Lac dye, which is separated by washing stick lac in hot or cold water or in a weak alkaline solution, and dried either by exposure over a fire or in the sun, comes into commerce in the form of small square cakes. It is in many respects similar to, although not identical with, cochineal, and will dye less brilliant shades than that colour. It contains about 50 per cent, of colouring matter, with 25 per cent, of resin and 22 per cent, of earthy admixture, <fcc. It is used for dyeing silk and wool, for which purposes it is dissolved in dilute sulphuric acid or somewhat stronger hydrochloric acid; and the substance to be dyed is prepared with a mordant of strong lac spirit, which consists of a solution of stannous chloride. Lac dye has been used from time immemorial in the East, but the knowledge of the substance in the West is comparatively recent. It was first brought to Europe by the East India Company as a substitute for cochineal. The best lac dye comes from Calcutta. Lac lake is an alumina lake containing about 50 per cent, of colouring matter, 40 per cent, of resin, and 9 or 10 per cent, of alumina.

His principal works are—Astronomiae Fundamenta, 1757; Tabulae Solares, 1758, giving, for the first time, corrections for planetary perturbations; Coelum australe stelliferum, 1763, a catalogue of 10,035 southern stars; Observations sur 515 étoiles du Zodiaque, 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 Part de vérifier les dates, 1750; he communicated to the Academy in 1755 a classed catalogue of forty-two southern nebulae, and gave in vol. ii. of his Éphéméridcs, 1754, practical rules for the employment of the lunar method of longitudes, proposing in his additions to Bouguer’s Traité de Navigation, 1760, the model of a nautical almanac.

Population and Trade.—Of the eight Laccadive islands, four are directly under British rule and form part of the South Kanara collectorate in the Madras presidency. The other four (together with Minicoy, noticed below) form part of the estate of the bibi of Cannanore. The following are the names of the islands, with population in 1881:— [table]

making a total for all the islands of 11,287, a dense population for so small an area. Amini, Kalpeni, Androt, and Kawrati are the principal or tarwat islands, and in them only do the high caste natives reside. The others are called melachem, or low caste islands. The people are Moplas, i.e., of mixed Hindu and Arab descent, and are Mohammedans. Their manners and customs are similar to those of the coast Moplas; but they maintain their own ancient caste distinctions. The language spoken is Mala-yala, but it is written in the Arabic character. Reading and writing are common accomplishments among the men. The chief industries are the manufactures of coir and jaggery, the Laccadive coir being esteemed the best in India; the various processes are entrusted to the women. The men employ themselves with boat-building and in conveying the island produce to the coast—in the case of the English islands to Mangalore, and in that of the bibi’s islands to Cannanore. In each case the coir is taken by the ruling Government at lower than market rates, and the natives are not subject to any other taxation. At Mangalore they are paid partly in money and partly in rice, and the rates are not altered for many years. On the other hand the varying and oppressive tariff imposed upon the Cannanore islands has led to a diminished and inferior manufacture of coir, and to frequent complaints. This monopoly system, however fairly worked by the British Government, interferes with the trading capabilities of the natives, and puts them at considerable disadvantage with their rivals of Minicoy and the Maldives. The exports from the Laccadives are of the annual value of £17,000.

