on which the chart has been constructed, and an explanation of the conventional signs used on it; these latter, however, are generally supposed to be known.

General notes regarding the winds, currents, tides, harbor facilities, etc., are frequently added, as also sometimes sailing-directions; but generally these are left for text-books, which, under the titles of "Directions," "Memoirs," "Manuals," or "Pilots," give to the navigator the information obtained by the hydrographer, with the general results arrived at, which cannot be engrossed on charts.

By a judicious arrangement and a complete index, these should be made as intelligible and as ready for reference as possible, and should contain all the points within the area treated on that are of interest to navigation.

The first treatise on marine surveying, published in a practical form, was by Alexander Dalrymple, in 1771. This was followed by the work of M. Beautemps Beaupré, in 1808; since which time there have been published many valuable works on marine surveying, adapted both to running surveys and to greater geodetical operations.

In hydrographic surveys and exploration, England has always been foremost. Her Hydrographic Office, dating from 1795, under Alexander Dalrymple, was not firmly established until 1828, when Captain Francis Beaufort became the hydrographer to the British Admiralty; since which time, under the administration of the line of distinguished navy officers his successors, it has steadily advanced, to the inestimable benefit of commerce, both British and foreign. At the present date the charts of this office number two thousand nine hundred and eighteen, and yet about one-half of the coasts and navigable waters of the world remain unsurveyed, a great part not even examined.

An interesting skeleton chart of the world, compiled at the British Hydrographic Office and attached to a paper delivered by Commander Hull, R. N., superintendent of the Admiralty charts, before the Royal United Service Institution, showed the portions of the coasts of the world surveyed, partially surveyed, and only explored. Taking this continent alone, between the parallels of 60° north and 609 south, beyond which whaling-vessels only generally go, it will be found by rough measurement that about 12,000 miles of the seacoast have been surveyed, 20,000 miles partially surveyed, and that 8,000 have been only explored. Coasts partially surveyed or only explored require the utmost caution for safe navigation; and, even with this, vessels are constantly in peril. For the remainder of the globe, with exception of Europe, the proportion of the inadequately-surveyed and almost unknown coasts and waters is much greater. This should demonstrate clearly the vast field of labor awaiting the maritime surveyor.

England perseveres in this work, and her hydrographic parties are found in every quarter of the globe, opening new channels to commerce, and defining the dangers of navigation. France, in her publi

cations issuing from her Department des Cartes et Plans, is hardly behind Great Britain; from the time of the father of French hydrography, M. Beautemps Beaupré, to that of its present distinguished director, Vice-Admiral Jurien de la Gravière, this office has not ceased to assert its prominence and usefulness. France, however, though constantly and systematically prosecuting foreign hydrographic surveys, has not carried this work to the same extent as England. Spain, of late years, has rested on her laurels of the past, and with other maritime nations, with exception of casual foreign surveys, has restricted herself to the shores of her own possessions, and to issuing from time to time valuable publications and information for the benefit of navigation. The United States Hydrographic Office, though yet in its infancy, has made rapid progress, and now issues a respectable number of publications; no permanent system, however, of hydrographic surveys has ever been successfully instituted under the Navy Department. On its own coast, in its waters and harbors, the work of the United States Coast Survey is extensive, scientific, and thorough, and many years will yet be required for its completion.

All attempts to inaugurate a system of foreign surveys have failed, though, with intervals of many years, spasmodic efforts have been made and expeditions sent from her shores, which have done good service to hydrography and geographical science, though many and powerful attempts have been made by those interested in commerce and navigation to induce legislators to appropriate the small amounts requisite for this service; yet, even when such have been organized, and the hydrographic work was beginning to yield its fruit, the want of interest and legislation has crushed it out, and necessitated the withdrawal of the work, leaving only the hope that in time to come the United States may assist the other great maritime nations in making more smooth the course of the mariner through the paths of the great deep. Millions of property have been lost, with thousands of valuable lives, from the lamentable neglect of continued hydrographic surveys.

LACE AND LACE-MAKING.'

BY ELIZA A. YOUMANS.

To think of lace merely as a symbol of vanity is quite to miss its deeper significance. If the feeling that prompts to personal decoration be a proper one-and it is certainly a natural and universal sentiment-then lace has its defense, and we may agree with old

1 We cannot give a complete account of lace in a magazine article, but readers who desire more information are referred to Mrs. Palliser's excellent history of the subject, to which we are largely indebted, and from which our illustrations are mostly taken.

