OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lake Placid

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​LAKE PLACID, a village in Essex county, New York, U.S.A., on the W. shore of Mirror Lake, near the S. end of Lake Placid, about 42 m. N.W. of Ticonderoga. Pop. (1905) 1514; (1910) 1682. The village is served by the Delaware & Hudson railway. The region is one of the most attractive in the Adirondacks, and is a much frequented summer resort. There are four good golf courses here, and the village has a well-built club house, called the “Neighborhood House.” The village lies on the narrow strip of land (about 1/3 m.) between Mirror Lake (about 1 m. long, N. and S., and 1/3 m. wide), and Lake Placid, about 5 m. long (N.N.E. by S.S.W.), and about 11/2 m. (maximum) broad; its altitude is 1864 ft. The lake is roughly divided, from N. to S. by three islands—Moose, the largest, and Hawk, both privately owned, and Buck—and is a beautiful sheet of water in a picturesque setting of forests and heavily wooded hills and mountains. Among the principal peaks in the vicinity are Whiteface Mountain (4871 ft.), about 3 m. N.W. of the N. end of the lake; McKenzie Mountain (3872 ft.), about 1 m. to the W., and Pulpit Mountain (2658 ft.), on the E. shore. The summit of Whiteface Mountain commands a fine view, with Gothic (4738 ft.), Saddleback (4530 ft.), Basin (4825 ft.), Marcy (5344 ft.), and McIntyre (5210 ft.) mountains about 10 m. to the S. and Lake Champlain to the E., and to the N.E. may be seen, on clear days, the spires of Montreal. In the valleys E. and S. are the headwaters of the famous Ausable river. About 2 m. E. of the village, at North Elba, is the grave of the abolitionist, John Brown, with its huge boulder monument, and near it is another monument which bears the names of the 20 persons who bought the John Brown farm and gave it to the state. The railway to the village was completed in 1893. The village was incorporated in 1900.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lake of the Woods

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​LAKE OF THE WOODS, a lake in the south-west of the province of Ontario, Canada, bordering west on the province of Manitoba, and south on the state of Minnesota. It is of extremely irregular shape, and contains many islands. Its length is 70 m., breadth 10 to 50 m., area 1500 sq. m. It lies in the centre of the Laurentian region between Lakes Winnipeg and Superior, and an area of 36,000 sq. m. drains to it. It collects the waters of many rivers, the chief being Rainy river from the east, draining Rainy Lake. By the Winnipeg river on the north-east it discharges into Lake Winnipeg. At its source Winnipeg river is 1057 ft. above the sea, and drops 347 ft. in its course of 165 m. The scenery both on and around the lake is exceedingly beautiful, and the islands are largely occupied by the summer residences of city merchants. Kenora, a flourishing town at the source of the Winnipeg river, is the centre of the numerous lumbering and mining enterprises of the vicinity.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lakhimpur