History and Government.—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 Albinini {circ. 1030), who divides the whole archipelago (Dibajât) into the Divah Kuzah or Cowrie Islands (the Maldives), and the Divah Kanbar or Coir Islands (the Laccadives). See Journ. Asiat., September 1844, p. 265. According to native tradition, the islands were first occupied about a thousand years ago. The early polity, according to Mr Robinson, was patriarchal, conducted by a modal al, or chief inhabitant, and the heads of the principal families. Each island was independent. This kind of internal economy seems to have lasted until the advent of the Portuguese. During their independence the islanders were converted to Islam by an Arab apostle named Mumba Mulyaka, whose grave at Androt still imparts a peculiar sanctity to that island. The kazee of Androt 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 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 1499, and built forts upon them, but a bout 1545 the natives rose upon their oppressors, and with the aid of the raja of Chencal exterminated them. For this aid the raja obtamed the suzerainty of the group, but he afterwards conferred them upon the head of the Cannanore moplas for an annual tribute. The Cannanore raja ceased to pay this tribute about the middle of the 18th century. In 1784 the Amini islands threw off the voke, and put themselves under the protection of Tippoo, from whom at the fall of Seringapatam in 1799, they passed to the East India Company. The remaining islands had already in 1791 fallen into the power of the Company by the storming of Cannanore, but by the peace of Seringapatam (1792) were permitted to remain under the management of the bibi at a yearly tribute. This has been often in arrear, and on this account these islands have been sequestrated by the British Government since 1877, to the general satisfaction of the inhabitants. See Mr Robinson’s Report, Madras, 1874; Mr Hume in Stray Feathers, vol. iv., 1876, Calcutta.

Minicoy (called MΛliku by the natives), a small island 5 miles in length, 108 miles south of Kalpéni and 68 miles north of the Maldives, belongs politically to the Laccadives in so far as it forms part of the estate of the bibi of Cannanore. The natives, however, are of the same race and speak the same language as the Maldivians. The population in 1881 was 3915. The people are well behaved, but of a very independent character; they are active and enterprising sailors, and lazy cultivators. They are divided into four classes, viz., rnâlikans, the aristocracy, rnalurnnies, the pilots and mates of vessels, klasies, smaller landed proprietors and sailors, and mela-chcries, toddy drawers. Minicoy anciently formed part of the Maidive realm, but, probably in the 16tb century, was given by a Maidive sultan to his brother. In 1607, when it was visited by Pyrard, it was governed by a lady who for greater security held it of the raja of Cannanore (Pyrard’s Voyage, chap, xxiii.).^ The island has never been restored to the Mai dive kings.

History.— Special patterns for needlepoint and pillow laces date from the beginning of the 16th century. Before that period such works as might now be classified as laces consisted of small cords of plaited and twisted threads fastened in loops (or “purls”) along the edges of costumes, of darning work done upon a net ground, and of drawn and cut embroidery. From these classes of earlier work lace is descended. Pillow lace can be distinctly traced up to the “merletti a piombini” of the 16th century. At a very early period embroidery of geometrical patterns in coloured silk, Ac., on a network of small square meshes was known and made throughout Europe. This in the 13th and 14th centuries was known in ecclesiastical circles as “opus filatorium” or “opus araneum” (spider work), and examples dating from the 13 th century still exist in public collections. The productions of this art, which has some analogy to weaving, in the early part of the 16 th century came to be known as “punto a maglia quadra” in Italy and as “lacis” in France—the patterns, stiff and geometrical, being sometimes cut out of linen or separately sewed and applied to the meshed surface; but more frequently they were darned in, the stitches being counted as in tapestry, and hence it was known as “point conté” or darned netting. With the development of the renaissance of art, free flowing patterns and figure subjects were introduced and worked in lacis.

Drawn and cut works were ancient forms of embroidery which directly developed into point lace. The methods of producing them were various. A common way was to fasten on a light frame a reticulation of threads, under which was fastened, by gum or otherwise, a piece of fine lawn. Then along these threads the pattern to be formed was stitched to the lawn background in button-hole stitching, and the superfluous parts of the lawn were afterwards drawn or cut away,—whence the names “punto a reticella” and “punto tagliato.” In other cases no cloth at all was used, and the pattern, consisting of an interlacing framework of threads, was simply sewed over with buttonhole stitches. This was “punto in aria.” The early geometrical patterns of the “punto a reticella” or “punto tagliato” and “punto in aria” were probably derived from the Ionian Islands and Greece, and the cut-work itself was indeed also known as Greek lace. The close connexion of the proud and powerful Venetian republic with Greece and the eastern islands, and its commercial relations with the East, sufficiently explain the early transplanting of these arts into Venice. Once fairly established, they quickly grew in beauty and variety of pattern, complexity of stitch, and delicacy of execution, until Venetian lace attained an artistic grace and perfection which baffle all description. The making of the principal and most important variety of Venetian needlepoint lace, the “punto in aria,” began to be practised in the middle of the 16th century.

