselle de la Tousse, cousin of Madame de Sévigné, in
the middle of the 17th century, which marks the favour which foreign
laces at that time commanded amongst the leaders of French fashion.
It is fairly evident too that the French laces themselves, known as
"bisette," "gueuse," "campane" and "mignonette," were small and
comparatively insignificant works, without pretence to design.
[6] Useful information has been communicated to the writer of the
present article on lace by Mrs B. Wishaw of Seville.
[7] See Felkin's _Machine-wrought Hosiery and Lace Manufactures_.
[8] After 1650 the lace-workers at Alençon and its neighbourhood
produced work of a daintier kind than that which was being made by
the Venetians. As a rule the hexagonal _bride_ grounds of Alençon
laces are smaller than similar details in Venetian laces. The average
size of a diagonal taken from angle to angle in an Alençon (or
so-called Argentan) hexagon was about one-sixth of an inch, and each
side of the hexagon was about one-tenth of an inch. An idea of the
minuteness of the work can be formed from the fact that a side of a
hexagon would be overcast with some nine or ten buttonhole stitches.
LACE-BARK TREE, a native of Jamaica, known botanically as _Lagetta
lintearia_, from its native name lagetto. The inner bark consists of
numerous concentric layers of interlacing fibres resembling in
appearance lace. Collars and other articles of apparel have been made of
the fibre, which is also used in the manufacture of whips, &c. The tree
belongs to the natural order Thymelaeaceae, and is grown in hothouses in
Britain.
LACEDAEMON, in historical times an alternative name of LACONIA (q.v.).
Homer uses only the former, and in some passages seems to denote by it
the Achaean citadel, the Therapnae of later times, in contrast to the
lower town Sparta (G. Gilbert, _Studien zur altspartanischen
Geschichte_, Göttingen, 1872, p. 34 foll.). It is described by the
epithets [Greek: koilê] (hollow) and [Greek: kêtôessa] (spacious or
hollow), and is probably connected etymologically with [Greek: lakkos],
_lacus_, any hollow place. Lacedaemon is now the name of a separate
department, which had in 1907 a population of 87,106.
LACÉPÈDE, BERNARD GERMAIN ÉTIENNE DE LA VILLE, COMTE DE (1756-1825),
French naturalist, was born at Agen in Guienne on the 26th of December
1756. His education was carefully conducted by his father, and the early
perusal of Buffon's _Natural History_ awakened his interest in that
branch of study, which absorbed his chief attention. His leisure he
devoted to music, in which, besides becoming a good performer on the
piano and organ, he acquired considerable mastery of composition, two of
his operas (which were never published) meeting with the high approval
of Gluck; in 1781-1785 he also brought out in two volumes his _Poétique
de la musique_. Meantime he wrote two treaties, _Essai sur
l'électricité_ (1781) and _Physique générale et particulière_
(1782-1784), which gained him the friendship of Buffon, who in 1785
appointed him subdemonstrator in the Jardin du Roi, and proposed to him
to become the continuator of his _Histoire naturelle_. This continuation
was published under the titles _Histoire des quadrupèdes ovipares et des
serpents_ (2 vols., 1788-1789) and _Histoire naturelle des reptiles_
(1789). After the Revolution Lacépède became a member of the legislative
assembly, but during the Reign of Terror he left Paris, his life having
become endangered by his disapproval of the massacres. When the Jardin
du Roi was reorganized as the Jardin des Plantes, Lacépède was appointed
to the chair allocated to the study of reptiles and fishes. In 1798 he
published the first volume of _Histoire naturelle des poissons_, the
fifth volume appearing in 1803; and in 1804 appeared his _Histoire des
cétacés_. From this period till his death the part he took in politics
prevented him making any further contribution of importance to science.
In 1799 he became a senator, in 1801 president of the senate, in 1803
grand chancellor of the legion of honour, in 1804 minister of state, and
at the Restoration in 1819 he was created a peer of France. He died at
Épinay on the 6th of October 1825. During the latter part of his life he
wrote _Histoire générale physique et civile de l'Europe_, published
posthumously in 18 vols., 1826.
A collected edition of his works on natural history was published in
1826.
LACEWING-FLY, the name given to neuropterous insects of the families
_Hemerobiidae_ and _Chrysopidae_, related to the ant-lions,
scorpion-flies, &c., with long filiform antennae, longish bodies and two
pairs of large similar richly veined wings. The larvae are short grubs
beset with hair-tufts and tubercles. They feed upon _Aphidae_ or "green
fly" and cover themselves with the emptied skins of their prey.
Lacewing-flies of the genus _Chrysopa_ are commonly called golden-eye
flies.
LA CHAISE, FRANÇOIS DE (1624-1709), father confessor of Louis XIV., was
born at the château of Aix in Forey on the 25th of August 1624, being
the son of Georges d'Aix, seigneur de la Chaise, and of Renée de
Rochefort. On his mother's side he was a grandnephew of Père Coton, the
confessor of Henry IV. He became a novice of the Society of Jesus before
completing his studies at the university of Lyons, where, after taking
the final vows, he lectured on philosophy to students attracted by his
fame from all parts of France. Through the influence of Camille de
Villeroy, archbishop of Lyons, Père de la Chaise was nominated in 1674
confessor of Louis XIV., who intrusted him during the lifetime of Harlay
de Champvallon, archbishop of Paris, with the administration of the
ecclesiastical patronage of the crown. The confessor united his
influence with that of Madame de Maintenon to induce the king to abandon
his liaison with Madame de Montespan. More than once at Easter he is
said to have had a convenient illness which dispensed him from granting
absolution to Louis XIV. With the fall of Madame de Montespan and the
ascendancy of Madame de Maintenon his influence vastly increased. The
marriage between Louis XIV. and Madame de Maintenon was celebrated in
his presence at Versailles, but there is no reason for supposing that
the subsequent coolness between him and Madame de Maintenon arose from
his insistence on secrecy in this matter. During the long strife over
the temporalities of the Gallican Church between Louis XIV. and Innocent
XI. Père de la Chaise supported the royal prerogative, though he used
his influence at Rome to conciliate the papal authorities. He must be
held largely responsible for the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, but
not for the brutal measures applied against the Protestants. He
exercised a moderating influence on Louis XIV.'s zeal against the
Jansenists, and Saint-Simon, who was opposed to him in most matters,
does full justice to his humane and honourable character. Père de la
Chaise had a lasting and unalterable affection for Fénelon, which
remained unchanged by the papal condemnation of the _Maximes_. In spite
of failing faculties he continued his duties as confessor to Louis XIV.
to the end of his long life. He died on the 20th of January 1709. The
cemetery of Père-la-Chaise in Paris stands on property acquired by the
Jesuits in 1826, and not, as is often stated, on property personally
granted to him.
See R. Chantelauze, _Le Père de la Chaize. Études d'histoire
religieuse_ (Paris and Lyons, 1859).
LA CHAISE-DIEU, a town of central France, in the department of Haute
Loire, 29 m. N.N.W. of Le Puy by rail. Pop. (1906) 1203. The town, which
is situated among fir and pine woods, 3500 ft. above the sea, preserves
remains of its ramparts and some houses of the 14th and 15th centuries,
but owes its celebrity to a church, which, after the cathedral of
Clermont-Ferrand, is the most remarkable Gothic building in Auvergne.
The west façade, approached by a flight of steps, is flanked by two
massive towers. The nave and aisles are of equal height and are
separated from the choir by a stone rood screen. The choir, terminating
in an apse with radiating chapel, contains the fine tomb and statue of
Clement VI., carved stalls and some admirable Flemish tapestries of the
early 16th century. There is a ruined cloister on the south side. The
church, which dates from the 14th century, was built at the expense of
Pope Clement VI., and belonged to a powerful Benedictine abbey founded
in 1043. There are spacious monastic buildings of the 18th century. The
abbey was formerly defended by fortifications, the chief survival of
which is a lofty rectangular keep to the south of the choir. Trade in
timber and the making of lace chiefly occupy the inhabitants of the
town.
LA CHALOTAIS, LOUIS RENÉ DE CARADEUC DE (1701-1785), French jurist, was
born at Rennes, on the 6th of March 1701. He was for 60 years procureur
général at the parliament of Brittany. He was an ardent opponent of the
Jesuits; drew up in 1761 for the parliament a memoir on the
constitutions of the Order, which did much to secure its suppression in
France; and in 1763 published a remarkable "Essay on National
Education," in which he proposed a programme of scientific studies as a
substitute for those taught by the Jesuits. The same year began the
conflict between the Estates of Brittany and the governor of the
province, the duc d'Aiguillon (q.v.). The Estates refused to vote the
extraordinary imposts demanded by the governor in the name of the king.
La Chalotais was the personal enemy of d'Aiguillon, who had served him
an ill turn with the king, and when the parliament of Brittany sided
with the Estates, he took the lead in its opposition. The parliament
forbade by decrees the levy of imposts to which the Estates had not
consented. The king annulling these decrees, all the members of the
parliament but twelve resigned (October 1764 to May 1765). The
government considered La Chalotais one of the authors of this affair. At
this time the secretary of state who administered the affairs of the
province, Louis Philypeaux, duc de la Vrillière, comte de
Saint-Florentin (1705-1777), received two anonymous and abusive letters.
La Chalotais was suspected of having written them, and three experts in
handwriting declared that they were by him. The government therefore
arrested him, his son and four other members of the parliament. The
arrest made a great sensation. There was much talk of "despotism."
Voltaire stated that the procureur général, in his prison of Saint Malo,
was reduced, for lack of ink, to write his defence with a toothpick
dipped in vinegar--which was apparently pure legend; but public opinion
all over France was strongly aroused against the government. On the 16th
of November 1765 a commission of judges was named to take charge of the
trial. La Chalotais maintained that the trial was illegal; being
procureur général he claimed the right to be judged by the parliament of
Rennes, or failing this by the parliament of Bordeaux, according to the
custom of the province. The judges did not dare to pronounce a
condemnation on the evidence of experts in handwriting, and at the end
of a year, things remained where they were at the first. Louis XV. then
decided on a sovereign act, and brought the affair before his council,
which without further formality decided to send the accused into exile.
That expedient but increased the popular agitation; _philosophes_,
members of the parliament, patriot Bretons and Jansenists all declared
that La Chalotais was the victim of the personal hatred of the duc
d'Aiguillon and of the Jesuits. The government at last gave way, and
consented to recall the members of the parliament of Brittany who had
resigned. This parliament, when it met again, after the formal
accusation of the duc d'Aiguillon, demanded the recall of La Chalotais.
This was accorded in 1775, and La Chalotais was allowed to transmit his
office to his son. In this affair public opinion showed itself stronger
than the absolutism of the king. The opposition to the royal power
gained largely through it, and it may be regarded as one of the preludes
to the revolution of 1789. La Chalotais, who was personally a violent,
haughty and unsympathetic character, died at Rennes on the 12th of July
1785.
See, besides the _Comptes-Rendus des Constitutions des Jésuites_ and
the _Essai d'éducation nationale_, the _Mémoires de la Chalotais_ (3
vols., 1766-1767). Two works containing detailed bibliographies are
Marion, _La Bretagne et le duc d'Aiguillon_ (Paris, 1893), and B.
Pocquet, _Le Duc d'Aiguillon et La Chalotais_ (Paris, 1901). See also
a controversy between these two authors in the _Bulletin critique_ for
1902.
LA CHARITÉ, a town of central France in the department of Nièvre, on the
right bank of the Loire, 17 m. N.N.W. of Nevers on the
Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée railway. Pop. (1906) 3990. La Charité possesses
the remains of a fine Romanesque basilica, the church of Sainte-Croix,
dating from the 11th and early 12th centuries. The plan consists of a
nave, rebuilt at the end of the 17th century, transept and choir with
ambulatory and side chapels. Surmounting the transept is an octagonal
tower of one story, and a square Romanesque tower of much beauty flanks
the main portal. There are ruins of the ramparts, which date from the
14th century. The manufacture of hosiery, boots and shoes, files and
iron goods, lime and cement and woollen and other fabrics are among the
industries; trade is chiefly in wood and iron.
La Charité owes its celebrity to its priory, which was founded in the
8th century and reorganized as a dependency of the abbey of Cluny in
1052. It became the parent of many priories and monasteries, some of
them in England and Italy. The possession of the town was hotly
contested during the wars of religion of the 16th century, at the end
of which its fortifications were dismantled.
LA CHAUSSÉE, PIERRE CLAUDE NIVELLE DE (1692-1754), French dramatist, was
born in Paris in 1692. In 1731 he published an _Épître à Clio_, a
didactic poem in defence of Lériget de la Faye in his dispute with
Antoine Houdart de la Motte, who had maintained that verse was useless
in tragedy. La Chaussée was forty years old before he produced his first
play, _La Fausse Antipathie_ (1734). His second play, _Le Préjugé à la
mode_ (1735) turns on the fear of incurring ridicule felt by a man in
love with his own wife, a prejudice dispelled in France, according to La
Harpe, by La Chaussée's comedy. _L'École des amis_ (1737) followed, and,
after an unsuccessful attempt at tragedy in _Maximinien_, he returned to
comedy in _Mélanide_ (1741). In _Mélanide_ the type known as _comédie
larmoyante_ is fully developed. Comedy was no longer to provoke
laughter, but tears. The innovation consisted in destroying the sharp
distinction then existing between tragedy and comedy in French
literature. Indications of this change had been already offered in the
work of Marivaux, and La Chaussée's plays led naturally to the domestic
drama of Diderot and of Sedaine. The new method found bitter enemies.
Alexis Piron nicknames the author "_le Révérend Père Chaussée_," and
ridiculed him in one of his most famous epigrams. Voltaire maintained
that the _comédie larmoyante_ was a proof of the inability of the author
to produce either of the recognized kinds of drama, though he himself
produced a play of similar character in _L'Enfant prodigue_. The
hostility of the critics did not prevent the public from shedding tears
nightly over the sorrows of La Chaussée's heroine. _L'École des mères_
(1744) and _La Gouvernante_ (1747) form, with those already mentioned,
the best of his work. The strict moral aims pursued by La Chaussée in
his plays seem hardly consistent with his private preferences. He
frequented the same gay society as did the comte de Caylus and
contributed to the _Recueils de ces messieurs_. La Chaussée died on the
14th of May 1754. Villemain said of his style that he wrote prosaic
verses with purity, while Voltaire, usually an adverse critic of his
work, said he was "_un des premiers après ceux qui ont du génie_."
For the _comédie larmoyante_ see G. Lanson, _Nivelle de la Chaussée et
la comédie larmoyante_ (1887).
LACHES (from Anglo-French _lachesse_, negligence, from _lasche_, modern
_lâche_, unloosed, slack), a term for slackness or negligence, used
particularly in law to signify negligence on the part of a person in
doing that which he is by law bound to do, or unreasonable lapse of time
in asserting a right, seeking relief, or claiming a privilege. Laches is
frequently a bar to a remedy which might have been had if prosecuted in
proper time. Statutes of limitation specify the time within which
various classes of actions may be brought. Apart from statutes of
limitation courts of equity will often refuse relief to those who have
allowed unreasonable time to elapse in seeking it, on the principle
_vigilantibus ac non dormientibus jura subveniunt_.
LACHINE, an incorporated town in Jacques Cartier county, Quebec, Canada,
8 m. W. of Montreal, on Lake St Louis, an expansion of the St Lawrence
river, and at the upper end of the Lachine canal. Pop. (1901) 5561. It
is a station on the Grand Trunk railway and a port of call for steamers
plying between Montreal and the Great Lakes. It is a favourite summer
resort for the people of Montreal. It was named in 1669 in mockery of
its then owner, Robert Cavelier de la Salle (1643-1687), who dreamed of
a westward passage to China. In 1689 it was the scene of a terrible
massacre of the French by the Iroquois.
LACHISH, a town of great importance in S. Palestine, often mentioned in
the Tell el-Amarna tablets. It was destroyed by Joshua for joining the
league against the Gibeonites (Joshua x. 31-33) and assigned to the
tribe of Judah (xv. 39). Rehoboam fortified it (2 Chron. xi. 9). King
Amaziah having fled hither, was here murdered by conspirators (2 Kings
xiv. 19). Sennacherib here conducted a campaign (2 Kings xviii. 13)
during which Hezekiah endeavoured to make terms with him: the campaign
is commemorated by bas-reliefs found in Nineveh, now in the British
Museum (see G. Smith's _History of Sennacherib_, p. 69). It was one of
the last cities that resisted Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. xxxiv. 7). The
meaning of Micah's denunciation (i. 13) of the city is unknown. The
_Onomasticon_ places it 7 m. from Eleutheropolis on the S. road, which
agrees with the generally received identification, Tell el-Hesi, an
important mound excavated for the Palestine Exploration Fund by Petrie
and Bliss, 1890-1893. The name is preserved in a small Roman site in the
neighbourhood, Umm Lakis, which probably represents a later
dwelling-place of the descendants of the ancient inhabitants of the
city.
See W. M. Flinders Petrie, _Tell el-Hesy_, and F. J. Bliss, _A Mound
of many Cities_, both published by the Palestine Exploration Fund.
(R. A. S. M.)
LACHMANN, KARL KONRAD FRIEDRICH WILHELM (1793-1851), German philologist
and critic, was born at Brunswick on the 4th of March 1793. He studied at
Leipzig and Göttingen, devoting himself mainly to philological studies.
In 1815 he joined the Prussian army as a volunteer _chasseur_ and
accompanied his detachment to Paris, but did not encounter the enemy. In
1816 he became an assistant master in the Friedrich Werder gymnasium at
Berlin, and a _privat-docent_ at the university. The same summer he
became one of the principal masters in the Friedrichs-Gymnasium of
Königsberg, where he assisted his colleague, the Germanist Friedrich Karl
Köpke (1785-1865) with his edition of Rudolf von Ems' _Barlaam und
Josaphat_ (1818), and also assisted his friend in a contemplated edition
of the works of Walther von der Vogelweide. In January 1818 he became
professor extraordinarius of classical philology in the university of
Königsberg, and at the same time began to lecture on Old German grammar
and the Middle High German poets. He devoted himself during the following
seven years to an extraordinarily minute study of those subjects, and in
1824 obtained leave of absence in order that he might search the
libraries of middle and south Germany for further materials. In 1825
Lachmann was nominated extraordinary professor of classical and German
philology in the university of Berlin (ordinary professor 1827); and in
1830 he was admitted a member of the Academy of Sciences. The remainder
of his laborious and fruitful life as an author and a teacher was
uneventful. He died on the 13th of March 1851.
Lachmann, who was the translator of the first volume of P. E. Müller's
_Sagabibliothek des skandinavischen Altertums_ (1816), is a figure of
considerable importance in the history of German philology (see Rudolf
von Raumer, _Geschichte der germanischen Philologie_, 1870). In his
"Habilitationsschrift" _Über die ursprüngliche Gestalt des Gedichts
der Nibelunge Not_ (1816), and still more in his review of Hagen's
_Nibelungen_ and Benecke's _Bonerius_, contributed in 1817 to the
_Jenaische Literaturzeitung_ he had already laid down the rules of
textual criticism and elucidated the phonetic and metrical principles
of Middle High German in a manner which marked a distinct advance in
that branch of investigation. The rigidly scientific character of his
method becomes increasingly apparent in the _Auswahl aus den
hochdeutschen Dichtern des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts_ (1820), in the
edition of Hartmann's _Iwein_ (1827), in those of Walther von der
Vogelweide (1827) and Wolfram von Eschenbach (1833), in the papers
"Über das Hildebrandslied," "Über althochdeutsche Betonung und
Verskunst," "Über den Eingang des Parzivals," and "Über drei
Bruchstücke niederrheinischer Gedichte" published in the
_Abhandlungen_ of the Berlin Academy, and in _Der Nibelunge Not und
die Klage_ (1826, 11th ed., 1892), which was followed by a critical
commentary in 1836. Lachmann's _Betrachtungen über Homer's Ilias_,
first published in the _Abhandlungen_ of the Berlin Academy in 1837
and 1841, in which he sought to show that the _Iliad_ consists of
sixteen independent "lays" variously enlarged and interpolated, have
had considerable influence on modern Homeric criticism (see HOMER),
although his views are no longer accepted. His smaller edition of the
New Testament appeared in 1831, 3rd ed. 1846; the larger, in two
volumes, in 1842-1850. The plan of Lachmann's edition, explained by
himself in the _Stud. u. Krit._ of 1830, is a modification of the
unaccomplished project of Bentley. It seeks to restore the most
ancient reading current in Eastern MSS., using the consent of the
Latin authorities (Old Latin and Greek Western Uncials) as the main
proof of antiquity of a reading where the oldest Eastern authorities
differ. Besides _Propertius_ (1816), Lachmann edited _Catullus_
(1829); _Tibullus_ (1829); _Genesius_ (1834); _Terentianus Maurus_
(1836); _Babrius_ (1845); _Avianus_ (1845); _Gaius_ (1841-1842); the
_Agrimensores Romani_ (1848-1852); _Lucilius_ (edited after his death
by Vahlen, 1876); and _Lucretius_ (1850). The last, which was the main
occupation of the closing years of his life, from 1845, was perhaps
his greatest achievement, and has been characterized by Munro as "a
work which will be a landmark for scholars as long as the Latin
language continues to be studied." Lachmann also translated
Shakespeare's sonnets (1820) and _Macbeth_ (1829).
See M. Hertz, _Karl Lachmann, eine Biographie_ (1851), where a full
list of Lachmann's works is given; F. Leo, _Rede zur Säcularfeier K.
Lachmanns_ (1893); J. Grimm, biography in _Kleine Schriften_; W.
Scherer in _Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_, xvii., and J. E. Sandys,
_Hist. of Classical Scholarship_, iii. (1908), pp. 127-131.
LACINIUM, PROMUNTURIUM (mod. Capo delle Colonne), 7 m S.E. of Crotona
(mod. Cotrone); the easternmost point of Bruttii (mod. Calabria). On the
cape still stands a single column of the temple erected to Hera Lacinia,
which is said to have been fairly complete in the 16th century, but to
have been destroyed to build the episcopal palace at Cotrone. It is a
Doric column with capital, about 27 ft. in height. Remains of marble
roof-tiles have been seen on the spot (Livy xlii. 3) and architectural
fragments were excavated in 1886-1887 by the Archaeological Institute of
America. The sculptures found were mostly buried again, but a few
fragments, some decorative terra-cottas and a dedicatory inscription to
Hera of the 6th century B.C., in private possession at Cotrone, are
described by F. von Duhn in _Notizie degli scavi_, 1897, 343 seq. The
date of the erection of the temple may be given as 480-440 B.C.; it is
not recorded by any ancient writer.
See R. Koldewey and O. Puchstein, _Die griechischen Tempel in
Unteritalien und Sicilien_ (Berlin 1899, 41).
LA CIOTAT, a coast town of south-eastern France in the department of
Bouches-du-Rhône, on the west shore of the Bay of La Ciotat, 26 m. S.E.
of Marseilles by rail. Pop. (1906) 10,562. The port is easily accessible
and well sheltered. The large shipbuilding yards and repairing docks of
the Messageries Maritimes Company give employment to between 2000 and
3000 workmen. Fishing and an active coasting trade are carried on; the
town is frequented for sea-bathing. La Ciotat was in ancient times the
port of the neighbouring town of _Citharista_ (now the village of
Ceyreste).
LA CLOCHE, JAMES DE ["Prince James Stuart"] (1644?-1669), a character
who was brought into the history of England by Lord Acton in 1862 (_Home
and Foreign Review_, i. 146-174: "The Secret History of Charles II.").
From information discovered by Father Boero in the archives of the
Jesuits in Rome, Lord Acton averred that Charles II., when a lad at
Jersey, had a natural son, James. The evidence follows. On the 2nd of
April 1668, as the register of the Jesuit House of Novices at Rome
attests, "there entered Jacobus de la Cloche." His baggage was exiguous,
his attire was clerical. He is described as "from the island of Jersey,
under the king of England, aged 24." He possessed two documents in
French, purporting to have been written by Charles II. at Whitehall, on
the 25th of September 1665, and on the 7th of February 1667. In both
Charles acknowledges James to be his natural son, he styles him "James
de la Cloche de Bourg du Jersey," and avers that to recognize him
publicly "would imperil the peace of the kingdoms"--why is not apparent.
A third certificate of birth, in Latin, undated, was from Christina of
Sweden, who declares that James, previously a Protestant, has been
received into the church of Rome at Hamburg (where in 1667-1668 she was
residing) on the 29th of July 1667. The next paper purports to be a
letter from Charles II. of August 3/13 to Oliva, general of the Jesuits.
The king writes, in French, that he has long wished to be secretly
received into the church. He therefore desires that James, his son by a
young lady "of the highest quality," and born to him when he was about
sixteen, should be ordained a priest, come to England and receive him.
Charles alludes to previous attempts of his own to be secretly admitted
(1662). James must be sent secretly to London at once, and Oliva must
say nothing to Christina of Sweden (then meditating a journey to Rome),
and must never write to Charles except when James carries the letter.
Charles next writes on August 29/September 9. He is most anxious that
Christina should not meet James; if she knows Charles's design of
changing his creed she will not keep it secret, and Charles will
infallibly lose his life. With this letter there is another, written
when the first had been sealed. Charles insists that James must not be
accompanied, as novices were, when travelling, by a Jesuit socius or
guardian. Charles's wife and mother have just heard that this is the
rule, but the rule must be broken. James, who is to travel as "Henri de
Rohan," must not come by way of France. Oliva will supply him with
funds. On the back of this letter Oliva has written the draft of his
brief reply to Charles (from Leghorn, October 14, 1668). He merely says
that the bearer, a French gentleman (James spoke only French), will
inform the king that his orders have been executed. Besides these two
letters is one from Charles to James, of date August 4/14. It is
addressed to "Le Prince Stuart," though none of Charles's bastards was
allowed to bear the Stuart name. James is told that he may desert the
clerical profession if he pleases. In that case "you may claim higher
titles from us than the duke of Monmouth." (There was no higher title
save prince of Wales!) If Charles and his brother, the duke of York, die
childless, "the kingdoms belong to you, and parliament cannot legally
oppose you, unless as, at present, they can only elect Protestant
kings." This letter ought to have opened the eyes of Lord Acton and
other historians who accept the myth of James de la Cloche. Charles knew
that the crown of England was not elective, that there was no Exclusion
Act, and that there were legal heirs if he and his brother died without
issue. The last letter of Charles is dated November 18/28, and purports
to have been brought from England to Oliva by James de la Cloche on his
return to Rome. It reveals the fact that Oliva, despite Charles's
orders, did send James by way of France, with a _socius_ or guardian
whom he was to pick up in France on his return to England. Charles says
that James is to communicate certain matters to Oliva, and come back at
once. Oliva is to give James all the money he needs, and Charles will
later make an ample donation to the Jesuits. He acknowledges a debt to
Oliva of £800, to be paid in six months. The reader will remark that the
king has never paid a penny to James or to Oliva, and that Oliva has
never communicated directly with Charles. The truth is that all of
Charles's letters are forgeries. This is certain because in all he
writes frequently as if his mother, Henrietta Maria, were in London, and
constantly in company with him. Now she had left England for France in
1665, and to England she never returned. As the letters--including that
to "Prince Stuart"--are all forged, it is clear that de la Cloche was an
impostor. His aim had been to get money from Oliva, and to pretend to
travel to England, meaning to enjoy himself. He did not quite succeed,
for Oliva sent a socius with him into France. His precautions to avoid a
meeting with Christina of Sweden were necessary. She knew no more of him
than did Charles, and would have exposed him.
The name of James de la Cloche appears no more in documents. He reached
Rome in December 1668, and in January a person calling himself "Prince
James Stuart" appears in Naples, accompanied by a _socius_ styling
himself a French knight of Malta. Both are on their way to England, but
Prince James falls ill and stays in Naples, while his companion departs.
The knight of Malta may be a Jesuit. In Naples, Prince James marries a
girl of no position, and is arrested on suspicion of being a coiner. To
his confessors (he had two in succession) he says that he is a son of
Charles II. Our sources are the despatches of Kent, the English agent at
Naples, and the _Lettere_, vol. iii., of Vincenzo Armanni (1674), who
had his information from one of the confessors of the "Prince." The
viceroy of Naples communicated with Charles II., who disowned the
impostor; Prince James, however, was released, and died at Naples in
August 1669, leaving a wild will, in which he claims for his son, still
unborn, the "apanage" of Monmouth or Wales, "which it is usual to bestow
on natural sons of the king." The son lived till about 1750, a penniless
pretender, and writer of begging letters.
It is needless to pursue Lord Acton's conjectures about later mysterious
appearances of James de la Cloche at the court of Charles, or to discuss
the legend that his mother was a lady of Jersey--or a sister of Charles!
The Jersey myths may be found in _The Man of the Mask_ (1908), by
Monsignor Barnes, who argued that James was the man in the iron mask
(see IRON MASK). Later Monsignor Barnes, who had observed that the
letter of Charles to Prince James Stuart is a forgery, noticed the
impossibility that Charles, in 1668, should constantly write of his
mother as resident in London, which she left for ever in 1665.
Who de la Cloche really was it is impossible to discover, but he was a
bold and successful swindler, who took in, not only the general of the
Jesuits, but Lord Acton and a generation of guileless historians.
(A. L.)
LA CONDAMINE, CHARLES MARIE DE (1701-1774), French geographer and
mathematician, was born at Paris on the 28th of January 1701. He was
trained for the military profession, but turned his attention to science
and geographical exploration. After taking part in a scientific
expedition in the Levant (1731), he became a member with Louis Godin and
Pierre Bouguer of the expedition sent to Peru in 1735 to determine the
length of a degree of the meridian in the neighbourhood of the equator.
His associations with his principals were unhappy; the expedition was
beset by many difficulties, and finally La Condamine separated from the
rest and made his way from Quito down the Amazon, ultimately reaching
Cayenne. His was the first scientific exploration of the Amazon. He
returned to Paris in 1744 and published the results of his measurements
and travels with a map of the Amazon in _Mém. de l'académie des
sciences_, 1745 (English translation 1745-1747). On a visit to Rome La
Condamine made careful measurements of the ancient buildings with a view
to a precise determination of the length of the Roman foot. The journal
of his voyage to South America was published in Paris in 1751. He also
wrote in favour of inoculation, and on various other subjects, mainly
connected with his work in South America. He died at Paris on the 4th of
February 1774.
LACONIA (Gr. [Greek: Lakônikê]), the ancient name of the south-eastern
district of the Peloponnese, of which Sparta was the capital. It has an
area of some 1,048,000 acres, slightly greater than that of
Somersetshire, and consists of three well-marked zones running N. and S.
The valley of the Eurotas, which occupies the centre, is bounded W. by
the chain of Taygetus (mod. Pentedaktylon, 7900 ft.), which starts from
the Arcadian mountains on the N., and at its southern extremity forms
the promontory of Taenarum (Cape Matapan). The eastern portion of
Laconia consists of a far more broken range of hill country, rising in
Mt. Parnon to a height of 6365 ft. and terminating in the headland of
Malea. The range of Taygetus is well watered and was in ancient times
covered with forests which afforded excellent hunting to the Spartans,
while it had also large iron mines and quarries of an inferior bluish
marble, as well as of the famous _rosso antico_ of Taenarum. Far poorer
are the slopes of Parnon, consisting for the most part of barren
limestone uplands scantily watered. The Eurotas valley, however, is
fertile, and produces at the present day maize, olives, oranges and
mulberries in great abundance. Laconia has no rivers of importance
except the Eurotas and its largest tributary the Oenus (mod. Kelefína).
The coast, especially on the east, is rugged and dangerous. Laconia has
few good harbours, nor are there any islands lying off its shores with
the exception of Cythera (Cerigo), S. of Cape Malea. The most important
towns, besides Sparta and Gythium, were Bryseae, Amyclae and Pharis in
the Eurotas plain, Pellana and Belbina on the upper Eurotas, Sellasia on
the Oenus, Caryae on the Arcadian frontier, Prasiae, Zarax and Epidaurus
Limera on the east coast, Geronthrae on the slopes of Parnon, Boeae,
Asopus, Helos, Las and Teuthrone on the Laconian Gulf, and Hippola,
Messa and Oetylus on the Messenian Gulf.
The earliest inhabitants of Laconia, according to tradition, were the
autochthonous Leleges (q.v.). Minyan immigrants then settled at various
places on the coast and even appear to have penetrated into the interior
and to have founded Amyclae. Phoenician traders, too, visited the shores
of the Laconian Gulf, and there are indications of trade at a very early
period between Laconia and Crete, e.g. a number of blocks of green
Laconian porphyry from the quarries at Croceae have been found in the
palace of Minos at Cnossus. In the Homeric poems Laconia appears as the
realm of an Achaean prince, Menelaus, whose capital was perhaps Therapne
on the left bank of the Eurotas, S.E. of Sparta; the Achaean conquerors,
however, probably contented themselves with a suzerainty over Laconia
and part of Messenia (q.v.) and were too few to occupy the whole land.
The Achaean kingdom fell before the incoming Dorians, and throughout the
classical period the history of Laconia is that of its capital Sparta
(q.v.). In 195 B.C. the Laconian coast towns were freed from Spartan
rule by the Roman general T. Quinctius Flamininus, and became members of
the Achaean League. When this was dissolved in 146 B.C., they remained
independent under the title of the "Confederation of the Lacedaemonians"
or "of the Free-Laconians" ([Greek: koinon tôn Lakedaimoniôn] or [Greek:
Eleutherolakônôn]), the supreme officer of which was a [Greek:
stratêgos] (general) assisted by a [Greek: tamias] (treasurer). Augustus
seems to have reorganized the league in some way, for Pausanias (iii.
21, 6) speaks of him as its founder. Of the twenty-four cities which
originally composed the league, only eighteen remained as members by the
reign of Hadrian (see ACHAEAN LEAGUE). In A.D. 395 a Gothic horde under
Alaric devastated Laconia, and subsequently it was overrun by large
bands of Slavic immigrants. Throughout the middle ages it was the scene
of vigorous struggles between Slavs, Byzantines, Franks, Turks and
Venetians, the chief memorials of which are the ruined strongholds of
Mistra near Sparta, Geráki (anc. Geronthrae) and Monemvasia, "the
Gibraltar of Greece," on the east coast, and Passava near Gythium. A
prominent part in the War of Independence was played by the Maniates or
Mainotes, the inhabitants of the rugged peninsula formed by the southern
part of Taygetus. They had all along maintained a virtual independence
of the Turks and until quite recently retained their medieval customs,
living in fortified towers and practising the vendetta or blood-feud.
The district has been divided into two departments (nomes), Lacedaemon
and Laconia, with their capitals at Sparta and Gythium respectively.
Pop. of Laconia (1907) 61,522.
_Archaeology._--Until 1904 archaeological research in Laconia was
carried on only sporadically. Besides the excavations undertaken at
Sparta, Gythium and Vaphio (q.v.), the most important were those at the
Apollo sanctuary of Amyclae carried out by C. Tsountas in 1890 ([Greek:
Ephêm. archaiol.] 1892, 1 ff.) and in 1904 by A. Furtwängler. At Kampos,
on the western side of Taygetus, a small domed tomb of the "Mycenean"
age was excavated in 1890 and yielded two leaden statuettes of great
interest, while at Arkina a similar tomb of poor construction was
unearthed in the previous year. Important inscriptions were found at
Geronthrae (Geráki), notably five long fragments of the _Edictum
Diocletiani_, and elsewhere. In 1904 the British Archaeological school
at Athens undertook a systematic investigation of the ancient and
medieval remains in Laconia. The results, of which the most important
are summarized in the article SPARTA, are published in the British
School _Annual_, x. ff. The acropolis of Geronthrae, a hero-shrine at
Angelona in the south-eastern highlands, and the sanctuary of
Ino-Pasiphae at Thalamae have also been investigated.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Besides the Greek histories and many of the works cited
under SPARTA, see W. M. Leake, _Travels in the Morea_ (London, 1830),
cc. iv.-viii., xxii., xxiii.; E. Curtius, _Peloponnesos_ (Gotha,
1852), ii. 203 ff.; C. Bursian, _Geographie von Griechenland_
(Leipzig, 1868), ii. 102 ff.; Strabo viii. 5; Pausanias iii. and the
commentary in J. G. Frazer, _Pausanias's Description of Greece_
(London, 1898), vol. iii.; W. G. Clark, _Peloponnesus_ (London, 1858),
155 ff.; E. P. Boblaye, _Recherches géographiques sur les ruines de la
Morée_ (Paris, 1835), 65 ff.; L. Ross, _Reisen im Peloponnes_ (Berlin,
1841), 158 ff.; W. Vischer, _Erinnerungen u. Eindrücke aus
Griechenland_ (Basel, 1857), 360 ff.; J. B. G. M. Bory de
Saint-Vincent, _Relation du voyage de l'expédition scientifique de
Morée_ (Paris, 1836), cc. 9, 10; G. A. Blouet, _Expédition
scientifique de Morée_ (Paris, 1831-1838), ii. 58 ff.; A. Philippson,
_Der Peloponnes_ (Berlin, 1892), 155 ff.; _Annual_ of British School
at Athens, 1907-8.
_Inscriptions_: Le Bas-Foucart, _Voyage archéologique: Inscriptions_,
Nos. 160-290; _Inscriptiones Graecae_, v.; _Corpus Inscriptionum
Graecarum_ (Berlin, 1828), Nos. 1237-1510; Collitz-Bechtel, _Sammlung
der griech. Dialektinschriften_, iii. 2 (Göttingen, 1898), Nos.
4400-4613. _Coins: Catalogue of Greek Coins in the British Museum:
Peloponnesus_ (London, 1887), xlvi. ff., 121 ff.; B. V. Head,
_Historia Numorum_ (Oxford, 1887), 363 ff. _Cults_: S. Wide,
_Lakonische Kulte_ (Leipzig, 1893). _Ancient roads_: W. Loring, "Some
Ancient Routes in the Peloponnese" in _Journal of Hellenic Studies_,
xv. 25 ff. (M. N. T.)
LACONIA, a city and the county-seat of Belknap county, New Hampshire,
U.S.A., on both sides of the Winnepesaukee river, 28 m. N.N.E. of
Concord. Pop. (1900) 8042 (1770 foreign-born); (1910) 10,183. Laconia is
served by two divisions of the Boston & Maine railway, which has a very
handsome granite passenger station (1892) and repair shops here. It is
pleasantly situated in the lake district of central New Hampshire, and
in the summer season Lake Winnisquam on the S. and W. and Lake
Winnepesaukee on the N.E. attract many visitors. The city covers an area
of 24.65 sq. m. (5.47 sq. m. annexed since 1890). Within the city
limits, and about 6 m. from its centre, are the grounds of the
Winnepesaukee Camp-Meeting Association, and the camping place for the
annual reunions of the New Hampshire Veterans of the Civil War, both at
The Weirs, the northernmost point in the territory claimed by colonial
Massachusetts; about 2 m. from the centre of Laconia is Lakeport (pop.
1900, 2137), which, like The Weirs, is a summer resort and a ward in the
city of Laconia. Among the public institutions are the State School for
Feeble-minded Children, a cottage hospital and the Laconia Public
Library, lodged in the Gale Memorial Library building (1903). Another
fine building is the Congregational Church (1906). The New Hampshire
State Fish Hatchery is in Laconia. Water-power is furnished by the
river. In 1905 Laconia ranked first among the cities of the state in the
manufacture of hosiery and knit goods, and the value of these products
for the year was 48.4% of the total value of the city's factory product;
among its other manufactures are yarn, knitting machines, needles,
sashes and blinds, axles, paper boxes, boats, gas and gasolene engines,
and freight, passenger and electric cars. The total value of the factory
products increased from $2,152,379 in 1900 to $3,096,878 in 1905, or
43.9%. The portion of the city N. of the river, formerly known as
Meredith Bridge, was set apart from the township of Meredith and
incorporated as a township under the name of Laconia in 1855; a section
S. of the river was taken from the township of Gilford in 1874; and
Lakeport was added in 1893, when Laconia was chartered as a city. The
same Laconia was first applied in New England to the region granted in
1629 to Mason and Gorges (see MASON, JOHN).
LACONICUM (i.e. Spartan, _sc. balneum_, bath), the dry sweating room of
the Roman thermae, contiguous to the caldarium or hot room. The name was
given to it as being the only form of warm bath that the Spartans
admitted. The laconicum was usually a circular room with niches in the
axes of the diagonals and was covered by a conical roof with a circular
opening at the top, according to Vitruvius (v. 10), "from which a
brazen shield is suspended by chains, capable of being so lowered and
raised as to regulate the temperature." The walls of the laconicum were
plastered with marble stucco and polished, and the conical roof covered
with plaster and painted blue with gold stars. Sometimes, as in the old
baths at Pompeii, the laconicum was provided in an apse at one end of
the caldarium, but as a rule it was a separate room raised to a higher
temperature and had no bath in it. In addition to the hypocaust under
the floor the wall was lined with flue tiles. The largest laconicum,
about 75 ft. in diameter, was that built by Agrippa in his thermae on
the south side of the Pantheon, and is referred to by Cassius (liii.
23), who states that, in addition to other works, "he constructed the
hot bath chamber which he called the Laconicum Gymnasium." All traces of
this building are lost; but in the additions made to the thermae of
Agrippa by Septimius Severus another laconicum was built farther south,
portions of which still exist in the so-called Arco di Giambella.
LACORDAIRE, JEAN BAPTISTE HENRI (1802-1861), French ecclesiastic and
orator, was born at Recey-sur-Ource, Côte d'Or, on the 12th of March
1802. He was the second of a family of four, the eldest of whom, Jean
Théodore (1801-1870), travelled a great deal in his youth, and was
afterwards professor of comparative anatomy at Liége. For several years
Lacordaire studied at Dijon, showing a marked talent for rhetoric; this
led him to the pursuit of law, and in the local debates of the advocates
he attained a high celebrity. At Paris he thought of going on the stage,
but was induced to finish his legal training and began to practise as an
advocate (1817-1824). Meanwhile Lamennais had published his _Essai sur
l'Indifférence_,--a passionate plea for Christianity and in particular
for Roman Catholicism as necessary for the social progress of mankind.
Lacordaire read, and his ardent and believing nature, weary of the
theological negations of the Encyclopaedists, was convinced. In 1823 he
became a theological student at the seminary of Saint Sulpice; four
years later he was ordained and became almoner of the college Henri IV.
He was called from it to co-operate with Lamennais in the editorship of
_L'Avenir_, a journal established to advocate the union of the
democratic principle with ultramontanism. Lacordaire strove to show that
Catholicism was not bound up with the idea of dynasty, and definitely
allied it with a well-defined liberty, equality and fraternity. But the
new propagandism was denounced from Rome in an encyclical. In the
meantime Lacordaire and Montalembert, believing that, under the charter
of 1830, they were entitled to liberty of instruction, opened an
independent free school. It was closed in two days, and the teachers
fined before the court of peers. These reverses Lacordaire accepted with
quiet dignity; but they brought his relationship with Lamennais to a
close. He now began the course of Christian _conférences_ at the Collége
Stanislas, which attracted the art and intellect of Paris; thence he
went to Nôtre Dame, and for two years his sermons were the delight of
the capital. His presence was dignified, his voice capable of indefinite
modulation, and his gestures animated and attractive. He still preached
the gospel of the people's sovereignty in civil life and the pope's
supremacy in religion, but brought to his propagandism the full
resources of a mind familiar with philosophy, history and literature,
and indeed led the reaction against Voltairean scepticism. He was asked
to edit the _Univers_, and to take a chair in the university of Louvain,
but he declined both appointments, and in 1838 set out for Rome,
revolving a great scheme for christianizing France by restoring the old
order of St Dominic. At Rome he donned the habit of the preaching friar
and joined the monastery of Minerva. His _Mémoire pour le rétablissement
en France de l'ordre des frères prêcheurs_ was then prepared and
dedicated to his country; at the same time he collected the materials
for the life of St Dominic. When he returned to France in 1841 he
resumed his preaching at Nôtre Dame, but he had small success in
re-establishing the order of which he ever afterwards called himself
monk. His funeral orations are the most notable in their kind of any
delivered during his time, those devoted to Marshal Drouet and Daniel
O'Connell being especially marked by point and clearness. He next
thought that his presence in the National Assembly would be of use to
his cause; but being rebuked by his ecclesiastical superiors for
declaring himself a republican, he resigned his seat ten days after his
election. In 1850 he went back to Rome and was made provincial of the
order, and for four years laboured to make the Dominicans a religious
power. In 1854 he retired to Sorrèze to become director of a private
lyceum, and remained there until he died on the 22nd of November 1861.
He had been elected to the Academy in the preceding year.
The best edition of Lacordaire's works is the _Oeuvres complètes_ (6
vols., Paris, 1872-1873), published by C. Poussielgue, which contains,
besides the _Conférences_, the exquisitely written, but uncritical,
Vie de Saint Dominique and the beautiful _Lettres à un jeune homme sur
la vie chrétienne_. For a complete list of his published
correspondence see L. Petit de Julleville's _Histoire de la langue et
de la littérature française_, vii. 598.
The authoritative biography is by Ch. Foisset (2 vols., Paris, 1870).
The religious aspect of his character is best shown in Père B.
Chocarne's _Vie du Père Lacordaire_ (2 vols., Paris, 1866--English
translation by A. Th. Drane, London, 1868); see also Count C. F. R. de
Montalembert's _Un Moine au XIX^(ème) siècle_ (Paris, 1862--English
translation by F. Aylward, London, 1867). There are lives by Mrs H. L.
Lear (London, 1882); by A. Ricard (1 vol. of _L'École menaisienne_,
Paris, 1883); by Comte O. d'Haussonville (1 vol., _Les Grands
écrivains Français_ series, Paris, 1897); by Gabriel Ledos (Paris,
1901); by Dora Greenwell (1867); and by the duc de Broglie (Paris,
1889). The _Correspondance inédite du Père Lacordaire_, edited by H.
Villard (Paris, 1870), may also be consulted. See also Saint-Beuve in
_Causeries de Lundi_. Several of Lacordaire's _Conférences_ have been
translated into English, among these being, _Jesus Christ_ (1869);
_God_ (1870); _God and Man_ (1872); _Life_ (1875). For a theological
study of the _Conférences de Nôtre Dame_, see an article by Bishop J.
C. Hedley in _Dublin Review_ (October 1870).
LACQUER, or LACKER, a general term for coloured and frequently opaque
varnishes applied to certain metallic objects and to wood. The term is
derived from the resin lac, which substance is the basis of lacquers
properly so called. Technically, among Western nations, lacquering is
restricted to the coating of polished metals or metallic surfaces, such
as brass, pewter and tin, with prepared varnishes which will give them a
golden, bronze-like or other lustre as desired. Throughout the East
Indies the lacquering of wooden surfaces is universally practised, large
articles of household furniture, as well as small boxes, trays, toys and
papier-mâché objects, being decorated with bright-coloured and
variegated lacquer. The lacquer used in the East is, in general,
variously coloured sealing-wax, applied, smoothed and polished in a
heated condition; and by various devices intricate marbled, streaked and
mottled designs are produced. Quite distinct from these, and from all
other forms of lacquer, is the lacquer work of Japan, for which see
JAPAN, § _Art_.
LACRETELLE, PIERRE LOUIS DE (1751-1824), French politician and writer,
was born at Metz on the 9th of October 1751. He practised as a barrister
in Paris; and under the Revolution was elected as a _député suppléant_
in the Constituent Assembly, and later as deputy in the Legislative
Assembly. He belonged to the moderate party known as the "Feuillants,"
but after the 10th of August 1792 he ceased to take part in public life.
In 1803 he became a member of the Institute, taking the place of La
Harpe. Under the Restoration he was one of the chief editors of the
_Minerve française_; he wrote also an essay, _Sur le 18 Brumaire_
(1799), some _Fragments politiques et littéraires_ (1817), and a
treatise _Des partis politiques et des factions de la prétendue
aristocratie d'aujourd'hui_ (1819).
His younger brother, JEAN CHARLES DOMINIQUE DE LACRETELLE, called
Lacretelle _le jeune_ (1766-1855), historian and journalist, was also
born at Metz on the 3rd of September 1766. He was called to Paris by his
brother in 1787, and during the Revolution belonged, like him, to the
party of the _Feuillants_. He was for some time secretary to the duc de
la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, the celebrated philanthropist, and
afterwards joined the staff of the _Journal de Paris_, then managed by
Suard, and where he had as colleagues André Chénier and Antoine Roucher.
He made no attempt to hide his monarchist sympathies, and this, together
with the way in which he reported the trial and death of Louis XVI.,
brought him in peril of his life; to avoid this danger he enlisted in
the army, but after Thermidor he returned to Paris and to his newspaper
work. He was involved in the royalist movement of the 13th Vendémiaire,
and condemned to deportation after the 18th Fructidor; but, thanks to
powerful influence, he was left "forgotten" in prison till after the
18th Brumaire, when he was set at liberty by Fouché. Under the Empire he
was appointed a professor of history in the _Faculté des lettres_ of
Paris (1809), and elected as a member of the Académie française (1811).
In 1827 he was prime mover in the protest made by the French Academy
against the minister Peyronnet's law on the press, which led to the
failure of that measure, but this step cost him, as it did Villemain,
his post as _censeur royal_. Under Louis Philippe he devoted himself
entirely to his teaching and literary work. In 1848 he retired to Mâcon;
but there, as in Paris, he was the centre of a brilliant circle, for he
was a wonderful causeur, and an equally good listener, and had many
interesting experiences to recall. He died on the 26th of March 1855.
His son Pierre Henri (1815-1899) was a humorous writer and politician of
purely contemporary interest.
J. C. Lacretelle's chief work is a series of histories of the 18th
century, the Revolution and its sequel: _Précis historique de la
Révolution française_, appended to the history of Rabaud St Étienne,
and partly written in the prison of La Force (5 vols., 1801-1806);
_Histoire de France pendant le XVIII^e siècle_ (6 vols., 1808);
_Histoire de l'Assemblée Constituante_ (2 vols., 1821); _L'Assemblée
Législative_ (1822); _La Convention Nationale_ (3 vols., 1824-1825);
_Histoire de France depuis la restauration_ (1829-1835); _Histoire du
consulat et de l'empire_ (4 vols., 1846). The author was a moderate
and fair-minded man, but possessed neither great powers of style, nor
striking historical insight, nor the special historian's power of
writing minute accuracy of detail with breadth of view. Carlyle's
sarcastic remark on Lacretelle's history of the Revolution, that it
"exists, but does not profit much," is partly true of all his books.
He had been an eyewitness of and an actor in the events which he
describes, but his testimony must be accepted with caution.
LACROIX, ANTOINE FRANÇOIS ALFRED (1863- ), French mineralogist and
geologist, was born at Mâcon, Saône et Loire, on the 4th of February
1863. He took the degree of D. ès Sc. in Paris, 1889. In 1893 he was
appointed professor of mineralogy at the _Jardin des Plantes_, Paris,
and in 1896 director of the mineralogical laboratory in the _École des
Hautes Études_. He paid especial attention to minerals connected with
volcanic phenomena and igneous rocks, to the effects of metamorphism,
and to mineral veins, in various parts of the world, notably in the
Pyrenees. In his numerous contributions to scientific journals he dealt
with the mineralogy and petrology of Madagascar, and published an
elaborate and exhaustive volume on the eruptions in Martinique, _La
Montagne Pelée et ses éruptions_ (1904). He also issued an important
work entitled _Mineralogie de la France et de ses Colonies_ (1893-1898),
and other works in conjunction with A. Michel Lévy. He was elected
member of the Académie des sciences in 1904.
LACROIX, PAUL (1806-1884), French author and journalist, was born in
Paris on the 27th of April 1806, the son of a novelist. He is best known
under his pseudonym of P. L. Jacob, _bibliophile_, or "Bibliophile
Jacob," suggested by the constant interest he took in public libraries
and books generally. Lacroix was an extremely prolific and varied
writer. Over twenty historical romances alone came from his pen, and he
also wrote a variety of serious historical works, including a history of
Napoleon III., and the life and times of the Tsar Nicholas I. of Russia.
He was the joint author with Ferdinand Séré of a five-volume work, _Le
Moyen Âge et La Renaissance_ (1847), a standard work on the manners,
customs and dress of those times, the chief merit of which lies in the
great number of illustrations it contains. He also wrote many monographs
on phases of the history of culture. Over the signature Pierre Dufour
was published an exhaustive _Histoire de la Prostitution_ (1851-1852),
which has always been attributed to Lacroix. His works on bibliography
were also extremely numerous. In 1885 he was appointed librarian of the
Arsenal Library, Paris. He died in Paris on the 16th of October 1884.
LACROMA (Serbo-Croatian _Lokrum_), a small island in the Adriatic Sea,
forming part of the Austrian kingdom of Dalmatia, and lying less than
half a mile south of Ragusa. Though barely 1¼ m. in length, Lacroma is
remarkable for the beauty of its subtropical vegetation. It was a
favourite resort of the archduke Maximilian, afterwards emperor of
Mexico (1832-1867), who restored the château and park; and of the
Austrian crown prince Rudolph (1857-1889). It contains an 11th-century
Benedictine monastery; and the remains of a church, said by a very
doubtful local tradition to have been founded by Richard I. of England
(1157-1199), form part of the imperial château.
See _Lacroma_, an illustrated descriptive work by the crown princess
Stéphanie (afterwards Countess Lónyay) (Vienna, 1892).
LA CROSSE, a city and the county-seat of La Crosse county, Wisconsin,
U.S.A., about 180 m. W.N.W. of Milwaukee, and about 120 m. S.E. of St
Paul, Minnesota, on the E. bank of the Mississippi river, at the mouth
of the Black and of the La Crosse rivers. Pop. (1900) 28,895; (1910
census) 30,417. Of the total population in 1900, 7222 were foreign-born,
3130 being German and 2023 Norwegian, and 17,555 were of
foreign-parentage (both parents foreign-born), including 7853 of German
parentage, 4422 of Norwegian parentage, and 1062 of Bohemian parentage.
La Crosse is served by the Chicago & North Western, the Chicago,
Milwaukee & St Paul, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the La Crosse &
South Eastern, and the Green Bay & Western railways, and by river
steamboat lines on the Mississippi. The river is crossed here by a
railway bridge (C.M. & St P.) and wagon bridge. The city is situated on
a prairie, extending back from the river about 2½ m. to bluffs, from
which fine views may be obtained. Among the city's buildings and
institutions are the Federal Building (1886-1887), the County Court
House (1902-1903), the Public Library (with more than 20,000 volumes),
the City Hall (1891), the High School Building (1905-1906), the St
Francis, La Crosse and Lutheran hospitals, a Young Men's Christian
Association Building, a Young Women's Christian Association Building, a
U.S. Weather Station (1907), and a U.S. Fish Station (1905). La Crosse
is the seat of a state Normal School (1909). Among the city's parks are
Pettibone (an island in the Mississippi), Riverside, Burns, Fair Ground
and Myrick. The city is the see of a Roman Catholic bishop. La Crosse is
an important lumber and grain market, and is the principal wholesale
distributing centre for a large territory in S.W. Wisconsin, N. Iowa and
Minnesota. Proximity to both pine and hardwood forests early made it one
of the most important lumber manufacturing places in the North-west; but
this industry has now been displaced by other manufactures. The city has
grain elevators, flour mills (the value of flour and grist mill products
in 1905 was $2,166,116), and breweries (product value in 1905,
$1,440,659). Other important manufactures are agricultural implements
($542,425 in 1905), lumber and planing mill products, leather, woollen,
knit and rubber goods, tobacco, cigars and cigarettes, carriages,
foundry and machine-shop products, copper and iron products, cooperage,
pearl buttons, brooms and brushes. The total value of the factory
product in 1905 was $8,139,432, as against $7,676,581 in 1900. The city
owns and operates its water-works system, the wagon bridge (1890-1891)
across the Mississippi, and a toll road (2½ m. long) to the village of
La Crescent, Minn.
Father Hennepin and du Lhut visited or passed the site of La Crosse as
early as 1680, but it is possible that adventurous _coureurs-des-bois_
preceded them. The first permanent settlement was made in 1841, and La
Crosse was made the county-seat in 1855 and was chartered as a city in
1856.
LACROSSE, the national ball game of Canada. It derives its name from the
resemblance of its chief implement used, the curved netted stick, to a
bishop's crozier. It was borrowed from the Indian tribes of North
America. In the old days, according to Catlin, the warriors of two
tribes in their war-paint would form the sides, often 800 or 1000
strong. The goals were placed from 500 yds. to ½ m. apart with
practically no side boundaries. A solemn dance preceded the game, after
which the ball was tossed into the air and the two sides rushed to catch
it on "crosses," similar to those now in use. The medicine-men acted as
umpires, and the squaws urged on the men by beating them with switches.
The game attracted much attention from the early French settlers in
Canada. In 1763, after Canada had become British, the game was used by
the aborigines to carry out an ingenious piece of treachery. On the 4th
of June, when the garrison of Fort Michilimackinac (now Mackinac) was
celebrating the king's birthday, it was invited by the Ottawas, under
their chief Pontiac, to witness a game of "baggataway" (lacrosse). The
players gradually worked their way close to the gates, when, throwing
aside their crosses and seizing their tomahawks which the squaws
suddenly produced from under their blankets, they rushed into the fort
and massacred all the inmates except a few Frenchmen.
The game found favour among the British settlers, but it was not until
1867, the year in which Canada became a Dominion, that G. W. Beers, a
prominent player, suggested that Lacrosse should be recognized as the
national game, and the National Lacrosse Association of Canada was
formed. From that time the game has flourished vigorously in Canada and
to a less extent in the United States. In 1868 an English Lacrosse
Association was formed, but, although a team of Indians visited the
United Kingdom in 1867, it was not until sometime later that the game
became at all popular in Great Britain. Its progress was much encouraged
by visits of teams representing the Toronto Lacrosse Club in 1888 and
1902, the methods of the Canadians and their wonderful "short-passing"
exciting much admiration. In 1907 the Capitals of Ottawa visited
England, playing six matches, all of which were won by the Canadians.
The match North v. South has been played annually in England since 1882.
A county championship was inaugurated in 1905. A North of England
League, embracing ten clubs, began playing league matches in 1897; and a
match between the universities of Oxford and Cambridge has been played
annually since 1903. A match between England and Ireland was played
annually from 1881 to 1904.
[Illustration: The Crosse.]
_Implements of the Game._--The ball is made of india-rubber sponge,
weighs between 4¼ and 4½ oz., and measures 8 to 8½ in. in
circumference. The "crosse" is formed of a light staff of hickory
wood, the top being bent to form a kind of hook, from the tip of which
a thong is drawn and made fast to the shaft about 2 ft. from the other
end. The oval triangle thus formed is covered with a network of gut or
rawhide, loose enough to hold the ball but not to form a bag. At no
part must the crosse measure more than 12 in. in breadth, and no metal
must be used in its manufacture. It may be of any length to suit the
player. The goals are set up not less than 100 nor more than 150 yds.
apart, the goal-posts being 6 ft. high and the same distance apart.
They are set up in the middle of the "goal-crease," a space of 12 ft.
square marked with chalk. A net extends from the top rail and sides of
the posts back to a point 6 ft. behind the middle of the line between
the posts. Boundaries are agreed upon by the captains. Shoes may have
india-rubber soles, but must be without spikes.
_The Game._--The object of the game is to send the ball, by means of
the crosse, through the enemy's goal-posts as many times as possible
during the two periods of play, precisely as in football and hockey.
There are twelve players of each side. In every position save that of
goal there are two men, one of each side, whose duties are to "mark"
and neutralize each other's efforts. The game is opened by the act of
"facing," in which the two centres, each with his left shoulder
towards his opponents' goal, hold their crosses, wood downwards, on
the ground, the ball being placed between them. When the signal is
given the centres draw their crosses sharply inwards in order to gain
possession of the ball. The ball may be kicked or struck with the
crosse, as at hockey, but the goal-keeper alone may handle it, and
then only to block and not to throw it. Although the ball may be
thrown with the crosse for a long distance--220 yds. is about the
limit--long throws are seldom tried, it being generally more
advantageous for a player to run with the ball resting on the crosse,
until he can pass it to a member of his side who proceeds with the
attack, either by running, passing to another, or trying to throw the
ball through the opponents' goal. The crosse, usually held in both
hands, is made to retain the ball by an ingenious rocking motion only
acquired by practice. As there is no "off-side" in Lacrosse, a player
may pass the ball to the front, side or rear. No charging is allowed,
but one player may interfere with another by standing directly in
front of him ("body-check"), though without holding, tripping or
striking with the crosse. No one may interfere with a player who is
not in possession of the ball. Fouls are penalized either by the
suspension of the offender until a goal has been scored or until the
end of the game; or by allowing the side offended against a "free
position." When a "free position" is awarded each player must stand in
the position where he is, excepting the goal-keeper who may get back
to his goal, and any opponent who may be nearer the player getting the
ball than 5 yds.; this player must retire to that distance from the
one who has been given the "free position," who then proceeds with the
game as he likes when the referee says "play." This penalty may not be
carried out nearer than 10 yds. from the goal. If the ball crosses a
boundary the referee calls "stand," and all players stop where they
are, the ball being then "faced" not less than 4 yds. within the
boundary line by the two nearest players.
See the official publications of the English Lacrosse Union; and
_Lacrosse_ by W. C. Schmeisser, in Spalding's "Athletic Library." Also
_Manners, Customs and Condition of the North American Indians_, by
George Catlin.
LA CRUZ, RAMÓN DE (1731-1794), Spanish dramatist, was born at Madrid on
the 28th of March 1731. He was a clerk in the ministry of finance, and
is the author of three hundred _sainetes_, little farcical sketches of
city life, written to be played between the acts of a longer play. He
published a selection in ten volumes (Madrid, 1786-1791), and died on
the 5th of March 1794. The best of his pieces, such as _Las Tertulias de
Madrid_, are delightful specimens of satiric observation.
See E. Cotardo y Mori, _Don Ramón de la Cruz y sus obras_ (Madrid,
1899); C. Cambronero, _Sainetes inédites existentes en la Biblioteca
Municipal de Madrid_ (Madrid, 1900).
LACRYMATORY (from Lat. _lacrima_, a tear), a class of small vessels of
terra-cotta, or, more frequently, of glass, found in Roman and late
Greek tombs, and supposed to have been bottles into which mourners
dropped their tears. They contained unguents, and to the use of unguents
at funeral ceremonies the finding of so many of these vessels in tombs
is due. They are shaped like a spindle, or a flask with a long small
neck and a body in the form of a bulb.
LACTANTIUS FIRMIANUS (c. 260-c. 340), also called Lucius Caelius (or
Caecilius) Lactantius Firmianus, was a Christian writer who from the
beauty of his style has been called the "Christian Cicero." His history
is very obscure. He was born of heathen parents in Africa about 260, and
became a pupil of Arnobius, whom he far excelled in style though his
knowledge of the Scriptures was equally slight. About 290 he went to
Nicomedia in Bithynia while Diocletian was emperor, to teach rhetoric,
but found little work to do in that Greek-speaking city. In middle age
he became a convert to Christianity, and about 306 he went to Gaul
(Trèves) on the invitation of Constantine the Great, and became tutor to
his eldest son, Crispus. He probably died about 340.
Lactantius' chief work, _Divinarum Institutionum Libri Septem_, is an
"apology" for and an introduction to Christianity, written in exquisite
Latin, but displaying such ignorance as to have incurred the charge of
favouring the Arian and Manichaean heresies. It seems to have been begun
in Nicomedia about 304 and finished in Gaul before 311. Two long
eulogistic addresses and most of the brief apostrophes to the emperor
are from a later hand, which has added some dualistic touches. The seven
books of the institutions have separate titles given to them either by
the author or by a later editor. The first, _De Falsa Religione_, and
the second, _De Origine Erroris_, attack the polytheism of heathendom,
show the unity of the God of creation and providence, and try to explain
how men have been corrupted by demons. The third book, _De Falsa
Sapientia_, describes and criticizes the various systems of prevalent
philosophy. The fourth book, _De Vera Sapientia et Religione_, insists
upon the inseparable union of true wisdom and true religion, and
maintains that this union is made real in the person of Christ. The
fifth book, _De Justitia_, maintains that true righteousness is not to
be found apart from Christianity, and that it springs from piety which
consists in the knowledge of God. The sixth book, _De Vero Cultu_,
describes the true worship of God, which is righteousness, and consists
chiefly in the exercise of Christian love towards God and man. The
seventh book, _De Vita Beata_, discusses, among a variety of subjects,
the chief good, immortality, the second advent and the resurrection.
Jerome states that Lactantius wrote an epitome of these _Institutions_,
and such a work, which may well be authentic, was discovered in MS. in
the royal library at Turin in 1711 by C. M. Pfaff.
Besides the _Institutions_ Lactantius wrote several treatises: (1) _De
Ira Dei_, addressed to one Donatus and directed against the Epicurean
philosophy. (2) _De Opificio Dei sive de Formatione Hominis_, his
earliest work, and one which reveals very little Christian influence. He
exhorts a former pupil, Demetrianus, not to be led astray by wealth from
virtue; and he demonstrates the providence of God from the adaptability
and beauty of the human body. (3) A celebrated incendiary treatise, _De
Mortibus Persecutorum_, which describes God's judgments on the
persecutors of his church from Nero to Diocletian, and has served as a
model for numberless writings. _De Mort. Persecut._ is not in the
earlier editions of Lactantius; it was discovered and printed by Baluze
in 1679. Many critics ascribe it to an unknown Lucius Caecilius; there
are certainly serious differences of grammar, style and temper between
it and the writings already mentioned. It was probably composed in
Nicomedia, c. 315. Jerome speaks of Lactantius as a poet, and several
poems have been attributed to him:--_De Ave Phoenice_ (which Harnack
thinks makes use of 1 Clement), _De Passione Domini_ and _De
Resurrectione (Domini)_ or _De Pascha ad Felicem Episcopum_. The first
of these may belong to Lactantius's heathen days, the second is a
product of the Renaissance (c. 1500), the third was written by Venantius
Fortunatus in the 6th century.
Editions: O. F. Fritzsche in E. G. Gersdorf's _Bibl. patr. eccl._ x.,
xi. (Leipzig, 1842-1844); Migne, _Patr. Lat._ vi., vii.; S. Brandt and
G. Laubmann in the Vienna _Corpus Script. Eccles. Lat._ xix., xxvii. 1
and 2 (1890-93-97). Translation: W. Fletcher in _Ante-Nicene Fathers_,
vii. Literature: the German histories of early Christian literature,
by A. Harnack, O. Bardenhewer, A. Ebert, A. Ehrhard, G. Kruger's
_Early Chr. Lit._ p. 307 and Hauck-Herzog's R_ealencyk._ vol. xi.,
give guides to the copious literature on the subject.
LACTIC ACID (hydroxypropionic acid), C3H6O3. Two lactic acids are known,
differing from each other in the position occupied by the hydroxyl group
in the molecule; they are known respectively as [alpha]-hydroxypropionic
acid (fermentation or inactive lactic acid), CH3·CH(OH)·CO2H, and
[beta]-hydroxypropionic acid (hydracrylic acid), (q.v.),
CH2(OH)·CH2·CO2H. Although on structural grounds there should be only
two hydroxypropionic acids, as a matter of fact four lactic acids are
known. The third isomer (sarcolactic acid) is found in meat extract (J.
v. Liebig), and may be prepared by the action of _Penicillium glaucum_
on a solution of ordinary ammonium lactate. It is identical with
[alpha]-hydroxypropionic acid in almost every respect, except with
regard to its physical properties. The fourth isomer, formed by the
action of _Bacillus laevo-lacti_ on cane-sugar, resembles sarcolactic
acid in every respect, except in its action on polarized light (see
STEREOISOMERISM).
_Fermentation_, or _ethylidene lactic acid_, was isolated by K. W.
Scheele (_Trans. Stockholm Acad._ 1780) from sour milk (Lat. _lac_,
_lactis_, milk, whence the name). About twenty-four years later
Bouillon Lagrange, and independently A. F. de Fourcroy and L. N.
Vauquelin, maintained that Scheele's new acid was nothing but impure
acetic acid. This notion was combated by J. Berzelius, and finally
refuted (in 1832) by J. v. Liebig and E. Mitscherlich, who, by the
elementary analyses of lactates, proved the existence of this acid as
a distinct compound. It may be prepared by the lactic fermentation of
starches, sugars, gums, &c., the sugar being dissolved in water and
acidified by a small quantity of tartaric acid and then fermented by
the addition of sour milk, with a little putrid cheese. Zinc carbonate
is added to the mixture (to neutralize the acid formed), which is kept
warm for some days and well stirred. On boiling and filtering the
product, zinc lactate crystallizes out of the solution. The acid may
also be synthesized by the decomposition of alanine
([alpha]-aminopropionic acid) by nitrous acid (K. Strecker, _Ann._,
1850, 75, p. 27); by the oxidation of propylene glycol (A. Wurtz); by
boiling [alpha]-chlorpropionic acid with caustic alkalis, or with
silver oxide and water; by the reduction of pyruvic acid with sodium
amalgam; or from acetaldehyde by the cyanhydrin reaction (J.
Wislicenus, _Ann._, 1863, 128, p. 13)
CH3·CHO --> CH3·CH(OH)·CN --> CH3·CH(OH)·CO2H.
It forms a colourless syrup, of specific gravity 1.2485 (15°/4°), and
decomposes on distillation under ordinary atmospheric pressure; but at
very low pressures (about 1 mm.) it distils at about 85° C., and then
sets to a crystalline solid, which melts at about 18° C. It possesses
the properties both of an acid and of an alcohol. When heated with
dilute sulphuric acid to 130° C., under pressure, it is resolved into
formic acid and acetaldehyde. Chromic acid oxidizes it to acetic acid
and carbon dioxide; potassium permanganate oxidizes it to pyruvic
acid; nitric acid to oxalic acid, and a mixture of manganese dioxide
and sulphuric acid to acetaldehyde and carbon dioxide. Hydrobromic
acid converts it into [alpha]-brompropionic acid, and hydriodic acid
into propionic acid.
CH(CH3)·CO
/ \
_Lactide_, O O,
\ /
CO·CH(CH3)
a crystalline solid, of melting-point 124° C., is one of the products
obtained by the distillation of lactic acid.
LACTONES, the cyclic esters of hydroxy acids, resulting from the
internal elimination of water between the hydroxyl and carboxyl groups,
this reaction taking place when the hydroxy acid is liberated from its
salts by a mineral acid. The [alpha] and [beta]-hydroxy acids do not
form lactones, the tendency for lactone formation appearing first with
the [gamma]-hydroxy acids, thus [gamma]-hydroxybutyric acid,
CH2OH·CH2·CH2·CO2H, yields [gamma]-butyrolactone,
+--------------+
| |
CH2·CH2·CH2·CO·O.
These compounds may also be prepared by the distillation of the
[gamma]-halogen fatty acids, or by the action of alkaline carbonates on
these acids, or from [beta][gamma]- or [gamma][delta]-unsaturated acids
by digestion with hydrobromic acid or dilute sulphuric acid. The
lactones are mostly liquids which are readily soluble in alcohol, ether
and water. On boiling with water, they are partially reconverted into
the hydroxy acids. They are easily saponified by the caustic alkalis.
On the behaviour of lactones with ammonia, see H. Meyer,
_Monatshefte_, 1899, 20, p. 717; and with phenylhydrazine and
hydrazine hydrate, see R. Meyer, _Ber._, 1893, 26, p. 1273; L.
Gattermann, _Ber._, 1899, 32, p. 1133, E. Fischer, Ber., 1889, 22, p.
1889.
[gamma]-_Butyrolactone_ is a liquid which boils at 206° C. It is
miscible with water in all proportions and is volatile in steam,
[gamma]-_valerolactone_,
+-----------------+
| |
CH3·CH·CH2·CH2·CO·O,
is a liquid which boils at 207-208° C. [delta]-_lactones_ are also
known, and may be prepared by distilling the [delta]-chlor acids.
LA CUEVA, JUAN DE (1550?-1609?), Spanish dramatist and poet, was born at
Seville, and towards 1579 began writing for the stage. His plays,
fourteen in number, were published in 1588, and are the earliest
manifestations of the dramatic methods developed by Lope de Vega.
Abandoning the Senecan model hitherto universal in Spain, Cueva took for
his themes matters of national legend, historic tradition, recent
victories and the actualities of contemporary life: this amalgam of
epical and realistic elements, and the introduction of a great variety
of metres, prepared the way for the Spanish romantic drama of the 17th
century. A peculiar interest attaches to _El Infamador_, a play in which
the character of Leucino anticipates the classic type of Don Juan. As an
initiative force, Cueva is a figure of great historical importance; his
epic poem, _La Conquista de Bética_ (1603), shows his weakness as an
artist. The last work to which his name is attached is the _Ejemplar
poético_ (1609), and he is believed to have died shortly after its
publication.
See the editions of _Saco de Roma_ and _El Infamador_, by E. de Ochoa,
in the _Tesoro del teatro español_ (Paris, 1838), vol. i. pp. 251-285;
and of _Ejemplar poético_, by J. J. López de Sedano, in the _Parnaso
español_, vol. viii. pp. 1-68; also E. Walberg, "Juan de la Cueva et
son Ejemplar poético" in the _Acta Universitatis Lundensis_ (Lund,
1904), vol. xxix.; "Poèmes inédits de Juan de la Cueva (Viaje de
Sannio,)" edited by F. A. Wulff, in the _Acta Universitatis Lundensis_
(Lund, 1886-1887), vol. xxiii.; F. A. Wulff, "De la rimas de Juan de
la Cueva, Primera Parte" in the _Homenaje á Menéndez y Pelayo_
(Madrid, 1899), vol. ii. pp. 143-148. (J. F.-K.)
LACUNAR, the Latin name in architecture for a panelled or coffered
ceiling or soffit. The word is derived from _lacuna_, a cavity or
hollow, a blank, hiatus or gap. The panels or coffers of a ceiling are
by Vitruvius called _lacunaria_.
LACUZON (O. Fr. _la cuzon_, disturbance), the name given to the
Franc-Comtois leader CLAUDE PROST (1607-1681), who was born at
Longchaumois (department of Jura) on the 17th of June 1607. He gained
his first military experience when the French invaded Burgundy in 1636,
harrying the French troops from the castles of Montaigu and St
Laurent-la-Roche, and devastating the frontier districts of Bresse and
Bugey with fire and sword (1640-1642). In the first invasion of
Franche-Comté by Louis XIV. in 1668 Lacuzon was unable to make any
effective resistance, but he played an important part in Louis's second
invasion. In 1673 he defended Salins for some time; after the
capitulation of the town he took refuge in Italy. He died at Milan on
the 21st of December 1681.
LACY, FRANZ MORITZ, Count (1725-1801), Austrian field marshal, was born
at St Petersburg on the 21st of October 1725. His father, Peter, Count
Lacy, was a distinguished Russian soldier, who belonged to an Irish
family, and had followed the fortunes of the exiled James II. Franz
Moritz was educated in Germany for a military career, and entered the
Austrian service. He served in Italy, Bohemia, Silesia and the
Netherlands during the War of the Austrian Succession, was twice
wounded, and by the end of the war was a lieut.-colonel. At the age of
twenty-five he became full colonel and chief of an infantry regiment. In
1756 with the opening of the Seven Years' War he was again on active
service, and in the first battle (Lobositz) he distinguished himself so
much that he was at once promoted major-general. He received his third
wound on this occasion and his fourth at the battle of Prague in 1757.
Later in 1757 Lacy bore a conspicuous part in the great victory of
Breslau, and at Leuthen, where he received his fifth wound, he covered
the retreat of the defeated army. Soon after this began his association
with Field-Marshal Daun, the new generalissimo of the empress's forces,
and these two commanders, powerfully assisted later by the genius of
Loudon, made head against Frederick the Great for the remainder of the
war. A general staff was created, and Lacy, a lieutenant field-marshal
at thirty-two, was made chief of staff (quartermaster-general) to Daun.