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​LAKHIMPUR, a district of British India in the extreme east of the province of Eastern Bengal and Assam. Area, 4529 sq. m. It lies along both banks of the Brahmaputra for about 400 m.; it is bounded N. by the Daphla, Miri, Abor and Mishmi hills, E. by the Mishmi and Kachin hills, S. by the watershed of the Patkai range and the Lohit branch of the Brahmaputra, and W. by the districts of Darrang and Sibsagar. The Brahmaputra is navigable for steamers in all seasons as far as Dibrugarh, in the rainy season as far as Sadiya; its navigable tributaries within the district are the Subansiri, Dibru and Dihing. The deputy-commissioner in charge exercises political control over numerous tribes beyond the inner surveyed border. The most important of these tribes are the Miris, Abors, Mishmis, Khamtis, Kachins and Nagas. In 1901 the population was 371,396, an increase of 46% in the decade. The district has enjoyed remarkable and continuous prosperity. At each successive census the percentage of increase has been over 40, the present population being more than three times as great as that of 1872. This increase is chiefly due to the numerous tea gardens and to the coal mines and other enterprises of the Assam Railways and Trading Company. Lakhimpur was the first district into which tea cultivation was introduced by the government, and the Assam Company began operations here in 1840. The railway, known as the Dibru-Sadiya line, runs from Dibrugarh to Makum, with two branches to Talap and Margherita, and has been connected across the hills with the Assam-Bengal railway. The coal is of excellent quality, and is exported by river as far as Calcutta. The chief oil-wells are at Digboi. The oil is refined at Margherita, producing a good quality of kerosene oil and first-class paraffin, with wax and other by-products. The company also manufactures bricks and pipes of various kinds. Another industry is cutting timber, for the manufacture of tea-chests, &c.
Lakhimpur figures largely in the annals of Assam as the region where successive invaders from the east first reached the Brahmaputra. The Bara Bhuiyas, originally from the western provinces of India, were driven out by the Chutias (a Shan race), and these in their turn gave place to their more powerful brethren, the Ahoms, in the 13th century. The Burmese, who had ruined the native kingdoms, at the end of the 18th century, were in 1825 expelled by the British, who placed the southern part of the country, together with Sibsagar under the rule of Raja Purandhar Singh; but it was not till 1838 that the whole was taken under direct British administration. The headquarters are at Dibrugarh.
See Lakhimpur District Gazetteer (Calcutta, 1905).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lakewood

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​LAKEWOOD, a village of Ocean county, New Jersey, U.S.A., in the township of Lakewood, 59 m. S. by W. of New York city, and 8 m. from the coast, on the Central Railroad of New Jersey. Pop. (1900) of the township, including the village, 3094; (1905) 4265; (1910) 5149. Lakewood is a fashionable health and winter resort, and is situated in the midst of a pine forest, with two small lakes, and many charming walks and drives. In the village there are a number of fine residences, large hotels, a library and a hospital. The winter temperature is 10-12° F. warmer than in New York. The township of Lakewood was incorporated in 1892.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lalitpur

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​LALITPUR, a town of British India, in Jhansi district, United Provinces. Pop. (1901) 11,560. It has a station on the Great Indian Peninsula railway, and a large trade in oil-seeds, hides and ghi. It contains several beautiful Hindu and Jain temples. It was formerly the headquarters of a district of the same name, which was incorporated with that of Jhansi in 1891. The Bundela chiefs of Lalitpur were among those who most eagerly joined the Mutiny, and it was only after a severe struggle that the district was pacified.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lakh

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​LAKH (from the Sans. laksha, one hundred thousand), a term used in British India, in a colloquial sense to signify a lakh of rupees (written 1,00,000), which at the face value of the rupee would be worth £10,000, but now is worth only £6666. The term is also largely used in trade returns. A hundred lakhs make a crore.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lalaing, Jacques de

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​LALAING, JACQUES DE (c. 1420–1453), Flemish knight, was originally in the service of the duke of Cleves and afterwards in that of the duke of Burgundy, Philip III., the Good, gaining great renown by his prowess in the tiltyard. The duke of Burgundy entrusted him with embassies to the pope and the king of France (1451), and subsequently sent him to put down the revolt of the inhabitants of Ghent, in which expedition he was killed. His biography, Le Livre des faits de messire Jacques de Lalaing, which has been published several times, is mainly the work of the Burgundian herald and chronicler Jean le Fèvre, better known as Toison d’or; the Flemish historiographer Georges Chastellain and the herald Charolais also took part in its compilation.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lally, Thomas Arthur, Comte de

