to of the most generally useful, as the editor has collected almost every- 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 Easterngoing ocean steamers. To-day Labuan chiefly exists as a trading depot 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, HongKong 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. A.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. The plan of the book is thoroughly original, if that term may be 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-maltre 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 mœurs 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. 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 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.c. 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). if 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 99 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 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. λaßipulos, 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. Xaupa, the passage of a mine. Another derivation suggested is from Xáßpus, 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. PONY INCITɑ bove Pliny (Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 19, 91) mentions the following as the four famous labyrinths of antiquity. SMAR 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 Arsinoe 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). ۳۱ 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. 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 so ft. high, and underneath it was a labyrinth, from which Linear Sun A teoraid s evan tent set by 6200 ady lo enton FIG. 1.-Labyrinth of London and Wise. budaq sa 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. vep 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 I A. J. Evans in of Studies; on Stee Hem long bobbins FIG. 3.-Labyrinth at Versailles. mperial 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 covered seat, a fountain, a statue or even a small group of trees. and contains a After reaching this point the next thing is to return to the To every design of this sort there should be a key, but even those entrance, when it is found that egress is as difficult as ingress. 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. FIG. 4. Maze at Hampton Court. 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 Switzer observes, that it "is allowed by all to be the noblest of belongs the celebrated labyrinth at Versailles (fig. 3), of which its kind in the world." 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 34 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. approach to a " reproductive" state is the approximation of the The maze in the gardens at Hampton Court Palace (fig. 4) is con-lowdon pisal na ensom sz The maze in the gardens at Somerleyton Hall, near Lowestoft (fig. 5), was designed by Mr John Thomas. The hedges are of English ANYA FIG. 6.-Labyrinth in Horticultural Society's Garden. yew, are about 6 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. 1. A colony or cell-heap" of 2. When the gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society at South A colony or "cell-heap" of This is a small and heterogeneous group. Labyrinthula, recalling the Acrasieae. From each cyst ultimately emerges a | and for other personal adornments. Lac is a principal ingredien single amoebae, or more rarely four (figs. 6, 7). The saprophyte in sealing-wax, and forms the basis of some of the most valuable Diplophrys (?) stercorea (Cienk.) appears closely allied to this. varnishes, besides being useful in various cements, &c. Average Chlamydomyxa (W. Archer) resembles Labyrinthula in its stick lac contains about 68 % of resin, 10 of lac dye and 6 of a freely branched plasmodium, but contains yellowish chromato- waxy substance. Lac dye is obtained by evaporating the water phores, and minute oval vesicles ("physodes") filled with a in which stick lac is washed, and comes into commerce in the substance allied to tannin-possibly phloroglucin—which glide form of small square cakes. It is in many respects similar to, along the plasmodial tracks. The cell-body contains numerous although not identical with, cochineal. 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. 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 constella tions; "Observations sur 515 étoiles du Zodiaque" (published in t. vi. of his Ephémérides, 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 fortytwo 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; historique du voyage fait au Cap (1763); J. J. Lalande, Connoissance Claude Carlier, Discours historique, prefixed to Lacaille's Journal des temps, p. 185 (1767); Bibl. astr. pp. 422, 456, 461, 482: J. Delambre, Hist. de l'astr. au XVIIIe siècle, pp. 457-542; J. S. Bailly, Hist. de l'astr. moderne, tomes ii., iii., passim; J. C. Poggendorff, Brog. Lit. Handwörterbuch; R. Grant, Hist. of Physical Astronomy, PF. 486, &c., R. Wolf, Geschichte der Astronomic. 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 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., xlii. 89 (1899); W. Zopf, Beiträge zur Physiologie und Morphologie niederer Organismen, ii. 36 (1892), iv. 60 (1894); Pénard, Archiv für Protistenkunde, 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, l'egu, 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 vàrics 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 66 66 |