Chapter XV: Part 15

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.