Fuller of the seventeenth century, when he says: "Let it not be condemned for superfluous wearing, because it doth neither hide nor heat, seeing that it doth adorn." But the subject has also its graver aspects; for, as science is said to obliterate all difference between great and small, so the history of lace may be said to efface the distinction between the frivolous and the serious. Though good for nothing but decoration, the most earnest elements of humanity have been enlisted in connection with it. Lace-making, a product of the first rude beginnings of art, though complex, and involving immense labor, was yet early perfected. As a source of wealth, it has been the envy of nations and has shaped state policy; as a local industry, it has enriched and ruined provinces; and, as a provocative of invention, it has given rise to the most ingenious devices of modern times, which have come into use only with tragic social accompaniments. The subject has, therefore, various elements of interest which will commend it to the readers of the MONTHLY.

Lace, made of fine threads of gold, silver, silk, flax, cotton, hairs, or other delicate fibres, has been in use for centuries in all the countries of Europe. But long before the appearance of lace, properly so called, attempts of various kinds were made to produce open, gauzy tissues resembling the spider's web. Specimens of primitive needlework are abundant in which this openness is secured in various ways. The "fine-twined linen," the "nets of checker-work," and the "embroidery" of the Old Testament, are examples. This ornamental needle-work was early held in great esteem by the Church, and was the daily employment of the convent. For a long time the art of making it was a church secret, and it was known as nuns'-work. Even monks were commended for their skill in embroidery.

A kind of primitive lace, in use centuries ago in Europe, and specimens of which are still abundant, is called cut-work. It was made in many ways. Sometimes a network of threads was arranged upon a small frame, beneath which was gummed a piece of fine cloth, open, like canvas. Then with a needle the network was sewed to the cloth, and the superfluous cloth was cut away; hence the name of cut-work. Another lace-like fabric of very ancient date, and known as drawnwork, was made by drawing out a portion of the warp and weft threads from linen, and leaving a square network of threads, which were made firm by a stitch at each corner of the mesh. Sometimes these netted grounds were embroidered with colors.

Still another ancient lace, called " darned-netting," was made by embroidering figures upon a plain net, like ordinary nets of the present day. Lace was also formed of threads, radiating from a common centre at equal distances, and united by squares, triangles, rosettes, and other geometrical forms, which were worked over with a button-hole stitch, and the net thus made was more or less ornamented with embroidery. Church-vestments, altar-cloths, and grave-cloths, were elaborately dec

orated with it. An eye-witness of the disinterment of St. Cuthbert in the twelfth century says: "There had been put over him a sheet which had a fringe of linen thread of a finger's length; upon its sides and ends was woven a border of the thread, bearing the figures of birds, beasts, and branching trees." This sheet was kept for centuries in the cathedral of Durham as a specimen of drawn or cut work. Darned-netting and drawn and cut work are still made by the peasants in many countries.

The skill and labor required in the production of these ornamental tissues gave them immense value, and only kings and nobles were able to buy them. But, as this kind of manufacture was encouraged and rewarded by the courts, it reached great perfection centuries ago. A search among court records, and a study of old pictures and monumental sculptures, show that it was much worn in the fifteenth century; but it was not known as lace. The plain or figured network which we call lace was for a long time called passement, a general term for gimps and braids as well as lace, and this term continued in use till the middle of the seventeenth century.

Lace was not only known and worn in the fifteenth century, but its manufacture at that time was an important industry in both Italy and Flanders (Belgium); while in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was extensively made in all the leading countries of Europe. Two distinct kinds of lace were made by two essentially different methods. One was called point-lace, and was made with the needle, while the other was made upon a stuffed oval board, called a pillow, and the fabric was hence called pillow-lace. "On this pillow a stiff piece of parchment is fixed, with small holes pricked through to work the pattern. Through these holes pins are stuck into the cushion.' The threads with which the lace is made are wound upon 'bobbins,' small, round pieces of wood, about the size of a pencil, having around their upper ends a deep groove on which the thread is wound, a separate bobbin being used for each thread. By the twisting and crossing of these threads the ground of the lace is formed." The pattern is made by interweaving a much thicker thread than that of the ground, according to the design pricked out on the pattern.

The making of plain lace-net upon the pillow is thus described: "Threads are hung round the pillow in front, each attached to a bobbin, from which it is supplied and acting as a weight. Each pair of adjacent threads is twisted three half-turns by passing the bobbins over each other. Then the twisted threads are separated and crossed over pins on the front of the cushion in a row. The like twist is then made by every adjacent pair of threads not before twisted, whence the threads become united sideways in meshes. By repeating the process the fabric gains the length and width required."

1 Sometimes lace-makers who were the wives of fishermen, not being able to buy pins, used the bones of fish as substitutes. Hence the term bone-lace.