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​LALLY, THOMAS ARTHUR, Comte de, Baron de Tollendal (1702–1766), French general, was born at Romans, Dauphiné, in January 1702, being the son of Sir Gerard O’Lally, an Irish Jacobite who married a French lady of noble family, from whom the son inherited his titles. Entering the French army in 1721 he served in the war of 1734 against Austria; he was present at Dettingen (1743), and commanded the regiment de Lally in the famous Irish brigade at Fontenoy (May 1745). He was made a brigadier on the field by Louis XV. He had previously been mixed up in several Jacobite plots, and in 1745 accompanied Charles Edward to Scotland, serving as aide-de-camp at the battle of Falkirk (January 1746). Escaping to France, he served with Marshal Saxe in the Low Countries, and at the capture of Maestricht (1748) was made a maréchal de camp. When war broke out with England in 1756 Lally was given the command of a French expedition to India. He reached Pondicherry in April 1758, and at the outset met with some trifling military success. He was a man of courage and a capable general; but his pride and ferocity made him disliked by his officers and hated by his soldiers, while he regarded the natives as slaves, despised their assistance, and trampled on their traditions of caste. In consequence everything went wrong with him. He was unsuccessful in an attack on Tanjore, and had to retire from the siege of Madras (1758) owing to the timely arrival of the British fleet. He was defeated by Sir Eyre Coote at Wandiwash (1760), and besieged in Pondicherry and forced to capitulate (1761). He was sent as a prisoner of war to England. While in London, he heard that he was accused in France of treachery, and insisted, against advice, on returning on parole to stand his trial. He was kept prisoner for nearly two years before the trial began; then, after many painful delays, he was sentenced to death (May 6, 1766), and three days later beheaded. Louis XV. tried to throw the responsibility for what was undoubtedly a judicial murder on his ministers and the public, but his policy needed a scapegoat, and he was probably well content not to exercise his authority to save an almost friendless foreigner.
See G. B. Malleson, The Career of Count Lally (1865); “Z’s” (the marquis de Lally-Tollendal) article in the Biographie Michaud; and Voltaire’s Œuvres complètes. The legal documents are preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lakshmi

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​LAKSHMI (Sans. for “mark,” “sign,” generally used in composition with punya, “prosperous”; hence “good sign,” “good fortune”), in Hindu mythology, the wife of Vishnu ​worshipped as the goddess of love, beauty and prosperity. She has many other names, the chief being Loka mata (“mother of the world”), Padma (“the lotus”), Padma laya (“she who dwells on a lotus”) and Jaladhija (“the ocean-born”). She is represented as of a bright golden colour and seated on a lotus. She is said to have been born from the sea of milk when it was churned from ambrosia. Many quaint myths surround her birth. In the Rig Veda her name does not occur as a goddess.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sbeitla

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​SBEITLA (anc. Sufetula), a ruined city of Tunisia, 66 m. S.W. of Kairawan. Long buried beneath the sand, this is the most beautiful and extensive of the Roman cities in the regency. It stands at the foot of a hill by a river, here perennial, but at a short distance beyond lost in the sands. The chief ruin is a rectangular walled enclosure, 238 ft. by 198 ft., known as the Hieron, having three small and one large entrance. The great gateway is a fine monumental arch in fair preservation, with an inscription to Antoninus Pius. Facing the arch, within the Hieron, their rear walls forming one side of the enclosure, are three temples, connected with one another by arches, and forming one design. The length of the entire façade is 118 ft. The principal chamber of the central temple, which is of the Composite order, is 44 ft. long; those of the side temples, in the Corinthian style, are smaller. The walls of the middle temple are ornamented with engaged columns; those of the other buildings with pilasters. The porticos have fallen, and their broken monolithic columns, with fragments of cornices and other masonry, lie piled within the enclosure, which is still partly paved. (In 1901 a violent storm further damaged the temples and forced the gateway out of the perpendicular.) The other ruins include a triumphal arch of Constantine, a still serviceable bridge and a square keep or tower of late date.
The early history of Sufetula is preserved only in certain inscriptions. Under Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius it appears to have been a flourish in city, the district, now desolate, being then very fertile and covered with forests of olives. It was partly rebuilt during the Byzantine occupation and became a centre of Christianity. At the time of the Arab invasion it was the capital of the exarch Gregorius, and outside its walls the battle was fought in which he was slain; his daughter, who is said by the Arab historians to have fought by the side of her father, became the wife of one of the Arab leaders. The invaders besieged, captured and sacked Sufetula, and it is not afterwards mentioned in history. It was not until the close of the 19th century that the ruins were thoroughly examined by French savants.
See A. Graham, Roman Africa (London, 1902); Sir R. L. Playfair, Travels in the Footsteps of Bruce (London, 1877).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Scabies