That their cautiousness often degenerated into timidity may be
admitted--Leuthen and many other bitter defeats had taught the Austrians
to respect their great opponent--but they showed at any rate that,
having resolved to wear out the enemy by Fabian methods, they were
strong enough to persist in their resolve to the end. Thus for some
years the life of Lacy, as of Daun and Loudon, is the story of the war
against Prussia (see Seven Years' War). After Hochkirch (October 15,
1758) Lacy received the grand cross of the Maria Theresa order. In 1759
both Daun and Lacy fell into disfavour for failing to win victories, and
Lacy owed his promotion to Feldzeugmeister only to the fact that Loudon
had just received this rank for the brilliant conduct of his detachment
at Kunersdorf. His responsibilities told heavily on Lacy in the ensuing
campaigns, and his capacity for supreme command was doubted even by
Daun, who refused to give him the command when he himself was wounded at
the battle of Torgau.
After the peace of Hubertusburg a new sphere of activity was opened, in
which Lacy's special gifts had the greatest scope. Maria Theresa having
placed her son, the emperor Joseph II., at the head of Austrian military
affairs, Lacy was made a field-marshal, and given the task of reforming
and administering the army (1766). He framed new regulations for each
arm, a new code of military law, a good supply system. As the result of
his work the Austrian army was more numerous, far better equipped, and
cheaper than it had ever been before. Joseph soon became very intimate
with his military adviser, but this did not prevent his mother, after
she became estranged from the young emperor, from giving Lacy her full
confidence. His activities were not confined to the army. He was in
sympathy with Joseph's innovations, and was regarded by Maria Theresa as
a prime mover in the scheme for the partition of Poland. But his
self-imposed work broke down Lacy's health, and in 1773, in spite of the
remonstrances of Maria Theresa and of the emperor, he laid down all his
offices and went to southern France. On returning he was still unable to
resume office, though as an unofficial adviser in political and military
matters he was far from idle. In the brief and uneventful War of the
Bavarian Succession, Lacy and Loudon were the chief Austrian commanders
against the king of Prussia, and when Joseph II. at Maria Theresa's
death, became the sovereign of the Austrian dominions as well as
emperor, Lacy remained his most trusted friend. More serious than the
War of the Bavarian Succession was the Turkish war which presently broke
out. Lacy was now old and worn out, and his tenure of command therein
was not marked by any greater measure of success than in the case of the
other Austrian generals. His active career was at an end, although he
continued his effective interest in the affairs of the state and the
army throughout the reign of Joseph's successor, Leopold I. His last
years were spent in retirement at his castle of Neuwaldegg near Vienna.
He died at Vienna on the 24th of November 1801.
See memoir by A. v. Arneth in _Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_
(Leipzig, 1883).
LACY, HARRIETTE DEBORAH (1807-1874), English actress, was born in
London, the daughter of a tradesman named Taylor. Her first appearance
on the stage was at Bath in 1827 as Julia in _The Rivals_, and she was
immediately given leading parts there in both comedy and tragedy. Her
first London appearance was in 1830 as Nina, in Dimond's _Carnival of
Naples_. Her Rosalind, Aspatia (to Macready's Melantius) in _The
Bridal_, and Lady Teazle to the Charles Surface of Walter Lacy
(1809-1898)--to whom she was married in 1839--confirmed her position and
popularity. She was the original Helen in _The Hunchback_ (1832), and
also created Nell Gwynne in Jerrold's play of that name, and the heroine
in his _Housekeeper_. She was considered the first Ophelia of her day.
She retired in 1848.
LACY, MICHAEL ROPHINO (1795-1867), Irish musician, son of a merchant,
was born at Bilbao and appeared there in public as a violinist in 1801.
He was sent to study in Paris under Kreutzer, and soon began a
successful career, being known as "_Le Petit Espagnol_." He played in
London for some years after 1805, and then became an actor, but in 1818
resumed the musical profession, and in 1820 became leader of the ballet
at the King's theatre, London. He composed or adapted from other
composers a number of operas and an oratorio, _The Israelites in Egypt_.
He died in London on the 20th of September 1867.
LACYDES OF CYRENE, Greek philosopher, was head of the Academy at Athens
in succession to Arcesilaus about 241 B.C. Though some regard him as the
founder of the New Academy, the testimony of antiquity is that he
adhered in general to the theory of Arcesilaus, and, therefore, that he
belonged to the Middle Academy. He lectured in a garden called the
Lacydeum, which was presented to him by Attalus I. of Pergamum, and for
twenty-six years maintained the traditions of the Academy. He is said to
have written treatises, but nothing survives. Before his death he
voluntarily resigned his position to his pupils, Euander and Telecles.
Apart from a number of anecdotes distinguished rather for sarcastic
humour than for probability, Lacydes exists for us as a man of refined
character, a hard worker and an accomplished orator. According to
Athenaeus (x. 438) and Diogenes Laërtius (iv. 60) he died from excessive
drinking, but the story is discredited by the eulogy of Eusebius
(_Praep. Ev._ xiv. 7), that he was in all things moderate.
See Cicero, _Acad._ ii. 6; and Aelian, _V.H._ ii. 41; also articles
ACADEMY, ARCESILAUS, CARNEADES.
LADAKH AND BALTISTAN, a province of Kashmir, India. The name Ladak,
commonly but less correctly spelt Ladakh, and sometimes Ladag, belongs
primarily to the broad valley of the upper Indus in West Tibet, but
includes several surrounding districts in political connexion with it;
the present limits are between 75° 40´ and 80° 30´ E., and between 32°
25´ and 36° N. It is bounded N. by the Kuenlun range and the slopes of
the Karakoram, N.W. and W. by the dependency of Baltistan or Little
Tibet, S.W. by Kashmir proper, S. by British Himalayan territory, and E.
by the Tibetan provinces of Ngari and Rudok. The whole region lies very
high, the valleys of Rupshu in the south-east being 15,000 ft., and the
Indus near Leh 11,000 ft., while the average height of the surrounding
ranges is 19,000 ft. The proportion of arable and even possible pasture
land to barren rock and gravel is very small. Pop., including Baltistan
(1901) 165,992, of whom 30,216 in Ladakh proper are Buddhists, whereas
the Baltis have adopted the Shiah form of Islam.
The natural features of the country may be best explained by reference
to two native terms, under one or other of which every part is included;
viz. _changtang_, i.e. "northern, or high plain," where the amount of
level ground is considerable, and _rong_, i.e. "deep valley," where the
contrary condition prevails. The former predominates in the east,
diminishing gradually westwards. There, although the vast alluvial
deposits which once filled the valley to a remarkably uniform height of
about 15,000 ft. have left their traces on the mountain sides, they have
undergone immense denudation, and their débris now forms secondary
deposits, flat bottoms or shelving slopes, the only spots available for
cultivation or pasture. These masses of alluvium are often either
metamorphosed to a subcrystalline rock still showing the composition of
the strata, or simply consolidated by lime.
Grand scenery is exceptional, for the valleys are confined, and from the
higher points the view is generally of a confused mass of brown or
yellow hills, absolutely barren, and of no great apparent height. The
parallelism characteristic of the Himalayan ranges continues here, the
direction being north-west and south-east. A central range divides the
Indus valley, here 4 to 8 m. wide, from that of its north branch the
Shyok, which with its fertile tributary valley of Nubra is again bounded
on the north by the Karakoram. This central ridge is mostly syenitic
gneiss, and north-east from it are found, successively, Silurian slates,
Carboniferous shales and Triassic limestones, the gneiss recurring at
the Turkestan frontier. The Indus lies along the line which separates
the crystalline rocks from the Eocene sandstones and shales of the lower
range of hills on the left bank, the lofty mountains behind them
consisting of parallel bands of rocks from Silurian to Cretaceous.
Several lakes in the east districts at about 14,000 ft. have been of
much greater extent, and connected with the river systems of the
country, but they are now mostly without outlet, saline, and in process
of desiccation.
Leh is the capital of Ladakh, and the road to Leh from Srinagar lies up
the lovely Sind valley to the sources of the river at the Zoji La Pass
(11,300 ft.) in the Zaskar range. This is the range which, skirting the
southern edge of the upland plains of Deosai in Baltistan, divides them
from the valley of Kashmir, and then continues to Nanga Parbat (26,620
ft.) and beyond that mountain stretches to the north of Swat and Bajour.
To the south-east it is an unbroken chain till it merges into the line
of snowy peaks seen from Simla and the plains of India--the range which
reaches past Chini to the famous peaks of Gangotri, Nandadevi and Nampa.
It is the most central and conspicuous range in the Himalaya. The Zoji
La, which curves from the head of the Sind valley on to the bleak
uplands of Dras (where lies the road to the trough of the Indus and
Leh), is, in spite of its altitude, a pass on which little snow lies;
but for local accumulations, it would be open all the year round. It
affords a typical instance of that cutting-back process by which a
river-head may erode a channel through a watershed into the plateau
behind, there being no steep fall towards the Indus on the northern side
of the range. From the Zoji La the road continues by easy gradients,
following the line of the Dras drainage, to the Indus, when it turns up
the valley to Leh. From Leh there are many routes into Tibet, the best
known being that from the Indus valley to the Tibetan plateau, by the
Chang La, to Lake Pangkong and Rudok (14,000 ft.). Rudok occupies a
forward position on the western Tibetan border analogous to that of Leh
in Kashmir. The chief trade route to Lhasa from Leh, however, follows
the line offered by the valleys of the Indus and the Brahmaputra (or
Tsanpo), crossing the divide between these rivers north of Lake
Manasarowar.
The observatory at Leh is the most elevated observatory in Asia. "The
atmosphere of the Indus valley is remarkably clear and transparent, and
the heat of the sun is very great. There is generally a difference of
more than 60° between the reading of the exposed sun thermometer _in
vacuo_ and the air temperature in the shade, and this difference has
occasionally exceeded 90°.... The mean annual temperature at Leh is 40°,
that of the coldest months (January and February) only 18° and 19°, but
it rises rapidly from February to July, in which month it reaches 62°
with a mean diurnal maximum of 80° both in that month and August, and an
average difference of 29° or 30° between the early morning and
afternoon. The mean highest temperature of the year is 90°, varying
between 84° and 93° in the twelve years previous to 1893. On the other
hand, in the winter the minimum thermometer falls occasionally below 0°,
and in 1878 reached as low as 17° below zero. The extreme range of
recorded temperature is therefore not less than 110°. The air is as dry
as Quetta, and rather more uniformly so.... The amount of rain and snow
is insignificant. The average rain (and snow) fall is only 2.7 in. in
the year."[1] The winds are generally light, and depend on the local
direction of the valleys. At Leh, which stands at the entrance of the
valley leading to the Kardang Pass, the most common directions are
between south and west in the daytime and summer, and from north-east in
the night, especially in the later months of the year. In January and
February the air is generally calm, and April and May are the most windy
months of the year.
Vegetation is confined to valleys and sheltered spots, where a stunted
growth of tamarisk and _Myricaria_, _Hippophae_ and _Elaeagnus_,
furze, and the roots of _burtsi_, a salsolaceous plant, supply the
traveller with much-needed firewood. The trees are the pencil cedar
(_Juniperus excelsa_), the poplar and willow (both extensively
planted, the latter sometimes wild), apple, mulberry, apricot and
walnut. Irrigation is skilfully managed, the principal products being
wheat, a beardless variety of barley called _grim_, millet, buckwheat,
pease, beans and turnips. Lucerne and prangos (an umbelliferous plant)
are used as fodder.
Among domestic animals are the famous shawl goat, two kinds of sheep,
of which the larger (_huniya_) is used for carrying burdens, and is a
principal source of wealth, the yak and the dso, a valuable hybrid
between the yak and common cow. Among wild animals are the kiang or
wild ass, ibex, several kinds of wild sheep, antelope (_Pantholops_),
marmot, hare and other Tibetan fauna.
The present value of the trade between British India and Tibet passing
through Ladakh is inconsiderable. Ladakh, however, is improving in its
trade prospects apart from Tibet. It is curious that both Ladakh and
Tibet import a considerable amount of treasure, for on the borders of
western Tibet and within a radius of 100 or 200 m. of Leh there
centres a gold-mining industry which apparently only requires
scientific development to render it enormously productive. Here the
surface soil has been for many centuries washed for gold by bands of
Tibetan miners, who never work deeper than 20 to 50 ft., and whose
methods of washing are of the crudest description. They work in
winter, chiefly because of the binding power of frost on the friable
soil, suffering great hardships and obtaining but a poor return for
their labour. But the remoteness of Ladakh and its extreme altitude
still continue to bar the way to substantial progress, though its
central position naturally entitles it to be a great trade mart.
The adjoining territory of Baltistan forms the west extremity of
Tibet, whose natural limits here are the Indus from its abrupt
southward bend in 74° 45´ E., and the mountains to the north and west,
separating a comparatively peaceful Tibetan population from the
fiercer Aryan tribes beyond. Mahommedan writers about the 16th century
speak of Baltistan as "Little Tibet," and of Ladakh as "Great Tibet,"
thus ignoring the really Great Tibet altogether. The Balti call Gilgit
"a Tibet," and Dr Leitner says that the Chilasi call themselves Bot or
Tibetans; but, although these districts may have been overrun by the
Tibetans, or have received rulers of that race, the ethnological
frontier coincides with the geographical one given. Baltistan is a
mass of lofty mountains, the prevailing formation being gneiss. In the
north is the Baltoro glacier, the largest out of the arctic regions,
35 m. long, contained between two ridges whose highest peaks to the
south are 25,000 and to the north 28,265 ft. The Indus, as in Lower
Ladakh, runs in a narrow gorge, widening for nearly 20 m. after
receiving the Shyok. The capital, Skardu, a scattered collection of
houses, stands here, perched on a rock 7250 ft. above the sea. The
house roofs are flat, occupied only in part by a second story, the
remaining space being devoted to drying apricots, the chief staple of
the main valley, which supports little cultivation. But the rapid
slope westwards is seen generally in the vegetation. Birch, plane,
spruce and _Pinus excelsa_ appear; the fruits are finer, including
pomegranate, pear, peach, vine and melon, and where irrigation is
available, as in the North Shigar, and at the deltas of the tributary
valleys, the crops are more luxuriant and varied.
_History._--The earliest notice of Ladakh is by the Chinese pilgrim
Fa-hien, A.D. 400, who, travelling in search of a purer faith, found
Buddhism flourishing there, the only novelty to him being the
prayer-cylinder, the efficacy of which he declares is incredible. Ladakh
formed part of the Tibetan empire until its disruption in the 10th
century, and since then has continued ecclesiastically subject, and
sometimes tributary, to Lhasa. Its inaccessibility saved it from any
Mussulman invasion until 1531, when Sultan Said of Kashgar marched an
army across the Karakoram, one division fighting its way into Kashmir
and wintering there. Next year they invaded eastern Tibet, where nearly
all perished from the effects of the climate.
Early in the 17th century Ladakh was invaded by its Mahommedan
neighbours of Baltistan, who plundered and destroyed the temples and
monasteries; and again, in 1685-1688, by the Sokpa, who were expelled
only by the aid of the lieutenant of Aurangzeb in Kashmir, Ladakh
thereafter becoming tributary. The gyalpo or king then made a nominal
profession of Islam, and allowed a mosque to be founded at Leh, and the
Kashmiris have ever since addressed his successors by a Mahommedan
title. When the Sikhs took Kashmir, Ladakh, dreading their approach,
offered allegiance to Great Britain. It was, however, conquered and
annexed in 1834-1841 by Gulab Singh of Jammu--the unwar-like Ladakhis,
even with nature fighting on their side, and against indifferent
generalship, being no match for the Dogra troops. These next turned
their arms successfully against the Baltis (who in the 18th century were
subject to the Mogul), and were then tempted to revive the claims of
Ladakh to the Chinese provinces of Rudok and Ngari. This, however,
brought down an army from Lhasa, and after a three days' fight the
Indian force was almost annihilated--chiefly indeed by frostbite and
other sufferings, for the battle was fought in mid-winter, 15,000 ft.
above the sea. The Chinese then marched on Leh, but were soon driven out
again, and peace was finally made on the basis of the old frontier. The
widespread prestige of China is illustrated by the fact that tribute,
though disguised as a present, is paid to her, for Ladakh, by the
maharaja of Kashmir.
The principal works to be consulted are F. Drew, _The Jummoo and
Kashmir Territories_; Cunningham, _Ladak_; Major J. Biddulph, _The
Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh_; Ramsay, _Western Tibet_; Godwin-Austen,
"The Mountain Systems of the Himalaya," vol. vi., _Proc. R.G.S._
(1884); W. Lawrence, _The Valley of Kashmir_ (1895); H. F. Blandford,
_The Climate and Weather of India_ (1889). (T. H. H.*)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] H. F. Blandford, _Climate and Weather of India_ (London, 1889).
LADD, GEORGE TRUMBULL (1842- ), American philosopher, was born in
Painesville, Lake county, Ohio, on the 19th of January 1842. He
graduated at Western Reserve College in 1864 and at Andover Theological
Seminary in 1869; preached in Edinburg, Ohio, in 1869-1871, and in the
Spring Street Congregational Church of Milwaukee in 1871-1879; and was
professor of philosophy at Bowdoin College in 1879-1881, and Clark
professor of metaphysics and moral philosophy at Yale from 1881 till
1901, when he took charge of the graduate department of philosophy and
psychology; he became professor emeritus in 1905. In 1879-1882 he
lectured on theology at Andover Theological Seminary, and in 1883 at
Harvard, where in 1895-1896 he conducted a graduate seminary in ethics.
He lectured in Japan in 1892, 1899 (when he also visited the
universities of India) and 1906-1907. He was much influenced by Lotze,
whose _Outlines of Philosophy_ he translated (6 vols., 1877), and was
one of the first to introduce (1879) the study of experimental
psychology into America, the Yale psychological laboratory being founded
by him.
PUBLICATIONS.--_The Principles of Church Polity_ (1882); _The Doctrine
of Sacred Scripture_ (1884); _What is the Bible?_ (1888); _Essays on
the Higher Education_ (1899), defending the "old" (Yale) system
against the Harvard or "new" education, as praised by George H.
Palmer; _Elements of Physiological Psychology_ (1889, rewritten as
_Outlines of Physiological Psychology_, in 1890); _Primer of
Psychology_ (1894); _Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory_ (1894);
and _Outlines of Descriptive Psychology_ (1898); in a "system of
philosophy," _Philosophy of the Mind_ (1891); _Philosophy of
Knowledge_ (1897); _A Theory of Reality_ (1899); _Philosophy of
Conduct_ (1902); and _Philosophy of Religion_ (2 vols., 1905); _In
Korea with Marquis Ito_ (1908); and _Knowledge, Life and Reality_
(1909).
LADDER, (O. Eng. _hlaeder_; of Teutonic origin, cf. Dutch _leer_, Ger.
_Leiter_; the ultimate origin is in the root seen in "lean," Gr. [Greek:
klimax]), a set of steps or "rungs" between two supports to enable one
to get up and down; usually made of wood and sometimes of metal or rope.
Ladders are generally movable, and differ from a staircase also in
having only treads and no "risers." The term "Jacob's ladder," taken
from the dream of Jacob in the Bible, is applied to a rope ladder with
wooden steps used at sea to go aloft, and to a common garden plant of
the genus _Polemonium_ on account of the ladder-like formation of the
leaves. The flower known in England as Solomon's seal is in some
countries called the "ladder of heaven."
LADING (from "to lade," O. Eng. _hladan_, to put cargo on board; cf.
"load"), BILL OF, the document given as receipt by the master of a
merchant vessel to the consignor of goods, as a guarantee for their safe
delivery to the consignee. (See AFFREIGHTMENT.)
LADISLAUS I, Saint (1040-1095), king of Hungary, the son of Béla I.,
king of Hungary, and the Polish princess Richeza, was born in Poland,
whither his father had sought refuge, but was recalled by his elder
brother Andrew I. to Hungary (1047) and brought up there. He succeeded
to the throne on the death of his uncle Geza in 1077, as the eldest
member of the royal family, and speedily won for himself a reputation
scarcely inferior to that of Stephen I., by nationalizing Christianity
and laying the foundations of Hungary's political greatness.
Instinctively recognizing that Germany was the natural enemy of the
Magyars, Ladislaus formed a close alliance with the pope and all the
other enemies of the emperor Henry IV., including the anti-emperor
Rudolph of Swabia and his chief supporter Welf, duke of Bavaria, whose
daughter Adelaide he married. She bore him one son and three daughters,
one of whom, Piriska, married the Byzantine emperor John Comnenus. The
collapse of the German emperor in his struggle with the pope left
Ladislaus free to extend his dominions towards the south, and colonize
and Christianize the wildernesses of Transylvania and the lower Danube.
Hungary was still semi-savage, and her native barbarians were being
perpetually recruited from the hordes of Pechenegs, Kumanians and other
races which swept over her during the 11th century. Ladislaus himself
had fought valiantly in his youth against the Pechenegs, and to defend
the land against the Kumanians, who now occupied Moldavia and Wallachia
as far as the Alt, he built the fortresses of Turnu-Severin and Gyula
Féhervár. He also planted in Transylvania the Szeklers, the supposed
remnant of the ancient Magyars from beyond the Dnieper, and founded the
bishoprics of Nagy-Várad, or Gross-Wardein, and of Agram, as fresh foci
of Catholicism in south Hungary and the hitherto uncultivated districts
between the Drave and the Save. He subsequently conquered Croatia,
though here his authority was questioned by the pope, the Venetian
republic and the Greek emperor. Ladislaus died suddenly in 1095 when
about to take part in the first Crusade. No other Hungarian king was so
generally beloved. The whole nation mourned for him for three years, and
regarded him as a saint long before his canonization. A whole cycle of
legends is associated with his name.
See J. Babik, _Life of St Ladislaus_ (Hung.) (Eger, 1892); György
Pray, _Dissertatio de St Ladislao_ (Pressburg, 1774); Antál Gánóczy,
_Diss. hist. crit. de St Ladislao_ (Vienna, 1775). (R. N. B.)
LADISLAUS IV., The Kumanian (1262-1290), king of Hungary, was the son of
Stephen V., whom he succeeded in 1272. From his tenth year, when he was
kidnapped from his father's court by the rebellious vassals, till his
assassination eighteen years later, his whole life, with one bright
interval of military glory was unrelieved tragedy. His minority,
1272-1277, was an alternation of palace revolutions and civil wars, in
the course of which his brave Kumanian mother Elizabeth barely contrived
to keep the upper hand. In this terrible school Ladislaus matured
precociously. At fifteen he was a man, resolute, spirited, enterprising,
with the germs of many talents and virtues, but rough, reckless and very
imperfectly educated. He was married betimes to Elizabeth of Anjou, who
had been brought up at the Hungarian court. The marriage was a purely
political one, arranged by his father and a section of the Hungarian
magnates to counterpoise hostile German and Czech influences. During
the earlier part of his reign, Ladislaus obsequiously followed the
direction of the Neapolitan court in foreign affairs. In Hungary itself
a large party was in favour of the Germans, but the civil wars which
raged between the two factions from 1276 to 1278 did not prevent
Ladislaus, at the head of 20,000 Magyars and Kumanians, from
co-operating with Rudolph of Habsburg in the great battle of Durnkrüt
(August 26th, 1278), which destroyed, once for all, the empire of the
Premyslidae. A month later a papal legate arrived in Hungary to inquire
into the conduct of the king, who was accused by his neighbours, and
many of his own subjects, of adopting the ways of his Kumanian kinsfolk
and thereby undermining Christianity. Ladislaus was not really a pagan,
or he would not have devoted his share of the spoil of Durnkrüt to the
building of the Franciscan church at Pressburg, nor would he have
venerated as he did his aunt St Margaret. Political enmity was largely
responsible for the movement against him, yet the result of a very
careful investigation (1279-1281) by Philip, bishop of Fermo, more than
justified many of the accusations brought against Ladislaus. He clearly
preferred the society of the semi-heathen Kumanians to that of the
Christians; wore, and made his court wear, Kumanian dress; surrounded
himself with Kumanian concubines, and neglected and ill-used his
ill-favoured Neapolitan consort. He was finally compelled to take up
arms against his Kumanian friends, whom he routed at Hodmézö (May 1282)
with fearful loss; but, previously to this, he had arrested the legate,
whom he subsequently attempted to starve into submission, and his
conduct generally was regarded as so unsatisfactory that, after repeated
warnings, the Holy See resolved to supersede him by his Angevin
kinsfolk, whom he had also alienated, and on the 8th of August 1288 Pope
Nicholas IV. proclaimed a crusade against him. For the next two years
all Hungary was convulsed by a horrible civil war, during which the
unhappy young king, who fought for his heritage to the last with
desperate valour, was driven from one end of his kingdom to the other
like a hunted beast. On the 25th of December 1289 he issued a manifesto
to the lesser gentry, a large portion of whom sided with him, urging
them to continue the struggle against the magnates and their foreign
supporters; but on the 10th of July 1290 he was murdered in his camp at
Korosszeg by the Kumanians, who never forgave him for deserting them.
See Karoly Szabó, _Ladislaus the Cumanian_ (Hung.), (Budapest, 1886);
and Acsády, _History of the Hungarian Realm_, i. 2 (Budapest, 1903).
The latter is, however, too favourable to Ladislaus. (R. N. B.)
LADISLAUS V. (1440-1457), king of Hungary and Bohemia, the only son of
Albert, king of Hungary, and Elizabeth, daughter of the emperor
Sigismund, was born at Komárom on the 22nd of February 1440, four months
after his father's death, and was hence called Ladislaus Posthumus. The
estates of Hungary had already elected Wladislaus III. of Poland their
king, but Ladislaus's mother caused the holy crown to be stolen from its
guardians at Visegrad, and compelled the primate to crown the infant
king at Székesfejérvár on the 15th of May 1440; whereupon, for safety's
sake, she placed the child beneath the guardianship of his uncle the
emperor Frederick III. On the death of Wladislaus III. (Nov. 10th,
1444), Ladislaus V. was elected king by the Hungarian estates, though
not without considerable opposition, and a deputation was sent to Vienna
to induce the emperor to surrender the child and the holy crown; but it
was not till 1452 that Frederick was compelled to relinquish both. The
child was then transferred to the pernicious guardianship of his
maternal grandfather Ulrich Cillei, who corrupted him soul and body and
inspired him with a jealous hatred of the Hunyadis. On the 28th of
October 1453 he was crowned king of Bohemia, and henceforth spent most
of his time at Prague and Vienna. He remained supinely indifferent to
the Turkish peril; at the instigation of Cillei did his best to hinder
the defensive preparations of the great Hunyadi, and fled from the
country on the tidings of the siege of Belgrade. On the death of Hunyadi
he made Cillei governor of Hungary at the diet of Futtak (October 1456),
and when that traitor paid with his life for his murderous attempt on
Laszló Hunyadi at Belgrade, Ladislaus procured the decapitation of young
Hunyadi (16th of March 1457), after a mock trial which raised such a
storm in Hungary that the king fled to Prague, where he died suddenly
(Nov. 23rd, 1457), while making preparations for his marriage with
Magdalena, daughter of Charles VII. of France. He is supposed to have
been poisoned by his political opponents in Bohemia.
See F. Palacky, _Zeugenverhör über den Tod König Ladislaus von Ungarn
u. Böhmen_ (Prague, 1856); Ignacz Acsády, _History of the Hungarian
State_ (Hung.), vol. i. (Budapest, 1903).
LA DIXMERIE, NICOLAS BRICAIRE DE (c. 1730-1791), French man of letters,
was born at Lamothe (Haute-Marne). While still young he removed to
Paris, where the rest of his life was spent in literary activity. He
died on the 26th of November 1791. His numerous works include _Contes
philosophiques et moraux_ (1765), _Les Deux Âges du goût et du génie
sous Louis XIV. et sous Louis XV._ (1769), a parallel and contrast, in
which the decision is given in favour of the latter; _L'Espagne
littéraire_ (1774); _Éloge de Voltaire_ (1779) and _Éloge de Montaigne_
(1781).
LADO ENCLAVE, a region of the upper Nile formerly administered by the
Congo Free State, but since 1910 a province of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.
It has an area of about 15,000 sq. m., and a population estimated at
250,000 and consisting of Bari, Madi, Kuku and other Nilotic Negroes.
The enclave is bounded S.E. by the north-west shores of Albert
Nyanza--as far south as the port of Mahagi--E. by the western bank of
the Nile (Bahr-el-Jebel) to the point where the river is intersected by
5° 30´ N., which parallel forms its northern frontier from the Nile
westward to 30° E. This meridian forms the west frontier to 4° N., the
frontier thence being the Nile-Congo watershed to the point nearest to
Mahagi and from that point direct to Albert Nyanza.
The country is a moderately elevated plateau sloping northward from the
higher ground marking the Congo-Nile watershed. The plains are mostly
covered with bush, with stretches of forest in the northern districts.
Traversing the plateau are two parallel mountainous chains having a
general north to south direction. One chain, the Kuku Mountains (average
height 2000 ft.), approaches close to the Nile and presents, as seen
from the river, several apparently isolated peaks. At other places these
mountains form precipices which stretch in a continuous line like a huge
wall. From Dufile in 3° 34´ N. to below the Bedden Rapids in 4° 40´ N.
the bed of the Nile is much obstructed and the river throughout this
reach is unnavigable (see Nile). Below the Bedden Rapids rises the
conical hill of Rejaf, and north of that point the Nile valley becomes
flat. Ranges of hill, however, are visible farther westwards, and a
little north of 5° N. is Jebel Lado, a conspicuous mountain 2500 ft.
high and some 12 m. distant from the Nile. It has given its name to the
district, being the first hill seen from the Nile in the ascent of some
1000 m. from Khartum. On the river at Rejaf, at Lado, and at Kiro, 28 m.
N. of Lado, are government stations and trading establishments. The
western chain of hills has loftier peaks than those of Kuku, Jebel Loka
being about 3000 ft. high. This western chain forms a secondary
watershed separating the basin of the Yei, a large river, some 400 m. in
length, which runs almost due north to join the Nile, from the other
streams of the enclave, which have an easterly or north-easterly
direction and join the Nile after comparatively short courses.
The northern part of the district was first visited by Europeans in
1841-1842, when the Nile was ascended by an expedition despatched by
Mehemet Ali to the foot of the rapids at Bedden. The neighbouring posts
of Gondokoro, on the east bank of the Nile, and Lado, soon became
stations of the Khartum ivory and slave traders. After the discovery of
Albert Nyanza by Sir Samuel Baker in 1864, the whole country was overrun
by Arabs, Levantines, Turks and others, whose chief occupation was slave
raiding. The region was claimed as part of the Egyptian Sudan, but it
was not until the arrival of Sir Samuel Baker at Gondokoro in 1870 as
governor of the equatorial provinces, that any effective control of the
slave traders was attempted. Baker was succeeded by General C. G.
Gordon, who established a separate administration for the
Bahr-el-Ghazal. In 1878 Emin Pasha became governor of the Equatorial
Province, a term henceforth confined to the region adjoining the main
Nile above the Sobat confluence, and the region south of the
Bahr-el-Ghazal province. (The whole of the Lado Enclave thus formed part
of Emin's old province.) Emin made his headquarters at Lado, whence he
was driven in 1885 by the Mahdists. He then removed to Wadelai, a
station farther south, but in 1889 the pasha, to whose aid H. M. Stanley
had conducted an expedition from the Congo, evacuated the country and
with Stanley made his way to the east coast. While the Mahdists remained
in possession at Rejaf, Great Britain in virtue of her position in
Uganda claimed the upper Nile region as within the British sphere; a
claim admitted by Germany in 1890. In February 1894 the union jack was
hoisted at Wadelai, while in May of the same year Great Britain granted
to Leopold II., as sovereign of the Congo State, a lease of large areas
lying west of the upper Nile inclusive of the Bahr-el-Ghazal and
Fashoda. Pressed however by France, Leopold II. agreed to occupy only
that part of the leased area east of 30° E. and south of 5° 30´ N., and
in this manner the actual limits of the Lado Enclave, as it was
thereafter called, were fixed. Congo State forces had penetrated to the
Nile valley as early as 1891, but it was not until 1897, when on the
17th of February Commandant Chaltin inflicted a decisive defeat on the
Mahdists at Rejaf, that their occupation of the Lado Enclave was
assured. After the withdrawal of the French from Fashoda, Leopold II.
revived (1899) his claim to the whole of the area, leased to him in
1894. In this claim he was unsuccessful, and the lease, by a new
agreement made with Great Britain in 1906, was annulled (see AFRICA, §
5). The king however retained the enclave, with the stipulation that six
months after the termination of his reign it should be handed over to
the Anglo-Sudanese government (see _Treaty Series_, No. 4, 1906).
See _Le Mouvement géographique_ (Brussels) _passim_, and especially
articles in the 1910 issues.
LADOGA (formerly NEVO), a lake of northern Russia, between 59° 56´ and
61° 46´ N., and 29° 53´ and 32° 50´ E., surrounded by the governments of
St Petersburg and Olonets, and of Viborg in Finland. It has the form of
a quadrilateral, elongated from N.W. to S.E. Its eastern and southern
shores are flat and marshy, the north-western craggy and fringed by
numerous small rocky islands, the largest of which are Valamo and
Konnevitz, together having an area of 14 sq. m. Ladoga is 7000 sq. m. in
area, that is, thirty-one times as large as the Lake of Geneva; but, its
depth being less, it contains only nineteen times as much water as the
Swiss lake. The greatest depth, 730 ft., is in a trough in the
north-western part, the average depth not exceeding 250 to 350 ft. The
level of Lake Ladoga is 55 ft. above the Gulf of Finland, but it rises
and falls about 7 ft., according to atmospheric conditions, a phenomenon
very similar to the _seiches_ of the Lake of Geneva being observed in
connexion with this.
The western and eastern shores consist of boulder clay, as well as a
narrow strip on the southern shore, south of which runs a ridge of
crags of Silurian sandstones. The hills of the north-western shore
afford a variety of granites and crystalline slates of the Laurentian
system, whilst Valamo island is made up of a rock which Russian
geologists describe as orthoclastic hypersthenite. The granite and
marble of Serdobol, and the sandstone of Putilovo, are much used for
buildings at St Petersburg; copper and tin from the Pitkäranta mine
are exported.
No fewer than seventy rivers enter Ladoga, pouring into it the waters
of numberless smaller lakes which lie at higher levels round it. The
Volkhov, which conveys the waters of Lake Ilmen, is the largest; Lake
Onega discharges its waters by the Svir; and the Saima system of lakes
of eastern Finland contributes the Vuoxen and Taipale rivers; the Syas
brings the waters from the smaller lakes and marshes of the Valdai
plateau. Ladoga discharges its surplus water by means of the Neva,
which flows from its south-western corner into the Gulf of Finland,
rolling down its broad channel 104,000 cubic ft. of water per second.
The water of Ladoga is very pure and cold; in May the surface
temperature does not exceed 36° Fahr., and even in August it reaches
only 50° and 53°, the average yearly temperature of the air at Valamo
being 36.8°. The lake begins to freeze in October, but it is only
about the end of December that it is frozen in its deeper parts; and
it remains ice-bound until the end of March, though broad icefields
continue to float in the middle of the lake until broken up by gales.
Only a small part of the Ladoga ice is discharged by the Neva; but it
is enough to produce in the middle of June a return of cold in the
northern capital. The thickness of the ice does not exceed 3 or 4 ft.;
but during the alternations of cold and warm weather, with strong
gales, in winter, stacks of ice, 70 and 80 ft. high, are raised on the
shores and on the icefields. The water is in continuous rotatory
motion, being carried along the western shore from north to south, and
along the eastern from south to north. The vegetation on the shores is
poor; immense forests, which formerly covered them, are now mostly
destroyed. But the fauna of the lake is somewhat rich; a species of
seal which inhabits its waters, as well as several species of arctic
crustaceans, recall its former connexion with the Arctic Ocean. The
sweet water _Diatomaceae_ which are found in great variety in the ooze
of the deepest parts of the lake also have an arctic character.
Fishing is very extensively carried on. Navigation, which is
practicable for only one hundred and eighty days in the year, is
rather difficult owing to fogs and gales, which are often accompanied,
even in April and September, with snow-storms. The prevailing winds
blow from N.W. and S.W.; N.E. winds cause the water to rise in the
south-western part, sometimes 3 to 5 ft. Steamers ply regularly in two
directions from St Petersburg--to the monasteries of Konnevitz and
Valamo, and to the mouth of the Svir, whence they go up that river to
Lake Onega and Petrozavodsk; and small vessels transport timber,
firewood, planks, iron, kaolin, granite, marble, fish, hay and various
small wares from the northern shore to Schlüsselburg, and thence to St
Petersburg. Navigation on the lake being too dangerous for small
craft, canals with an aggregate length of 104 m. were dug in
1718-1731, and others in 1861-1886 having an aggregate length of 101
m. along its southern shore, uniting with the Neva at Schlüsselburg
the mouths of the rivers Volkhov, Syas and Svir, all links in the
elaborate system of canals which connect the upper Volga with the Gulf
of Finland.
The population (35,000) on the shores of the lake is sparse, and the
towns--Schlüsselburg (5285 inhabitants in 1897); New Ladoga (4144);
Kexholm (1325) and Serdobol--are small. The monasteries of Valamo,
founded in 992, on the island of the same name, and Konnevskiy, on
Konnevitz island, founded in 1393, are visited every year by many
thousands of pilgrims. (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
LADY (O. Eng. _hlaéfdige_, Mid. Eng. _láfdi_, _lavedi_; the first part
of the word is _hláf_, loaf, bread, as in the corresponding _hláford_,
lord; the second part is usually taken to be from the root dig-, to
knead, seen also in "dough"; the sense development from bread-kneader,
bread-maker, to the ordinary meaning, though not clearly to be traced
historically, may be illustrated by that of "lord"), a term of which the
main applications are two, (1) as the correlative of "lord" (q.v.) in
certain of the usages of that word, (2) as the correlative of
"gentleman" (q.v.). The primary meaning of mistress of a household is,
if not obsolete, in present usage only a vulgarism. The special use of
the word as a title of the Virgin Mary, usually "Our Lady," represents
the Lat. _Domina Nostra_. In Lady Day and Lady Chapel the word is
properly a genitive, representing the O. Eng. _hlaéfdigan_. As a title
of nobility the uses of "lady" are mainly paralleled by those of "lord."
It is thus a less formal alternative to the full title giving the
specific rank, of marchioness, countess, viscountess or baroness,
whether as the title of the husband's rank by right or courtesy, or as
the lady's title in her own right. In the case of the younger sons of a
duke or marquess, who by courtesy have lord prefixed to their Christian
and family name, the wife is known by the husband's Christian and family
name with Lady prefixed, e.g. Lady John B.; the daughters of dukes,
marquesses and earls are by courtesy Ladies; here that title is prefixed
to the Christian and family name of the lady, e.g. Lady Mary B., and
this is preserved if the lady marry a commoner, e.g. Mr and Lady Mary C.
"Lady" is also the customary title of the wife of a baronet or knight;
the proper title, now only used in legal documents or on sepulchral
monuments, is "dame" (q.v.); in the latter case the usage is to prefix
Dame to the Christian name of the wife followed by the surname of the
husband, thus Dame Eleanor B., but in the former, Lady with the surname
of the husband only, Sir A. and Lady B. During the 15th and 16th
centuries "princesses" or daughters of the blood royal were usually
known by their Christian names with "the Lady" prefixed, e.g. the Lady
Elizabeth.
While "lord" has retained its original application as a title of
nobility or rank without extension, an example which has been followed
in Spanish usage by "don," "lady" has been extended in meaning to be the
feminine correlative of "gentleman" throughout its sense developments,
and in this is paralleled by _Dame_ in German, _madame_ in French,
_donna_ in Spanish, &c. It is the general word for any woman of a
certain social position (see GENTLEMAN).
LADYBANK, a police burgh of Fifeshire, Scotland, 5½ m. S.W. of Cupar by
the North British railway, ½ m. from the left bank of the Eden. Pop.
(1901) 1340. Besides having a station on the main line to Dundee, it is
also connected with Perth and Kinross and is a railway junction of some
importance and possesses a locomotive depot. It is an industrial centre,
linen weaving, coal mining and malting being the principal industries.
KETTLE, a village 1 m. S., has prehistoric barrows and a fort. At
COLLESSIE, 2½ m. N. by W., a standing stone, a mound and traces of
ancient camps exist, while urns and coins have been found. Between the
parishes of Collessie and Monimail the boundary line takes the form of a
crescent known as the Bow of Fife. MONIMAIL contains the Mount, the
residence of Sir David Lindsay the poet (1490-1555). Its lofty site is
now marked by a clump of trees. Here, too, is the Doric pillar, 100 ft.
high, raised to the memory of John Hope, 4th earl of Hopetoun. Melville
House, the seat of the earls of Leven, lies amidst beautiful woods.
LADYBRAND, a town of the Orange Free State, 80 m. E. of Bloemfontein by
rail. Another railway connects it with Natal via Harrismith. Pop. (1904)
3862, of whom 2334 were whites. The town is pleasantly situated at the
foot of a flat-topped hill (the Platberg), about 4 m. W. of the Caledon
river, which separates the province from Basutoland. Ladybrand is the
centre of a rich arable district, has a large wheat market and is also a
health resort, the climate, owing to the proximity of the Maluti
Mountains, being bracing even during the summer months (November-March).
Coal and petroleum are found in the neighbourhood. It is named after the
wife of Sir J. H. Brand, president of the Orange Free State.
LADY-CHAPEL, the chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and attached to
churches of large size. Generally the chapel was built eastward of the
high altar and formed a projection from the main building, as in
Winchester, Salisbury, Exeter, Wells, St Albans, Chichester,
Peterborough and Norwich cathedrals,--in the two latter cases now
destroyed. The earliest Lady-chapel built was that in the Saxon
cathedral of Canterbury; this was transfered in the rebuilding by
Archbishop Lanfranc to the west end of the nave, and again shifted in
1450 to the chapel on the east side of the north transept. The
Lady-chapel at Ely cathedral is a distinct building attached to the
north transept; at Rochester the Lady-chapel is west of the south
transept. Probably the largest Lady-chapel was that built by Henry III.
in 1220 at Westminster Abbey, which was 30 ft. wide, much in excess of
any foreign example, and extended to the end of the site now occupied by
Henry VII.'s chapel. Among other notable English examples of
Lady-chapels are those at Ottery-St-Mary, Thetford, Bury St Edmund's,
Wimborne, Christ-church, Hampshire; in Compton Church, Surrey, and
Compton Martin, Somersetshire, and Darenth, Kent, it was built over the
chancel. At Croyland Abbey there were two Lady-chapels. Lady-chapels
exist in most of the French cathedrals and churches, where they form
part of the chevet; in Belgium they were not introduced before the 14th
century; in some cases they are of the same size as the other chapels of
the chevet, but in others, probably rebuilt at a later period, they
became much more important features, and in Italy and Spain during the
Renaissance period constitute some of its best examples.
LADY DAY, originally the name for all the days in the church calendar
marking any event in the Virgin Mary's life, but now restricted to the
feast of the Annunciation, held on the 25th of March in each year. Lady
Day was in medieval and later times the beginning of the legal year in
England. In 1752 this was altered to the 1st of January, but the 25th of
March remains one of the Quarter Days; though in some parts old Lady
Day, on the 6th of April, is still the date for rent paying. See
Annunciation.
LADYSMITH, a town of Natal, 189 m. N.W. of Durban by rail, on the left
bank of the Klip tributary of the Tugela. Pop. (1904) 5568, of whom 2269
were whites. It lies 3284 ft. above the sea and is encircled by hills,
while the Drakensberg are some 30 m. distant to the N.W. Ladysmith is
the trading centre of northern Natal, and is the chief railway junction
in the province, the main line from the south dividing here. One line
crosses Van Reenen's pass into the Orange Free State, the other runs
northwards to the Transvaal. There are extensive railway workshops.
Among the public buildings are the Anglican church and the town hall.
The church contains tablets with the names of 3200 men who perished in
the defence and relief of the town in the South African War (see below),
while the clock tower of the town hall, partially destroyed by a Boer
shell, is kept in its damaged condition.
Ladysmith, founded in 1851, is named after Juana, Lady Smith, wife of
Sir Harry Smith, then governor of Cape Colony. It stands near the site
of the camp of the Dutch farmers who in 1848 assembled for the purpose
of trekking across the Drakensberg. Here they were visited by Sir Harry
Smith, who induced the majority of the farmers to remain in Natal. The
growth of the town, at first slow, increased with the opening of the
railway from Durban in 1886 and the subsequent extension of the line to
Johannesburg.
In the first and most critical stage of the South African War of
1899-1902 (see TRANSVAAL) Ladysmith was the centre of the struggle.
During the British concentration on the town there were fought the
actions of Talana (or Dundee) on the 20th, Elandslaagte on the 21st and
Rietfontein on the 24th of October 1899. On the 30th of October the
British sustained a serious defeat in the general action of Lombard's
Kop or Farquhar's Farm, and Sir George White decided to hold the town,
which had been fortified, against investment and siege until he was
relieved directly or indirectly by Sir Redvers Buller's advance. The
greater portion of Buller's available troops were despatched to Natal in
November, with a view to the direct relief of Ladysmith, which meantime
the Boers had closely invested. His first attempt was repelled on the
15th of December in the battle of Colenso, his second on the 24th of
January 1900 by the successful Boer counterstroke against Spion Kop, and
his third was abandoned without serious fighting (Vaalkranz, Feb. 5).
But two or three days after Vaalkranz, almost simultaneously with Lord
Roberts's advance on Bloemfontein Sir Redvers Buller resumed the
offensive in the hills to the east of Colenso, which he gradually
cleared of the enemy, and although he was checked after reaching the
Tugela below Colenso (Feb. 24) he was finally successful in carrying the
Boer positions (Pieter's Hill) on the 27th and relieving Ladysmith,
which during these long and anxious months (Nov. 1-Feb. 28) had suffered
very severely from want of food, and on one occasion (Caesar's Camp,
Jan. 6, 1900) had only with heavy losses and great difficulty repelled a
powerful Boer assault. The garrison displayed its unbroken resolution on
the last day of the investment by setting on foot a mobile column,
composed of all men who were not too enfeebled to march out, in order to
harass the Boer retreat. This expedition was however countermanded by
Buller.
LAELIUS, the name of a Roman plebeian family, probably settled at Tibur
(Tivoli). The chief members were:--
GAIUS LAELIUS, general and statesman, was a friend of the elder Scipio,
whom he accompanied on his Spanish campaign (210-206 B.C.). In Scipio's
consulship (205), Laelius went with him to Sicily, whence he conducted
an expedition to Africa. In 203 he defeated the Massaesylian prince
Syphax, who, breaking his alliance with Scipio, had joined the
Carthaginians, and at Zama (202) rendered considerable service in
command of the cavalry. In 197 he was plebeian aedile and in 196 praetor
of Sicily. As consul in 190 he was employed in organizing the recently
conquered territory in Cisalpine Gaul. Placentia and Cremona were
repeopled, and a new colony founded at Bononia. He is last heard of in
170 as ambassador to Transalpine Gaul. Though little is known of his
personal qualities, his intimacy with Scipio is proof that he must have
been a man of some importance. Silius Italicus (_Punica_, xv. 450)
describes him as a man of great endowments, an eloquent orator and a
brave soldier.
See Index to Livy; Polybius x. 3. 9, 39, xi. 32, xiv. 4. 8, xv. 9. 12,
14; Appian, _Hisp._ 25-29; Cicero, _Philippica_, xi. 7.
His son, GAIUS LAELIUS, is known chiefly as the friend of the younger
Scipio, and as one of the speakers in Cicero's _De senectute_, _De
amicitia_ (or _Laelius_) and _De Republica_. He was surnamed _Sapiens_
("the wise"), either from his scholarly tastes or because, when tribune,
he "prudently" withdrew his proposal (151 B.C.) for the relief of the
farmers by distributions of land, when he saw that it was likely to
bring about disturbances. In the third Punic War (147) he accompanied
Scipio to Africa, and distinguished himself at the capture of the
Cothon, the military harbour of Carthage. In 145 he carried on
operations with moderate success against Viriathus in Spain; in 140 he
was elected consul. During the Gracchan period, as a staunch supporter
of Scipio and the aristocracy, Laelius became obnoxious to the
democrats. He was associated with P. Popillius Laenas in the prosecution
of those who had supported Tiberius Gracchus, and in 131 opposed the
bill brought forward by C. Papirius Carbo to render legal the election
of a tribune to a second year of office. The attempts of his enemies,
however, failed to shake his reputation. He was a highly accomplished
man and belonged to the so-called "Scipionic circle." He studied
philosophy under the Stoics Diogenes Babylonius and Panaetius of Rhodes;
he was a poet, and the plays of Terence, by reason of their elegance of
diction, were sometimes attributed to him. With Scipio he was mainly
instrumental in introducing the study of the Greek language and
literature into Rome. He was a gifted orator, though his refined
eloquence was perhaps less suited to the forum than to the senate. He
delivered speeches _De Collegiis_ (145) against the proposal of the
tribune C. Licinius Crassus to deprive the priestly colleges of their
right of co-optation and to transfer the power of election to the
people; _Pro Publicanis_ (139), on behalf of the farmers of the revenue;
against the proposal of Carbo noticed above; _Pro Se_, a speech in his
own defence, delivered in answer to Carbo and Gracchus; funeral
orations, amongst them two on his friend Scipio. Much information is
given concerning him in Cicero, who compares him to Socrates.
See Index to Cicero; Plutarch, _Tib. Gracchus_, 8; Appian, _Punica_,
126; Horace, _Sat._ ii. 1. 72; Quintilian, _Instit._ xii. 10. 10;
Suetonius, _Vita Terentii_; Terence, _Adelphi_, Prol. 15, with the
commentators.
LAENAS, the name of a plebeian family in ancient Rome, notorious for
cruelty and arrogance. The two most famous of the name[1] are:--
GAIUS POPILLIUS LAENAS, consul in 172 B.C. He was sent to Greece in 174
to allay the general disaffection, but met with little success. He took
part in the war against Perseus, king of Macedonia (Livy xliii. 17, 22).
When Antiochus Epiphanes, king of Syria, invaded Egypt, Laenas was sent
to arrest his progress. Meeting him near Alexandria, he handed him the
decree of the senate, demanding the evacuation of Egypt. Antiochus
having asked time for consideration, Laenas drew a circle round him with
his staff, and told him he must give an answer before he stepped out of
it. Antiochus thereupon submitted (Livy xlv. 12; Polybius xxix. 11;
Cicero, _Philippica_, viii. 8; Vell. Pat. i. 10).
PUBLIUS POPILLIUS LAENAS, son of the preceding. When consul in 132 B.C.
he incurred the hatred of the democrats by his harsh measures as head of
a special commission appointed to take measures against the accomplices
of Tiberius Gracchus. In 123 Gaius Gracchus brought in a bill
prohibiting all such commissions, and declared that, in accordance with
the old laws of appeal, a magistrate who pronounced sentence of death
against a citizen, without the people's assent, should be guilty of
high treason. It is not known whether the bill contained a retrospective
clause against Laenas, but he left Rome and sentence of banishment from
Italy was pronounced against him. After the restoration of the
aristocracy the enactments against him were cancelled, and he was
recalled (121).
See Cicero, _Brutus_, 25. 34, and _De domo sua_, 31; Vell. Pat. ii. 7;
Plutarch, _C. Gracchus_, 4.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The name is said by Cicero to be derived from _laena_, the
sacerdotal cloak carried by Marcus Popillius (consul 359) when he
went to the forum to quell a popular rising.
LAER (or LAAR), PIETER VAN (1613-c. 1675), Dutch painter, was born at
Laaren in Holland. The influence of a long stay in Rome begun at an
early age is seen in his landscape and backgrounds, but in his subjects
he remained true to the Dutch tradition, choosing generally lively
scenes from peasant life, as markets, feasts, bowling scenes, farriers'
shops, robbers, hunting scenes and peasants with cattle. From this
taste, or from his personal deformity, he was nicknamed Bamboccio by the
Italians. On his return to Holland about 1639, he lived chiefly at
Amsterdam and Haarlem, in which latter city he died in 1674 or 1675. His
pictures are marked by skilful composition and good drawing; he was
especially careful in perspective. His colouring, according to Crowe, is
"generally of a warm, brownish tone, sometimes very clear, but oftener
heavy, and his execution broad and spirited." Certain etched plates are
also attributed to him.
LAESTRYGONES, a mythical race of giants and cannibals. According to the
_Odyssey_ (x. 80) they dwelt in the farthest north, where the nights
were so short that the shepherd who was driving out his flock met
another driving it in. This feature of the tale contains some hint of
the long nightless summer in the Arctic regions, which perhaps reached
the Greeks through the merchants who fetched amber from the Baltic
coasts. Odysseus in his wanderings arrived at the coast inhabited by the
Laestrygones, and escaped with only one ship, the rest being sunk by the
giants with masses of rock. Their chief city was Telepylus, founded by a
former king Lamus, their ruler at that time being Antiphates. This is a
purely fanciful name, but Lamus takes us into a religious world where we
can trace the origin of the legend, and observe the god of an older
religion becoming the subject of fairy tales (see LAMIA) in a later
period.
The later Greeks placed the country of the Laestrygones in Sicily, to
the south of Aetna, near Leontini; but Horace (_Odes_, iii. 16. 34)
and other Latin authors speak of them as living in southern Latium,
near Formiae, which was supposed to have been founded by Lamus.
LAETUS, JULIUS POMPONIUS [Giulio Pomponio Leto], (1425-1498), Italian
humanist, was born at Salerno. He studied at Rome under Laurentius
Valla, whom he succeeded (1457) as professor of eloquence in the
Gymnasium Romanum. About this time he founded an academy, the members of
which adopted Greek and Latin names, met on the Quirinal to discuss
classical questions and celebrated the birthday of Romulus. Its
constitution resembled that of an ancient priestly college, and Laetus
was styled pontifex maximus. The pope (Paul II.) viewed these
proceedings with suspicion, as savouring of paganism, heresy and
republicanism. In 1468 twenty of the academicians were arrested during
the carnival; Laetus, who had taken refuge in Venice, was sent back to
Rome, imprisoned and put to the torture, but refused to plead guilty to
the charges of infidelity and immorality. For want of evidence, he was
acquitted and allowed to resume his professorial duties; but it was
forbidden to utter the name of the academy even in jest. Sixtus IV.
permitted the resumption of its meetings, which continued to be held
till the sack of Rome (1527) by Constable Bourbon during the papacy of
Clement VII. Laetus continued to teach in Rome until his death on the
9th of June 1498. As a teacher, Laetus, who has been called the first
head of a philological school, was extraordinarily successful; in his
own words, like Socrates and Christ, he expected to live on in the
person of his pupils, amongst whom were many of the most famous scholars
of the period. His works, written in pure and simple Latin, were
published in a collected form (_Opera Pomponii Laeti varia_, 1521). They
contain treatises on the Roman magistrates, priests and lawyers, and a
compendium of Roman history from the death of the younger Gordian to
the time of Justin III. Laetus also wrote commentaries on classical
authors, and promoted the publication of the editio princeps of Virgil
at Rome in 1469.
See _The Life of Leto_ by Sabellicus (Strassburg, 1510); G. Voigt,
_Die Wiederbelebung des klassischen Alterthums_, ii.; F. Gregorovius,
_Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter_, vii. (1894), p. 576, for an
account of the academy; Sandys, _History of Classical Scholarship_
(1908), ii. 92.
LAEVIUS (? c. 80 B.C.), a Latin poet of whom practically nothing is
known. The earliest reference to him is perhaps in Suetonius (_De
grammaticis_, 3), though it is not certain that the Laevius Milissus
there referred to is the same person. Definite references do not occur
before the 2nd century (Fronto, _Ep. ad M. Caes._ i. 3; Aulus Gellius,
_Noct. Att._ ii. 24, xii. 10, xix. 9; Apuleius, _De magia_, 30;
Porphyrion, _Ad Horat. carm._ iii. 1, 2). Some sixty miscellaneous lines
are preserved (see Bährens, _Fragm. poët. rom._ pp. 287-293), from which
it is difficult to see how ancient critics could have regarded him as
the master of Ovid or Catullus. Gellius and Ausonius state that he
composed an _Erotopaegnia_, and in other sources he is credited with
_Adonis_, _Alcestis_, _Centauri_, _Helena_, _Ino_, _Protesilaudamia_,
_Sirenocirca_, _Phoenix_, which may, however, be only the parts of the
_Erotopaegnia_. They were not serious poems, but light and often
licentious skits on the heroic myths.
See O. Ribbeck, _Geschichte der römischen Dichtung_, i.; H. de la
Ville de Mirmont, _Étude biographique et littéraire sur le poète
Laevius_ (Paris, 1900), with critical ed. of the fragments, and
remarks on vocabulary and syntax; A. Weichert, _Poëtarum latinorum
reliquiae_ (Leipzig, 1830); M. Schanz, _Geschichte der römischen
Litteratur_ (2nd ed.), pt. i. p. 163; W. Teuffel, _Hist. of Roman
Literature_ (Eng. tr.), § 150, 4; a convenient summary in F. Plessis,
_La Poésie latine_ (1909), pp. 139-142.
LAEVULINIC ACID ([beta]-acetopropionic acid), C5H8O3 or
CH3CO·CH2·CH2·CO2H, a ketonic acid prepared from laevulose, inulin,
starch, &c., by boiling them with dilute hydrochloric or sulphuric
acids. It may be synthesized by condensing sodium acetoacetate with
monochloracetic ester, the acetosuccinic ester produced being then
hydrolysed with dilute hydrochloric acid (M. Conrad, _Ann._, 1877, 188,
p. 222).
CH3·CO·CH·Na CH3·CO·CH·CH2·CO2R
| --> | -->CH3COCH2·CH2·CO2OH.
CO2R CO2R
It may also be prepared by heating the anhydride of
[gamma]-methyloxy-glutaric acid with concentrated sulphuric acid, and by
oxidation of methyl heptenone and of geraniol. It crystallizes in
plates, which melt at 32.5-33° C. and boil at 148-149° (15 mm.) (A.
Michael, _Jour. prak. Chem._, 1891 [2], 44, p. 114). It is readily
soluble in alcohol, ether and water. The acid, when distilled slowly, is
decomposed and yields [alpha]- and [beta]-angelica lactones. When heated
with hydriodic acid and phosphorus, it yields n-valeric acid; and with
iodine and caustic soda solution it gives iodoform, even in the cold.
With hydroxylamine it yields an oxime, which by the action of
concentrated sulphuric acid rearranges itself to N-methylsuccinimide
[CH2·CO]2N·CH3.
LA FARGE, JOHN (1835-1910), American artist, was born in New York, on
the 31st of March 1835, of French parentage. He received instruction in
drawing from his grandfather, Binsse de St Victor, a painter of
miniatures; studied law and architecture; entered the atelier of Thomas
Couture in Paris, where he remained a short time, giving especial
attention to the study and copying of old masters at the Louvre; and
began by making illustrations to the poets (1859). An intimacy with the
artist William M. Hunt had a strong influence on him, the two working
together at Newport, Rhode Island. La Farge painted landscape, still
life and figure alike in the early sixties. But from 1866 on he was for
some time incapacitated for work, and when he regained strength he did
some decorative work for Trinity church, Boston, in 1876, and turned his
attention to stained glass, becoming president of the Society of Mural
Painters. Some of his important commissions include windows for St
Thomas's church (1877), St Peter's church, the Paulist church, the Brick
church (1882), the churches of the Incarnation (1885) and the Ascension
(1887), New York; Trinity church, Buffalo, and the "Battle Window" in
Memorial Hall at Harvard; ceilings and windows for the house of
Cornelius Vanderbilt, windows for the houses of W. H. Vanderbilt and D.
O. Mills, and panels for the house of Whitelaw Reid, New York; panels
for the Congressional Library, Washington; Bowdoin College, the Capitol
at St Paul, Minn., besides designs for many stained glass windows. He
was also a prolific painter in oil and water colour, the latter seen
notably in some water-colour sketches, the result of a voyage in the
South Seas, shown in 1895. His influence on American art was powerfully
exhibited in such men as Augustus St Gaudens, Wilton Lockwood, Francis
Lathrop and John Humphreys Johnston. He became president of the Society
of American Artists, a member of the National Academy of Design in 1869;
an officer of the Legion of Honour of France; and received many medals
and decorations. He published _Considerations on Painting_ (New York,
1895), _Hokusai: A Talk about Hokusai_ (New York, 1897), and _An
Artist's Letters from Japan_ (New York, 1897).
See Cecilia Waern, _John La Farge, Artist and Writer_ (London, 1896,
No. 26 of _The Portfolio_).
LA FARINA, GIUSEPPE (1815-1863), Italian author and politician, was born
at Messina. On account of the part he took in the insurrection of 1837
he had to leave Sicily, but returning in 1839 he conducted various
newspapers of liberal tendencies, until his efforts were completely
interdicted, when he removed to Florence. In 1840 he had published
_Messina ed i suoi monumenti_, and after his removal to Florence he
brought out _La Germania coi suoi monumenti_ (1842), _L' Italia coi suoi
monumenti_ (1842), _La Svizzera storica ed artistica_ (1842-1843), La
China, 4 vols. (1843-1847), and _Storia d' Italia_, 7 vols. (1846-1854).
In 1847 he established at Florence a democratic journal, _L' Alba_, in
the interests of Italian freedom and unity, but on the outbreak of the
revolution in Sicily in 1848 he returned thither and was elected deputy
and member of the committee of war. In August of that year he was
appointed minister of public instruction and later of war and marine.
After vigorously conducting a campaign against the Bourbon troops, he
was forced into exile, and repaired to France in 1849. In 1850 he
published his _Storia documentata della Rivoluzione Siciliana del
1848-1849_, and in 1851-1852 his _Storia d' Italia dal 1815 al 1848_, in
6 vols. He returned to Italy in 1854 and settled at Turin, and in 1856
he founded the _Piccolo Corriere d' Italia_, an organ which had great
influence in propagating the political sentiments of the Società
Nazionale Italiana, of which he ultimately was chosen president. With
Daniele Manin (q.v.), one of the founders of that society, he advocated
the unity of Italy under Victor Emmanuel even before Cavour, with whom
at one time he had daily interviews, and organized the emigration of
volunteers from all parts of Italy into the Piedmontese army. He also
negotiated an interview between Cavour and Garibaldi, with the result
that the latter was appointed commander of the Cacciatori delle Alpi in
the war of 1859. Later he supported Garibaldi's expedition to Sicily,
where he himself went soon after the occupation of Palermo, but he
failed to bring about the immediate annexation of the island to Piedmont
as Cavour wished. In 1860 he was chosen a member of the first Italian
parliament and was subsequently made councillor of state. He died on the
5th of September 1863.
See A. Franchi, _Epistolario di Giuseppe La Farina_ (2 vols., 1869)
and L. Carpi, _Il Risorgimento Italiano_, vol. i. (Milan, 1884).
LA FAYETTE, GILBERT MOTIER DE (1380-1462), marshal of France, was
brought up at the court of Louis II., 3rd duke of Bourbon. He served
under Marshal Boucicaut in Italy, and on his return to France after the
evacuation of Genoa in 1409 became seneschal of the Bourbonnais. In the
English wars he was with John I., 4th duke of Bourbon, at the capture of
Soubise in 1413, and of Compiègne in 1415. The duke then made him
lieutenant-general in Languedoc and Guienne. He failed to defend Caen
and Falaise in the interest of the dauphin (afterwards Charles VII.)
against Henry V. in 1417 and 1418, but in the latter year he held Lyons
for some time against Jean sans Peur, duke of Burgundy. A series of
successes over the English and Burgundians on the Loire was rewarded in
1420 with the government of Dauphiny and the office of marshal of
France. La Fayette commanded the Franco-Scottish troops at the battle of
Baugé (1422), though he did not, as has been sometimes stated, slay
Thomas, duke of Clarence, with his own hand. In 1424 he was taken
prisoner by the English at Verneuil, but was released shortly
afterwards, and fought with Joan of Arc at Orleans and Patay in 1429.
The marshal had become a member of the grand council of Charles VII.,
and with the exception of a short disgrace about 1430, due to the
ill-will of Georges de la Trémouille, he retained the royal favour all
his life. He took an active part in the army reform initiated by Charles
VII., and the establishment of military posts for the suppression of
brigandage. His last campaign was against the English in Normandy in
1449. He died on the 23rd of February 1462. His line was continued by
Gilbert IV. de La Fayette, son of his second marriage with Jeanne de
Joyeuse.
LA FAYETTE, LOUISE DE (c. 1616-1665), was one of the fourteen children
of John, comte de La Fayette, and Marguerite de Bourbon-Busset. Louise
became maid of honour to Anne of Austria, and Richelieu sought to
attract the attention of Louis XIII. to her in the hope that she might
counterbalance the influence exercised over him by Marie de Hautefort.
The affair did not turn out as the minister wished. The king did indeed
make her the confidante of his affairs and of his resentment against the
cardinal, but she, far from repeating his confidences to the minister,
set herself to encourage the king in his resistance to Richelieu's
dominion. She refused, nevertheless, to become Louis's mistress, and
after taking leave of the king in Anne of Austria's presence retired to
the convent of the Filles de Sainte-Marie in 1637. Here she was
repeatedly visited by Louis, with whom she maintained a correspondence.
Richelieu intercepted the letters, and by omissions and falsifications
succeeded in destroying their mutual confidence. The cessation of their
intercourse was regretted by the queen, who had been reconciled with her
husband through the influence of Louise. At the time of her death in
January 1665 Mlle de La Fayette was superior of a convent of her order
which she had founded at Chaillot.
See _Mémoires de Madame de Motteville_; Victor Cousin, _Madame de
Hautefort_ (Paris, 1868); L'Abbé Sorin, _Louise-Angèle de La Fayette_
(Paris, 1893).
LA FAYETTE, MARIE JOSEPH PAUL YVES ROCH GILBERT DU MOTIER. MARQUIS DE
(1757-1834), was born at the château of Chavaniac in Auvergne, France,
on the 6th of September 1757. His father[1] was killed at Minden in
1759, and his mother and his grandfather died in 1770, and thus at the
age of thirteen he was left an orphan with a princely fortune. He
married at sixteen Marie Adrienne Françoise de Noailles (d. 1807),
daughter of the duc d'Ayen and granddaughter of the duc de Noailles,
then one of the most influential families in the kingdom. La Fayette
chose to follow the career of his father, and entered the Guards.
La Fayette was nineteen and a captain of dragoons when the English
colonies in America proclaimed their independence. "At the first news of
this quarrel," he afterwards wrote in his memoirs, "my heart was
enrolled in it." The count de Broglie, whom he consulted, discouraged
his zeal for the cause of liberty. Finding his purpose unchangeable,
however, he presented the young enthusiast to Johann Kalb, who was also
seeking service in America, and through Silas Deane, American agent in
Paris, an arrangement was concluded, on the 7th of December 1776, by
which La Fayette was to enter the American service as major-general. At
this moment the news arrived of grave disasters to the American arms. La
Fayette's friends again advised him to abandon his purpose. Even the
American envoys, Franklin and Arthur Lee, who had superseded Deane,
withheld further encouragement and the king himself forbade his leaving.
At the instance of the British ambassador at Versailles orders were
issued to seize the ship La Fayette was fitting out at Bordeaux, and La
Fayette himself was arrested. But the ship was sent from Bordeaux to a
neighbouring port in Spain, La Fayette escaped from custody in disguise,
and before a second _lettre de cachet_ could reach him he was afloat
with eleven chosen companions. Though two British cruisers had been sent
in pursuit of him, he landed safely near Georgetown, S.C., after a
tedious voyage of nearly two months, and hastened to Philadelphia, then
the seat of government of the colonies.
When this lad of nineteen, with the command of only what little English
he had been able to pick up on his voyage, presented himself to Congress
with Deane's authority to demand a commission of the highest rank after
the commander-in-chief, his reception was a little chilly. Deane's
contracts were so numerous, and for officers of such high rank, that it
was impossible for Congress to ratify them without injustice to
Americans who had become entitled by their service to promotion. La
Fayette appreciated the situation as soon as it was explained to him,
and immediately expressed his desire to serve in the American army upon
two conditions--that he should receive no pay, and that he should act as
a volunteer. These terms were so different from those made by other
foreigners, they had been attended with such substantial sacrifices, and
they promised such important indirect advantages, that Congress passed a
resolution, on the 31st of July 1777, "that his services be accepted,
and that, in consideration of his zeal, illustrious family and
connexions, he have the rank and commission of major-general of the
United States." Next day La Fayette met Washington, whose lifelong
friend he became. Congress intended his appointment as purely honorary,
and the question of giving him a command was left entirely to
Washington's discretion. His first battle was Brandywine (q.v.) on the
11th of September 1777, where he showed courage and activity and
received a wound. Shortly afterwards he secured what he most desired,
the command of a division--the immediate result of a communication from
Washington to Congress of November 1, 1777, in which he said:--
"The marquis de La Fayette is extremely solicitous of having a command
equal to his rank. I do not know in what light Congress will view the
matter, but it appears to me, from a consideration of his illustrious
and important connexions, the attachment which he has manifested for
our cause, and the consequences which his return in disgust might
produce, that it will be advisable to gratify his wishes, and the more
so as several gentlemen from France who came over under some
assurances have gone back disappointed in their expectations. His
conduct with respect to them stands in a favourable point of
view--having interested himself to remove their uneasiness and urged
the impropriety of their making any unfavourable representations upon
their arrival at home. Besides, he is sensible, discreet in his
manners, has made great proficiency in our language, and from the
disposition he discovered at the battle of Brandywine possesses a
large share of bravery and military ardour."
Of La Fayette's military career in the United States there is not much
to be said. Though the commander of a division, he never had many troops
in his charge, and whatever military talents he possessed were not of
the kind which appeared to conspicuous advantage on the theatre to which
his wealth and family influence rather than his soldierly gifts had
called him. In the first months of 1778 he commanded troops detailed for
the projected expedition against Canada. His retreat from Barren Hill
(May 28, 1778) was commended as masterly; and he fought at the battle of
Monmouth (June 28,) and received from Congress a formal recognition of
his services in the Rhode Island expedition (August 1778).
The treaties of commerce and defensive alliance, signed by the
insurgents and France on the 6th of February 1778, were promptly
followed by a declaration of war by England against the latter, and La
Fayette asked leave to revisit France and to consult his king as to the
further direction of his services. This leave was readily granted; it
was not difficult for Washington to replace the major-general, but it
was impossible to find another equally competent, influential and
devoted champion of the American cause near the court of Louis XVI. In
fact, he went on a mission rather than a visit. He embarked on the 11th
of January 1779, was received with enthusiasm, and was made a colonel in
the French cavalry. On the 4th of March following Franklin wrote to the
president of Congress: "The marquis de La Fayette ... is infinitely
esteemed and beloved here, and I am persuaded will do everything in his
power to merit a continuance of the same affection from America." He won
the confidence of Vergennes.
La Fayette was absent from America about six months, and his return was
the occasion of a complimentary resolution of Congress. From April until
October 1781 he was charged with the defence of Virginia, in which
Washington gave him the credit of doing all that was possible with the
forces at his disposal; and he showed his zeal by borrowing money on his
own account to provide his soldiers with necessaries. The battle of
Yorktown, in which La Fayette bore an honourable if not a distinguished
part, was the last of the war, and terminated his military career in the
United States. He immediately obtained leave to return to France, where
it was supposed he might be useful in negotiations for a general peace.
He was also occupied in the preparations for a combined French and
Spanish expedition against some of the British West India Islands, of
which he had been appointed chief of staff, and a formidable fleet
assembled at Cadiz, but the armistice signed on the 20th of January 1783
between the belligerents put a stop to the expedition. He had been
promoted (1781) to the rank of _maréchal de camp_ (major-general) in the
French army, and he received every token of regard from his sovereign
and his countrymen. He visited the United States again in 1784, and
remained some five months as the guest of the nation.
La Fayette did not appear again prominently in public life until 1787,
though he did good service to the French Protestants, and became
actively interested in plans to abolish slavery. In 1787 he took his
seat in the Assembly of Notables. He demanded, and he alone signed the
demand, that the king convoke the states-general, thus becoming a leader
in the French Revolution. He showed Liberal tendencies both in that
assembly and after its dispersal, and in 1788 was deprived, in
consequence, of his active command. In 1789 La Fayette was elected to
the states-general, and took a prominent part in its proceedings. He was
chosen vice-president of the National Assembly, and on the 11th of July
1789 presented a declaration of rights, modelled on Jefferson's
Declaration of Independence in 1776. On the 15th of July, the second day
of the new régime, La Fayette was chosen by acclamation colonel-general
of the new National Guard of Paris. He also proposed the combination of
the colours of Paris, red and blue, and the royal white, into the famous
tricolour cockade of modern France (July 17). For the succeeding three
years, until the end of the constitutional monarchy in 1792, his history
is largely the history of France. His life was beset with very great
responsibility and perils, for he was ever the minister of humanity and
order among a frenzied people who had come to regard order and humanity
as phases of treason. He rescued the queen from the hands of the
populace on the 5th and 6th of October 1789, saved many humbler victims
who had been condemned to death, and he risked his life in many
unsuccessful attempts to rescue others. Before this, disgusted with
enormities which he was powerless to prevent, he had resigned his
commission; but so impossible was it to replace him that he was induced
to resume it. In the Constituent Assembly he pleaded for the abolition
of arbitrary imprisonment, for religious tolerance, for popular
representation, for the establishment of trial by jury, for the gradual
emancipation of slaves, for the freedom of the press, for the abolition
of titles of nobility, and the suppression of privileged orders. In
February 1790 he refused the supreme command of the National Guard of
the kingdom. In May he founded the "Society of 1789" which afterwards
became the Feuillants Club. He took a prominent part in the celebration
of July 14, 1790, the first anniversary of the destruction of the
Bastille. After suppressing an _émeute_ in April 1791 he again resigned
his commission, and was again compelled to retain it. He was the friend
of liberty as well as of order, and when Louis XVI. fled to Varennes he
issued orders to stop him. Shortly afterwards he was made
lieutenant-general in the army. He commanded the troops in the
suppression of another _émeute_, on the occasion of the proclamation of
the constitution (September 18, 1791), after which, feeling that his
task was done, he retired into private life. This did not prevent his
friends from proposing him for the mayoralty of Paris in opposition to
Pétion.
When, in December 1791, three armies were formed on the western frontier
to attack Austria, La Fayette was placed in command of one of them. But
events moved faster than La Fayette's moderate and humane republicanism,
and seeing that the lives of the king and queen were each day more and
more in danger, he definitely opposed himself to the further advance of
the Jacobin party, intending eventually to use his army for the
restoration of a limited monarchy. On the 19th of August 1792 the
Assembly declared him a traitor. He was compelled to take refuge in the
neutral territory of Liége, whence as one of the prime movers in the
Revolution he was taken and held as a prisoner of state for five years,
first in Prussian and afterwards in Austrian prisons, in spite of the
intercession of America and the pleadings of his wife. Napoleon,
however, though he had a low opinion of his capacities, stipulated in
the treaty of Campo Formio (1797) for La Fayette's release. He was not
allowed to return to France by the Directory. He returned in 1799; in
1802 voted against the life consulate of Napoleon; and in 1804 he voted
against the imperial title. He lived in retirement during the First
Empire, but returned to public affairs under the First Restoration and
took some part in the political events of the Hundred Days. From 1818 to
1824 he was deputy for the Sarthe, speaking and voting always on the
Liberal side, and even becoming a _carbonaro_. He then revisited America
(July 1824-September 1825) where he was overwhelmed with popular
applause and voted the sum of $200,000 and a township of land. From 1825
to his death he sat in the Chamber of Deputies for Meaux. During the
revolution of 1830 he again took command of the National Guard and
pursued the same line of conduct, with equal want of success, as in the
first revolution. In 1834 he made his last speech--on behalf of Polish
political refugees. He died at Paris on the 20th of May 1834. In 1876 in
the city of New York a monument was erected to him, and in 1883 another
was erected at Puy.