It is a noteworthy circumstance that the two widely distant regions of Europe where pictorial art first flourished and attained a high perfection, North Italy and Flanders, were precisely the localities where lace-making first took root, and became an industry of importance both from an artistic and from a commercial point of view. The invention of pillow lace is generally 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 Gammar at Lierre, and sometimes attributed to Quentin Matsys (1495), is introduced a girl working lace with pillow, bobbins, <fcc., which are somewhat similar to the implements in use in more recent times. 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. And so we find that, at the end of the 1Gth century, lacis and needlepoint lace were also known and made in Flanders, and pattern-books were issued having the same general character as those published for the instruction of the Venetians and other Italians. In Italy, under the name of “merletti a piombini,” the art of twisting and plaiting threads by means of bobbins or fuxii was early practised; and in later times fine scrolls in great widths for altar frontale were made in Italy on the pillow.

France and England were not far behind Venice and

Flanders in adopting lace. Henry III. of France (1574-1589) appointed a Venetian, Frederic Vinciolo, to be 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 art of lace making there was the aid and patronage officially given it in the following century by Louis X1V., 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 lace-making centres were founded at Alençon, Quesnoy, Arras, Rheims, Sedan, Chateau Thierry, London, and elsewhere. The state made a contribution of 36,000 francs in aid of a company to carry out the organization of these establishments; and at the same time the importation of Venetian, Flemish, and other laces was strictly forbidden. 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 centres, Alençon, were more fanciful and floral than the Venetian, and it is quite evident that the Flemish lace-makers adopted many of these French patterns for their own use. The importance of the French designs, which owe so much to the state patronage they enjoyed, 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 Δ

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 high artistic pretension. Lace making is said to have been promoted in Russia through the patronage of the court there, after the visit of Peter the Great to Paris in the early days of the 18th century. In Germany, Barbara Uttmann, a native of Nuremberg, instructed peasants of the Harz mountains to twist and plait threads in 1561. She was assisted in this by certain refugees from Flanders. A sort of “purling” or imitation of the Italian “merletti a piombini” was the style of work produced here. It did not develop in any important way, nor have German laces acquired great artistic reputation. Spain has been considered to have been a lace-making country, and no doubt a good deal of lace, having, however, no distinctive character, was made 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 greatly esteemed by Spaniards in the 17th century. No lace pattern books have been found to have been published in Spain. The point laces which came out of Spanish monasteries in 1830, when these institutions were dissolved, were not distinguishable from similar Venetian needle-made laces. The lace vestments preserved at the cathedral at Granada hitherto presumed to be of Spanish work are Flemish of the 17th century. The industry is not alluded to in Spanish ordinances of the 15th, 16th, or 17th centuries. Much Flemish lace was imported into Spain from Spanish Flanders. The 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 by Spain for mantillas. Although after the 18th century the making of silk laces has 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. Silk pillow lace making is carried on in Spain, especially at Barcelona. The patterns are almost entirely imitations from the French. Malta is noted for producing a thick pillow lace of black, white, and red threads, chiefly of geometric pattern, in which circles, wheels, and radiations of shapes resembling grains of wheat are a principal feature. This characteristic of design, appearing in 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 in Ceylon, and in different parts of India where attempts have been made to introduce European arts to native labour.

At present the chief sources of hand-made lace are Belgium, England, and France, but a successful effort has also been made to re-establish the industry in the island of Burano near Venice, and much fine work of good design is now (1882) made there. Russian peasants in the districts of Vologda, Balakhua (Nijni-Novgorod), Bieleff (Tula), and Mzensk (Orel) make pillow laces of simple patterns. But by far the greatest amount of lace now made is that which issuesfrom machines in England andFrance. Thetotal number of persons employed in the lace industry in England ih 1871 was 49,370; and according to official returns of the year 1873, 240,000 women were similarly employed in France.

