In the western part of South America laccolites agreeing in all essential points with those described by Gilbert occur in considerable numbers and present some diversity of types. Occasionally they are asymmetrical, or have one steep or vertical side while the other is gently inclined. In other cases they split into a number of sheets spreading outwards through the rocks around. But the term laccolite has also been adopted by geologists in Britain and elsewhere to describe a variety of intrusive masses not strictly identical in character with those of the Henry Mountains. Some of these rest on a curved floor, like the gabbro masses of the Cuillin Hills in Skye; others are injected along a flattish plane of unconformability where one system of rocks rests on the upturned and eroded edges of an older series. An example of the latter class is furnished by the felsite mass of the Black Hill in the Pentlands, near Edinburgh, which has followed the line between the Silurian and the Old Red Sandstone, forcing the rocks upwards without spreading out laterally to any great extent.

The term laccolite has also been applied to many granite intrusions, such as those of Cornwall. We know from the evidence of mining shafts which have been sunk in the country near the edge of these granites that they slope downwards underground with an angle of twenty to thirty degrees. They have been proved also to have been injected along certain wall-marked horizons; so that although the rocks of the country have been folded in a very complicated manner the granite can often be shown to adhere closely to certain members of the stratigraphical sequence for a considerable distance. Hence it is clear that their upper surfaces are convex and gently arched, and it is conjectured that the strata must extend below them, though at a great depth, forming a floor. The definite proof of this has not been attained for no borings have penetrated the granites and reached sedimentary rocks beneath them. But often in mountainous countries where there are deep valleys the bases of great granite laccolites are exposed to view in the hill sides. These granite sills have a considerable thickness in proportion to their length, raise the rocks above them and fill them with dikes, and behave generally like typical laccolites. In contradistinction to intrusions of this type with a well-defined floor we may place the batholiths, bysmaliths, plutonic plugs and stocks, which have vertical margins and apparently descend to unknown depths. It has been conjectured that masses of this type eat their way upwards by dissolving the rock above them and absorbing it, or excavate a passage by breaking up the roof of the space they occupy while the fragments detached sink downwards and are lost in the ascending magma.

(J. S. F.)

LACE (corresponding to Ital. merletto, trina; Genoese pizzo; Ger. spitzen; Fr. dentelle; Dutch kanten; Span. encaje; the English word owes something to the Fr. lassis or lacis, but both are connected with the earlier Lat. laqueus; early French laces were also called passements or insertions and dents or edgings), the name applied to ornamental open work formed of threads of flax, cotton, silk, gold or silver, and occasionally of mohair or aloe fibre, looped or plaited or twisted together by hand, (1) with a needle, when the work is distinctively known as “needlepoint lace”; (2) with bobbins, pins and a pillow or cushion, when the work is known as “pillow lace”; and (3) by steam-driven machinery, when imitations of both needlepoint and pillow laces are produced. Lace-making implies the production of ornament and fabric concurrently. Without a pattern or design the fabric of lace cannot be made.

The publication of patterns for needlepoint and pillow laces dates from about the middle of the 16th century. Before that period lace described such articles as cords and narrow braids of plaited and twisted threads, used not only to fasten shoes, sleeves and corsets together, but also in a decorative manner to braid the hair, to wind round hats, and to be sewn as trimmings upon costumes. In a Harleian MS. of the time of Henry VI. and Edward IV., about 1471, directions are given for the making of “lace Bascon, lace indented, lace bordered, lace covert, a brode lace, a round lace, a thynne lace, an open lace, lace for hattys,” &c. The MS. opens with an illuminated capital letter, in which is the figure of a woman making these articles. The MS. supplies a clear description how threads in combinations of twos, threes, fours, fives, to tens and fifteens, were to be twisted and plaited together. Instead of the pillow, bobbins and pins with which pillow lace soon afterwards was made, the hands were used, each finger of a hand serving as a peg upon which was placed a “bowys” or “bow,” or little ball of thread. Each ball might be of different colour from the other. The writer of the MS. says that the first finger next the thumb shall be called A, the next B, and so on. According to the sort of cord or braid to be made, so each of the four fingers, A, B, C, D might be called into service. A “thynne lace” might be made with three threads, and then only fingers A, B, C would be required. A “round” lace, stouter than the “thynne” lace, might require the service of four or more fingers. By occasionally dropping the use of threads from certain fingers a sort of indented lace or braid might be made. But when laces of more importance were wanted, such as a broad lace for “hattys,” the fingers on the hands of assistants were required. The smaller cords or “thynne laces,” when fastened in simple or fantastic loops along the edges of collars and cuffs, were called “purls” (see the small edge to the collar worn by Catherine de’ Medici, Pl. II. fig. 4). In another direction from which some suggestion may be derived as to the evolution of lace-making, notice should be taken of the fact that at an early period the darning of varied ornamental devices, stiff and geometric in treatment into hand-made network of small square meshes (see squares of “lacis,” Pl. I. fig. 1) became specialized in many European countries. This is held by some writers to be “opus filatorium,” or “opus araneum” (spider work). Examples of this “opus filatorium,” said to date from the 13th century exist in public collections. The productions of this darning in the early part of the 16th century came to be known as “punto a maglia quadra” in Italy and as “lacis” in France, and through a growing demand for household and wearing linen, very much of the “lacis” was made in white threads not only in Italy and France but also in Spain. In appearance it is a filmy fabric. With white threads also were the “purlings” above mentioned made, by means of leaden bobbins or “fuxii,” and were called “merletti a piombini” (see lower border, Pl. II. fig. 3). Cut and drawn thread linen work (the latter known as “tela tirata” in Italy and as “deshilado” in Spain) were other forms of embroidery as much in vogue as the darning on net and the “purling.” The ornament of much of this cut and drawn linen work (see collar of Catherine de’ Medici, Pl. II. fig. 4), more restricted in scope than that of the darning on net, was governed by the recurrence of open squares formed by the withdrawal of the threads. Within these squares and rectangles radiating devices usually were worked by means of whipped and buttonhole stitches (Pl. fig. 5). The general effect in the linen was a succession of insertions or borders of plain or enriched reticulations, whence the name “punto a reticella” given to this class of embroidery in Italy. Work of similar style and especially that with whipped stitches was done rather earlier in the Grecian islands, which derived it from Asia Minor and Persia. The close connexion of the Venetian republic with Greece and the eastern islands, as well as its commercial relations with the East, sufficiently explains an early transplanting of this kind of embroidery into Venice, as well as in southern Spain. At Venice besides being called “reticella,” cut work was also called “punto tagliato.” Once fairly established as home industries such arts were quickly exploited with a beauty and variety of pattern, complexity of stitch and delicacy of execution, until insertions and edgings made independently of any linen as a starting base (see first two borders, Pl. II. fig. 3) came into being under the name of “Punto in aria” (Pl. II. fig. 7). This was the first variety of Venetian and Italian needlepoint lace in the middle of the 16th century,[1] and its appearance then almost coincides in date with that of the “merletti a piombini,” which was the earliest Italian cushion or pillow lace (see lower edging, Pl. II. fig. 3).