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​SCABIES, or Itch, a skin disease due to an animal parasite, the Sarcoptes scabei (see Mite), which burrows under the epidermis at any part of the body, but hardly ever in the face or scalp of adults; it usually begins at the clefts of the fingers, where its presence may be inferred from several scattered pimples, which will probably have been torn at their summits by the scratching of the patient, or have been otherwise converted into vesicles or pustules. The remedy is soap and water, and sulphur ointment.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Scabbard

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​SCABBARD, the sheath of a sword. The early forms of the word given in the Promptorium parvularum are scauberk, scaubert or scauberd. The termination is certainly from the Teutonic bergen, to protect, as seen in “hauberk,” “hawberk” (i.e. halsberg), literally a protection for the neck and shoulders, hence the “long tunic of mail” of the 12th century (see Arms and Armour). The first part is doubtful; Skeat takes it as representing the O. Fr. escale, mod. écaille, shell, Ger. Schale; the word would therefore mean an outer sheath or shell that covers or protects.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Scala Nuova

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​SCALA NUOVA (Turk. Kush-Adasi), also known as New Ephesus, a well-protected harbour on the west coast of Asia Minor in the vilayet of Aidin, opposite Samos. The site of the ancient Marathesium is close by on the S. It is connected with the railway station of Ayassoluk by a diligence service. Before the opening of the Smyrna-Aidin railway its road stead was frequented by vessels trading with the Anatolian coast, and it has often been proposed to connect it with the railway system by a branch line, and thus enable it to compete with Smyrna. In the absence of this the town is rapidly on the decline. The population is not over 7000. The trade is of merely local interest. (D. G. H.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Scafell

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​SCAFELL (pronounced and sometimes written Scaw Fell), a mountain of Cumberland, England, in the Lake District. The name is specially applied to the southern point (3162 ft. in height) of a certain range or mass, but Scafell Pike, separated from Scafell by the steep narrow ridge of Mickledore, is the highest point in England (3210 ft.). The ridge continues N.E. to Great End (2984 ft.), which falls abruptly to a flat terrace, on which lies Sprinkling Tarn. The terrace is traversed by the path between Sty Head Pass (1600 ft.) and Esk Hause (2490 ft.). The range thus defined may be termed the Scafell mass. Northwest from the Pike the lesser height of Lingmell (2649 ft.) is thrown out like a bastion, and the steep flank of the range, scored with the deep gully of Piers Gill, sweeps down to the head of Wasdale. On the east an even steeper wall, with splendid crags, falls to Eskdale. Above Mickledore ridge Scafell rises nearly sheer, the rock scored with bold clefts; here are some of the ascents most in favour with the mountaineers. Some of these tax climbers to the utmost; and the mountain has been the scene of several accidents.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Scabbling

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​SCABBLING, or Scappling, in building, the process of reducing a stone to a rough square by the axe or hammer; in Kent the rag-stone masons call this knobbling (see Masonry).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Le Caron, Henri