The early history 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 stitches, which had a net-like appearance. In the years 1808 and 1809 John Heathcoat of Nottingham obtained patents for machines for making bobbin net, which form the real foundation of machine making of lace. These machines were improved on in 1813 by John Leavers, whose lace-making machines are in use at the present time. The application of the celebrated Jacquard apparatus to these net machines has enabled manufacturers to produce all sorts of patterns in thread work in imitation of the patterns for hand-made lace. The latest improvement in machinery for lace making has resulted in a French machine called the “dentellière” (see La Nature for 3d March 1881). The work produced by this machine is plaited. That produced by the English and by other French machines is of twisted threads. At present, however, the expense attending the production of plaited lace by the “dentellière” is as great as that of pillow lace made by the hand.

Before considering technical details in processes of making lace, the principal parts of a piece of lace may be named. A prominent feature is the ornament or pattern. This may be so designed that the different parts may touch one another, and so be fastened together, no ground work of any sort being required. Ground works are useful to set off the pattern, and either consist of links or tyes, which give an open effect to the pattern, or else of a series of meshes like net. Sometimes the pattern is outlined with a thread or cord line, or more strongly marked by means of a raised edge of button-hole stitched or plaited work.

Fanciful devices are sometimes inserted into various portions of the pattern. In some of the heavy laces, which resemble delicate carving in ivory, little clusters of small loops are distributed about the pattern. French terms are frequently used in speaking of details in laces. Thus the pattern is called the toile or gimp, the links or tyes are called brides, the meshed grounds are called réseau e (retiola), the outline to the edges of a pattern is called cordonnet, the insertions of fanciful devices modes, the little loops picots. These terms are applicable to the various portions of all laces made with the needle, on the pillow, or by the machine.

The history of patterns in lace is roughly as follows. From about 1540 to 1590 the forms were geometric, chiefly common, without brides or réseaux. From 1590 to 1630 may be dated the introduction of floral and human forms and slender scrolls held together by brides. At this time lace makers enriched their works with insertions of modes. To the period extending from 1620 to 1670 belongs the development of scrolls and elaboration of details like the cordonnet with massings of picots. Much heavy raised lace enriched with fillings in of modes was made at this time. About 1660 réseaux came into use. From 1650 to 1720 the scroll patterns gave way to arrangements of detached ornamental details which were frequently filled in with elaborate modes. A closer imitation of all sorts of subjects was attempted in lace patterns. Pictorial representations of figures, incidents, persons, arose. The purely conventional scrolls were succeeded by naturalistic renderings of garlands, flowers, birds, and such like. The use of meshed grounds extended, and grounds composed entirely of varieties of modes were made. From 1720 to 1780 small details of bouquets, sprays of flowers, single flowers, leaves, buds, spots, and such like were adopted, and sprinkled over meshed grounds. Since that time down to the present day all these styles of pattern have been used as fashion has required.

Needlepoint Lace.— The way in which the early Venetian “punto in aria,” as already described, was made appears to correspond precisely with the elementary principles upon which needlepoint lace is now worked. The pattern is first drawn upon a piece of parchment. The parchment is then stitched to a stout bit of linen. Upon the leading lines drawn on the parchment threads are laid, which are here and there fastened through to the parchment and linen by means of stitches. When the skeleton thread pattern is completed, a compact covering of thread in button-hole stitches is cast upon it (fig. 1). The portions which may be required to be represented as close linen work or tode are worked as indicated in the enlarged diagram (fig. 2). Between the leading lines of the pattern may be inserted tyes (links) or meshes, so that the pattern is held together. When all is finished, a knife is passed between the parchment and the stout linen, cutting the stitches which have passed through the parchment and linen, and so releasing the lace itself from its pattern parchment. For about sixty years the laces thus made were chiefly geometric in pattern (fig. 3). They were used both for insertions between seams and for borders. Following closely upon these geometric laces came laces of a freer style of design, and towards the end of the 16th century designs for scrolls with the introduction of all kinds of odd figures and leaves and blossoms were produced (fig. 4). Links or tyes— brides— came to be interspersed between the various details of the patterns (fig. 5). The work was of a flat character. Some large and elaborate specimens of this flat point lace were made at this time. The lace workers occasionally used gold thread with the white thread. The nomenclature of these earlier needle-made laces is somewhat modern. At the present time the different sorts of early Venetian point laces are called “flat Venetian point,” “rose (raised) point,” “caterpillar point,” “bone point,” &c.; and works of bold design done in relief are called “gros point de Venise.” Lace of this latter class (figs.