Few men have owed more of their success and usefulness to their family
rank than La Fayette, and still fewer have abused it less. He never
achieved distinction in the field, and his political career proved him
to be incapable of ruling a great national movement; but he had strong
convictions which always impelled him to study the interests of
humanity, and a pertinacity in maintaining them, which, in all the
strange vicissitudes of his eventful life, secured him a very unusual
measure of public respect. No citizen of a foreign country has ever had
so many and such warm admirers in America, nor does any statesman in
France appear to have ever possessed uninterruptedly for so many years
so large a measure of popular influence and respect. He had what
Jefferson called a "canine appetite" for popularity and fame, but in him
the appetite only seemed to make him more anxious to merit the fame
which he enjoyed. He was brave to rashness; and he never shrank from
danger or responsibility if he saw the way open to spare life or
suffering, to protect the defenceless, to sustain the law and preserve
order.
His son, GEORGES WASHINGTON MOTIER DE LA FAYETTE (1779-1849), entered
the army and was aide-de-camp to General Grouchy through the Austrian,
Prussian and Polish (1805-07) campaigns. Napoleon's distrust of his
father rendering promotion improbable, Georges de La Fayette retired
into private life in 1807 until the Restoration, when he entered the
Chamber of Representatives and voted consistently on the Liberal side.
He was away from Paris during the revolution of July 1830, but he took
an active part in the "campaign of the banquets," which led up to that
of 1848. He died in December of the next year. His son, OSCAR THOMAS
GILBERT MOTIER DE LA FAYETTE (1815-1881), was educated at the École
Polytechnique, and served as an artillery officer in Algeria. He entered
the Chamber of Representatives in 1846 and voted, like his father, with
the extreme Left. After the revolution of 1848 he received a post in the
provisional government, and as a member of the Constituent Assembly he
became secretary of the war committee. After the dissolution of the
Legislative Assembly in 1851, he retired from public life, but emerged
on the establishment of the third republic, becoming a life senator in
1875. His brother EDMOND MOTIER DE LA FAYETTE (1818-1890) shared his
political opinions. He was one of the secretaries of the Constituent
Assembly, and a member of the senate from 1876 to 1888.
See _Mémoires historiques et pièces authentiques sur M. de La Fayette
pour servir à l'histoire des révolutions_ (Paris, An II., 1793-1794);
B. Sarrans, _La Fayette et la Révolution de 1830, histoire des choses
et des hommes de Juillet_ (Paris, 1834); _Mémoires, correspondances et
manuscrits de La Fayette_, published by his family (6 vols., Paris,
1837-1838); Regnault Warin, _Mémoires pour servir à la vie du général
La Fayette_ (Paris, 1824); A. Bardoux, _La jeunesse de La Fayette_
(Paris, 1892); _Les Dernières années de La Fayette_ (Paris, 1893); E.
Charavaray, _Le Général La Fayette_ (Paris, 1895); A. Levasseur, _La
Fayette en Amérique_ 1824 (Paris, 1829); J. Cloquet, _Souvenirs de la
vie privée du général La Fayette_ (Paris, 1836); Max Büdinger, _La
Fayette in Oesterreich_ (Vienna, 1898); and M. M. Crawford, _The Wife
of Lafayette_ (1908); Bayard Tuckerman, _Life of Lafayette_ (New York,
1889); Charlemagne Tower, _The Marquis de La Fayette in the American
Revolution_ (Philadelphia, 1895).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The family of La Fayette, to the cadet branch of which he
belonged, received its name from an estate in Aix, Auvergne, which
belonged in the 13th century to the Motier family.
LA FAYETTE, MARIE-MADELEINE PIOCHE DE LA VERGNE, COMTESSE DE
(1634-1692), French novelist, was baptized in Paris, on the 18th of
March 1634. Her father, Marc Pioche de la Vergne, commandant of Havre,
died when she was sixteen, and her mother seems to have been more
occupied with her own than her daughter's interests. Mme de la Vergne
married in 1651 the chevalier de Sévigné, and Marie thus became
connected with Mme de Sévigné, who was destined to be a lifelong friend.
She studied Greek, Latin and Italian, and inspired in one of her tutors,
Gilles de Ménage, an enthusiastic admiration which he expressed in verse
in three or four languages. Marie married in 1655 François Motier, comte
de La Fayette. They lived on the count's estates in Auvergne, according
to her own account (in a letter to Ménage) quite happily; but after the
birth of her two sons her husband disappeared so effectually that it was
long supposed that he died about 1660, though he really lived until
1683. Mme de La Fayette had returned to Paris, and about 1665 contracted
an intimacy with the duc de la Rochefoucauld, then engaged on his
_Maximes_. The constancy and affection that marked this liaison on both
sides justified it in the eyes of society, and when in 1680 La
Rochefoucauld died Mme de La Fayette received the sincerest sympathy.
Her first novel, _La Princesse de Montpensier_, was published
anonymously in 1662; _Zayde_ appeared in 1670 under the name of J. R. de
Segrais; and in 1678 her masterpiece, _La Princesse de Clèves_, also
under the name of Segrais. The history of the modern novel of sentiment
begins with the _Princesse de Clèves_. The interminable pages of Mlle de
Scudéry with the _Précieuses_ and their admirers masquerading as
Persians or ancient Romans had already been discredited by the
burlesques of Paul Scarron and Antoine Furetière. It remained for Mme de
La Fayette to achieve the more difficult task of substituting something
more satisfactory than the disconnected episodes of the _roman comique_.
This she accomplished in a story offering in its shortness and
simplicity a complete contrast to the extravagant and lengthy romances
of the time. The interest of the story depends not on incident but on
the characters of the personages. They act in a perfectly reasonable way
and their motives are analysed with the finest discrimination. No doubt
the semi-autobiographical character of the material partially explains
Mme de La Fayette's refusal to acknowledge the book. Contemporary
critics, even Mme de Sévigné amongst them, found fault with the avowal
made by Mme de Clèves to her husband. In answer to these criticisms,
which her anonymity prevented her from answering directly, Mme de La
Fayette wrote her last novel, the _Comtesse de Tende_.
The character of her work and her history have combined to give an
impression of melancholy and sweetness that only represents one side of
her character, for a correspondence brought to light comparatively
recently showed her as the acute diplomatic agent of Jeanne de Nemours,
duchess of Savoy, at the court of Louis XIV. She had from her early days
also been intimate with Henrietta of England, duchess of Orleans, under
whose immediate direction she wrote her _Histoire de Madame Henriette
d'Angleterre_, which only appeared in 1720. She wrote memoirs of the
reign of Louis XIV., which, with the exception of two chapters, for the
years 1688 and 1689 (published at Amsterdam, 1731), were lost through
her son's carelessness. Madame de La Fayette died on the 25th of May
1692.
See Sainte-Beuve, _Portraits de femmes_; the comte d'Haussonville,
_Madame de La Fayette_ (1891), in the series of _Grands écrivains
français_; M. de Lescure's notice prefixed to an edition of the
_Princesse de Clèves_ (1881); and a critical edition of the historical
memoirs by Eugène Asse (1890). See also L. Rea, _Marie Madeleine,
comtesse de La Fayette_ (1908).
LAFAYETTE, a city and the county-seat of Tippecanoe county, Indiana,
U.S.A., situated at the former head of navigation on the Wabash river,
about 64 m. N.W. of Indianapolis. Pop. (1900) 18,116, of whom 2266 were
foreign-born; (1910 census) 20,081. It is served by the Chicago,
Indianapolis & Louisville, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St
Louis, the Lake Erie & Western, and the Wabash railways, and by the
Terre Haute, Indianapolis & Eastern (electric), and the Fort Wayne &
Wabash Valley (electric) railways. The river is not now navigable at
this point. Lafayette is in the valley of the Wabash river, which is
sunk below the normal level of the plain, the surrounding heights being
the walls of the Wabash basin. The city has an excellent system of
public schools, a good public library, two hospitals, the Wabash Valley
Sanitarium (Seventh Day Adventist), St Anthony's Home for old people and
two orphan asylums. It is the seat of Purdue University, a
co-educational, technical and agricultural institution, opened in 1874
and named in honour of John Purdue (1802-1876), who gave it $150,000.
This university is under state control, and received the proceeds of the
Federal agricultural college grant of 1862 and of the second Morrill Act
of 1890; in connexion with it there is an agricultural experiment
station. It had in 1908-1909 180 instructors, 1900 students, and a
library of 25,000 volumes and pamphlets. Just outside the city is the
State Soldiers' Home, where provision is also made for the wives and
widows of soldiers; in 1908 it contained 553 men and 700 women. The city
lies in the heart of a rich agricultural region, and is an important
market for grain, produce and horses. Among its manufactures are beer,
foundry and machine shop products (the Chicago, Indianapolis &
Louisville railway has shops here), straw board, telephone apparatus,
paper, wagons, packed meats, canned goods, flour and carpets; the value
of the factory product increased from $3,514,276 in 1900 to $4,631,415
in 1905, or 31.8%. The municipality owns its water works.
Lafayette is about 5 m. N.E. of the site of the ancient Wea (Miami)
Indian village known as Ouiatanon, where the French established a post
about 1720. The French garrison gave way to the English about 1760; the
stockade fort was destroyed during the conspiracy of Pontiac, and was
never rebuilt. The headquarters of Tecumseh and his brother, the
"Prophet," were established 7 m. N. of Lafayette near the mouth of the
Tippecanoe river, and the settlement there was known as the "Prophet's
Town." Near this place, and near the site of the present village of
Battle Ground (where the Indiana Methodists now have a summer encampment
and a camp meeting in August), was fought on the 7th of November 1811
the battle of Tippecanoe, in which the Indians were decisively defeated
by Governor William Henry Harrison, the whites losing 188 in killed and
wounded and the Indians about an equal number. The battle ground is
owned by the state; in 1907 the state legislature and the United States
Congress each appropriated $12,500 for a monument, which took the form
of a granite shaft 90 ft. high. The first American settlers on the site
of Lafayette appeared about 1820, and the town was laid out in 1825, but
for many years its growth was slow. The completion of the Wabash and
Erie canal marked a new era in its development, and in 1854 Lafayette
was incorporated.
LA FERTÉ, the name of a number of localities in France, differentiated
by agnomens. La Ferté Imbault (department of Loir-et-Cher) was in the
possession of Jacques d'Étampes (1590-1668), marshal of France and
ambassador in England, who was known as the marquis of La Ferté
Imbault. La Ferté Nabert (the modern La Ferté Saint Aubin, department of
Loiret) was acquired in the 16th century by the house of Saint Nectaire
(corrupted to Senneterre), and erected into a duchy in the peerage of
France (_duché-pairie_) in 1665 for Henri de Saint Nectaire, marshal of
France. It was called La Ferté Lowendal after it had been acquired by
Marshal Lowendal in 1748.
LA FERTÉ-BERNARD, a town of western France, in the department of Sarthe,
on the Huisne, 27 m. N.E. of Le Mans, on the railway from Paris to that
town. Pop. (1906) 4358. La Ferté carries on cloth manufacture and
flour-milling and has trade in horses and cattle. Its church of Nôtre
Dame has a choir (16th century) with graceful apse-chapels of
Renaissance architecture and remarkable windows of the same period; the
remainder of the church is in the Flamboyant Gothic style. The town hall
occupies the superstructure and flanking towers of a fortified gateway
of the 15th century.
La Ferté-Bernard owes its origin and name to a stronghold (_fermeté_)
built about the 11th century and afterwards held by the family of
Bernard. In 1424 it did not succumb to the English troops till after a
four months' siege. It belonged in the 16th century to the family of
Guise and supported the League, but was captured by the royal forces in
1590.
LA FERTÉ-MILON, a town of northern France in the department of Aisne on
the Ourcq, 47 m. W. by S. of Reims by rail. Pop. (1906) 1563. The town
has imposing remains comprising one side flanked by four towers of an
unfinished castle built about the beginning of the 15th century by Louis
of Orleans, brother of Charles VI. The churches of St Nicholas and
Notre-Dame, chiefly of the 16th century, both contain fine old stained
glass. Jean Racine, the poet, was born in the town, and a statue by
David d'Augers has been erected to him.
LAFFITTE, JACQUES (1767-1844), French banker and politician, was born at
Bayonne on the 24th of October 1767, one of the ten children of a
carpenter. He became clerk in the banking house of Perregaux in Paris,
was made a partner in the business in 1800, and in 1804 succeeded
Perregaux as head of the firm. The house of Perregaux, Laffitte et Cie.
became one of the greatest in Europe, and Laffitte became regent (1809),
then governor (1814) of the Bank of France and president of the Chamber
of Commerce (1814). He raised large sums of money for the provisional
government in 1814 and for Louis XVIII. during the Hundred Days, and it
was with him that Napoleon deposited five million francs in gold before
leaving France for the last time. Rather than permit the government to
appropriate the money from the Bank he supplied two million from his own
pocket for the arrears of the imperial troops after Waterloo. He was
returned by the department of the Seine to the Chamber of Deputies in
1816, and took his seat on the Left. He spoke chiefly on financial
questions; his known Liberal views did not prevent Louis XVIII. from
insisting on his inclusion on the commission on the public finances. In
1818 he saved Paris from a financial crisis by buying a large amount of
stock, but next year, in consequence of his heated defence of the
liberty of the press and the electoral law of 1867, the governorship of
the Bank was taken from him. One of the earliest and most determined of
the partisans of a constitutional monarchy under the duke of Orleans, he
was deputy for Bayonne in July 1830, when his house in Paris became the
headquarters of the revolutionary party. When Charles X., after
retracting the hated ordinances, sent the comte d'Argout[1] to Laffitte
to negotiate a change of ministry, the banker replied, "It is too late.
There is no longer a Charles X.," and it was he who secured the
nomination of Louis Philippe as lieutenant-general of the kingdom. On
the 3rd of August he became president of the Chamber of Deputies, and on
the 9th he received in this capacity Louis Philippe's oath to the new
constitution. The clamour of the Paris mob for the death of the
imprisoned ministers of Charles X., which in October culminated in
riots, induced the more moderate members of the government--including
Guizot, the duc de Broglie and Casimir-Périer--to hand over the
administration to a ministry which, possessing the confidence of the
revolutionary Parisians, should be in a better position to save the
ministers from their fury. On the 5th of November, accordingly, Laffitte
became minister-president of a government pledged to progress
(_mouvement_), holding at the same time the portfolio of finance. The
government was torn between the necessity for preserving order and the
no less pressing necessity (for the moment) of conciliating the Parisian
populace; with the result that it succeeded in doing neither one nor the
other. The impeached ministers were, indeed, saved by the courage of the
Chamber of Peers and the attitude of the National Guard; but their
safety was bought at the price of Laffitte's popularity. His policy of a
French intervention in favour of the Italian revolutionists, by which he
might have regained his popularity, was thwarted by the diplomatic
policy of Louis Philippe. The resignation of Lafayette and Dupont de
l'Eure still further undermined the government, which, incapable even of
keeping order in the streets of Paris, ended by being discredited with
all parties. At length Louis Philippe, anxious to free himself from the
hampering control of the agents of his fortune, thought it safe to
parade his want of confidence in the man who had made him king.
Thereupon, in March 1831, Laffitte resigned, begging pardon of God and
man for the part he had played in raising Louis Philippe to the throne.
He left office politically and financially a ruined man. His affairs
were wound up in 1836, and next year he created a credit bank, which
prospered as long as he lived, but failed in 1848. He died in Paris on
the 26th of May 1844.
See P. Thureau-Dangin, _La Monarchie de Juillet_ (vol. i. 1884).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Apollinaire Antoine Maurice, comte d'Argout (1782-1858),
afterwards reconciled to the July monarchy, and a member of the
Laffitte Casimir-Périer and Thiers cabinets.
LAFFITTE, PIERRE (1823-1903), French Positivist, was born on the 21st of
February 1823 at Béguey (Gironde). Residing at Paris as a teacher of
mathematics, he became a disciple of Comte, who appointed him his
literary executor. On the schism of the Positivist body which followed
Comte's death, he was recognized as head of the section which accepted
the full Comtian doctrine; the other section adhering to Littré, who
rejected the religion of humanity as inconsistent with the materialism
of Comte's earlier period. From 1853 Laffitte delivered Positivist
lectures in the room formerly occupied by Comte in the rue Monsieur le
Prince. He published _Les Grands Types de l'humanité_ (1875) and _Cours
de philosophie première_ (1889). In 1893 he was appointed to the new
chair founded at the Collège de France for the exposition of the general
history of science, and it was largely due to his inspiration that a
statue to Comte was erected in the Place de la Sorbonne in 1902. He died
on the 4th of January 1903.
LA FLÈCHE, a town of western France, capital of an arrondissement in the
department of Sarthe on the Loire, 31 m. S.S.W. of Le Mans by rail. Pop.
(1906) town 7800; commune 10,663. The chief interest of the town lies in
the Prytanée, a famous school for the sons of officers, originally a
college founded for the Jesuits in 1607 by Henry IV. The buildings,
including a fine chapel, were erected from 1620 to 1653 and are
surrounded by a park. A bronze statue of Henry IV. stands in the
marketplace. La Flèche is the seat of a sub-prefect and of a tribunal of
first instance, and carries on tanning, flour-milling, and the
manufacture of paper, starch, wooden shoes and gloves. It is an
agricultural market.
The lords of La Flèche became counts of Maine about 1100, but the
lordship became separate from the county and passed in the 16th century
to the family of Bourbon and thus to Henry IV.
LAFONT, PIERRE CHÉRI (1797-1873), French actor, was born at Bordeaux on
the 15th of May 1797. Abandoning his profession as assistant ship's
doctor in the navy, he went to Paris to study singing and acting. He had
some experience at a small theatre, and was preparing to appear at the
Opéra Comique when the director of the Vaudeville offered him an
engagement. Here he made his _début_ in 1821 in _La Somnambule_, and his
good looks and excellent voice soon brought him into public favour.
After several years at the Nouveautés and the Vaudeville, on the burning
of the latter in 1838 he went to England, and married, at Gretna Green,
Jenny Colon, from whom he was soon divorced. On his return to Paris he
joined the Variétés, where he acted for fifteen years in such plays as
_Le Chevalier de Saint Georges_, _Le Lion empaillé_, _Une dernière
conquête_, &c. Another engagement at the Vaudeville followed, and one at
the Gaiété, and he ended his brilliant career at the Gymnase in the part
of the noble father in such plays as Les _Vieux Garçons_ and _Nos bons
villageois_. He died in Paris on the 19th of April 1873.
LA FONTAINE, JEAN DE (1621-1695), French poet, was born at Château
Thierry in Champagne, probably on the 8th of July 1621. His father was
Charles de La Fontaine, "maître des eaux et forêts"--a kind of
deputy-ranger--of the duchy of Château Thierry; his mother was Françoise
Pidoux. On both sides his family was of the highest provincial middle
class, but was not noble; his father was also fairly wealthy. Jean, the
eldest child, was educated at the _collège_ (grammar-school) of Reims,
and at the end of his school days he entered the Oratory in May 1641,
and the seminary of Saint-Magloire in October of the same year; but a
very short sojourn proved to him that he had mistaken his vocation. He
then apparently studied law, and is said to have been admitted as
_avocat_, though there does not seem to be actual proof of this. He was,
however, settled in life, or at least might have been so, somewhat
early. In 1647 his father resigned his rangership in his favour, and
arranged a marriage for him with Marie Héricart, a girl of sixteen, who
brought him twenty thousand livres, and expectations. She seems to have
been both handsome and intelligent, but the two did not get on well
together. There appears to be absolutely no ground for the vague scandal
as to her conduct, which was, for the most part long afterwards, raised
by gossips or personal enemies of La Fontaine. All that is positively
said against her is that she was a negligent housewife and an inveterate
novel reader; La Fontaine himself was constantly away from home, was
certainly not strict in point of conjugal fidelity, and was so bad a man
of business that his affairs became involved in hopeless difficulty, and
a _séparation de biens_ had to take place in 1658. This was a perfectly
amicable transaction for the benefit of the family; by degrees, however,
the pair, still without any actual quarrel, ceased to live together, and
for the greater part of the last forty years of La Fontaine's life he
lived in Paris while his wife dwelt at Château Thierry, which, however,
he frequently visited. One son was born to them in 1653, and was
educated and taken care of wholly by his mother.
Even in the earlier years of his marriage La Fontaine seems to have been
much at Paris, but it was not till about 1656 that he became a regular
visitor to the capital. The duties of his office, which were only
occasional, were compatible with this non-residence. It was not till he
was past thirty that his literary career began. The reading of Malherbe,
it is said, first awoke poetical fancies in him, but for some time he
attempted nothing but trifles in the fashion of the time--epigrams,
ballades, rondeaux, &c. His first serious work was a translation or
adaptation of the _Eunuchus of Terence_ (1654). At this time the
Maecenas of French letters was the Superintendant Fouquet, to whom La
Fontaine was introduced by Jacques Jannart, a connexion of his wife's.
Few people who paid their court to Fouquet went away empty-handed, and
La Fontaine soon received a pension of 1000 livres (1659), on the easy
terms of a copy of verses for each quarter's receipt. He began too a
medley of prose and poetry, entitled _Le Songe de Vaux_, on Fouquet's
famous country house. It was about this time that his wife's property
had to be separately secured to her, and he seems by degrees to have had
to sell everything of his own; but, as he never lacked powerful and
generous patrons, this was of small importance to him. In the same year
he wrote a ballad, _Les Rieurs du Beau-Richard_, and this was followed
by many small pieces of occasional poetry addressed to various
personages from the king downwards. Fouquet soon incurred the royal
displeasure, but La Fontaine, like most of his literary protégés, was
not unfaithful to him, the well-known elegy _Pleurez, nymphes de Vaux_,
being by no means the only proof of his devotion. Indeed it is thought
not improbable that a journey to Limoges in 1663 in company with
Jannart, and of which we have an account written to his wife, was not
wholly spontaneous, as it certainly was not on Jannart's part. Just at
this time his affairs did not look promising. His father and himself had
assumed the title of esquire, to which they were not strictly entitled,
and, some old edicts on the subject having been put in force, an
informer procured a sentence against the poet fining him 2000 livres. He
found, however, a new protector in the duke and still more in the
duchess of Bouillon, his feudal superiors at Château Thierry, and
nothing more is heard of the fine. Some of La Fontaine's liveliest
verses are addressed to the duchess, Anne Mancini, the youngest of
Mazarin's nieces, and it is even probable that the taste of the duke and
duchess for Ariosto had something to do with the writing of his first
work of real importance, the first book of the _Contes_, which appeared
in 1664. He was then forty-three years old, and his previous printed
productions had been comparatively trivial, though much of his work was
handed about in manuscript long before it was regularly published. It
was about this time that the quartette of the Rue du Vieux Colombier, so
famous in French literary history, was formed. It consisted of La
Fontaine, Racine, Boileau and Molière, the last of whom was almost of
the same age as La Fontaine, the other two considerably younger.
Chapelle was also a kind of outsider in the coterie. There are many
anecdotes, some pretty obviously apocryphal, about these meetings. The
most characteristic is perhaps that which asserts that a copy of
Chapelain's unlucky _Pucelle_ always lay on the table, a certain number
of lines of which was the appointed punishment for offences against the
company. The coterie furnished under feigned names the personages of La
Fontaine's version of the Cupid and Psyche story, which, however, with
_Adonis_, was not printed till 1669. Meanwhile the poet continued to
find friends. In 1664 he was regularly commissioned and sworn in as
gentleman to the duchess dowager of Orleans, and was installed in the
Luxembourg. He still retained his rangership, and in 1666 we have
something like a reprimand from Colbert suggesting that he should look
into some malpractices at Château Thierry. In the same year appeared the
second book of the _Contes_, and in 1668 the first six books of the
_Fables_, with more of both kinds in 1671. In this latter year a curious
instance of the docility with which the poet lent himself to any
influence was afforded by his officiating, at the instance of the
Port-Royalists, as editor of a volume of sacred poetry dedicated to the
prince de Conti. A year afterwards his situation, which had for some
time been decidedly flourishing, showed signs of changing very much for
the worse. The duchess of Orleans died, and he apparently had to give up
his rangership, probably selling it to pay debts. But there was always a
providence for La Fontaine. Madame de la Sablière, a woman of great
beauty, of considerable intellectual power and of high character,
invited him to make his home in her house, where he lived for some
twenty years. He seems to have had no trouble whatever about his affairs
thenceforward; and could devote himself to his two different lines of
poetry, as well as to that of theatrical composition.
In 1682 he was, at more than sixty years of age, recognized as one of
the first men of letters of France. Madame de Sévigné, one of the
soundest literary critics of the time, and by no means given to praise
mere novelties, had spoken of his second collection of _Fables_
published in the winter of 1678 as divine; and it is pretty certain that
this was the general opinion. It was not unreasonable, therefore, that
he should present himself to the Academy, and, though the subjects of
his _Contes_ were scarcely calculated to propitiate that decorous
assembly, while his attachment to Fouquet and to more than one
representative of the old Frondeur party made him suspect to Colbert and
the king, most of the members were his personal friends. He was first
proposed in 1682, but was rejected for Dangeau. The next year Colbert
died and La Fontaine was again nominated. Boileau was also a candidate,
but the first ballot gave the fabulist sixteen votes against seven only
for the critic. The king, whose assent was necessary, not merely for
election but for a second ballot in case of the failure of an absolute
majority, was ill-pleased, and the election was left pending. Another
vacancy occurred, however, some months later, and to this Boileau was
elected. The king hastened to approve the choice effusively, adding,
"Vous pouvez incessamment recevoir La Fontaine, il a promis d'être
sage." His admission was indirectly the cause of the only serious
literary quarrel of his life. A dispute took place between the Academy
and one of its members, Antoine Furetière, on the subject of the
latter's French dictionary, which was decided to be a breach of the
Academy's corporate privileges. Furetière, a man of no small ability,
bitterly assailed those whom he considered to be his enemies, and among
them La Fontaine, whose unlucky _Contes_ made him peculiarly vulnerable,
his second collection of these tales having been the subject of a police
condemnation. The death of the author of the _Roman Bourgeois_, however,
put an end to this quarrel. Shortly afterwards La Fontaine had a share
in a still more famous affair, the celebrated Ancient-and-Modern
squabble in which Boileau and Perrault were the chiefs, and in which La
Fontaine (though he had been specially singled out by Perrault for
favourable comparison with Aesop and Phaedrus) took the Ancient side.
About the same time (1685-1687) he made the acquaintance of the last of
his many hosts and protectors, Monsieur and Madame d'Hervart, and fell
in love with a certain Madame Ulrich, a lady of some position but of
doubtful character. This acquaintance was accompanied by a great
familiarity with Vendôme, Chaulieu and the rest of the libertine coterie
of the Temple; but, though Madame de la Sablière had long given herself
up almost entirely to good works and religious exercises, La Fontaine
continued an inmate of her house until her death in 1693. What followed
is told in one of the best known of the many stories bearing on his
childlike nature. Hervart on hearing of the death, had set out at once
to find La Fontaine. He met him in the street in great sorrow, and
begged him to make his home at his house. "J'y allais" was La Fontaine's
answer. He had already undergone the process of conversion during a
severe illness the year before. An energetic young priest, M. Poucet,
had brought him, not indeed to understand, but to acknowledge the
impropriety of the _Contes_, and it is said that the destruction of a
new play of some merit was demanded and submitted to as a proof of
repentance. A pleasant story is told of the young duke of Burgundy,
Fénelon's pupil, who was then only eleven years old, sending 50 louis to
La Fontaine as a present of his own motion. But, though La Fontaine
recovered for the time, he was broken by age and infirmity, and his new
hosts had to nurse rather than to entertain him, which they did very
carefully and kindly. He did a little more work, completing his _Fables_
among other things; but he did not survive Madame de la Sablière much
more than two years, dying on the 13th of April 1695, at the age of
seventy-three. He was buried in the cemetery of the Holy Innocents. His
wife survived him nearly fifteen years.
The curious personal character of La Fontaine, like that of some other
men of letters, has been enshrined in a kind of legend by literary
tradition. At an early age his absence of mind and indifference to
business gave a subject to Tallemant des Réaux. His later contemporaries
helped to swell the tale, and the 18th century finally accepted it,
including the anecdotes of his meeting his son, being told who he was,
and remarking, "Ah, yes, I thought I had seen him somewhere!" of his
insisting on fighting a duel with a supposed admirer of his wife, and
then imploring him to visit at his house just as before; of his going
into company with his stockings wrong side out, &c., with, for a
contrast, those of his awkwardness and silence, if not positive
rudeness, in company. It ought to be remembered, as a comment on the
unfavourable description by La Bruyère, that La Fontaine was a special
friend and ally of Benserade, La Bruyère's chief literary enemy. But
after all deductions much will remain, especially when it is remembered
that one of the chief authorities for these anecdotes is Louis Racine, a
man who possessed intelligence and moral worth, and who received them
from his father, La Fontaine's attached friend for more than thirty
years. Perhaps the best worth recording of all these stories is one of
the Vieux Colombier quartette, which tells how Molière, while Racine and
Boileau were exercising their wits upon "le bonhomme" or "le bon" (by
both which titles La Fontaine was familiarly known), remarked to a
bystander, "Nos beaux esprits ont beau faire, ils n'effaceront pas le
bonhomme." They have not.
The works of La Fontaine, the total bulk of which is considerable,
fall no less naturally than traditionally into three divisions, the
_Fables_, the _Contes_ and the miscellaneous works. Of these the first
may be said to be known universally, the second to be known to all
lovers of French literature, the third to be with a few exceptions
practically forgotten. This distribution of the judgment of posterity
is as usual just in the main, but not wholly. There are excellent
things in the _Oeuvres Diverses_, but their excellence is only
occasional, and it is not at the best equal to that of the _Fables_ or
the _Contes_. It was thought by contemporary judges who were both
competent and friendly that La Fontaine attempted too many styles, and
there is something in the criticism. His dramatic efforts are
especially weak. The best pieces usually published under his
name--_Ragotin_, _Le Florentin_, _La Coupe enchantée_, were originally
fathered not by him but by Champmeslé, the husband of the famous
actress who captivated Racine and Charles de Sévigné. His avowed work
was chiefly in the form of opera, a form of no great value at its
best. _Psyche_ has all the advantages of its charming story and of La
Fontaine's style, but it is perhaps principally interesting nowadays
because of the framework of personal conversation already alluded to.
The mingled prose and verse of the _Songe de Vaux_ is not
uninteresting, but its best things, such as the description of night--
"Laissant tomber les fleurs et ne les semant pas,"
which has enchanted French critics, are little more than conceits,
though as in this case sometimes very beautiful conceits. The elegies,
the epistles, the epigrams, the ballades, contain many things which
would be very creditable to a minor poet or a writer of vers de
société, but even if they be taken according to the wise rule of
modern criticism, each in its kind, and judged simply according to
their rank in that kind, they fall far below the merits of the two
great collections of verse narratives which have assured La Fontaine's
immortality.
Between the actual literary merits of the two there is not much to
choose, but the change of manners and the altered standard of literary
decency have thrown the _Contes_ into the shade. These tales are
identical in general character with those which amused Europe from the
days of the early _fabliau_ writers. Light love, the misfortunes of
husbands, the cunning of wives, the breach of their vows by
ecclesiastics, constitute the staple of their subject. In some
respects La Fontaine is the best of such tale-tellers, while he is
certainly the latest who deserves such excuse as may be claimed by a
writer who does not choose indecent subjects from a deliberate
knowledge that they are considered indecent, and with a deliberate
desire to pander to a vicious taste. No one who followed him in the
style can claim this excuse; he can, and the way in which
contemporaries of stainless virtue such as Madame de Sévigné speak of
his work shows that, though the new public opinion was growing up, it
was not finally accepted. In the _Contes_ La Fontaine for the most
part attempts little originality of theme. He takes his stories
(varying them, it is true, in detail not a little) from Boccaccio,
from Marguerite, from the _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_, &c. He applies
to them his marvellous power of easy sparkling narration, and his
hardly less marvellous faculty of saying more or less outrageous
things in the most polite and gentlemanly manner. These _Contes_ have
indeed certain drawbacks. They are not penetrated by the half pagan
ardour for physical beauty and the delights of sense which animates
and excuses the early Italian Renaissance. They have not the subtle
mixture of passion and sensuality, of poetry and appetite, which
distinguishes the work of Marguerite and of the Pléiade. They are
emphatically _contes pour rire_, a genuine expression of the _esprit
gaulois_ of the fabliau writers and of Rabelais, destitute of the
grossness of envelope which had formerly covered that spirit. A
comparison of "La Fiancée du roi de Garbe" with its original in
Boccaccio (especially if the reader takes M. Émile Montégut's
admirable essay as a commentary) will illustrate better than anything
else what they have and what they have not. Some writers have pleaded
hard for the admission of actual passion of the poetical sort in such
pieces as "La Courtisane amoureuse," but as a whole it must be
admitted to be absent.
The _Fables_, with hardly less animation and narrative art than the
_Contes_, are free from disadvantages (according to modern notions) of
subject, and exhibit the versatility and fecundity of the author's
talent perhaps even more fully. La Fontaine had many predecessors in
the fable and especially in the beast fable. In his first issue,
comprising what are now called the first six books, he adhered to the
path of these predecessors with some closeness; but in the later
collections he allowed himself far more liberty, and it is in these
parts that his genius is most fully manifested. The boldness of the
politics is as much to be considered as the ingenuity of the
moralizing, as the intimate knowledge of human nature displayed in the
substance of the narratives, or as the artistic mastery shown in
their form. It has sometimes been objected that the view of human
character which La Fontaine expresses is unduly dark, and resembles
too much that of La Rochefoucauld, for whom the poet certainly had a
profound admiration. The discussion of this point would lead us too
far here. It may only be said that satire (and La Fontaine is
eminently a satirist) necessarily concerns itself with the darker
rather than with the lighter shades. Indeed the objection has become
pretty nearly obsolete with the obsolescence of what may be called the
sentimental-ethicalschool of criticism. Its last overt expression was
made by Lamartine, excellently answered by Sainte-Beuve. Exception has
also been taken to the _Fables_ on more purely literary, but hardly
less purely arbitrary grounds by Lessing. Perhaps the best criticism
ever passed upon La Fontaine's _Fables_ is that of Silvestre de Sacy,
to the effect that they supply three several delights to three several
ages: the child rejoices in the freshness and vividness of the story,
the eager student of literature in the consummate art with which it is
told, the experienced man of the world in the subtle reflections on
character and life which it conveys. Nor has any one, with the
exception of a few paradoxers like Rousseau and a few sentimentalists
like Lamartine, denied that the moral tone of the whole is as fresh
and healthy as its literary interest is vivid. The book has therefore
naturally become the standard reading book of French both at home and
abroad, a position which it shares in verse with the _Télémaque_ of
Fénelon in prose. It is no small testimony to its merit that not even
this use or misuse has interfered with its popularity.
The general literary character of La Fontaine is, with allowance made
for the difference of subject, visible equally in the _Fables_ and in
the _Contes_. Perhaps one of the hardest sayings in French literature
for an English student is the dictum of Joubert to the effect that
"_Il y a dans La Fontaine une plénitude de poésie qu'on ne trouve
nulle part dans les autres auteurs français._" The difficulty arises
from the ambiguity of the terms. For inventiveness of fancy and for
diligent observation of the rules of art La Fontaine deserves, if not
the first, almost the first place among French poets. In his hands the
oldest story becomes novel, the most hackneyed moral piquant, the most
commonplace details fresh and appropriate. As to the second point
there has not been such unanimous agreement. It used to be considered
that La Fontaine's ceaseless diversity of metre, his archaisms, his
licences in rhyme and orthography, were merely ingenious devices for
the sake of easy writing, intended to evade the trammels of the
stately couplet and _rimes difficiles_ enjoined by Boileau. Lamartine
in the attack already mentioned affects contempt of the "vers boiteux,
disloqués, inégaux, sans symmétrie ni dans l'oreille ni sur la page."
This opinion may be said to have been finally exploded by the most
accurate metrical critic and one of the most skilful metrical
practitioners that France has ever had, Théodore de Banville; and it
is only surprising that it should ever have been entertained by any
professional maker of verse. La Fontaine's irregularities are strictly
regulated, his cadences carefully arranged, and the whole effect may
be said to be (though, of course, in a light and tripping measure
instead of a stately one) similar to that of the stanzas of the
English pindaric ode in the hands of Dryden or Collins. There is
therefore nothing against La Fontaine on the score of invention and
nothing on the score of art. But something more, at least according to
English standards, is wanted to make up a "plenitude of poesy," and
this something more La Fontaine seldom or never exhibits. In words
used by Joubert himself elsewhere, he never "transports." The faculty
of transporting is possessed and used in very different manners by
different poets. In some it takes the form of passion, in some of half
mystical enthusiasm for nature, in some of commanding eloquence, in
some of moral fervour. La Fontaine has none of these things: he is
always amusing, always sensible, always clever, sometimes even
affecting, but at the same time always more or less prosaic, were it
not for his admirable versification. He is not a great poet, perhaps
not even a great humorist; but he is the most admirable teller of
light tales in verse that has ever existed in any time or country; and
he has established in his verse-tale a model which is never likely to
be surpassed.
La Fontaine did not during his life issue any complete edition of his
works, nor even of the two greatest and most important divisions of
them. The most remarkable of his separate publications have already
been noticed. Others were the _Poëme de la captivité de St Malc_
(1673), one of the pieces inspired by the Port-Royalists, the _Poëme
du Quinquina_ (1692), a piece of task work also, though of a very
different kind, and a number of pieces published either in small
pamphlets or with the works of other men. Among the latter may be
singled out the pieces published by the poet with the works of his
friend Maucroix (1685). The year after his death some posthumous works
appeared, and some years after his son's death the scattered poems,
letters, &c., with the addition of some unpublished work bought from
the family in manuscript, were carefully edited and published as
_Oeuvres diverses_ (1729). During the 18th century two of the most
magnificent illustrated editions ever published of any poet reproduced
the two chief works of La Fontaine. The _Fables_ were illustrated by
Oudry (1755-1759), the _Contes_ by Eisen (1762). This latter under the
title of "Edition des Fermiers-Généraux" fetches a high price. During
the first thirty years of the 19th century Walckenaer, a great student
of French 17th-century classics, published for the house of Didot
three successive editions of La Fontaine, the last (1826-1827) being
perhaps entitled to the rank of the standard edition, as his _Histoire
de la vie et des ouvrages de La Fontaine_ is the standard biography
and bibliography. The later editions of M. Marty-Laveaux in the
_Bibliothèque elzévirienne_, A. Pauly in the _Collection des
classiques françaises_ of M. Lemerre and L. Moland in that of M.
Garnier supply in different forms all that can be wished. The second
is the handsomest, the third, which is complete, perhaps the most
generally useful. Editions, selections, translations, &c., of the
_Fables_, especially for school use, are innumerable; but an
illustrated edition published by the _Librairie des Bibliophiles_
(1874) deserves to be mentioned as not unworthy of its 18th-century
predecessors. The works of M. Grouchy, _Documents inédits sur La
Fontaine_ (1893); of G. Lafenestre, _Jean de La Fontaine_ (1895); and
of Émile Faguet, _Jean de La Fontaine_ (1900), should be mentioned.
(G. Sa.)
LAFONTAINE, SIR LOUIS HIPPOLYTE, BART. (1807-1864), Canadian statesman
and judge, third son of Antoine Ménard LaFontaine (1772-1813) and
Marie-J-Fontaine Bienvenue, was born at Boucherville in the province of
Quebec on the 4th of October 1807. LaFontaine was educated at the
Collège de Montréal under the direction of the Sulpicians, and was
called to the bar of the province of Lower Canada on the 18th of August
1829. He married firstly Adèle, daughter of A. Berthelot of Quebec; and,
secondly, Jane, daughter of Charles Morrison, of Berthier, by whom he
had two sons. In 1830 he was elected a member of the House of Assembly
for the county of Terrebonne, and became an ardent supporter of Louis
Joseph Papineau in opposing the administration of the governor-in-chief,
which led to the rebellion of 1837. LaFontaine, however, did not approve
the violent methods of his leader, and after the hostilities at Saint
Denis he presented a petition to Lord Gosford requesting him to summon
the assembly and to adopt measures to stem the revolutionary course of
events in Lower Canada. The rebellion broke out afresh in the autumn of
1838; the constitution of 1791 was suspended; LaFontaine was imprisoned
for a brief period; and Papineau, who favoured annexation by the United
States, was in exile. At this crisis in Lower Canada the French
Canadians turned to LaFontaine as their leader, and under his direction
maintained their opposition to the special council, composed of nominees
of the crown. In 1839 Lord Sydenham, the governor-general, offered the
solicitor generalship to LaFontaine, which he refused; and after the
Union of 1841 LaFontaine was defeated in the county of Terrebonne
through the governor's influence. During the next year he obtained a
seat in the assembly of the province of Canada, and on the death of
Sydenham he was called by Sir Charles Bagot to form an administration
with Robert Baldwin. The ministry resigned in November 1843, as a
protest against the actions of Lord Metcalfe, who had succeeded Bagot.
In 1848 LaFontaine formed a new administration with Baldwin, and
remained in office until 1851, when he retired from public life. It was
during the ministry of LaFontaine-Baldwin that the Amnesty Bill was
passed, which occasioned grave riots in Montreal, personal violence to
Lord Elgin and the destruction of the parliament buildings. After the
death of Sir James Stuart in 1853 LaFontaine was appointed chief justice
of Lower Canada and president of the seigneurial court, which settled
the vexed question of land tenure in Canada; and in 1854 he was created
a baronet. He died at Montreal on the 26th of February 1864.
LaFontaine was well versed in constitutional history and French law;
he reasoned closely and presented his conclusions with directness. He
was upright in his conduct, sincerely attached to the traditions of
his race, and laboured conscientiously to establish responsible
government in Canada. His principal works are: _L'Analyse de
l'ordonnance du conseil spécial sur les bureaux d'hypothèques_
(Montreal, 1842); _Observations sur les questions seigneuriales_
(Montreal, 1854); see _LaFontaine_, by A. DeCelles (Toronto, 1906).
(A. G. D.)
LAFOSSE, CHARLES DE (1640-1716), French painter, was born in Paris. He
was one of the most noted and least servile pupils of Le Brun, under
whose direction he shared in the chief of the great decorative works
undertaken in the reign of Louis XIV. Leaving France in 1662, he spent
two years in Rome and three in Venice, and the influence of his
prolonged studies of Veronese is evident in his "Finding of Moses"
(Louvre), and in his "Rape of Proserpine" (Louvre), which he presented
to the Royal Academy as his diploma picture in 1673. He was at once
named assistant professor, and in 1674 the full responsibilities of the
office devolved on him, but his engagements did not prevent his
accepting in 1689 the invitation of Lord Montagu to decorate Montagu
House. He visited London twice, remaining on the second
occasion--together with Rousseau and Monnoyer--more than two years.
William III. vainly strove to detain him in England by the proposal that
he should decorate Hampton Court, for Le Brun was dead, and Mansart
pressed Lafosse to return to Paris to take in hand the cupola of the
Invalides. The decorations of Montagu House are destroyed, those of
Versailles are restored, and the dome of the Invalides (engraved, Picart
and Cochin) is now the only work existing which gives a full measure of
his talent. During his latter years Lafosse executed many other
important decorations in public buildings and private houses, notably in
that of Crozat, under whose roof he died on the 13th of December 1716.
LAGARDE, PAUL ANTON DE (1827-1891), German biblical scholar and
orientalist, was born at Berlin on the 2nd of November 1827. His real
name was Bötticher, Lagarde being his mother's name. At Berlin
(1844-1846) and Halle (1846-1847) he studied theology, philosophy and
oriental languages. In 1852 his studies took him to London and Paris. In
1854 he became a teacher at a Berlin public school, but this did not
interrupt his biblical studies. He edited the _Didascalia apostolorum
syriace_ (1854), and other Syriac texts collected in the British Museum
and in Paris. In 1866 he received three years' leave of absence to
collect fresh materials, and in 1869 succeeded Heinrich Ewald as
professor of oriental languages at Göttingen. Like Ewald, Lagarde was an
active worker in a variety of subjects and languages; but his chief aim,
the elucidation of the Bible, was almost always kept in view. He edited
the Aramaic translation (known as the Targum) of the Prophets according
to the Codex Reuchlinianus preserved at Carlsruhe, _Prophetae chaldaice_
(1872), the _Hagiographa chaldaice_ (1874), an Arabic translation of the
Gospels, _Die vier Evangelien, arabisch aus der Wiener Handschrift
herausgegeben_ (1864), a Syriac translation of the Old Testament
Apocrypha, _Libri V. T. apocryphi syriace_ (1861), a Coptic translation
of the Pentateuch, _Der Pentateuch koptisch_ (1867), and a part of the
Lucianic text of the Septuagint, which he was able to reconstruct from
manuscripts for nearly half the Old Testament. He devoted himself
ardently to oriental scholarship, and published _Zur Urgeschichte der
Armenier_ (1854) and _Armenische Studien_ (1877). He was also a student
of Persian, publishing _Isaias persice_ (1883) and _Persische Studien_
(1884). He followed up his Coptic studies with _Aegyptiaca_ (1883), and
published many minor contributions to the study of oriental languages in
_Gesammelte Abhandlungen_ (1866), _Symmicta_ (i. 1877, ii. 1880),
_Semitica_ (i. 1878, ii. 1879), _Orientalia_ (1879-1880) and
_Mittheilungen_ (1884). Mention should also be made of the valuable
_Onomastica sacra_ (1870; 2nd ed., 1887). Lagarde also took some part in
politics. He belonged to the Prussian Conservative party, and was a
violent anti-Semite. The bitterness which he felt appeared in his
writings. He died at Göttingen on the 22nd of December 1891.
See the article in Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyklopädie_; and cf. Anna de
Lagarde, _Paul de Lagarde_ (1894).
LAGASH, or SIRPURLA, one of the oldest centres of Sumerian civilization
in Babylonia. It is represented by a rather low, long line of ruin
mounds, along the dry bed of an ancient canal, some 3 m. E. of the
Shatt-el-Hai and a little less than 10 m. N. of the modern Turkish town
of Shatra. These ruins were discovered in 1877 by Ernest de Sarzec, at
that time French consul at Basra, who was allowed, by the Montefich
chief, Nasir Pasha, the first Wali-Pasha, or governor-general, of Basra,
to excavate at his pleasure in the territories subject to that official.
At the outset on his own account, and later as a representative of the
French government, under a Turkish firman, de Sarzec continued
excavations at this site, with various intermissions, until his death in
1901, after which the work was continued under the supervision of the
Commandant Cros. The principal excavations were made in two larger
mounds, one of which proved to be the site of the temple, E-Ninnu, the
shrine of the patron god of Lagash, Nin-girsu or Ninib. This temple had
been razed and a fortress built upon its ruins, in the Greek or Seleucid
period, some of the bricks found bearing the inscription in Aramaic and
Greek of a certain Hadad-nadin-akhe, king of a small Babylonian kingdom.
It was beneath this fortress that the numerous statues of Gudea were
found, which constitute the gem of the Babylonian collections at the
Louvre. These had been decapitated and otherwise mutilated, and thrown
into the foundations of the new fortress. From this stratum came also
various fragments of bas reliefs of high artistic excellence. The
excavations in the other larger mound resulted in the discovery of the
remains of buildings containing objects of all sorts in bronze and
stone, dating from the earliest Sumerian period onward, and enabling us
to trace the art history of Babylonia to a date some hundreds of years
before the time of Gudea. Apparently this mound had been occupied
largely by store houses, in which were stored not only grain, figs, &c.,
but also vessels, weapons, sculptures and every possible object
connected with the use and administration of palace and temple. In a
small outlying mound de Sarzec discovered the archives of the temple,
about 30,000 inscribed clay tablets, containing the business records,
and revealing with extraordinary minuteness the administration of an
ancient Babylonian temple, the character of its property, the method of
farming its lands, herding its flocks, and its commercial and industrial
dealings and enterprises; for an ancient Babylonian temple was a great
industrial, commercial, agricultural and stock-raising establishment.
Unfortunately, before these archives could be removed, the galleries
containing them were rifled by the Arabs, and large numbers of the
tablets were sold to antiquity dealers, by whom they have been scattered
all over Europe and America. From the inscriptions found at Tello, it
appears that Lagash was a city of great importance in the Sumerian
period, some time probably in the 4th millennium B.C. It was at that
time ruled by independent kings, Ur-Nina and his successors, who were
engaged in contests with the Elamites on the east and the kings of Kengi
and Kish on the north. With the Semitic conquest it lost its
independence, its rulers becoming _patesis_, dependent rulers, under
Sargon and his successors; but it still remained Sumerian and continued
to be a city of much importance, and, above all, a centre of artistic
development. Indeed, it was in this period and under the immediately
succeeding supremacy of the kings of Ur, Ur-Gur and Dungi, that it
reached its highest artistic development. At this period, also, under
its _patesis_, Ur-bau and Gudea, Lagash had extensive commercial
communications with distant realms. According to his own records, Gudea
brought cedars from the Amanus and Lebanon mountains in Syria, diorite
or dolorite from eastern Arabia, copper and gold from central and
southern Arabia and from Sinai, while his armies, presumably under his
overlord, Ur-Gur, were engaged in battles in Elam on the east. His was
especially the era of artistic development. Some of the earlier works of
Ur-Nina, En-anna-tum, Entemena and others, before the Semitic conquest,
are also extremely interesting, especially the famous stele of the
vultures and a great silver vase ornamented with what may be called the
coat of arms of Lagash, a lion-headed eagle with wings outspread,
grasping a lion in each talon. After the time of Gudea, Lagash seems to
have lost its importance; at least we know nothing more about it until
the construction of the Seleucid fortress mentioned, when it seems to
have become part of the Greek kingdom of Characene. The objects found at
Tello are the most valuable art treasures up to this time discovered in
Babylonia.
See E. de Sarzec, _Découvertes en Chaldée_ (1887 foll.).
(J. P. Pe.)
LAGHMAN, a district of Afghanistan, in the province of Jalalabad,
between Jalalabad and Kabul, on the northern side of the Peshawar road,
one of the richest and most fertile tracts in Afghanistan. It is the
valley of the Kabul river between the Tagao and the Kunar and merges on
the north into Kafiristan. The inhabitants, Ghilzais and Tajiks, are
supposed to be the cleverest business people in the country. Sugar,
cotton and rice are exported to Kabul. The Laghman route between Kabul
and India crossing the Kunar river into the Mohmand country is the
route followed by Alexander the Great and Baber; but it has now been
supplanted by the Khyber.
LAGOON (Fr. _lagune_, Lat. _lacuna_, a pool), a term applied to (1) a
sheet of salt or brackish water near the sea, (2) a sheet of fresh water
of no great depth or extent, (3) the expanse of smooth water enclosed by
an atoll. Sea lagoons are formed only where the shores are low and
protected from wave action. Under these conditions a bar may be raised
above sea-level or a spit may grow until its end touches the land. The
enclosed shallow water is then isolated in a wide stretch, the seaward
banks broaden, and the lagoon becomes a permanent area of still shallow
water with peculiar faunal features. In the old lake plains of Australia
there are occasional wide and shallow depressions where water collects
permanently. Large numbers of aquatic birds, black swans, wild duck,
teal, migrant spoon-bills or pelicans, resort to these fresh-water
lagoons.
LAGOS, the western province of Southern Nigeria, a British colony and
protectorate in West Africa. The province consists of three divisions:
(1) the coast region, including Lagos Island, being the former colony of
Lagos; (2) small native states adjacent to the colony; and (3) the
Yoruba country, farther inland. The total area is some 27,000 sq. m., or
about the size of Scotland. The province is bounded S. by the Gulf of
Guinea, (from 2° 46´ 55´´ to 4° 30´ E.); W. by the French colony of
Dahomey; N. and E. by other provinces of Nigeria.
_Physical Features._--The coast is low, marshy and malarious, and all
along the shore the great Atlantic billows cause a dangerous surf.
Behind the coast-line stretches a series of lagoons, in which are
small islands, that of Lagos having an area of 3¾ sq. m. Beyond the
lagoons and mangrove swamps is a broad zone of dense primeval
forest--"the bush"--which completely separates the arable lands from
the coast lagoons. The water-parting of the streams flowing north to
the Niger, and south to the Gulf of Guinea, is the main physical
feature. The general level of Yorubaland is under 2000 ft. But towards
the east, about the upper course of the river Oshun, the elevation is
higher. Southward from the divide the land, which is intersected by
the nearly parallel courses of the rivers Ogun, Omi, Oshun, Oni and
Oluwa, falls in continuous undulations to the coast, the open
cultivated ground gradually giving place to forest tracts, where the
most characteristic tree is the oil-palm. Flowering trees, certain
kinds of rubber vines, and shrubs are plentiful. In the northern
regions the shea-butter tree is found. The fauna resembles that of the
other regions of the Guinea coast, but large game is becoming scarce.
Leopards, antelopes and monkeys are common, and alligators infest the
rivers.
The lagoons, lying between the outer surf-beaten beach and the inner
shore line, form a navigable highway of still waters, many miles in
extent. They are almost entirely free from rock, though they are often
shallow, with numerous mud banks. The most extensive are Lekki in the
east, and Ikoradu (Lagos) in the west. At its N.W. extremity the Lagos
lagoon receives the Ogun, the largest river in Yorubaland, whose
current is strong enough to keep the seaward channel open throughout
the year. Hence the importance of the port of Lagos, which lies in
smooth water at the northern end of this channel. The outer entrance
is obstructed by a dangerous sand bar.
_Climate and Health._--The climate is unhealthy, especially for
Europeans. The rainfall has not been ascertained in the interior. In
the northern districts it is probably considerably less than at Lagos,
where it is about 70 in. a year. The variation is, however, very
great. In 1901 the rainfall was 112 in., in 1902 but 47, these figures
being respectively the highest and lowest recorded in a period of
seventeen years. The mean temperature at Lagos is 82.5° F., the range
being from 68° to 91°. At certain seasons sudden heavy squalls of wind
and rain that last for a few hours are common. The hurricane and
typhoon are unknown. The principal diseases are malarial fever,
smallpox, rheumatism, peripheral neuritis, dysentery, chest diseases
and guinea-worm. Fever not unfrequently assumes the dangerous form
known as "black-water fever." The frequency of smallpox is being much
diminished outside the larger towns in the interior, in which
vaccination is neglected. The absence of plague, yellow fever,
cholera, typhoid fever and scarlatina is noteworthy. A mild form of
yaws is endemic.
_Inhabitants._--The population is estimated at 1,750,000. The Yoruba
people, a Negro race divided into many tribes, form the majority of the
inhabitants. Notwithstanding their political feuds and their proved
capacity as fighting men, the Yoruba are distinguished above all the
surrounding races for their generally peaceful disposition, industry,
friendliness, courtesy and hospitality towards strangers. They are also
intensely patriotic. Physically they resemble closely their Ewe and
Dahomey neighbours, but are of somewhat lighter complexion, taller and
of less pronounced Negro features. They exhibit high administrative
ability, possess a marked capacity for trade, and have made remarkable
progress in the industrial arts. The different tribes are distinguished
by tattoo markings, usually some simple pattern of two or more parallel
lines, disposed horizontally or vertically on the cheeks or other parts
of the face. The feeling for religion is deeply implanted among the
Yoruba. The majority are pagans, or dominated by pagan beliefs, but
Islam has made great progress since the cessation of the Fula wars,
while Protestant and Roman Catholic missions have been at work since
1848 at Abeokuta, Oyo, Ibadan and other large towns. Samuel Crowther,
the first Negro bishop in the Anglican church, who was distinguished as
an explorer, geographer and linguist, was a native of Yorubaland,
rescued (1822) by the English from slavery and educated at Sierra Leone
(see YORUBAS).
_Towns._--Besides Lagos (q.v.), pop. about 50,000, the chief towns in
the colony proper are Epe, pop. 16,000, on the northern side of the
lagoons, and Badagry (a notorious place during the slave-trade period)
and Lekki, both on the coast. Inland the chief towns are Abeokuta
(q.v.), pop. about 60,000, and Ibadan (q.v.), pop. estimated at 150,000.
_Agriculture and Trade._--The chief wealth of the country consists in
forest produce, the staple industries being the collection of
palm-kernels and palm oil. Besides the oil-palm forests large areas are
covered with timber trees, the wood chiefly cut for commercial purposes
being a kind of mahogany. The destruction of immature trees and the
fluctuations in price render this a very uncertain trade. The rubber
industry was started in 1894, and in 1896 the rubber exported was valued
at £347,000. In 1899, owing to reckless methods of tapping the vines,
75% of the rubber plants died. Precautions were then taken to preserve
the remainder and allow young plants to grow. The collection of rubber
recommenced in 1904 and the industry again became one of importance. A
considerable area is devoted to cocoa plantations, all owned by native
cultivators. Coffee and tobacco of good quality are cultivated and
shea-butter is largely used as an illuminant. The Yoruba country is the
greatest agricultural centre in West Africa. For home consumption the
Yoruba grow yams, maize and millet, the chief articles of food, cassava,
sweet potatoes, sesame and beans. Model farms have been established for
experimental culture and for the tuition of the natives. A palatable
wine is obtained from the _Raphia vinifera_ and native beers are also
brewed. Imported spirits are largely consumed. There are no manufactures
on a large scale save the making of "country cloths" (from cotton grown,
spun and woven in the country) and mats. Pottery and agricultural
implements are made, and tanning, dyeing and forging practised in the
towns, and along the rivers and lagoons boats and canoes are built.
Fishing is extensively engaged in, the fish being dried and sent up
country. Except iron there are no valuable minerals in the country.
The cotton plant from which the "country cloths" are made is native to
the country, the soil of which is capable of producing the very finest
grades of cotton. The Egba branch of the Yoruba have always grown the
plant. In 1869 the cotton exported was valued at £76,957, but owing to
low prices the natives ceased to grow cotton for export, so that in 1879
the value of exported cotton was only £526. In 1902 planting for export
was recommenced by the Egba on scientific lines, and was started in the
Abeokuta district with encouraging results.
The Yoruba profess to be unable to alienate land in perpetuity, but
native custom does not preclude leasing, and land concessions have been
taken up by Europeans on long leases. Some concessions are only for
cutting and removing timber; others permit of cultivation. The northern
parts of the protectorate are specially suitable for stock raising and
poultry culture.
The chief exports are palm-kernels, palm-oil, timber, rubber and cocoa.
Palm-kernels alone constitute more than a half in value of the total
exports, and with palm-oil over three-fourths. The trade in these
products is practically confined to Great Britain and Germany, the share
of the first-named being 25% to Germany's 75%. Minor exports are coffee,
"country cloths," maize, shea-butter and ivory.
Cotton goods are the most important of the imports, spirits coming next,
followed by building material, haberdashery and hardware and tobacco.
Over 90% of the cotton goods are imported from Great Britain, whilst
nearly the same proportion of the spirit imports come from Germany.
Nearly all the liquors consist of "Trade Spirits," chiefly gin, rum and
a concoction called "alcohol," introduced (1901) to meet the growing
taste of the people for stronger liquor. This stuff contained 90% of
pure alcohol and sometimes over 4% of fusel oil. To hinder the sale of
this noxious compound legislation was passed in 1903 prohibiting the
import of liquor containing more than ½% of fusel oil, whilst the states
of Abeokuta and Ibadan prohibited the importation of liquor stronger
than proof. The total trade of the country in 1905 was valued at
£2,224,754, the imports slightly exceeding the exports. There is a large
transit trade with Dahomey.
_Communications._--Lagos is well supplied with means of communication.
A 3 ft. 6 in. gauge railway starts from Iddo Island, and extends past
Abeokuta, 64 m. from Lagos, Ibadan (123 m.), Oshogbo (175 m.), to
Illorin (247 m.) in Northern Nigeria, whence the line is continued to
Jebba and Zunguru (see NIGERIA). Abeokuta is served by a branch line,
1½ m. long, from Aro on the main line. Railway bridges connect Iddo
Island both with the mainland and with Lagos Island (see Lagos, town).
This line was begun in 1896 and opened to Ibadan in 1901. In 1905 the
building of the section Ibadan-Illorin was undertaken. The railway was
built by the government and cost about £7000 per mile. The lagoons
offer convenient channels for numerous small craft, which, with the
exception of steam-launches, are almost entirely native-built canoes.
Branch steamers run between the Forcados mouth of the Niger and Lagos,
and also between Lagos and Porto Novo, in French territory, and do a
large transit trade. Various roads through the bush have been made by
the government. There is telegraphic communication with Europe,
Northern Nigeria and South Africa, and steamships ply regularly
between Lagos and Liverpool, and Lagos and Hamburg (see LAGOS, town).
_Administration, Justice, Education, &c._--The small part of the
province which constitutes "the colony of Southern Nigeria" is
governed as a crown colony. Elsewhere the native governments are
retained, the chiefs and councils of elders receiving the advice and
support of British commissioners. There is also an advisory native
central council which meets at Lagos. The great majority of the civil
servants are natives of the country, some of whom have been educated
in England. The legal status of slavery is not recognized by the law
courts and dealing in slaves is suppressed. As an institution slavery
is dying out, and only exists in a domestic form.
The cost of administration is met, mainly, by customs, largely derived
from the duties on imported spirits. From the railways, a government
monopoly, a considerable net profit is earned. Expenditure is mainly
under the heads of railway administration, other public works,
military and police, health, and education. The revenue increased in
the ten years 1895-1905 from £142,049 to £410,250. In the same period
the expenditure rose from £144,484 to £354,254.
The defence of the province is entrusted to the Lagos battalion of the
West African Frontier Force, a body under the control of the Colonial
Office in London and composed of Hausa (four-fifths) and Yoruba. It is
officered from the British army.
The judicial system in the colony proper is based on that of England.
The colonial supreme court, by agreement with the rulers of Abeokuta,
Ibadan and other states in the protectorate, tries, with the aid of
native assessors, all cases of importance in those countries. Other
cases are tried by mixed courts, or, where Yoruba alone are concerned,
by native courts.
There is a government board of education which maintains a few schools
and supervises those voluntarily established. These are chiefly those
of various missionary societies, who, besides primary schools, have a
few secondary schools. The Mahommedans have their own schools. Grants
from public funds are made to the voluntary schools. Considerable
attention is paid to manual training, the laws of health and the
teaching of English, which is spoken by about one-fourth of the native
population.
_History._--Lagos Island was so named by the Portuguese explorers of the
15th century, because of the numerous lagoons or lakes on this part of
the coast. The Portuguese, and after them the French, had settlements
here at various points. In the 18th century Lagos Lagoon became the
chief resort of slavers frequenting the Bight of Benin, this portion of
the Gulf of Guinea becoming known pre-eminently as the Slave Coast.
British traders established themselves at Badagry, 40 m. W. of Lagos,
where in 1851 they were attacked by Kosoko, the Yoruba king of Lagos
Island. As a result a British naval force seized Lagos after a sharp
fight and deposed the king, placing his cousin, Akitoye, on the throne.
A treaty was concluded under which Akitoye bound himself to put down the
slave trade. This treaty was not adhered to, and in 1861 Akitoye's son
and successor, King Docemo, was induced to give up his territorial
jurisdiction and accept a pension of 1200 bags of cowries, afterwards
commuted to £1000 a year, which pension he drew until his death in 1885.
Immediately after the proclamation of the British annexation, a steady
current of immigration from the mainland set in, and a flourishing town
arose on Lagos Island. Iddo Island was acquired at the same time as
Lagos Island, and from 1862 to 1894 various additions by purchase or
cession were made to the colony. In 1879 the small kingdom of Kotonu was
placed under British protection. Kotonu lies south and east of the
Denham Lagoon (see DAHOMEY). In 1889 it was exchanged with the French
for the kingdom of Pokra which is to the north of Badagry. In the early
years of the colony Sir John Glover, R.N., who was twice governor
(1864-1866 and 1871-1872), did much pioneer work and earned the
confidence of the natives to a remarkable degree. Later Sir C. A.
Moloney (governor 1886-1890) opened up relations with the Yoruba and
other tribes in the hinterland. He despatched two commissioners whose
duty it was to conclude commercial treaties and use British influence to
put a stop to inter-tribal fighting and the closing of the trade routes.
In 1892 the Jebu, who acted as middlemen between the colony and the
Yoruba, closed several trade routes. An expedition sent against them
resulted in their subjugation and the annexation of part of their
country. An order in council issued in 1899 extended the protectorate
over Yorubaland. The tribes of the hinterland have largely welcomed the
British protectorate and military expeditions have been few and
unimportant. (For the history of the Yoruba states see YORUBAS.)
Lagos was made a separate government in 1863; in 1866 it was placed in
political dependence upon Sierra Leone; in 1874 it became (politically)
an integral part of the Gold Coast Colony, whilst in 1886 it was again
made a separate government, administered as a crown colony. In Sir
William Macgregor, M.D., formerly administrator of British New Guinea,
governor 1899-1904, the colony found an enlightened ruler. He
inaugurated the railway system, and drew much closer the friendly ties
between the British and the tribes of the protectorate. Meantime, since
1884, the whole of the Niger delta, lying immediately east of Lagos, as
well as the Hausa states and Bornu, had been acquired by Great Britain.
Unification of the British possessions in Nigeria being desirable, the
delta regions and Lagos were formed in 1906 into one government (see
NIGERIA).
See C. P. Lucas, _Historical Geography of the British Colonies_, vol.
iii. _West Africa_ (Oxford, 1896); the annual _Reports_ issued by the
Colonial Office, London; A. B. Ellis, _The Yoruba-speaking Peoples_
(London, 1894); Lady Glover, _The Life of Sir John Hawley Glover_
(London, 1897). Consult also the works cited under NIGERIA and
DAHOMEY.
LAGOS, a seaport of West Africa, capital of the British colony and
protectorate of Southern Nigeria, in 6° 26´ N., 3° 23´ E. on an island
in a lagoon named Lagos also. Between Lagos and the mainland is Iddo
Island. An iron bridge for road and railway traffic 2600 ft. long
connects Lagos and Iddo Islands, and another iron bridge, 917 ft. long,
joins Iddo Island to the mainland. The town lies but a foot or two above
sea-level. The principal buildings are a large government house, the law
courts, the memorial hall erected to commemorate the services of Sir
John Glover, used for public meetings and entertainments, an elaborate
club-house provided from public funds, and the police quarters. There
are many substantial villas that serve as quarters for the officers of
the civil service, as well as numerous solidly-built handsome private
buildings. The streets are well kept; the town is supplied with electric
light, and there is a good water service. The chief stores and depôts
for goods are all on the banks of the lagoon. The swamps of which
originally Lagos Island entirely consisted have been reclaimed. In
connexion with this work a canal, 25 ft. wide, has been cut right
through the island and a sea-wall built round its western half. There is
a commodious public hospital, of the cottage type, on a good site. There
is a racecourse, which also serves as a general public recreation
ground. Shifting banks of sand form a bar at the sea entrance of the
lagoon. Extensive works were undertaken in 1908 with a view to making
Lagos an open port. A mole has been built at the eastern entrance to the
harbour and dredgers are at work on the bar, which can be crossed by
vessels drawing 13 ft. Large ocean-going steamers anchor not less than 2
m. from land, and goods and passengers are there transhipped into
smaller steamers for Lagos. Heavy cargo is carried by the large steamers
to Forcados, 200 m. farther down the coast, transhipped there into
branch boats, and taken via the lagoons to Lagos. The port is 4279 m.
from Liverpool, 1203 from Freetown, Sierra Leone (the nearest safe port
westward), and 315 from Cape Coast.
The inhabitants, about 50,000, include, besides the native tribes,
Sierra Leonis, Fanti, Krumen and the descendants of some 6000 Brazilian
_emancipados_ who were settled here in the early days of British rule.
The Europeans number about 400. Rather more than half the populace are
Moslems.
LAGOS, a seaport of southern Portugal, in the district of Faro (formerly
the province of Algarve); on the Atlantic Ocean, and on the estuary of
the small river Lagos, here spanned by a fine stone bridge. Pop. (1900)
8291. The city is defended by fortifications erected in the 17th
century. It is supplied with water by an aqueduct 800 yds. long. The
harbour is deep, capacious, and completely sheltered on the north and
west; it is frequently visited by the British Channel fleet. Vines and
figs are extensively cultivated in the neighbourhood, and Lagos is the
centre of important sardine and tunny fisheries. Its trade is chiefly
carried on by small coasting vessels, as there is no railway. Lagos is
on or near the site of the Roman _Lacobriga_. Since the 15th century it
has held the formal rank and title of city. Cape St Vincent, the ancient
_Promontorium Sacrum_, and the south-western extremity of the kingdom,
is 22 m. W. It is famous for its connexion with Prince Henry (q.v.), the
Navigator, who here founded the town of Sagres in 1421; and for several
British naval victories, the most celebrated of which was won in 1797 by
Admiral Jervis (afterwards Earl St Vincent) over a larger Spanish
squadron. In 1759 Admiral Boscawen defeated a French fleet off Lagos.
The great earthquake of 1755 destroyed a large part of the city.
LA GRÂCE, or LES GRÂCES, a game invented in France during the first
quarter of the 19th century and called there _le jeu des Grâces_. It is
played with two light sticks about 16 in. long and a wicker ring, which
is projected into the air by placing it over the sticks crossed and then
separating them rapidly. The ring is caught upon the stick of another
player and thrown back, the object being to prevent it from falling to
the ground.
LA GRAND' COMBE, a town of southern France, in the department of Gard on
the Gardon, 39 m. N.N.W. of Nîmes by rail. Pop. (1906) town, 6406;
commune, 11,292. There are extensive coal mines in the vicinity.
LAGRANGE, JOSEPH LOUIS (1736-1813), French mathematician, was born at
Turin, on the 25th of January 1736. He was of French extraction, his
great grandfather, a cavalry captain, having passed from the service of
France to that of Sardinia, and settled in Turin under Emmanuel II. His
father, Joseph Louis Lagrange, married Maria Theresa Gros, only daughter
of a rich physician at Cambiano, and had by her eleven children, of whom
only the eldest (the subject of this notice) and the youngest survived
infancy. His emoluments as treasurer at war, together with his wife's
fortune, provided him with ample means, which he lost by rash
speculations, a circumstance regarded by his son as the prelude to his
own good fortune; for had he been rich, he used to say, he might never
have known mathematics.
The genius of Lagrange did not at once take its true bent. His earliest
tastes were literary rather than scientific, and he learned the
rudiments of geometry during his first year at the college of Turin,
without difficulty, but without distinction. The perusal of a tract by
Halley (_Phil. Trans._ xviii. 960) roused his enthusiasm for the
analytical method, of which he was destined to develop the utmost
capabilities. He now entered, unaided save by his own unerring tact and
vivid apprehension, upon a course of study which, in two years, placed
him on a level with the greatest of his contemporaries. At the age of
nineteen he communicated to Leonhard Euler his idea of a general method
of dealing with "isoperimetrical" problems, known later as the Calculus
of Variations. It was eagerly welcomed by the Berlin mathematician, who
had the generosity to withhold from publication his own further
researches on the subject, until his youthful correspondent should have
had time to complete and opportunity to claim the invention. This
prosperous opening gave the key-note to Lagrange's career. Appointed, in
1754, professor of geometry in the royal school of artillery, he formed
with some of his pupils--for the most part his seniors--friendships
based on community of scientific ardour. With the aid of the marquis de
Saluces and the anatomist G. F. Cigna, he founded in 1758 a society
which became the Turin Academy of Sciences. The first volume of its
memoirs, published in the following year, contained a paper by Lagrange
entitled _Recherches sur la nature et la propagation du son_, in which
the power of his analysis and his address in its application were
equally conspicuous. He made his first appearance in public as the
critic of Newton, and the arbiter between d'Alembert and Euler. By
considering only the particles of air found in a right line, he reduced
the problem of the propagation of sound to the solution of the same
partial differential equations that include the motions of vibrating
strings, and demonstrated the insufficiency of the methods employed by
both his great contemporaries in dealing with the latter subject. He
further treated in a masterly manner of echoes and the mixture of
sounds, and explained the phenomenon of grave harmonics as due to the
occurrence of beats so rapid as to generate a musical note. This was
followed, in the second volume of the _Miscellanea Taurinensia_ (1762)
by his "Essai d'une nouvelle méthode pour déterminer les maxima et les
minima des formules intégrales indéfinies," together with the
application of this important development of analysis to the solution of
several dynamical problems, as well as to the demonstration of the
mechanical principle of "least action." The essential point in his
advance on Euler's mode of investigating curves of maximum or minimum
consisted in his purely analytical conception of the subject. He not
only freed it from all trammels of geometrical construction, but by the
introduction of the symbol [delta] gave it the efficacy of a new
calculus. He is thus justly regarded as the inventor of the "method of
variations"--a name supplied by Euler in 1766.
By these performances Lagrange found himself, at the age of twenty-six,
on the summit of European fame. Such a height had not been reached
without cost. Intense application during early youth had weakened a
constitution never robust, and led to accesses of feverish exaltation
culminating, in the spring of 1761, in an attack of bilious
hypochondria, which permanently lowered the tone of his nervous system.
Rest and exercise, however, temporarily restored his health, and he gave
proof of the undiminished vigour of his powers by carrying off, in 1764,
the prize offered by the Paris Academy of Sciences for the best essay on
the libration of the moon. His treatise was remarkable, not only as
offering a satisfactory explanation of the coincidence between the lunar
periods of rotation and revolution, but as containing the first
employment of his radical formula of mechanics, obtained by combining
with the principle of d'Alembert that of virtual velocities. His success
encouraged the Academy to propose, in 1766, as a theme for competition,
the hitherto unattempted theory of the Jovian system. The prize was
again awarded to Lagrange; and he earned the same distinction with
essays on the problem of three bodies in 1772, on the secular equation
of the moon in 1774, and in 1778 on the theory of cometary
perturbations.
He had in the meantime gratified a long felt desire by a visit to Paris,
where he enjoyed the stimulating delight of conversing with such
mathematicians as A. C. Clairault, d'Alembert, Condorcet and the Abbé
Marie. Illness prevented him from visiting London. The post of director
of the mathematical department of the Berlin Academy (of which he had
been a member since 1759) becoming vacant by the removal of Euler to St
Petersburg, the latter and d'Alembert united to recommend Lagrange as
his successor. Euler's eulogium was enhanced by his desire to quit
Berlin, d'Alembert's by his dread of a royal command to repair thither;
and the result was that an invitation, conveying the wish of the
"greatest king in Europe" to have the "greatest mathematician" at his
court, was sent to Turin. On the 6th of November 1766, Lagrange was
installed in his new position, with a salary of 6000 francs, ample
leisure for scientific research, and royal favour sufficient to secure
him respect without exciting envy. The national jealousy of foreigners,
was at first a source of annoyance to him; but such prejudices were
gradually disarmed by the inoffensiveness of his demeanour. We are told
that the universal example of his colleagues, rather than any desire for
female society, impelled him to matrimony; his choice being a lady of
the Conti family, who, by his request, joined him at Berlin. Soon after
marriage his wife was attacked by a lingering illness, to which she
succumbed, Lagrange devoting all his time, and a considerable store of
medical knowledge, to her care.