The many varieties of needlepoint and pillow laces will be touched on under the heading allotted to each of these methods of making lace. Here, however, the general circumstances of their genesis may be briefly alluded to. The activity in cord and braid-making and in the particular sorts of ornamental needlework already mentioned clearly postulated such special labour as was capable of being converted into lace-making. And from the 16th century onwards the stimulus to the industry in Europe was afforded by regular trade demand, coupled with the exertions of those who encouraged their dependents or protegés to give their spare time to remunerative home occupations. Thus the origin and perpetuation of the industry have come to be associated with the women folk of peasants and fishermen in circumstances which present little dissimilarity whether in regard to needle lace workers now making lace in whitewashed cottages and cabins at Youghal and Kenmare in the south of Ireland, or those who produced their “punti in aria” during the 16th century about the lagoons of Venice, or Frenchwomen who made the sumptuous “Points de France” at Alençon and elsewhere in the 17th and 18th centuries; or pillow lace workers to be seen at the present day at little seaside villages tucked away in Devonshire dells, or those who were engaged more than four hundred years ago in “merletti a piombini” in Italian villages or on “Dentelles au fuseau” in Flemish lowlands. The ornamental character, however, of these several laces would be found to differ much; but methods, materials, appliances and opportunities of work would in the main be alike. As fashion in wearing laces extended, so workers came to be drawn together into groups by employers who acted as channels for general trade.[2] Nuns in the past as in the present have also devoted attention to the industry, often providing in the convent precincts workrooms not only for peasant women to carry out commissions in the service of the church or for the trade, but also for the purpose of training children in the art. Elsewhere lace schools have been founded by benefactors or organized by some leading local lace-maker[3] as much for trading as for education. In all this variety of circumstance, development of finer work has depended upon the abilities of the workers being exercised under sound direction, whether derived through their own intuitions, or supplied by intelligent and tasteful employers. Where any such direction has been absent the industry viewed commercially has suffered, its productions being devoid of artistic effect or adaptability to the changing tastes of demand.

It is noteworthy that the two widely distant regions of Europe where pictorial art first flourished and attained high perfection, north Italy and Flanders, were precisely the localities where lace-making first became an industry of importance both from an artistic and from a commercial point of view. Notwithstanding more convincing evidence as to the earlier development of pillow lace making in Italy the invention of pillow lace is often credited to the Flemings; but there is no distinct trace of the time or the locality. In a picture said to exist in the church of St Gomar at Lierre, and sometimes attributed to Quentin Matsys (1495), is introduced a girl apparently working at some sort of lace with pillow, bobbins, &c., which are somewhat similar to the implements in use in more recent times.[4] From the very infancy of Flemish art an active intercourse was maintained between the Low Countries and the great centres of Italian art; and it is therefore only what might be expected that the wonderful examples of the art and handiwork of Venice in lace-making should soon have come to be known to and rivalled among the equally industrious, thriving and artistic Flemings. At the end of the 16th century pattern-books were issued in Flanders having the same general character as those published for the guidance of the Venetian and other Italian lace-makers.

Plate I.

Fig. 1.—PORTION OF A COVERLET COMPOSED OF SQUARES OF “LACIS” OR DARNED NETTING, DIVIDED BY LINEN CUT-WORK BANDS.
The squares are worked with groups representing the twelve months, and with scenes from the old Spanish dramatic story “Celestina.” Spanish or Portuguese. 16th century. (Victoria and Albert Museum.)