LEAD, EROSION OF. 



457 



(1854), under the pseudonyme of Pottinger; 

 "Antony and Octavius" (1856); and "Dry 

 Sticks Fagoted" (1857). For certain grossly 

 indecent verses and slanders in the last-named 

 work, directed against a lady of Bath, he was 

 sued for libel and amerced in damages to the 

 amount of 1,000. The odium arising from 

 the trial compelled him to quit Bath, and, in 

 his eighty-third year, he returned to Florence, 

 where he passed his latter years in comparative 

 tranquillity. Until within a short time of his 

 deatli an occasional letter, epigram, or imagi- 

 nary conversation, written with all his earlier 

 combative vigor, and with no abatement of his 

 peculiarities of spirit or style, would appear 

 in the columns of the "Examiner" or the 

 "Athenaeum." 



Though a life-long student, Landor was not 

 a rapid or fertile writer. His literary produc- 

 tions, the result of seventy years of labor, were 

 polished to the highest degree which a fastid- 

 ious taste could exact, and might easily be in- 

 cluded in three moderate-sized volumes. Car 

 ing nothing for critics, and aware that he ap- 

 pealed to an unsympathetic public, he conceived 

 an apathy, if not an antipathy, to popularity, 

 and wrote chiefly to gratify himself, and to put 

 on protest his opinion?. What these were may 

 be imagined from the fact that he justified 

 tyrannicide, and offered to settle an annufty 

 upon the widow of the man who should assas- 

 sinate the Emperor Napoleon III. In private 

 social intercourse he showed less of this vio- 

 lence and intolerance of spirit, and his conver- 

 sation is said to have been unusually pleasing, 

 manly, and instructive. The imaginary con- 

 versation, as a wide vehicle for thought and 

 feeling, may be said to have been created by 

 him. Plato and Luciau had indeed adopted 

 this form of literature to illustrate moral and 

 metaphysical science ; but Landor dramatized 

 man. "In his hands," says a recent writer, 

 " conversation became a new power the wit, 

 passion, insight, railery, going to the illumina- 

 tion, not of a mere speculative point in science, 

 but to the progress of nature and human life. 

 Something of what Shakspeare did for drama 

 Landor may be said to have done for dialogue. 

 He found it sectarian; he made it secular." 

 However true this estimate may be, Landor's 

 writings would possibly soon be forgotten 

 were it not for the admirably pure, terse, and 

 beautiful style in which they are written. 

 This will always have its fascination for schol- 

 ars, in whose estimation he ranks among the 

 chief masters of English prose. No collected 

 edition of his works has appeared since 1846. 

 A selection from his writings was edited by 

 G. S. Hillard (Boston, 1856). 



LEAD, EROSIOX OF. The erosion of lead, 

 and even of type metal, by certain species of 

 insects, is not generally known, and may be 

 extremely mischievous. Not long ago it at- 

 tracted the attention of the French Academy 

 cf Sciences, and several communications res- 

 pecting it have been published with their pro- 



ceedings in the Comptcs Ecndus. Of these tho 

 following is a resume : 



In 1858 Marshal Vaillant exhibited to the 

 Academy leaden bullets brought back from the 

 Crimea in some of which the larva? of insects 

 had excavated circular passages three or four 

 millimetres in diameter, and in others superfi- 

 cial grooves. Inquiry was made through the 

 Russian Ambassador, M. de Kisselef, whether 

 similiar erosion had been observed in R 

 M. V. de Motschulsky replied that nothing of 

 the kind had been detected in the cartridges 

 of the Russian army in the Crimea, and that 

 the insect which had caused the injury appear- 

 ed to be very rare in Russia, not having been 

 discovered by Russian entomologists in the 

 Crimea. It is stated to be very common in 

 England. Sweden, and Germany, and to occur 

 in the Jura in France. It attacks silver firs 

 and pines. 



The insect which damaged the French car- 

 tridges was imported from France in the wood 

 of the cases in which they were packed. All 

 the excavated passages were originally circular 

 in section, and those that were semicircular in 

 section, that is, superficially grooved, were only 

 segments of which the other half was in the 

 contiguous surface of other bullets or of the 

 wood forming the sides of the cases. The pas- 

 sages were always open at both ends. Excava- 

 tion was effected by the mandibles of the 

 insect, the apparatus consisting of a saw 

 toothed, and cut like a file. The insects do 

 not eat the lead, but simply bore it out ; and 

 it was observed that their remains after met- 

 amorphosis had been carried downwards by 

 the particles of the metal, reduced to powders, 

 and dispersed on the outside through the cracks 

 in the bottom of the packing-case. The per- 

 fect insects did not attack the lead, but died in 

 the passages, even immediately after their 

 complete metamorphosis, as very often occurs 

 with insects in general. 



In 1833 Audouin exhibited to the Entomo- 

 logical Society of Paris sheet lead from the 

 roof of a building deeply grooved by insects. 

 In 1844 Desmarest mentioned erosions and 

 perforations of sheet lead by a species of Bos- 

 triche (B. Caftucinci), and illustrated the fact 

 by cartridges from the arsenal at Turin. Mr. 

 Westwood, the well-known British entomolo- 

 gist, has recorded observations by himself oa 

 the perforation of lead by insects. M. Bouteille, 

 curator of the Museum of Natural History at 

 Grenoble, sent to the French Academy of 

 Sciences, from the collection under his charge, 

 specimens of cartridges gnawed by insects, 

 which were found in situ, and the following 

 report upon the subject was made by Marshal 

 Vaillant, de Quatrefages, and Milne Edwards : 

 The insect was Sircx gigas, a large hyrnenop- 

 terons species which, in the larva state, lives 

 in the interior of old trees or pieces of wood, 

 and which, after the completion of its meta- 

 morphosis, quits its retreat for the purpose of 

 reproduction. As previously stated, it cuts its 