The long series of memoirs--some of them complete treatises of great
moment in the history of science--communicated by Lagrange to the Berlin
Academy between the years 1767 and 1787 were not the only fruits of his
exile. His _Mécanique analytique_, in which his genius most fully
displayed itself, was produced during the same period. This great work
was the perfect realization of a design conceived by the author almost
in boyhood, and clearly sketched in his first published essay.[1] Its
scope may be briefly described as the reduction of the theory of
mechanics to certain general formulae, from the simple development of
which should be derived the equations necessary for the solution of each
separate problem.[2] From the fundamental principle of virtual
velocities, which thus acquired a new significance, Lagrange deduced,
with the aid of the calculus of variations, the whole system of
mechanical truths, by processes so elegant, lucid and harmonious as to
constitute, in Sir William Hamilton's words, "a kind of scientific
poem." This unification of method was one of matter also. By his mode of
regarding a liquid as a material system characterized by the unshackled
mobility of its minutest parts, the separation between the mechanics of
matter in different forms of aggregation finally disappeared, and the
fundamental equation of forces was for the first time extended to
hydrostatics and hydrodynamics.[3] Thus a universal science of matter
and motion was derived, by an unbroken sequence of deduction, from one
radical principle; and analytical mechanics assumed the clear and
complete form of logical perfection which it now wears.
A publisher having with some difficulty been found, the book appeared at
Paris in 1788 under the supervision of A. M. Legendre. But before that
time Lagrange himself was on the spot. After the death of Frederick the
Great, his presence was competed for by the courts of France, Spain and
Naples, and a residence in Berlin having ceased to possess any
attraction for him, he removed to Paris in 1787. Marie Antoinette warmly
patronized him. He was lodged in the Louvre, received the grant of an
income equal to that he had hitherto enjoyed, and, with the title of
"veteran pensioner" in lieu of that of "foreign associate" (conferred in
1772), the right of voting at the deliberations of the Academy. In the
midst of these distinctions, a profound melancholy seized upon him. His
mathematical enthusiasm was for the time completely quenched, and during
two years the printed volume of his _Mécanique_, which he had seen only
in manuscript, lay unopened beside him. He relieved his dejection with
miscellaneous studies, especially with that of chemistry, which, in the
new form given to it by Lavoisier, he found "aisée comme l'algèbre." The
Revolution roused him once more to activity and cheerfulness. Curiosity
impelled him to remain and watch the progress of such a novel
phenomenon; but curiosity was changed into dismay as the terrific
character of the phenomenon unfolded itself. He now bitterly regretted
his temerity in braving the danger. "Tu l'as voulu" he would repeat
self-reproachfully. Even from revolutionary tribunals, however, the name
of Lagrange uniformly commanded respect. His pension was continued by
the National Assembly, and he was partially indemnified for the
depreciation of the currency by remunerative appointments. Nominated
president of the Academical commission for the reform of weights and
measures, his services were retained when its "purification" by the
Jacobins removed his most distinguished colleagues. He again sat on the
commission of 1799 for the construction of the metric system, and by his
zealous advocacy of the decimal principle largely contributed to its
adoption.
Meanwhile, on the 31st of May 1792 he married Mademoiselle Lemonnier,
daughter of the astronomer of that name, a young and beautiful girl,
whose devotion ignored disparity of years, and formed the one tie with
life which Lagrange found it hard to break. He had no children by either
marriage. Although specially exempted from the operation of the decree
of October 1793, imposing banishment on foreign residents, he took alarm
at the fate of J. S. Bailly and A. L. Lavoisier, and prepared to resume
his former situation in Berlin. His design was frustrated by the
establishment of and his official connexion with the École Normale, and
the École Polytechnique. The former institution had an ephemeral
existence; but amongst the benefits derived from the foundation of the
École Polytechnique one of the greatest, it has been observed,[4] was
the restoration of Lagrange to mathematics. The remembrance of his
teachings was long treasured by such of his auditors--amongst whom were
J. B. J. Delambre and S. F. Lacroix--as were capable of appreciating
them. In expounding the principles of the differential calculus, he
started, as it were, from the level of his pupils, and ascended with
them by almost insensible gradations from elementary to abstruse
conceptions. He seemed, not a professor amongst students, but a learner
amongst learners; pauses for thought alternated with luminous
exposition; invention accompanied demonstration; and thus originated his
_Théorie des fonctions analytiques_ (Paris, 1797). The leading idea of
this work was contained in a paper published in the _Berlin Memoirs_ for
1772.[5] Its object was the elimination of the, to some minds,
unsatisfactory conception of the infinite from the metaphysics of the
higher mathematics, and the substitution for the differential and
integral calculus of an analogous method depending wholly on the serial
development of algebraical functions. By means of this "calculus of
derived functions" Lagrange hoped to give to the solution of all
analytical problems the utmost "rigour of the demonstrations of the
ancients";[6] but it cannot be said that the attempt was successful. The
validity of his fundamental position was impaired by the absence of a
well-constituted theory of series; the notation employed was
inconvenient, and was abandoned by its inventor in the second edition of
his _Mécanique_; while his scruples as to the admission into analytical
investigations of the idea of limits or vanishing ratios have long since
been laid aside as idle. Nowhere, however, were the keenness and
clearness of his intellect more conspicuous than in this brilliant
effort, which, if it failed in its immediate object, was highly
effective in secondary results. His purely abstract mode of regarding
functions, apart from any mechanical or geometrical considerations, led
the way to a new and sharply characterized development of the higher
analysis in the hands of A. Cauchy, C. G. Jacobi, and others.[7] The
_Théorie des fonctions_ is divided into three parts, of which the first
explains the general doctrine of functions, the second deals with its
application to geometry, and the third with its bearings on mechanics.
On the establishment of the Institute, Lagrange was placed at the head
of the section of geometry; he was one of the first members of the
Bureau des Longitudes; and his name appeared in 1791 on the list of
foreign members of the Royal Society. On the annexation of Piedmont to
France in 1796, a touching compliment was paid to him in the person of
his aged father. By direction of Talleyrand, then minister for foreign
affairs, the French commissary repaired in state to the old man's
residence in Turin, to congratulate him on the merits of his son, whom
they declared "to have done honour to mankind by his genius, and whom
Piedmont was proud to have produced, and France to possess." Bonaparte,
who styled him "la haute pyramide des sciences mathématiques," loaded
him with personal favours and official distinctions. He became a
senator, a count of the empire, a grand officer of the legion of honour,
and just before his death received the grand cross of the order of
réunion.
The preparation of a new edition of his _Mécanique_ exhausted his
already falling powers. Frequent fainting fits gave presage of a speedy
end, and on the 8th of April 1813 he had a final interview with his
friends B. Lacépède, G. Monge and J. A. Chaptal. He spoke with the
utmost calm of his approaching death; "c'est une dernière fonction," he
said, "qui n'est ni pénible ni désagréable." He nevertheless looked
forward to a future meeting, when he promised to complete the
autobiographical details which weakness obliged him to interrupt. They
remained untold, for he died two days later on the 10th of April, and
was buried in the Pantheon, the funeral oration being pronounced by
Laplace and Lacépède.
Amongst the brilliant group of mathematicians whose magnanimous
rivalry contributed to accomplish the task of generalization and
deduction reserved for the 18th century, Lagrange occupies an eminent
place. It is indeed by no means easy to distinguish and apportion the
respective merits of the competitors. This is especially the case
between Lagrange and Euler on the one side, and between Lagrange and
Laplace on the other. The calculus of variations lay undeveloped in
Euler's mode of treating isoperimetrical problems. The fruitful
method, again, of the variation of elements was introduced by Euler,
but adopted and perfected by Lagrange, who first recognized its
supreme importance to the analytical investigation of the planetary
movements. Finally, of the grand series of researches by which the
stability of the solar system was ascertained, the glory must be
almost equally divided between Lagrange and Laplace. In analytical
invention, and mastery over the calculus, the Turin mathematician was
admittedly unrivalled. Laplace owned that he had despaired of
effecting the integration of the differential equations relative to
secular inequalities until Lagrange showed him the way. But Laplace
unquestionably surpassed his rival in practical sagacity and the
intuition of physical truth. Lagrange saw in the problems of nature so
many occasions for analytical triumphs; Laplace regarded analytical
triumphs as the means of solving the problems of nature. One mind
seemed the complement of the other; and both, united in honourable
rivalry, formed an instrument of unexampled perfection for the
investigation of the celestial machinery. What may be called
Lagrange's first period of research into planetary perturbations
extended from 1774 to 1784 (see ASTRONOMY: _History_). The notable
group of treatises communicated, 1781-1784, to the Berlin Academy was
designed, but did not prove to be his final contribution to the theory
of the planets. After an interval of twenty-four years the subject,
re-opened by S. D. Poisson in a paper read on the 20th of June 1808,
was once more attacked by Lagrange with all his pristine vigour and
fertility of invention. Resuming the inquiry into the invariability of
mean motions, Poisson carried the approximation, with Lagrange's
formulae, as far as the squares of the disturbing forces, hitherto
neglected, with the same result as to the stability of the system. He
had not attempted to include in his calculations the orbital
variations of the disturbing bodies; but Lagrange, by the happy
artifice of transferring the origin of coordinates from the centre of
the sun to the centre of gravity of the sun and planets, obtained a
simplification of the formulae, by which the same analysis was
rendered equally applicable to each of the planets severally. It
deserves to be recorded as one of the numerous coincidences of
discovery that Laplace, on being made acquainted by Lagrange with his
new method, produced analogous expressions, to which his independent
researches had led him. The final achievement of Lagrange in this
direction was the extension of the method of the variation of
arbitrary constants, successfully used by him in the investigation of
periodical as well as of secular inequalities, to any system whatever
of mutually interacting bodies.[8] "Not without astonishment," even
to himself, regard being had to the great generality of the
differential equations, he reached a result so wide as to include, as
a particular case, the solution of the planetary problem recently
obtained by him. He proposed to apply the same principles to the
calculation of the disturbances produced in the rotation of the
planets by external action on their equatorial protuberances, but was
anticipated by Poisson, who gave formulae for the variation of the
elements of rotation strictly corresponding with those found by
Lagrange for the variation of the elements of revolution. The revision
of the _Mécanique analytique_ was undertaken mainly for the purpose of
embodying in it these new methods and final results, but was
interrupted, when two-thirds completed, by the death of its author.
In the advancement of almost every branch of pure mathematics Lagrange
took a conspicuous part. The calculus of variations is indissolubly
associated with his name. In the theory of numbers he furnished
solutions of many of P. Fermat's theorems, and added some of his own.
In algebra he discovered the method of approximating to the real roots
of an equation by means of continued fractions, and imagined a general
process of solving algebraical equations of every degree. The method
indeed fails for equations of an order above the fourth, because it
then involves the solution of an equation of higher dimensions than
they proposed. Yet it possesses the great and characteristic merit of
generalizing the solutions of his predecessors, exhibiting them all as
modifications of one principle. To Lagrange, perhaps more than to any
other, the theory of differential equations is indebted for its
position as a science, rather than a collection of ingenious artifices
for the solution of particular problems. To the calculus of finite
differences he contributed the beautiful formula of interpolation
which bears his name; although substantially the same result seems to
have been previously obtained by Euler. But it was in the application
to mechanical questions of the instrument which he thus helped to form
that his singular merit lay. It was his just boast to have transformed
mechanics (defined by him as a "geometry of four dimensions") into a
branch of analysis, and to have exhibited the so-called mechanical
"principles" as simple results of the calculus. The method of
"generalized coordinates," as it is now called, by which he attained
this result, is the most brilliant achievement of the analytical
method. Instead of following the motion of each individual part of a
material system, he showed that, if we determine its configuration by
a sufficient number of variables, whose number is that of the degrees
of freedom to move (there being as many equations as the system has
degrees of freedom), the kinetic and potential energies of the system
can be expressed in terms of these, and the differential equations of
motion thence deduced by simple differentiation. Besides this most
important contribution to the general fabric of dynamical science, we
owe to Lagrange several minor theorems of great elegance,--among which
may be mentioned his theorem that the kinetic energy imparted by given
impulses to a material system under given constraints is a maximum. To
this entire branch of knowledge, in short, he successfully imparted
that character of generality and completeness towards which his
labours invariably tended.
His share in the gigantic task of verifying the Newtonian theory would
alone suffice to immortalize his name. His co-operation was indeed
more indispensable than at first sight appears. Much as was done _by_
him, what was done _through_ him was still more important. Some of his
brilliant rival's most conspicuous discoveries were implicitly
contained in his writings, and wanted but one step for completion. But
that one step, from the abstract to the concrete, was precisely that
which the character of Lagrange's mind indisposed him to make. As
notable instances may be mentioned Laplace's discoveries relating to
the velocity of sound and the secular acceleration of the moon, both
of which were led close up to by Lagrange's analytical demonstrations.
In the _Berlin Memoirs_ for 1778 and 1783 Lagrange gave the first
direct and theoretically perfect method of determining cometary
orbits. It has not indeed proved practically available; but his system
of calculating cometary perturbations by means of "mechanical
quadratures" has formed the starting-point of all subsequent
researches on the subject. His determination[9] of maximum and minimum
values for the slowly varying planetary eccentricities was the
earliest attempt to deal with the problem. Without a more accurate
knowledge of the masses of the planets than was then possessed a
satisfactory solution was impossible; but the upper limits assigned by
him agreed closely with those obtained later by U. J. J.
Leverrier.[10] As a mathematical writer Lagrange has perhaps never
been surpassed. His treatises are not only storehouses of ingenious
methods, but models of symmetrical form. The clearness, elegance and
originality of his mode of presentation give lucidity to what is
obscure, novelty to what is familiar, and simplicity to what is
abstruse. His genius was one of generalization and abstraction; and
the aspirations of the time towards unity and perfection received, by
his serene labours, an embodiment denied to them in the troubled world
of politics.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Lagrange's numerous scattered memoirs have been
collected and published in seven 4to volumes, under the title
_Oeuvres de Lagrange, publiées sous les soins de M. J. A. Serret_
(Paris, 1867-1877). The first, second and third sections of this
publication comprise respectively the papers communicated by him to
the Academies of Sciences of Turin, Berlin and Paris; the fourth
includes his miscellaneous contributions to other scientific
collections, together with his additions to Euler's _Algebra_, and his
_Leçons élémentaires_ at the École Normale in 1795. Delambre's notice
of his life, extracted from the _Mém. de l'Institut_, 1812, is
prefixed to the first volume. Besides the separate works already named
are _Résolution des équations numériques_ (1798, 2nd ed., 1808, 3rd
ed., 1826), and _Leçons sur le calcul des fonctions_ (1805, 2nd ed.,
1806), designed as a commentary and supplement to the first part of
the _Théorie des fonctions_. The first volume of the enlarged edition
of the _Mécanique_ appeared in 1811, the second, of which the revision
was completed by MM Prony and Binet, in 1815. A third edition, in 2
vols., 4to, was issued in 1853-1855, and a second of the _Théorie des
fonctions_ in 1813.
See also J. J. Virey and Potel, _Précis historique_ (1813); Th.
Thomson's _Annals of Philosophy_ (1813-1820), vols. ii. and iv.; H.
Suter, _Geschichte der math. Wiss._ (1873); E. Dühring, _Kritische
Gesch. der allgemeinen Principien der Mechanik_ (1877, 2nd ed.); A.
Gautier, _Essai historique sur le problème des trois corps_ (1817); R.
Grant, _History of Physical Astronomy_, &c.; Pietro Cossali, _Éloge_
(Padua, 1813); L. Martini, _Cenni biográfici_ (1840); _Moniteur du 26
Février_ (1814); W. Whewell, _Hist. of the Inductive Sciences_, ii.
_passim_; J. Clerk Maxwell, _Electricity and Magnetism_, ii. 184; A.
Berry, _Short Hist. of Astr._, p. 313; J. S. Bailly, _Hist. de l'astr.
moderne_, iii. 156, 185, 232; J. C. Poggendorff, _Biog. Lit.
Handwörterbuch_. (A. M. C.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Oeuvres_, i. 15.
[2] _Méc. An._, Advertisement to 1st ed.
[3] E. Dühring, _Kritische Gesch. der Mechanik_, 220, 367; Lagrange,
_Méc. An._ i. 166-172, 3rd ed.
[4] Notice by J. Delambre, _Oeuvres de Lagrange_, i. p. xlii.
[5] _Oeuvres_, iii. 441.
[6] _Théorie des fonctions_, p. 6.
[7] H. Suter, _Geschichte der math. Wiss._ ii. 222-223.
[8] _Oeuvres_, vi. 771.
[9] _Oeuvres_, v. 211 seq.
[10] Grant, _History of Physical Astronomy_, p. 117.
LAGRANGE-CHANCEL [CHANCEL], FRANÇOIS JOSEPH (1677-1758), French
dramatist and satirist, was born at Périgueux on the 1st of January
1677. He was an extremely precocious boy, and at Bordeaux, where he was
educated, he produced a play when he was nine years old. Five years
later his mother took him to Paris, where he found a patron in the
princesse de Conti, to whom he dedicated his tragedy of _Jugurtha_ or,
as it was called later, _Adherbal_ (1694). Racine had given him advice
and was present at the first performance, although he had long lived in
complete retirement. Other plays followed: _Oreste et Pylade_ (1697),
_Méléagre_ (1699), _Amasis_ (1701), and _Ino et Mélicerte_ (1715).
Lagrange hardly realized the high hopes raised by his precocity,
although his only serious rival on the tragic stage was Campistron, but
he obtained high favour at court, becoming _maître d'hôtel_ to the
duchess of Orleans. This prosperity ended with the publication in 1720
of his _Philippiques_, odes accusing the regent, Philip, duke of
Orleans, of the most odious crimes. He might have escaped the
consequences of this libel but for the bitter enmity of a former patron,
the duc de La Force. Lagrange found sanctuary at Avignon, but was
enticed beyond the boundary of the papal jurisdiction, when he was
arrested and sent as a prisoner to the isles of Sainte Marguerite. He
contrived, however, to escape to Sardinia and thence to Spain and
Holland, where he produced his fourth and fifth _Philippiques_. On the
death of the Regent he was able to return to France. He was part author
of a _Histoire de Périgord_ left unfinished, and made a further
contribution to history, or perhaps, more exactly, to romance, in a
letter to Élie Fréron on the identity of the Man with the Iron Mask.
Lagrange's family life was embittered by a long lawsuit against his son.
He died at Périgueux at the end of December 1758.
He had collected his own works (5 vols., 1758) some months before his
death. His most famous work, the _Philippiques_, was edited by M. de
Lescure in 1858, and a sixth philippic by M. Diancourt in 1886.
LA GRANJA, or SAN ILDEFONSO, a summer palace of the kings of Spain; on
the south-eastern border of the province of Segovia, and on the western
slopes of the Sierra de Guadarrama, 7 m. by road S.E. of the city of
Segovia. The royal estate is 3905 ft. above sea-level. The scenery of
this region, especially in the gorge of the river Lozoya, with its
granite rocks, its dense forest of pines, firs and birches, and its
red-tiled farms, more nearly resembles the highlands of northern Europe
than any other part of Spain. La Granja has an almost alpine climate,
with a clear, cool atmosphere and abundant sunshine. Above the palace
rise the wooded summits of the Guadarrama, culminating in the peak of
Peñalara (7891 ft.); in front of it the wide plains of Segovia extend
northwards. The village of San Ildefonso, the oldest part of the estate,
was founded in 1450 by Henry IV., who built a hunting lodge and chapel
here. In 1477 the chapel was presented by Ferdinand and Isabella to the
monks of the Parral, a neighbouring Hieronymite monastery. The original
_granja_ (i.e. grange or farm), established by the monks, was purchased
in 1719 by Philip V., after the destruction of his summer palace at
Valsain, the ancient _Vallis Sapinorum_, 2 m. S. Philip determined to
convert the estate into a second Versailles. The palace was built
between 1721 and 1723. Its façade is fronted by a colonnade in which the
pillars reach to the roof. The state apartments contain some valuable
18th-century furniture, but the famous collection of sculptures was
removed to Madrid in 1836, and is preserved there in the Museo del
Prado. At La Granja it is represented by facsimiles in plaster. The
collegiate church adjoining the palace dates from 1724, and contains the
tombs of Philip V. and his consort Isabella Farnese. An artificial lake
called El Mar, 4095 ft. above sea-level, irrigates the gardens, which
are imitated from those of Versailles, and supplies water for the
fountains. These, despite the antiquated and sometimes tasteless style
of their ornamentation, are probably the finest in the world; it is
noteworthy that, owing to the high level of the lake, no pumps or other
mechanism are needed to supply pressure. There are twenty-six fountains
besides lakes and waterfalls. Among the most remarkable are the group of
"Perseus, Andromeda and the Sea-Monster," which sends up a jet of water
110 ft. high, the "Fame," which reaches 125 ft., and the very elaborate
"Baths of Diana." It is of the last that Philip V. is said to have
remarked, "It has cost me three millions and amused me three minutes."
Most of the fountains were made by order of Queen Isabella in 1727,
during the king's absence. The glass factory of San Ildefonso was
founded by Charles III.
It was in La Granja that Philip V. resigned the crown to his son in
January 1724, to resume it after his son's death seven months later;
that the treaties of 1777, 1778, 1796 and 1800 were signed (see SPAIN:
_History_); that Ferdinand VII. summoned Don Carlos to the throne in
1832, but was induced to alter the succession in favour of his own
infant daughter Isabella, thus involving Spain in civil war; and that
in 1836 a military revolt compelled the Queen-regent Christina to
restore the constitution of 1812.
LAGRENÉE, LOUIS JEAN FRANÇOIS (1724-1805), French painter, was a pupil
of Carle Vanloo. Born at Paris on the 30th of December 1724, in 1755 he
became a member of the Royal Academy, presenting as his diploma picture
the "Rape of Deianira" (Louvre). He visited St Petersburg at the call of
the empress Elizabeth, and on his return was named in 1781 director of
the French Academy at Rome; he there painted the "Indian Widow," one of
his best-known works. In 1804 Napoleon conferred on him the cross of the
legion of honour, and on the 19th of June 1805 he died in the Louvre, of
which he was honorary keeper.
LA GUAIRA, or LA GUAYRA (sometimes LAGUAIRA, &c.), a town and port of
Venezuela, in the Federal district, 23 m. by rail and 6½ m. in a direct
line N. of Caracas. Pop. (1904, estimate) 14,000. It is situated between
a precipitous mountain side and a broad, semicircular indentation of the
coast line which forms the roadstead of the port. The anchorage was long
considered one of the most dangerous on the Caribbean coast, and landing
was attended with much danger. The harbour has been improved by the
construction of a concrete breakwater running out from the eastern shore
line 2044 ft., built up from an extreme depth of 46 ft. or from an
average depth of 29½ ft., and rising 19½ ft. above sea-level. This
encloses an area of 76½ acres, having an average depth of nearly 28 ft.
The harbour is further improved by 1870 ft. of concrete quays and 1397
ft. of retaining sea-wall, with several piers (three covered) projecting
into deep water. These works were executed by a British company, known
as the La Guaira Harbour Corporation, Ltd., and were completed in 1891
at a cost of about one million sterling. The concession is for 99 years
and the additional charges which the company is authorized to impose are
necessarily heavy. These improvements and the restrictions placed upon
the direct trade between West Indian ports and the Orinoco have greatly
increased the foreign trade of La Guaira, which in 1903 was 52% of that
of the four _puertos habilitados_ of the republic. The shipping entries
of that year numbered 217, of which 203 entered with general cargo and
14 with coal exclusively. The exports included 152,625 bags coffee,
114,947 bags cacao and 152,891 hides. For 1905-1906 the imports at La
Guaira were valued officially at £767,365 and the exports at £663,708.
The city stands on sloping ground stretching along the circular coast
line with a varying width of 130 to 330 ft. and having the appearance of
an amphitheatre. The port improvements added 18 acres of reclaimed land
to La Guaira's area, and the removal of old shore batteries likewise
increased its available breadth. In this narrow space is built the town,
composed in great part of small, roughly-made cabins, and narrow,
badly-paved streets, but with good business houses on its principal
street. From the mountain side, reddish-brown in colour and bare of
vegetation, the solar heat is reflected with tremendous force, the mean
annual temperature being 84° F. The seaside towns of Maiquetia, 2 m. W.
and Macuto, 3 m. E., which have better climatic and sanitary conditions
and are connected by a narrow-gauge railway, are the residences of many
of the wealthier merchants of La Guaira.
La Guaira was founded in 1588, was sacked by filibusters under Amias
Preston in 1595, and by the French under Grammont in 1680, was destroyed
by the great earthquake of the 26th of March 1812, and suffered severely
in the war for independence. In 1903, pending the settlement of claims
of Great Britain, Germany and Italy against Venezuela, La Guaira was
blockaded by a British-German-Italian fleet.
LA GUÉRONNIÈRE, LOUIS ÉTIENNE ARTHUR DUBREUIL HÉLION, VICOMTE DE
(1816-1875), French politician, was the scion of a noble Poitevin
family. Although by birth and education attached to Legitimist
principles, he became closely associated with Lamartine, to whose organ,
_Le Bien Public_, he was a principal contributor. After the stoppage of
this paper he wrote for _La Presse_, and in 1850 edited _Le Pays_. A
character sketch of Louis Napoleon in this journal caused differences
with Lamartine, and La Guéronnière became more and more closely
identified with the policy of the prince president. Under the Empire he
was a member of the council of state (1853), senator (1861), ambassador
at Brussels (1868), and at Constantinople (1870), and grand officer of
the legion of honour (1866). He died in Paris on the 23rd of December
1875. Besides his _Études et portraits politiques contemporains_ (1856)
his most important works are those on the foreign policy of the Empire:
_La France, Rome et Italie_ (1851), _L'Abandon de Rome_ (1862), _De la
politique intérieure et extérieure de la France_ (1862).
His elder brother, ALFRED DUBREUIL HÉLION, Comte de La Guéronnière
(1810-1884), who remained faithful to the Legitimist party, was also a
well-known writer and journalist. He was consistent in his opposition to
the July Monarchy and the Empire, but in a series of books on the crisis
of 1870-1871 showed a more favourable attitude to the Republic.
LAGUERRE, JEAN HENRI GEORGES (1858- ), French lawyer and politician, was
born in Paris on the 24th of June 1858. Called to the bar in 1879, he
distinguished himself by brilliant pleadings in favour of socialist and
anarchist leaders, defending Prince Kropotkine at Lyons in 1883, Louise
Michel in the same year; and in 1886, with A. Millerand as colleague he
defended Ernest Roche and Duc Quercy, the instigators of the Decazeville
strike. His strictures on the _procureur de la République_ on this
occasion being declared libellous he was suspended for six months and in
1890 he again incurred suspension for an attack on the attorney-general,
Quesnay de Beaurepaire. He also pleaded in the greatest criminal cases
of his time, though from 1893 onwards exclusively in the provinces, his
exclusion from the Parisian bar having been secured on the pretext of
his connexion with _La Presse_. He entered the Chamber of Deputies for
Apt in 1883 as a representative of the extreme revisionist programme,
and was one of the leaders of the Boulangist agitation. He had formerly
written for Georges Clemenceau's organ _La Justice_, but when Clemenceau
refused to impose any shibboleth on the radical party he became director
of _La Presse_. He rallied to the republican party in May 1801, some
months before General Boulanger's suicide. He was not re-elected to the
Chamber in 1893. Laguerre was an excellent lecturer on the revolutionary
period of French history, concerning which he had collected many
valuable and rare documents. He interested himself in the fate of the
"Little Dauphin" (Louis XVII.), whose supposed remains, buried at Ste
Marguerite, he proved to be those of a boy of fourteen.
LAGUNA, or LA LAGUNA, an episcopal city and formerly the capital of the
island of Teneriffe, in the Spanish archipelago of the Canary Islands.
Pop. (1900) 13,074. Laguna is 4 m. N. by W. of Santa Cruz, in a plain
1800 ft. above sea-level, surrounded by mountains. Snow is unknown here,
and the mean annual temperature exceeds 63° F.; but the rainfall is very
heavy, and in winter the plain is sometimes flooded. The humidity of the
atmosphere, combined with the warm climate and rich volcanic soil,
renders the district exceptionally fertile; wheat, wine and tobacco,
oranges and other fruits, are produced in abundance. Laguna is the
favourite summer residence of the wealthier inhabitants of Santa Cruz.
Besides the cathedral, the city contains several picturesque convents,
now secularized, a fine modern town hall, hospitals, a large public
library and some ancient palaces of the Spanish nobility. Even the
modern buildings have often an appearance of antiquity, owing to the
decay caused by damp, and the luxuriant growth of climbing plants.
LA HARPE, JEAN FRANÇOIS DE (1739-1803), French critic, was born in Paris
of poor parents on the 20th of November 1739. His father, who signed
himself Delharpe, was a descendant of a noble family originally of Vaud.
Left an orphan at the age of nine, La Harpe was taken care of for six
months by the sisters of charity, and his education was provided for by
a scholarship at the Collège d'Harcourt. When nineteen he was imprisoned
for some months on the charge of having written a satire against his
protectors at the college. La Harpe always denied his guilt, but this
culminating misfortune of an early life spent entirely in the position
of a dependent had possibly something to do with the bitterness he
evinced in later life. In 1763 his tragedy of _Warwick_ was played
before the court. This, his first play, was perhaps the best he ever
wrote. The many authors whom he afterwards offended were always able to
observe that the critic's own plays did not reach the standard of
excellence he set up. _Timoléon_ (1764), _Pharamond_ (1765) and _Gustave
Wasa_ (1766) were failures. _Mélanie_ was a better play, but was never
represented. The success of _Warwick_ led to a correspondence with
Voltaire, who conceived a high opinion of La Harpe, even allowing him to
correct his verses. In 1764 La Harpe married the daughter of a coffee
house keeper. This marriage, which proved very unhappy and was
dissolved, did not improve his position. They were very poor, and for
some time were guests of Voltaire at Ferney. When, after Voltaire's
death, La Harpe in his praise of the philosopher ventured on some
reasonable, but rather ill-timed, criticism of individual works, he was
accused of treachery to one who had been his constant friend. In 1768 he
returned from Ferney to Paris, where he began to write for the
_Mercure_. He was a born fighter and had small mercy on the authors
whose work he handled. But he was himself violently attacked, and
suffered under many epigrams, especially those of Lebrun-Pindare. No
more striking proof of the general hostility can be given than his
reception (1776) at the Academy, which Sainte-Beuve calls his
"execution." Marmontel, who received him, used the occasion to eulogize
La Harpe's predecessor, Charles Pierre Colardeau, especially for his
pacific, modest and indulgent disposition. The speech was punctuated by
the applause of the audience, who chose to regard it as a series of
sarcasms on the new member. Eventually La Harpe was compelled to resign
from the _Mercure_, which he had edited from 1770. On the stage he
produced _Les Barmécides_ (1778), _Philoctète_, _Jeanne de Naples_
(1781), _Les Brames_ (1783), _Coriolan_ (1784), _Virginie_ (1786). In
1786 he began a course of literature at the newly-established Lycée. In
these lectures, published as the _Cours de littérature ancienne et
moderne_, La Harpe is at his best, for he found a standpoint more or
less independent of contemporary polemics. He is said to be inexact in
dealing with the ancients, and he had only a superficial knowledge of
the middle ages, but he is excellent in his analysis of 17th-century
writers. Sainte-Beuve found in him the best critic of the French school
of tragedy, which reached its perfection in Racine. La Harpe was a
disciple of the "_philosophes_"; he supported the extreme party through
the excesses of 1792 and 1793. In 1793 he edited the _Mercure de France_
which adhered blindly to the revolutionary leaders. But in April 1794 he
was nevertheless seized as a "suspect." In prison he underwent a
spiritual crisis which he described in convincing language, and he
emerged an ardent Catholic and a reactionist in politics. When he
resumed his chair at the Lycée, he attacked his former friends in
politics and literature. He was imprudent enough to begin the
publication (1801-1807) of his _Correspondance littéraire_ (1774-1791)
with the grand-duke, afterwards the emperor Paul of Russia. In these
letters he surpassed the brutalities of the _Mercure_. He contracted a
second marriage, which was dissolved after a few weeks by his wife. He
died on the 11th of February 1803 in Paris, leaving in his will an
incongruous exhortation to his fellow countrymen to maintain peace and
concord. Among his posthumous works was a _Prophétie de Cazotte_ which
Sainte-Beuve pronounces his best work. It is a sombre description of a
dinner-party of notables long before the Revolution, when Jacques
Cazotte is made to prophesy the frightful fates awaiting the various
individuals of the company.
Among his works not already mentioned are:--_Commentaire sur Racine_
(1795-1796), published in 1807; _Commentaire sur le théâtre de
Voltaire_ of earlier date (published posthumously in 1814), and an
epic poem _La Religion_ (1814). His _Cours de littérature_ has been
often reprinted. To the edition of 1825-1826 is prefixed a notice by
Pierre Daunou. See also Sainte-Beuve, _Causeries du lundi_, vol. v.;
G. Peignot, _Recherches historiques, bibliographiques et littéraires
... sur La Harpe_ (1820).
LAHIRE, LAURENT DE (1606-1656), French painter, was born at Paris on the
27th of February 1606. He became a pupil of Lallemand, studied the works
of Primaticcio at Fontainebleau, but never visited Italy, and belongs
wholly to that transition period which preceded the school of Simon
Vouet. His picture of Nicolas V. opening the crypt in which he discovers
the corpse of St Francis of Assisi standing (Louvre) was executed in
1630 for the Capuchins of the Marais; it shows a gravity and sobriety of
character which marked Lahire's best work, and seems not to have been
without influence on Le Sueur. The Louvre contains eight other works,
and paintings by Lahire are in the museums of Strasburg, Rouen and Le
Mans. His drawings, of which the British Museum possesses a fine
example, "Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple," are treated as
seriously as his paintings, and sometimes show simplicity and dignity of
effect. The example of the Capuchins, for whom he executed several other
works in Paris, Rouen and Fécamp, was followed by the goldsmiths'
company, for whom he produced in 1635 "St Peter healing the Sick"
(Louvre) and the "Conversion of St Paul" in 1637. In 1646, with eleven
other artists, he founded the French Royal Academy of Painting and
Sculpture. Richelieu called Lahire to the Palais Royal; Chancellor
Séguier, Tallemant de Réaux and many others entrusted him with important
works of decoration; for the Gobelins he designed a series of large
compositions. Lahire painted also a great number of portraits, and in
1654 united in one work for the town-hall of Paris those of the
principal dignitaries of the municipality. He died on the 28th of
December 1656.
LAHN, a river of Germany, a right-bank tributary of the Rhine. Its
source is on the Jagdberg, a summit of the Rothaar Mountains, in the
cellar of a house (Lahnhof), at an elevation of 1975 ft. It flows at
first eastward and then southward to Giessen, then turns south-westward
and with a winding course reaches the Rhine between the towns of
Oberlahnstein and Niederlahnstein. Its valley, the lower part of which
divides the Taunus hills from the Westerwald, is often very narrow and
picturesque; among the towns and sites of interest on its banks are
Marburg and Giessen with their universities, Wetzlar with its cathedral,
Runkel with its castle, Limburg with its cathedral, the castles of
Schaumburg, Balduinstein, Laurenburg, Langenau, Burgstein and Nassau,
and the well-known health resort of Ems. The Lahn is about 135 m. long;
it is navigable from its mouth to Giessen, and is partly canalized. A
railway follows the valley practically throughout. In 1796 there were
here several encounters between the French under General Jourdan and the
troops of the archduke Johan, which resulted in the retreat of the
French across the Rhine.
LAHNDA (properly _Lahnda_ or _Lahinda_, western, or _Lahnde-di boli_,
the language of the West), an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the western
Punjab. In 1901 the number of speakers was 3,337,917. Its eastern
boundary is very indefinite as the language gradually merges into the
Panjabi immediately to the east, but it is conventionally taken as the
river Chenab from the Kashmir frontier to the town of Ramnagar, and
thence as a straight line to the south-west corner of the district of
Montgomery. Lahnda is also spoken in the north of the state of
Bahawalpur and of the province of Sind, in which latter locality it is
known as Siraiki. Its western boundary is, roughly speaking, the river
Indus, across which the language of the Afghan population is Pashto
(Pushtu), while the Hindu settlers still speak Lahnda. In the Derajat,
however, Lahnda is the principal language of all classes in the plains
west of the river.
Lahnda is also known as Western Panjabi and as Jatki, or the language of
the Jats, who form the bulk of the population whose mother-tongue it is.
In the Derajat it is called Hindko or the language of Hindus. In 1819
the Serampur missionaries published a Lahnda version of the New
Testament. They called the language Uchchi, from the important town of
Uch near the confluence of the Jhelam and the Chenab. This name is
commonly met with in old writings. It has numerous dialects, which fall
into two main groups, a northern and a southern, the speakers of which
are separated by the Salt Range. The principal varieties of the northern
group are Hindki (the same in meaning as Hindko) and Pothwari. In the
southern group the most important are Khetrani, Multani, and the dialect
of Shahpur. The language possesses no literature.
Lahnda belongs to the north-western group of the outer band of
Indo-Aryan languages (q.v.), the other members being Kashmiri (q.v.)
and Sindhi, with both of which it is closely connected. See SINDHI;
also HINDOSTANI. (G. A. Gr.)
LA HOGUE, BATTLE OF, the name now given to a series of encounters which
took place from the 19th to the 23rd (O.S.) of May 1692, between an
allied British and Dutch fleet and a French force, on the northern and
eastern sides of the Cotentin in Normandy. A body of French troops, and
a number of Jacobite exiles, had been collected in the Cotentin. The
government of Louis XIV. prepared a naval armament to cover their
passage across the Channel. This force was to have been composed of the
French ships at Brest commanded by the count of Tourville, and of a
squadron which was to have joined him from Toulon. But the Toulon ships
were scattered by a gale, and the combination was not effected. The
count of Tourville, who had put to sea to meet them, had with him only
45 or 47 ships of the line. Yet when the reinforcement failed to join
him, he steered up Channel to meet the allies, who were known to be in
strength. On the 15th of May the British fleet of 63 sail of the line,
under command of Edward Russell, afterwards earl of Orford, was joined
at St Helens by the Dutch squadron of 36 sail under Admiral van
Allemonde. The apparent rashness of the French admiral in seeking an
encounter with very superior numbers is explained by the existence of a
general belief that many British captains were discontented, and would
pass over from the service of the government established by the
Revolution of 1688 to their exiled king, James II. It is said that
Tourville had orders from Louis XIV. to attack in any case, but the
story is of doubtful authority. The British government, aware of the
Jacobite intrigues in its fleet, and of the prevalence of discontent,
took the bold course of appealing to the loyalty and patriotism of its
officers. At a meeting of the flag-officers on board the "Britannia,"
Russell's flag-ship, on the 15th of May, they protested their loyalty,
and the whole allied fleet put to sea on the 18th. On the 19th of May,
when Cape Barfleur, the north-eastern point of the Cotentin, was 21 m.
S.W. of them, they sighted Tourville, who was then 20 m. to the north of
Cape La Hague, the north-western extremity of the peninsula, which must
not be confounded with La Houque, or La Hogue, the place at which the
fighting ended. The allies were formed in a line from S.S.W. to N.N.E.
heading towards the English coast, the Dutch forming the White or van
division, while the Red or centre division under Russell, and the Blue
or rear under Sir John Ashby, were wholly composed of British ships. The
wind was from the S.W. and the weather hazy. Tourville bore down and
attacked about mid-day, directing his main assault on the centre of the
allies, but telling off some ships to watch the van and rear of his
enemy. As this first encounter took place off Cape Barfleur, the battle
was formerly often called by the name. On the centre, where Tourville
was directly opposed to Russell, the fighting was severe. The British
flag-ship the "Britannia" (100), and the French, the "Soleil Royal"
(100), were both completely crippled. After several hours of conflict,
the French admiral, seeing himself outnumbered, and that the allies
could outflank him and pass through the necessarily wide intervals in
his extended line, drew off without the loss of a ship. The wind now
fell and the haze became a fog. Till the 23rd, the two fleets remained
off the north coast of the Cotentin, drifting west with the ebb tide or
east with the flood, save when they anchored. During the night of the
19th/20th some British ships became entangled, in the fog, with the
French, and drifted through them on the tide, with loss. On the 23rd
both fleets were near La Hague. About half the French, under
D'Amfreville, rounded the cape, and fled to St Malo through the
dangerous passage known as the Race of Alderney (le Ras Blanchard). The
others were unable to get round the cape before the flood tide set in,
and were carried to the eastward. Tourville now transferred his own
flag, and left his captains free to save themselves as they best could.
He left the "Soleil Royal," and sent her with two others to Cherbourg,
where they were destroyed by Sir Ralph Delaval. The others now ran round
Cape Barfleur, and sought refuge on the east side of the Cotentin at the
anchorage of La Houque, called by the English La Hogue, where the troops
destined for the invasion were encamped. Here 13 of them were burnt by
Sir George Rooke, in the presence of the French generals and of the
exiled king James II. From the name of the place where the last blow was
struck, the battle has come to be known by the name of La Hogue.
Sufficient accounts of the battle may be found in Lediard's _Naval
History_ (London, 1735), and for the French side in Tronde's
_Batailles navales de la France_ (Paris, 1867). The escape of
D'Amfreville's squadron is the subject of Browning's poem "Hervé
Riel." (D. H.)
LAHORE, an ancient city of British India, the capital of the Punjab,
which gives its name to a district and division. It lies in 31° 35' N.
and 74° 20' E. near the left bank of the River Ravi, 1706 ft. above the
sea, and 1252 m. by rail from Calcutta. It is thus in about the same
latitude as Cairo, but owing to its inland position is considerably
hotter than that city, being one of the hottest places in India in the
summer time. In the cold season the climate is pleasantly cool and
bright. The native city is walled, about 1¼ m. in length W. to E. and
about ¾ m. in breadth N. to S. Its site has been occupied from early
times, and much of it stands high above the level of the surrounding
country, raised on the remains of a succession of former habitations.
Some old buildings, which have been preserved, stand now below the
present surface of the ground. This is well seen in the mosque now
called Masjid Niwin (or sunken) built in 1560, the mosque of Mullah
Rahmat, 7 ft. below, and the Shivali, a very old Hindu temple, about 12
ft. below the surrounding ground. Hindu tradition traces the origin of
Lahore to Loh or Lava, son of Rama, the hero of the _Ramayana_. The
absence of mention of Lahore by Alexander's historians, and the fact
that coins of the Graeco-Bactrian kings are not found among the ruins,
lead to the belief that it was not a place of any importance during the
earliest period of Indian history. On the other hand, Hsüan Tsang, the
Chinese Buddhist, notices the city in his _Itinerary_ (A.D. 630); and it
seems probable, therefore, that Lahore first rose into prominence
between the 1st and 7th centuries A.D. Governed originally by a family
of Chauhan Rajputs, a branch of the house of Ajmere, Lahore fell
successively under the dominion of the Ghazni and Ghori sultans, who
made it the capital of their Indian conquests, and adorned it with
numerous buildings, almost all now in ruins. But it was under the Mogul
empire that Lahore reached its greatest size and magnificence. The
reigns of Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb form the
golden period in the annals and architecture of the city. Akbar enlarged
and repaired the fort, and surrounded the town with a wall, portions of
which remain, built into the modern work of Ranjit Singh. Lahore formed
the capital of the Sikh empire of that monarch. At the end of the second
Sikh War, with the rest of the Punjab, it came under the British
dominion.
The architecture of Lahore cannot compare with that of Delhi. Jahangir
in 1622-1627 erected the Khwabgah or "sleeping-place," a fine palace
much defaced by the Sikhs but to some extent restored in modern times;
the Moti Masjid or "pearl mosque" in the fort, used by Ranjit Singh and
afterwards by the British as a treasure-house; and also the tomb of
Anarkali, used formerly as the station church and now as a library. Shah
Jahan erected a palace and other buildings near the Khwabgah, including
the beautiful pavilion called the Naulakha from its cost of nine lakhs,
which was inlaid with precious stones. The mosque of Wazir Khan (1634)
provides the finest example of _kashi_ or encaustic tile work.
Aurangzeb's Jama Masjid, or "great mosque," is a huge bare building,
stiff in design, and lacking the detailed ornament typical of buildings
at Delhi. The buildings of Ranjit Singh, especially his mausoleum, are
common and meretricious in style. He was, moreover, responsible for much
of the despoiling of the earlier buildings. The streets of the native
city are narrow and tortuous, and are best seen from the back of an
elephant. Two of the chief features of Lahore lie outside its walls at
Shahdara and Shalamar Gardens respectively. Shahdara, which contains the
tomb of the emperor Jahangir, lies across the Ravi some 6 m. N. of the
city. It consists of a splendid marble cenotaph surrounded by a grove of
trees and gardens. The Shalamar Gardens, which were laid out in A.D.
1637 by Shah Jahan, lie 6 m. E. of the city. They are somewhat neglected
except on festive occasions, when the fountains are playing and the
trees are lit up by lamps at night.
The modern city of Lahore, which contained a population of 202,964 in
1901, may be divided into four parts: the native city, already
described; the civil station or European quarter, known as Donald Town;
the Anarkali bazaar, a suburb S. of the city wall; and the cantonment,
formerly called Mian Mir. The main street of the civil station is a
portion of the grand trunk road from Calcutta to Peshawar, locally known
as the Mall. The chief modern buildings along this road, west to east,
are the Lahore museum, containing a fine collection of Graeco-Buddhist
sculptures, found by General Cunningham in the Yusufzai country, and
arranged by Mr Lockwood Kipling, a former curator of the museum; the
cathedral, begun by Bishop French, in Early English style, and
consecrated in 1887; the Lawrence Gardens and Montgomery Halls,
surrounded by a garden that forms the chief meeting-place of Europeans
in the afternoon; and opposite this government house, the official
residence of the lieutenant-governor of the Punjab; next to this is the
Punjab club for military men and civilians. Three miles beyond is the
Lahore cantonment, where the garrison is stationed, except a company of
British infantry, which occupies the fort. It is the headquarters of the
3rd division of the northern army. Lahore is an important junction on
the North-Western railway system, but has little local trade or
manufacture. The chief industries are silk goods, gold and silver lace,
metal work and carpets which are made in the Lahore gaol. There are also
cotton mills, flour mills, an ice-factory, and several factories for
mineral waters, oils, soap, leather goods, &c. Lahore is an important
educational centre. Here are the Punjab University with five colleges,
medical and law colleges, a central training college, the Aitchison
Chiefs' College for the sons of native noblemen, and a number of other
high schools and technical and special schools.
The DISTRICT OF LAHORE has an area of 3704 sq. m., and its population in
1901 was 1,162,109, consisting chiefly of Punjabi Mahommedans with a
large admixture of Hindus and Sikhs. In the north-west the district
includes a large part of the barren Rechna Doab, while south of the Ravi
is a desolate alluvial tract, liable to floods. The Manjha plateau,
however, between the Ravi and the Beas, has been rendered fertile by the
Bari Doab canal. The principal crops are wheat, pulse, millets, maize,
oil-seeds and cotton. There are numerous factories for ginning and
pressing cotton. Irrigation is provided by the main line of the Bari
Doab canal and its branches, and by inundation-cuts from the Sutlej. The
district is crossed in several directions by lines of the North-Western
railway. Lahore, Kasur, Chunian and Raiwind are the chief trade centres.
The DIVISION OF LAHORE extends along the right bank of the Sutlej from
the Himalayas to Multan. It comprises the six districts of Sialkot,
Gujranwala, Montgomery, Lahore, Amritsar and Gurdaspur. Total area,
17,154 sq. m.; pop. (1901) 5,598,463. The commissioner for the division
also exercises political control over the hill slate of Chamba. The
common language of the rural population and of artisans is Punjabi;
while Urdu or Hindustani is spoken by the educated classes. So far from
the seaboard, the range between extremes of winter and summer
temperature in the sub-tropics is great. The mean temperature in the
shade in June is about 92° F., in January about 50°. In midsummer the
thermometer sometimes rises to 115° in the shade, and remains on some
occasions as high as 105° throughout the night. In winter the morning
temperature is sometimes as low as 20°. The rainfall is uncertain,
ranging from 8 in. to 25, with an average of 15 in. The country as a
whole is parched and arid, and greatly dependent on irrigation.
LA HOZ Y MOTA, JUAN CLAUDIO DE (1630?-1710?), Spanish dramatist, was
born in Madrid. He became a knight of Santiago in 1653, and soon
afterwards succeeded his father as _regidor_ of Burgos. In 1665 he was
nominated to an important post at the Treasury, and in his later years
acted as official censor of the Madrid theatres. On the 13th of August
1709 he signed his play entitled _Josef, salvador de Egipto_, and is
presumed to have died in the following year. Hoz is not remarkable for
originality of conception, but his recasts of plays by earlier writers
are distinguished by an adroitness which accounts for the esteem in
which he was held by his contemporaries. _El Montañés Juan Pascal_ and
_El castigo de la miseria_, reprinted in the _Biblioteca de Autores
Españoles_, give a just idea of his adaptable talent.
LAHR, a town in the grand-duchy of Baden, on the Schutter, about 9 m. S.
of Offenburg, and on the railway Dinglingen-Lahr. Pop. (1900) 13,577.
One of the busiest towns in Baden, it carries on manufactures of tobacco
and cigars, woollen goods, chicory, leather, pasteboard, hats and
numerous other articles, has considerable trade in wine, while among its
other industries are printing and lithography. Lahr first appears as a
town in 1278, and after several vicissitudes it passed wholly to Baden
in 1803.
See Stein, _Geschichte und Beschreibung der Stadt Lahr_ (Lahr, 1827);
and Sütterlin, _Lahr und seine Umgebung_ (Lahr, 1904).
LAIBACH (Slovenian, _Ljubljana_), capital of the Austrian duchy of
Carniola, 237 m. S.S.W. of Vienna by rail. Pop. (1900) 36,547, mostly
Slovene. It is situated on the Laibach, near its influx into the Save,
and consists of the town proper and eight suburbs. Laibach is an
episcopal see, and possesses a cathedral in the Italian style, several
beautiful churches, a town hall in Renaissance style and a castle, built
in the 15th century, on the Schlossberg, an eminence which commands the
town. Laibach is the principal centre of the national Slovenian
movement, and it contains a Slovene theatre and several societies for
the promotion of science and literature in the native tongue. The
Slovenian language is in general official use, and the municipal
administration is purely Slovenian. The industries include manufactures
of pottery, bricks, oil, linen and woollen cloth, fire-hose and paper.
Laibach is supposed to occupy the site of the ancient Emona or Aemona,
founded by the emperor Augustus in 34 B.C. It was besieged by Alaric
in 400, and in 451 it was desolated by the Huns. In 900 Laibach
suffered much from the Magyars, who were, however, defeated there in
914. In the 12th century the town passed into the hands of the dukes
of Carinthia; in 1270 it was taken by Ottocar of Bohemia; and in 1277
it came under the Habsburgs. In the early part of the 15th century the
town was several times besieged by the Turks. The bishopric was
founded in 1461. On the 17th of March 1797 and again on the 3rd of
June 1809 Laibach was taken by the French, and from 1809 to 1813 it
became the seat of their general government of the Illyrian provinces.
From 1816 to 1849 Laibach was the capital of the kingdom of Illyria.
The town is also historically known from the congress of Laibach,
which assembled here in 1821 (see below). Laibach suffered severely on
the 14th of April 1895 from an earthquake.
_Congress or Conference of Laibach._--Before the break-up of the
conference of Troppau (q.v.), it had been decided to adjourn it till the
following January, and to invite the attendance of the king of Naples,
Laibach being chosen as the place of meeting. Castlereagh, in the name
of Great Britain, had cordially approved this invitation, as "implying
negotiation" and therefore as a retreat from the position taken up in
the Troppau Protocol. Before leaving Troppau, however, the three
autocratic powers, Russia, Austria and Prussia, had issued, on the 8th
of December 1820, a circular letter, in which they reiterated the
principles of the Protocol, i.e. the right and duty of the powers
responsible for the peace of Europe to intervene to suppress any
revolutionary movement by which they might conceive that peace to be
endangered (Hertslet, No. 105). Against this view Castlereagh once more
protested in a circular despatch of the 19th of January 1821, in which
he clearly differentiated between the objectionable general principles
advanced by the three powers, and the particular case of the unrest in
Italy, the immediate concern not of Europe at large, but of Austria and
of any other Italian powers which might consider themselves endangered
(Hertslet, No. 107).
The conference opened on the 26th of January 1821, and its constitution
emphasized the divergences revealed in the above circulars. The emperors
of Russia and Austria were present in person, and with them were Counts
Nesselrode and Capo d'Istria, Metternich and Baron Vincent; Prussia and
France were represented by plenipotentiaries. But Great Britain, on the
ground that she had no immediate interest in the Italian question, was
represented only by Lord Stewart, the ambassador at Vienna, who was not
armed with full powers, his mission being to watch the proceedings and
to see that nothing was done beyond or in violation of the treaties. Of
the Italian princes, Ferdinand of Naples and the duke of Modena came in
person; the rest were represented by plenipotentiaries.
It was soon clear that a more or less open breach between Great Britain
and the other powers was inevitable, Metternich was anxious to secure an
apparent unanimity of the powers to back the Austrian intervention in
Naples, and every device was used to entrap the English representative
into subscribing a formula which would have seemed to commit Great
Britain to the principles of the other allies. When these devices
failed, attempts were made unsuccessfully to exclude Lord Stewart from
the conferences on the ground of defective powers. Finally he was forced
to an open protest, which he caused to be inscribed on the journals, but
the action of Capo d'Istria in reading to the assembled Italian
ministers, who were by no means reconciled to the large claims implied
in the Austrian intervention, a declaration in which as the result of
the "intimate union established by solemn acts between all the European
powers" the Russian emperor offered to the allies "the aid of his arms,
should new revolutions threaten new dangers," an attempt to revive that
idea of a "universal union" based on the Holy Alliance (q.v.) against
which Great Britain had consistently protested.
The objections of Great Britain were, however, not so much to an
Austrian intervention in Naples as to the far-reaching principles by
which it was sought to justify it. King Ferdinand had been invited to
Laibach, according to the circular of the 8th of December, in order
that he might be free to act as "mediator between his erring peoples and
the states whose tranquillity they threatened." The cynical use he made
of his "freedom" to repudiate obligations solemnly contracted is
described elsewhere (see NAPLES, _History_). The result of this action
was the Neapolitan declaration of war and the occupation of Naples by
Austria, with the sanction of the congress. This was preceded, on the
10th of March, by the revolt of the garrison of Alessandria and the
military revolution in Piedmont, which in its turn was suppressed, as a
result of negotiations at Laibach, by Austrian troops. It was at
Laibach, too, that, on the 19th of March, the emperor Alexander received
the news of Ypsilanti's invasion of the Danubian principalities, which
heralded the outbreak of the War of Greek Independence, and from Laibach
Capo d'Istria addressed to the Greek leader the tsar's repudiation of
his action.
The conference closed on the 12th of May, on which date Russia, Austria
and Prussia issued a declaration (Hertslet, No. 108) "to proclaim to the
world the principles which guided them" in coming "to the assistance of
subdued peoples," a declaration which once more affirmed the principles
of the Troppau Protocol. In this lay the European significance of the
Laibach conference, of which the activities had been mainly confined to
Italy. The issue of the declaration without the signatures of the
representatives of Great Britain and France proclaimed the disunion of
the alliance, within which--to use Lord Stewart's words--there existed
"a triple understanding which bound the parties to carry forward their
own views in spite of any difference of opinion between them and the two
great constitutional governments."
No separate history of the congress exists, but innumerable references
are to be found in general histories and in memoirs, correspondence,
&c., of the time. See Sir E. Hertslet, _Map of Europe_ (London, 1875);
Castlereagh, _Correspondence_; Metternich, _Memoirs_; N. Bianchi,
_Storia documentata della diplomazia Europea in Italia_ (8 vols.,
Turin, 1865-1872); Gentz's correspondence (see GENTZ, F. VON).
Valuable unpublished correspondence is preserved at the Record Office
in the volumes marked F. O., Austria, Lord Stewart, January to
February 1821, and March to September 1821. (W. A. P.)
LAIDLAW, WILLIAM (1780-1845), friend and amanuensis of Sir Walter Scott,
was born at Blackhouse, Selkirkshire, on the 19th of November 1780, the
son of a sheep farmer. After an elementary education in Peebles he
returned to work upon his father's farm. James Hogg, the shepherd poet,
who was employed at Blackhouse for some years, became Laidlaw's friend
and appreciative critic. Together they assisted Scott by supplying
material for his _Border Minstrelsy_, and Laidlaw, after two failures as
a farmer in Midlothian and Peebleshire, became Scott's steward at
Abbotsford. He also acted as Scott's amanuensis at different times,
taking down a large part of _The Bride of Lammermoor_, _The Legend of
Montrose_ and _Ivanhoe_ from the author's dictation. He died at Contin
near Dingwall, Ross-shire, on the 18th of May 1845. Of his poetry,
little is known except _Lucy's Flittin'_ in Hogg's _Forest Minstrel_.
LAING, ALEXANDER GORDON (1793-1826), Scottish explorer, the first
European to reach Timbuktu, was born at Edinburgh on the 27th of
December 1793. He was educated by his father, William Laing, a private
teacher of classics, and at Edinburgh University. In 1811 he went to
Barbados as clerk to his maternal uncle Colonel (afterwards General)
Gabriel Gordon. Through General Sir George Beckwith, governor of
Barbados, he obtained an ensigncy in the York Light Infantry. He was
employed in the West Indies, and in 1822 was promoted to a company in
the Royal African Corps. In that year, while with his regiment at Sierra
Leone, he was sent by the governor, Sir Charles MacCarthy, to the
Mandingo country, with the double object of opening up commerce and
endeavouring to abolish the slave trade in that region. Later in the
same year Laing visited Falaba, the capital of the Sulima country, and
ascertained the source of the Rokell. He endeavoured to reach the source
of the Niger, but was stopped by the natives. He was, however, enabled
to fix it with approximate accuracy. He took an active part in the
Ashanti War of 1823-24, and was sent home with the despatches
containing the news of the death in action of Sir Charles MacCarthy.
Henry, 3rd Earl Bathurst, then secretary for the colonies, instructed
Captain Laing to undertake a journey, via Tripoli and Timbuktu, to
further elucidate the hydrography of the Niger basin. Laing left England
in February 1825, and at Tripoli on the 14th of July following he
married Emma Warrington, daughter of the British consul. Two days later,
leaving his bride behind, he started to cross the Sahara, being
accompanied by a sheikh who was subsequently accused of planning his
murder. Ghadames was reached, by an indirect route, in October 1825, and
in December Laing was in the Tuat territory, where he was well received
by the Tuareg. On the 10th of January 1826 he left Tuat, and made for
Timbuktu across the desert of Tanezroft. Letters from him written in May
and July following told of sufferings from fever and the plundering of
his caravan by Tuareg, Laing being wounded in twenty-four places in the
fighting. Another letter dated from Timbuktu on the 21st of September
announced his arrival in that city on the preceding 18th of August, and
the insecurity of his position owing to the hostility of the Fula
chieftain Bello, then ruling the city. He added that he intended leaving
Timbuktu in three days' time. No further news was received from the
traveller. From native information it was ascertained that he left
Timbuktu on the day he had planned and was murdered on the night of the
26th of September 1826. His papers were never recovered, though it is
believed that they were secretly brought to Tripoli in 1828. In 1903 the
French government placed a tablet bearing the name of the explorer and
the date of his visit on the house occupied by him during his
thirty-eight days' stay in Timbuktu.
While in England in 1824 Laing prepared a narrative of his earlier
journeys, which was published in 1825 and entitled _Travels in the
Timannee, Kooranko and Soolima Countries, in Western Africa_.
LAING, DAVID (1793-1878), Scottish antiquary, the son of William Laing,
a bookseller in Edinburgh, was born in that city on the 20th of April
1793. Educated at the Canongate Grammar School, when fourteen he was
apprenticed to his father. Shortly after the death of the latter in
1837, Laing was elected to the librarianship of the Signet Library,
which post he retained till his death. Apart from an extraordinary
general bibliographical knowledge, Laing was best known as a lifelong
student of the literary and artistic history of Scotland. He published
no original volumes, but contented himself with editing the works of
others. Of these, the chief are--_Dunbar's Works_ (2 vols., 1834), with
a supplement added in 1865; _Robert Baillie's Letters and Journals_ (3
vols., 1841-1842); _John Knox's Works_ (6 vols., 1846-1864); _Poems and
Fables of Robert Henryson_ (1865); _Andrew of Wyntoun's Orygynale
Cronykil of Scotland_ (3 vols., 1872-1879); _Sir David Lyndsay's
Poetical Works_ (3 vols., 1879). Laing was for more than fifty years a
member of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and he contributed
upwards of a hundred separate papers to their _Proceedings_. He was also
for more than forty years secretary to the Bannatyne Club, many of the
publications of which were edited by him. He was struck with paralysis
in 1878 while in the Signet Library, and it is related that, on
recovering consciousness, he looked about and asked if a proof of
Wyntoun had been sent from the printers. He died a few days afterwards,
on the 18th of October, in his eighty-sixth year. His library was sold
by auction, and realized £16,137. To the university of Edinburgh he
bequeathed his collection of MSS.
See the Biographical Memoir prefixed to _Select Remains of Ancient,
Popular and Romance Poetry of Scotland_, edited by John Small
(Edinburgh, 1885); also T. G. Stevenson, _Notices of David Laing with
List of his Publications, &c._ (privately printed 1878).
LAING, MALCOLM (1762-1818), Scottish historian, son of Robert Laing, and
elder brother of Samuel Laing the elder, was born on his paternal estate
on the Mainland of Orkney. Having studied at the grammar school of
Kirkwall and at Edinburgh University, he was called to the Scotch bar in
1785, but devoted his time mainly to historical studies. In 1793 he
completed the sixth and last volume of Robert Henry's _History of Great
Britain_, the portion which he wrote being in its strongly liberal tone
at variance with the preceding part of the work; and in 1802 he
published his _History of Scotland from the Union of the Crowns to the
Union of the Kingdoms_, a work showing considerable research. Attached
to the _History_ was a dissertation on the Gowrie conspiracy, and
another on the supposed authenticity of Ossian's poems. In another
dissertation, prefixed to a second and corrected edition of the
_History_ published in 1804, Laing endeavoured to prove that Mary, queen
of Scots, wrote the Casket Letters, and was partly responsible for the
murder of Lord Darnley. In the same year he edited the _Life and
Historie of King James VI._, and in 1805 brought out in two volumes an
edition of Ossian's poems. Laing, who was a friend of Charles James Fox,
was member of parliament for Orkney and Shetland from 1807 to 1812. He
died on the 6th of November 1818.
LAING, SAMUEL (1810-1897), British author and railway administrator, was
born at Edinburgh on the 12th of December 1810. He was the nephew of
Malcolm Laing, the historian of Scotland; and his father, Samuel Laing
(1780-1868), was also a well-known author, whose books on Norway and
Sweden attracted much attention. Samuel Laing the younger entered St
John's College, Cambridge, in 1827, and after graduating as second
wrangler and Smith's prizeman, was elected a fellow, and remained at
Cambridge temporarily as a coach. He was called to the bar in 1837, and
became private secretary to Mr Labouchere (afterwards Lord Taunton), the
president of the Board of Trade. In 1842 he was made secretary to the
railway department, and retained this post till 1847. He had by then
become an authority on railway working, and had been a member of the
Dalhousie Railway Commission; it was at his suggestion that the
"parliamentary" rate of a penny a mile was instituted. In 1848 he was
appointed chairman and managing director of the London, Brighton & South
Coast Railway, and his business faculty showed itself in the largely
increased prosperity of the line. He also became chairman (1852) of the
Crystal Palace Company, but retired from both posts in 1855. In 1852 he
entered parliament as a Liberal for Wick, and after losing his seat in
1857, was re-elected in 1859, in which year he was appointed financial
secretary to the Treasury; in 1860 he was made finance minister in
India. On returning from India, he was re-elected to parliament for Wick
in 1865. He was defeated in 1868, but in 1873 he was returned for Orkney
and Shetland, and retained his seat till 1885. Meanwhile he had been
reappointed chairman of the Brighton line in 1867, and continued in that
post till 1894, being generally recognized as an admirable
administrator. He was also chairman of the Railway Debenture Trust and
the Railway Share Trust. In later life he became well known as an
author, his _Modern Science and Modern Thought_ (1885), _Problems of the
Future_ (1889) and _Human Origins_ (1892) being widely read, not only by
reason of the writer's influential position, experience of affairs and
clear style, but also through their popular and at the same time
well-informed treatment of the scientific problems of the day. Laing
died at Sydenham on the 6th of August 1897.
LAING'S [or LANG'S] NEK, a pass through the Drakensberg, South Africa,
immediately north of Majuba (q.v.), at an elevation of 5400 to 6000 ft.
It is the lowest part of a ridge which slopes from Majuba to the Buffalo
river, and before the opening of the railway in 1891 the road over the
nek was the main artery of communication between Durban and Pretoria.
The railway pierces the nek by a tunnel 2213 ft. long. When the Boers
rose in revolt in December 1880 they occupied Laing's Nek to oppose the
entry of British reinforcements into the Transvaal. On the 28th of
January 1881 a small British force endeavoured to drive the Boers from
the pass, but was forced to retire.
LAIRD, MACGREGOR (1808-1861), Scottish merchant, pioneer of British
trade on the Niger, was born at Greenock in 1808, the younger son of
William Laird, founder of the Birkenhead firm of shipbuilders of that
name. In 1831 Laird and certain Liverpool merchants formed a company for
the commercial development of the Niger regions, the lower course of the
Niger having been made known that year by Richard and John Lander. In
1832 the company despatched two small ships to the Niger, one, the
"Alburkah," a paddle-wheel steamer of 55 tons designed by Laird, being
the first iron vessel to make an ocean voyage. Macgregor Laird went with
the expedition, which was led by Richard Lander and numbered forty-eight
Europeans, of whom all but nine died from fever or, in the case of
Lander, from wounds. Laird went up the Niger to the confluence of the
Benue (then called the Shary or Tchadda), which he was the first white
man to ascend. He did not go far up the river but formed an accurate
idea as to its source and course. The expedition returned to Liverpool
in 1834, Laird and Surgeon R. A. K. Oldfield being the only surviving
officers besides Captain (then Lieut.) William Allen, R.N., who
accompanied the expedition by order of the Admiralty to survey the
river. Laird and Oldfield published in 1837 in two volumes the
_Narrative of an Expedition into the Interior of Africa by the River
Niger ... in 1832, 1833, 1834_. Commercially the expedition had been
unsuccessful, but Laird had gained experience invaluable to his
successors. He never returned to Africa but henceforth devoted himself
largely to the development of trade with West Africa and especially to
the opening up of the countries now forming the British protectorates of
Nigeria. One of his principal reasons for so doing was his belief that
this method was the best means of stopping the slave trade and raising
the social condition of the Africans. In 1854 he sent out at his own
charges, but with the support of the British government, a small
steamer, the "Pleiad," which under W. B. Baikie made so successful a
voyage that Laird induced the government to sign contracts for annual
trading trips by steamers specially built for navigation of the Niger
and Benue. Various stations were founded on the Niger, and though
government support was withdrawn after the death of Laird and Baikie,
British traders continued to frequent the river, which Laird had opened
up with little or no personal advantage. Laird's interests were not,
however, wholly African. In 1837 he was one of the promoters of a
company formed to run steamships between England and New York, and in
1838 the "Sirius," sent out by this company, was the first ship to cross
the Atlantic from Europe entirely under steam. Laird died in London on
the 9th of January 1861.
His elder brother, JOHN LAIRD (1805-1874), was one of the first to use
iron in the construction of ships; in 1829 he made an iron lighter of 60
tons which was used on canals and lakes in Ireland; in 1834 he built the
paddle steamer "John Randolph" for Savannah, U.S.A., stated to be the
first iron ship seen in America. For the East India Company he built in
1839 the first iron vessel carrying guns and he was also the designer of
the famous "Birkenhead." A Conservative in politics, he represented
Birkenhead in the House of Commons from 1861 to his death.
LAÏS, the name of two Greek courtesans, generally distinguished as
follows. (1) The elder, a native of Corinth, born _c._ 480 B.C., was
famous for her greed and hardheartedness, which gained her the nickname
of _Axine_ (the axe). Among her lovers were the philosophers Aristippus
and Diogenes, and Eubatas (or Aristoteles) of Cyrene, a famous runner.
In her old age she became a drunkard. Her grave was shown in the
Craneion near Corinth, surmounted by a lioness tearing a ram. (2) The
younger, daughter of Timandra the mistress of Alcibiades, born at
Hyccara in Sicily _c._ 420 B.C., taken to Corinth during the Sicilian
expedition. The painter Apelles, who saw her drawing water from the
fountain of Peirene, was struck by her beauty, and took her as a model.
Having followed a handsome Thessalian to his native land, she was slain
in the temple of Aphrodite by women who were jealous of her beauty. Many
anecdotes are told of a Laïs by Athenaeus, Aelian, Pausanias, and she
forms the subject of many epigrams in the Greek Anthology; but, owing to
the similarity of names, there is considerable uncertainty to whom they
refer. The name itself, like Phryne, was used as a general term for a
courtesan.
See F. Jacobs, _Vermischte Schriften_, iv. (1830).
LAISANT, CHARLES ANNE (1841- ), French politician, was born at Nantes
on the 1st of November 1841, and was educated at the École Polytechnique
as a military engineer. He defended the fort of Issy at the siege of
Paris, and served in Corsica and in Algeria in 1873. In 1876 he resigned
his commission to enter the Chamber as deputy for Nantes in the
republican interest, and in 1879 he became director of the _Petit
Parisien_. For alleged libel on General Courtot de Cissey in this paper
he was heavily fined. In the Chamber he spoke chiefly on army questions;
and was chairman of a commission appointed to consider army legislation,
resigning in 1887 on the refusal of the Chamber to sanction the
abolition of exemptions of any kind. He then became an adherent of the
revisionist policy of General Boulanger and a member of the League of
Patriots. He was elected Boulangist deputy for the 18th Parisian
arrondissement in 1889. He did not seek re-election in 1893, but devoted
himself thenceforward to mathematics, helping to make known in France
the theories of Giusto Bellavitis. He was attached to the staff of the
École Polytechnique, and in 1903-1904 was president of the French
Association for the Advancement of Science.
In addition to his political pamphlets _Pourquoi et comment je suis
Boulangiste_ (1887) and _L'Anarchie bourgeoise_ (1887), he published
mathematical works, among them _Introduction à l'étude des
quarternions_ (1881) and _Théorie et applications des équipollences_
(1887).
LAI-YANG, a city in the Chinese province of Shan-tung, in 37° N., 120°
55' E., about the middle of the eastern peninsula, on the highway
running south from Chi-fu to Kin-Kia or Ting-tsu harbour. It is
surrounded by well-kept walls of great antiquity, and its main streets
are spanned by large _pailous_ or monumental arches, some dating from
the time of the emperor Tai-ting-ti of the Yuan dynasty (1324). There
are extensive suburbs both to the north and south, and the total
population is estimated at 50,000. The so-called Ailanthus silk produced
by _Saturnia cynthia_ is woven at Lai-yang into a strong fabric; and the
manufacture of the peculiar kind of wax obtained from the la-shu or
wax-tree insect is largely carried on in the vicinity.
LAKANAL, JOSEPH (1762-1845), French politician, was born at Serres
(Ariège) on the 14th of July 1762. His name, originally Lacanal, was
altered to distinguish him from his Royalist brothers. He joined one of
the teaching congregations, and for fourteen years taught in their
schools. When elected by his native department to the Convention in 1792
he was acting as vicar to his uncle Bernard Font (1723-1800), the
constitutional bishop of Pamiers. In the Convention he held apart from
the various party sections, although he voted for the death of Louis
XVI. He rendered great service to the Revolution by his practical
knowledge of education. He became a member of the Committee of Public
Instruction early in 1793, and after carrying many useful decrees on the
preservation of national monuments, on the military schools, on the
reorganization of the Museum of Natural History and other matters, he
brought forward on the 26th of June his _Projet d'éducation nationale_
(printed at the Imprimerie Nationale), which proposed to lay the burden
or primary education on the public funds, but to leave secondary
education to private enterprise. Provision was also made for public
festivals, and a central commission was to be entrusted with educational
questions. The scheme, in the main the work of Sieyès, was refused by
the Convention, who submitted the whole question to a special commission
of six, which under the influence of Robespierre adopted a report by
Michel le Peletier de Saint Fargeau shortly before his tragic death.
Lakanal, who was a member of the commission, now began to work for the
organization of higher education, and abandoning the principle of his
_Projet_ advocated the establishment of state-aided schools for primary,
secondary and university education. In October 1793 he was sent by the
Convention to the south-western departments and did not return to Paris
until after the revolution of Thermidor. He now became president of the
Education Committee and promptly abolished the system which had had
Robespierre's support. He drew up schemes for departmental normal
schools, for primary schools (reviving in substance the _Projet_) and
central schools. He presently acquiesced in the supersession of his own
system, but continued his educational reports after his election to the
Council of the Five Hundred. In 1799 he was sent by the Directory to
organize the defence of the four departments on the left bank of the
Rhine threatened by invasion. Under the Consulate he resumed his
professional work, and after Waterloo retired to America, where he
became president of the university of Louisiana. He returned to France
in 1834, and shortly afterwards, in spite of his advanced age, married a
second time. He died in Paris on the 14th of February 1845; his widow
survived till 1881. Lakanal was an original member of the Institute of
France. He published in 1838 an _Exposé sommaire des travaux de Joseph
Lakanal_.
His _éloge_ at the Academy of Moral and Political Science, of which he
was a member, was pronounced by the comte de Rémusat (February 16,
1845), and a _Notice historique_ by F. A. M. Mignet was read on the
2nd of May 1857. See also notices by Émile Darnaud (Paris, 1874),
"Marcus" (Paris, 1879), P. Legendre in _Hommes de la révolution_
(Paris, 1882), E. Guillon, _Lakanal et l'instruction publique_ (Paris,
1881). For details of the reports submitted by him to the government
see M. Tourneux, "Histoire de l'instruction publique, actes et
déliberations de la convention, &c." in _Bibliog. de l'hist. de Paris_
(vol. iii., 1900); also A. Robert and G. Cougny, _Dictionnaire des
parlementaires_ (vol. ii., 1890).
LAKE, GERARD LAKE, 1ST VISCOUNT (1744-1808), British general, was born
on the 27th of July 1744. He entered the foot guards in 1758, becoming
lieutenant (captain in the army) 1762, captain (lieut.-colonel) in 1776,
major 1784, and lieut.-colonel in 1792, by which time he was a general
officer in the army. He served with his regiment in Germany in 1760-1762
and with a composite battalion in the Yorktown campaign of 1781. After
this he was equerry to the prince of Wales, afterwards George IV. In
1790 he became a major-general, and in 1793 was appointed to command the
Guards Brigade in the duke of York's army in Flanders. He was in command
at the brilliant affair of Lincelles, on the 18th of August 1793, and
served on the continent (except for a short time when seriously ill)
until April 1794. He had now sold his lieut.-colonelcy in the guards,
and had become colonel of the 53rd foot and governor of Limerick. In
1797 he was promoted lieut.-general. In the following year the Irish
rebellion broke out. Lake, who was then serving in Ireland, succeeded
Sir Ralph Abercromby in command of the troops in April 1798, issued a
proclamation ordering the surrender of all arms by the civil population
of Ulster, and on the 21st of June routed the rebels at Vinegar Hill
(near Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford). He exercised great, but perhaps not
unjustified, severity towards all rebels found in arms. Lord Cornwallis
now assumed the chief command in Ireland, and in August sent Lake to
oppose the French expedition which landed at Killala Bay. On the 29th of
the same month Lake arrived at Castlebar, but only in time to witness
the disgraceful rout of the troops under General Hely-Hutchinson
(afterwards 2nd earl of Donoughmore); but he retrieved this disaster by
compelling the surrender of the French at Ballinamuck, near Cloone, on
the 8th of September. In 1799 Lake returned to England, and soon
afterwards obtained the command in chief in India. He took over his
duties at Calcutta in July 1801, and applied himself to the improvement
of the Indian army, especially in the direction of making all arms,
infantry, cavalry and artillery, more mobile and more manageable. In
1802 he was made a full general.
