21G L A I L A K LAING, ALEXANDER GORDON (1793-1826), an African explorer, was born at Edinburgh 27th December 1793. At first it seemed that he would follow his father s profes sion, that of a teacher of the classics ; but, his fancy being fired with the military ardour of the time, he set out for Barbados, where his maternal uncle Colonel Gordon was then stationed. Here he met with Sir George Beckwith, who procured him a commission in the York light in fantry. His career as a traveller began in 1822, when he was sent on a mission to the country of the Sulimas and advanced as far as the sources of the Rokelle. By ascer taining that the source of the Quorra or Niger was not more than 1600 feet above the sea, he dispelled the idea that it was connected with the Nile. The further elucida tion of the other questions that were then connected with this great river formed the principal object of his next journey, undertaken in 1825 under the auspices of Lord Bathurst. From a letter sent May 10, 1826, from Blad Sidi Mohammed to Consul Warrington at Tripoli we know that he had barely escaped with his life from an attack in which he had received twenty-four wounds. He managed to reach Timbuctoo by August 18th, but shortly afterwards fell a victim to the treachery of his servant. The history of the vain attempt to recover the traveller s journals will be found in the Quarterly Review, vol. xlii. (1830). The narrative of his first journey was published in 1825. LAING, DAVID (1793-1878), a distinguished Scottish anticpuary, especially eminent for his bibliographical know ledge, was the son of William Laing, a bookseller in Edinburgh, and was born in that city in 1793. He was brought up to his father s business, and continued for many years in partnership with him. Shortly after the death of the latter, however, a vacancy having occurred in the librarianship of the Signet Library, Laing was elected to that office in 1837, and continued to hold it till the time of his death. In addition to, it is believed, an almost unexampled knowledge of the titles and value of books, Laing possessed on intimate acquaintance with the early literary history of Scotland. His knowledge of Scottish art was also very extensive ; and the ecclesiastical history of his native country, particularly during the 16th and 17th centuries, had long been the subject of his profound investigation. It is perhaps to be regretted that with all this knowledge he never produced any large inde pendent work, but confined himself to the editing of the works of others. Of these, the chief are Dunbar s Works, 2 vols., 1834, with a supplement added in 1805 ; Robert Eaillie s Letters and Journals, 3 vols., 1841-42 ; John Knox s Works, 6 vols., 1846-64 ; Poems and Fables of Robert Henryson, 1865 ; Andrew of Wyntouns Oryr/ynale Cronykil of Scotland, 3 vols., 1872-79 ; Sir David Lyndsay s Poetical Works, 3 vols., 1879. Laing was for more than fifty years an active member of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and during that period 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 carefully edited by him, and few of them we believe failed to benefit by his assistance. A complete list of his productions would occupy many pages. His literary activity ended only with his life. He was struck with paralysis when attending to his duties in the Signet Library, and it is touchingly recorded of him that, on awakening out of the fit, he looked about him and asked if a proof of Wyntoun had been sent up from the printers. He died a few days afterwards, on October 18, 1878, at the age of eighty-six years. Perhaps few men who ever lived possessed so much recondite knowledge on subjects connected with Scottish history and literature, and no one could be more ready to communicate whatever he knew to those who were engaged in investigations similar to his own. In 1864 the university of Edinburgh conferred on him the degree of LL.D. In the course of his long life Laing had collected an immense library, a large portion of the books being illustrative of the literature or history of Scotland, and many of them being of extraordinary rarity. It was dispersed by auction in London soon after his death, and the enormous prices obtained for many of the books were such as had hardly ever been known even in the most celebrated of previous book sales. A valuable collec tion of MSS., chiefly relating to Scotland, was bequeathed by him to the library of Edinburgh university. LAING, MALCOLM (1762-1818), a Scottish historian, was born at his paternal estate on the Mainland of Orkney in 1762. Having studied at the grammar school of Kirkwall and the university of Edinburgh, he was called to the bar in 1785, but never obtained an extensive practice as advocate. In 1793 he completed the last volume of Henry s History of Great Britain, the portion which lie wrote being, in its strongly liberal tone, at signal variance with the preceding tenor of the work. In 1800 he published a History of Scotland from the Accession of James VI. to the Reign of Queen Anne, a work of considerable research. In a dissertation prefixed to an edition of his History published in 1804 he endeavoured to prove the participation of Queen Mary in the murder of Darnley. In the same year he published an edition of the Historic and Life of King James the Sexf. His only other publica tion is an edition of the Poems of Ossian. For a short period in 1807 Laing represented his native county in parliament. He died in November 1818. LAI-YANG, a city in the Chinese province of Shan-tung,. situated in 37 N. lat, and 120 55 E. long., about the middle of the eastern peninsula, on the highway running south from Che-foo to Kin-Kea or Teng-tsi harbour. It i;s surrounded by well-kept walls of great antiquity, and its main streets are spanned by large pailows or monumental arches, some of which date from the time of the emperor Tai-ting-te of the Yuen dynasty (1324). There are ex tensive suburbs both in 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 ; arid the manufacture of the peculiar kind of wax obtained from the la-shoo or wax tree insect is largely carried on in the vicinity. LAKE. When a stream in its cours-u meets with a depression in the land it flow s into it and tends to fill it up to the lip of its lowest exit. Whether it succeeds in doing this or not depends on the climate. In the British Islands, and in most temperate and equatorial regions, the stream would fill the depression and run over, and the surplus water would flow on towards the sea. Such rt depression, with its contents of practically stagnant water, constitutes a Like, and its w r ater would be fresh. In warm dry regions, however, such as are frequently met with in tropical latitudes, it might easily happen that the evaporation from the surface of the depression, supposed filled with water, might be greater than the supply from the feeding stream and from rain falling on its surface. The level of the waters in the depression would then stand at such a height that the evaporation from its surface would exactly balance the supply from streams and rain. We should Irive as the result a lake whose waters would bo salt. Lakes of the first kind may be considered as en largements of rivers, those of the second kind as isolated portions of the ocean ; indeed, salt lakes are very frequently called seas, as the Caspian Sea and the Dead Sea, The occurrence of freshwater lakes and salt lakes in the same drainage system is not uncommon. In this case the salt lake forms the termination. Well known examples of this
