LABUAN (6), a small island, distant 6 m. from the W. coast of North Borneo, ceded to Britain in 1846, and administered by the British North Borneo Company; has rich coal-beds; its town, Victoria, is a market for Borneo and the Sulu Archipelago, and exports sago, camphor, and pearls; the population is chiefly Malay and Chinese.

LABYRINTH, a name given to sundry structures composed of winding passages so intricate as to render it difficult to find the way out, and sometimes in.  Of these structures the most remarkable were those of Egypt and of Crete.  The Egyptian to the E. of Lake Moeris, consisted of an endless number of dark chambers, connected by a maze of passages into which it was difficult to find entrance; and the Cretan, built by Daedalus, at the instance of Minos, to imprison the Minotaur, out of which one who entered could not find his way out again unless by means of a skein of thread.  It was by means of this, provided him by ARIADNE, PERSEUS (q. v.) found his way out after slaying the MINOTAUR (q. v.).

LAC, a term employed in India for a hundred thousand, a crore amounting to 100 lacs, usually of money.

LACCADIVES, THE, or THE HUNDRED THOUSAND ISLES (14), a group of low-lying coral islands 200 m.  W. of the Malabar coast of India, mostly barren, and yielding chiefly cocoa-nuts; the population being Hindus professing Mohammedanism and poorly off.

LACEPEDE, COMTE DE, French naturalist, born at Agen; was entrusted by Buffon to complete his Natural History on his death; wrote on his own account also the natural histories of reptiles, of fishes, and of man (1756-1825).

LACHAISE, FRANCOIS DE, a French Jesuit, an extremely politic member of the fraternity in the reign of Louis XIV.; had a country house E. of Paris, the garden of which is now the cemetery Pere la Chaise (1624-1709).

LACHESIS, the one of the three Fates that spun the thread of life and apportioned the destinies of man.  See PARCAE.

LACHMANN, KARL, a German philologist and classical scholar, born at Brunswick, professor at Berlin; besides sundry of the Latin classics, in particular Lucretius, he edited the Nibelungen Lied, and the Greek New Testament, as well as contributed important critical essays on the composition of the “Iliad,” which he regarded as a collection of lays from various independent sources (1783-1851).  See ILIAD.

LACHRYMA CHRISTI, a sweet wine of a red or amber colour, produced from grapes grown on Mount Vesuvius.

LACONIA, ancient name for Sparta, the inhabitants of which were noted for the brevity of their speech.