On the outbreak of war with the Mahratta confederacy in 1803 General
Lake took the field against Sindhia, and within two months defeated the
Mahrattas at Coel, stormed Aligahr, took Delhi and Agra, and won the
great victory of Laswari (November 1st, 1803), where the power of
Sindhia was completely broken, with the loss of thirty-one disciplined
battalions, trained and officered by Frenchmen, and 426 pieces of
ordnance. This defeat, followed a few days later by Major-General Arthur
Wellesley's victory at Argaum, compelled Sindhia to come to terms, and a
treaty with him was signed in December 1803. Operations were, however,
continued against his confederate, Holkar, who, on the 17th of November
1804, was defeated by Lake at Farrukhabad. But the fortress of Bhurtpore
held out against four assaults early in 1805, and Cornwallis, who
succeeded Wellesley as governor-general in July of that
year--superseding Lake at the same time as
commander-in-chief--determined to put an end to the war. But after the
death of Cornwallis in October of the same year, Lake pursued Holkar
into the Punjab and compelled him to surrender at Amritsar in December
1805. Wellesley in a despatch attributed much of the success of the war
to Lake's "matchless energy, ability and valour." For his services Lake
received the thanks of parliament, and was rewarded by a peerage in
September 1804. At the conclusion of the war he returned to England, and
in 1807 he was created a viscount. He represented Aylesbury in the House
of Commons from 1790 to 1802, and he also was brought into the Irish
parliament by the government as member for Armagh in 1799 to vote for
the Union. He died in London on the 20th of February 1808.
See H. Pearse, _Memoir of the Life and Services of Viscount Lake_
(London, 1908); G. B. Malleson, _Decisive Battles of India_ (1883); J.
Grant Duff, _History of the Mahrattas_ (1873); short memoir in _From
Cromwell to Wellington_, ed. Spenser Wilkinson.
LAKE. Professor Forel of Switzerland, the founder of the science of
limnology (Gr. [Greek: limnê], a lake), defines a lake (Lat. _lacus_) as
a mass of still water situated in a depression of the ground, without
direct communication with the sea. The term is sometimes applied to
widened parts of rivers, and sometimes to bodies of water which lie
along sea-coasts, even at sea-level and in direct communication with the
sea. The terms _pond_, _tarn_, _loch_ and _mere_ are applied to smaller
lakes according to size and position. Some lakes are so large that an
observer cannot see low objects situated on the opposite shore, owing to
the lake-surface assuming the general curvature of the earth's surface.
Lakes are nearly universally distributed, but are more abundant in high
than in low latitudes. They are abundant in mountainous regions,
especially in those which have been recently glaciated. They are
frequent along rivers which have low gradients and wide flats, where
they are clearly connected with the changing channel of the river. Low
lands in proximity to the sea, especially in wet climates, have numerous
lakes, as, for instance, Florida. Lakes may be either fresh or salt,
according to the nature of the climate, some being much more salt than
the sea itself. They occur in all altitudes; Lake Titicaca in South
America is 12,500 ft. above sea-level, and Yellowstone Lake in the
United States is 7741 ft. above the sea; on the other hand, the surface
of the Caspian Sea is 86 ft., the Sea of Tiberias 682 ft. and the Dead
Sea 1292 ft. below the level of the ocean.
The primary source of lake water is atmospheric precipitation, which may
reach the lakes through rain, melting ice and snow, springs, rivers and
immediate run-off from the land-surfaces. The surface of the earth, with
which we are directly in touch, is composed of lithosphere, hydrosphere
and atmosphere, and these interpenetrate. Lakes, rivers, the
water-vapour of the atmosphere and the water of hydration of the
lithosphere, must all be regarded as outlying portions of the
hydrosphere, which is chiefly made up of the great oceans. Lakes may be
compared to oceanic islands. Just as an oceanic island presents many
peculiarities in its rocks, soil, fauna and flora, due to its isolation
from the larger terrestrial masses, so does a lake present peculiarities
and an individuality in its physical, chemical and biological features,
owing to its position and separation from the waters of the great
oceans.
_Origin of Lakes._--From the geological point of view, lakes may be
arranged into three groups: (A) Rock-Basins, (B) Barrier-Basins and
(C) Organic Basins.
A. ROCK-BASINS have been formed in several ways:--
1. _By slow movements of the earth's crust_, during the formation of
mountains; the Lake of Geneva in Switzerland and the Lake of Annecy in
France are due to the subsidence or warping of part of the Alps; on
the other hand, Lakes Stefanie, Rudolf, Albert Nyanza, Tanganyika and
Nyasa in Africa, and the Dead Sea in Asia Minor, are all believed to
lie in a great rift or sunken valley.
2. _By Volcanic Agencies._--Crater-lakes formed on the sites of
dormant volcanoes may be from a few yards to several miles in width,
have generally a circular form, and are often without visible outlet.
Excellent examples of such lakes are to be seen in the province of
Rome (Italy) and in the central plateau of France, where M. Delebecque
found the Lake of Issarlès 329 ft. in depth. The most splendid
crater-lake is found on the summit of the Cascade range of Southern
Oregon (U.S.A.). This lake is 2000 ft. in depth.
3. _By Subsidence due to Subterranean Channels and Caves in Limestone
Rocks._--When the roofs of great limestone caves or underground lakes
fall in, they produce at the surface what are called _limestone
sinks_. Lakes similar to these are also found in regions abounding in
rock-salt deposits; the Jura range offers many such lakes.
4. _By Glacier Erosion._--A. C. Ramsay has shown that innumerable
lakes of the northern hemisphere do not lie in fissures produced by
underground disturbances, nor in areas of subsidence, nor in synclinal
folds of strata, but are the results of glacial erosion. Many flat
alluvial plains above gorges in Switzerland, as well as in the
Highlands of Scotland, were, without doubt, what Sir Archibald Geikie
calls glen-lakes, or true rock-basins, which have been filled up by
sand and mud brought into them by their tributary streams.
B. BARRIER-BASINS.--These may be due to the following causes:--
1. _A landslip_ often occurs in mountainous regions, where strata,
dipping towards the valley, rest on soft layers; the hard rocks slip
into the valley after heavy rains, damming back the drainage, which
then forms a barrier-basin. Many small lakes high up in the Alps and
Pyrenees are formed by a river being dammed back in this way.
2. _By a Glacier._--In Alaska, in Scandinavia and in the Alps a
glacier often bars the mouth of a tributary valley, the stream flowing
therein is dammed back, and a lake is thus formed. The best-known lake
of this kind is the Märjelen Lake in the Alps, near the great Aletsch
Glacier. Lake Castain in Alaska is barred by the Malaspina Glacier; it
is 2 or 3 m. long and 1 m. in width when at its highest level; it
discharges through a tunnel 9 m. in length beneath the ice-sheet. The
famous parallel roads of Glen Roy in Scotland are successive terraces
formed along the shores of a glacial lake during the waning glacial
epoch. Lake Agassiz, which during the glacial period occupied the
valley of the Red River, and of which the present Lake Winnipeg is a
remnant, was formed by an ice-dam along the margin of two great
ice-sheets. It is estimated to have been 700 m. in length, and to have
covered an area of 110,000 sq. m., thus exceeding the total area of
the five great North American lakes: Superior (31,200), Michigan
(22,450), Huron with Georgian Bay (23,800), Erie (9960) and Ontario
(7240).
3. _By the Lateral Moraine of an Actual Glacier._--These lakes
sometimes occur in the Alps of Central Europe and in the Pyrenees
Mountains.
4. _By the Frontal Moraine of an Ancient Glacier._--The barrier in
this case consists of the last moraine left by the retreating glacier.
Such lakes are abundant in the northern hemisphere, especially in
Scotland and the Alps.
5. _By Irregular Deposition of Glacial Drift._--After the retreat of
continental glaciers great masses of glacial drift are left on the
land-surfaces, but, on account of the manner in which these masses
were deposited, they abound in depressions that become filled with
water. Often these lakes are without visible outlets, the water
frequently percolating through the glacial drift. These lakes are so
numerous in the north-eastern part of North America that one can trace
the southern boundary of the great ice-sheet by following the southern
limit of the lake-strewn region, where lakes may be counted by tens of
thousands, varying from the size of a tarn to that of the great
Laurentian lakes above mentioned.
6. _By Sand drifted into Dunes._--It is a well-known fact that sand
may travel across a country for several miles in the direction of the
prevailing winds. When these sand-dunes obstruct a valley a lake may
be formed. A good example of such a lake is found in Moses Lake in the
state of Washington; but the sand-dunes may also fill up or submerge
river-valleys and lakes, for instance, in the Sahara, where the Shotts
are like vast lakes in the early morning, and in the afternoon, when
much evaporation has taken place, like vast plains of white salt.
7. _By Alluvial Matter deposited by Lateral Streams._--If the current
of a main river be not powerful enough to sweep away detrital matter
brought down by a lateral stream, a dam is formed causing a lake.
These lakes are frequently met with in the narrow valleys of the
Highlands of Scotland.
8. _By Flows of Lava._--Lakes of this kind are met with in volcanic
regions.
C. ORGANIC BASINS.--In the vast tundras that skirt the Arctic Ocean in
both the old and the new world, a great number of frozen ponds and
lakes are met with, surrounded by banks of vegetation. Snow-banks are
generally accumulated every season at the same spots. During summer
the growth of the tundra vegetation is very rapid, and the snow-drifts
that last longest are surrounded by luxuriant vegetation. When such
accumulations of snow finally melt, the vegetation on the place they
occupied is much less than along their borders. Year after year such
places become more and more depressed, comparatively to the general
surface, where vegetable growth is more abundant, and thus give origin
to lakes.
It is well known that in coral-reef regions small bays are cut off
from the ocean by the growth of corals, and thus ultimately
fresh-water basins are formed.
_Life History of Lakes._--From the time of its formation a lake is
destined to disappear. The historical period has not been long enough to
enable man to have watched the birth, life and death of any single lake
of considerable size, still by studying the various stages of
development a fairly good idea of the course they run can be obtained.
In humid regions two processes tend to the extinction of a lake, viz.
the deposition of detrital matter in the lake, and the lowering of the
lake by the cutting action of the outlet stream on the barrier. These
outgoing streams, however, being very pure and clear, all detrital
matter having been deposited in the lake, have less eroding power than
inflowing streams. One of the best examples of the action of the
filling-up process is presented by Lochs Doine, Voil and Lubnaig in the
Callander district of Scotland. In post-glacial times these three lochs
formed, without doubt, one continuous sheet of water, which subsequently
became divided into three different basins by the deposition of
sediment. Loch Doine has been separated from Loch Voil by alluvial cones
laid down by two opposite streams. At the head of Loch Doine there is an
alluvial flat that stretches for 1½ m., formed by the Lochlarig river
and its tributaries. The long stretch of alluvium that separates Loch
Voil from Loch Lubnaig has been laid down by Calair Burn in Glen Buckie,
by the Kirkton Burn at Balquhidder, and by various streams on both sides
of Strathyre. Loch Lubnaig once extended to a point ¾ m. beyond its
present outlet, the level of the loch being lowered about 20 ft. by the
denuding action of the river Leny on its rocky barrier.
In arid regions, where the rainfall is often less than 10 ins. in the
year, the action of winds in the transport of sand and dust is more in
evidence than that of rivers, and the effects of evaporation greater
than of precipitation. Salt and bitter lakes prevail in these regions.
Many salt lakes, such as the Dead Sea and the Great Salt Lake, are
descended from fresh-water ancestors, while others, like the Caspian and
Aral Seas, are isolated portions of the ocean. Lakes of the first group
have usually become salt through a decrease in the rainfall of the
region in which they occur. The water begins to get salt when the
evaporation from the lake exceeds the inflow. The inflowing waters bring
in a small amount of saline and alkaline matter, which becomes more and
more concentrated as the evaporation increases. In lakes of the second
group the waters were salt at the outset. If inflow exceeds evaporation
they become fresher, and may ultimately become quite fresh. If the
evaporation exceeds the inflow they diminish in size, and their waters
become more and more salt and bitter. The first lake which occupied the
basin of the Great Salt Lake of Utah appears to have been fresh, then
with a change of climate to have become a salt lake. Another change of
climate taking place, the level of the lake rose until it overflowed,
the outlet being by the Snake river; the lake then became fresh. This
expanded lake has been called Lake Bonneville, which covered an area of
about 17,000 sq. m. Another change of climate in the direction of
aridity reduced the level of the lake below the level of the outlet, the
waters became gradually salt, and the former great fresh-water lake has
been reduced gradually to the relatively small Great Salt Lake of the
present day. The sites of extinct salt lakes yield salt in commercial
quantities.
_The Water of Lakes._--(a) _Composition._--It is interesting to
compare the quantity of solid matter in, and the chemical composition
of, the water of fresh and salt lakes:--
Total Solids by Evaporation
expressed in Grams per Litre.
Great Salt Lake (Russell) 238.12
Lake of Geneva (Delebecque) 0.1775
The following analysis of a sample of the water of the Great Salt Lake
(Utah, U.S.A.) is given by I. C. Russell:--
Grams per Litre. Probable Combination.
Na 75.825 NaCl 192.860
K 3.925 K2SO4 8.756
Li 0.021 Li2SO4 0.166
Mg 4.844 MgCl2 15.044
Ca 2.424 MgSO4 5.216
Cl 128.278 CaSO4 8.240
SO3 12.522 Fe2O3 + Al2O3 0.004
O in sulphate 2.494 SiO2 0.018
Fe2O3 + Al2O3 0.004 Surplus SO_3 0.051
SiO2 0.018
Bo2O3 trace
Br3 faint trace
The following analyses of the waters of other salt lakes are given by
Mr J. Y. Buchanan (Art. "Lake," _Ency. Brit._, 9th Ed.), an analysis
of sea-water from the Suez Canal being added for comparison:--
+-----------------------+---------+--------+-------------------+----------+---------+---------+-----------+
| | | | Caspian Sea. | | | |Suez Canal,|
| |Koko-nor.|Aral Sea+--------+----------+Urmia Sea.|Dead Sea.|Lake Van.| Ismailia. |
| | | | Open. |Karabugas.| | | | |
+-----------------------+---------+--------+--------+----------+----------+---------+---------+-----------+
| Specific Gravity | 1.00907 | .. | 1.01106| 1.26217 | 1.17500 | .. | 1.01800| 1.03898 |
| Percentage of Salt | 1.11 | 1.09 | 1.30 | 28.5 |22.28 | 22.13 | 1.73 | 5.1 |
+-----------------------+---------+--------+--------+----------+----------+---------+---------+-----------+
| Name of Salt. | Grams of Salt per 1000 Grams of Water. |
+-----------------------+---------+--------+--------+----------+----------+---------+---------+-----------+
| Bicarbonate of Lime | 0.6804 | 0.2185 | 0.1123 | .. | .. | .. | .. | 0.0072 |
| " Iron | 0.0053 | .. | 0.0014 | .. | .. | .. | .. | 0.0069 |
| " Magnesia | 0.6598 | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 0.4031 | .. |
| Carbonate of Soda | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 5.3976 | .. |
| Phosphate of Lime | 0.0028 | .. | 0.0021 | .. | .. | .. | 5.3976 | 0.0029 |
| Sulphate of Lime | .. | 1.3499 | 0.9004 | .. | 0.7570 | 0.8600 | .. | 1.8593 |
| " Magnesia | 0.9324 | 2.9799 | 3.0855 | 61.9350 | 13.5460 | .. | 0.2592 | 3.2231 |
| " Soda | 1.7241 | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 2.5673 | .. |
| " Potash | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 0.5363 | .. |
| Chloride of Sodium | 6.9008 | 6.2356 | 8.1163 | 83.2840 |192.4100 | 76.5000 | 8.0500 | 40.4336 |
| " Potassium | 0.2209 | 0.1145 | 0.1339 | 9.9560 | .. | 23.3000 | .. | 0.6231 |
| " Rubidium | 0.0055 | .. | 0.0034 | 0.2510 | .. | .. | .. | 0.0265 |
| " Magnesium | .. | 0.0003 | 0.6115 |129.3770 | 15.4610 | 95.6000 | .. | 4.7632 |
| " Calcium | .. | .. | .. | .. | 0.5990 | 22.4500 | .. | .. |
| Bromide of Magnesium | 0.0045 | .. | 0.0081 | 0.1930 | .. | 2.3100 | .. | 0.0779 |
| Silica | 0.0098 | .. | 0.0024 | .. | .. | 0.2400 | 0.0761 | 0.0027 |
+-----------------------+---------+--------+--------+----------+----------+---------+---------+-----------+
| Total Solid Matter |11.1463 |10.8987 |12.9773 |284.9960 |222.2600 |221.2600 | 17.2899 | 51.0264 |
+-----------------------+---------+--------+--------+----------+----------+---------+---------+-----------+
This table embraces examples of several types of salt lakes. In the
Koko-nor, Aral and open Caspian Seas we have examples of the
moderately salt, non-saturated waters. In the Karabugas, a branch gulf
of the Caspian, Urmia and the Dead Seas we have examples of saturated
waters containing principally chlorides. Lake Van is an example of the
alkaline seas which also occur in Egypt, Hungary and other countries.
Their peculiarity consists in the quantity of carbonate of soda
dissolved in their waters, which is collected by the inhabitants for
domestic and commercial purposes.
The following analyses by Dr Bourcart give an idea of the chemical
composition of the water of fresh-water lakes in grams per litre:--
+---------------+--------+--------+---------+-----------+
| | Tanay. | Bleu. |Märjelen.|St Gothard.|
+---------------+--------+--------+---------+-----------+
| SiO2 | 0.003 | 0.0042 | 0.0014 | 0.0008 |
| Fe2O3 + Al2O3 | 0.0012 | 0.0006 | 0.0008 | trace |
| NaCl | 0.0017 | .. | .. | .. |
| Na2SO4 | 0.0011 | 0.0038 | 0.0031 | 0.00085 |
| Na2CO3 | .. | .. | .. | 0.00128 |
| K2SO4 | 0.0021 | 0.0028 | 0.0044 | .. |
| K2CO3 | .. | .. | 0.0003 | 0.00130 |
| MgSO4 | 0.006 | 0.0305 | .. | .. |
| MgCO3 | 0.0046 | 0.0158 | 0.0008 | 0.00015 |
| CaSO4 | .. | .. | .. | .. |
| CaCO3 | 0.107 | 0.1189 | 0.0061 | 0.00178 |
| MnO | 0.001 | .. | .. | .. |
+---------------+--------+--------+---------+-----------+
(b) _Movements and Temperature of Lake-Waters._--(1) In addition to
the rise and fall of the surface-level of lakes due to rainfall and
evaporation, there is a transference of water due to the action of
wind which results in raising the level at the end to which the wind
is blowing. In addition to the well-known progressive waves there are
also stationary waves or "seiches" which are less apparent. A seiche
is a standing oscillation of a lake, usually in the direction of the
longest diameter, but occasionally transverse. In a motion of this
kind every particle of the water of the lake oscillates synchronously
with every other, the periods and phases being the same for all, and
the orbits similar but of different dimensions and not similarly
situated. Seiches were first discovered in 1730 by Fatio de Duillier,
a well-known Swiss engineer, and were first systematically studied by
Professor Forel in the Lake of Geneva. Large numbers of observations
have been made by various observers in lakes in many parts of the
world. Henry observed a fifteen-hour seiche in Lake Erie, which is 396
kilometres in length, and Endros recorded a seiche of fourteen seconds
in a small pond only 111 metres in length. Although these waves cause
periodical rising and falling of the water-level, they are generally
inconspicuous, and can only be recorded by a registering apparatus, a
limnograph. Standard work has been done in the study of seiches by the
Lake Survey of Scotland under the immediate direction of Professor
Chrystal, who has given much attention to the hydrodynamical theories
of the phenomenon. Seiches are probably due to several factors acting
together or separately, such as sudden variations of atmospheric
pressure, changes in the strength or direction of the wind.
Explanations such as lunar attraction and earthquakes have been shown
to be untenable as a general cause of seiches.
2. _The water temperature of lakes_ may change with the season from
place to place and from layer to layer; these changes are brought
about by insolation, by terrestrial radiation, by contract with the
atmosphere, by rain, by the inflow of rivers and other factors, but
the most important of all these are insolation and terrestrial
radiation. Fresh water has its greatest density at a temperature of
39.2° F., so that water both above and below this temperature floats
to the surface, and this physical fact largely determines the water
stratification in a lake. In salt lakes the maximum density point is
much lower, and does not come into play. In the tropical type of
fresh-water lake the temperature is always higher than 39° F., and the
temperature decreases as the depth increases. In the polar type the
temperature is always lower than 39° F., and the temperature increases
from the surface downwards. In the temperate type the distribution of
temperature in winter resembles the polar type, and in summer the
tropical type. In Loch Ness and other deep Scottish lochs the
temperature in March and April is 41° to 42° F., and is then nearly
uniform from top to bottom. As the sun comes north, and the mean air
temperature begins to be higher than the surface temperature, the
surface waters gain heat, and this heating goes on till the month of
August. About this time the mean air temperature falls below the
surface temperature, and the loch begins to part with its heat by
radiation and conduction. The temperature of the deeper layers beyond
300 ft. is only slightly affected throughout the whole year. In the
autumn the waters of the loch are divided into two compartments, the
upper having a temperature from 49° to 55° F., the deeper a
temperature from 41° to 45°. Between these lies the
discontinuity-layer (_Sprungschicht_ of the Germans), where there is a
rapid fall of temperature within a very short distance. In August this
discontinuity-layer is well marked, and lies at a depth of about 150
ft.; as the season advances this layer gradually sinks deeper, and the
layer of uniform temperature above it increases in depth, and slowly
loses heat, until finally the whole loch assumes a nearly uniform
temperature. Many years ago Sir John Murray showed by means of
temperature observations the manner in which large bodies of water
were transferred from the windward to the leeward end of a loch, and
subsequent observations seem to show that, before the
discontinuity-layer makes its appearance, the currents produced by
winds are distributed through the whole mass of the loch. When,
however, this layer appears, the loch is divided into two
current-systems, as shown in the following diagram:--
[Illustration: Current systems in a loch induced by wind at the
surface. (After Wedderburn.)
AB, Discontinuity layer.
C, Surface current.
D, Primary return current.
E, Secondary surface current.
F, Secondary return current.]
Another effect of the separation of the loch into two compartments by
the surface of discontinuity is to render possible the
temperature-seiche. The surface-current produced by the wind transfers
a large quantity of warm water to the lee end of the loch, with the
result that the surface of discontinuity is deeper at the lee than at
the windward end. When the wind ceases, a temperature-seiche is
started, just as an ordinary seiche is started in a basin of water
which has been tilted. This temperature-seiche has been studied
experimentally and rendered visible by superimposing a layer of
paraffin on a layer of water.
Wedderburn estimates the quantity of heat that enters Loch Ness and is
given out again during the year to be approximately sufficient to
raise about 30,000 million gallons of water from freezing-point to
boiling-point. Lakes thus modify the climate of the region in which
they occur, both by increasing its humidity and by decreasing its
range of temperature. They cool and moisten the atmosphere by
evaporation during summer, and when they freeze in winter a vast
amount of latent heat is liberated, and moderates the fall of
temperature.
Lakes act as reservoirs for water, and so tend to restrain floods, and
to promote regularity of flow. They become sources of mechanical
power, and as their waters are purified by allowing the sediment which
enters them to settle, they become valuable sources of water-supply
for towns and cities. In temperate regions small and shallow lakes are
likely to freeze all over in winter, but deep lakes in similar regions
do not generally freeze, owing to the fact that the low temperature of
the air does not continue long enough to cool down the entire body of
water to the maximum density point. Deep lakes are thus the best
sources of water-supply for cities, for in summer they supply
relatively cool water and in winter relatively warm water. Besides,
the number of organisms in deep lakes is less than in small shallow
lakes, in which there is a much higher temperature in summer, and
consequently much greater organic growth. The deposits, which are
formed along the shores and on the floors of lakes, depend on the
geological structure and nature of the adjacent shores.
_Biology._--Compared with the waters of the ocean those of lakes may
safely be said to contain relatively few animals and plants. Whole
groups of organisms--the Echinoderms, for instance--are unrepresented.
In the oceans there is a much greater uniformity in the physical and
chemical conditions than obtains in lakes. In lakes the temperature
varies widely. To underground lakes light does not penetrate, and in
these some of the organisms may be blind, for example, the blind
crayfish (_Cambarus pellucidus_) and the blind fish (_Amblyopsis
spelaeus_) of the Kentucky caves. The majority of lakes are fresh, while
some are so salt that no organisms have been found in them. The peaty
matter in other lakes is so abundant that light does not penetrate to
any great depth, and the humic acids in solution prevent the development
of some species. Indeed, every lake has an individuality of its own,
depending upon climate, size, nature of the bottom, chemical composition
and connexion with other lakes. While the ocean contains many families
and genera not represented in lakes, almost every genus in lakes is
represented in the ocean.
The vertebrates, insects and flowering plants inhabiting lakes vary
much according to latitude, and are comparatively well known to
zoologists and botanists. The micro-fauna and flora have only recently
been studied in detail, and we cannot yet be said to know much about
tropical lakes in this respect. Mr James Murray, who has studied the
Scottish lakes, records in over 400 Scottish lochs 724 species (the
fauna including 447 species, all invertebrates, and the flora
comprising 277 species) belonging to the following groups; the list
must not be regarded as in any way complete:--
_Fauna._ _Flora._
Mollusca 7 species Phanerogamia 65 species
Hydrachnida 17 " Equisetaceae 1 "
Tardigrada 30 " Selaginellaceae 1 "
Insecta 7 " Characeae 6 "
Crustacea 78 " Musci 18 "
Bryozoa 7 " Hepaticae 2 "
Worms 25 " Florideae 2 "
Rotifera 181 " Chlorophyceae 142 "
Gastrotricha 2 " Bacillariaceae 26 "
Coelenterata 1 " Myxophyceae 10 "
Porifera 1 " Peridiniaceae 4 "
Protozoa 91 "
----------- -----------
447 " 277 "
These organisms are found along the shores, in the deep waters, and in
the surface waters of the lakes.
The _littoral region_ is the most populous part of lakes; the
existence of a rooted vegetation is only possible there, and this in
turn supports a rich littoral fauna. The greater heat of the water
along the margins also favours growth. The great majority of the
species in Scottish lochs are met with in this region. Insect larvae
of many kinds are found under stones or among weeds. Most of the
Cladocera, and the Copepoda of the genus _Cyclops_, and the
Harpacticidae are only found in this region. Water-mites, nearly all
the Rotifers, Gastrotricha, Tardigrada and Molluscs are found here,
and Rhizopods are abundant. A large number of the littoral species in
Loch Ness extends down to a depth of about 300 ft.
_The abyssal region_, in Scottish lochs, lies, as a rule, deeper than
300 ft., and in this deep region a well-marked association of animals
appears in the muds on the bottom, but none of them are peculiar to
it: they all extend into the littoral zone, from which they were
originally derived. In Loch Ness the following sparse population was
recorded:--
1 Mollusc: _Pisidium pusillum_ (Gmel).
3 Crustacea: _Cyclops viridis_, Jurine.
_Candona candida_ (Müll).
_Cypria ophthalmica_, Jurine.
3 Worms: _Stylodrilus gabreteae_, Vejd.
Oligochaete, not determined.
_Automolos morgiensis_ (Du Plessis).
1 Insect: _Chironomus_ (larva).
Infusoria: Several, ectoparasites on _Pisidium_ and _Cyclops_,
not determined.
In addition, the following were found casually at great depths in Loch
Ness: _Hydra_, _Limnaea peregra_, _Proales daphnicola_ and _Lynceus
affinis_.
The _pelagic region_ of the Scottish lakes is occupied by numerous
microscopic organisms, belonging to the Zooplankton and Phytoplankton.
Of the former group 30 species belonging to the Crustacea, Rotifera
and Protozoa were recorded in Loch Ness. Belonging to the second group
150 species were recorded, of which 120 were Desmids. Some of these
species of plankton organisms are almost universal in the Scottish
lochs, while others are quite local. Some of the species occur all the
year through, while others have only been recorded in summer or in
winter. The great development of Algae in the surface waters, called
"flowering of the water" (_Wasserblüthe_), was observed in August in
Loch Lomond; a distinct "flowering," due to Chlorophyceae, has been
observed in shallow lochs as early as July. It is most common in
August and September, but has also been observed in winter.
The plankton animals which are dominant or common, both over Scotland
and the rest of Europe, are:--
_Diaptomus gracilis._
_Daphnia kyalina._
_Diaphanosoma brachyurum._
_Leptodora kindtii._
_Conochilus unicornis._
_Asplanchna priodonta._
_Polyarthra platyptera._
_Anuraea cochlearis._
_Notholca longispina._
_Ceratium hirundinella._
_Asterionella._
All of these, according to Dr Lund, belong to the general plankton
association of the European plain, or are even cosmopolitan.
The Scottish plankton on the whole differs from the plankton of the
central European plateau, and from the cosmopolitan fresh-water
plankton, in the extraordinary richness of the Phytoplankton in
species of Desmids, in the conspicuous arctic element among the
Crustacea, in the absence or comparative rarity of the species
commonest in the general European plankton. Another peculiarity is the
local distribution of some of the Crustacea and many of the Desmids.
The derivation of the whole lacustrine population of the Scottish
lochs does not seem to present any difficulty. The abyssal forms have
been traced to the littoral zone without any perceptible
modifications. The plankton organisms are a mingling of European and
arctic species. The cosmopolitan species may enter the lochs by
ordinary migration. It is probable that if the whole plankton could be
annihilated, it would be replaced by ordinary migration within a few
years. The eggs and spores of many species can be dried up without
injury, and may be carried through the air as dust from one lake to
another; others, which would not bear desiccation, might be carried in
mud adhering to the feet of aquatic birds and in various other ways.
The arctic species may be survivors from a period when arctic
conditions prevailed over a great part of Europe. What are known as
"relicts" of a marine fauna have not been found in the Scottish
fresh-water lochs.
It is somewhat remarkable that none of the organisms living in
fresh-water lochs has been observed to exhibit the phenomenon of
phosphorescence, although similar organisms in the salt-water lochs a
few miles distant exhibit brilliant phosphorescence. At similar depths
in the sea-lochs there is usually a great abundance of life when
compared with that found in fresh-water lochs.
_Length, Depth, Area and Volume of Lakes._--In the following table will
be found the length, depth, area and volume of some of the principal
lakes of the world.[1] Sir John Murray estimates The volume of water in
the 560 Scottish lochs recently surveyed at 7 cub. m., and the
approximate volume of water in all the lakes of the world at about 2000
cub. m., so that this last number is but a small fraction of the volume
of the ocean, which he previously estimated at 324 million cub. m. It
may be recalled that the total rainfall on the land of the globe is
estimated at 29,350 cub. m., and the total discharge from the rivers of
the globe at 6524 cub. m.
BRITISH LAKES
+--------------------+-------+---------------+--------+-----------+
| |Length | Depth | Area | Volume in |
| | in | in | in | million |
| | Miles.| Feet. | sq. m. | cub. ft. |
+--------------------+-------+------+--------+--------+-----------+
|I. _England_-- | | Max. | Mean. | | |
| Windermere | 10.50 | 219 | 78.5 | 5.69 | 12,250 |
| Ullswater | 7.35 | 205 | 83 | 3.44 | 7,870 |
| Wastwater | 3.00 | 258 | 134.5 | 1.12 | 4,128 |
| Coniston Water | 5.41 | 184 | 79 | 1.89 | 4,000 |
| Crummock Water | 2.50 | 144 | 87.5 | 0.97 | 2,343 |
| Ennerdale Water | 2.40 | 148 | 62 | 1.12 | 1,978 |
| Bassenthwaite | | | | | |
| Water | 3.83 | 70 | 18 | 2.06 | 1,023 |
| Derwentwater | 2.87 | 72 | 18 | 2.06 | 1,010 |
| Haweswater | 2.33 | 103 | 39.5 | 0.54 | 589 |
| Buttermere | 1.26 | 94 | 54.5 | 0.36 | 537 |
|II. _Wales_-- | | | | | |
| Llyn Cawlyd | 1.62 | 222 | 109.1 | 0.18 | 941 |
| Llyn Cwellyn | 1.20 | 122 | 74.1 | 0.35 | 713 |
| Llyn Padarn | 2.00 | 94 | 52.4 | 0.43 | 632 |
| Llyn Llydaw | 1.11 | 190 | 77.4 | 0.19 | 409 |
| Llyn Peris | 1.10 | 114 | 63.9 | 0.19 | 344 |
| Llyn Dulyn | 0.31 | 189 | 104.2 | 0.05 | 156 |
|III. _Scotland_-- | | | | | |
| Ness | 24.23 | 754 | 433.02 | 21.78 | 263,162 |
| Lomond | 22.64 | 623 | 121.29 | 27.45 | 92,805 |
| Morar | 11.68 | 1017 | 284.00 | 10.30 | 81,482 |
| Tay | 14.55 | 508 | 199.08 | 10.19 | 56,550 |
| Awe | 25.47 | 307 | 104.95 | 14.85 | 43,451 |
| Maree | 13.46 | 367 | 125.30 | 11.03 | 38,539 |
| Lochy | 9.78 | 531 | 228.95 | 5.91 | 37,726 |
| Rannoch | 9.70 | 440 | 167.46 | 7.37 | 34,387 |
| Shiel | 17.40 | 420 | 132.73 | 7.56 | 27,986 |
| Arkaig | 12.00 | 359 | 152.71 | 6.24 | 26,573 |
| Earn | 6.46 | 287 | 137.83 | 3.91 | 14,421 |
| Treig | 5.10 | 436 | 207.37 | 2.41 | 13,907 |
| Shin | 17.22 | 162 | 51.04 | 8.70 | 12,380 |
| Fannich | 6.92 | 282 | 108.76 | 3.60 | 10,920 |
| Assynt | 6.36 | 282 | 101.10 | 3.10 | 8,731 |
| Quoich | 6.95 | 281 | 104.60 | 2.86 | 8,345 |
| Glass | 4.03 | 365 | 159.07 | 1.86 | 8,265 |
| Fionn (Carnmore) | 5.76 | 144 | 57.79 | 3.52 | 5,667 |
| Laggan | 7.04 | 174 | 67.68 | 2.97 | 5,601 |
| Loyal | 4.46 | 217 | 65.21 | 2.55 | 4,628 |
|IV. _Ireland_-- | | | | | |
| Neagh | 17 | 102 | 40 |153 | 161,000 |
| Erne (Lower) | 24 | 226 | 43 | 43 | 62,000 |
| Erne (Upper) | 13 | 89 | 10 | 15 | 5,000 |
| Corrib | 27 | 152 | 30 | 68 | 59,000 |
| Mask | 10 | 191 | 52 | 35 | 55,000 |
| Derg | 24 | 119 | 30 | 49 | 47,000 |
+--------------------+-------+---------------+--------+-----------+
EUROPEAN CONTINENTAL LAKES
+------------+-------+--------------+--------+------------+
| |Length | Depth | Area | Volume in |
| | in | in | in | million |
| | Miles.| Feet. | sq. m. | cub. ft. |
+------------+-------+------+-------+--------+------------+
| | | Max. | Mean. | | |
| Ladoga | 125 | 732 | 300 | 7000 | 43,200,000 |
| Onega | 145 | 740 | 200 | 3800 | 21,000,000 |
| Vener | 93 | 292 | 108 | 2149 | 6,357,000 |
| Geneva | 45 | 1015 | 506 | 225 | 3,175,000 |
| Vetter | 68 | 413 | 128 | 733 | 2,543,000 |
| Mjösen | 57 | 1483 | .. | 139 | 2,882,000 |
| Garda | 38 | 1124 | 446 | 143 | 1,766,000 |
| Constance | 42 | 827 | 295 | 208 | 1,711,000 |
| Ochrida | 19 | 942 | 479 | 105 | 1,391,000 |
| Maggiore | 42 | 1220 | 574 | 82 | 1,310,000 |
| Como | 30 | 1345 | 513 | 56 | 794,000 |
| Hornafvan | 7 | 1391 | 253 | 93 | 777,000 |
+------------+-------+--------------+--------+------------+
AFRICAN LAKES
+----------------+------+-------------+--------+-------------+
| |Length| Depth | Area | Volume in |
| | in | in | in | million |
| |Miles.| Feet. | sq. m. | cub. ft. |
+----------------+------+------+------+--------+-------------+
| | | Max. | Mean.| | |
| Victoria Nyanza| 200 | 240 | .. | 26,200 | 5,800,000 |
| Nyasa | 350 | 2580 | .. | 14,200 | 396,000,000 |
| Tanganyika | 420 | 2100 | .. | 12,700 | 283,000,000 |
+----------------+------+------+------+--------+-------------+
ASIATIC LAKES
+----------+-------+-------------+--------+------------+
| |Length | Depth | Area | Volume in |
| | in | in | in | million |
| | Miles.| Feet. | sq. m. | cub. ft. |
+----------+-------+------+------+--------+------------+
| | | Max. | Mean.| | |
| Aral | 265 | 222 | 52 | 24,400 | 43,600,000 |
| Baikal | 330 | 5413 | .. | 11,580 |274,000,000 |
| Balkash | 323 | 33 | .. | 7,000 | 4,880,000 |
| Urmia | 80 | 50 | 15 | 1,750 | 732,000 |
+----------+-------+------+------+--------+------------+
AMERICAN LAKES
+------------+-------+-------------+--------+-------------+
| |Length | Depth | Area | Volume in |
| | in | in | in | million |
| | Miles.| Feet. | sq. m. | cub. ft. |
+------------+-------+------+------+--------+-------------+
| | | Max. | Mean.| | |
| Superior | 412 | 1008 | 475 | 31,200 | 413,000,000 |
| Huron | 263 | 730 | 250 | 23,800 | 166,000,000 |
| Michigan | 335 | 870 | 325 | 22,450 | 203,000,000 |
| Erie | 240 | 210 | 70 | 9,960 | 19,500,000 |
| Ontario | 190 | 738 | 300 | 7,240 | 61,000,000 |
| Titicaca | 120 | 924 | 347 | 3,200 | 30,900,000 |
+------------+-------+------+------+--------+-------------+
NEW ZEALAND LAKES
+--------------+-------+-------------+--------+-----------+
| |Length | Depth | Area | Volume in |
| | in | in | in | million |
| | Miles.| Feet. | sq. m. | cub. ft. |
+--------------+-------+------+------+--------+-----------+
| | | Max. | Mean.| | |
| Taupo | 25 | 534 | 367 | 238.0 | 2,435,000 |
| Wakatipu | 49 | 1242 | 707 | 112.3 | 2,205,000 |
| Manapouri | 19 | 1458 | 328 | 56.0 | 512,000 |
| Rotorua | 7.5 | 120 | 39 | 31.6 | 34,000 |
| Waikarimoana | 7.25 | 846 | 397 | 14.7 | 166,000 |
| Wairaumoana | 5.25 | 375 | 175 | 6.1 | 30,000 |
| Rotoiti | 10.7 | 230 | 69 | 14.2 | 27,000 |
+--------------+-------+------+------+--------+-----------+
AUTHORITIES.--F. A. Forel, "Handbuch der Seenkunde: allgemeine
Limnologie," _Bibliothek geogr. Handbücher_ (Stuttgart, 1901), _Le
Léman, monographie limnologique_ (3 vols., Lausanne, 1892-1901); A.
Delebecque, _Les Lacs français_, text and plates (Paris, 1898); H. R.
Mill, "Bathymetrical Survey of the English Lakes," _Geogr. Journ._
vol. vi. pp. 46 and 135 (1895); Jehu, "Bathymetrical and Geological
Study of the Lakes of Snowdonia," _Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin._ vol. xl. p.
419 (1902); Sir John Murray and Laurence Pullar, "Bathymetrical Survey
of the Freshwater Lochs of Scotland," _Geogr. Journ._ (1900 to 1908,
re-issued in six volumes, Edinburgh, 1910); W. Halbfass, "Die
Morphometrie der europäischen Seen," _Zeitschr. Gesell. Erdkunde
Berlin_ (Jahrg. 1903, p. 592; 1904, p. 204); I. C. Russell, _Lakes of
North America_ (Boston and London, 1895); O. Zacharias,
"Forschungsberichte aus der biologischen Station zu Plön" (Stuttgart);
F. E. Bourcart, _Les Lacs alpins suisses: étude chimique et physique_
(Geneva, 1906); G. P. Magrini, _Limnologia_ (Milan, 1907). (J. Mu.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Divergence between certain of these figures and those quoted
elsewhere in this work may be accounted for by the slightly different
results arrived at by various authorities.
LAKE CHARLES, a city of Louisiana, U.S.A., capital of Calcasieu Parish,
30 m. from the Gulf of Mexico and about 218 m. (by rail) W. of New
Orleans. Pop. (1889) 838, (1890) 3442, (1900) 6680 (2407 negroes);
(1910) 11,449. It is served by the Louisiana & Texas (Southern Pacific
System), the St Louis, Watkins & Gulf, the Louisiana & Pacific and the
Kansas City Southern railways. The city is charmingly situated on the
shore of Lake Charles, and on the Calcasieu river, which with some
dredging can be made navigable for large vessels for 132 m. from the
Gulf. It is a winter resort. Among the principal buildings are a
Carnegie library, the city hall, the Government building, the court
house, St Patrick's sanatorium, the masonic temple and the Elks' club.
Lake Charles is in the prairie region of southern Louisiana, to the N.
of which, covering a large part of the state, are magnificent forests of
long-leaf pine, and lesser lowland growths of oak, ash, magnolia,
cypress and other valuable timber. The Watkins railway extending to the
N.E. and the Kansas City Southern extending to the N.W. have opened up
the very best of the forest. The country to the S. and W. is largely
given over to rice culture. Lake Charles is the chief centre of lumber
manufacture in the state, and has rice mills, car shops and an important
trade in wool. Ten miles W. are sulphur mines (product in 1907 about
362,000 tons), which with those of Sicily produce a large part of the
total product of the world. Jennings, about 34 m. to the E., is the
centre of oil fields, once very productive but now of diminishing
importance. Welsh, 23 m. E., is the centre of a newer field; and others
lie to the N. Lake Charles was settled about 1852, largely by people
from Iowa and neighbouring states, was incorporated as a town in 1857
under the name of Charleston and again in 1867 under its present name,
and was chartered as a city in 1886. The city suffered severely by fire
in April 1910.
LAKE CITY, a town and the county-seat of Columbia county, Florida,
U.S.A., 59 m. by rail W. by S. of Jacksonville. Pop. (1900) 4013, of
whom 2159 were negroes; (1905) 6509; (1910) 5032. Lake City is served by
the Atlantic Coast Line, the Seaboard Air Line and the Georgia Southern
& Florida railways. There are ten small lakes in the neighbourhood, and
the town is a winter and health resort. It is the seat of Columbia
College (Baptist, 1907); the Florida Agricultural College was opened
here in 1883, became the university of Florida in 1903, and in 1905 was
abolished by the Buckman Law. Vegetables and fruits grown for the
northern markets, sea-island cotton and tobacco are important products
of the surrounding country, and Lake City has some trade in cotton,
lumber, phosphates and turpentine. The town was first settled about 1826
as Alligator; it was incorporated in 1854; adopted the present name in
1859; and in 1901, with an enlarged area, was re-incorporated.
LAKE DISTRICT, in England, a district containing all the principal
English lakes, and variously termed the Lake Country, Lakeland and "the
Lakes." It falls within the north-western counties of Cumberland,
Westmorland and Lancashire (Furness district), about one-half being
within the first of these. Although celebrated far outside the confines
of Great Britain as a district of remarkable and strongly individual
physical beauty, its area is only some 700 sq. m., a circle with radius
of 15 m. from the central point covering practically the whole. Within
this circle, besides the largest lake, Windermere, is the highest point
in England, Scafell Pike; yet Windermere is but 10½ m. in length, and
covers an area of 5.69 sq. m., while Scafell Pike is only 3210 ft. in
height. But the lakes show a wonderful variety of character, from open
expanse and steep rock-bound shores to picturesque island-groups and
soft wooded banks; while the mountains have always a remarkable dignity,
less from the profile of their summits than from the bold sweeping lines
of their flanks, unbroken by vegetation, and often culminating in sheer
cliffs or crags. At their feet, the flat green valley floors of the
higher elevations give place in the lower parts to lovely woods. The
streams are swift and clear, and numerous small waterfalls are
characteristic of the district. To the north, west and south, a flat
coastal belt, bordering the Irish Sea, with its inlets Morecambe Bay and
Solway Firth, and broadest in the north, marks off the Lake District,
while to the east the valleys of the Eden and the Lune divide it from
the Pennine mountain system. Geologically, too, it is individual. Its
centre is of volcanic rocks, complex in character, while the
Coal-measures and New Red Sandstone appear round the edges. The district
as a whole is grooved by a main depression, running from north to south
along the valleys of St John, Thirlmere, Grasmere and Windermere,
surmounting a pass (Dunmail Raise) of only 783 ft.; while a secondary
depression, in the same direction, runs along Derwentwater, Borrowdale,
Wasdale and Wastwater, but here Sty Head Pass, between Borrowdale and
Wasdale, rises to 1600 ft. The centre of the 15-m. radius lies on the
lesser heights between Langstrath and Dunmail Raise, which may, however,
be the crown of an ancient dome of rocks, "the dissected skeleton of
which, worn by the warfare of air and rain and ice, now alone remains"
(Dr H. R. Mill, "Bathymetrical Survey of the English Lakes,"
_Geographical Journal_, vi. 48). The principal features of the district
may be indicated by following this circle round from north, by west,
south and east.
The river Derwent (q.v.), rising in the tarns and "gills" or "ghylls"
(small streams running in deeply-grooved clefts) north of Sty Head
Pass and the Scafell mass flows north through the wooded Borrowdale
and forms Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite. These two lakes are in a
class apart from all the rest, being broader for their length, and
quite shallow (about 18 ft. average and 70 ft. maximum), as distinct
from the long, narrow and deep troughs occupied by the other chief
lakes, which average from 40 to 135 ft. deep. Derwentwater (q.v.),
studded with many islands, is perhaps the most beautiful of all.
Borrowdale is joined on the east by the bare wild dale of Langstrath,
and the Greta joins the Derwent immediately below Derwentwater; the
town of Keswick lying near the junction. Derwentwater and
Bassenthwaite occupy a single depression, a flat alluvial plain
separating them. From Seatoller in Borrowdale a road traverses
Honister Pass (1100 ft.), whence it descends westward, beneath the
majestic Honister Crags, where green slate is quarried, into the
valley containing Buttermere (94 ft. max. depth) and Crummock Water
(144 ft.), drained by the Cocker. Between this and the Derwent valley
the principal height is Grasmoor (2791 ft.); southward a steep narrow
ridge (High Style, 2643) divides it from Ennerdale, containing
Ennerdale Water (148 ft. max. depth), which is fed by the Liza and
drained by the Ehen. A splendid range separates this dale from Wasdale
and its tributary Mosedale, including Great Gable (2949 ft.), Pillar
(2927), with the precipitous Pillar Rock on the Ennerdale flank and
Steeple (2746). Wasdale Head, between Gable and the Scafell range, is
peculiarly grand, with dark grey screes and black crags frowning above
its narrow bottom. On this side of Gable is the fine detached rock,
Napes Needle. Wastwater, 3 m. in length, is the deepest lake of all
(258 ft.), its floor, like those of Windermere and Ullswater, sinking
below sea-level. Its east shore consists of a great range of screes.
East of Wasdale lies the range of Scafell (q.v.), its chief points
being Scafell (3162 ft.), Scafell Pike (3210), Lingmell (2649) and
Great End (2984), while the line is continued over Esk Hause Pass
(2490) along a fine line of heights (Bow Fell, 2960; Crinkle Crags,
2816), to embrace the head of Eskdale. The line then descends to
Wrynose Pass (1270 ft.), from which the Duddon runs south through a
vale of peculiar richness in its lower parts; while the range
continues south to culminate in the Old Man of Coniston (2633) with
the splendid Dow Crags above Goats Water. The pleasant vale of Yewdale
drains south to Coniston Lake (5½ m. long, 184 ft. max. depth), east
of which a lower, well-wooded tract, containing two beautiful lesser
lakes, Tarn Hows and Esthwaite Water, extends to Windermere (q.v.).
This lake collects waters by the Brathay from Langdale, the head of
which, between Bow Fell and Langdale Pikes (2401 ft.), is very fine;
and by the Rothay from Dunmail Raise and the small lakes of Grasmere
and Rydal Water, embowered in woods. East of the Rothay valley and
Thirlmere lies the mountain mass including Helvellyn (3118 ft.),
Fairfield (2863) and other points, with magnificent crags at several
places on the eastern side towards Grisedale and Patterdale. These
dales drain to Ullswater (205 ft. max., second to Windermere in area),
and so north-east to the Eden. To the east and south-east lies the
ridge named High Street (2663 ft.), from the Roman road still
traceable from south to north along its summit, and sloping east again
to the sequestered Hawes Water (103 ft. max.), a curiously shaped lake
nearly divided by the delta of the Measand Beck. There remains the
Thirlmere valley. Thirlmere itself was raised in level, and adapted by
means of a dam at the north end, as a reservoir for the water-supply
of Manchester in 1890-1894. It drains north by St John's Vale into the
Greta, north of which again rises a mountain-group of which the chief
summits are Saddleback or Blencathra (2847 ft.) and the graceful peak
of Skiddaw (3054). The most noteworthy waterfalls are--Scale Force
(Dano-Norwegian _fors_, _foss_), beside Crummock, Lodore near
Derwentwater, Dungeon Gill Force, beside Langdale, Dalegarth Force in
Eskdale, Aira near Ullswater, sung by Wordsworth, Stock Gill Force and
Rydal Falls near Ambleside.
The principal centres in the Lake District are Keswick (Derwentwater),
Ambleside, Bowness, Windermere and Lakeside (Windermere), Coniston and
Boot (Eskdale), all of which, except Ambleside and Bowness (which
nearly joins Windermere) are accessible by rail. The considerable
village of Grasmere lies beautifully at the head of the lake of that
name; and above Esthwaite is the small town of Hawkshead, with an
ancient church, and picturesque houses curiously built on the
hill-slope and sometimes spanning the streets. There are regular
steamer services on Windermere and Ullswater. Coaches and cars
traverse the main roads during the summer, but many of the finest
dales and passes are accessible only on foot or by ponies. All the
mountains offer easy routes to pedestrians, but some of them, as
Scafell, Pillar, Gable (Napes Needle), Pavey Ark above Langdale and
Dow Crags near Coniston, also afford ascents for experienced climbers.
This mountainous district, having the sea to the west, records an
unusually heavy rainfall. Near Seathwaite, below Styhead Pass, the
largest annual rainfall in the British Isles is recorded, the average
(1870-1899) being 133.53 in., while 173.7 was measured in 1903 and
243.98 in. in 1872. At Keswick the annual mean is 60.02, at Grasmere
about 80 ins. The months of maximum rainfall at Seathwaite are
November, December and January and September.
Fish taken in the lakes include perch, pike, char and trout in
Windermere, Ennerdale, Bassenthwaite, Derwentwater, &c., and the
gwyniad or fresh-water herring in Ullswater. The industries of the
Lake District include slate quarrying and some lead and zinc mining,
and weaving, bobbin-making and pencil-making.
Setting aside London and Edinburgh, no locality in the British Isles
is so intimately associated with the history of English literature as
the Lake District. In point of time the poet whose name is first
connected with the region is Gray, who wrote a journal of his tour in
1769. But it was Wordsworth, a native of Cumberland, born on the
outskirts of the Lake District itself, who really made it a Mecca for
lovers of English poetry. Out of his long life of eighty years, sixty
were spent amid its lakes and mountains, first as a schoolboy at
Hawkshead, and afterwards as a resident at Grasmere (1799-1813) and
Rydal Mount (1813-1850). In the churchyard of Grasmere the poet and
his wife lie buried; and very near to them are the remains of Hartley
Coleridge (son of the poet), who himself lived many years at Keswick,
Ambleside and Grasmere. Southey, the friend of Wordsworth, was a
resident of Keswick for forty years (1803-1843), and was buried in
Crosthwaite churchyard. Samuel Taylor Coleridge lived some time at
Keswick, and also with the Wordsworths at Grasmere. From 1807 to 1815
Christopher North (John Wilson) was settled at Windermere. De Quincey
spent the greater part of the years 1809 to 1828 at Grasmere, in the
first cottage which Wordsworth had inhabited. Ambleside, or its
environs, was also the place of residence of Dr Arnold (of Rugby), who
spent there the vacations of the last ten years of his life; and of
Harriet Martineau, who built herself a house there in 1845. At Keswick
Mrs Lynn Linton was born in 1822. Brantwood, a house beside Coniston
Lake, was the home of Ruskin during the last years of his life. In
addition to these residents or natives of the locality, Shelley,
Scott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Clough, Crabb Robinson, Carlyle, Keats,
Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Mrs Hemans, Gerald Massey and others of less
reputation made longer or shorter visits, or were bound by ties of
friendship with the poets already mentioned. The Vale of St John, near
Keswick, recalls Scott's _Bridal of Triermain_. But there is a deeper
connexion than this between the Lake District and English letters.
German literature tells of several literary schools, or groups of
writers animated by the same ideas, and working in the spirit of the
same principles and by the same poetic methods. The most notable
instance--indeed it is almost the only instance--of the kind in
English literature is the Lake School of Poets. Of this school the
acknowledged head and founder was Wordsworth, and the tenets it
professed are those laid down by the poet himself in the famous
preface to the edition of _The Lyrical Ballads_ which he published in
1800. Wordsworth's theories of poetry--the objects best suited for
poetic treatment, the characteristics of such treatment and the choice
of diction suitable for the purpose--may be said to have grown out of
the soil and substance of the lakes and mountains, and out of the
homely lives of the people, of Cumberland and Westmoreland.
See CUMBERLAND, LANCASHIRE, WESTMORLAND. The following is a selection
from the literature of the subject: Harriet Martineau, _The English
Lakes_ (Windermere, 1858); Mrs Lynn Linton, _The Lake Country_
(London, 1864); E. Waugh, _Rambles in the Lake Country_ (1861) and _In
the Lake Country_ (1880); W. Knight, _Through the Wordsworth Country_
(London, 1890); H. D. Rawnsley, _Literary Associations of the English
Lakes_ (2 vols., Glasgow, 1894) and _Life and Nature of the English
Lakes_ (Glasgow, 1899); Stopford Brooke, _Dove Cottage, Wordsworth's
Home from 1800 to 1808_; A. G. Bradley, _The Lake District, its
Highways and Byeways_ (London, 1901); Sir John Harwood, _History of
the Thirlmere Water Scheme_ (1895); for mountain-climbing, Col. J.
Brown, _Mountain Ascents in Westmorland and Cumberland_ (London,
1888); Haskett-Smith, _Climbing in the British Isles_, part, i.; Owen
G. Jones, _Rock-climbing in the English Lake District_, 2nd ed. by W.
M. Crook (Keswick, 1900).
LAKE DWELLINGS, the term employed in archaeology for habitations
constructed, not on the dry land, but within the margins of lakes or
creeks at some distance from the shore.
The villages of the Guajiros in the Gulf of Maracaibo are described by
Goering as composed of houses with low sloping roofs perched on lofty
piles and connected with each other by bridges of planks. Each house
consisted of two apartments; the floor was formed of split stems of
trees set close together and covered with mats; they were reached from
the shore by dug-out canoes poled over the shallow waters, and a notched
tree trunk served as a ladder. The custom is also common in the
estuaries of the Orinoco and Amazon. A similar system prevails in New
Guinea. Dumont d'Urville describes four such villages in the Bay of
Dorei, containing from eight to fifteen blocks or clusters of houses,
each block separately built on piles, and consisting of a row of
distinct dwellings. C. D. Cameron describes three villages thus built on
piles in Lake Mohrya, or Moria, in Central Africa, the motive here being
to prevent surprise by bands of slave-catchers. Similar constructions
have been described by travellers, among the Dyaks of Borneo, in
Celebes, in the Caroline Islands, on the Gold Coast of Africa, and in
other places.
Hippocrates, writing in the 5th century B.C., says of the people of the
Phasis that their country is hot and marshy and subject to frequent
inundations, and that they live in houses of timber and reeds
constructed in the midst of the waters, and use boats of a single tree
trunk. Herodotus, writing also in the 5th century B.C., describes the
people of Lake Prasias as living in houses constructed on platforms
supported on piles in the middle of the lake, which are approached from
the land by a single narrow bridge. Abulfeda the geographer, writing in
the 13th century, notices the fact that part of the Apamaean Lake was
inhabited by Christian fishermen who lived on the lake in wooden huts
built on piles, and Sir John Lubbock (Lord Avebury) mentions that the
Rumelian fishermen on Lake Prasias "still inhabit wooden cottages built
over the water, as in the time of Herodotus."
The records of the wars in Ireland in the 16th century show that the
petty chieftains of that time had their defensive strongholds
constructed in the "freshwater lochs" of the country, and there is
record evidence of a similar system in the western parts of Scotland.
The archaeological researches of the past fifty years have shown that
such artificial constructions in lakes were used as defensive dwellings
by the Celtic people from an early period to medieval times (see
CRANNOG). Similar researches have also established the fact that in
prehistoric times nearly all the lakes of Switzerland, and many in the
adjoining countries--in Savoy and the north of Italy, in Austria and
Hungary and in Mecklenburg and Pomerania--were peopled, so to speak, by
lake-dwelling communities, living in villages constructed on platforms
supported by piles at varying distances from the shores. The principal
groups are those in the Lakes of Bourget, Geneva, Neuchâtel, Bienne,
Zürich and Constance lying to the north of the Alps, and in the Lakes
Maggiore, Varese, Iseo and Garda lying to the south of that mountain
range. Many smaller lakes, however, contain them, and they are also
found in peat moors on the sites of ancient lakes now drained or silted
up, as at Laibach in Carniola. In some of the larger lakes the number of
settlements has been very great. Fifty are enumerated in the Lake of
Neuchâtel, thirty-two in the Lake of Constance, twenty-four in the Lake
of Geneva, and twenty in the Lake of Bienne. The site of the lake
dwelling of Wangen, in the Untersee, Lake of Constance, forms a
parallelogram more than 700 paces in length by about 120 paces in
breadth. The settlement at Morges, one of the largest in the Lake of
Geneva, is 1200 ft. long by 150 ft. in breadth. The settlement of Sutz,
one of the largest in the Lake of Bienne, extends over six acres, and
was connected with the shore by a gangway nearly 100 yds. long and about
40 ft. wide.
The substructure which supported the platforms on which the dwellings
were placed was most frequently of piles driven into the bottom of the
lake. Less frequently it consisted of a stack of brushwood or fascines
built up from the bottom and strengthened by stakes penetrating the mass
so as to keep it from spreading. When piles were used they were the
rough stems of trees of a length proportioned to the depth of the water,
sharpened sometimes by fire and at other times chopped to a point by
hatchets. On their level tops the beams supporting the platforms were
laid and fastened by wooden pins, or inserted in mortices cut in the
heads of the piles. In some cases the whole construction was further
steadied and strengthened by cross beams, notched into the piles below
the supports of the platform. The platform itself was usually composed
of rough layers of unbarked stems, but occasionally it was formed of
boards split from larger stems. When the mud was too soft to afford
foothold for the piles they were mortised into a framework of tree
trunks placed horizontally on the bottom of the lake. On the other hand,
when the bottom was rocky so that the piles could not be driven, they
were steadied at their bases by being enveloped in a mound of loose
stones, in the manner in which the foundations of piers and breakwaters
are now constructed. In cases where piles have not been used, as at
Niederwil and Wauwyl, the substructure is a mass of fascines or faggots
laid parallel and crosswise upon one another with intervening layers of
brushwood or of clay and gravel, a few piles here and there being fixed
throughout the mass to serve as guides or stays. At Niederwil the
platform was formed of split boards, many of which were 2 ft. broad and
2 or 3 in. in thickness.
On these substructures were the huts composing the settlement; for the
peculiarity of these lake dwellings is that they were pile villages, or
clusters of huts occupying a common platform. The huts themselves were
quadrilateral in form. The size of each dwelling is in some cases marked
by boards resting edgeways on the platform, like the skirting boards
over the flooring of the rooms in a modern house. The walls, which were
supported by posts, or by piles of greater length, were formed of
wattle-work, coated with clay. The floors were of clay, and in each
floor there was a hearth constructed of flat slabs of stone. The roofs
were thatched with bark, straw, reeds or rushes. As the superstructures
are mostly gone, there is no evidence as to the position and form of the
doorways, or the size, number and position of the windows, if there were
any. In one case, at Schussenried, the house, which was of an oblong
quadrangular form, about 33 by 23 ft., was divided into two rooms by a
partition. The outer room, which was the smaller of the two, was entered
by a doorway 3 ft. in width facing the south. The access to the inner
room was by a similar door through the partition. The walls were formed
of split tree-trunks set upright and plastered with clay; and the
flooring of similar timbers bedded in clay. In other cases the remains
of the gangways or bridges connecting the settlements with the shore
have been discovered, but often the village appears to have been
accessible only by canoes. Several of these single-tree canoes have been
found, one of which is 43 ft. in length and 4 ft. 4 in. in its greatest
width. It is impossible to estimate with any degree of certainty the
number of separate dwellings of which any of these villages may have
consisted, but at Niederwil they stood almost contiguously on the
platform, the space between them not exceeding 3 ft. in width. The size
of the huts also varied considerably. At Niederwil they were 20 ft. long
and 12 ft. wide, while at Robenhausen they were about 27 ft. long by
about 22 ft. wide.
The character of the relics shows that in some cases the settlements
have been the dwellings of a people using no materials but stone, bone
and wood for their implements, ornaments and weapons; in others, of a
people using bronze as well as stone and bone; and in others again the
occasional use of iron is disclosed. But, though the character of the
relics is thus changed, there is no corresponding change in the
construction and arrangements of the dwellings. The settlement in the
Lake of Moosseedorf, near Bern, affords the most perfect example of a
lake dwelling of the Stone age. It was a parallelogram 70 ft. long by 50
ft. wide, supported on piles, and having a gangway built on faggots
connecting it with the land. The superstructure had been destroyed by
fire. The implements found in the relic bed under it were axe-heads of
stone, with their haftings of stag's horn and wood; a flint saw, set in
a handle of fir wood and fastened with asphalt; flint flakes and
arrow-heads; harpoons of stag's horn with barbs; awls, needles, chisels,
fish-hooks and other implements of bone; a comb of yew wood 5 in. long;
and a skate made out of the leg bone of a horse. The pottery consisted
chiefly of roughly-made vessels, some of which were of large size,
others had holes under the rims for suspension, and many were covered
with soot, the result of their use as culinary vessels. Burnt wheat,
barley and linseed, with many varieties of seeds and fruits, were
plentifully mingled with the bones of the stag, the ox, the swine, the
sheep and the goat, representing the ordinary food of the inhabitants,
while remains of the beaver, the fox, the hare, the dog, the bear, the
horse, the elk and the bison were also found.
The settlement of Robenhausen, in the moor which was formerly the bed of
the ancient Lake of Pfäffikon, seems to have continued in occupation
after the introduction of bronze. The site covers nearly 3 acres, and is
estimated to have contained 100,000 piles. In some parts three distinct
successions of inhabited platforms have been traced. The first had been
destroyed by fire. It is represented at the bottom of the lake by a
layer of charcoal mixed with implements of stone and bone and other
relics highly carbonized. The second is represented above the bottom by
a series of piles with burnt heads, and in the bottom by a layer of
charcoal mixed with corn, apples, cloth, bones, pottery and implements
of stone and bone, separated from the first layer of charcoal by 3 ft.
of peaty sediment intermixed with relics of the occupation of the
platform. The piles of the third settlement do not reach down to the
shell marl, but are fixed in the layers representing the first and
second settlements. They are formed of split oak trunks, while those of
the two first settlements are round stems chiefly of soft wood. The huts
of this last settlement appear to have had cattle stalls between them,
the droppings and litter forming heaps at the lake bottom. The bones of
the animals consumed as food at this station were found in such numbers
that 5 tons were collected in the construction of a watercourse which
crossed the site. Among the wooden objects recovered from the relic beds
were tubs, plates, ladles and spoons, a flail for threshing corn, a last
for stretching shoes of hide, celt handles, clubs, long-bows of yew,
floats and implements of fishing and a dug-out canoe 12 ft. long. No
spindle-whorls were found, but there were many varieties of cloth,
platted and woven, bundles of yarn and balls of string. Among the tools
of bone and stag's horn were awls, needles, harpoons, scraping tools and
haftings for stone axe-heads. The implements of stone were chiefly
axe-heads and arrow-heads. Of clay and earthenware there were many
varieties of domestic dishes, cups and pipkins, and crucibles or melting
pots made of clay and horse dung and still retaining the drossy coating
of the melted bronze.
The settlement of Auvernier in the Lake of Neuchâtel is one of the
richest and most considerable stations of the Bronze age. It has yielded
four bronze swords, ten socketed spear-heads, forty celts or axe-heads
and sickles, fifty knives, twenty socketed chisels, four hammers and an
anvil, sixty rings for the arms and legs, several highly ornate torques
or twisted neck rings, and upwards of two hundred hair pins of various
sizes up to 16 in. in length, some having spherical heads in which
plates of gold were set. Moulds for sickles, lance-heads and bracelets
were found cut in stone or made in baked clay. From four to five hundred
vessels of pottery finely made and elegantly shaped are indicated by the
fragments recovered from the relic bed. The Lac de Bourget, in Savoy,
has eight settlements, all of the Bronze age. These have yielded upwards
of 4000 implements, weapons and ornaments of bronze, among which were a
large proportion of moulds and founders' materials. A few stone
implements suggest the transition from stone to bronze; and the
occasional occurrence of iron weapons and pottery of Gallo-Roman origin
indicates the survival of some of the settlements to Roman times.
The relative antiquity of the earlier settlements of the Stone and
Bronze ages is not capable of being deduced from existing evidence. "We
may venture to place them," says Dr F. Keller, "in an age when iron and
bronze had been long known, but had not come into our districts in such
plenty as to be used for the common purposes of household life, at a
time when amber had already taken its place as an ornament and had
become an object of traffic." It is now considered that the people who
erected the lake dwellings of Central Europe were also the people who
were spread over the mainland. The forms and the ornamentation of the
implements and weapons of stone and bronze found in the lake dwellings
are the same as those of the implements and weapons in these materials
found in the soil of the adjacent regions, and both groups must
therefore be ascribed to the industry of one and the same people.
Whether dwelling on the land or dwelling in the lake, they have
exhibited so many indications of capacity, intelligence, industry and
social organization that they cannot be considered as presenting, even
in their Stone age, a very low condition of culture or civilization.
Their axes were made of tough stones, sawn from the block and ground to
the fitting shape. They were fixed by the butt in a socket of stag's
horn, mortised into a handle of wood. Their knives and saws of flint
were mounted in wooden handles and fixed with asphalt. They made and
used an endless variety of bone tools. Their pottery, though roughly
finished, is well made, the vessels often of large size and capable of
standing the fire as cooking utensils. For domestic dishes they also
made wooden tubs, plates, spoons, ladles and the like. The industries of
spinning and weaving were largely practised. They made nets and fishing
lines, and used canoes. They practised agriculture, cultivating several
varieties of wheat and barley, besides millet and flax. They kept
horses, cattle, sheep, goats and swine. Their clothing was partly of
linen and partly of woollen fabrics and the skins of their beasts. Their
food was nutritious and varied, their dwellings neither unhealthy nor
incommodious. They lived in the security and comfort obtained by social
organization, and were apparently intelligent, industrious and
progressive communities.
There is no indication of an abrupt change from the use of stone to the
use of metal such as might have occurred had the knowledge of copper and
bronze, and the methods of working them, been introduced through the
conquest of the original inhabitants by an alien race of superior
culture and civilization. The improved cultural conditions become
apparent in the multiplication of the varieties of tools, weapons and
ornaments made possible by the more adaptable qualities of the new
material; and that the development of the Bronze age culture in the lake
dwellings followed the same course as in the surrounding regions where
the people dwelt on the dry land is evident from the correspondence of
the types of implements, weapons, ornaments and utensils common to both
these conditions of life.
Other classes of prehistoric pile-structures akin to the lake dwellings
are the Terremare of Italy and the Terpen of Holland. Both of these are
settlements of wooden huts erected on piles, not over the water, but on
flat land subject to inundations. The terremare (so named from the marly
soil of which they are composed) appear as mounds, sometimes of very
considerable extent, which when dug into disclose the remains and relic
beds of the ancient settlements. They are most abundant in the plains of
northern Italy traversed by the Po and its tributaries, though similar
constructions have been found in Hungary in the valley of the Theiss.
These pile-villages were often surrounded by an earthen rampart within
which the huts were erected in more or less regular order. Many of them
present evidence of having been more than once destroyed by fire and
reconstructed, while others show one or more reconstructions at higher
levels on the same site. The contents of the relic beds indicate that
they belong for the most part to the age of bronze, although in some
cases they may be referred to the latter part of the Stone age. Their
inhabitants practised agriculture and kept the common domestic animals,
while their tools, weapons and ornaments were mainly of similar
character to those of the contemporary lake dwellers of the adjoining
regions. Some of the Italian terremare show quadrangular constructions
made like the modern log houses, of undressed tree trunks superposed
longitudinally and overlapping at the ends, as at Castione in the
province of Parma. A similar mode of construction is found in the
pile-village on the banks of the Save, near Donja Dolina in Bosnia,
described in 1904 by Dr Truhelka. Here the larger houses had platforms
in front of them forming terraces at different levels descending towards
the river. There was a cemetery adjacent to the village in which both
unburnt and cremated interments occurred, the former predominating. From
the general character of the relics this settlement appeared to belong
to the early Iron age. The Terpen of Holland appear as mounds somewhat
similar to those of the terremare, and were also pile structures, on low
or marshy lands subject to inundations from the sea. Unlike the
terremare and the lake dwellings they do not seem to belong to the
prehistoric ages, but yield indications of occupation in post-Roman and
medieval times.
AUTHORITIES.--The materials for the investigation of this singular
phase of prehistoric life were first collected and systematized by Dr
Ferdinand Keller (1800-1881), of Zürich, and printed in _Mittheilungen
der Antiquarischen Gesellschaft in Zürich_, vols, ix.-xxii., 4to
(1855-1886). The substance of these reports has been issued as a
separate work in England, _The Lake Dwellings of Switzerland and other
parts of Europe_, by Dr Ferdinand Keller, translated and arranged by
John Edward Lee, 2nd ed. (2 vols. 8vo, London, 1878). Other works on
the same subject are Frédéric Troyon, _Habitations lacustres des temps
anciens et modernes_ (Lausanne, 1860); E. Desor, _Les Palafittes ou
constructions lacustres du lac de Neuchâtel_ (Paris, 1865); E. Desor
and L. Favre, _Le Bel Âge du bronze lacustre en Suisse_ (Paris, 1874);
A. Perrin, _Étude préhistorique sur la Savoie spécialement à l'époque
lacustre_ (_Les Palafittes du lac de Bourget_, Paris, 1870); Ernest
Chantre, _Les Palafittes ou constructions lacustres du lac de Paladru_
(Chambery, 1871); Bartolomeo Gastaldi, _Lake Habitations and
prehistoric Remains in the Turbaries and Marl-beds of Northern and
Central Italy_, translated by C. H. Chambers (London, 1865); Sir John
Lubbock (Lord Avebury), _Prehistoric Times_ (4th ed., London, 1878);
Robert Munro, _The Lake-Dwellings of Europe_ (London, 1890), with a
bibliography of the subject. (J. An.)
LAKE GENEVA, a city of Walworth county, Wisconsin, U.S.A., 65 m. N.W. of
Chicago. Pop. (1900) 2585, of whom 468 were foreign-born; (1905) 3449;
(1910) 3079. It is served by the Chicago & Northwestern railway. The
city is picturesquely situated on the shores of Lake Geneva (9 m. long
and 1½ to 3 m. wide), a beautiful body of remarkably clear water, fed by
springs, and encircled by rolling hills covered with thick groves of
hardwood trees. The region is famous as a summer resort, particularly
for Chicago people. The city is the seat of Oakwood Sanitarium, and at
Williams Bay, 6 m. distant, is the Yerkes Observatory of the University
of Chicago. Dairying is the most important industrial interest. The
first settlement on Lake Geneva was made about 1833. The city was
chartered in 1893.
LAKE OF THE WOODS, a lake in the south-west of the province of Ontario,
Canada, bordering west on the province of Manitoba, and south on the
state of Minnesota. It is of extremely irregular shape, and contains
many islands. Its length is 70 m., breadth 10 to 50 m., area 1500 sq. m.
It lies in the centre of the Laurentian region between Lakes Winnipeg
and Superior, and an area of 36,000 sq. m. drains to it. It collects the
waters of many rivers, the chief being Rainy river from the east,
draining Rainy Lake. By the Winnipeg river on the north-east it
discharges into Lake Winnipeg. At its source Winnipeg river is 1057 ft.
above the sea, and drops 347 ft. in its course of 165 m. The scenery
both on and around the lake is exceedingly beautiful, and the islands
are largely occupied by the summer residences of city merchants. Kenora,
a flourishing town at the source of the Winnipeg river, is the centre of
the numerous lumbering and mining enterprises of the vicinity.
LAKE PLACID, a village in Essex county, New York, U.S.A., on the W.
shore of Mirror Lake, near the S. end of Lake Placid, about 42 m. N.W.
of Ticonderoga. Pop. (1905) 1514; (1910) 1682. The village is served by
the Delaware & Hudson railway. The region is one of the most attractive
in the Adirondacks, and is a much frequented summer resort. There are
four good golf courses here, and the village has a well-built club
house, called the "Neighborhood House." The village lies on the narrow
strip of land (about 1/3 m.) between Mirror Lake (about 1 m. long, N.
and S., and 1/3 m. wide), and Lake Placid, about 5 m. long (N.N.E. by
S.S.W.), and about 1½ m. (maximum) broad; its altitude is 1864 ft. The
lake is roughly divided, from N. to S. by three islands--Moose, the
largest, and Hawk, both privately owned, and Buck--and is a beautiful
sheet of water in a picturesque setting of forests and heavily wooded
hills and mountains. Among the principal peaks in the vicinity are
Whiteface Mountain (4871 ft.), about 3 m. N.W. of the N. end of the
lake; McKenzie Mountain (3872 ft.), about 1 m. to the W., and Pulpit
Mountain (2658 ft.), on the E. shore. The summit of Whiteface Mountain
commands a fine view, with Gothic (4738 ft.), Saddleback (4530 ft.),
Basin (4825 ft.), Marcy (5344 ft.), and McIntyre (5210 ft.) mountains
about 10 m. to the S. and Lake Champlain to the E., and to the N.E. may
be seen, on clear days, the spires of Montreal. In the valleys E. and S.
are the headwaters of the famous Ausable river. About 2 m. E. of the
village, at North Elba, is the grave of the abolitionist, John Brown,
with its huge boulder monument, and near it is another monument which
bears the names of the 20 persons who bought the John Brown farm and
gave it to the state. The railway to the village was completed in 1893.
The village was incorporated in 1900.