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​LE CARON, HENRI (whose real name was Thomas Miller Beach) (1841–1894), British secret service agent, was born at Colchester, on the 26th of September 1841. He was of an adventurous character, and when nineteen years old went to Paris, where he found employment in business connected with America. Infected with the excitement of the American Civil War, he crossed the Atlantic in 1861 and enlisted in the Northern army, taking the name of Henri Le Caron. In 1864 he married a young lady who had helped him to escape from some Confederate marauders; and by the end of the war he rose to be major. In 1865, through a companion in arms named O’Neill, he was brought into contact with Fenianism, and having learnt of the Fenian plot against Canada, he mentioned the designs when writing home to his father. Mr Beach told his local M.P., who in turn told the Home Secretary, and the latter asked Mr Beach to arrange for further information. Le Caron, inspired (as all the evidence shows) by genuinely patriotic feeling, from that ​time till 1889 acted for the British government as a paid military spy. He was a proficient in medicine, among other qualifications for this post, and he remained for years on intimate terms with the most extreme men in the Fenian organization under all its forms. His services enabled the British government to take measures which led to the fiasco of the Canadian invasion of 1870 and Riel’s surrender in 1871, and he supplied full details concerning the various Irish-American associations, in which he himself was a prominent member. He was in the secrets of the “new departure” in 1879–1881, and in the latter year had an interview with Parnell at the House of Commons, when the Irish leader spoke sympathetically of an armed revolution in Ireland. For twenty-five years he lived at Detroit and other places in America, paying occasional visits to Europe, and all the time carrying his life in his hand. The Parnell Commission of 1889 put an end to this. Le Caron was subpoenaed by The Times, and in the witness-box the whole story came out, all the efforts of Sir Charles Russell in cross-examination failing to shake his testimony, or to impair the impression of iron tenacity and absolute truthfulness which his bearing conveyed. His career, however, for good or evil, was at an end. He published the story of his life, Twenty-five Years in the Secret Service, and it had an immense circulation. But he had to be constantly guarded, his acquaintances were hampered from seeing him, and he was the victim of a painful disease, of which he died on the 1st of April 1894. The report of the Parnell Commission is his monument.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Le Creusot

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​LE CREUSOT, a town of east-central France in the department of Saône-et-Loire, 55 m. S.W. of Dijon on the Paris-Lyon railway. Pop. (1906), town, 22,535; commune, 33,437. Situated at the foot of lofty hills in a district rich in coal and iron, it has the most extensive iron works in France. The coal bed of Le Creusot was discovered in the 13th century; but it was not till 1774 that the first workshops were founded there. The royal crystal works were transferred from Sèvres to Le Creusot in 1787, but this industry came to an end in 1831. Meanwhile two or three enterprises for the manufacture of metal had ended in failure, and it was only in 1836 that the foundation of iron works by Adolphe and Eugène Schneider definitely inaugurated the industrial prosperity of the place. The works supplied large quantities of war material to the French armies during the Crimean and Franco-German wars. Since that time they have continuously enlarged the scope of their operations, which now embrace the manufacture of steel, armour-plate, guns, ordnance-stores, locomotives, electrical machinery and engineering material of every description. A network of railways about 37 m. in length connects the various branches of the works with each other and with the neighbouring Canal du Centre. Special attention is paid to the welfare of the workers who, not including the miners, number about 12,000, and good schools have been established. In 1897 the ordnance-manufacture of the Société des Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée at Havre was acquired by the Company, which also has important branches at Chalon-sur-Saône, where ship-building and bridge-construction is carried on, and at Cette (Hérault).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan

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​LE FANU, JOSEPH SHERIDAN (1814–1873), Irish journalist and author, was born of an old Huguenot family at Dublin on the 28th of August 1814. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1833. At an early age he had given proof of literary talent, and in 1837 he joined the staff of the Dublin University Magazine, of which he became later editor and proprietor. In 1837 he produced the Irish ballad Phaudhrig Croohore, which was ​shortly afterwards followed by a second, Shamus O’Brien, successfully recited in the United States by Samuel Lover. In 1839 he became proprietor of the Warder, a Dublin newspaper, and, after purchasing the Evening Packet and a large interest in the Dublin Evening Mail, he combined the three papers under the title the Evening Mail, a weekly reprint from which was issued as the Warder. After the death of his wife in 1858 he lived in retirement, and his best work was produced at this period of his life. He wrote some clever novels, of a sensational order, in which his vigorous imagination and his Irish love of the supernatural have full play. He died in Dublin on the 7th of February 1873. His best-known novels are The House by the Churchyard (1863) and Uncle Silas, a Tale of Bartram Haugh (1864). The Purcell Papers, Irish stories dating from his college days, were edited with a memoir of the author by A. P. Graves in 1880.