6, 7) was used for altar cloths, flounces, and heavily trimmed jabots or neckcloths which hung beneath the chin over the breast. Tabliers and ladies’ aprons were also made of such lace. The laces which have hitherto been referred to are laces in which no regular ground was used. All sorts of minute embellishments, like little knots, stars, and loops or picots, were worked on to the irregularly arranged brides or tyes holding the main patterns together, and these devices as a rule gave a rich effect to the lace work. Following this style of treatment came laces with groundworks; and grounds of brides or tyes arranged in a honeycomb pattern were, it appears, first used early in the 1 7th century (fig.

8). To them succeeded a lighter sort of lace, one in which the rich and compact relief gave place to much flatter work with a ground of meshes. 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. 9). The delicate Venetian point lace made with a ground of meshes is usually known as “point de Venise à réseau.” It was contemporary with the famed needle-made French laces of Alençon and Argentan. “Point d’Argentan” has been thought to be especially distinguished on account of its ground of hexagonally arranged brides. But this has been noticed as a peculiarity in certain Venetian point laces of earlier date. Often intermixed with this stiff hexagonal brides ground is the fine-meshed ground or reseau, which hasbeen held to be distinctive of “point d’Alençon” (fig. 10). But, apart from the assumedly distinctive grounds, the styles of patterns and the methods of working them, with rich variety of insertions or modes, with raised button-hole-stitched edgings or cordonnets, are precisely alike in the two classes of Argentan and Alençon needle-made laces. Besides the hexagonal brides ground and the ground of meshes there was another variety of grounding used in the Alençon laces, which was extensively used and forms a third class. This ground consisted of button-hole-stitched skeleton hexagons within each of which was worked a small solid hexagon connected with the outer surrounding hexagon by means of six little tyes or brides (see fig.

11). Lace with this particular ground has been called “Argen-tella,” and some writers on lace have thought that it was a specialty of Genoese or Venetian work. The character of the work and the style of the floral patterns worked upon such grounds are those of Alençon laces, and specimens of this “Argen-tella” often contain insertions of the Argentan brides and the Alençon fine meshes.

There are very slight indications respecting the establishment of a lace manufactory at Argentan, whereas those regarding Alençon are numerous. A family of thread and linen dealers, inhabitants of Alençon, by name Monthuley, are credited with the establishment of a branch manufactory or succursale for lace at Argentan. In the course of business, the Monthuleys assisted the interchange of lace patterns between Argentan and Alençon, which are distant one from another about 10 miles. Thus if a piece of lace was produced at Alençon it was called “point d’Alençon,” and if at Argentan “point d’Argentan,” though both works might have been made from one design. From about 1670 to 1780 a great deal of point lace was made at Alençon and in the neighbouring villages. The styles of patterns varied, as has been stated° Point d’Alençon is still made.

In Belgium, Brussels has acquired some celebrity for needle-made laces. These, however, are chiefly in imitation of those made at Alençon. Brussels needlepoint lace is often worked into meshed grounds made on a pillow. The Brussels needle-lace workers used a plain thread as a cordonnet for their patterns instead of a thread overcast with button-hole stitches as in the Venetian and French needlepoint laces.

This kind of lace has also been produced in England. Whilst the character of English design in needlepoint laces of the early 17th century (fig. 12) is simpler than that of the contemporary Italian, the method of workmanship is virtually the same. Specimens of needle-made work done by English school children may be met with in samplers of the 17th and 18th centuries. Point lace is successfully made in Irish convents. In all great towns like London, Paris, Brussels, Vienna, lace dealers undertake to supply demands for finely...