and Chocoltaga. The La Paz valley is auriferous, and since the foundation of the city gold has been taken from the soil washed down from the mountain sides.
La Paz was founded in 1548 by Alonzo de Mendoza on the site of an Indian village called Chuquiapu. It was called the Pueblo Nuevo de Nuestra Señora de la Paz in commemoration of the reconciliation between Pizarro and Almagro, and soon became an important colony. At the close of the war of independence (1825) it was rechristened La Paz de Ayacucho, in honour of the last decisive battle of that protracted struggle. It was made one of the four capitals of the republic, but the revolution of 1898 permanently established the seat of government here because of its accessibility, wealth, trade and political influence.
LA PÉROUSE, JEAN-FRANÇOIS DE GALAUP, Comte de (1741–c. 1788), French navigator, was born near Albi, on the 22nd of August 1741. His family name was Galaup, and La Pérouse or La Peyrouse was an addition adopted by himself from a small family estate near Albi. As a lad of eighteen he was wounded and made prisoner on board the “Formidable” when it was captured by Admiral Hawke in 1759; and during the war with England between 1778 and 1783 he served with distinction in various parts of the world, more particularly on the eastern coasts of Canada and in Hudson’s Bay, where he captured Forts Prince of Wales and York (August 8th and 21st, 1782). In 1785 (August 1st) he sailed from Brest in command of the French government expedition of two vessels (“La Boussole” under La Pérouse himself, and “L’Astrolabe,” under de Langle) for the discovery of the North-West Passage, vainly essayed by Cook on his last voyage, from the Pacific side. He was also charged with the further exploration of the north-west coasts of America, and the north-east coasts of Asia, of the China and Japan seas, the Solomon Islands and Australia; and he was ordered to collect information as to the whale fishery in the southern oceans and as to the fur trade in North America. He reached Mount St Elias, on the coast of Alaska, on the 23rd of June 1786. After six weeks, marked by various small discoveries, he was driven from these regions by bad weather; and after visiting the Hawaiian Islands, and discovering Necker Island (November 5th, 1786), he crossed over to Asia (Macao, January 3rd, 1787). Thence he passed to the Philippines, and so to the coasts of Japan, Korea and “Chinese Tartary,” where his best results were gained. Touching at Quelpart, he reached De Castries Bay, near the modern Vladivostok, on the 28th of July 1787; and on the 2nd of August following discovered the strait, still named after him, between Sakhalin and the Northern Island of Japan. On the 7th of September he put in at Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka, where he was well received by special order of the Russian empress, Catherine II.; thence he sent home Lesseps, overland, with the journals, notes, plans and maps recording the work of the expedition. He left Avacha Bay on the 29th of September, and arrived at Mauna in the Samoan group on the 8th of December; here de Langle and ten of the crew of the “Astrolabe” were murdered. He quitted Samoa on the 14th of December, touched at the Friendly Islands and Norfolk Island and arrived in Botany Bay on the 26th of January 1788. From this place, where he interchanged courtesies with some of the English pioneers in Australia, he wrote his last letter to the French Ministry of Marine (February 7th). After this no more was heard of him and his squadron till in 1826 Captain Peter Dillon found the wreckage of what must have been the “Boussole” and the “Astrolabe” on the reefs of Vanikoro, an island to the north of the New Hebrides. In 1828 Dumont d’Urville visited the scene of the disaster and erected a monument (March 14th).
See Milet Mureau, Voyage de la Pérouse autour du monde (Paris, 1797) 4 vols.; Gérard, Vies . . . des . . . marins français (Paris, 1825), 197–200; Peter Dillon, Narrative . . . of a Voyage in the South Seas for the Discovery of the Fate of La Pérouse (London, 1829), 2 vols.; Dumont d’Urville, Voyage pittoresque autour du monde; Quoy and Paul Gaimard, Voyage de . . . l’Astrolabe; Domeny de Rienzi, Océanie; Van Tenac, Histoire général de la marine, iv. 258-264; Moniteur universel, 13th of February 1847.
