LAMENTATIONS 



3304 



LAMPBLACK 



for his \\it and geniality had made him a 

 charming companion, and his unselfishness and 

 lo.yalty had knit his friends firmly to him. 



The Essays of Elia, the writings which show 

 Lamb at his best, are a series of essays on a 

 variety of subjects, written in a genial, ram- 

 bling style which few authors of his own or 

 any other nation have equaled. Their particu- 

 lar charm lies in large part in the quaint hu- 

 mor, pure sentiment and delicate fancy that 

 pervade them, and in the unreserved and in- 

 genuous manner in which the author reveals 

 himself. In both his essays and his letters his 

 never-failing good humor, his gentleness antl 

 his rare devotion to his family and friends are 

 reflected with great clearness. A.MC c. 



Consult Dobell's Sidelights on Charles Lamb; 

 JAicas's Life of Charles Lamb. 



LAMENTATIONS, lam en ta ' shunz, one of 

 the poetical books of the Old Testament, at- 

 tributed in authorship to Jeremiah. It is an 

 acrostic dirge (see ACROSTIC) and was com- 

 posed for use by professional mourners in lead- 

 ing the wailing of the people over the fall of 

 Jerusalem. Four of its five divisions are in the 

 peculiar rhythm of the Oriental dirge, each line 

 rising to a climax and then dying away to 

 silence. The poeni pictures vividly the deso- 

 lation of the city and the sufferings of its in- 

 habitants, and voices the sorrow of the people 

 for their sin, which, as they believed, was 

 responsible for the city's catastrophe. They 

 hope for and then despair of forgiveness, and 

 the closing section is a cry to Jehovah for 

 judgment. 



LAMMERGEIER, lam' cr gi cr, the largest of 

 the European eagles, also called the griffin 

 riil tare, because of its partiality for dead and 

 decomposed meat as food. Its great strength 

 permits it to break carcasses into bits or carry 

 them to a great 

 height in the air 

 and then let them 

 fall. In some 

 regions it feeds 

 upon tortoises. 

 "I" h c lammergeier 

 is about four feel 

 in length, and 

 measures from nine 

 to ten feet across 

 its wings. It is 

 found in Northern 

 Africa and Southern Asia, and sometimes in 

 i he mountains and deserts of Southern Europe. 

 It huilds ;i crude ne-t <>n :i mountain ledge. 



where it lays one brown-spotted egg. Its plum- 

 age is beautiful, its flight majestic. 



LAMP, a device for producing light arti- 

 ficially. The torch was the first lamp. How- 

 ever, the skin-clad cave man who first thrust 

 a lighted rush into an animal's skull filled with 

 melted fat and observed the result, discovered 



THE LAMMERGEIER 



ANCIENT LAMPS 



This picture is introduced to help boys ami 

 girls to appreciate the blessings of an age of bril- 

 liant electric lights. In the lamps above rude 

 Avicks were placed, and the resulting light was 

 sufficient only to brighten a room to a slight 

 degree. 



the essential principle of the lamp as we know 

 it to-daj'. His discovery was certainly one of 

 the most important in history. 



The Greeks and the Romans with then 

 genius for design simply improved the lamp's 

 appearance and increased the illuminating 

 power. They shaped shallow vessels of clay or 

 metal, into which they poured an inflammable 

 liquid. Sometimes several wicks were used. 

 flax tow having by this time largely super- 

 seded rushes. To the ancients the lamp was 

 not simply an article of domestic use. It was 

 a symbol of wisdom and often appears ;> a 

 sacred emblem. The old Greek myth, which 

 tells how Prometheus stole fire from the gods. 

 reflects the feeling of the early world as to the 

 sacred mystery of fire. 



No marked improvement in lamps took place 

 until the end of the eighteenth century, when 

 the Swiss chemist, Argand, substituted for the 

 flat wick a tubular one set between two metal 

 cylinders (see ARGAND LAMP). Shortly after- 

 wards one of his assistants happened to notice 

 that a flame burns more brightly when held 

 under a tube of glass. The result of this obser- 

 vation was the lamp chimney. After the dis- 

 covery of extensive oil wells in the United 

 States, in the middle of the nineteenth century, 

 kerosene began to be used instead of whale. 

 lard and other oils. Because of the rapidly in- 

 creasing use of gas and electricity for illuminat- 

 ing purposes the oil lamp is now* practically 

 out of date in cities. 



LAMP'BLACK, a fine carbon or soot, pro- 

 duced commercially by the imperfect combus- 