LAKEWOOD, a village of Ocean county, New Jersey, U.S.A., in the township
of Lakewood, 59 m. S. by W. of New York city, and 8 m. from the coast,
on the Central Railroad of New Jersey. Pop. (1900) of the township,
including the village, 3094; (1905) 4265; (1910) 5149. Lakewood is a
fashionable health and winter resort, and is situated in the midst of a
pine forest, with two small lakes, and many charming walks and drives.
In the village there are a number of fine residences, large hotels, a
library and a hospital. The winter temperature is 10-12° F. warmer than
in New York. The township of Lakewood was incorporated in 1892.
LAKH (from the Sans. _laksha_, one hundred thousand), a term used in
British India, in a colloquial sense to signify a lakh of rupees
(written 1,00,000), which at the face value of the rupee would be worth
£10,000, but now is worth only £6666. The term is also largely used in
trade returns. A hundred lakhs make a crore.
LAKHIMPUR, a district of British India in the extreme east of the
province of Eastern Bengal and Assam. Area, 4529 sq. m. It lies along
both banks of the Brahmaputra for about 400 m.; it is bounded N. by the
Daphla, Miri, Abor and Mishmi hills, E. by the Mishmi and Kachin hills,
S. by the watershed of the Patkai range and the Lohit branch of the
Brahmaputra, and W. by the districts of Darrang and Sibsagar. The
Brahmaputra is navigable for steamers in all seasons as far as
Dibrugarh, in the rainy season as far as Sadiya; its navigable
tributaries within the district are the Subansiri, Dibru and Dihing. The
deputy-commissioner in charge exercises political control over numerous
tribes beyond the inner surveyed border. The most important of these
tribes are the Miris, Abors, Mishmis, Khamtis, Kachins and Nagas. In
1901 the population was 371,396, an increase of 46% in the decade. The
district has enjoyed remarkable and continuous prosperity. At each
successive census the percentage of increase has been over 40, the
present population being more than three times as great as that of 1872.
This increase is chiefly due to the numerous tea gardens and to the coal
mines and other enterprises of the Assam Railways and Trading Company.
Lakhimpur was the first district into which tea cultivation was
introduced by the government, and the Assam Company began operations
here in 1840. The railway, known as the Dibru-Sadiya line, runs from
Dibrugarh to Makum, with two branches to Talap and Margherita, and has
been connected across the hills with the Assam-Bengal railway. The coal
is of excellent quality, and is exported by river as far as Calcutta.
The chief oil-wells are at Digboi. The oil is refined at Margherita,
producing a good quality of kerosene oil and first-class paraffin, with
wax and other by-products. The company also manufactures bricks and
pipes of various kinds. Another industry is cutting timber, for the
manufacture of tea-chests, &c.
Lakhimpur figures largely in the annals of Assam as the region where
successive invaders from the east first reached the Brahmaputra. The
Bara Bhuiyas, originally from the western provinces of India, were
driven out by the Chutias (a Shan race), and these in their turn gave
place to their more powerful brethren, the Ahoms, in the 13th century.
The Burmese, who had ruined the native kingdoms, at the end of the
18th century, were in 1825 expelled by the British, who placed the
southern part of the country, together with Sibsagar under the rule of
Raja Purandhar Singh; but it was not till 1838 that the whole was
taken under direct British administration. The headquarters are at
Dibrugarh.
See _Lakhimpur District Gazetteer_ (Calcutta, 1905).
LAKSHMI (Sans. for "mark," "sign," generally used in composition with
_punya_, "prosperous"; hence "good sign," "good fortune"), in Hindu
mythology, the wife of Vishnu worshipped as the goddess of love, beauty
and prosperity. She has many other names, the chief being _Loka mata_
("mother of the world"), _Padma_ ("the lotus"), _Padma laya_ ("she who
dwells on a lotus") and _Jaladhija_ ("the ocean-born"). She is
represented as of a bright golden colour and seated on a lotus. She is
said to have been born from the sea of milk when it was churned from
ambrosia. Many quaint myths surround her birth. In the Rig Veda her name
does not occur as a goddess.
LALAING, JACQUES DE (c. 1420-1453), Flemish knight, was originally in
the service of the duke of Cleves and afterwards in that of the duke of
Burgundy, Philip III., the Good, gaining great renown by his prowess in
the tiltyard. The duke of Burgundy entrusted him with embassies to the
pope and the king of France (1451), and subsequently sent him to put
down the revolt of the inhabitants of Ghent, in which expedition he was
killed. His biography, _Le Livre des faits de messire Jacques de
Lalaing_, which has been published several times, is mainly the work of
the Burgundian herald and chronicler Jean le Fèvre, better known as
_Toison d'or_; the Flemish historiographer Georges Chastellain and the
herald Charolais also took part in its compilation.
LALANDE, JOSEPH JÉRÔME LEFRANÇAIS DE (1732-1807), French astronomer, was
born at Bourg (department of Ain), on the 11th of July 1732. His parents
sent him to Paris to study law; but the accident of lodging in the Hôtel
Cluny, where J. N. Delisle had his observatory, drew him to astronomy,
and he became the zealous and favoured pupil of both Delisle and Pierre
Lemonnier. He, however, completed his legal studies, and was about to
return to Bourg to practise there as an advocate, when Lemonnier
obtained permission to send him to Berlin, to make observations on the
lunar parallax in concert with those of N. L. Lacaille at the Cape of
Good Hope. The successful execution of his task procured for him, before
he was twenty-one, admission to the Academy of Berlin, and the post of
adjunct astronomer to that of Paris. He now devoted himself to the
improvement of the planetary theory, publishing in 1759 a corrected
edition of Halley's tables, with a history of the celebrated comet whose
return in that year he had aided Clairault to calculate. In 1762 J. N.
Delisle resigned in his favour the chair of astronomy in the Collège de
France, the duties of which were discharged by Lalande for forty-six
years. His house became an astronomical seminary, and amongst his pupils
were J. B. J. Delambre, G. Piazzi, P. Mechain, and his own nephew Michel
Lalande. By his publications in connexion with the transit of 1769 he
won great and, in a measure, deserved fame. But his love of notoriety
and impetuous temper compromised the respect due to his scientific zeal,
though these faults were partially balanced by his generosity and
benevolence. He died on the 4th of April 1807.
Although his investigations were conducted with diligence rather than
genius, the career of Lalande must be regarded as of eminent service
to astronomy. As a lecturer and writer he gave to the science
unexampled popularity; his planetary tables, into which he introduced
corrections for mutual perturbations, were the best available up to
the end of the 18th century; and the Lalande prize, instituted by him
in 1802 for the chief astronomical performance of each year, still
testifies to his enthusiasm for his favourite pursuit. Amongst his
voluminous works are _Traité d'astronomie_ (2 vols., 1764; enlarged
edition, 4 vols., 1771-1781; 3rd ed., 3 vols., 1792); _Histoire
céleste française_ (1801), giving the places of 50,000 stars;
_Bibliographie astronomique_ (1803), with a history of astronomy from
1781 to 1802; _Astronomie des dames_ (1785); _Abrégé de navigation_
(1793); _Voyage d'un françois en Italie_ (1769), a valuable record of
his travels in 1765-1766. He communicated above one hundred and fifty
papers to the Paris Academy of Sciences, edited the _Connoissance des
temps_ (1759-1774), and again (1794-1807), and wrote the concluding 2
vols. of the 2nd edition of Montucla's _Histoire des mathématiques_
(1802).
See _Mémoires de l'Institut_, t. viii. (1807) (J. B. J. Delambre);
Delambre, _Hist. de l'astr. au XVIII^e siècle_, p. 547; _Magazin
encyclopédique_, ii. 288 (1810) (Mme de Salm); J. S. Bailly, _Hist. de
l'astr. moderne_, t. iii. (ed. 1785); J. Mädler, _Geschichte der
Himmelskunde_, ii. 141; R. Wolf, _Gesch. der Astronomie_; J. J.
Lalande, _Bibl. astr._ p. 428; J. C. Poggendorff, _Biog. Lit.
Handwörterbuch_; M. Marie, _Hist. des sciences_, ix. 35.
LALÍN, a town of north-western Spain, in the province of Pontevedra.
Pop. (1900) 16,238. Lalín is the centre of the trade in agricultural
products of the fertile highlands between the Deza and Arnego rivers.
The local industries are tanning and the manufacture of paper. Near
Lalín are the ruins of the Gothic abbey of Carboeiro.
LA LINEA, or LA LINEA DE LA CONCEPCION, a town of Spain, in the province
of Cadiz, between Gibraltar and San Roque. Pop. (1900) 31,802. La Linea,
which derives its name from the _line_ or boundary dividing Spanish
territory from the district of Gibraltar, is a town of comparatively
modern date and was formerly looked upon as a suburb of San Roque. It is
now a distinct frontier post and headquarters of the Spanish commandant
of the lines of Gibraltar. The fortifications erected here in the 16th
century were dismantled by the British in 1810, to prevent the landing
of French invaders, and all the existing buildings are modern. They
include barracks, casinos, a theatre and a bull-ring, much frequented by
the inhabitants and garrison of Gibraltar. La Linea has some trade in
cereals, fruit and vegetables; it is the residence of large numbers of
labourers employed in Gibraltar.
LALITPUR, a town of British India, in Jhansi district, United Provinces.
Pop. (1901) 11,560. It has a station on the Great Indian Peninsula
railway, and a large trade in oil-seeds, hides and _ghi_. It contains
several beautiful Hindu and Jain temples. It was formerly the
headquarters of a district of the same name, which was incorporated with
that of Jhansi in 1891. The Bundela chiefs of Lalitpur were among those
who most eagerly joined the Mutiny, and it was only after a severe
struggle that the district was pacified.
LALLY, THOMAS ARTHUR, COMTE DE, Baron de Tollendal (1702-1766), French
general, was born at Romans, Dauphiné, in January 1702, being the son of
Sir Gerard O'Lally, an Irish Jacobite who married a French lady of noble
family, from whom the son inherited his titles. Entering the French army
in 1721 he served in the war of 1734 against Austria; he was present at
Dettingen (1743), and commanded the regiment de Lally in the famous
Irish brigade at Fontenoy (May 1745). He was made a brigadier on the
field by Louis XV. He had previously been mixed up in several Jacobite
plots, and in 1745 accompanied Charles Edward to Scotland, serving as
aide-de-camp at the battle of Falkirk (January 1746). Escaping to
France, he served with Marshal Saxe in the Low Countries, and at the
capture of Maestricht (1748) was made a _maréchal de camp_. When war
broke out with England in 1756 Lally was given the command of a French
expedition to India. He reached Pondicherry in April 1758, and at the
outset met with some trifling military success. He was a man of courage
and a capable general; but his pride and ferocity made him disliked by
his officers and hated by his soldiers, while he regarded the natives as
slaves, despised their assistance, and trampled on their traditions of
caste. In consequence everything went wrong with him. He was
unsuccessful in an attack on Tanjore, and had to retire from the siege
of Madras (1758) owing to the timely arrival of the British fleet. He
was defeated by Sir Eyre Coote at Wandiwash (1760), and besieged in
Pondicherry and forced to capitulate (1761). He was sent as a prisoner
of war to England. While in London, he heard that he was accused in
France of treachery, and insisted, against advice, on returning on
parole to stand his trial. He was kept prisoner for nearly two years
before the trial began; then, after many painful delays, he was
sentenced to death (May 6, 1766), and three days later beheaded. Louis
XV. tried to throw the responsibility for what was undoubtedly a
judicial murder on his ministers and the public, but his policy needed a
scapegoat, and he was probably well content not to exercise his
authority to save an almost friendless foreigner.
See G. B. Malleson, _The Career of Count Lally_ (1865); "Z's" (the
marquis de Lally-Tollendal) article in the _Biographie Michaud_; and
Voltaire's _Oeuvres complètes_. The legal documents are preserved in
the Bibliothèque Nationale.
LALLY-TOLLENDAL, TROPHIME GÉRARD, MARQUIS DE (1751-1830), was born at
Paris on the 5th of March 1751. He was the legitimized son of the comte
de Lally and only discovered the secret of his birth on the day of his
father's execution, when he resolved to devote himself to clearing his
father's memory. He was supported by Voltaire, and in 1778 succeeded in
persuading Louis XVI. to annul the decree which had sentenced the comte
de Lally; but the parlement of Rouen, to which the case was referred
back, in 1784 again decided in favour of Lally's guilt. The case was
retried by other courts, but Lally's innocence was never fully admitted
by the French judges. In 1779 Lally-Tollendal bought the office of
_Grand bailli_ of Étampes, and in 1789 was a deputy to the
states-general for the _noblesse_ of Paris. He played some part in the
early stages of the Revolution, but was too conservative to be in
sympathy with all even of its earlier developments. He threw himself
into opposition to the "tyranny" of Mirabeau, and condemned the epidemic
of renunciation which in the session of the 4th of August 1789 destroyed
the traditional institutions of France. Later in the year he emigrated
to England. During the trial of Louis XVI. by the National Convention
(1793) he offered to defend the king, but was not allowed to return to
France. He did not return till the time of the Consulate. Louis XVIII.
created him a peer of France, and in 1816 he became a member of the
French Academy. From that time until his death, on the 11th of March
1830, he devoted himself to philanthropic work, especially identifying
himself with prison reform.
See his _Plaidoyer pour Louis XVI._ (London, 1793); Lally-Tollendal
was also in part responsible for the _Mémoires_, attributed to Joseph
Weber, concerning Marie Antoinette (1804); he further edited the
article on his father in the _Biographie Michaud_; see also Arnault,
_Discours prononcé aux funérailles de M. le marquis de Lally-Tollendal
le 13 mars 1830_ (Paris); Gauthier de Brecy, _Nécrologie de M. le
marquis de Lally-Tollendal_ (Paris, undated); Voltaire, _Oeuvres
complètes_ (Paris, 1889), in which see the analytical table of
contents, vol. ii.
LALO, EDOUARD (1823-1892), French composer, was born at Lille, on the
27th of January 1823. He began his musical studies at the conservatoire
at Lille, and in Paris attended the violin classes of Habeneck. For
several years Lalo led a modest and retired existence, playing the viola
in the quartet party organized by Armingaud and Jacquard, and in
composing chamber music. His early works include two trios, a quartet,
and several pieces for violin and pianoforte. In 1867 he took part in an
operatic competition, an opera from his pen, entitled _Fiesque_,
obtaining the third place out of forty-three. This work was accepted for
production at the Paris Opéra, but delays occurred, and nothing was
done. _Fiesque_ was next offered to the Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels,
and was about to be produced there when the manager became bankrupt.
Thus, when nearly fifty years of age, Lalo found himself in
difficulties. _Fiesque_ was never performed, but the composer published
the pianoforte score, and eventually employed some of the music in other
works. After the Franco-German war French composers found their
opportunity in the concert-room. Lalo was one of these, and during the
succeeding ten years several interesting works from his pen were
produced, among them a sonata for violoncello, a "divertissement" for
orchestra, a violin concerto and the _Symphonie Espagnole_ for violin
and orchestra, one of his best-known compositions. In the meanwhile he
had written a second opera, _Le Roi d'Ys_, which he hoped would be
produced at the Opéra. The administration offered him the "scenario" of
a ballet instead. Lalo was obliged to be content with this, and set to
work with so much energy that he fell ill, the last scenes of the ballet
being orchestrated by Gounod. _Namouna_, the ballet in question, was
produced at the Opéra in 1882. Six years later, on the 7th of May 1888,
_Le Roi d'Ys_ was brought out at the Opéra Comique, and Lalo was at last
enabled to taste the sweets of success. Unfortunately, fame came to him
too late in life. A pianoforte concerto and the music to _Néron_, a
pantomimic piece played at the Hippodrome in 1891, were his last two
works. He had begun a new opera, but had only written the first act
when, on the 23rd of April 1892, he died. This opera, _La Jacquerie_,
was finished by Arthur Coquard, and was produced in 1895 at Monte Carlo,
Aix-les-Bains and finally in Paris. Lalo had distinct originality,
discernible in his employment of curious rhythmic devices. His music is
ever ingenious and brilliantly effective.
LA MADDALENA, an island 2½ m. from the N.E. coast of Sardinia. Pop.
(1901) 8361. Napoleon bombarded it in 1793 without success, and Nelson
made it his headquarters for some time. It is now an important naval
station of the Italian fleet, the anchorage being good, and is strongly
fortified. A bridge and an embankment connect it with Caprera. It
appears to have been inhabited in Roman times.
LAMAISM, a system of doctrine partly religious, partly political.
Religiously it is the corrupt form of Buddhism prevalent in Tibet and
Mongolia. It stands in a relationship to primitive Buddhism similar to
that in which Roman Catholicism, so long as the temporal power of the
pope was still in existence, stood to primitive Christianity. The
ethical and metaphysical ideas most conspicuous in the doctrines of
Lamaism are not confined to the highlands of central Asia, they are
accepted in great measure also in Japan and China. It is the union of
these ideas with a hierarchical system, and with the temporal
sovereignty of the head of that system in Tibet, which constitutes what
is distinctively understood by the term Lamaism. Lamaism has acquired a
special interest to the student of comparative history through the
instructive parallel which its history presents to that of the Church of
Rome.
The "Great Vehicle."
The central point of primitive Buddhism was the doctrine of
"Arahatship"--a system of ethical and mental self-culture, in which
deliverance was found from all the mysteries and sorrows of life in a
change of heart to be reached here on earth. This doctrine seems to have
been held very nearly in its original purity from the time when it was
propounded by Gotama in the 6th century B.C. to the period in which
northern India was conquered by the Huns about the commencement of the
Christian era. Soon after that time there arose a school of Buddhist
teachers who called their doctrine the "Great Vehicle." It was not in
any contradiction to the older doctrine, which they contemptuously
called the "Little Vehicle," but included it all, and was based upon it.
The distinguishing characteristic of the newer school was the importance
which it attached to "Bodhisatship." The older school had taught that
Gotama, who had propounded the doctrine of Arahatship, was a Buddha,
that only a Buddha is capable of discovering that doctrine, and that a
Buddha is a man who by self-denying efforts, continued through many
hundreds of different births, has acquired the so-called _Ten Paramitas_
or cardinal virtues in such perfection that he is able, when sin and
ignorance have gained the upper hand throughout the world, to save the
human race from impending ruin. But until the process of perfection has
been completed, until the moment when at last the sage, sitting under
the Wisdom tree acquires that particular insight or wisdom which is
called Enlightenment or Buddhahood, he is still only a Bodhisat. The
link of connexion between the various Bodhisats in the future Buddha's
successive births is not a soul which is transferred from body to body,
but the _karma_, or character, which each successive Bodhisat inherits
from his predecessors in the long chain of existences. Now the older
school also held, in the first place, that, when a man had, in this
life, attained to Arahatship, his karma would not pass on to any other
individual in another life--or in other words, that after Arahatship
there would be no rebirth; and, secondly, that four thousand years after
the Buddha had proclaimed the _Dhamma_ or doctrine of Arahatship, his
teaching would have died away, and another Buddha would be required to
bring mankind once more to a knowledge of the truth. The leaders of the
Great Vehicle urged their followers to seek to attain, not so much to
Arahatship, which would involve only their own salvation, but to
Bodhisatship, by the attainment of which they would be conferring the
blessings of the Dhamma upon countless multitudes in the long ages of
the future. By thus laying stress upon Bodhisatship, rather than upon
Arahatship, the new school, though they doubtless merely thought
themselves to be carrying the older orthodox doctrines to their logical
conclusion, were really changing the central point of Buddhism, and were
altering the direction of their mental vision. It was of no avail that
they adhered in other respects in the main to the older teaching, that
they professed to hold to the same ethical system, that they adhered,
except in a few unimportant details, to the old regulations of the order
of the Buddhist mendicant recluses. The ancient books, preserved in the
_Pali Pitakas_, being mainly occupied with the details of Arahatship,
lost their exclusive value in the eyes of those whose attention was
being directed to the details of Bodhisatship. And the opinion that
every leader in their religious circles, every teacher distinguished
among them for his sanctity of life, or for his extensive learning, was
a Bodhisat, who might have and who probably had inherited the karma of
some great teacher of old, opened the door to a flood of superstitious
fancies.
It is worthy of note that the new school found its earliest professors
and its greatest expounders in a part of India outside the districts to
which the personal influence of Gotama and of his immediate followers
had been confined. The home of early Buddhism was round about Kosala and
Magadha; in the district, that is to say, north and south of the Ganges
between where Allahabad now lies on the west and Rajgir on the east. The
home of the Great Vehicle was, at first, in the countries farther to the
north and west. Buddhism arose in countries where Sanskrit was never
more than a learned tongue, and where the exclusive claims of the
Brahmins had never been universally admitted. The Great Vehicle arose in
the very stronghold of Brahminism, and among a people to whom Sanskrit,
like Latin in the middle ages in Europe, was the literary _lingua
franca_. The new literature therefore, which the new movement called
forth, was written, and has been preserved, in Sanskrit--its principal
books of _Dharma_, or doctrine, being the following nine: (1)
_Prajña-paramita_; (2) _Ganda-vyuha_; (3) _Dasa-bhumis-vara_; (4)
_Samadhi-raja_; (5) _Lankavatara_; (6) _Saddharma-pundarika_; (7)
_Tathagata-guhyaka_; (8) _Lalita-vistara_; (9) _Suvarna-prabhasa_. The
date of none of these works is known with any certainty, but it is
highly improbable that any one of them is older than the 6th century
after the death of Gotama. Copies of all of them were brought to Europe
by Mr B. H. Hodgson, and other copies have been received since then; but
only one of them has as yet been published in Europe (the _Lalita
Vistara_, edited by Lofmann), and only two have been translated into any
European language. These are the _Lalita Vistara_, translated into
French, through the Tibetan, by M. Foucaux, and the _Saddharma
Pundarika_, translated into English by Professor Kern. The former is
legendary work, partly in verse, on the life of Gotama, the historical
Buddha; and the latter, also partly in verse, is devoted to proving the
essential identity of the Great and the Little Vehicles, and the equal
authenticity of both as doctrines enunciated by the master himself.
Of the authors of these nine works, as of all the older Buddhist works
with one or two exceptions, nothing has been ascertained. The founder of
the system of the Great Vehicle is, however, often referred to under the
name of Nagarjuna, whose probable date is about A.D. 200.
Together with Nagarjuna, other early teachers of the Great Vehicle whose
names are known are Vasumitra, Vasubandhu, Aryadeva, Dharmapala and
Gunamati--all of whom were looked upon as Bodhisats. As the newer school
did not venture so far as to claim as Bodhisats the disciples stated in
the older books to have been the contemporaries of Gotama (they being
precisely the persons known as Arahats), they attempted to give the
appearance of age to the Bodhisat theory by representing the Buddha as
being surrounded, not only by his human companions the Arahats, but also
by fabulous beings, whom they represented as the Bodhisats existing at
that time. In the opening words of each Mahayana treatise a list is
given of such Bodhisats, who were beginning, together with the
historical Bodhisats, to occupy a position in the Buddhist church of
those times similar to that occupied by the saints in the corresponding
period of the history of Christianity in the Church of Rome. And these
lists of fabulous Bodhisats have now a distinct historical importance.
For they grow in length in the later works; and it is often possible by
comparing them one with another to fix, not the date, but the
comparative age of the books in which they occur. Thus it is a fair
inference to draw from the shortness of the list in the opening words of
the _Lalita Vistara_, as compared with that in the first sections of the
_Saddharma Pundarika_, that the latter work is much the younger of the
two, a conclusion supported also by other considerations.
Among the Bodhisats mentioned in the _Saddharma Pundarika_, and not
mentioned in the _Lalita Vistara_, as attendant on the Buddha are
Mañju-sri and Avalokitesvara. That these saints were already
acknowledged by the followers of the Great Vehicle at the beginning of
the 5th century is clear from the fact that Fa Hien, who visited India
about that time, says that "men of the Great Vehicle" were then
worshipping them at Mathura, not far from Delhi (F. H., chap. xvi.).
These were supposed to be celestial beings who, inspired by love of the
human race, had taken the so-called Great Resolve to become future
Buddhas, and who therefore descended from heaven when the actual Buddha
was on earth, to pay reverence to him, and to learn of him. The belief
in them probably arose out of the doctrine of the older school, which
did not deny the existence of the various creations of previous
mythology and speculation, but allowed of their actual existence as
spiritual beings, and only deprived them of all power over the lives of
men, and declared them to be temporary beings liable, like men, to sin
and ignorance, and requiring, like men, the salvation of Arahatship.
Among them the later Buddhists seem to have placed their numerous
Bodhisats; and to have paid especial reverence to Mañju-sri as the
personification of wisdom, and to Avalokiteswara as the personification
of overruling love. The former was afterwards identified with the
mythical first Buddhist missionary, who is supposed to have introduced
civilization into Tibet about two hundred and fifty years after the
death of the Buddha.
The five mystic trinities.
The way was now open to a rapid fall from the simplicity of early
Buddhism, in which men's attention was directed to the various parts of
the system of self-culture, to a belief in a whole pantheon of saints or
angels, which appealed more strongly to the half-civilized races among
whom the Great Vehicle was now professed. A theory sprang up which was
supposed to explain the marvellous powers of the Buddhas by representing
them as only the outward appearance, the reflection, as it were, or
emanation, of ethereal Buddhas dwelling in the skies. These were called
_Dhyani Buddhas_, and their number was supposed to be, like that of the
Buddhas, innumerable. Only five of them, however, occupied any space in
the speculative world in which the ideas of the later Buddhists had now
begun to move. But, being Buddhas, they were supposed to have their
Bodhisats; and thus out of the five last Buddhas of the earlier teaching
there grew up five mystic trinities, each group consisting of one of
these five Buddhas, his prototype in heaven the Dhyani Buddha, and his
celestial Bodhisat. Among these hypothetical beings, the creations of a
sickly scholasticism, hollow abstractions without life or reality, the
particular trinity in which the historical Gotama was assigned a
subordinate place naturally occupied the most exalted rank. Amitabha,
the Dhyani-Buddha of this trinity, soon began to fill the largest place
in the minds of the new school; and Avalokiteswara, his Bodhisat, was
looked upon with a reverence somewhat less than his former glory. It is
needless to add that, under the overpowering influence of these vain
imaginations, the earnest moral teachings of Gotama became more and more
hidden from view. The imaginary saints grew and flourished. Each new
creation, each new step in the theory, demanded another, until the whole
sky was filled with forgeries of the brain, and the nobler and simpler
lessons of the founder of the religion were hidden beneath the
glittering stream of metaphysical subtleties.
Still worse results followed on the change of the earlier point of view.
The acute minds of the Buddhist pandits, no longer occupied with the
practical lessons of Arahatship, turned their attention, as far as it
was not engaged upon their hierarchy of mythological beings, to
questions of metaphysical speculation, which, in the earliest Buddhism,
are not only discouraged but forbidden. We find long treatises on the
nature of being, idealistic dreams which have as little to do with the
Bodhisatship that is concerned with the salvation of the world as with
the Arahatship that is concerned with the perfect life. Only one lower
step was possible, and that was not long in being taken. The animism
common alike to the untaught Huns and to their Hindu conquerors, but
condemned in early Buddhism, was allowed to revive. As the stronger side
of Gotama's teaching was neglected, the debasing belief in rites and
ceremonies, and charms and incantations, which had been the especial
object of his scorn, began to spread like the Birana weed warmed by a
tropical sun in marsh and muddy soil. As in India, after the expulsion
of Buddhism, the degrading worship of Siva and his dusky bride had been
incorporated into Hinduism from the savage devil worship of Aryan and of
non-Aryan tribes, so, as pure Buddhism died away in the north, the
_Tantra_ system, a mixture of magic and witchcraft and sorcery, was
incorporated into the corrupted Buddhism.
The Tantra system.
The founder of this system seems to have been Asanga, an influential
monk of Peshawar, who wrote the first text-book of the creed, the
_Yogachchara Bhumi Sastra_, in the 6th century A.D. Hsüan Tsang, who
travelled in the first half of the 7th, found the monastery where Asanga
had lived in ruins, and says that he had lived one thousand years after
the Buddha.[1] Asanga managed with great dexterity to reconcile the two
opposing systems by placing a number of Saivite gods or devils, both
male and female, in the inferior heavens of the then prevalent Buddhism,
and by representing them as worshippers and supporters of the Buddha and
of Avalokitesvara. He thus made it possible for the half-converted and
rude tribes to remain Buddhists while they brought offerings, and even
bloody offerings, to these more congenial shrines, and while their
practical belief had no relation at all to the Truths or the Noble
Eightfold Path, but busied itself almost wholly with obtaining magic
powers (_Siddhi_), by means of magic phrases (_Dharani_), and magic
circles (_Mandala_). Asanga's happy idea bore but too ample fruit. In
his own country and Nepal, the new wine, sweet and luscious to the taste
of savages, completely disqualified them from enjoying any purer drink;
and now in both countries Saivism is supreme, and Buddhism is even
nominally extinct, except in some outlying districts of Nepal. But this
full effect has only been worked out in the lapse of ages; the Tantra
literature has also had its growth and its development, and some unhappy
scholar of a future age may have to trace its loathsome history. The
nauseous taste repelled even the self-sacrificing industry of Burnouf,
when he found the later Tantra books to be as immoral as they are
absurd. "The pen," he says, "refuses to transcribe doctrines as
miserable in respect of form as they are odious and degrading in respect
of meaning."
Such had been the decline and fall of Buddhism considered as an ethical
system before its introduction into Tibet. The manner in which its order
of mendicant recluses, at first founded to afford better opportunities
to those who wished to carry out that system in practical life,
developed at last into a hierarchical monarchy will best be understood
by a sketch of the history of Tibet.
Early political history.
Its real history commences with Srong Tsan Gampo, who was born a little
after 600 A.D., and who is said in the Chinese chronicles to have
entered, in 634, into diplomatic relationship with Tai Tsung, one of the
emperors of the Tang dynasty. He was the founder of the present capital
of Tibet, now known as Lhasa; and in the year 622 (the same year as that
in which Mahomet fled from Mecca) he began the formal introduction of
Buddhism into Tibet. For this purpose he sent the minister Thumi
Sambhota, afterwards looked upon as an incarnation of Mañju-sri, to
India, there to collect the sacred books, and to learn and translate
them. Thumi Sambhota accordingly invented an alphabet for the Tibetan
language on the model of the Indian alphabets then in use. And, aided by
the king, who is represented to have been an industrious student and
translator, he wrote the first books by which Buddhism became known in
his native land. The most famous of the works ascribed to him is the
_Mani Kambum_, "the Myriad of Precious Words"--a treatise chiefly on
religion, but which also contains an account of the introduction of
Buddhism into Tibet, and of the closing part of the life of Srong Tsan
Gampo. He is also very probably the author of another very ancient
standard work of Tibetan Buddhism, the _Samatog_, a short digest of
Buddhist morality, on which the civil laws of Tibet have been founded.
It is said in the _Mani Kambum_ to have fallen from heaven in a casket
(Tibetan, _samatog_), and, like the last-mentioned work, is only known
to us in meagre abstract.
King Srong Tsan Gampo's zeal for Buddhism was shared and supported by
his two queens, Bribsun, a princess from Nepal, and Wen Ching, a
princess from China. They are related to have brought with them sacred
relics, books and pictures, for whose better preservation two large
monasteries were erected. These are the cloisters of La Brang (Jokhang)
and Ra Moché, still, though much changed and enlarged, the most sacred
abbeys in Tibet, and the glory of Lhasa. The two queens have become
semi-divine personages, and are worshipped under the name of the two
_Dara-Eke_, the "glorious mothers," being regarded as incarnations of
the wife of Siva, representing respectively two of the qualities which
she personifies, divine vengeance and divine love. The former is
worshipped by the Mongolians as _Okkin Tengri_, "the Virgin Goddess";
but in Tibet and China the rôle of the divine virgin is filled by _Kwan
Yin_, a personification of Avalokitesvara as the heavenly word, who is
often represented with a child in her arms. Srong Tsan Gampo has also
become a saint, being looked upon as an incarnation of Avalokitesvara;
and the description in the ecclesiastical historians of the measures he
took for the welfare of his subjects do great credit to their ideal of
the perfect Buddhist king. He is said to have spent his long reign in
the building of reservoirs, bridges and canals; in the promotion of
agriculture, horticulture and manufactures; in the establishment of
schools and colleges; and in the maintenance of justice and the
encouragement of virtue. But the degree of his success must have been
slight. For after the death of himself and of his wives Buddhism
gradually decayed, and was subjected by succeeding kings to cruel
persecutions; and it was not till more than half a century afterwards,
under King Kir Song de Tsan, who reigned 740-786, that true religion is
acknowledged by the ecclesiastical historians to have become firmly
established in the land.
The Tibetan sacred books.
This monarch again sent to India to replace the sacred books that had
been lost, and to invite Buddhist pandits to translate them. The most
distinguished of those who came were Santa Rakshita, Padma Sambhava and
Kamala Sila, for whom, and for their companions, the king built a
splendid monastery still existing, at Samje, about three days' journey
south-east of Lhasa. It was to them that the Tibetans owed the great
collection of what are still regarded as their sacred books--the
_Kandjur_. It consists of 100 volumes containing 689 works, of which
there are two or three complete sets in Europe, one of them in the India
Office library. A detailed analysis of these scriptures has been
published by the celebrated Hungarian scholar Csoma de Körös, whose
authoritative work has been republished in French with complete indices
and very useful notes by M. Léon Feer. These volumes contain about a
dozen works of the oldest school of Buddhism, the Hinayana, and about
300 works, mostly very short, belonging to the Tantra school. But the
great bulk of the collection consists of Mahayana books, belonging to
all the previously existing varieties of that widely extended Buddhist
sect; and, as the Sanskrit originals of many of these writings are now
lost, the Tibetan translations will be of great value, not only for the
history of Lamaism, but also for the history of the later forms of
Indian Buddhism.
The last king's second son, Lang Darma, concluded in May 822 a treaty
with the then emperor of China (the twelfth of the Tang dynasty), a
record of which was engraved on a stone put up in the above-mentioned
great convent of La Brang (Jokhang), and is still to be seen there.[2]
He is described in the church chronicles as an incarnation of the evil
spirit, and is said to have succeeded in suppressing Buddhism throughout
the greater part of the land. The period from Srong Tsan Gampo down to
the death of Lang Darma, who was murdered about A.D. 850, in a civil
war, is called in the Buddhist books "the first introduction of
religion." It was followed by more than a century of civil disorder and
wars, during which the exiled Buddhist monks attempted unsuccessfully
again and again to return. Many are the stories of martyrs and
confessors who are believed to have lived in these troublous times, and
their efforts were at last crowned with success, for in the century
commencing with the reign of Bilamgur in 971 there took place "the
second introduction of religion" into Tibet, more especially under the
guidance of the pandit Atisha, who came to Tibet in 1041, and of his
famous native pupil and follower Brom Ston. The long period of
depression seems not to have been without a beneficial influence on the
persecuted Buddhist church, for these teachers are reported to have
placed the Tantra system more in the background, and to have adhered
more strongly to the purer forms of the Mahayana development of the
ancient faith.
The temporal sovereignty of the Lamas.
For about three hundred years the Buddhist church of Tibet was left in
peace, subjecting the country more and more completely to its control,
and growing in power and in wealth. During this time it achieved its
greatest victory, and underwent the most important change in its
character and organization. After the reintroduction of Buddhism into
the "kingdom of snow," the ancient dynasty never recovered its power.
Its representatives continued for some time to claim the sovereignty;
but the country was practically very much in the condition of Germany at
about the same time--chieftains of almost independent power ruled from
their castles on the hill-tops over the adjacent valleys, engaged in
petty wars, and conducted plundering expeditions against the
neighbouring tenants, whilst the great abbeys were places of refuge for
the studious or religious, and their heads were the only rivals to the
barons in social state, and in many respects the only protectors and
friends of the people. Meanwhile Jenghiz Khan had founded the Mongol
empire, and his grandson Kublai Khan became a convert to the Buddhism of
the Tibetan Lamas. He granted to the abbot of the Sakya monastery in
southern Tibet the title of tributary sovereign of the country, head of
the Buddhist church, and overlord over the numerous barons and abbots,
and in return was officially crowned by the abbot as ruler over the
extensive domain of the Mongol empire. Thus was the foundation laid at
one and the same time of the temporal sovereignty of the Lamas of Tibet,
and of the suzerainty over Tibet of the emperors of China. One of the
first acts of the "head of the church" was the printing of a carefully
revised edition of the Tibetan Scriptures--an undertaking which occupied
altogether nearly thirty years and was not completed till 1306.
Under Kublai's successors in China the Buddhist cause flourished
greatly, and the Sakya Lamas extended their power both at home and
abroad. The dignity of abbot at Sakya became hereditary, the abbots
breaking so far the Buddhist rule of celibacy that they remained married
until they had begotten a son and heir. But rather more than half a
century afterwards their power was threatened by a formidable rival at
home, a Buddhist reformer.
The Luther of Tibet.
Tsongkapa, the Luther of Tibet, was born about 1357 on the spot where
the famous monastery of Kunbum now stands. He very early entered the
order, and studied at Sakya, Brigung and other monasteries. He then
spent eight years as a hermit in Takpo in southern Tibet, where the
comparatively purer teaching of Atisha (referred to above) was still
prevalent. About 1390 he appeared as a public teacher and reformer in
Lhasa, and before his death in 1419 there were three huge monasteries
there containing 30,000 of his disciples, besides others in other parts
of the country. His voluminous works, of which the most famous are the
_Sumbun_ and the _Lam Nim Tshenpo_, exist in printed Tibetan copies in
Europe, but have not yet been translated or analysed. But the principal
lines on which his reformation proceeded are sufficiently attested. He
insisted in the first place on the complete carrying out of the ancient
rules of the order as to the celibacy of its members, and as to
simplicity in dress. One result of the second of these two reforms was
to make it necessary for every monk openly to declare himself either in
favour of or against the new views. For Tsongkapa and his followers wore
the yellow or orange-coloured garments which had been the distinguishing
mark of the order in the lifetime of its founder, and in support of the
ancient rules Tsongkapa reinstated the fortnightly rehearsal of the
_Patimokkha_ or "disburdenment" in regular assemblies of the order at
Lhasa--a practice which had fallen into desuetude. He also restored the
custom of the first disciples to hold the so-called _Vassa_ or yearly
retirement, and the public meeting of the order at its close. In all
these respects he was simply following the directions of the Vinaya, or
regulations of the order, as established probably in the time of Gotama
himself, and as certainly handed down from the earliest times in the
pitakas or sacred books. Further, he set his face against the Tantra
system, and against the animistic superstitions which had been allowed
to creep into life again. He laid stress on the self-culture involved in
the practice of the paramitas or cardinal virtues, and established an
annual national fast or week of prayer to be held during the first days
of each year. This last institution indeed is not found in the ancient
Vinaya, but was almost certainly modelled on the traditional account of
the similar assemblies convoked by Asoka and other Buddhist sovereigns
in India every fifth year. Laymen as well as monks take part in the
proceedings, the details of which are unknown to us except from the
accounts of the Catholic missionaries--Fathers Huc and Gabet--who
describe the principal ceremonial as, in outward appearance, wonderfully
like the high mass. In doctrine the great Tibetan teacher, who had no
access to the Pali Pitakas, adhered in the main to the purer forms of
the Mahayana school; in questions of church government he took little
part, and did not dispute the titular supremacy of the Sakya Lamas. But
the effects of his teaching weakened their power. The "orange-hoods," as
his followers were called, rapidly gained in numbers and influence,
until they so overshadowed the "red-hoods," as the followers of the
older sect were called, that in the middle of the 15th century the
emperor of China acknowledged the two leaders of the new sect at that
time as the titular overlords of the church and tributary rulers over
the realm of Tibet. These two leaders were then known as the _Dalai
Lama_ and the _Pantshen Lama_, and were the abbots of the great
monasteries at Gedun Dubpa, near Lhasa, and at Tashi Lunpo, in Farther
Tibet, respectively. Since that time the abbots of these monasteries
have continued to exercise the sovereignty over Tibet.
Constitution of Lamaism.
As there has been no further change in the doctrine, and no further
reformation in discipline, we may leave the ecclesiastical history of
Lamaism since that date unnoticed, and consider some principal points on
the constitution of the Lamaism of to-day. And first as to the mode of
electing successors to the two Great Lamas. It will have been noticed
that it was an old idea of the northern Buddhists to look upon
distinguished members of the order as incarnations of Avalokitesvara, of
Mañju-sri, or of Amitabha. These beings were supposed to possess the
power, whilst they continued to live in heaven, of appearing on earth in
a _Nirmana-kaya_, or apparitional body. In the same way the Pantshen
Lama is looked upon as an incarnation, the Nirmana-kaya, of Amitabha,
who had previously appeared under the outward form of Tshonkapa himself;
and the Dalai Lama is looked upon as an incarnation of Avalokitesvara.
Theoretically, therefore, the former, as the spiritual successor of the
great teacher and also of Amitabha, who occupies the higher place in the
mythology of the Great Vehicle, would be superior to the latter, as the
spiritual representative of Avalokitesvara. But practically the Dalai
Lama, owing to his position in the capital,[3] has the political
supremacy, and is actually called the _Gyalpo Rinpotshe_, "the glorious
king"--his companion being content with the title _Pantshen Rinpotshe_,
"the glorious teacher." When either of them dies it is necessary for the
other to ascertain in whose body the celestial being whose outward form
has been dissolved has been pleased again to incarnate himself. For that
purpose the names of all male children born just after the death of the
deceased Great Lama are laid before his survivor. He chooses three out
of the whole number; their names are thrown into a golden casket
provided for that purpose by a former emperor of China. The Chutuktus,
or abbots of the great monasteries, then assemble, and after a week of
prayer, the lots are drawn in their presence and in presence of the
surviving Great Lama and of the Chinese political resident. The child
whose name is first drawn is the future Great Lama; the other two
receive each of them 500 pieces of silver. The Chutuktus just mentioned
correspond in many respects to the Roman cardinals. Like the Great
Lamas, they bear the title of Rinpotshe or Glorious, and are looked upon
as incarnations of one or other of the celestial Bodhisats of the Great
Vehicle mythology. Their number varies from ten to a hundred; and it is
uncertain whether the honour is inherent in the abbacy of certain of the
greatest cloisters, or whether the Dalai Lama exercises the right of
choosing them. Under these high officials of the Tibetan hierarchy there
come the Chubil Khans, who fill the post of abbot to the lesser
monasteries, and are also incarnations. Their number is very large;
there are few monasteries in Tibet or in Mongolia which do not claim to
possess one of these living Buddhas. Besides these mystical persons
there are in the Tibetan church other ranks and degrees, corresponding
to the deacon, full priest, dean and doctor of divinity in the West. At
the great yearly festival at Lhasa they make in the cathedral an
imposing array, not much less magnificent than that of the clergy in
Rome; for the ancient simplicity of dress has disappeared in the growing
differences of rank, and each division of the spiritual army is
distinguished in Tibet, as in the West, by a special uniform. The
political authority of the Dalai Lama is confined to Tibet itself, but
he is the acknowledged head also of the Buddhist church throughout
Mongolia and China. He has no supremacy over his co-religionists in
Japan, and even in China there are many Buddhists who are not
practically under his control or influence.
The best work on Lamaism is still Köppen's _Die Lamaische Hierarchie
und Kirche_ (Berlin, 1859). See also Bushell, "The Early History of
Tibet," in the _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, 1879-1880, vol.
xii.; Sanang Setzen's _History of the East Mongols_ (in Mongolian,
translated into German by J. Schmidt, _Geschichte der Ost-Mongolen_);
"Analyse du Kandjur," by M. Léon Feer, in _Annales du Musée Gaimet_
(1881); Schott, _Ueber den Buddhismus in Hoch-Asien_; Gutzlaff,
_Geschichte des Chinesischen Reiches_; Hue and Gabet, _Souvenirs d'un
voyage dans la Tartarie, le Tibet, et la Chine_ (Paris, 1858);
Pallas's _Sammlung historischer Nachrichten über die Mongolischen
Völkerschaften_; Babu Sarat Chunder Das's "Contributions on the
Religion and History of Tibet," in the _Journal of the Bengal Asiatic
Society_, 1881; L. A. Waddell, _The Buddhism of Tibet_ (London, 1895);
A. H. Francke, _History of Western Tibet_ (London, 1907); A.
Grünwedel, _Mythologie des Buddhismus in Tibet und der Mongolei_
(Berlin, 1900). (T. W. R. D.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Watters's _Yuan Chwang_, edited by Rhys Davids and Bushell, i.
210, 356, 271.
[2] Published with facsimile and translation and notes in the
_Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_ for 1879-1880, vol. xii.
[3] This statement representing the substantial and historical
position, is retained, in spite of the crises of March 1910, when the
Dalai Lama took refuge from the Chinese in India, and of 1904, when
the British expedition occupied Lhasa and the Dalai Lama fled to
China (see TIBET).
LAMALOU-LES-BAINS, a watering-place of southern France in the department
of Hérault, 53½ m. W. of Montpellier by rail, in a valley of the
southern Cévennes. Pop. (1906) 720. The waters, which are both hot and
cold, are used in cases of rheumatism, sciatica, locomotor ataxy and
nervous maladies.
LAMA-MIAO, or DOLON-NOR, a city of the province of Chih-li, China, 150
m. N. of Peking, in a barren sandy plain watered by the Urtingol, a
tributary of the Shang-tu-ko. The town proper, almost exclusively
occupied by Chinese, is about a mile in length by half a mile in
breadth, has narrow and dirty streets, and contains a population of
about 26,000. Unlike the ordinary Chinese town of the same rank, it is
not walled. A busy trade is carried on between the Chinese and the
Mongolians, who bring in their cattle, sheep, camels, hides and wool to
barter for tea, tobacco, cotton and silk. At some distance from the
Chinese town lies the Mongolian quarter, with two groups of lama temples
and villages occupied by about 2300 priests. Dr Williamson (_Journeys in
North China_, 1870) described the chief temple as a huge oblong building
with an interior not unlike a Gothic church. Lama-miao is the seat of a
manufactory of bronze idols and other articles of ritual, which find
their way to all parts of Mongolia and Tibet. The craftsmen work in
their own houses.
LAMAR, LUCIUS QUINTUS CINCINNATUS (1825-1893), American statesman and
judge, was born at the old "Lamar Homestead," in Putnam county, Georgia,
on the 17th of September 1825. His father, Lucius Q. C. Lamar
(1797-1834), was an able lawyer, a judge of the superior court of
Georgia, and the compiler of the _Laws of Georgia from 1810 to 1819_
(1821). In 1845 young Lamar graduated from Emory College (Oxford, Ga.),
and in 1847 was admitted to the bar. In 1849 he removed to Oxford,
Mississippi, and in 1850-1852 was adjunct professor of mathematics in
the state university. In 1852 he removed to Covington, Ga., to practise
law, and in 1853 was elected a member of the Georgia House of
Representatives. In 1855 he returned to Mississippi, and two years later
became a member of the National House of Representatives, where he
served until December 1860, when he withdrew to become a candidate for
election to the "secession" convention of Mississippi. He was elected to
the convention, and drafted for it the Mississippi ordinance of
secession. In the summer of 1860 he had accepted an appointment to the
chair of ethics and metaphysics in the university of Mississippi, but,
having been appointed a lieutenant-colonel in the Confederate Army in
the spring of 1861, he resigned his professorship. The colonel of his
regiment (Nineteenth Mississippi) was killed early in the battle of
Williamsburg, on the 5th of May 1862, and the command then fell to
Lamar, but in October he resigned from the army. In November 1862 he was
appointed by President Jefferson Davis special commissioner of the
Confederacy to Russia; but he did not proceed farther than Paris, and
his mission was soon terminated by the refusal of the Confederate Senate
to confirm his appointment. In 1866 he was again appointed to the chair
of ethics and metaphysics in the university of Mississippi, and in the
next year was transferred to the chair of law, but in 1870, Republicans
having become trustees of the university upon the readmission of the
state into the Union, he resigned. From 1873 to 1877 he was again a
Democratic representative in Congress; from 1877 to 1885 he was a United
States senator; from 1885 to January 1888 he was secretary of the
interior; and from 1888 until his death at Macon, Ga., on the 23rd of
January 1893, he was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the
United States. In Congress Lamar fought the silver and greenback craze
and argued forcibly against the protective tariff; in the department of
the interior he introduced various reforms; and on the Supreme Court
bench his dissenting opinion in the _Neagle Case_ (based upon a denial
that certain powers belonging to Congress, but not exercised, were by
implication vested in the department of justice) is famous. But he is
perhaps best known for the part he took after the Civil War in helping
to effect a reconciliation between the North and the South. During the
early secession movement he strove to arouse the white people of the
South from their indifference, declaring that secession alone could save
them from a doom similar to that of the former whites of San Domingo. He
probably never changed his convictions as to the righteousness of the
"lost cause"; but he accepted the result of the war as a final
settlement of the differences leading to it, and strove to restore the
South in the Union, and to effect the reunion of the nation in feeling
as well as in government. This is in part seen from such speeches as his
eulogy on Charles Sumner (27th of April 1874), his leadership in
reorganizing the Democratic party of his own state, and his counsels of
peace in the disputed presidential election of 1876.
See Edward Mayes, _Lucius Q. C. Lamar: His Life, Times and Speeches_
(Nashville, Tenn., 1896).
LAMARCK, JEAN BAPTISTE PIERRE ANTOINE DE MONET, CHEVALIER DE
(1744-1829), French naturalist, was born on the 1st of August 1744, at
Bazantin, a village of Picardy. He was an eleventh child; and his
father, lord of the manor and of old family, but of limited means,
having placed three sons in the army, destined this one for the church,
and sent him to the Jesuits at Amiens, where he continued till his
father's death. After this he would remain with the Jesuits no longer,
and, not yet seventeen years of age, started for the seat of war at
Bergen-op-Zoom, before which place one of his brothers had already been
killed. Mounted on an old horse, with a boy from the village as
attendant, and furnished by a lady with a letter of introduction to a
colonel, he reached his destination on the evening before a battle. Next
morning the colonel found that the new and very diminutive volunteer had
posted himself in the front rank of a body of grenadiers, and could not
be induced to quit the position. In the battle, the company which he had
joined became exposed to the fire of the enemy's artillery, and in the
confusion of retreat was forgotten. All the officers and subalterns were
killed, and not more than fourteen men were left, when the oldest
grenadiers seeing there were no more French in sight proposed to the
young volunteer so soon become commandant to withdraw his men. This he
refused to do without orders. These at last arrived; and for his bravery
he was made an officer on the spot, and soon after was named to a
lieutenancy.
After the peace, the regiment was sent to Monaco. There one of his
comrades playfully lifted him by the head, and to this it was imputed
that he was seized with disease of the glands of the neck, so severe as
to put a stop to his military career. He went to Paris and began the
study of medicine, supporting himself by working in a banker's office.
He early became interested in meteorology and in physical and chemical
speculations of a chimerical kind, but happily threw his main strength
into botany, and in 1778 published his _Flore française_, a work in
which by a dichotomous system of contrasting characters he enabled the
student with facility to determine species. This work, which went
through several editions and long kept the field, gained for its author
immediate popularity as well as admission to the Academy of Sciences.
In 1781 and 1782, under the title of botanist to the king, an
appointment obtained for him by Buffon, whose son accompanied him, he
travelled through various countries of Europe, extending his knowledge
of natural history; and on his return he began those elaborate
contributions to botany on which his reputation in that science
principally rests, namely, the _Dictionnaire de Botanique_ and the
_Illustrations de Genres_, voluminous works contributed to the
_Encyclopédie Méthodique_ (1785). In 1793, in consequence of changes in
the organization of the natural history department at the Jardin du Roi,
where he had held a botanical appointment since 1788, Lamarck was
presented to a zoological chair, and called on to lecture on the
_Insecta_ and _Vermes_ of Linnaeus, the animals for which he introduced
the term _Invertebrata_. Thus driven, comparatively late in life, to
devote his principal attention to zoology instead of botany, he had the
misfortune soon after to suffer from impaired vision; and the malady
resulted subsequently in total blindness. Yet his greatest zoological
work, the _Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertèbres_, was published
from 1815 to 1822, with the assistance, in the last two volumes, of his
eldest daughter and of P. A. Latreille (1762-1833). A volume of plates
of the fossil shells of the neighbourhood of Paris was collected in 1823
from his memoirs in the _Annales des Muséums_. He died on the 18th of
December 1829.
The character of Lamarck as a naturalist is remarkable alike for its
excellences and its defects. His excellences were width of scope,
fertility of ideas and a pre-eminent faculty of precise description,
arising not only from a singularly terse style, but from a clear insight
into both the distinctive features and the resemblances of forms. That
part of his zoological work which constitutes his solid claim to the
highest honour as a zoologist is to be found in his extensive and
detailed labours in the departments of living and fossil _Invertebrata_.
His endeavours at classification of the great groups were necessarily
defective on account of the imperfect knowledge possessed in his time in
regard to many of them, e.g. echinoderms, ascidians and intestinal
worms; yet they are not without interest, particularly on account of the
comprehensive attempt to unite in one great division as _Articulata_ all
those groups that appeared to present a segmented construction.
Moreover, Lamarck was the first to distinguish vertebrate from
invertebrate animals by the presence of a vertebral column, and among
the Invertebrata to found the groups _Crustacea_, _Arachnida_ and
_Annelida_. In 1785 (_Hist. del' Acad._) he evinced his appreciation of
the necessity of natural orders in botany by an attempt at the
classification of plants, interesting, though crude and falling
immeasurably short of the system which grew in the hands of his intimate
friend A. L. de Jussieu. The problem of taxonomy has never been put more
philosophically than he subsequently put it in his _Animaux sans
vertèbres_: "What arrangement must be given to the general distribution
of animals to make it conformable to the order of nature in the
production of these beings?"
The most prominent defect in Lamarck must be admitted to have been want
of control in speculation. Doubtless the speculative tendency furnished
a powerful incentive to work, but it outran the legitimate deductions
from observation, and led him into the production of volumes of
worthless chemistry without experimental basis, as well as into spending
much time on fruitless meteorological predictions. His _Annuaires
Météorologiques_ were published yearly from 1800 to 1810, and were not
discontinued until after an unnecessarily public and brutal tirade from
Napoleon, administered on the occasion of being presented with one of
his works on natural history.
To the general reader the name of Lamarck is chiefly interesting on
account of his theory of the origin of life and of the diversities of
animal forms. The idea, which appears to have been favoured by Buffon
before him, that species were not through all time unalterable, and that
the more complex might have been developed from pre-existent simpler
forms, became with Lamarck a belief or, as he imagined, a demonstration.
Spontaneous generation, he considered, might be easily conceived as
resulting from such agencies as heat and electricity causing in small
gelatinous bodies an utricular structure, and inducing a "singular
tension," a kind of "éréthisme" or "orgasme"; and, having thus accounted
for the first appearance of life, he explained the whole organization of
animals and formation of different organs by four laws (introduction to
his _Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertèbres_, 1815):--
1. "Life by its proper forces tends continually to increase the volume
of every body possessing it, and to enlarge its parts, up to a limit
which it brings about.
2. "The production of a new organ in an animal body results from the
supervention of a new want (_besoin_) continuing to make itself felt,
and a new movement which this want gives birth to and encourages.
3. "The development of organs and their force of action are constantly
in ratio to the employment of these organs.
4. "All which has been acquired, laid down, or changed in the
organization of individuals in the course of their life is conserved
by generation and transmitted to the new individuals which proceed
from those which have undergone those changes."
The second law is often referred to as Lamarck's hypothesis of the
evolution of organs in animals by appetence or longing, although he does
not teach that the animal's desires affect its conformation directly,
but that altered wants lead to altered habits, which result in the
formation of new organs as well as in modification, growth or dwindling
of those previously existing. Thus, he suggests that, ruminants being
pursued by carnivora, their legs have grown slender; and, their legs
being only fit for support, while their jaws are weak, they have made
attack with the crown of the head, and the determination of fluids
thither has led to the growth of horns. So also the stretching of the
giraffe's neck to reach the foliage he supposes to have led to its
elongation; and the kangaroo, sitting upright to support the young in
its pouch, he imagines to have had its fore-limbs dwarfed by disuse, and
its hind legs and tail exaggerated by using them in leaping. The fourth
law expresses the inheritance of acquired characters, which is denied by
August Weismann and his followers. For a more detailed account of
Lamarck's place in the history of the doctrine of evolution, see
EVOLUTION.
LA MARGHERITA, CLEMENTE SOLARO, COUNT DEL (1792-1869), Piedmontese
statesman, was born at Mondovi. He studied law at Siena and Turin, but
Piedmont was at that time under French domination, and being devoted to
the house of Savoy he refused to take his degree, as this proceeding
would have obliged him to recognize the authority of the usurper; after
the restoration of the Sardinian kingdom, however, he graduated. In 1816
he entered the diplomatic service. Later he returned to Turin, and
succeeded in gaining the confidence and esteem of King Charles Albert,
who in 1835 appointed him minister of foreign affairs. A fervent Roman
Catholic, devoted to the pope and to the Jesuits, friendly to Austria
and firmly attached to the principles of autocracy, he strongly opposed
every attempt at political innovation, and was in consequence bitterly
hated by the liberals. When the popular agitation in favour of
constitutional reform first broke out the king felt obliged to dispense
with La Margherita's services, although he had conducted public affairs
with considerable ability and absolute loyalty, even upholding the
dignity of the kingdom in the face of the arrogant attitude of the
cabinet of Vienna. He expounded his political creed and his policy as
minister to Charles Albert (from February 1835 to October 1847) in his
_Memorandum storico-politico_, published in 1851, a document of great
interest for the study of the conditions of Piedmont and Italy at that
time. In 1853 he was elected deputy for San Quirico, but he persisted in
regarding his mandate as derived from the royal authority rather than as
an emanation of the popular will. As leader of the Clerical Right in the
parliament he strongly opposed Cavour's policy, which was eventually to
lead to Italian unity, and on the establishment of the kingdom of Italy
he retired from public life.
LA MARMORA, ALFONSO FERRERO (1804-1878), Italian general and statesman,
was born at Turin on the 18th of November 1804. He entered the Sardinian
army in 1823, and was a captain in March 1848, when he gained
distinction and the rank of major at the siege of Peschiera. On the 5th
of August 1848 he liberated Charles Albert, king of Sardinia, from the
Milan revolutionaries, and in October was promoted general and appointed
minister of war. After suppressing the revolt of Genoa in 1849, he again
assumed in November 1849 the portfolio of war, which, save during the
period of his command of the Crimean expedition, he retained until 1859.
Having reconstructed the Piedmontese army, he took part in the war of
1859 against Austria; and in July of that year succeeded Cavour in the
premiership. In 1860 he was sent to Berlin and St Petersburg to arrange
for the recognition of the kingdom of Italy, and subsequently he held
the offices of governor of Milan and royal lieutenant at Naples, until,
in September 1864, he succeeded Minghetti as premier. In this capacity
he modified the scope of the September Convention by a note in which he
claimed for Italy full freedom of action in respect of national
aspirations to the possession of Rome, a document of which Visconti
Venosta afterwards took advantage when justifying the Italian occupation
of Rome in 1870. In April 1866 La Marmora concluded an alliance with
Prussia against Austria, and, on the outbreak of war in June, took
command of an army corps, but was defeated at Custozza on the 23rd of
June. Accused of treason by his fellow-countrymen, and of duplicity by
the Prussians, he eventually published in defence of his tactics (1873)
a series of documents entitled _Un po' più di luce sugli eventi dell'
anno_ 1866 (More light on the events of 1866) a step which caused
irritation in Germany, and exposed him to the charge of having violated
state secrets. Meanwhile he had been sent to Paris in 1867 to oppose the
French expedition to Rome, and in 1870, after the occupation of Rome by
the Italians, had been appointed lieutenant-royal of the new capital. He
died at Florence on the 5th of January 1878. La Marmora's writings
include _Un episodio del risorgimento italiano_ (Florence, 1875); and _I
segreti di stato nel governo constituzionale_ (Florence, 1877).
See G. Massani, _Il generale Alfonso La Marmora_ (Milan, 1880).
LAMARTINE, ALPHONSE MARIE LOUIS DE PRAT DE (1790-1869), French poet,
historian and statesman, was born at Mâcon on the 21st of October 1790.
The order of his surnames is a controversial matter, and they are
sometimes reversed. The family of Lamartine was good, and the title of
Prat was taken from an estate in Franche Comté. His father was
imprisoned during the Terror, and only released owing to the events of
the 9th Thermidor. Lamartine's early education was received from his
mother. He was sent to school at Lyons in 1805, but not being happy
there was transferred to the care of the Pères de la Foi at Belley,
where he remained until 1809. For some time afterwards he lived at home,
reading romantic and poetical literature, but in 1811 he set out for
Italy, where he seems to have sojourned nearly two years. His family
having been steady royalists, he entered the Gardes du corps at the
return of the Bourbons, and during the Hundred Days he sought refuge
first in Switzerland and then at Aix-en-Savoie, where he fell in love,
with abundant results of the poetical kind. After Waterloo he returned
to Paris. In 1818-1819 he revisited Switzerland, Savoy and Italy, the
death of his beloved affording him new subjects for verse. After some
difficulties he had his first book, the _Méditations, poétiques et
religieuses_, published (1820). It was exceedingly popular, and helped
him to make a position. He had left the army for some time; he now
entered the diplomatic service and was appointed secretary to the
embassy at Naples. On his way to his post he married, in 1823, at Geneva
a young English lady, Marianne Birch, who had both money and beauty, and
in the same year his _Nouvelles méditations poétiques_ appeared.
In 1824 he was transferred to Florence, where he remained five years.
His _Last Canto of Childe Harold_ appeared in 1825, and he had to fight
a duel (in which he was wounded) with an Italian officer, Colonel Pepe,
in consequence of a phrase in it. Charles X., on whose coronation he
wrote a poem, gave him the order of the Legion of Honour. The _Harmonies
poétiques et religieuses_ appeared in 1829, when he had left Florence.
Having refused an appointment in Paris under the Polignac ministry, he
went on a special mission to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. In the same
year he was elected to the Academy. Lamartine was in Switzerland, not in
Paris, at the time of the Revolution of July, and, though he put forth a
pamphlet on "Rational Policy," he did not at that crisis take any active
part in politics, refusing, however, to continue his diplomatic services
under the new government. In 1832 he set out with his wife and daughter
for Palestine, having been unsuccessful in his candidature for a seat in
the chamber. His daughter Julia died at Beirut, and before long he
received the news of his election by a constituency (Bergues) in the
department of the Nord. He returned through Turkey and Germany, and made
his first speech shortly after the beginning of 1834. Thereafter he
spoke constantly, and acquired considerable reputation as an
orator,--bringing out, moreover, many books in prose and verse. His
Eastern travels (_Voyage en Orient_) appeared in 1835, his _Chute d'un
ange_ and _Jocelyn_ in 1837, and his _Recueillements_, the last
remarkable volume of his poetry, in 1839. As the reign of Louis Philippe
went on, Lamartine, who had previously been a liberal royalist,
something after the fashion of Chateaubriand, became more and more
democratic in his opinions. He set about his greatest prose work, the
_Histoire des Girondins_, which at first appeared periodically, and was
published as a whole in 1847. Like many other French histories, it was a
pamphlet as well as a chronicle, and the subjects of Lamartine's pen
became his models in politics.
At the revolution of February Lamartine was one of the first to declare
for a provisional government, and became a member of it, with the post
of minister for foreign affairs. He was elected for the new constituent
assembly in ten different departments, and was chosen one of the five
members of the Executive Committee. For a few months indeed Lamartine,
from being a distinguished man of letters, an official of inferior rank
in diplomacy, and an eloquent but unpractical speaker in parliament,
became one of the foremost men in Europe. His inexperience in the
routine work of government, the utterly unpractical nature of his
colleagues, and the turbulence of the Parisian mob, proved fatal to his
chances. He gave some proofs of statesmanlike ability, and his eloquence
was repeatedly called into requisition to pacify the Parisians. But no
one can permanently carry on the government of a great country by
speeches from the balcony of a house in the capital, and Lamartine found
himself in a dilemma. So long as he held aloof from Ledru-Rollin and the
more radical of his colleagues, the disunion resulting weakened the
government; as soon as he effected an approximation to them the middle
classes fell off from him. The quelling of the insurrection of the 15th
of May was his last successful act. A month later the renewal of active
disturbances brought on the fighting of June, and Lamartine's influence
was extinguished in favour of Cavaignac. Moreover, his chance of renewed
political pre-eminence was gone. He had been tried and found wanting,
having neither the virtues nor the vices of his situation. In January
1849, though he was nominated for the presidency, only a few thousand
votes were given to him, and three months later he was not even elected
to the Legislative Assembly.
The remaining story of Lamartine's life is somewhat melancholy. He had
never been a rich man, nor had he been a saving one, and during his
period of popularity and office he had incurred great expenses. He now
set to work to repair his fortune by unremitting literary labour. He
brought out in the _Presse_ (1849) a series of _Confidences_, and
somewhat later a kind of autobiography, entitled _Raphael_. He wrote
several historical works of more or less importance, the _History of the
Revolution of 1848_, _The History of the Restoration_, _The History of
Turkey_, _The History of Russia_, besides a large number of small
biographical and miscellaneous works. In 1858 a subscription was opened
for his benefit. Two years afterwards, following the example of
Chateaubriand, he supervised an elaborate edition of his own works in
forty-one volumes. This occupied five years, and while he was engaged on
it his wife died (1863). He was now over seventy; his powers had
deserted him, and even if they had not the public taste had entirely
changed. His efforts had not succeeded in placing him in a position of
independence; and at last, in 1867, the government of the Empire (from
which he had perforce stood aloof, though he never considered it
necessary to adopt the active protesting attitude of Edgar Quinet and
Victor Hugo) came to his assistance, a vote of £20,000 being proposed in
April of that year for his benefit by Émile Ollivier. This was
creditable to both parties, for Lamartine, both as a distinguished man
of letters and as a past servant of the state, had every claim to the
bounty of his country. But he was reproached for accepting it by the
extreme republicans and irreconcilables. He did not enjoy it long, dying
on the 28th of February 1869.
As a statesman Lamartine was placed during his brief tenure of office
in a position from which it would have been almost impossible for any
man, who was not prepared and able to play the dictator, to emerge
with credit. At no time in history were unpractical crotchets so rife
in the heads of men as in 1848. But Lamartine could hardly have guided
the ship of state safely even in much calmer weather. He was amiable
and even estimable, the chief fault of his character being vanity and
an incurable tendency towards theatrical effect, which makes his
travels, memoirs and other personal records as well as his historical
works radically untrustworthy. Nor does it appear that he had any
settled political ideas. He did good by moderating the revolutionary
and destructive ardour of the Parisian populace in 1848; but he had
been perhaps more responsible than any other single person for
bringing about the events of that year by the vague and frothy
republican declamation of his _Histoire des Girondins_.
More must be said of his literary position. Lamartine had the
advantage of coming at a time when the literary field, at least in the
departments of belles lettres, was almost empty. The feeble school of
descriptive writers, epic poets of the extreme decadence, fabulists
and miscellaneous verse-makers, which the Empire had nourished could
satisfy no one. Madame de Staël was dead; Chateaubriand, though alive,
was something of a classic, and had not effected a full revolution.
Lamartine did not himself go the complete length of the Romantic
revival, but he went far in that direction. He availed himself of the
reviving interest in legitimism and Catholicism which was represented
by Bonald and Joseph de Maistre, of the nature worship of Rousseau and
Bernardin de Saint Pierre, of the sentimentalism of Madame de Staël,
of the medievalism and the romance of Chateaubriand and Scott, of the
_maladie du siècle_ of Chateaubriand and Byron. Perhaps if his matter
be very closely analysed it will be found that he added hardly
anything of his own. But if the parts of the mixture were like other
things the mixture itself was not. It seemed indeed to the immediate
generation so original that tradition has it that the _Méditations_
were refused by a publisher because they were in none of the accepted
styles. They appeared when Lamartine was nearly thirty years old. The
best of them, and the best thing that Lamartine ever did, is the
famous _Lac_, describing his return to the little mountain tarn of Le
Bourget after the death of his mistress, with whom he had visited it
in other days. The verse is exquisitely harmonious, the sentiments
conventional but refined and delicate, the imagery well chosen and
gracefully expressed. There is an unquestionable want of vigour, but
to readers of that day the want of vigour was entirely compensated by
the presence of freshness and grace. Lamartine's chief misfortune in
poetry was not only that his note was a somewhat weak one, but that he
could strike but one. The four volumes of the _Méditations_, the
_Harmonies_ and the _Recueillements_, which contained the prime of his
verse, are perhaps the most monotonous reading to be found anywhere in
work of equal bulk by a poet of equal talent. They contain nothing but
meditative lyrical pieces, almost any one of which is typical of the
whole, though there is considerable variation of merit. The two
narrative poems which succeeded the early lyrics, _Jocelyn_ and the
_Chute d'un ange_, were, according to Lamartine's original plan, parts
of a vast "Epic of the Ages," some further fragments of which survive.
_Jocelyn_ had at one time more popularity in England than most French
verse. _La Chute d'un ange_, in which the Byronic influence is more
obvious than in any other of Lamartine's works, and in which some have
also seen that of Alfred de Vigny, is more ambitious in theme, and
less regulated by scrupulous conditions of delicacy in handling, than
most of its author's poetry. It does, however, little more than prove
that such audacities were not for him.
As a prose writer Lamartine was very fertile. His characteristics in
his prose fiction and descriptive work are not very different from
those of his poetry. He is always and everywhere sentimental, though
very frequently, as in his shorter prose tales (_The Stone Mason of
Saint-Point_, _Graziella_, &c.), he is graceful as well as
sentimental. In his histories the effect is worse. It has been hinted
that Lamartine's personal narratives are doubtfully trustworthy; with
regard to his Eastern travels some of the episodes were stigmatized as
mere inventions. In his histories proper the special motive for
embellishment disappears, but the habit of inaccuracy remains. As an
historian he belongs exclusively to the rhetorical school as
distinguished from the philosophical on the one hand and the
documentary on the other.
It is not surprising when these characteristics of Lamartine's work
are appreciated to find that his fame declined with singular rapidity
in France. As a poet he had lost his reputation many years before he
died. He was entirely eclipsed by the brilliant and vigorous school
who succeeded him with Victor Hugo at their head. His power of
initiative in poetry was very small, and the range of poetic ground
which he could cover strictly limited. He could only carry the
picturesque sentimentalism of Rousseau, Bernardin de Saint Pierre and
Chateaubriand a little farther, and clothe it in language and verse a
little less antiquated than that of Chênedollé and Millevoye. He has
been said to be a French Cowper, and the parallel holds good in
respect of versification and of his relative position to the more
daringly innovating school that followed, though not in respect of
individual peculiarities. Lamartine in short occupied a kind of
half-way house between the 18th century and the Romantic movement, and
he never got any farther. When Matthew Arnold questioned his
importance in conversation with Sainte-Beuve, the answer was, "He is
important to _us_," and it was a true answer; but the limitation is
obvious. In more recent years, however, efforts have been made by
Brunetière and others to remove it. The usual revolution of critical
as of other taste, the oblivion of personal and political
unpopularity, and above all the reaction against Hugo and the extreme
Romantics, have been the main agents in this. Lamartine has been
extolled as a pattern of combined passion and restraint, as a model of
nobility of sentiment, and as a harmonizer of pure French classicism
in taste and expression with much, if not all, the better part of
Romanticism itself. These oscillations of opinion are frequent, if not
universal, and it is only after more than one or two swings that the
pendulum remains at the perpendicular. The above remarks are an
attempt to correct extravagance in either direction. But it is
difficult to believe that Lamartine can ever permanently take rank
among the first order of poets.
The edition mentioned is the most complete one of Lamartine, but there
are many issues of his separate works. After his death some poems and
_Mémoires inédits_ of his youth were published, and also two volumes
of correspondence, while in 1893 Mlle V. de Lamartine added a volume
of _Lettres_ to him. The change of views above referred to may be
studied in the detached articles of MM. Brunetière, Faguet, Lemaître,
&c., and in the more substantive work of Ch. de Pomairols, _Lamartine_
(1889); E. Deschanel, _Lamartine_ (1893); E. Zyrowski, _Lamartine_
(1896); and perhaps best of all in the Preface to Emile Legouis'
Clarendon Press edition of _Jocelyn_ (1906), where a vigorous effort
is made to combat the idea of Lamartine's sentimentality and
femininity as a poet. (G. Sa.)
LAMB, CHARLES (1775-1834), English essayist and critic, was born in
Crown Office Row, Inner Temple, London, on the 10th of February 1775.
His father, John Lamb, a Lincolnshire man, who filled the situation of
clerk and servant-companion to Samuel Salt, a member of parliament and
one of the benchers of the Inner Temple, was successful in obtaining for
Charles, the youngest of three surviving children, a presentation to
Christ's Hospital, where the boy remained from his eighth to his
fifteenth year (1782-1789). Here he had for a schoolfellow Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, his senior by rather more than two years, and a close and
tender friendship began which lasted for the rest of the lives of both.
When the time came for leaving school, where he had learned some Greek
and acquired considerable facility in Latin composition, Lamb, after a
brief stay at home (probably spent, as his school holidays had often
been, over old English authors in Salt's library) was condemned to the
labours of the desk--"an inconquerable impediment" in his speech
disqualifying him for the clerical profession, which, as the school
exhibitions were usually only given to those preparing for the church,
thus deprived him of the only means by which he could have obtained a
university education. For a short time he was in the office of Joseph
Paice, a London merchant, and then for twenty-three weeks, until the 8th
of February 1792, he held a small post in the Examiner's Office of the
South Sea House, where his brother John was established, a period which,
although his age was but sixteen, was to provide him nearly thirty years
later with materials for the first of the _Essays of Elia_. On the 5th
of April 1792, he entered the Accountant's Office in the East India
House, where during the next three and thirty years the hundred official
folios of what he used to call his true "works" were produced.
Of the years 1792-1795 we know little. At the end of 1794 he saw much of
Coleridge and joined him in writing sonnets in the _Morning Post_,
addressed to eminent persons: early in 1795 he met Southey and was much
in the company of James White, whom he probably helped in the
composition of the _Original Letters of Sir John Falstaff_; and at the
end of the year for a short time he became so unhinged mentally as to
necessitate confinement in an asylum. The cause, it is probable, was an
unsuccessful love affair with Ann Simmons, the Hertfordshire maiden to
whom his first sonnets are addressed, whom he would have seen when on
his visits as a youth to Blakesware House, near Widford, the country
home of the Plumer family, of which Lamb's grandmother, Mary Field, was
for many years, until her death in 1792, sole custodian.
It was in the late summer of 1796 that a dreadful calamity came upon the
Lambs, which seemed to blight all Lamb's prospects in the very morning
of life. On the 22nd of September his sister Mary, "worn down to a state
of extreme nervous misery by attention to needlework by day and to her
mother at night," was suddenly seized with acute mania, in which she
stabbed her mother to the heart. The calm self-mastery and loving
self-renunciation which Charles Lamb, by constitution excitable, nervous
and self-mistrustful, displayed at this crisis in his own history and in
that of those nearest him, will ever give him an imperishable claim to
the reverence and affection of all who are capable of appreciating the
heroisms of common life. With the help of friends he succeeded in
obtaining his sister's release from the lifelong restraint to which she
would otherwise have been doomed, on the express condition that he
himself should undertake the responsibility for her safe keeping. It
proved no light charge: for though no one was capable of affording a
more intelligent or affectionate companionship than Mary Lamb during her
periods of health, there was ever present the apprehension of the
recurrence of her malady; and when from time to time the premonitory
symptoms had become unmistakable, there was no alternative but her
removal, which took place in quietness and tears. How deeply the whole
course of Lamb's domestic life must have been affected by his singular
loyalty as a brother needs not to be pointed out.
