LACROSSE 



LACTEALS 



-okl, silver and colors, and cover them with a 

 protecting coat of transparent lacquer. 



The best work is exceedingly artistic, and so 

 durable that a lacquered door may be in daily 

 use for centuries without deterioration. A 

 collection of lacquer ware which had been ex- 

 hibited at the Vienna exhibition of 1873 was 

 recovered from a sunken ship ; the ancient arti- 

 cles, more carefully made than the modern, 

 were unharmed. Like painting, lacquer ware 

 is often extremely valuable for its artistic ex- 

 cellence. 



LACROSSE, lakross', the national game of 

 Canada, taken over from the Indian tribes of 

 the North. As originally played by the In- 

 dians it was a truly Homeric game; the war- 

 riors of two tribes contended in full war paint, 

 and as many as 1,000 players .are said to have 

 participated. 



Lacrosse as it is played to-day is not unlike 

 football, the object being to carry or drive a 

 small India rubber sphere between the enemy's 

 goal posts. The crosse, with which the ball is 

 driven or carried down the field, is formed 

 of a pliable hickory staff bent into a hook at 

 the top to serve as a frame for a network of 

 rawhide or gut, not unlike a tennis racket but 

 much longer. The goals are set up at a dis- 

 tance of from 100 to 150 yards apart, the goal 

 posts being six feet high and the same distance 

 apart. Each side, consisting of twelve players, 

 struggles to send the ball through the enemy's 

 goal posts as often as possible in the two pe- 

 riods of play. The ball itself may be kicked 

 or driven with the crosse, but long drives are 

 rather infrequent, the ball being advanced 

 most commonly on the crosse and passed from 

 player to player. Canada has a National 

 Lacrosse Association, founded in 1867, and sev- 

 eral colleges of the United States have organ- 

 ized a league of lacrosse clubs. 



Books containing the rules of this game may 

 be purchased at any stationer's shop for from 

 ten to twenty-five cents. w.c. 



LA CROSSE, Wis., an important manufac- 

 turing city, the center of a prosperous dairy 

 and stock-raising section, and the county seat 

 of La Crosse County. It is situated on the 

 southwest border of the state, on the Missis- 

 sippi River at the point where it receives the 

 waters of the Black and La Crosse rivers. Five 

 railway lines serve the city the Chicago, Mil- 

 waukee & Saint Paul, the Chicago & North 

 Western, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy. 

 the Green Bay & Western and the La Crosse 

 & South Eastern. These with the river afford 



admirable transportation facilities. A fine 

 wagon bridge spans the Mississippi. In 1910 

 the population was 30,417; it had increased to 

 31,677 in 1916 (Federal estimate). The area 

 of the city is nine and one-half square miles. 



La Crosse lies in a region along the Missis- 

 sippi River noted for beautiful scenery; here 

 the bluffs rise to a height of 600 feet above the 

 river. The Black River, from the great forests 

 of the north, mingles here with the ''Father of 

 Waters." The valley of the La Crosse River is 

 an outlet for commerce to the east, and ih< 

 Root River, which enters the Mississippi from 

 the west, just below the city, makes the fertile 

 sections of Lower Minnesota and Northern 

 Iowa easily accessible. 



La Crosse is an important tobacco market, 

 and has a large wholesale trade; the annual 

 output of its lumber mills is about 300,000,000 

 feet of sawed lumber. In addition, there are 

 large rubber mills employing 625 people and 

 making 13,000 pairs of shoes daily; pearl-but- 

 ton works, plow works, flour mills, gasoline- 

 engine works, cracker factories, candy factories, 

 knitting mills, garment factories and a great 

 variety of other manufactories. The city also 

 ships large quantities of seeds. 



Among the notable buildings are a $100,000 

 Federal building, a state normal school which 

 cost $250,000, a $200,000 high school, a $125.- 

 000 manual training school and a large public 

 library containing 25,000 volumes, the gift 

 of ex-Governor Washburn. A United States 

 weather bureau and a United States fish sta- 

 tion are located here. La Crosse is the see 

 of a Roman Catholic archbishop. There are 

 four parks, one of which, Pettibone Park, is 

 on an island in the Mississippi River. 



The site of La Crosse was visited by Father 

 Hennepin as early as 1680. but a permanent 

 settlement was not made until 1841. It was 

 incorporated as a village in 1851 and as a city 

 in 1856. A revised charter was granted in 

 1891. The site was known as Prairie La Crosse, 

 from the Indian custom of meeting there to 

 play the game of lacrosse. C.S.V.A. 



LACTEALS, lak'tealz (from the Latin lac- 

 teus, meaning milky), is the name applied to 

 numerous tiny vessels of the small intestines, 

 whose function is to convey the milklike fluid 

 called chyle (which see), during the process 

 of digestion, to the blood. The lacteals origi- 

 nate in small projections of the mucous mem- 

 brane of the intestines, the villi, each of which 

 has its own lacteal vessel or network of vessels. 

 The lacteals communicate with larger branches 



