Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/219

 L A F - - L A G 207 Collection des Classiqucs Fran&amp;lt;;aiscs of M. Lemerre, and L. Moland in tliat of M. Gamier supply in different forms all that can be wished. The second is the handsomest, the third, which is complete, perhaps the most generally useful. Editions, selections, transla tions, c., of the Fables, especially for school use, are innumerable ; but an illustrated edition published by the Librairie des Bibliophiles (1874) deserves to be mentioned as not unworthy of its 18th cen tury predecessors. (G. HA.) LAFOSSE, CHARLES DE, (1G40-171G), French painter, was one of the most noted and least servile pupils of Lebrun, under whose direction he shared in the chief of the great decorative works undertaken in the reign of Louis XIV. He was born at Paris in 1640, and left France for Italy in 1GG2. He then spent two years in Rome and three in Venice, and the influence of his prolonged studies of Veronese is evident in his Finding of Moses (Louvre), and in his Rape of Proserpine (Louvre), which he presented to the Academy as his diploma picture in 1673. He was at once named assistant professor, and in 1674 the full responsibilities of the office devolved on him, but his engagements did not prevent his accepting in 1G89 the invitation of Lord Montagu to decorate Montagu House, He visited London twice, remaining on the second occasion together with Rousseau and Monnoyer more than two years. William III. vainly strove to detain him in England by the pro posal that he should decorate Hampton Court, for Lebrun was dead, and Mansart pressed Lafosse to return to Paris to take in hand the cupola of the Invalides. The decora tions of Montagu House are destroyed, those of Versailles are restored, and the dome of the Invalides (engraved, Picart and Cochin) for to his vexation the rest of the surface fell into other hands is now the only work existing which gives a full measure of his talent. During his latter years Lafosse executed many other important decorations in public buildings and private houses, notably in that of Crozat, under whose roof he died on 13th December 1716. LAGO MAGGIORE. See MAGGIORE. LAGOS, a town in the district of Faro, which is coexten sive with the province of Algarve, in Portugal, is situated on the south coast of the kingdom, on a bay which forms its harbour. The town is fairly well built ; but bsyond one or two churches, the batteries that defend the port, and an aqueduct 800 yards long, it has no special features of interest. It holds the formal rank of city, and enjoys a respectable historical position from its connexion with Prince Henry the Navigator, whose caravels generally sailed from its harbour. The material prosperity of the town was injured by an earthquake that laid it in ruins in 1755. The inhabitants are engaged in the tunny fishery and in vine raising. The population in 1878 was 7881. Lagos is held to be situated on or near the site of the Roman colony Lacobriga. LAGOS, a British settlement on the west coast of Africa, united since 187G with the Gold Coast colony, and by the terms of the. charter comprising all British possessions between the second and fifth degrees of east longitude. The actual settlement is situated on a low island within the mouth of the so-called Lagos river, which is really a lagoon of considerable extent, into which the Ogun and several, other rivers discharge. The seaward entrance is about 3 miles wide, but it requires skilful pilotage to take a vessel across the bar into the smooth and deep water. Lagos was formerly the chief seat of the slave trade in the Bight of Benin. In 1851 it was captured by the British, and in 18G1 the &quot;king&quot; Docemo was practically constrained to give up his territorial jurisdiction, and accept a pension of 1200 bags of cowries, or about 1030. There is now a flourishing settlement. The mangrove swamp has been cleared away from a large part of the island ; a well-kept road runs for a mile along the shore in front of the European quarter ; wooden wharves have been built ; marshy spots have been turned into gardens, and among the houses are a number of bright stucco-fronted villas. Immediately after the proclamation of the British annexation, r, steady current of immigration from the mainland set in and ir 1871 the population of Lagos proper was 13,520 males and 14 998 females. Within the Lagos district are Badagry (1148 males, 1343 females), Talma (814), and Leke (165), making a total for the settle ment of 31,998. Besides the local tribes the population contains bierra-Leonians, Krumen, aud Fanti, as well as from 4000 to 6000 Brazilian emancipados. The trade of Lagos consists mainly in the exportation of palm oil and palrn kernels, and the importation of liquors, tobacco, and cotton goods. Most of the business is iu the hands of German and French houses. The average value of imports for 1875-1879 was 512,857, and of exports 620,644. In 1879 the Church of England had 13 churches in the settlement, the Wesleyana 7, the Koimin Catholics (who are largely recruited by the Brazilian immigrants) 2, and the Baptists 1. The schools num bered 28, several being subsidized by the Government. The 8000 Mohammedans have 27 mosques and about 37 small Koran schools. During the five years from 1875 to 1879 the aggregate revenue of the settlement was 253,445, the aggregate expenditure 21:7,523. LAGRANGE, JOSEPH Louis (1736-1813), a mathe matician of the highest rank, was born at Turin, January 25, 1736. He was of French extraction, his great grand father, a cavalry captain, having passed from the service of France to that of Sardinia, and settled in Turin under Emmanuel II. His father, Joseph Louis Lagrauge, married Maria Theresa Gros, only daughter of a rich physician at Cambiano, and had by her eleven children, of whom only the eldest (the subject of this notice) and the youngest survived infancy. From his post as treasurer at war, as well as through his wife, he derived ample means, which he, however, lost by rash speculations, a circumstance regarded by his son as the prelude to his own good fortune ; for had he been rich, he used to say, he might never have known mathematics. The genius of Lugrange did not at once take its true bent. His earliest tastes were literary rather than scientific, and he learned the rudiments of geometry during his first year at the college of Turin, without difficulty, but without distinction. The perusal of a tract by Halley (Phil. Trans., vol. xviii. p. 9GO) roused his enthusiasm for the analytical method, of which he was destined to develop the utmost capabilities. He now entered, without aid or guidance save those afforded by his own unerring tact and vivid apprehension, upon a course of study which, in two years, placed him on a level with the greatest of his contemporaries. At the age of nineteen he communicated to the celebrated Euler his idea of a general method of dealing with &quot; isoperimetrical &quot; problems, known later as the Calculus of Variations. It was eagerly welcomed by the Berlin mathematician, who had the generosity to with hold from publication his own further researches on the subject, until his youthful correspondent should have had time to complete and opportunity to claim the invention. This prosperous opening gave the key-note to Lagrange s career. Appointed, in 1754, professor of geometry in the royal school of artillery, he formed with some of his pupils for the most part his seniors friendships based on community of scientific ardour. With the aid of the Marquis de Saluces and the eminent anatomist Cigna, he founded in 1758 a society which rose later to the dignity of the Turin Academy of Sciences. The first volume of its memoirs, published in the following year, contained a paper by Lagrange entitled Recherches sur la nature et la propagation du son, in whtch the power of his analysis and his address in its application were equally conspicuous. Without assumption, but without hesitation, he made his first appearance in public as the critic of Newton, and the arbiter between D Alembert and Euler. By considering only the particles of air found in a right line, he reduced the problem of the propagation of sound to the solution of the same partial differential equations that include the