Lamb's first appearance as an author was made in the year of the great
tragedy of his life (1796), when there were published in the volume of
_Poems on Various Subjects_ by Coleridge four sonnets by "Mr Charles
Lamb of the India House." In the following year he contributed, with
Charles Lloyd, a pupil of Coleridge, some pieces in blank verse to the
second edition of Coleridge's _Poems_. In 1797 his short summer holiday
was spent with Coleridge at Nether Stowey, where he met the Wordsworths,
William and Dorothy, and established a friendship with both which only
his own death terminated. In 1798, under the influence of Henry
Mackenzie's novel _Julie de Roubigné_, he published a short and pathetic
prose tale entitled _Rosamund Gray_, in which it is possible to trace
beneath disguised conditions references to the misfortunes of the
author's own family, and many personal touches; and in the same year he
joined Lloyd in a volume of _Blank Verse_, to which Lamb contributed
poems occasioned by the death of his mother and his aunt Sarah Lamb,
among them being his best-known lyric, "The Old Familiar Faces." In this
year, 1798, he achieved the unexpected publicity of an attack by the
_Anti-Jacobin_ upon him as an associate of Coleridge and Southey (to
whose _Annual Anthology_ he had contributed) in their Jacobin
machinations. In 1799, on the death of her father, Mary Lamb came to
live again with her brother, their home then being in Pentonville; but
it was not until 1800 that they really settled together, their first
independent joint home being at Mitre Court Buildings in the Temple,
where they lived until 1809. At the end of 1801, or beginning of 1802,
appeared Lamb's first play _John Woodvil_, on which he set great store,
a slight dramatic piece written in the style of the earlier Elizabethan
period and containing some genuine poetry and happy delineation of the
gentler emotions, but as a whole deficient in plot, vigour and
character; it was held up to ridicule by the _Edinburgh Review_ as a
specimen of the rudest condition of the drama, a work by "a man of the
age of Thespis." The dramatic spirit, however, was not thus easily
quenched in Lamb, and his next effort was a farce, _Mr H----_, the point
of which lay in the hero's anxiety to conceal his name "Hogsflesh"; but
it did not survive the first night of its appearance at Drury Lane, in
December 1806. Its author bore the failure with rare equanimity and good
humour--even to joining in the hissing--and soon struck into new and
more successful fields of literary exertion. Before, however, passing to
these it should be mentioned that he made various efforts to earn money
by journalism, partly by humorous articles, partly as dramatic critic,
but chiefly as a contributor of sarcastic or funny paragraphs, "sparing
neither man nor woman," in the _Morning Post_, principally in 1803.
In 1807 appeared _Tales founded on the Plays of Shakespeare_, written by
Charles and Mary Lamb, in which Charles was responsible for the
tragedies and Mary for the comedies; and in 1808, _Specimens of English
Dramatic Poets who lived about the time of Shakespeare_, with short but
felicitous critical notes. It was this work which laid the foundation of
Lamb's reputation as a critic, for it was filled with imaginative
understanding of the old playwrights, and a warm, discerning and novel
appreciation of their great merits. In the same year, 1808, Mary Lamb,
assisted by her brother, published _Poetry for Children_, and a
collection of short school-girl tales under the title _Mrs Leicester's
School_; and to the same date belongs _The Adventures of Ulysses_,
designed by Lamb as a companion to _The Adventures of Telemachus_. In
1810 began to appear Leigh Hunt's quarterly periodical, _The Reflector_,
in which Lamb published much (including the fine essays on the tragedies
of Shakespeare and on Hogarth) that subsequently appeared in the first
collective edition of his _Works_, which he put forth in 1818.
Between 1811, when _The Reflector_ ceased, and 1820, he wrote almost
nothing. In these years we may imagine him at his most social period,
playing much whist and entertaining his friends on Wednesday or Thursday
nights; meanwhile gathering that reputation as a conversationalist or
inspirer of conversation in others, which Hazlitt, who was at one time
one of Lamb's closest friends, has done so much to celebrate. When in
1818 appeared the _Works_ in two volumes, it may be that Lamb considered
his literary career over. Before coming to 1820, and an event which was
in reality to be the beginning of that career as it is generally
known--the establishment of the _London Magazine_--it should be recorded
that in the summer of 1819 Lamb, with his sister's full consent,
proposed marriage to Fanny Kelly, the actress, who was then in her
thirtieth year. Miss Kelly could not accept, giving as one reason her
devotion to her mother. Lamb bore the rebuff with characteristic humour
and fortitude.
The establishment of the _London Magazine_ in 1820 stimulated Lamb to
the production of a series of new essays (the _Essays of Elia_) which
may be said to form the chief corner-stone in the small but classic
temple of his fame. The first of these, as it fell out, was a
description of the old South Sea House, with which Lamb happened to have
associated the name of a "gay light-hearted foreigner" called Elia, who
was a clerk in the days of his service there. The pseudonym adopted on
this occasion was retained for the subsequent contributions, which
appeared collectively in a volume of essays called _Elia_, in 1823.
After a career of five years the _London Magazine_ came to an end; and
about the same period Lamb's long connexion with the India House
terminated, a pension of £450 (£441 net) having been assigned to him.
The increased leisure, however, for which he had long sighed, did not
prove favourable to literary production, which henceforth was limited to
a few trifling contributions to the _New Monthly_ and other serials, and
the excavation of gems from the mass of dramatic literature bequeathed
to the British Museum by David Garrick, which Lamb laboriously read
through in 1827, an occupation which supplied him for a time with the
regular hours of work he missed so much. The malady of his sister, which
continued to increase with ever shortening intervals of relief, broke in
painfully on his lettered ease and comfort; and it is unfortunately
impossible to ignore the deteriorating effects of an over-free
indulgence in the use of alcohol, and, in early life, tobacco, on a
temperament such as his. His removal on account of his sister to the
quiet of the country at Enfield, by tending to withdraw him from the
stimulating society of the large circle of literary friends who had
helped to make his weekly or monthly "at homes" so remarkable, doubtless
also tended to intensify his listlessness and helplessness. One of the
brightest elements in the closing years of his life was the friendship
and companionship of Emma Isola, whom he and his sister had adopted, and
whose marriage in 1833 to Edward Moxon, the publisher, though a source
of unselfish joy to Lamb, left him more than ever alone. While living at
Edmonton, whither he had moved in 1833 so that his sister might have the
continual care of Mr and Mrs Walden, who were accustomed to patients of
weak intellect, Lamb was overtaken by an attack of erysipelas brought on
by an accidental fall as he was walking on the London road. After a few
days' illness he died on the 27th of December, 1834. The sudden death of
one so widely known, admired and beloved, fell on the public as well as
on his own attached circle with all the poignancy of a personal calamity
and a private grief. His memory wanted no tribute that affection could
bestow, and Wordsworth commemorated in simple and solemn verse the
genius, virtues and fraternal devotion of his early friend.
Charles Lamb is entitled to a place as an essayist beside Montaigne, Sir
Thomas Browne, Steele and Addison. He unites many of the characteristics
of each of these writers--refined and exquisite humour, a genuine and
cordial vein of pleasantry and heart-touching pathos. His fancy is
distinguished by great delicacy and tenderness; and even his conceits
are imbued with human feeling and passion. He had an extreme and almost
exclusive partiality for earlier prose writers, particularly for Fuller,
Browne and Burton, as well as for the dramatists of Shakespeare's time;
and the care with which he studied them is apparent in all he ever
wrote. It shines out conspicuously in his style, which has an antique
air and is redolent of the peculiarities of the 17th century. Its
quaintness has subjected the author to the charge of affectation, but
there is nothing really affected in his writings. His style is not so
much an imitation as a reflexion of the older writers; for in spirit he
made himself their contemporary. A confirmed habit of studying them in
preference to modern literature had made something of their style
natural to him; and long experience had rendered it not only easy and
familiar but habitual. It was not a masquerade dress he wore, but the
costume which showed the man to most advantage. With thought and meaning
often profound, though clothed in simple language, every sentence of his
essays is pregnant.
He played a considerable part in reviving the dramatic writers of the
Shakesperian age; for he preceded Gifford and others in wiping the dust
of ages from their works. In his brief comments on each specimen he
displays exquisite powers of discrimination: his discernment of the true
meaning of his author is almost infallible. His work was a departure in
criticism. Former editors had supplied textual criticism and alternative
readings: Lamb's object was to show how our ancestors felt when they
placed themselves by the power of imagination in trying situations, in
the conflicts of duty or passion or the strife of contending duties;
what sorts of loves and enmities theirs were.
As a poet Lamb is not entitled to so high a place as that which can be
claimed for him as essayist and critic. His dependence on Elizabethan
models is here also manifest, but in such a way as to bring into all the
greater prominence his native deficiency in "the accomplishment of
verse." Yet it is impossible, once having read, ever to forget the
tenderness and grace of such poems as "Hester," "The Old Familiar
Faces," and the lines "On an infant dying as soon as born" or the quaint
humour of "A Farewell to Tobacco." As a letter writer Lamb ranks very
high, and when in a nonsensical mood there is none to touch him.
Editions and memoirs of Lamb are numerous. The _Letters_, with a
sketch of his life by Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd, appeared in 1837; the
_Final Memorials of Charles Lamb_ by the same hand, after Mary Lamb's
death, in 1848; Barry Cornwall's _Charles Lamb: A Memoir_, in 1866. Mr
P. Fitzgerald's _Charles Lamb: his Friends, his Haunts and his Books_
(1866); W. Carew Hazlitt's _Mary and Charles Lamb_ (1874). Mr
Fitzgerald and Mr Hazlitt have also both edited the _Letters_, and Mr
Fitzgerald brought Talfourd to date with an edition of Lamb's works in
1870-1876. Later and fuller editions are those of Canon Ainger in 12
volumes, Mr Macdonald in 12 volumes and Mr E. V. Lucas in 7 volumes,
to which in 1905 was added _The Life of Charles Lamb_, in 2 volumes.
(E. V. L.)
LAMB (a word common to Teutonic languages; cf. Ger. _Lamm_), the young
of sheep. The Paschal Lamb or Agnus Dei is used as a symbol of Jesus
Christ, the Lamb of God (John i. 29), and "lamb," like "flock," is often
used figuratively of the members of a Christian church or community,
with an allusion to Jesus' charge to Peter (John xxi. 15). The "lamb and
flag" is an heraldic emblem, the dexter fore-leg of the lamb supporting
a staff bearing a banner charged with the St George's cross. This was
one of the crests of the Knights Templars, used on seals as early as
1241; it was adopted as a badge or crest by the Middle Temple, the Inner
Temple using another crest of the Templars, the winged horse or Pegasus.
The old Tangier regiment, now the Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment,
bore a Paschal Lamb as its badge. From their colonel, Percy Kirke
(q.v.), they were known as Kirke's Lambs. The exaggerated reputation of
the regiment for brutality, both in Tangier and in England after
Sedgmoor, lent irony to the nickname.
LAMBALLE, MARIE THÉRÈSE LOUISE OF SAVOY-CARIGNANO, PRINCESSE DE
(1749-1792), fourth daughter of Louis Victor of Carignano (d. 1774)
(great-grandfather of King Charles Albert of Sardinia), and of Christine
Henriette of Hesse-Rheinfels-Rothenburg, was born at Turin on the 8th of
September 1749. In 1767 she was married to Louis Alexandre Stanislaus de
Bourbon, prince of Lamballe, son of the duke of Penthièvre, a grandson
of Louis XIV.'s natural son the count of Toulouse. Her husband dying the
following year, she retired with her father-in-law to Rambouillet, where
she lived until the marriage of the dauphin, when she returned to court.
Marie Antoinette, charmed by her gentle and naïve manners, singled her
out for a companion and confidante. The impetuous character of the
dauphiness found in Madame de Lamballe that submissive temperament which
yields to force of environment, and the two became fast friends. After
her accession Marie Antoinette, in spite of the king's opposition, had
her appointed superintendent of the royal household. Between 1776 and
1785 the comtesse de Polignac succeeded in supplanting her; but when the
queen tired of the avarice of the Polignacs, she turned again to Madame
de Lamballe. From 1785 to the Revolution she was Marie Antoinette's
closest friend and the pliant instrument of her caprices. She came with
the queen to the Tuileries and as her salon served as a meeting-place
for the queen and the members of the Assembly whom she wished to gain
over, the people believed her to be the soul of all the intrigues. After
a visit to England in 1791 to appeal for help for the royal family she
made her will and returned to the Tuileries, where she continued her
services to the queen until the 10th of August, when she shared her
imprisonment in the Temple. On the 19th of August she was transferred to
La Force, and having refused to take the oath against the monarchy, she
was on the 3rd of September delivered over to the fury of the populace,
after which her head was placed on a pike and carried before the windows
of the queen.
See George Bertin, _Madame de Lamballe_ (Paris, 1888); Austin Dobson,
_Four Frenchwomen_ (1890); B. C. Hardy, _Princesse de Lamballe_
(1908); Comte de Lescure, _La Princesse de Lamballe ... d'après des
documents inédits_ (1864); some letters of the princess published by
Ch. Schmidt in _La Révolution française_ (vol. xxxix., 1900); L.
Lambeau, _Essais sur la mort de madame la princesse de Lamballe_
(1902); Sir F. Montefiore, _The Princesse de Lamballe_ (1896). _The
Secret Memoirs of the Royal Family of France ... now first published
from the Journal, Letters and Conversations of the Princesse de
Lamballe_ (London, 2 vols., 1826) have since appeared in various
editions in English and in French. They are attributed to Catherine
Hyde, Marchioness Govion-Broglio-Solari, and are apocryphal.
LAMBALLE, a town of north-western France, in the department of
Côtes-du-Nord, on the Gouessant 13 m. E.S.E. of St Brieuc by rail. Pop.
(1906) 4347. Crowning the eminence on which the town is built is a
beautiful Gothic church (13th and 14th centuries), once the chapel of
the castle of the counts of Penthièvre. La Noue, the famous Huguenot
leader, was mortally wounded in 1591 in the siege of the castle, which
was dismantled in 1626 by Richelieu. Of the other buildings, the church
of St Martin (11th, 15th and 16th centuries) is the chief. Lamballe has
an important _haras_ (depot for stallions) and carries on trade in
grain, tanning and leather-dressing; earthenware is manufactured in the
environs. Lamballe was the capital of the territory of the counts of
Penthièvre, who in 1569 were made dukes.
LAMBAYEQUE, a coast department of northern Peru, bounded N. by Piura, E.
and S. by Cajamarca and Libertad. Area, 4614 sq. m. Pop. (1906 estimate)
93,070. It belongs to the arid region of the coast, and is settled along
the river valleys where irrigation is possible. It is one of the chief
sugar-producing departments of Peru, and in some valleys, especially
near Ferreñafe, rice is largely produced. Four railways connect its
principal producing centres with the small ports of Eten and Pimentel,
viz.: Eten to Ferreñafe, 27 m.; Eten to Cayalti, 23 m.; Pimentel to
Lambayeque, 15 m.; and Chiclayo to Pátapo, 15 m. The principal towns are
Chiclayo, the departmental capital, with a population (1906 estimate) of
10,500, Ferreñafe 6000, and Lambayeque 4500.
LAMBEAUX, JEF (JOSEPH MARIE THOMAS), (1852-1908), Belgian sculptor, was
born at Antwerp. He studied at the Antwerp Academy of Fine Arts, and was
a pupil of Jean Geefs. His first work, "War," was exhibited in 1871, and
was followed by a long series of humorous groups, including "Children
dancing," "Say 'Good Morning,'" "The Lucky Number" and "An Accident"
(1875). He then went to Paris, where he executed for the Belgian salons
"The Beggar" and "The Blind Pauper," and produced "The Kiss" (1881),
generally regarded as his masterpiece. After visiting Italy, where he
was much impressed by the works of Jean Bologne, he showed a strong
predilection for effects of force and motion. Other notable works are
his fountain at Antwerp (1886), "Robbing the Eagle's Eyrie" (1890),
"Drunkenness" (1893), "The Triumph of Woman," "The Bitten Faun" (which
created a great stir at the Exposition Universelle at Liége in 1905),
and "The Human Passions," a colossal marble bas-relief, elaborated from
a sketch exhibited in 1889. Of his numerous busts may be mentioned those
of Hendrik Conscience, and of Charles Bals, the burgomaster of Brussels.
He died on the 6th of June 1908.
LAMBERMONT, AUGUSTE, BARON (1819-1905), Belgian statesman, was born at
Dion-le-Val in Brabant on the 25th of March 1819. He came of a family of
small farmer proprietors, who had held land during three centuries. He
was intended for the priesthood and entered the seminary of Floreffe,
but his energies claimed a more active sphere. He left the monastery for
Louvain University. Here he studied law, and also prepared himself for
the military examinations. At that juncture the first Carlist war broke
out, and Lambermont hastened to the scene of action. His services were
accepted (April 1838) and he was entrusted with the command of two small
cannon. He also acted as A.D.C. to Colonel Durando. He greatly
distinguished himself, and for his intrepidity on one occasion he was
decorated with the Cross of the highest military Order of St Ferdinand.
Returning to Belgium he entered the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in
1842. He served in this department sixty-three years. He was closely
associated with several of the most important questions in Belgian
history during the last half of the 19th century--notably the freeing of
the Scheldt. He was one of the very first Belgians to see the importance
of developing the trade of their country, and at his own request he was
attached to the commercial branch of the foreign office. The tolls
imposed by the Dutch on navigation on the Scheldt strangled Belgian
trade, for Antwerp was the only port of the country. The Dutch had the
right to make this levy under treaties going back to the treaty of
Munster in 1648, and they clung to it still more tenaciously after
Belgium separated herself in 1830-1831 from the united kingdom of the
Netherlands--the London conference in 1839 fixing the toll payable to
Holland at 1.50 florins (3s.) per ton. From 1856 to 1863 Lambermont
devoted most of his energies to the removal of this impediment. In 1856
he drew up a plan of action, and he prosecuted it with untiring
perseverance until he saw it embodied in an international convention
seven years later. Twenty-one powers and states attended a conference
held on the question at Brussels in 1863, and on the 15th of July the
treaty freeing the Scheldt was signed. For this achievement Lambermont
was made a baron. Among other important conferences in which Lambermont
took a leading part were those of Brussels (1874) on the usages of war,
Berlin (1884-1885) on Africa and the Congo region, and Brussels (1890)
on Central African Affairs and the Slave Trade. He was joint reporter
with Baron de Courcel of the Berlin conference in 1884-1885, and on
several occasions he was chosen as arbitrator by one or other of the
great European powers. But his great achievement was the freeing of the
Scheldt, and in token of its gratitude the city of Antwerp erected a
fine monument to his memory. He died on the 7th of March 1905.
LAMBERT, DANIEL (1770-1809), an Englishman famous for his great size,
was born near Leicester on the 13th of March 1770, the son of the keeper
of the jail, to which post he succeeded in 1791. About this time his
size and weight increased enormously, and though he had led an active
and athletic life he weighed in 1793 thirty-two stone (448 lb.). In 1806
he resolved to profit by his notoriety, and resigning his office went up
to London and exhibited himself. He died on the 21st of July 1809, and
at the time measured 5 ft. 11 in. in height and weighed 52¾ stone (739
lb.). His waistcoat, now in the Kings Lynn Museum, measures 102 in.
round the waist. His coffin contained 112 ft. of elm and was built on
wheels. His name has been used as a synonym for immensity. George
Meredith describes London as the "Daniel Lambert of cities," and Herbert
Spencer uses the phrase "a Daniel Lambert of learning." His enormous
proportions were depicted on a number of tavern signs, but the best
portrait of him, a large mezzotint, is preserved at the British Museum
in Lyson's _Collectanea_.
LAMBERT, FRANCIS (c. 1486-1530), Protestant reformer, was the son of a
papal official at Avignon, where he was born between 1485 and 1487. At
the age of 15 he entered the Franciscan monastery at Avignon, and after
1517 he was an itinerant preacher, travelling through France, Italy and
Switzerland. His study of the Scriptures shook his faith in Roman
Catholic theology, and by 1522 he had abandoned his order, and became
known to the leaders of the Reformation in Switzerland and Germany. He
did not, however, identify himself either with Zwinglianism or
Lutheranism; he disputed with Zwingli at Zürich in 1522, and then made
his way to Eisenach and Wittenberg, where he married in 1523. He
returned to Strassburg in 1524, being anxious to spread the doctrines of
the Reformation among the French-speaking population of the
neighbourhood. By the Germans he was distrusted, and in 1526 his
activities were prohibited by the city of Strassburg. He was, however,
befriended by Jacob Sturm, who recommended him to the Landgraf Philip of
Hesse, the most liberal of the German reforming princes. With Philip's
encouragement he drafted that scheme of ecclesiastical reform for which
he is famous. Its basis was essentially democratic and congregational,
though it provided for the government of the whole church by means of a
synod. Pastors were to be elected by the congregation, and the whole
system of canon-law was repudiated. This scheme was submitted by Philip
to a synod at Homburg; but Luther intervened and persuaded the Landgraf
to abandon it. It was far too democratic to commend itself to the
Lutherans, who had by this time bound the Lutheran cause to the support
of princes rather than to that of the people. Philip continued to favour
Lambert, who was appointed professor and head of the theological faculty
in the Landgraf's new university of Marburg. Patrick Hamilton (q.v.),
the Scottish martyr, was one of his pupils; and it was at Lambert's
instigation that Hamilton composed his _Loci communes_, or _Patrick's
Pleas_ as they were popularly called in Scotland. Lambert was also one
of the divines who took part in the great conference of Marburg in 1529;
he had long wavered between the Lutheran and the Zwinglian view of the
Lord's Supper, but at this conference he definitely adopted the
Zwinglian view. He died of the plague on the 18th of April 1530, and was
buried at Marburg.
A catalogue of Lambert's writings is given in Haag's _La France
protestante_. See also lives of Lambert by Baum (Strassburg, 1840); F.
W. Hessencamp (Elberfeld, 1860), Stieve (Breslau, 1867) and Louis
Ruffet (Paris, 1873); Lorimer, _Life of Patrick Hamilton_ (1857); A.
L. Richter, _Die evangelischen Kirchenordnungen des 16. Jahrh_.
(Weimar, 1846); Hessencamp, _Hessische Kirchenordnungen im Zeitalter
der Reformation_; Philip of _Hesse's Correspondence with Bucer_, ed.
M. Lenz; Lindsay, _Hist. Reformation_; _Allgemeine deutsche
Biographie_. (A. F. P.)
LAMBERT, JOHANN HEINRICH (1728-1777), German physicist, mathematician
and astronomer, was born at Mulhausen, Alsace, on the 26th of August
1728. He was the son of a tailor; and the slight elementary instruction
he obtained at the free school of his native town was supplemented by
his own private reading. He became book-keeper at Montbéliard ironworks,
and subsequently (1745) secretary to Professor Iselin, the editor of a
newspaper at Basel, who three years later recommended him as private
tutor to the family of Count A. von Salis of Coire. Coming thus into
virtual possession of a good library, Lambert had peculiar opportunities
for improving himself in his literary and scientific studies. In 1759,
after completing with his pupils a tour of two years' duration through
Göttingen, Utrecht, Paris, Marseilles and Turin, he resigned his
tutorship and settled at Augsburg. Munich, Erlangen, Coire and Leipzig
became for brief successive intervals his home. In 1764 he removed to
Berlin, where he received many favours at the hand of Frederick the
Great and was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of
Berlin, and in 1774 edited the Berlin _Ephemeris_. He died of
consumption on the 25th of September 1777. His publications show him to
have been a man of original and active mind with a singular facility in
applying mathematics to practical questions.
His mathematical discoveries were extended and overshadowed by his
contemporaries. His development of the equation x^m + px = q in an
infinite series was extended by Leonhard Euler, and particularly by
Joseph Louis Lagrange. In 1761 he proved the irrationality of [pi]; a
simpler proof was given somewhat later by Legendre. The introduction of
hyperbolic functions into trigonometry was also due to him. His
geometrical discoveries are of great value, his _Die freie Perspective_
(1759-1774) being a work of great merit. Astronomy was also enriched by
his investigations, and he was led to several remarkable theorems on
conics which bear his name. The most important are: (1) To express the
time of describing an elliptic arc under the Newtonian law of
gravitation in terms of the focal distances of the initial and final
points, and the length of the chord joining them. (2) A theorem relating
to the apparent curvature of the geocentric path of a comet.
Lambert's most important work, _Pyrometrie_ (Berlin, 1779), is a
systematic treatise on heat, containing the records and full
discussion of many of his own experiments. Worthy of special notice
also are _Photometria_ (Augsburg, 1760), _Insigniores orbitae
cometarum proprietates_ (Augsburg, 1761), and _Beiträge zum Gebrauche
der Mathematik und deren Anwendung_ (4 vols., Berlin, 1765-1772).
The _Memoirs_ of the Berlin Academy from 1761 to 1784 contain many of
his papers, which treat of such subjects as resistance of fluids,
magnetism, comets, probabilities, the problem of three bodies,
meteorology, &c. In the _Acta Helvetica_ (1752-1760) and in the _Nova
acta erudita_ (1763-1769) several of his contributions appear. In
Bode's _Jahrbuch_ (1776-1780) he discusses nutation, aberration of
light, Saturn's rings and comets; in the _Nova acta Helvetica_ (1787)
he has a long paper "Sur le son des corps élastiques," in Bernoulli
and Hindenburg's _Magazin_ (1787-1788) he treats of the roots of
equation and of parallel lines; and in Hindenburg's _Archiv_
(1798-1799) he writes on optics and perspective. Many of these pieces
were published posthumously. Recognized as among the first
mathematicians of his day, he was also widely known for the
universality and depth of his philological and philosophical
knowledge. The most valuable of his logical and philosophical memoirs
were published collectively in 2 vols. (1782).
See Huber's _Lambert nach seinem Leben und Wirken_; M. Chasles,
_Geschichte der Geometrie_; and Baensch, Lamberts _Philosophie und
seine Stellung zu Kant_ (1902).
LAMBERT [_alias_ NICHOLSON], JOHN (d. 1538), English Protestant martyr,
was born at Norwich and educated at Cambridge, where he graduated B.A.
and was admitted in 1521 a fellow of Queen's College on the nomination
of Catherine of Aragon. After acting for some years as a "mass-priest,"
his views were unsettled by the arguments of Bilney and Arthur; and
episcopal persecution compelled him, according to his own account, to
assume the name Lambert instead of Nicholson. He likewise removed to
Antwerp, where he became chaplain to the English factory, and formed a
friendship with Frith and Tyndale. Returning to England in 1531, he came
under the notice of Archbishop Warham, who questioned him closely on his
religious beliefs. Warham's death in August 1532 relieved Lambert from
immediate danger, and he earned a living for some years by teaching
Latin and Greek near the Stocks Market in London. The duke of Norfolk
and other reactionaries accused him of heresy in 1536, but reforming
tendencies were still in the ascendant, and Lambert escaped. In 1538,
however, the reaction had begun, and Lambert was its first victim. He
singled himself out for persecution by denying the Real Presence: and
Henry VIII., who had just rejected the Lutheran proposals for a
theological union, was in no mood to tolerate worse heresies. Lambert
had challenged some views expressed by Dr John Taylor, afterwards bishop
of Lincoln; and Cranmer as archbishop condemned Lambert's opinions. He
appealed to the king as supreme head of the Church, and on the 16th of
November Henry heard the case in person before a large assembly of
spiritual and temporal peers. For five hours Lambert disputed with the
king and ten bishops; and then, as he boldly denied that the Eucharist
was the body of Christ, he was condemned to death by Cromwell as
vicegerent. Henry's condescension and patience produced a great
impression on his Catholic subjects; but Cromwell is said by Foxe to
have asked Lambert's pardon before his execution, and Cranmer eventually
adopted the views he condemned in Lambert. Lambert was burnt at
Smithfield on the 22nd of November.
See _Letters and Papers of Henry VIII._; Foxe's _Acts and Monuments_;
Froude, _History_; Dixon, _Church History_; Gairdner, _Lollardy and
the Reformation_, _Dict. of Nat. Biog._ and authorities there cited.
(A. F. P.)
LAMBERT, JOHN (1619-1694), English general in the Great Rebellion, was
born at Calton Hall, Kirkby Malham, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. His
family was of ancient lineage, and long settled in the county. He
studied law, but did not make it his profession. In 1639 he married
Frances, daughter of Sir William Lister. At the opening of the Civil War
he took up arms for the parliament, and in September 1642 was appointed
a captain of horse in the army commanded by Ferdinando, Lord Fairfax. A
year later he had become colonel of a regiment of horse, and he
distinguished himself at the siege of Hull in October, 1643. Early in
1644 he did good service at the battles of Nantwich and Bradford. At
Marston Moor Lambert's own regiment was routed by the charge of Goring's
horse; but he cut his way through with a few troops and joined Cromwell
on the other side of the field. When the New Model army was formed in
the beginning of 1645, Colonel Lambert was appointed to succeed Fairfax
in command of the northern forces. General Poyntz, however, soon
replaced him, and under this officer he served in the Yorkshire campaign
of 1645, receiving a wound before Pontefract. In 1646 he was given a
regiment in the New Model, serving with Fairfax in the west of England,
and he was a commissioner, with Cromwell and others, for the surrender
of Oxford in the same year. "It is evident," says C. H. Firth (_Dict.
Nat. Biog._), "that he was from the first regarded as an officer of
exceptional capacity and specially selected for semi-political
employments."
When the quarrel between the army and the parliament began, Lambert
threw himself warmly into the army's cause. He assisted Ireton in
drawing up the several addresses and remonstrances issued by the army,
both men having had some experience in the law, and being "of a subtle
and working brain." Early in August 1647 Lambert was sent by Fairfax as
major-general to take charge of the forces in the northern counties. His
wise and just managing of affairs in those parts is commended by
Whitelocke. He suppressed a mutiny among his troops, kept strict
discipline and hunted down the moss-troopers who infested the moorland
country.
When the Scottish army under the marquis of Hamilton invaded England in
the summer of 1648, Lambert was engaged in suppressing the Royalist
rising in his district. The arrival of the Scots obliged him to retreat;
but Lambert displayed the greatest energy and did not cease to harass
the invaders till Cromwell came up from Wales and with him destroyed the
Scottish army in the three days' fighting from Preston to Warrington.
After the battle Lambert's cavalry headed the chase, pursuing the
defeated army _à outrance_, and finally surrounded it at Uttoxeter,
where Hamilton surrendered to Lambert on the 25th of August. He then led
the advance of Cromwell's army into Scotland, where he was left in
charge on Cromwell's return. From December 1648 to March 1649 he was
engaged in the siege of Pontefract Castle; Lambert was thus absent from
London at the time of Pride's Purge and the trial and execution of the
king.
When Cromwell was appointed to the command of the war in Scotland (July
1650), Lambert went with him as major-general and second in command. He
was wounded at Musselburgh, but returned to the front in time to take a
conspicuous share in the victory of Dunbar. He himself defeated the
"Protesters" or "Western Whigs" at Hamilton, on the 1st of December
1650. In July 1651 he was sent into Fife to get in the rear and flank of
the Scottish army near Falkirk, and force them to decisive action by
cutting off their supplies. This mission, in the course of which Lambert
won an important victory at Inverkeithing, was executed with entire
success, whereupon Charles II., as Lambert had foreseen, made for
England. For the events of the Worcester campaign, which quickly
followed, see GREAT REBELLION. Lambert's part in the general plan was
carried out most brilliantly, and in the crowning victory of Worcester
he commanded the right wing of the English army, and had his horse shot
under him. Parliament now conferred on him a grant of lands in Scotland
worth £1000 per annum.
In October 1651 Lambert was made a commissioner to settle the affairs of
Scotland, and on the death of Ireton he was appointed lord deputy of
Ireland (January 1652). He accepted the office with pleasure, and made
magnificent preparations; parliament, however, soon afterwards
reconstituted the Irish administration and Lambert refused to accept
office on the new terms. Henceforward he began to oppose the Rump. In
the council of officers he headed the party desiring representative
government, as opposed to Harrison who favoured a selected oligarchy of
"God-fearing" men, but both hated what remained of the Long parliament,
and joined in urging Cromwell to dissolve it by force. At the same time
Lambert was consulted by the parliamentary leaders as to the possibility
of dismissing Cromwell from his command, and on the 15th of March 1653
Cromwell refused to see him, speaking of him contemptuously as
"bottomless Lambert." On the 20th of April, however, Lambert accompanied
Cromwell when he dismissed the council of state, on the same day as the
forcible expulsion of the parliament. Lambert now favoured the formation
of a small executive council, to be followed by an elective parliament
whose powers should be limited by a written instrument of government.
Being at this time the ruling spirit in the council of state, and the
idol of the army, there were some who looked on him as a possible rival
of Cromwell for the chief executive power, while the royalists for a
short time had hopes of his support. He was invited, with Cromwell,
Harrison and Desborough, to sit in the nominated parliament of 1653; and
when the unpopularity of that assembly increased, Cromwell drew nearer
to Lambert. In November 1653 Lambert presided over a meeting of
officers, when the question of constitutional settlement was discussed,
and a proposal made for the forcible expulsion of the nominated
parliament. On the 1st of December he urged Cromwell to assume the title
of king, which the latter refused. On the 12th the parliament resigned
its powers into Cromwell's hands, and on the 13th Lambert obtained the
consent of the officers to the Instrument of Government (q.v.), in the
framing of which he had taken a leading part. He was one of the seven
officers nominated to seats in the council created by the Instrument. In
the foreign policy of the protectorate he was the most clamorous of
those who called for alliance with Spain and war with France in 1653,
and he firmly withstood Cromwell's design for an expedition to the West
Indies.
In the debates in parliament on the Instrument of Government in 1654
Lambert proposed that the office of protector should be made hereditary,
but was defeated by a majority which included members of Cromwell's
family. In the parliament of this year, and again in 1656, Lord Lambert,
as he was now styled, sat as member for the West Riding. He was one of
the major-generals appointed in August 1655 to command the militia in
the ten districts into which it was proposed to divide England, and who
were to be responsible for the maintenance of order and the
administration of the law in their several districts. Lambert took a
prominent part in the committee of council which drew up instructions to
the major-generals, and he was probably the originator, and certainly
the organizer, of the system of police which these officers were to
control. Gardiner conjectures that it was through divergence of opinion
between the protector and Lambert in connexion with these "instructions"
that the estrangement between the two men began. At all events, although
Lambert had himself at an earlier date requested Cromwell to take the
royal dignity, when the proposal to declare Oliver king was started in
parliament (February 1657) he at once declared strongly against it. A
hundred officers headed by Fleetwood and Lambert waited on the
protector, and begged him to put a stop to the proceedings. Lambert was
not convinced by Cromwell's arguments, and their complete estrangement,
personal as well as political, followed. On his refusal to take the oath
of allegiance to the protector, Lambert was deprived of his commissions,
receiving, however, a pension of £2000 a year. He retired to his garden
at Wimbledon, and appeared no more in public during Oliver Cromwell's
lifetime; but shortly before his death Cromwell sought a reconciliation,
and Lambert and his wife visited him at Whitehall.
When Richard Cromwell was proclaimed protector his chief difficulty lay
with the army, over which he exercised no effective control. Lambert,
though holding no military commission, was the most popular of the old
Cromwellian generals with the rank and file of the army, and it was very
generally believed that he would instal himself in Oliver's seat of
power. Richard's adherents tried to conciliate him, and the royalist
leaders made overtures to him, even proposing that Charles II. should
marry Lambert's daughter. Lambert at first gave a lukewarm support to
Richard Cromwell, and took no part in the intrigues of the officers at
Fleetwood's residence, Wallingford House. He was a member of the
parliament which met in January 1659, and when it was dissolved in April
under compulsion of Fleetwood and Desborough, he was restored to his
commands. He headed the deputation to Lenthall in May inviting the
return of the Rump, which led to the tame retirement of Richard Cromwell
into obscurity; and he was appointed a member of the committee of safety
and of the council of state. When the parliament, desirous of
controlling the power of the army, withheld from Fleetwood the right of
nominating officers, Lambert was named one of a council of seven charged
with this duty. The parliament's evident distrust of the soldiers caused
much discontent in the army; while the entire absence of real authority
encouraged the royalists to make overt attempts to restore Charles II.,
the most serious of which, under Sir George Booth and the earl of Derby,
was crushed by Lambert near Chester on the 19th of August. He promoted a
petition from his army that Fleetwood might be made lord-general and
himself major-general. The republican party in the House took offence.
The Commons (October 12th, 1659) cashiered Lambert and other officers,
and retained Fleetwood as chief of a military council under the
authority of the speaker. On the next day Lambert caused the doors of
the House to be shut and the members kept out. On the 26th a "committee
of safety" was appointed, of which he was a member. He was also
appointed major-general of all the forces in England and Scotland,
Fleetwood being general. Lambert was now sent with a large force to meet
Monk, who was in command of the English forces in Scotland, and either
negotiate with him or force him to terms. Monk, however, set his army in
motion southward. Lambert's army began to melt away, and he was kept in
suspense by Monk till his whole army fell from him and he returned to
London almost alone. Monk marched to London unopposed. The "excluded"
Presbyterian members were recalled. Lambert was sent to the Tower (March
3rd, 1660), from which he escaped a month later. He tried to rekindle
the civil war in favour of the Commonwealth, but was speedily recaptured
and sent back to the Tower (April 24th). On the Restoration he was
exempted from danger of life by an address of both Houses to the king,
but the next parliament (1662) charged him with high treason.
Thenceforward for the rest of his life Lambert remained in custody in
Guernsey. He died in 1694.
Lambert would have left a better name in history if he had been a
cavalier. His genial, ardent and excitable nature, easily raised and
easily depressed, was more akin to the royalist than to the puritan
spirit. Vain and sometimes overbearing, as well as ambitious, he
believed that Cromwell could not stand without him; and when Cromwell
was dead, he imagined himself entitled and fitted to succeed him. Yet
his ambition was less selfish than that of Monk. Lambert is accused of
no ill faith, no want of generosity, no cold and calculating policy.
As a soldier he was far more than a fighting general and possessed
many of the qualities of a great general. He was, moreover, an able
writer and speaker, and an accomplished negotiator and took pleasure
in quiet and domestic pursuits. He learnt his love of gardening from
Lord Fairfax, who was also his master in the art of war. He painted
flowers, besides cultivating them, and incurred the blame of Mrs
Hutchinson by "dressing his flowers in his garden and working at the
needle with his wife and his maids." He made no special profession of
religion; but no imputation is cast upon his moral character by his
detractors. It has been said that he became a Roman Catholic before
his death.
LAMBERT OF HERSFELD (d. c. 1088), German chronicler, was probably a
Thuringian by birth and became a monk in the Benedictine abbey of
Hersfeld in 1058. As he was ordained priest at Aschaffenburg he is
sometimes called Lambert of Aschaffenburg, or Schafnaburg. He made a
pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and visited various monasteries of his
order; but he is famous as the author of some _Annales_. From the
creation of the world until about 1040 these _Annales_ are a jejune copy
of other annals, but from 1040 to their conclusion in 1077 they are
interesting for the history of Germany and the papacy. The important
events during the earlier part of the reign of the emperor Henry IV.,
including the visit to Canossa and the battle of Hohenburg, are vividly
described. Their tone is hostile to Henry IV. and friendly to the
papacy; their Latin style is excellent. The _Annales_ were first
published in 1525 and are printed in the _Monumenta Germaniae
historica_, Bände iii. and v. (Hanover and Berlin, 1826 fol.). Formerly
Lambert's reputation for accuracy and impartiality was very high, but
both qualities have been somewhat discredited.
Lambert is also regarded as the author of the _Historia
Hersfeldensis_, the extant fragments of which are published in Band v.
of the _Monumenta_ of a _Vita Lulli_, Lullus, archbishop of Mainz,
being the founder of the abbey of Hersfeld; and of a _Carmen de bello
Saxonico_. His _Opera_ have been edited with an introduction by O.
Holder-Egger (Hanover, 1894).
See H. Delbrück, _Über die Glaubwürdigkeit Lamberts von Hersfeld_
(Bonn, 1873); A. Eigenbrodt, _Lampert von Hersfeld und die neuere
Quellenforschung_ (Cassel, 1896); L. von Ranke, _Zur Kritik
frankisch-deutscher Reichsannalisten_ (Berlin, 1854); W. Wattenbach,
_Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen_ Band ii. (Berlin, 1906) and A.
Potthast, _Bibliotheca Historica_ (Berlin, 1896).
LAMBESSA, the ancient Lambaesa, a village of Algeria, in the
arrondissement of Batna and department of Constantine, 7 m. S.E. of
Batna and 17 W. of Timgad. The modern village, the centre of an
agricultural colony founded in 1848, is noteworthy for its great convict
establishment (built about 1850). The remains of the Roman town, and
more especially of the Roman camp, in spite of wanton vandalism, are
among the most interesting ruins in northern Africa. They are now
preserved by the _Service des Monuments historiques_ and excavations
have resulted in many interesting discoveries. The ruins are situated on
the lower terraces of the Jebel Aures, and consist of triumphal arches
(one to Septimius Severus, another to Commodus), temples, aqueducts,
vestiges of an amphitheatre, baths and an immense quantity of masonry
belonging to private houses. To the north and east lie extensive
cemeteries with the stones standing in their original alignments; to the
west is a similar area, from which, however, the stones have been
largely removed for building the modern village. Of the temple of
Aesculapius only one column is standing, though in the middle of the
19th century its façade was entire. The capitol or temple dedicated to
Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, which has been cleared of débris, has a
portico with eight columns. On level ground about two-thirds of a mile
from the centre of the ancient town stands the camp, its site now partly
occupied by the penitentiary and its gardens. It measures 1640 ft. N. to
S. by 1476 ft. E. to W., and in the middle rise the ruins of a building
commonly called, but incorrectly, the praetorium. This noble building,
which dates from A.D. 268, is 92 ft. long by 66 ft. broad and 49 ft.
high; its southern façade has a splendid peristyle half the height of
the wall, consisting of a front row of massive Ionic columns and an
engaged row of Corinthian pilasters. Behind this building (which was
roofed), is a large court giving access to other buildings, one being
the arsenal. In it have been found many thousands of projectiles. To the
S.E. are the remains of the baths. The ruins of both city and camp have
yielded many inscriptions (Renier edited 1500, and there are 4185 in the
_Corpus Inscr. Lat._ vol. viii.); and, though a very large proportion
are epitaphs of the barest kind, the more important pieces supply an
outline of the history of the place. Over 2500 inscriptions relating to
the camp have been deciphered. In a museum in the village are objects of
antiquity discovered in the vicinity. Besides inscriptions, statues,
&c., are some fine mosaics found in 1905 near the arch of Septimius
Severus. The statues include those of Aesculapius and Hygieia, taken
from the temple of Aesculapius.
Lambaesa was a military foundation. The camp of the third legion
(Legio III. Augusta), to which it owes its origin, appears to have
been established between A.D. 123 and 129, in the time of Hadrian,
whose address to his soldiers was found inscribed on a pillar in a
second camp to the west of the great camp still extant. By 166 mention
is made of the decurions of a vicus, 10 curiae of which are known by
name; and the vicus became a municipium probably at the time when it
was made the capital of the newly founded province of Numidia. The
legion was removed by Gordianus, but restored by Valerianus and
Gallienus; and its final departure did not take place till after 392.
The town soon afterwards declined. It never became the seat of a
bishop, and no Christian inscriptions have been found among the ruins.
About 2 m. S. of Lambessa are the ruins of Markuna, the ancient
Verecunda, including two triumphal arches.
See S. Gsell, _Les Monuments antiques de l'Algérie_ (Paris, 1901) and
_L'Algérie dans l'antiquité_ (Algiers, 1903); L. Renier, _Inscriptions
romaines de l'Algérie_ (Paris, 1855); Gustav Wilmann, "Die röm.
Lagerstadt Afrikas," in _Commentationes phil. in honorem Th. Mommseni_
(Berlin, 1877); Sir L. Playfair, _Travels in the Footsteps of Bruce_
(London, 1877); A. Graham, _Roman Africa_ (London, 1902).
LAMBETH, a southern metropolitan borough of London, England, bounded
N.W. by the river Thames, N.E. by Southwark, E. by Camberwell and W. by
Wandsworth and Battersea, and extending S. to the boundary of the county
of London. Pop. (1901) 301,895. The name is commonly confined to the
northern part of the borough, bordering the river; but the principal
districts included are Kennington and Vauxhall (north central), Brixton
(central) and part of Norwood (south). Four road-bridges cross the
Thames within the limits of the borough, namely Waterloo, Westminster,
Lambeth and Vauxhall, of which the first, a fine stone structure, dates
from 1817, and is the oldest Thames bridge standing within the county of
London. The main thoroughfare runs S. from Westminster Bridge Road as
Kennington Road, continuing as Brixton Road and Brixton Hill, Clapham
Road branching S.W. from it at Kennington. Several thoroughfares also
converge upon Vauxhall Bridge, and from a point near this down to
Westminster Bridge the river is bordered by the fine Albert Embankment.
Early records present the name _Lamb-hythe_ in various forms. The suffix
is common along the river in the meaning of a haven, but the prefix is
less clear; a Saxon word signifying mud is suggested. Brixton and
Kennington are mentioned in Domesday; and in Vauxhall is concealed the
name of Falkes de Breauté, an unscrupulous adventurer of the time of
John and Henry III. exiled in 1225. The manor of North Lambeth was given
to the bishopric of Rochester in the time of Edward the Confessor, and
the bishops had a house here till the 16th century. They did not,
however, retain the manor beyond the close of the 12th century, when it
was acquired by the see of Canterbury. The palace of the archbishops is
still here, and forms, with the parish church, a picturesque group of
buildings, lying close to the river opposite the majestic Houses of
Parliament, and to some extent joining with them to make of this reach
of the Thames one of the finest prospects in London. The oldest part of
the palace remaining is the Early English chapel. The so-called
Lollard's Tower, which retains evidence of its use as a prison, dates c.
1440. There is a fine Tudor gatehouse of brick, and the hall is dated
1663. The portion now inhabited by the archbishops was erected in 1834
and fronts a spacious quadrangle. Among the portraits of the archbishops
here are examples by Holbein, Van Dyck, Hogarth and Reynolds. There is a
valuable library. The church of St Mary was rebuilt c. 1850, though the
ancient monuments preserved give it an appearance of antiquity. Here are
tombs of some of the archbishops, including Bancroft (d. 1610), and of
the two Tradescants, collectors, and a memorial to Elias Ashmole, whose
name is preserved in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University, to which
he presented the collections of his friend the younger Tradescant (d.
1662). In the present Westminster Bridge Road was a circus, well known
in the later 18th and early 19th centuries as Astley's, and near
Vauxhall Bridge were the celebrated Vauxhall Gardens.
The principal modern pleasure grounds are Kennington Park (20 acres),
and Brockwell Park (127 acres) south of Brixton, and near the southern
end of Kennington Road is Kennington Oval, the ground of the Surrey
County Cricket Club, the scene of its home matches and of other
important fixtures. Among institutions the principal is St Thomas'
Hospital, the extensive buildings of which front the Albert
Embankment. The original foundation dated from 1213, was situated in
Southwark, and was connected with the priory of Bermondsey. The
existing buildings, subsequently enlarged, were opened in 1871, are
divided into a series of blocks, and include a medical school. Other
hospitals are the Royal, for children and women, Waterloo Road, the
Lying-in Hospital, York Road, and the South-western fever hospital in
Stockwell. There are technical institutes in Brixton and Norwood; and
on Brixton Hill is Brixton Prison. In the northern part of the borough
are numerous factories, including the great Doulton pottery works. The
parliamentary borough of Lambeth has four divisions, North,
Kennington, Brixton and Norwood, each returning one member. The
borough council consists of a mayor, 10 aldermen and 60 councillors.
Area, 4080.4 acres.
LAMBETH CONFERENCES, the name given to the periodical assemblies of
bishops of the Anglican Communion (Pan-Anglican synods), which since
1867 have met at Lambeth Palace, the London residence of the archbishop
of Canterbury. The idea of these meetings was first suggested in a
letter to the archbishop of Canterbury by Bishop Hopkins of Vermont in
1851, but the immediate impulse came from the colonial Church in Canada.
In 1865 the synod of that province, in an urgent letter to the
archbishop of Canterbury (Dr Longley), represented the unsettlement of
members of the Canadian Church caused by recent legal decisions of the
Privy Council, and their alarm lest the revived action of Convocation
"should leave us governed by canons different from those in force in
England and Ireland, and thus cause us to drift into the status of an
independent branch of the Catholic Church." They therefore requested him
to call a "national synod of the bishops of the Anglican Church at home
and abroad," to meet under his leadership. After consulting both houses
of the Convocation of Canterbury, Archbishop Longley assented, and
convened all the bishops of the Anglican Communion (then 144 in number)
to meet at Lambeth in 1867. Many Anglican bishops (amongst them the
archbishop of York and most of his suffragans) felt so doubtful as to
the wisdom of such an assembly that they refused to attend it, and Dean
Stanley declined to allow Westminster Abbey to be used for the closing
service, giving as his reasons the partial character of the assembly,
uncertainty as to the effect of its measures and "the presence of
prelates not belonging to our Church." Archbishop Longley said in his
opening address, however, that they had no desire to assume "the
functions of a general synod of all the churches in full communion with
the Church of England," but merely to "discuss matters of practical
interest, and pronounce what we deem expedient in resolutions which may
serve as safe guides to future action." Experience has shown how
valuable and wise this course was. The resolutions of the Lambeth
Conferences have never been regarded as synodical decrees, but their
weight has increased with each conference. Apprehensions such as those
which possessed the mind of Dean Stanley have long passed away.
Seventy-six bishops accepted the primate's invitation to the first
conference, which met at Lambeth on the 24th of September 1867, and sat
for four days, the sessions being in private. The archbishop opened the
conference with an address: deliberation followed; committees were
appointed to report on special questions; resolutions were adopted, and
an encyclical letter was addressed to the faithful of the Anglican
Communion. Each of the subsequent conferences has been first received in
Canterbury cathedral and addressed by the archbishop from the chair of
St Augustine. It has then met at Lambeth, and after sitting for five
days for deliberation upon the fixed subjects and appointment of
committees, has adjourned, to meet again at the end of a fortnight and
sit for five days more, to receive reports, adopt resolutions and to put
forth the encyclical letter.
I. _First Conference_ (September 24-28, 1867), convened and presided
over by Archbishop Longley. The proposed order of subjects was
entirely altered in view of the Colenso case, for which urgency was
claimed; and most of the time was spent in discussing it. Of the
thirteen resolutions adopted by the conference, two have direct
reference to this case; the rest have to do with the creation of new
sees and missionary jurisdictions, commendatory letters, and a
"voluntary spiritual tribunal" in cases of doctrine and the due
subordination of synods. The reports of the committees were not ready,
and were carried forward to the conference of 1878.
II. _Second Conference_ (July 2-27, 1878), convened and presided over
by Archbishop Tait. On this occasion no hesitation appears to have
been felt; 100 bishops were present, and the opening sermon was
preached by the archbishop of York. The reports of the five special
committees (based in part upon those of the committee of 1867) were
embodied in the encyclical letter, viz. on the best mode of
maintaining union, voluntary boards of arbitration, missionary bishops
and missionaries, continental chaplains and the report of a committee
on difficulties submitted to the conference.
III. _Third Conference_ (July 3-27, 1888), convened and presided over
by Archbishop Benson; 145 bishops present; the chief subject of
consideration being the position of communities which do not possess
the historic episcopate. In addition to the encyclical letter,
nineteen resolutions were put forth, and the reports of twelve special
committees are appended upon which they are based, the subjects being
intemperance, purity, divorce, polygamy, observance of Sunday,
socialism, care of emigrants, mutual relations of dioceses of the
Anglican Communion, home reunion, Scandinavian Church, Old Catholics,
&c., Eastern Churches, standards of doctrine and worship. Perhaps the
most important of these is the famous "Lambeth Quadrilateral," which
laid down a fourfold basis for home reunion--the Holy Scriptures, the
Apostles' and Nicene creeds, the two sacraments ordained by Christ
himself and the historic episcopate.
IV. _Fourth Conference_ (July 5-31, 1897), convened by Archbishop
Benson, presided over by Archbishop Temple; 194 bishops present. One
of the chief subjects for consideration was the creation of a
"tribunal of reference"; but the resolutions on this subject were
withdrawn, owing, it is said, to the opposition of the American
bishops, and a more general resolution in favour of a "consultative
body" was substituted. The encyclical letter is accompanied by
sixty-three resolutions (which include careful provision for
provincial organization and the extension of the title "archbishop" to
all metropolitans, a "thankful recognition of the revival of
brotherhoods and sisterhoods, and of the office of deaconess," and a
desire to promote friendly relations with the Eastern Churches and the
various Old Catholic bodies), and the reports of the eleven committees
are subjoined.
V. _Fifth Conference_ (July 6-August 5, 1908), convened by Archbishop
Randall Davidson, who presided; 241 bishops were present. The chief
subjects of discussion were: the relations of faith and modern
thought, the supply and training of the clergy, education, foreign
missions, revision and "enrichment" of the Prayer-Book, the relation
of the Church to "ministries of healing" (Christian Science, &c.), the
questions of marriage and divorce, organization of the Anglican
Church, reunion with other Churches. The results of the deliberations
were embodied in seventy-eight resolutions, which were appended to the
encyclical issued, in the name of the conference, by the Archbishop of
Canterbury on the 8th of August.
The fifth Lambeth conference, following as it did close on the great
Pan-Anglican congress, is remarkable mainly as a proof of the growth
of the influence and many-sided activity of the Anglican Church, and
as a conspicuous manifestation of her characteristic principles. Of
the seventy-eight resolutions none is in any sense epoch-making, and
their spirit is that of the traditional Anglican _via media_. In
general they are characterized by a firm adherence to the fundamental
articles of Catholic orthodoxy, tempered by a tolerant attitude
towards those not of "the household of the faith." The report of the
committee on faith and modern thought is "a faithful attempt to show
how the claim of our Lord Jesus Christ, which the Church is set to
present to each generation, may, under the characteristic conditions
of our time, best command allegiance." On the question of education
(Res. 11-19) the conference reaffirmed strongly the necessity for
definite Christian teaching in schools, "secular systems" being
condemned as "educationally as well as morally unsound, since they
fail to co-ordinate the training of the whole nature of the child"
(Res. 11). The resolutions on questions affecting foreign missions
(20-26) deal with e.g. the overlapping of episcopal jurisdictions (22)
and the establishment of Churches on lines of race or colour, which is
condemned (20). The resolutions on questions of marriage and divorce
(37-43) reaffirm the traditional attitude of the Church; it is,
however, interesting to note that the resolution (40) deprecating the
remarriage in church of the innocent party to a divorce was carried
only by eighty-seven votes to eighty-four. In resolutions 44 to 53 the
conference deals with the duty of the Church towards modern democratic
ideals and social problems; affirms the responsibility of investors
for the character and conditions of the concerns in which their money
is placed (49); "while frankly acknowledging the moral gains sometimes
won by war" strongly supports the extension of international
arbitration (52); and emphasizes the duty of a stricter observance of
Sunday (53). On the question of reunion, the ideal of corporate unity
was reaffirmed (58). It was decided to send a deputation of bishops
with a letter of greeting to the national council of the Russian
Church about to be assembled (60) and certain conditions were laid
down for inter-communion with certain of the Churches of the Orthodox
Eastern Communion (62) and the "ancient separated Churches of the
East" (63-65). Resolution 67 warned Anglicans from contracting
marriages, under actual conditions, with Roman Catholics. By
resolution 68 the conference stated its desire to "maintain and
strengthen the friendly relations" between the Churches of the
Anglican Communion and "the ancient Church of Holland" (Jansenist, see
UTRECHT) and the old Catholic Churches; and resolutions 70-73 made
elaborate provisions for a projected corporate union between the
Anglican Church and the _Unitas Fratrum_ (Moravian Brethren). As to
"home reunion," however, it was made perfectly clear that this would
only be possible "on lines suggested by such precedents as those of
1610," i.e. by the Presbyterian Churches accepting the episcopal
model. So far as the organization of the Anglican Church is concerned,
the most important outcome of the conference was the reconstruction of
the Central Consultative Body on representative lines (54-56); this
body to consist of the archbishop of Canterbury and seventeen bishops
appointed by the various Churches of the Anglican Communion throughout
the world. A notable feature of the conference was the presence of the
Swedish bishop of Kalmar, who presented a letter from the archbishop
of Upsala, as a tentative advance towards closer relations between the
Anglican Church and the Evangelical Church of Sweden.
See Archbishop R. T. Davidson, _The Lambeth Conferences of 1867, 1878
and 1888_ (London, 1896); _Conference of Bishops of the Anglican
Communion, Encyclical Letter_, &c. (London, 1897 and 1908).
LAMBINUS, DIONYSIUS, the Latinized name of DENIS LAMBIN (1520-1572),
French classical scholar, born at Montreuil-sur-mer in Picardy. Having
devoted several years to classical studies during a residence in Italy,
he was invited to Paris in 1650 to fill the professorship of Latin in
the Collège de France, which he soon afterwards exchanged for that of
Greek. His lectures were frequently interrupted by his ill-health and
the religious disturbances of the time. His death (September 1572) is
said to have been caused by his apprehension that he might share the
fate of his friend Peter Ramus (Pierre de la Ramée), who had been killed
in the massacre of St Bartholomew. Lambinus was one of the greatest
scholars of his age, and his editions of classical authors are still
useful. In textual criticism he was a conservative, but by no means a
slavish one; indeed, his opponents accused him of rashness in
emendation. His chief defect is that he refers vaguely to his MSS.
without specifying the source of his readings, so that their relative
importance cannot be estimated. But his commentaries, with their wealth
of illustration and parallel passages, are a mine of information. In the
opinion of the best scholars, he preserved the happy mean in his
annotations, although his own countrymen have coined the word _lambiner_
to express trifling and diffuseness.
His chief editions are: Horace (1561); Lucretius (1564), on which see
H. A. J. Munro's preface to his edition; Cicero (1566); Cornelius
Nepos (1569); Demosthenes (1570), completing the unfinished work of
Guillaume Morel; Plautus (1576).
See Peter Lazer, _De Dionysio Lambino narratio_, printed in Orelli's
_Onomasticon Tullianum_ (i. 1836), and _Trium disertissimorum virorum
praefationes ac epistolae familiares aliquot: Mureti, Lambini, Regii_
(Paris, 1579); also Sandys, _Hist. of Classical Scholarship_ (1908,
ii. 188), and A. Horawitz in Ersch and Gruber's _Allgemeine
Encyclopädie_.
LAMBOURN, a market town in the Newbury parliamentary division of
Berkshire, England, 65 m. W. of London, the terminus of the Lambourn
Valley light railway from Newbury. Pop. (1901) 2071. It lies high up the
narrow valley of the Lambourn, a tributary of the Kennet famous for its
trout-fishing, among the Berkshire Downs. The church of St Michael is
cruciform and principally late Norman, but has numerous additions of
later periods and has been considerably altered by modern restoration.
The inmates of an almshouse founded by John Estbury, _c._ 1500, by his
desire still hold service daily at his tomb in the church. A
Perpendicular market-cross stands without the church. The town has
agricultural trade, but its chief importance is derived from large
training stables in the neighbourhood. To the north of the town is a
large group of _tumuli_ known as the Seven Barrows, ascertained by
excavation to be a British burial-place.
LAMECH [Hebrew: Lemech], the biblical patriarch, appears in each of the
antediluvian genealogies, Gen. iv. 16-24 J., and Gen. v. P. In the
former he is a descendant of Cain, and through his sons the author of
primitive civilization; in the latter he is the father of Noah. But it
is now generally held that these two genealogies are variant adaptations
of the Babylonian list of primitive kings (see ENOCH). It is doubtful
whether Lamech is to be identified with the name of any one of these
kings; he may have been introduced into the genealogy from another
tradition.
In the older narrative in Gen. iv. Lamech's family are the originators
of various advances in civilization; he himself is the first to marry
more than one wife, 'Adah ("ornament," perhaps specially "dawn") and
Zillah ("shadow"). He has three sons Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal, the
last-named qualified by the addition of Cain (= "smith"[1]). The
assonance of these names is probably intentional, cf. the brothers Hasan
and Hosein of early Mahommedan history. Jabal institutes the life of
nomadic shepherds, Jubal is the inventor of music, Tubal-Cain the first
smith. Jabal and Jubal may be forms of a root used in Hebrew and
Phoenician for ram and ram's horn (i.e. trumpet), and underlying our
"jubilee." Tubal may be the eponymous ancestor of the people of that
name mentioned in Ezekiel in connexion with "vessels of bronze."[2] All
three names are sometimes derived from [Hebrew: yuval] in the sense of
offspring, so that they would be three different words for "son," and
there are numerous other theories as to their etymology. Lamech has also
a daughter Naamah ("gracious," "pleasant," "comely"; cf. No'mân, a name
of the deity Adonis). This narrative clearly intends to account for the
origin of these various arts as they existed in the narrator's time; it
is not likely that he thought of these discoveries as separated from his
own age by a universal flood; nor does the tone of the narrative suggest
that the primitive tradition thought of these pioneers of civilization
as members of an accursed family. Probably the passage was originally
independent of the document which told of Cain and Abel and of the
Flood; Jabal may be a variant of Abel. An ancient poem is connected with
this genealogy:
"Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
Ye wives of Lamech, give ear unto my speech.
I slay a man for a wound,
A young man for a stroke;
For Cain's vengeance is sevenfold,
But Lamech's seventy-fold and seven."
In view of the connexion, the poem is interpreted as expressing Lamech's
exultation at the advantage he expects to derive from Tubal-Cain's new
inventions; the worker in bronze will forge for him new and formidable
weapons, so that he will be able to take signal vengeance for the least
injury. But the poem probably had originally nothing to do with the
genealogy. It may have been a piece of folk-song celebrating the prowess
of the tribe of Lamech; or it may have had some relation to a story of
Cain and Abel in which Cain was a hero and not a villain.
The genealogy in Gen. v. belongs to the Priestly Code, _c._ 450 B.C.,
and may be due to a revision of ancient tradition in the light of
Babylonian archaeology. It is noteworthy that according to the numbers
in the Samaritan MSS. Lamech dies in the year of the Flood.
The origin of the name Lamech and its original meaning are doubtful.
It was probably the name of a tribe or deity, or both. According to C.
J. Ball,[3] Lamech is an adaptation of the Babylonian _Lamga_, a title
of Sin the moon god, and synonymous with _Ubara_ in the name
Ubara-Tutu, the Otiartes of Berossus, who is the ninth of the ten
primitive Babylonian kings, and the father of the hero of the
Babylonian flood story, just as Lamech is the ninth patriarch, and the
father of Noah. Spurrell[4] states that Lamech cannot be explained
from the Hebrew, but may possibly be connected with the Arabic
_yalmakun_, "a strong young man."
Outside of Genesis, Lamech is only mentioned in the Bible in 1 Chron.
i. 3, Luke iii. 36. Later Jewish tradition expanded and interpreted
the story in its usual fashion. (W. H. Be.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The text of Gen. iv. 22 is partly corrupt; and it is possible
that the text used by the Septuagint did not contain Cain.
[2] Gen. x. 2, Ezek. xxvii. 13.
[3] _Genesis_, in Haupt's _Sacred Books of the Old Testament_ on iv.
19, cf. also the notes on 20-22, for Lamech's family. The
identification of Lamech with _Lamga_ is also suggested by Sayce,
_Expository Times_, vii. 367. Cf. also Cheyne, "Cainites" in _Encyc.
Biblica_.
[4] _Notes on the Hebrew Text of Genesis, in loco._
LAMEGO, a city of northern Portugal, in the district of Vizeu and
formerly included in the province of Beira; 6 m. by road S. of the river
Douro and 42 m. E. of Oporto. Pop. (1900) 9471. The nearest railway
station is Peso da Regoa, on the opposite side of the Douro and on the
Barca d'Alva-Oporto railway. Lamego is an ancient and picturesque city,
in the midst of a beautiful mountain region. Its principal buildings are
the 14th-century Gothic cathedral, Moorish citadel, Roman baths and a
church which occupies the site of a mosque, and, though intrinsically
commonplace, is celebrated in Portugal as the seat of the legendary
cortes of 1143 or 1144 (see PORTUGAL, _History_). The principal
industries are viticulture and the rearing of swine, which furnish the
so-called "Lisbon hams." Lamego was a Moorish frontier fortress of some
importance in the 9th and 10th centuries. It was captured in 1057 by
Ferdinand I. of Castile and Leon.
LAMELLIBRANCHIA (Lat. _lamella_, a small or thin plate, and Gr. [Greek:
branchia], gills), the fourth of the five classes of animals
constituting the phylum Mollusca (q.v.). The Lamellibranchia are mainly
characterized by the rudimentary condition of the head, and the
retention of the primitive bilateral symmetry, the latter feature being
accentuated by the lateral compression of the body and the development
of the shell as two bilaterally symmetrical plates or valves covering
each one side of the animal. The foot is commonly a simple cylindrical
or ploughshare-shaped organ, used for boring in sand and mud, and more
rarely presents a crawling disk similar to that of Gastropoda; in some
forms it is aborted. The paired ctenidia are very greatly developed
right and left of the elongated body, and form the most prominent organ
of the group. Their function is chiefly not respiratory but nutritive,
since it is by the currents produced by their ciliated surface that
food-particles are brought to the feebly-developed mouth and buccal
cavity.
The Lamellibranchia present as a whole a somewhat uniform structure. The
chief points in which they vary are--(1) in the structure of the
ctenidia or branchial plates; (2) in the presence of one or of two chief
muscles, the fibres of which run across the animal's body from one valve
of the shell to the other (adductors); (3) in the greater or less
elaboration of the posterior portion of the mantle-skirt so as to form a
pair of tubes, by one of which water is introduced into the sub-pallial
chamber, whilst by the other it is expelled; (4) in the perfect or
deficient symmetry of the two valves of the shell and the connected soft
parts, as compared with one another; (5) in the development of the foot
as a disk-like crawling organ (_Arca_, _Nucula_, _Pectunculus_,
_Trigonia_, _Lepton_, _Galeomma_), as a simple plough-like or
tongue-shaped organ (_Unionidae_, &c.), as a re-curved saltatory organ
(_Cardium_, &c.), as a long burrowing cylinder (_Solenidae_, &c.), or
its partial (Mytilacea) or even complete abortion (Ostraeacea).
The essential Molluscan organs are, with these exceptions, uniformly
well developed. The mantle-skirt is always long, and hides the rest of
the animal from view, its dependent margins meeting in the middle line
below the ventral surface when the animal is retracted; it is, as it
were, slit in the median line before and behind so as to form two flaps,
a right and a left; on these the right and the left calcareous valves of
the shell are borne respectively, connected by an uncalcified part of
the shell called the ligament. In many embryo Lamellibranchs a
centro-dorsal primitive shell-gland or follicle has been detected. The
mouth lies in the median line anteriorly, the anus in the median line
posteriorly.
Both ctenidia, right and left, are invariably present, the axis of each
taking origin from the side of the body as in the schematic
archi-Mollusc (see fig. 15). A pair of renal tubes opening right and
left, rather far forward on the sides of the body, are always present.
Each opens by its internal extremity into the pericardium. A pair of
genital apertures, connected by genital ducts with the paired gonads,
are found right and left near the nephridial pores, except in a few
cases where the genital duct joins that of the renal organ
(_Spondylus_). The sexes are often, but not always, distinct. No
accessory glands or copulatory organs are ever present in
Lamellibranchs. The ctenidia often act as brood-pouches.
A dorsal contractile heart, with symmetrical right and left auricles
receiving aerated blood from the ctenidia and mantle-skirt, is present,
being unequally developed only in those few forms which are inequivalve.
The typical pericardium is well developed. It, as in other Mollusca, is
not a blood-space but develops from the coelom, and it communicates with
the exterior by the pair of renal tubes. As in Cephalopoda (and possibly
other Mollusca) water can be introduced through the nephridia into this
space. The alimentary canal keeps very nearly to the median vertical
plane whilst exhibiting a number of flexures and loopings in this plane.
A pair of large glandular outgrowths, the so-called "liver" or great
digestive gland, exists as in other Molluscs. A pair of pedal otocysts,
and a pair of osphradia at the base of the gills, appear to be always
present. A typical nervous system is present (fig. 19), consisting of a
cerebro-pleural ganglion-pair, united by connectives to a pedal
ganglion-pair and a visceral ganglion-pair (parieto-splanchnic).
A pyloric caecum connected with the stomach is commonly found,
containing a tough flexible cylinder of transparent cartilaginous
appearance, called the "crystalline style" (_Mactra_). In many
Lamellibranchs a gland is found on the hinder surface of the foot in the
mid line, which secretes a substance which sets into the form of
threads--the so-called "byssus"--by means of which the animal can fix
itself. Sometimes this gland is found in the young and not in the adult
(_Anodonta_, _Unio_, _Cyclas_). In some Lamellibranchs (_Pecten_,
_Spondylus_, _Pholas_, _Mactra_, _Tellina_, _Pectunculus_, _Galeomma_,
&c.), although cephalic eyes are generally absent, special eyes are
developed on the free margin of the mantle-skirt, apparently by the
modification of tentacles commonly found there. There are no pores in
the foot or elsewhere in Lamellibranchia by which water can pass into
and out of the vascular system, as formerly asserted.
The Lamellibranchia live chiefly in the sea, some in fresh waters. A
very few have the power of swimming by opening and shutting the valves
of the shell (_Pecten_, _Lima_); most can crawl slowly or burrow
rapidly; others are, when adult, permanently fixed to stones or rocks
either by the shell or the byssus. In development some Lamellibranchia
pass through a free-swimming trochosphere stage with pre-oral ciliated
band; other fresh-water forms which carry the young in brood-pouches
formed by the ctenidia have suppressed this larval phase.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Diagrams of the external form and anatomy of
_Anodonta cygnea_, the Pond-Mussel; in figures 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 the animal
is seen from the left side, the centro-dorsal region uppermost. (1)
Animal removed from its shell, a probe g passed into the sub-pallial
chamber through the excurrent siphonal notch. (2) View from the ventral
surface of an Anodon with its foot expanded and issuing from between the
gaping shells. (3) The left mantle-flap reflected upwards so as to
expose the sides of the body. (4) Diagrammatic section of Anodon to show
the course of the alimentary canal. (5) The two gill-plates of the left
side reflected upwards so as to expose the fissure between foot and gill
where the probe g passes. (6) Diagram to show the positions of the
nerve-ganglia, heart and nephridia.
Letters in all the figures as follows:
a, Centro-dorsal area.
b, Margin of the left mantle-flap.
c, Margin of the right mantle-flap.
d, Excurrent siphonal notch of the mantle margin.
e, Incurrent siphonal notch of the mantle margin.
f, Foot.
g, Probe passed into the superior division of the sub-pallial chamber
through the excurrent siphonal notch, and issuing by the side of the
foot into the inferior division of the sub-pallial chamber.
h, Anterior (pallial) adductor muscle of the shells.
i, Anterior retractor muscle of the foot.
k, Protractor muscle of the foot.
l, Posterior (pedal) adductor muscle of the shells.
m, Posterior retractor muscle of the foot.
n, Anterior labial tentacle.
o, Posterior labial tentacle.
p, Base-line of origin of the reflected mantle-flap from the side of
the body.
q, Left external gill-plate.
r, Left internal gill-plate.
rr, Internal lamella of the right inner gill-plate.
rg, Right outer gill-plate.
s, Line of concrescence of the outer lamella of the left outer
gill-plate with the left mantle-flap.
t, Pallial tentacles.
u, The thickened muscular pallial margin which adheres to the shell
and forms the pallial line of the left side.
v, That of the right side.
w, The mouth.
x, Aperture of the left organ of Bojanus (nephridium) exposed by
cutting the attachment of the inner lamella of the inner gill-plate.
y, Aperture of the genital duct.
z, Fissure between the free edge of the inner lamella of the inner
gill-plate and the side of the foot, through which the probe g passes
into the upper division of the sub-pallial space.
aa, Line of concrescence of the inner lamella of the right inner
gill-plate with the inner lamella of the left inner gill-plate.
ab, ac, ad, Three pit-like depressions in the median line of the foot
supposed by some writers to be pores admitting water into the vascular
system.
ae, Left shell valve.
af, Space occupied by liver.
ag, Space occupied by gonad.
ah, Muscular substance of the foot.
ai, Duct of the liver on the wall of the stomach.
ak, Stomach.
al, Rectum traversing the ventricle of the heart.
am, Pericardium.
an, Glandular portion of the left nephridium.
ap, Ventricle of the heart.
aq, Aperture by which the left auricle joins the ventricle.
ar, Non-glandular portion of the left nephridium.
as, Anus.
at, Pore leading from the pericardium into the glandular sac of the
left nephridium.
au, Pore leading from the glandular into the non-glandular portion of
the left nephridium.
av, Internal pore leading from the non-glandular portion of the left
nephridium to the external pore x.
aw, Left cerebro-pleuro-visceral ganglion.
ax, Left pedal ganglion.
ay, Left otocyst.
az, Left olfactory ganglion (parieto-splanchnic).
bb, Floor of the pericardium separating that space from the
non-glandular portion of the nephridia.]
As an example of the organization of a Lamellibranch, we shall review
the structure of the common pond-mussel or swan mussel (_Anodonta
cygnea_), comparing it with other Lamellibranchia.
The swan-mussel has superficially a perfectly developed bilateral
symmetry. The left side of the animal is seen as when removed from its
shell in fig. 1 (1). The valves of the shell have been removed by
severing their adhesions to the muscular areae h, i, k, l, m, u. The
free edge of the left half of the mantle-skirt b is represented as a
little contracted in order to show the exactly similar free edge of
the right half of the mantle-skirt c. These edges are not attached to,
although they touch, one another; each flap (right or left) can be
freely thrown back in the way carried out in fig. 1 (3) for that of
the left side. This is not always the case with Lamellibranchs; there
is in the group a tendency for the corresponding edges of the
mantle-skirt to fuse together by concrescence, and so to form a more
or less completely closed bag, as in the Scaphopoda (_Dentalium_). In
this way the notches d, e of the hinder part of the mantle-skirt of
_Anodonta_ are in the siphonate forms converted into two separate
holes, the edges of the mantle being elsewhere fused together along
this hinder margin. Further than this, the part of the mantle-skirt
bounding the two holes is frequently drawn out so as to form a pair of
tubes which project from the shell (figs. 8, 29). In such
Lamellibranchs as the oysters, scallops and many others which have the
edges of the mantle-skirt quite free, there are numerous tentacles
upon those edges. In _Anodonta_ these pallial tentacles are confined
to a small area surrounding the inferior siphonal notch (fig. 1 [3],
t). When the edges of the mantle ventral to the inhalant orifice are
united, an anterior aperture is left for the protrusion of the foot,
and thus there are three pallial apertures altogether, and species in
this condition are called "Tripora." This is the usual condition in
the Eulamellibranchia and Septibranchia. When the pedal aperture is
small and far forward there may be a fourth aperture in the region of
the fusion behind the pedal aperture. This occurs in _Solen_, and such
forms are called "Quadrifora."
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--View of the two Valves of the Shell of
_Cytherea_ (one of the Sinupalliate Isomya), from the dorsal aspect.]
The centro-dorsal point a of the animal of _Anodonta_ (fig. 1 [1]) is
called the umbonal area; the great anterior muscular surface h is that
of the anterior adductor muscle, the posterior similar surface i is
that of the posterior adductor muscle; the long line of attachment u
is the simple "pallial muscle,"--a thickened ridge which is seen to
run parallel to the margin of the mantle-skirt in this Lamellibranch.
In siphonate forms the pallial muscle is not simple, but is indented
posteriorly by a sinus formed by the muscles which retract the
siphons.