LAPIDARY, and GEM CUTTING (Lat. lapidarius, lapis, a stone). The earliest examples of gem cutting and carving known (see also Gem) are the ancient engraved seals, which are of two principal types, the cylindrical or “rolling” seals of Babylonia and Assyria, suggested by a joint of the bamboo or the central whorl of a conch-like shell, and the peculiar scarabaeoid seals of Egypt. Recent researches make it appear that both these types were in use as far back as 4500 B.C., though with some variations. The jewels of Queen Zer, and other jewels consisting of cut turquoise, lapis lazuli and amethyst, found by the French mission, date from 4777 B.C. to 4515 B.C. Until about 2500 B.C., the cylinder seals bore almost wholly animal designs; then cuneiform inscriptions were added. In the 6th century B.C., the scarabaeoid type was introduced from Egypt, while the rolling seals began to give place to a new form, that of a tall cone. These, in a century or two, were gradually shortened; the hole by which they were suspended was enlarged until it could admit the finger, and in time they passed into the familiar form of seal-rings. This later type, which prevailed for a long period, usually bore Persian or Sassanian inscriptions. The scarabaeoid seals were worn as rings in Egypt apparently from the earliest times.
The most ancient of the cylinder seals were cut at first from shell, then largely from opaque stones such as diorite and serpentine. After 2500 B.C., varieties of chalcedony and milky quartz were employed, translucent and richly coloured; sometimes even rock crystal, and also frequently a beautiful compact haematite. Amazone stone, amethyst and fossil coral were used, but no specimen is believed to be known of ruby, sapphire, emerald, diamond, tourmaline or spinel.
The date of about 500 B.C. marks the beginning of a period of great artistic taste and skill in gem carving, which extended throughout the ancient civilized world, and lasted until the 3rd or 4th century A.D. Prior to this period, all the work appears to have been done by hand with a sapphire point, or else with a bow-drill; thenceforward the wheel came to be largely employed. The Greek cutters, in their best period, the 5th and 6th centuries B.C., knew the use of disks and drills, but preferred the sapphire point for their finest work, and continued to use it for two or three hundred years. Engraving by the bow-drill was introduced in Assyrian and Babylonian work as early as perhaps 3000 B.C., the earlier carving being all done with the sapphire point, which was secured in a handle for convenient application. This handwork demanded the utmost skill and delicacy of touch in the artist. The bow-drill consisted of a similar point fastened in the end of a stick, which could be rotated by means of a horizontal cross-bar attached at each end to a string wound around the stick; as the cross-bar was moved up and down, the stick was made to rotate alternately in opposite directions. This has been a frequent device for such purposes among many peoples, both ancient and modern, civilized and uncivilized. The point used by hand, and the bow-drill, were afterwards variously combined in executing such work. Another modification was the substitution for the point, in either process, of a hollow tube or drill, probably in most cases the joint of a hollow reed, whereby very accurate circles could be made, as also crescent figures and the like. This process, used with fine hard sand, has also been widely employed among many peoples. It may perhaps have been suggested by the boring of other shells by carnivorous molluscs of the Murex type, examples of which may be picked up on any sea-beach. It is possible that the cylinder seals were drilled in this way out of larger pieces by means of a hollow reed or bamboo, the cylinder being left as the core.
The Egyptian scarabs were an early and very characteristic type of seal cutting. The Greek gem cutters modified them by adding Greek and Etruscan symbols and talismanic signs; many of them also worked in Egypt and for Egyptians. Phoenician work shows a mixture of Assyrian and Egyptian designs; and Cypriote seals, principally on the agate gems, are known that are referred to the 9th century B.C.
Scarabs are sometimes found that have been sliced in two, and the new flat faces thus produced carved with later inscriptions and set in rings. This secondary work is of many kinds. An Assyrian cylinder in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, referred to 3000 B.C., bears such a cutting of Mediterranean