It is the approximate equality in the size of the anterior and
posterior adductor muscles which led to the name Isomya for the group
to which _Anodonta_ belongs. The hinder adductor muscle is always
large in Lamellibranchs, but the anterior adductor may be very small
(Heteromya), or absent altogether (Monomya). The anterior adductor
muscle is in front of the mouth and alimentary tract altogether, and
must be regarded as a special and peculiar development of the median
anterior part of the mantle-flap. The posterior adductor is ventral
and anterior to the anus. The former classification based on these
differences in the adductor muscles is now abandoned, having proved to
be an unnatural one. A single family may include isomyarian,
anisomyarian and monomyarian forms, and the latter in development pass
through stages in which they resemble the first two. In fact all
Lamellibranchs begin with a condition in which there is only one
adductor, and that not the posterior but the anterior. This is called
the protomonomyarian stage. Then the posterior adductor develops, and
becomes equal to the anterior, and finally in some cases the anterior
becomes smaller or disappears. The single adductor muscle of the
Monomya is separated by a difference of fibre into two portions, but
neither of these can be regarded as possibly representing the anterior
adductor of the other Lamellibranchs. One of these portions is more
ligamentous and serves to keep the two shells constantly attached to
one another, whilst the more fleshy portion serves to close the shell
rapidly when it has been gaping.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Right Valve of the same Shell from the Outer
Face.]
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Left Valve of the same Shell from the Inner
Face. (Figs. 2, 3, 4 from Owen.)]
In removing the valves of the shell from an _Anodonta_, it is
necessary not only to cut through the muscular attachments of the
body-wall to the shell but to sever also a strong elastic ligament, or
spring resembling india-rubber, joining the two shells about the
umbonal area. The shell of _Anodonta_ does not present these parts in
the most strongly marked condition, and accordingly our figures (figs.
2, 3, 4) represent the valves of the sinupalliate genus _Cytherea_.
The corresponding parts are recognizable in _Anodonta_. Referring to
the figures (2, 3) for an explanation of terms applicable to the parts
of the valve and the markings on its inner surface--corresponding to
the muscular areas already noted on the surface of the animal's
body--we must specially note here the position of that denticulated
thickening of the dorsal margin of the valve which is called the hinge
(fig. 4). By this hinge one valve is closely fitted to the other.
Below this hinge each shell becomes concave, above it each shell rises
a little to form the umbo, and it is into this ridge-like upgrowth of
each valve that the elastic ligament or spring is fixed (fig. 4). As
shown in the diagram (fig. 5) representing a transverse section of the
two valves of a Lamellibranch, the two shells form a double lever, of
which the toothed-hinge is the fulcrum. The adductor muscles placed in
the concavity of the shells act upon the long arms of the lever at a
mechanical advantage; their contraction keeps the shells shut, and
stretches the ligament or spring h. On the other hand, the ligament h
acts upon the short arm formed by the umbonal ridge of the shells;
whenever the adductors relax, the elastic substance of the ligament
contracts, and the shells gape. It is on this account that the valves
of a dead Lamellibranch always gape; the elastic ligament is no longer
counteracted by the effort of the adductors. The state of closure of
the valves of the shell is not, therefore, one of rest; when it is at
rest--that is, when there is no muscular effort--the valves of a
Lamellibranch are slightly gaping, and are closed by the action of the
adductors when the animal is disturbed. The ligament is simple in
_Anodonta_; in many Lamellibranchs it is separated into two layers, an
outer and an inner (thicker and denser). That the condition of gaping
of the shell-valves is essential to the life of the Lamellibranch
appears from the fact that food to nourish it, water to aerate its
blood, and spermatozoa to fertilize its eggs, are all introduced into
this gaping chamber by currents of water, set going by the
highly-developed ctenidia. The current of water enters into the
sub-pallial space at the spot marked e in fig. 1 (1), and, after
passing as far forward as the mouth w in fig. 1 (5), takes an outward
course and leaves the sub-pallial space by the upper notch d. These
notches are known in _Anodonta_ as the afferent and efferent siphonal
notches respectively, and correspond to the long tube-like afferent
inferior and efferent superior "siphons" formed by the mantle in many
other Lamellibranchs (fig. 8).
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Diagram of a section of a Lamellibranch's
shells, ligament and adductor muscle. a, b, right and left valves of
the shell; c, d, the umbones or short arms of the lever; e, f, the
long arms of the lever; g, the hinge; h, the ligament; i, the adductor
muscle.]
Whilst the valves of the shell are equal in _Anodonta_ we find in many
Lamellibranchs (_Ostraea_, _Chama_, _Corbula_, &c.) one valve larger,
and the other smaller and sometimes flat, whilst the larger shell may
be fixed to rock or to stones (_Ostraea_, &c.). A further variation
consists in the development of additional shelly plates upon the
dorsal line between the two large valves (_Pholadidae_). In _Pholas
dactylus_ we find a pair of umbonal plates, a dors-umbonal plate and a
dorsal plate. It is to be remembered that the whole of the cuticular
hard product produced on the dorsal surface and on the mantle-flaps is
to be regarded as the "shell," of which a median band-like area, the
ligament, usually remains uncalcified, so as to result in the
production of two valves united by the elastic ligament. But the
shelly substance does not always in boring forms adhere to this form
after its first growth. In _Aspergillum_ the whole of the tubular
mantle area secretes a continuous shelly tube, although in the young
condition two valves were present. These are seen (fig. 7) set in the
firm substance of the adult tubular shell, which has even replaced the
ligament, so that the tube is complete. In _Teredo_ a similar tube is
formed as the animal elongates (boring in wood), the original
shell-valves not adhering to it but remaining movable and provided
with a special muscular apparatus in place of a ligament. In the shell
of Lamellibranchs three distinct layers can be distinguished: an
external chitinous, non-calcified layer, the periostracum; a middle
layer composed of calcareous prisms perpendicular to the surface, the
prismatic layer; and an internal layer composed of laminae parallel to
the surface, the nacreous layer. The last is secreted by the whole
surface of the mantle except the border, and additions to its
thickness continue to be made through life. The periostracum is
produced by the extreme edge of the mantle border, the prismatic layer
by the part of the border within the edge. These two layers,
therefore, when once formed cannot increase in thickness; as the
mantle grows in extent its border passes beyond the formed parts of
the two outer layers, and the latter are covered internally by a
deposit of nacreous matter. Special deposits of the nacreous matter
around foreign bodies form pearls, the foreign nucleus being usually
of parasitic origin (see PEARL).
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Shell of _Aspergillum vaginiferum_. (From
Owen.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--Shell of _Aspergillum vaginiferum_ to show the
original valves a, now embedded in a continuous calcification of
tubular form. (From Owen.)]
Let us now examine the organs which lie beneath the mantle-skirt of
_Anodonta_, and are bathed by the current of water which circulates
through it. This can be done by lifting up and throwing back the left
half of the mantle-skirt as is represented in fig. 1 (3). We thus
expose the plough-like foot (f), the two left labial tentacles, and
the two left gill-plates or left ctenidium. In fig. 1 (5), one of the
labial tentacles n is also thrown back to show the mouth w, and the
two left gill-plates are reflected to show the gill-plates of the
right side (rr, rq) projecting behind the foot, the inner or median
plate of each side being united by concrescence to its fellow of the
opposite side along a continuous line (aa). The left inner gill-plate
is also snipped to show the subjacent orifices of the left renal organ
x, and of the genital gland (testis or ovary) y. The foot thus exposed
in _Anodonta_ is a simple muscular tongue-like organ. It can be
protruded between the flaps of the mantle (fig. 1 [1] [2]) so as to
issue from the shell, and by its action the _Anodonta_ can slowly
crawl or burrow in soft mud or sand. Other Lamellibranchs may have a
larger foot relatively than has _Anodonta_. In _Arca_ it has a
sole-like surface. In _Arca_ too and many others it carries a
byssus-forming gland and a byssus-cementing gland. In the cockles, in
_Cardium_ and in _Trigonia_, it is capable of a sudden stroke, which
causes the animal to jump when out of the water, in the latter genus
to a height of four feet. In _Mytilus_ the foot is reduced to little
more than a tubercle carrying the apertures of these glands. In the
oyster it is absent altogether.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--_Psammobia florida_, right side, showing
expanded foot e, and g incurrent and g´ excurrent siphons. (From
Owen.)]
The labial tentacles or palps of _Anodonta_ (n, o in fig. 1 [3], [5])
are highly vascular flat processes richly supplied with nerves. The
left anterior tentacle (seen in the figure) is joined at its base in
front of the mouth (w) to the right anterior tentacle, and similarly
the left (o) and right posterior tentacles are joined behind the
mouth. Those of _Arca_ (i, k in fig. 9) show this relation to the
mouth (a). These organs are characteristic of all Lamellibranchs; they
do not vary except in size, being sometimes drawn out to streamer-like
dimensions. Their appearance and position suggest that they are in
some way related morphologically to the gill-plates, the anterior
labial tentacle being a continuation of the outer gill-plate, and the
posterior a continuation of the inner gill-plate. There is no
embryological evidence to support this suggested connexion, and, as
will appear immediately, the history of the gill-plates in various
forms of Lamellibranchs does not directly favour it. The palps are
really derived from part of the velar area of the larva.
[Illustration: FIG. 9.--View from the ventral (pedal) aspect of the
animal of _Arca noae_, the mantle-flap and gill-filaments having been
cut away. (Lankester.)
a, Mouth.
b, Anus.
c, Free spirally turned extremity of the gill-axis or ctenidial axis
of the right side.
d, Do. of the left side.
e, f, Anterior portions of these axes fused by concrescence to the
wall of the body.
g, Anterior adductor muscle.
h, Posterior adductor.
i, Anterior labial tentacle.
k, Posterior labial tentacle.
l, Base line of the foot.
m, Sole of the foot.
n, Callosity.]
The gill-plates have a structure very different from that of the
labial tentacles, and one which in _Anodonta_ is singularly
complicated as compared with the condition presented by these organs
in some other Lamellibranchs, and with what must have been their
original condition in the ancestors of the whole series of living
Lamellibranchia. The phenomenon of "concrescence" which we have
already had to note as showing itself so importantly in regard to the
free edges of the mantle-skirt and the formation of the siphons, is
what, above all things, has complicated the structure of the
Lamellibranch ctenidium. Our present knowledge of the interesting
series of modifications through which the Lamellibranch gill-plates
have developed to their most complicated form is due to R. H. Peck, K.
Mitsukuri and W. G. Ridewood. The Molluscan ctenidium is typically a
plume-like structure, consisting of a vascular axis, on each side of
which is set a row of numerous lamelliform or filamentous processes.
These processes are hollow, and receive the venous blood from, and
return it again aerated into, the hollow axis, in which an afferent
and an efferent blood-vessel may be differentiated. In the genus
_Nucula_ (fig. 10) we have an example of a Lamellibranch retaining
this plume-like form of gill. In the Arcacea (e.g. _Arca_ and
_Pectunculus_) the lateral processes which are set on the axis of the
ctenidium are not lamellae, but are slightly flattened, very long
tubes or hollow filaments. These filaments are so fine and are set so
closely together that they appear to form a continuous membrane until
examined with a lens. The microscope shows that the neighbouring
filaments are held together by patches of cilia, called "ciliated
junctions," which interlock with one another just as two brushes may
be made to do. In fig. 11, A a portion of four filaments of a
ctenidium of the sea-mussel (_Mytilus_) is represented, having
precisely the same structure as those of _Arca_. The filaments of the
gill (ctenidium) of _Mytilus_ and _Arca_ thus form two closely set
rows which depend from the axis of the gill like two parallel plates.
Further, their structure is profoundly modified by the curious
condition of the free ends of the depending filaments. These are
actually reflected at a sharp angle--doubled on themselves in
fact--and thus form an additional row of filaments (see fig. 11 B).
Consequently, each primitive filament has a descending and an
ascending ramus, and instead of each row forming a simple plate, the
plate is double, consisting of a descending and an ascending lamella.
As the axis of the ctenidium lies by the side of the body, and is very
frequently connate with the body, as so often happens in Gastropods
also, we find it convenient to speak of the two plate-like structures
formed on each ctenidial axis as the outer and the inner gill-plate;
each of these is composed of two lamellae, an outer (the reflected)
and an adaxial in the case of the outer gill-plate, and an adaxial and
an inner (the reflected) in the case of the inner gill-plate. This is
the condition seen in _Arca_ and _Mytilus_, the so-called plates
dividing upon the slightest touch into their constituent filaments,
which are but loosely conjoined by their "ciliated junctions."
Complications follow upon this in other forms. Even in _Mytilus_ and
_Arca_ a connexion is here and there formed between the ascending and
descending rami of a filament by hollow extensible outgrowths called
"interlamellar junctions" (_il._ j in B, fig. 11). Nevertheless the
filament is a complete tube formed of chitinous substance and clothed
externally by ciliated epithelium, internally by endothelium and
lacunar tissue--a form of connective tissue--as shown in fig. 11, C.
Now let us suppose as happens in the genus _Dreissensia_--a genus not
far removed from _Mytilus_--that the ciliated inter-filamentar
junctions (fig. 12) give place to solid permanent inter-filamentar
junctions, so that the filaments are converted, as it were, into a
trellis-work. Then let us suppose that the interlamellar junctions
already noted in _Mytilus_ become very numerous, large and irregular;
by them the two trellis-works of filaments would be united so as to
leave only a sponge-like set of spaces between them. Within the
trabeculae of the sponge-work blood circulates, and between the
trabeculae the water passes, having entered by the apertures left in
the trellis-work formed by the united gill-filaments (fig. 14). The
larger the intralamellar spongy growth becomes, the more do the
original gill-filaments lose the character of blood-holding tubes, and
tend to become dense elastic rods for the simple purpose of supporting
the spongy growth. This is seen both in the section of _Dreissensia_
gill (fig. 12) and in those of _Anodonta_ (fig. 13, A, B, C). In the
drawing of _Dreissensia_ the individual filaments f, f, f are cut
across in one lamella at the horizon of an inter-filamentar junction,
in the other (lower in the figure) at a point where they are free. The
chitinous substance ch is observed to be greatly thickened as compared
with what it is in fig. 11, C, tending in fact to obliterate
altogether the lumen of the filament. And in _Anodonta_ (fig. 13, C)
this obliteration is effected. In _Anodonta_, besides being thickened,
the skeletal substance of the filament develops a specially dense,
rod-like body on each side of each filament. Although the structure of
the ctenidium is thus highly complicated in _Anodonta_, it is yet more
so in some of the siphonate genera of Lamellibranchs. The filaments
take on a secondary grouping, the surface of the lamella being thrown
into a series of half-cylindrical ridges, each consisting of ten or
twenty filaments; a filament of much greater strength and thickness
than the others may be placed between each pair of groups. In
_Anodonta_, as in many other Lamellibranchs, the ova and hatched
embryos are carried for a time in the ctenidia or gill apparatus, and
in this particular case the space between the two lamellae of the
outer gill-plate is that which serves to receive the ova (fig. 13, A).
The young are nourished by a substance formed by the cells which cover
the spongy interlamellar outgrowths.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.--Structure of the Ctenidia of _Nucula_. (After
Mitsukuri.) See also fig. 2.
A. Section across the axis of a ctenidium with a pair of
plates--flattened and shortened filaments--attached.
i, j, k, g, Are placed on or near the membrane which attaches the
axis of the ctenidium to the side of the body.
a, b, Free extremities of the plates (filaments).
d, Mid-line of the inferior border.
e, Surface of the plate.
t, Its upper border.
h, Chitinous lining of the plate.
r, Dilated blood-space.
u, Fibrous tract.
o, Upper blood-vessel of the axis.
n, Lower blood-vessel of the axis.
s, Chitinous framework of the axis.
cp, Canal in the same.
A, B, Line along which the cross-section C of the plate is taken.
B. Animal of a male _Nucula proxima_, Say, as seen when the left
valve of the shell and the left half of the mantle-skirt are
removed.
a, a, Anterior adductor muscle.
p.a, Posterior adductor muscle.
v.m, Visceral mass.
f, Foot.
g, Gill.
l, Labial Tentacle.
l.a, Filamentous appendage of the labial tentacle.
lb, Hood-like appendage of the labial tentacle.
m, Membrane suspending the gill and attached to the body along the
line x, y, z, w.
p, Posterior end of the gill (ctenidium).
C. Section across one of the gill-plates (A, B, in A) comparable
with fig. 11 C.
i.a, Outer border.
d.a, Axial border.
l.f, Latero-frontal epithelium.
e, Epithelium of general surface.
r, Dilated blood-space.
h, Chitinous lining (compare A).]
[Illustration: FIG. 11.--Filaments of the Ctenidium of _Mytilus
edulis_. (After R. H. Peck.)
A, Part of four filaments seen from the outer face in order to show
the ciliated junctions c.j.
B, Diagram of the posterior face of a single complete filament with
descending ramus and ascending ramus ending in a hook-like process;
ep., ep., the ciliated junctions; il, j., interlamellar junction.
C, Transverse section of a filament taken so as to cut neither a
ciliated junction nor an interlamellar junction. f.e., Frontal
epithelium; l.f.e´., l.f.e´´., the two rows of latero-frontal
epithelial cells with long cilia; ch, chitinous tubular lining of
the filament; lac., blood lacuna traversed by a few processes of
connective tissue cells; b.c., blood-corpuscle.]
Other points in the modification of the typical ctenidium must be
noted in order to understand the ctenidium of _Anodonta_. The axis of
each ctenidium, right and left, starts from a point well forward near
the labial tentacles, but it is at first only a ridge, and does not
project as a free cylindrical axis until the back part of the foot is
reached. This is difficult to see in _Anodonta_, but if the
mantle-skirt be entirely cleared away, and if the dependent lamellae
which spring from the ctenidial axis be carefully cropped so as to
leave the axis itself intact, we obtain the form shown in fig. 15,
where g and h are respectively the left and the right ctenidial axes
projecting freely beyond the body. In _Arca_ this can be seen with far
less trouble, for the filaments are more easily removed than are the
consolidated lamellae formed by the filaments of _Anodonta_, and in
_Arca_ the free axes of the ctenidia are large and firm in texture
(fig. 9, c, d).
[Illustration: FIG. 12.--Transverse Section of the Outer Gill-plate of
_Dreissensia polymorpha_. (After R. H. Peck.)
f, Constituent gill-filaments.
ff, Fibrous sub-epidermic tissue.
ch, Chitonous substance of the filaments.
nch, Cells related to the chitonous substance.
lac, Lacunar tissue.
pig, Pigment-cells.
bc, Blood-corpuscles.
fe, Frontal epithelium.
lfe´, lfe´´, Two rows of latero-frontal epithelial cells with long
cilia.
lrf, Fibrous, possibly muscular, substance of the inter-filamentar
junctions.]
[Illustration: FIG. 13.--Transverse Sections of Gill-plates of
_Anodonta_. (After R. H. Peck.)
A, Outer gill-plate.
B, Inner gill-plate.
C, A portion of B more highly magnified.
o.l, Outer lamella.
i.l, Inner lamella.
v, Blood-vessel.
f, Constituent filaments.
lac, Lacunar tissue.
ch, Chitonous substance of the filament.
chr, Chitonous rod embedded in the softer substance ch.]
[Illustration: FIG. 14.--Gill-lamellae of _Anodonta_. (After R. H.
Peck.)
Diagram of a block cut from the outer lamella of the outer gill-plate
and seen from the interlamellar surface. f, Constituent filaments;
trf, fibrous tissue of the transverse inter-filamentar junctions; v,
blood-vessel _ilj_, Inter-lamellar junction. The series of oval holes
on the back of the lamella are the water-pores which open between the
filaments in irregular rows separated horizontally by the transverse
inter-filamentar junctions.]
[Illustration: FIG. 15.--Diagram of a view from the left side of the
animal of _Anodonta cygnaea_, from which the mantle-skirt, the labial
tentacles and the gill-filaments have been entirely removed so as to
show the relations of the axis of the gill-plumes or ctenidia g, h.
(Original.)
a, Centro-dorsal area.
b, Anterior adductor muscle.
c, Posterior adductor muscle.
d, Mouth.
e, Anus.
f, Foot.
g, Free portion of the axis of left ctenidium.
h, Axis of right ctenidium.
k, Portion of the axis of the left ctenidium which is fused with the
base of the foot, the two dotted lines indicating the origins of the
two rows of gill-filaments.
m, Line of origin of the anterior labial tentacle.
n, Nephridial aperture.
o, Genital aperture.
r, Line of origin of the posterior labial tentacle.]
If we were to make a vertical section across the long axis of a
Lamellibranch which had the axis of its ctenidium free from its origin
onwards, we should find such relations as are shown in the diagram
fig. 16, A. The gill axis d is seen lying in the sub-pallial chamber
between the foot b and the mantle c. From it depend the gill-filaments
or lamellae--formed by united filaments--drawn as black lines f. On
the left side these lamellae are represented as having only a small
reflected growth, on the right side the reflected ramus or lamella is
complete (fr and er). The actual condition in _Anodonta_ at the region
where the gills begin anteriorly is shown in fig. 16, B. The axis of
the ctenidium is seen to be adherent to, or fused by concrescence
with, the body-wall, and moreover on each side the outer lamella of
the outer gill-plate is fused to the mantle, whilst the inner lamella
of the inner gill-plate is fused to the foot. If we take another
section nearer the hinder margin of the foot, we get the arrangement
shown diagrammatically in fig. 16, C, and more correctly in fig. 17.
In this region the inner lamellae of the inner gill-plates are no
longer affixed to the foot. Passing still farther back behind the
foot, we find in _Anodonta_ the condition shown in the section D, fig.
16. The axes i are now free; the outer lamellae of the outer
gill-plates (er) still adhere by concrescence to the mantle-skirt,
whilst the inner lamellae of the inner gill-plates meet one another
and fuse by concrescence at g. In the lateral view of the animal with
reflected mantle-skirt and gill-plates, the line of concrescence of
the inner lamellae of the inner gill-plates is readily seen; it is
marked aa in fig. 1 (5). In the same figure the free part of the inner
lamella of the inner gill-plate resting on the foot is marked z,
whilst the attached part--the most anterior--has been snipped with
scissors so as to show the genital and nephridial apertures x and y.
The concrescence, then, of the free edge of the reflected lamellae of
the gill-plates of Anodon is very extensive. It is important, because
such a concrescence is by no means universal, and does not occur, for
example, in _Mytilus_ or in _Arca_; further, because when its
occurrence is once appreciated, the reduction of the gill-plates of
_Anodonta_ to the plume-type of the simplest ctenidium presents no
difficulty; and, lastly, it has importance in reference to its
physiological significance. The mechanical result of the concrescence
of the outer lamellae to the mantle-flap, and of the inner lamellae to
one another as shown in section D, fig. 16, is that the sub-pallial
space is divided into two spaces by a horizontal septum. The upper
space (i) communicates with the outer world by the excurrent or
superior siphonal notch of the mantle (fig. 1, d); the lower space
communicates by the lower siphonal notch (e in fig. 1). The only
communication between the two spaces, excepting through the
trellis-work of the gill-plates, is by the slit (z in fig. 1 (5)) left
by the non-concrescence of a part of the inner lamella of the inner
gill-plate with the foot. A probe (g) is introduced through this
slit-like passage, and it is seen to pass out by the excurrent
siphonal notch. It is through this passage, or indirectly through the
pores of the gill-plates, that the water introduced into the lower
sub-pallial space must pass on its way to the excurrent siphonal
notch. Such a subdivision of the pallial chamber, and direction of the
currents set up within it do not exist in a number of Lamellibranchs
which have the gill-lamellae comparatively free (_Mytilus_, _Arca_,
_Trigonia_, &c.), and it is in these forms that there is least
modification by concrescence of the primary filamentous elements of
the lamellae.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.--Diagrams of Transverse Sections of a
Lamellibranch to show the Adhesion, by Concrescence, of the
Gill-Lamellae to the Mantle-flaps, to the foot and to one another.
(Lankester.)
A, Shows two conditions with free gill-axis.
B, Condition at foremost region in _Anodonta_.
C, Hind region of foot in _Anodonta_.
D, Region altogether posterior to the foot in _Anodonta_.
a, Visceral mass.
b, Foot.
c, Mantle flap.
d, Axis of gill or ctenidium.
e, Adaxial lamella of outer gill-plate.
er, Reflected lamella of outer gill-plate.
f, Adaxial lamella of inner gill-plate.
fr, Reflected lamella of inner gill-plate.
g, Line of concrescence of the reflected lamellae of the two inner
gill-plates.
h, Rectum.
i, Supra-branchial space of the sub-pallial chamber.]
[Illustration: FIG. 17.--Vertical Section through an _Anodonta_, about
the mid-region of the Foot.
m, Mantle-flap.
br, Outer, b´r´, inner gill-plate--each composed of two lamellae.
f, Foot.
v, Ventricle of the heart.
a, Auricle.
p, p´, Pericardial cavity.
i, Intestine.]
In the 9th edition of this Encyclopaedia Professor (Sir) E. R.
Lankester suggested that these differences of gill-structure would
furnish characters of classificatory value, and this suggestion has
been followed out by Dr Paul Pelseneer in the classification now
generally adopted.
The alimentary canal of _Anodonta_ is shown in fig. 1 (4). The mouth
is placed between the anterior adductor and the foot; the anus opens
on a median papilla overlying the posterior adductor, and discharges
into the superior pallial chamber along which the excurrent stream
passes. The coil of the intestine in _Anodonta_ is similar to that of
other Lamellibranchs. The rectum traverses the pericardium, and has
the ventricle of the heart wrapped, as it were, around it. This is not
an unusual arrangement in Lamellibranchs, and a similar disposition
occurs in some Gastropoda (_Haliotis_). A pair of ducts (ai) lead from
the first enlargement of the alimentary tract called stomach into a
pair of large digestive glands, the so-called liver, the branches of
which are closely packed in this region (af). The food of the
_Anodonta_, as of other Lamellibranchs, consists of microscopic animal
and vegetable organisms, brought to the mouth by the stream which sets
into the sub-pallial chamber at the lower siphonal notch (e in fig.
1). Probably a straining of water from solid particles is effected by
the lattice-work of the ctenidia or gill-plates.
The heart of _Anodonta_ consists of a median ventricle embracing the
rectum (fig. 18, A), and giving off an anterior and a posterior
artery, and of two auricles which open into the ventricle by orifices
protected by valves.
[Illustration: FIG. 18.--Diagrams showing the Relations of Pericardium
and Nephridia in a Lamellibranch such as _Anodonta_.
A, Pericardium opened dorsally so as to expose the heart and the
floor of the pericardial chamber d.
B, Heart removed and floor of the pericardium cut away on the left
side so as to open the non-glandular sac of the nephridium,
exposing the glandular sac b, which is also cut into so as to show
the probe f.
C, Ideal pericardium and nephridium viewed laterally.
D, Lateral view showing the actual relation of the glandular and
non-glandular sacs of the nephridium. The arrows indicate the
course of fluid from the pericardium outwards.
a, Ventricle of the heart.
b, Auricle.
bb, Cut remnant of the auricle.
c, Dorsal wall of the pericardium cut and reflected.
e, Reno-pericardial orifice.
f, Probe introduced into the left reno-pericardial orifice.
g, Non-glandular sac of the left nephridium.
h, Glandular sac of the left nephridium.
i, Pore leading from the glandular into the non-glandular sac of
the left nephridium.
k, Pore leading from the non-glandular sac to the exterior.
ac, Anterior.
ab, Posterior, cut remnants of the intestine and ventricle.]
The blood is colourless, and has colourless amoeboid corpuscles
floating in it. In _Ceratisolen legumen_, various species of _Arca_
and a few other species the blood is crimson, owing to the presence of
corpuscles impregnated with haemoglobin. In _Anodonta_ the blood is
driven by the ventricle through the arteries into vessel-like spaces,
which soon become irregular lacunae surrounding the viscera, but in
parts--e.g. the labial tentacles and walls of the gut--very fine
vessels with endothelial cell-lining are found. The blood makes its
way by large veins to a venous sinus which lies in the middle line
below the heart, having the paired renal organs (nephridia) placed
between it and that organ. Hence it passes through the vessels of the
glandular walls of the nephridia right and left into the
gill-lamellae, whence it returns through many openings into the
widely-stretched auricles. In the filaments of the gill of
Protobranchia and many Filibranchia the tubular cavity is divided by a
more or less complete fibrous septum into two channels, for an
afferent and efferent blood-current. The ventricle and auricles of
_Anodonta_ lie in a pericardium which is clothed with a pavement
endothelium (d, fig. 18). It does not contain blood or communicate
directly with the blood-system; this isolation of the pericardium we
have noted already in Gastropods and Cephalopods. A good case for the
examination of the question as to whether blood enters the pericardium
of Lamellibranchs, or escapes from the foot, or by the renal organs
when the animal suddenly contracts, is furnished by the _Ceratisolen
legumen_, which has red blood-corpuscles. According to observations
made by Penrose on an uninjured _Ceratisolen legumen_, no red
corpuscles are to be seen in the pericardial space, although the heart
is filled with them, and no such corpuscles are ever discharged by the
animal when it is irritated.
[Illustration: FIG. 19.--Nerve-ganglia and Cords of three
Lamellibranchs. (From Gegenbaur.)
A, Of _Teredo_.
B, Of _Anodonta_.
C, Of _Pecten_.
a, Cerebral ganglion-pair (= cerebro-pleuro-visceral).
b, Pedal ganglion-pair.
c, Olfactory (osphradial) ganglion-pair.]
[Illustration: FIG. 20.--Otocyst of _Cyclas_. (From Gegenbaur.)
c, Capsule.
e, Ciliated cells lining the same.
o, Otolith.]
The pair of renal organs of _Anodonta_, called in Lamellibranchs the
organs of Bojanus, lie below the membranous floor of the pericardium,
and open into it by two well-marked apertures (e and f in fig. 18).
Each nephridium, after being bent upon itself as shown in fig. 18, C,
D, opens to the exterior by a pore placed at the point marked x in
fig. 1 (5) (6). One half of each nephridium is of a dark-green colour
and glandular (h in fig. 18). This opens into the reflected portion
which overlies it as shown in the diagram fig. 18, D, i; the latter
has non-glandular walls, and opens by the pore k to the exterior. The
renal organs may be more ramified in other Lamellibranchs than they
are in _Anodonta_. In some they are difficult to discover. That of the
common oyster was described by Hoek. Each nephridium in the oyster is
a pyriform sac, which communicates by a narrow canal with the
urino-genital groove placed to the front of the great adductor muscle;
by a second narrow canal it communicates with the pericardium. From
all parts of the pyriform sac narrow stalk-like tubes are given off,
ending in abundant widely-spread branching glandular caeca, which form
the essential renal secreting apparatus. The genital duct opens by a
pore into the urino-genital groove of the oyster (the same arrangement
being repeated on each side of the body) close to but distinct from
the aperture of the nephridial canal. Hence, except for the formation
of a urino-genital groove, the apertures are placed as they are in
_Anodonta_. Previously to Hoek's discovery a brown-coloured investment
of the auricles of the heart of the oyster had been supposed to
represent the nephridia in a rudimentary state. This investment, which
occurs also in many Filibranchia, forms the pericardial glands,
comparable to the pericardial accessory glandular growths of
Cephalopoda. In _Unionidae_ and several other forms the pericardial
glands are extended into diverticula of the pericardium which
penetrate the mantle and constitute the organ of Heber. The glands
secrete hippuric acid which passes from the pericardium into the renal
organs.
_Nervous System and Sense-Organs._--In _Anodonta_ there are three
well-developed pairs of nerve ganglia (fig. 19, B, and fig. 1 (6)). An
anterior pair, lying one on each side of the mouth (fig. 19, B, a) and
connected in front of it by a commissure, are the representatives of
the cerebral and pleural ganglia of the typical Mollusc, which are not
here differentiated as they are in Gastropods. A pair placed close
together in the foot (fig. 19, B, b, and fig. 1 (6), ax) are the
typical pedal ganglia; they are joined to the cerebro-pleural ganglia
by connectives.
Posteriorly beneath the posterior adductors, and covered only by a
thin layer of elongated epidermal cells, are the visceral ganglia.
United with these ganglia on the outer sides are the osphradial
ganglia, above which the epithelium is modified to form a pair of
sense-organs, corresponding to the osphradia of other Molluscs. In
some Lamellibranchs the osphradial ganglia receive nerve-fibres, not
from the visceral ganglia, but from the cerebral ganglia along the
visceral commissure. Formerly the posterior pair of ganglia were
identified as simply the osphradial ganglia, and the anterior pair as
the cerebral, pleural and visceral ganglia united into a single pair.
But it has since been discovered that in the Protobranchia the
cerebral ganglia and the pleural are distinct, each giving origin to
its own connective which runs to the pedal ganglion. The cerebro-pedal
and pleuro-pedal connectives, however, in these cases are only
separate in the initial parts of their course, and unite together for
the lower half of their length, or for nearly the whole length.
Moreover, in many forms, in which in the adult condition there is only
a single pair of anterior ganglia and a single pedal connective, a
pleural ganglion distinct from the cerebral has been recognized in the
course of development. There is, however, no evidence of the union of
a visceral pair with the cerebro-pleural.
[Illustration: FIG. 21.--Pallial Eye of _Spondylus_. (From Hickson.)
a, Prae-corneal epithelium.
b, Cellular lens.
c, Retinal body.
d, Tapetum.
e, Pigment.
f, Retinal nerve.
g, Complementary nerve.
h, Epithelial cells filled with pigment.
k, Tentacle.]
The sense-organs of _Anodonta_ other than the osphradia consist of a
pair of otocysts attached to the pedal ganglia (fig. 1 (6), ay). The
otocysts of _Cyclas_ are peculiarly favourable for study on account of
the transparency of the small foot in which they lie, and may be taken
as typical of those of Lamellibranchs generally. The structure of one
is exhibited in fig. 20. A single otolith is present as in the veliger
embryos of Opisthobranchia. In Filibranchia and many Protobranchia the
otocyst (or statocyst) contains numerous particles (otoconia). The
organs are developed as invaginations of the epidermis of the foot,
and in the majority of the Protobranchia the orifice of invagination
remains open throughout life; this is also the case in _Mytilus_
including the common mussel.
[Illustration: FIG. 22.--Two Stages in the Development of _Anodonta_.
(From Balfour.) Both figures represent the glochidium stage.
A, When free swimming, shows the two dentigerous valves widely open.
B, A later stage, after fixture to the fin of a fish.
sh, Shell.
ad, Adductor muscle.
s, Teeth of the shell.
by, Byssus.
a.ad, Anterior adductor.
p.ad, Posterior adductor.
mt, Mantle-flap.
f, Foot.
br, Branchial filaments.
au.v, Otocyst.
al, Alimentary canal.]
_Anodonta_ has no eyes of any sort, and the tentacles on the mantle
edge are limited to its posterior border. This deficiency is very
usual in the class; at the same time, many Lamellibranchs have
tentacles on the edge of the mantle supplied by a pair of large
well-developed nerves, which are given off from the cerebro-pleural
ganglion-pair, and very frequently some of these tentacles have
undergone a special metamorphosis converting them into
highly-organized eyes. Such eyes on the mantle-edge are found in
_Pecten_, _Spondylus_, _Lima_, _Pinna_, _Pectunculus_, _Modiola_,
_Cardium_, _Tellina_, _Mactra_, _Venus_, _Solen_, _Pholas_ and
_Galeomma_. They are totally distinct from the cephalic eyes of
typical Mollusca, and have a different structure and historical
development. They have originated not as pits but as tentacles. They
agree with the dorsal eyes of _Oncidium_ (Pulmonata) in the curious
fact that the optic nerve penetrates the capsule of the eye and passes
in front of the retinal body (fig. 21), so that its fibres join the
anterior faces of the nerve-end cells as in Vertebrates, instead of
their posterior faces as in the cephalic eyes of Mollusca and
Arthropoda; moreover, the lens is not a cuticular product but a
cellular structure, which, again, is a feature of agreement with the
Vertebrate eye. It must, however, be distinctly borne in mind that
there is a fundamental difference between the eye of Vertebrates and
of all other groups in the fact that in the Vertebrata the retinal
body is itself a part of the central nervous system, and not a
separate modification of the epidermis--myelonic as opposed to
epidermic. The structure of the reputed eyes of several of the
above-named genera has not been carefully examined. In _Pecten_ and
_Spondylus_, however, they have been fully studied (see fig. 21, and
explanation). Rudimentary cephalic eyes occur in the _Mytilidae_ and
in _Avicula_ at the base of the first filament of the inner gill, each
consisting of a pigmented epithelial fossa containing a cuticular
lens. In the _Arcidae_ the pallial eyes are compound or faceted
somewhat like those of Arthropods.
[Illustration: FIG. 23.--Development of the Oyster, _Ostrea edulis_.
(Modified from Horst.)
A, Blastula stage (one-cell-layered sac), with commencing
invagination of the wall of the sac at bl, the blastopore.
B, Optical section of a somewhat later stage, in which a second
invagination has begun--namely, that of the shell-gland sk.
bl, Blastopore.
en, Invaginated endoderm (wall of the future arch-enteron).
ec, Ectoderm.
C, Similar optical section at a little later stage. The
invagination connected with the blastopore is now more contracted,
d; and cells, me, forming the mesoblast from which the coelom and
muscular and skeleto-trophic tissues develop, are separated.
D, Similar section of a later stage. The blastopore, bl, has
closed; the anus will subsequently perforate the corresponding
area. A new aperture, m, the mouth, has eaten its way into the
invaginated endodermal sac, and the cells pushed in with it
constitute the stomodaeum. The shell-gland, sk, is flattened out,
and a delicate shell, s, appears on its surface. The ciliated velar
ring is cut in the section, as shown by the two projecting cilia on
the upper part of the figure. The embryo is now a Trochosphere.
E, Surface view of an embryo at a period almost identical with that
of D.
F, Later embryo seen as a transparent object.
m, Mouth.
ft, Foot.
a, Anus.
e, Intestine.
st, Stomach.
tp, Velar area of the prostomium. The extent of the shell and
commencing upgrowth of the mantle-skirt is indicated by a line
forming a curve from a to F.
_N.B._--In this development, as in that of _Pisidium_ (fig. 25), no
part of the blastopore persists either as mouth or as anus, but the
aperture closes--the pedicle of invagination, or narrow neck of the
invaginated arch-enteron, becoming the intestine. The mouth and the
anus are formed as independent in-pushings, the mouth with
stomodaeum first, and the short anal proctodaeum much later. This
interpretation of the appearances is contrary to that of Horst, from
whom our drawings of the oyster's development are taken. The account
given by the American William K. Brooks differs greatly as to matter
of fact from that of Horst, and appears to be erroneous in some
respects.]
[Illustration: FIG. 24.--Embryo of _Pisidium pusillum_ in the
diblastula stage, surface view (after Lankester). The embryo has
increased in size by accumulation of liquid between the outer and the
invaginated cells. The blastopore has closed.]
[Illustration: FIG. 25.--B, Same embryo as fig. 24, in optical median
section, showing the invaginated cells hy which form the arch-enteron,
and the mesoblastic cells me which are budded off from the surface of
the mass hy, and apply themselves to the inner surface of the
epiblastic cell-layer ep. C. The same embryo focused so as to show the
mesoblastic cells which immediately underlie the outer cell-layer.]
_Generative Organs._--The gonads of _Anodonta_ are placed in distinct
male and female individuals. In some Lamellibranchs--for instance, the
European Oyster and the _Pisidium pusillum_--the sexes are united in
the same individual; but here, as in most hermaphrodite animals, the
two sexual elements are not ripe in the same individual at the same
moment. It has been conclusively shown that the _Ostrea edulis_ does
not fertilize itself. The American Oyster (_O. virginiana_) and the
Portuguese Oyster (_O. angulata_) have the sexes separate, and
fertilization is effected in the open water after the discharge of the
ova and the spermatozoa from the females and males respectively. In
the _Ostrea edulis_ fertilization of the eggs is effected at the
moment of their escape from the uro-genital groove, or even before, by
means of spermatozoa drawn into the sub-pallial chamber by the
incurrent ciliary stream, and the embryos pass through the early
stages of development whilst entangled between the gill-lamellae of
the female parent (fig. 23). In _Anodonta_ the eggs pass into the
space between the two lamellae of the outer gill-plate, and are there
fertilized, and advance whilst still in this position to the
glochidium phase of development (fig. 22). They may be found here in
thousands in the summer and autumn months. The gonads themselves are
extremely simple arborescent glands which open to the exterior by two
simple ducts, one right and one left, continuous with the tubular
branches of the gonads. In the most primitive Lamellibranchs there is
no separate generative aperture but the gonads discharge into the
renal cavity, as in _Patella_ among Gastropods. This is the case in
the Protobranchia, e.g. _Solenomya_, in which the gonad opens into the
reno-pericardial duct. But the generative products do not pass through
the whole length of the renal tube: there is a direct opening from the
pericardial end of the tube to the distal end, and the ova or sperms
pass through this. In _Arca_, in _Anomiidae_ and in _Pectinidae_ the
gonad opens into the external part of the renal tube. The next stage
of modification is seen in _Ostraea_, _Cyclas_ and some _Lucinidae_,
in which the generative and renal ducts open into a cloacal slit on
the surface of the body. In _Mytilus_ the two apertures are on a
common papilla, in other cases the two apertures are as in _Anodonta_.
The Anatinacea and _Poromya_ among the Septibranchia are, however,
peculiar in having two genital apertures on each side, one male and
one female. These forms are hermaphrodite, with an ovary and testis
completely separate from each other on each side of the body, each
having its own duct and aperture.
The development of _Anodonta_ is remarkable for the curious larval
form known as _glochidium_ (fig. 22). The glochidium quits the
gill-pouch of its parent and swims by alternate opening and shutting
of the valves of its shell, as do adult _Pecten_ and _Lima_, trailing
at the same time a long byssus thread. This byssus is not homologous
with that of other Lamellibranchs, but originates from a single
glandular epithelial cell embedded in the tissues on the dorsal
anterior side of the adductor muscle. By this it is brought into
contact with the fin of a fish, such as perch, stickleback or others,
and effects a hold thereon by means of the toothed edge of its shells.
Here it becomes encysted, and is nourished by the exudations of the
fish. It remains in this condition for a period of two to six weeks,
and during this time the permanent organs are developed from the cells
of two symmetrical cavities behind the adductor muscle. The early
larva of _Anodonta_ is not unlike the trochosphere of other
Lamellibranchs, but the mouth is wanting. The glochidium is formed by
the precocious development of the anterior adductor and the
retardation of all the other organs except the shell. Other
Lamellibranchs exhibit either a trochosphere larva which becomes a
veliger differing only from the Gastropod's and Pteropod's veliger in
having bilateral shell-calcifications instead of a single central one;
or, like _Anodonta_, they may develop within the gill-plates of the
mother, though without presenting such a specialized larva as the
glochidium. An example of the former is seen in the development of the
European oyster, to the figure of which and its explanation the reader
is specially referred (fig. 23). An example of the latter is seen in a
common little fresh-water bivalve, the _Pisidium pusillum_, which has
been studied by Lankester. The gastrula is formed in this case by
invagination. The embryonic cells continue to divide, and form an oval
vesicle containing liquid (fig. 24); within this, at one pole, is seen
the mass of invaginated cells (fig. 25, hy). These invaginated cells
are the arch-enteron; they proliferate and give off branching cells,
which apply themselves (fig. 25, C) to the inner face of the vesicle,
thus forming the mesoblast. The outer single layer of cells which
constitutes the surface of the vesicle is the ectoderm or epiblast.
The little mass of hypoblast or enteric cell-mass now enlarges, but
remains connected with the cicatrix of the blastopore or orifice of
invagination by a stalk, the rectal peduncle. The enteron itself
becomes bilobed and is joined by a new invagination, that of the mouth
and stomodaeum. The mesoblast multiplies its cells, which become
partly muscular and partly skeleto-trophic. Centro-dorsally now
appears the embyronic shell-gland. The pharynx or stomodaeum is still
small, the foot not yet prominent. A later stage is seen in fig. 26,
where the pharynx is widely open and the foot prominent. No ciliated
velum or pre-oral (cephalic) lobe ever develops. The shell-gland
disappears, the mantle-skirt is raised as a ridge, the paired
shell-valves are secreted, the anus opens by a proctodaeal ingrowth
into the rectal peduncle, and the rudiments of the gills (br) and of
the renal organs (B) appear (fig. 26, lateral view), and thus the
chief organs and general form of the adult are acquired. Later changes
consist in the growth of the shell-valves over the whole area of the
mantle-flaps, and in the multiplication of the gill-filaments and
their consolidation to form gill-plates. It is important to note that
the gill-filaments are formed one by one _posteriorly_. The labial
tentacles are formed late. In the allied genus _Cyclas_, a byssus
gland is formed in the foot and subsequently disappears, but no such
gland occurs in _Pisidium_.
[Illustration: FIG. 26.--Diagram of Embryo of _Pisidium_. The unshaded
area gives the position of the shell-valve. (After Lankester.)
m, Mouth.
x, Anus.
f, Foot.
br, Branchial filaments.
mn, Margin of the mantle-skirt.
B, Organ of Bojanus.]
[Illustration: After Drew, in Lankester's _Treatise on Zoology_. (A. &
C. Black.)
FIG. 27.--Surface view of a forty-five hour embryo of _Yoldia
limatula_. a.c, Apical cilia. bl, Blastopore. x, Depression where the
cells that form the cerebral ganglia come to the surface.]
An extraordinary modification of the veliger occurs in the development
of _Nucula_ and _Yoldia_ and probably other members of the same
families. After the formation of the gastrula by epibole the larva
becomes enclosed by an ectodermic test covering the whole of the
original surface of the body, including the shell-gland, and leaving
only a small opening at the posterior end in which the stomodaeum and
proctodaeum are formed. In _Yoldia_ and _Nucula proxima_ the test
consists of five rows of flattened cells, the three median rows
bearing circlets of long cilia. At the anterior end of the test is the
apical plate from the centre of which projects a long flagellum as in
many other Lamellibranch larvae. In _Nucula delphinodonta_ the test is
uniformly covered with short cilia, and there is no flagellum. When
the larval development is completed the test is cast off, its cells
breaking apart and falling to pieces leaving the young animal with a
well-developed shell exposed and the internal organs in an advanced
state. The test is really a ciliated velum developed in the normal
position at the apical pole but reflected backwards in such a way as
to cover the original ectoderm except at the posterior end. In
_Yoldia_ and _Nucula proxima_ the ova are set free in the water and
the test-larvae are free-swimming, but in _Nucula delphinodonta_ the
female forms a thin-walled egg-case of mucus attached to the posterior
end of the shell and in communication with the pallial chamber; in
this case the eggs develop and the test-larva is enclosed. A similar
modification of the velum occurs in _Dentalium_ and in _Myzomenia_
among the Amphineura.
CLASSIFICATION OF LAMELLIBRANCHIA
The classification originally based on the structure of the gills by P.
Pelseneer included five orders, viz.: the Protobranchia in which the
gill-filaments are flattened and not reflected; the Filibranchia in
which the filaments are long and reflected, with non-vascular junctions;
the Pseudolamellibranchia in which the gill-lamellae are vertically
folded, the inter-filamentar and interlamellar junctions being vascular
or non-vascular; the Eulamellibranchia in which the inter-filamentar and
interlamellar junctions are vascular; and lastly the Septibranchia in
which the gills are reduced to a horizontal partition. The
Pseudolamellibranchia included the oyster, scallop and their allies
which formerly constituted the order Monomyaria, having only a single
large adductor muscle or in addition a very small anterior adductor. The
researches of W. G. Ridewood have shown that in gill-structure the
Pectinacea agree with the Filibranchia and the Ostraeacea with the
Eulamellibranchia, and accordingly the order Pseudolamellibranchia is
now suppressed and its members divided between the two other orders
mentioned. The four orders now retained exhibit successive stages in the
modification of the ctenidia by reflection and concrescence of the
filament, but other organs, such as the heart, adductors, renal organs,
may not show corresponding stages. On the contrary considerable
differences in these organs may occur within any single order. The
Protobranchia, however, possess several primitive characters besides
that of the branchiae. In them the foot has a flat ventral surface used
for creeping, as in Gastropods, the byssus gland is but slightly
developed, the pleural ganglia are distinct, there is a relic of the
pharyngeal cavity, in some forms with a pair of glandular sacs, the
gonads retain their primitive connexion with the renal cavities, and the
otocysts are open.
Order I. PROTOBRANCHIA
In addition to the characters given above, it may be noted that the
mantle is provided with a hypobranchial gland on the outer side of each
gill, the auricles are muscular, the kidneys are glandular through their
whole length, the sexes are separate.
Fam. 1. _Solenomyidae._--One row of branchial filaments is directed
dorsally, the other ventrally; the mantle has a long postero-ventral
suture and a single posterior aperture; the labial palps of each side
are fused together; shell elongate; hinge without teeth; periostracum
thick. _Solenomya._
Fam. 2. _Nuculidae._--Labial palps free, very broad, and provided with
a posterior appendage; branchial filaments transverse; shell has an
angular dorsal border; mantle open along its whole border. _Nucula.
Acila. Pronucula._
Fam. 3. _Ledidae._--Like the _Nuculidae_, but mantle has two posterior
sutures and two united siphons. _Leda. Yoldia. Malletia._
Fam. 4. _Ctenodontidae._--Extinct; Silurian.
The fossil group Palaeoconcha is connected with the Protobranchia
through the Solenomyidae. It contains the following extinct families.
Fam. 1. _Praecardiidae._--Shell equivalve with hinge dentition as in
_Arca. Praecardium_; Silurian and Devonian.
Fam. 2. _Antipleuridae._--Shell inequivalve. _Antipleura_; Silurian.
Fam. 3. _Cardiolidae._--Shell equivalve and ventricose; hinge without
teeth. _Cardiola_; Silurian and Devonian.
Fam. 4. _Grammysiidae._--Shell thin, equivalve, oval or elongate;
hinge without teeth. _Grammysia_; Silurian and Devonian. _Protomya_;
Devonian. _Cardiomorpha_; Silurian to Carboniferous.
Fam. 5. _Vlastidae._--Shell very inequivalve; hinge without teeth.
_Vlasta_; Silurian.
Fam. 6. _Solenopsidae._--Shell equivalve, greatly elongated, umbones
very far forward. _Solenopsis_; Devonian to Trias.
Order II. FILIBRANCHIA
Gill-filament ventrally directed and reflected, connected by ciliated
junctions. Foot generally provided with a highly developed byssogenous
apparatus.
Sub-order I.--_Anomiacea._
Very asymmetrical, with a single large posterior adductor. The heart
is not contained in the pericardium, lies dorsad of the rectum and
gives off a single aorta anteriorly. The reflected borders of the
inner gill-plates of either side are fused together in the middle
line. The gonads open into the kidneys and the right gonad extends
into the mantle. Shell thin; animal fixed.
Fam. 1. _Anomiidae._--Foot small; inferior (right) valve of adult
perforated to allow passage of the byssus. _Anomia_; byssus large
and calcified; British. _Placuna_; byssus atrophied in adult.
_Hypotrema_. _Carolia_. _Ephippium_. _Placunanomia_.
Sub-order II.--_Arcacea._
Symmetrical; mantle open throughout its extent; generally with well
developed anterior and posterior adductors. The heart lies in the
pericardium and gives off two aortae. Gills without interlamellar
junctions. Renal and genital apertures separate.
Fam. 1. _Arcidae._--Borders of the mantle bear compound pallial
eyes. The labial palps are direct continuations of the lips. Hinge
pliodont, that is to say, it has numerous teeth on either side of
the umbones and the teeth are perpendicular to the edge. _Arca_;
foot byssiferous; British. _Pectunculus_; foot without byssus;
British. _Scaphula_; freshwater; India. _Argina. Bathyarca.
Barbatia. Senilia. Anadara. Adacnarca._
Fam. 2. _Parallelodontidae._--Shell as in _Arca_, but the posterior
hinge teeth elongated and parallel to the cardinal border.
_Cucullaea_; recent and fossil from the Jurassic. All the other
genera are fossil: _Parallelodon_; Devonian to Tertiary.
_Carbonaria_; Carboniferous, &c.
Fam. 3. _Limopsidae._--Shell orbicular, hinge curved, ligament
longer transversely than antero-posteriorly; foot elongate, pointed
anteriorly and posteriorly. _Limopsis. Trinacria_; Tertiary.
Fam. 4. _Philobryidae._--Shell thin, very inequilateral, anterior
part atrophied, umbones projecting. _Philobrya._
Fam. 5. _Cyrtodontidae._--Extinct; shell equivalve and
inequilateral, short, convex. _Cyrtodonta_; Silurian and Devonian.
_Cypricardites_, Silurian. _Vanuxemia_; Silurian.
Fam. 6. _Trigoniidae._--Shell thick; foot elongated, pointed in
front and behind, ventral border sharp; byssus absent. _Trigonia_;
shell sub-triangular, umbones directed backwards. This genus was
very abundant in the Secondary epoch, especially in Jurassic seas.
There are six living species, all in Australian seas. Living
specimens were first discovered in 1827. _Schizodus_; Permian.
_Myophoria_; Trias.
Fam. 7. _Lyrodesmidae._--Extinct; shell inequilateral, posterior
side shorter; hinge short, teeth in form of a fan. _Lyrodesma_;
Silurian.
Sub-order III.--_Mytilacea._
Symmetrical, the anterior adductor small or absent. Heart gives off
only an anterior aorta. Surface of gills smooth, gill-filaments all
similar, with interlamellar junctions. Gonads generally extend into
mantle and open at sides of kidneys. Foot linguiform and byssiferous.
Fam. 1. _Mytilidae._--Shell inequilateral, anterior end short; hinge
without teeth; ligament external. Mantle has a posterior suture.
Cephalic eyes present. _Mytilus_; British. _Modiola_; British.
_Lithodomus. Modiolaria_; British. _Crenella. Stavelia. Dacrydium.
Myrina. Idas. Septifer._
Fam. 2. _Modiolopsidae._--Extinct; Silurian to Cretaceous; adductor
muscles sub-equal. _Modiolopsis.--Modiomorpha. Myoconcha._
Fam. 3. _Pernidae._--Shell very inequilateral; ligament subdivided;
mantle open throughout; anterior adductor absent. _Perna.
Crenatula_; inhabits sponges. _Bakewellia. Gervilleia_; Trias to
Eocene. _Odontoperna_; Trias. _Inoceramus_; Jurassic to Cretaceous.
Sub-order IV.--_Pectinacea._
Monomyarian, with open mantle. Gills folded and the filaments at
summits and bases of the folds are different from the others. Gonads
contained in the visceral mass and generally open into renal cavities.
Foot usually rudimentary.
Fam. 1. _Vulsellidae._--Shell high; hinge toothless; foot without
byssus. _Vulsella._
Fam. 2. _Aviculidae._--Shell very inequilateral; cardinal border
straight with two auriculae, the posterior the longer. Foot with a
very stout byssus. Gills fused to the mantle. _Avicula_; British.
_Meleagrina._ Pearls are obtained from a species of this genus in
the Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean, &c. _Malleus._ Several extinct
genera.
Fam. 3. _Prasinidae._--Shell inequilateral, with anterior umbones
and prominent anterior auricula; cardinal border arched. _Prasina._
Fam. 4. _Pterineidae._--Extinct; Palaeozoic.
Fam. 5. _Lunulicardiidae._--Extinct; Silurian and Devonian.
Fam. 6. _Conocardiidae._--Extinct; Silurian to Carboniferous.
Fam. 7. _Ambonychiidae._--Extinct; Silurian and Devonian. The last
two families are dimyarian, with small anterior adductor.
Fam. 8. _Myalinidae._--Extinct; Silurian to Cretaceous; adductors
sub-equal.
Fam. 9. _Amussiidae._--Shell orbicular, smooth externally with
radiating costae internally. Gills without interlamellar junctions.
_Amussium._
Fam. 10. _Spondylidae._--Shell very inequivalve, fixed by the right
valve which is the larger. No byssus. _Spondylus_; shell with spiny
ribs, adherent by the spines. _Plicatula._
Fam. 11. _Pectinidae._--Shell with radiating ribs; dorsal border
with two auriculae. Foot byssiferous. Mantle borders with well
developed eyes. _Pecten_; shell orbicular, with equal auriculae;
without a byssal sinus; British. _Chlamys_; anterior auricula the
larger and with a byssal sinus; British. _Pedum. Hinnites.
Pseudamussium. Camptonectes. Hyalopecten_; abyssal.
Sub-order V.--_Dimyacea._
Dimyarian, with orbicular and almost equilateral shell; adherent;
hinge without teeth and ligament internal. Gills with free
non-reflected filaments.
Fam. _Dimyidae._--Characters of the sub-order. _Dimya_; recent in
abyssal depths and fossil since the Jurassic.
Order III. EULAMELLIBRANCHIA
Edges of the mantle generally united by one or two sutures. Two
adductors usually present. Branchial filaments united by vascular
inter-filamentar junctions and vascular interlamellar junctions; the
latter contain the afferent vessels. The gonads always have their own
proper external apertures.
Sub-order I.--_Ostraeacea._
Monomyarian or with a very small anterior adductor. Mantle open; foot
rather small; branchiae folded; shell inequivalve.
Fam. 1. _Limidae._--Shell with auriculae. Foot digitiform, with
byssus. Borders of mantle with long and numerous tentacles. Gills
not united with mantle. _Lima_; members of this genus form a nest by
means of the byssus, or swim by clapping the valves of the shell
together. _Limaea._
Fam. 2. _Ostraeidae._--Foot much reduced and without byssus. Heart
usually on the ventral side of the rectum. Gills fused to the
mantle. Shell irregular, fixed in the young by the left and larger
valve. _Ostraea_; foot absent in the adult; edible and cultivated;
some species, as the British _O. edulis_, are hermaphrodite.
Fam. 3. _Eligmidae._--Extinct; Jurassic.
Fam. 4. _Pinnidae._--Shell elongated, truncated and gaping
posteriorly. Dimyarian, with a very small anterior adductor. Foot
with byssus. _Pinna_; British. _Cyrtopinna. Aviculopinna_; fossil,
Carboniferous and Permian. _Pinnigena_; Jurassic and Cretaceous.
_Atrina_; fossil and recent, from Carboniferous to present day.
Sub-order II.--_Submytilacea._
Mantle only slightly closed; usually there is only a single suture.
Siphons absent or very short. Gills smooth. Nearly always dimyarian.
Shell equivalve, with an external ligament.
Fam. 1. _Dreissensiidae._--Shell elongated; hinge without teeth;
summits of valves with an internal septum. Siphons short.
_Dreissensia_; lives in fresh water, but originated from the Caspian
Sea; introduced into England about 1824.
Fam. 2. _Modiolarcidae._--Foot with a plantar surface; the two
branchial plates serve as incubatory pouches. _Modiolarca._
Fam. 3. _Astartidae._--Shell concentrically striated; foot elongate,
without byssus. _Astarte_; British. _Woodia. Opis_; Secondary.
_Prosocoelus_; Devonian.
Fam. 4. _Crassatellidae._--Shell thick, with concentric striae,
ligament external; foot short. _Crassatella. Cuna._
Fam. 5. _Carditidae._--Shell thick, with radiating costae; foot
carinated, often byssiferous. _Cardita. Thecalia. Milneria._
_Venericardia._
Fam. 6. _Condylocardiidae._--Like _Carditidae_, but with an external
ligament. _Condylocardia. Carditella. Carditopsis._
Fam. 7. _Cyprinidae._--Mantle open in front, with two pallial
sutures; external gill-plates smaller than the internal. _Cyprina_;
British. _Cypricardia. Pleurophorus_; Devonian to Trias.
_Anisocardia_; Jurassic to Tertiary. _Veniella_; Cretaceous to
Tertiary.
Fam. 8. _Isocardiidae._--Mantle largely closed, pedal orifice small;
gill-plates of equal size; shell globular, with prominent and coiled
umbones. _Isocardia_; British.
Fam. 9. _Callocardiidae._--Siphons present; external gill-plate
smaller than the internal; umbones not prominent. _Callocardia_;
abyssal.
Fam. 10. _Lucinidae._--Labial palps very small; gills without an
external plate. _Lucina_; British. _Montacuta_; British.
_Cryptodon._
Fam. 11. _Corbidae._--Shell thick, with denticulated borders; anal
aperture with valve but no siphon; foot elongated and pointed.
_Corbis. Gonodon_; Trias and Jurassic. _Mutiella_; Upper Cretaceous.
Fam. 12. _Ungulinidae._--Foot greatly elongated, vermiform, ending
in a glandular enlargement. _Ungulina. Diplodonta_; British.
_Axinus_; British.
Fam. 13. _Cyrenellidae._--Two elongated, united, non-retractile
siphons; freshwater. _Cyrenella. Joanisiella._
Fam. 14. _Tancrediidae._--Shell elongate, sub-triangular. Extinct.
_Tancredia_; Trias to Cretaceous. _Meekia_; Cretaceous.
Fam. 15. _Unicardiidae._--Shell sub-orbicular, nearly equilateral,
with concentric striae. Extinct, Carboniferous to Cretaceous.
_Unicardium. Scaldia. Pseudedmondia._
Fam. 16. _Leptonidae._--Shell thin; no siphons; foot long and
byssiferous; marine; hermaphrodite and incubatory. _Kellya_;
British. _Lepton_; commensal with the Crustacean _Gebia_; British.
_Erycina_; Tertiary. _Pythina. Scacchia. Sportella. Cyamium._
Fam. 17. _Galeommidae._--Mantle reflected over shell; shell thin,
gaping; adductors much reduced. _Galeomma_; British. _Scintilla.
Hindsiella. Ephippodonta_; commensal with shrimp _Axius_. The three
following genera with an internal shell probably belong to this
family:--_Chlamydoconcha_. _Scioberetia_; commensal with a
Spatangid. _Entovalva_; parasitic in _Synapta_.
Fam. 18. _Kellyellidae._--Shell ovoid; anal aperture with very short
siphon; foot elongated. _Kellyella. Turtonia_; British. _Allopagus_;
Eocene. _Lutetia_; Eocene.
[Illustration: FIG. 28.--Lateral view of a _Mactra_, the right valve
of the shell and right mantle-flap removed, and the siphons retracted.
(From Gegenbaur.)
br, br´, Outer and inner gill-plates.
t, Labial tentacle.
ta, tr, Upper and lower siphons.
ms, Siphonal muscle of the mantle-flap.
ma, Anterior adductor muscle.
mp, Posterior adductor muscle.
p, Foot.
c, Umbo.]
Fam. 19. _Cyrenidae._--Two siphons, more or less united, with
papillose orifices; pallial line with a sinus; freshwater. _Cyrena.
Corbicula. Batissa. Velorita. Galatea. Fischeria._
Fam. 20. _Cycladidae._--One siphon or two free siphons with simple
orifices; pallial line simple; hermaphrodite, embryos incubated in
external gill-plate; freshwater, _Cyclas_; British. _Pisidium_;
British.
Fam. 21. _Rangiidae._--Two short siphons, shell with prominent
umbones and internal ligament. _Rangia_; brackish water, Florida.
Fam. 22. _Cardiniidae._--Shell elongated, inequilateral. Extinct.
_Cardinia_; Trias and Jurassic. _Anthracosia_; Carboniferous and
Permian. _Anoplophora_; Trias. _Pachycardia_; Trias.
Fam. 23. _Megalodontidae._--Shell inequilateral, thick; posterior
adductor impression on a myophorous apophysis. Extinct. _Megalodon_;
Devonian to Jurassic. _Pachyrisma_; Trias and Jurassic. _Durga_;
Jurassic. _Dicerocardium_; Jurassic.
Fam. 24. _Unionidae._--Shell equilateral; mantle with a single
pallial suture and no siphons; freshwater; larva a glochidium.
_Unio_; British. _Anodonta_; British. _Pseudodon. Quadrula.
Arconaia. Monocondylea. Solenaia. Mycetopus._
Fam. 25. _Mutelidae._--Differs from _Unionidae_ in having two
pallial sutures; freshwater. _Muleta. Pliodon. Spatha. Iridina.
Hyria. Castalia. Aplodon. Plagiodon._
Fam. 26. _Aetheriidae._--Shell irregular, generally fixed in the
adult; foot absent; freshwater. _Aetheria. Mulleria. Bartlettia._
Sub-order III.--_Tellinacea._
Mantle not extensively closed; two pallial sutures and two
well-developed siphons. Gills smooth. Foot compressed and elongated.
Labial palps very large. Dimyarian; pallial line with a deep sinus.
Fam. 1. _Tellinidae._--External gill-plate directed upwards; siphons
separate and elongated; foot with byssus; palps very large; ligament
external. _Tellina_; British. _Gastrana_; British. _Capsa. Macoma._
Fam. 2. _Scrobiculariidae._--External gill-plates directed upwards;
siphons separate and excessively long; foot without byssus.
_Scrobicularia_; estuarine; British. _Syndosmya_; British.
_Cumingia_.
Fam. 3. _Donacidae._--External gill-plate directed ventrally;
siphons separate, of moderate length, anal siphon the longer.
_Donax_; British. _Iphigeneia._
Fam. 4. _Mesodesmatidae._--External gill-plate directed ventrally;
siphons separate and equal. _Mesodesma. Ervilia_; British.
[Illustration: FIG. 29.--The same animal as fig. 28, with its foot
and siphons expanded. Letters as in fig. 28. (From Gegenbaur.)]
Fam. 5. _Cardiliidae._--Shell very high and short; dimyarian;
posterior adductor impression on a prominent apophysis. _Cardilia._
Fam. 6. _Mactridae._--External gill-plate directed ventrally;
siphons united, invested by a chitinous sheath; foot long, bent at
an angle, without byssus. _Mactra_; British (figs. 28, 29).
_Mulinia. Harvella. Raeta. Eastonia. Heterocardia. Vanganella._
Sub-order IV.--_Veneracea._
Two pallial sutures, siphons somewhat elongated and partially or
wholly united. Gills slightly folded. A bulb on the posterior aorta.
Ligament external.
Fam. 1. _Veneridae._--Foot well developed; pallial sinus shallow or
absent. _Venus_; British. _Dosinia_; British. _Tapes_; British.
_Cyclina. Lucinopsis_; British. _Meretrix. Circe_; British.
_Venerupis._
Fam. 2. _Petricolidae._--Boring forms with a reduced foot; shell
elongated, with deep pallial sinus. _Petricola. P. pholadiformis_,
originally an inhabitant of the coast of the United States, has been
acclimatized for some years in the North Sea.
Fam. 3. _Glaucomyidae._--Siphons very long and united; foot small;
shell thin, with deep pallial sinus; fresh or brackish water.
_Glaucomya. Tanysiphon._
Sub-order V.--_Cardiacea._
Two pallial sutures. Siphons generally short. Foot cylindrical, more
or less elongated, byssogenous. Gills much folded. Shell equivalve,
with radiating costae and external ligament.
Fam. 1. _Cardiidae._--Mantle slightly closed; siphons very short,
surrounded by papillae which often bear eyes; foot very long,
geniculated; pallial line without sinus; two adductors, _Cardium_;
British. _Pseudo-kellya. Byssocardium_; Eocene. _Lithocardium_;
Eocene.
Fam. 2. _Limnocardiidae._--Siphons very long, united throughout;
shell gaping; two adductors; brackish waters. _Limnocardium_;
Caspian Sea and fossil from the Tertiary. _Archicardium_; Tertiary.
Fam. 3. _Tridacnidae._--Mantle closed to a considerable extent;
apertures distant from each other; no siphons; a single adductor;
shell thick. _Tridacna. Hippopus._
Sub-order VI.--_Chamacea._
Asymmetrical, inequivalve, fixed, with extensive pallial sutures; no
siphons. Two adductors. Foot reduced and without byssus. Shell thick,
without pallial sinus.
Fam. 1. _Chamidae._--Shell with sub-equal valves and prominent
umbones more or less spirally coiled; ligament external. _Chama.
Diceras_; Jurassic. _Requienia_; Cretaceous. _Matheronia_;
Cretaceous.
Fam. 2. _Caprinidae._--Shell inequivalve; fixed valve spiral or
conical; free valve coiled or spiral; Cretaceous. _Caprina._
_Caprotina. Caprinula_, &c.
Fam. 3. _Monopleuridae._--Shell very inequivalve; fixed valve
conical or spiral; free valve operculiform; Cretaceous.
_Monopleuron. Baylea._ The two following families, together known
as Rudistae, are closely allied to the preceding; they are extinct
marine forms from Secondary deposits. They were fixed by the conical
elongated right valve; the free left valve is not spiral, and is
furnished with prominent apophyses to which the adductors were
attached.
Fam. 4. _Radiolitidae._--Shell conical or biconvex, without canals
in the external layer. _Radiolites. Biradiolites._
Fam. 5. _Hippuritidae._--Fixed valve long, cylindro-conical, with
three longitudinal furrows which correspond internally to two
pillars for support of the siphons. _Hippurites. Arnaudia._
Sub-order VII.--_Myacea._
Mantle closed to a considerable extent; siphons well developed; gills
much folded and frequently prolonged into the branchial siphon. Foot
compressed and generally byssiferous. Shell gaping, with a pallial
sinus.
Fam. 1. _Psammobiidae._--Siphons very long and quite separate; foot
large; shell oval, elongated, ligament external. _Psammobia_;
British. _Sanguinolaria. Asaphis. Elizia. Solenotellina._
Fam. 2. _Myidae._--Siphons united for the greater part of their
length, and with a circlet of tentacles near their extremities; foot
reduced; shell gaping; ligament internal. _Mya_; British. _Sphenia_;
British. _Tugonia. Platyodon. Cryptomya._
Fam. 3. _Corbulidae._--Shell sub-trigonal, inequivalve; pallial
sinus shallow; siphons short, united, completely retractile; foot
large, pointed, often byssiferous. _Corbulomya. Paramya. Erodona_
and _Himella_ are fluviatile forms from South America.
Fam. 4. _Lutrariidae._--Mantle extensively closed; a fourth pallial
aperture behind the foot; siphons long and united; shell elongated,
a spoon-shaped projection for the ligament on each valve.
_Lutraria_; British. _Tresus. Standella._
Fam. 5. _Solenidae._--Elongated burrowing forms; foot cylindrical,
powerful, without byssus; shell long, truncated and gaping at each
end. _Solenocurtus_; British. _Tagelus_; estuarine. _Ceratisolen_;
British. _Cultellus_; British. _Siliqua. Solen_; British. _Ensis_;
British.
Fam. 6. _Saxicavidae._--Mantle extensively closed, with a small
pedal orifice; siphons long, united, covered by a chitinous sheath;
gills prolonged into the branchial siphon; foot small; shell gaping.
_Saxicava_; British. _Glycimeris. Cyrtodaria._
Fam. 7. _Gastrochaenidae._--Shell thin, gaping widely at the
posterior end; anterior adductor much reduced; mantle extensively
closed; siphons long, united. _Gastrochaena_; British. _Fistulana._
Sub-order VIII.--_Adesmacea._
Ligament wanting; shell gaping, with a styloid apophysis in the
umbonal cavities. Gills prolonged into the branchial siphon. Mantle
largely closed, siphons long, united. Foot short, truncated, discoid,
without byssus.
Fam. 1. _Pholadidae._--Shell containing all the organs; heart
traversed by the rectum; two aortae. Shell with a pallial sinus;
dorsal region protected by accessory plates. _Pholas_; British.
_Pholadidea_; British. _Jouannetia. Xylophaga_; British. _Martesia._
Fam. 2. _Teredinidae._--Shell globular, covering only a small
portion of the vermiform body; heart on ventral side of rectum; a
single aorta; siphons long, united and furnished with two posterior
calcareous "pallets." _Teredo_; British. _Xylotrya._
Sub-order IX.--_Anatinacea._
Hermaphrodite, the ovaries and testes distinct, with separate
apertures. Foot rather small. Mantle frequently presents a fourth
orifice. External gill-plate directed dorsally and without reflected
lamella. Hinge without teeth.
Fam. 1. _Thracidae._--Mantle with a fourth aperture; siphons long,
quite separate, completely retractile and invertible. _Thracia_;
British. _Asthenothaerus._
Fam. 2. _Periplomidae._--Siphons separate, naked, completely
retractile but not invertible. _Periploma. Cochlodesma. Tyleria._
Fam. 3. _Anatinidae._--Siphons long, united, covered by a chitinous
sheath, not completely retractile. _Anatina. Plectomya_; Jurassic
and Cretaceous.
Fam. 4. _Pholadomyidae._--Mantle with fourth aperture; siphons very
long, completely united, naked, incompletely retractile; foot small,
with posterior appendage. _Pholadomya._
Fam. 5. _Arcomyidae._--Extinct; Secondary and Tertiary. _Arcomya._
_Goniomya._
Fam. 6. _Pholadellidae._--Extinct; Palaeozoic. _Pholadella.
Phytimya. Allorisma._
Fam. 7. _Pleuromyidae._--Extinct; Secondary. _Pleuromya. Gresslya._
_Ceromya._
Fam. 8. _Pandoridae._--Shell thin, inequivalve, free; ligament
internal; siphons very short. _Pandora_; British. _Coelodon._
_Clidiophora._
Fam. 9. _Myochamidae._--Shell very inequivalve, solid, with a
pallial sinus; siphons short; foot small. _Myochama. Myodora._
Fam. 10. _Chamostraeidae._--A fourth pallial aperture present; pedal
aperture small; siphons very short and separate; shell fixed by the
right valve, irregular. _Chamostraea._
Fam. 11. _Clavagellidae._--Pedal aperture very small, foot
rudimentary; valves continued backwards into a calcareous tube
secreted by the siphons. _Clavagella. Brechites (Aspergillum)._
Fam. 12. _Lyonsiidae._--Foot byssiferous; siphons short, invertible.
_Lyonsia_; British. _Entodesma. Mytilimeria._
Fam. 13. _Verticordiidae._--Siphons short, gills papillose; foot
small; shell globular. Many species abyssal. _Verlicordia._
_Euciroa. Lyonsiella. Halicardia._
Order IV. SEPTIBRANCHIA
Gills have lost their respiratory function, and are transformed into a
muscular septum on each side between mantle and foot. All marine, live
at considerable depths, and are carnivorous.
Fam. 1. _Poromyidae._--Siphons short and separate; branchial siphon
with a large valve; branchial septum bears two groups of orifices on
either side; hermaphrodite. _Poromya_; British. _Dermatomya.
Liopistha_; Cretaceous.
Fam. 2. _Cetoconchidae._--Branchial septum with three groups of
orifices on each side; siphons short, separate, branchial siphon with
a valve. _Cetoconcha (Silenia)._
Fam. 3. _Cuspidariidae._--Branchial septum with four or five pairs of
very narrow symmetrical orifices; siphons long, united, their
extremities surrounded by tentacles; sexes separate. _Cuspidaria_;
British.
AUTHORITIES.--T. Barrois, "Le Stylet crystallin des Lamellibranches,"
_Revue biol. Nord France_, i. (1890); Jameson, "On the Origin of
Pearls," _Proc. Zool. Soc._ (London, 1902); R. H. Peck, "The Minute
Structure of the Gills of Lamellibranch Mollusca," _Quart. Journ.
Micr. Sci._ xvii. (1877); W. G. Ridewood, "On the Structure of the
Gills of the Lamellibranchia," _Phil. Trans. B._ cxcv. (1903); K.
Mitsukuri, "On the Structure and Significance of some aberrant forms
of Lamellibranchiate Gills," _Quart. Journ. Micr. Sci._ xxi. (1881);
A. H. Cooke, "Molluscs," _Cambridge Natural History_, vol. iii.; Paul
Pelseneer, "Mollusca," _Treatise on Zoology_, edited by E. Ray
Lankester, pt. v. (E. R. L.; J. T. C.)
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 16, Slice 1 - "L" to "Lamellibranchia"" ***
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