a variety of carbon or charcoal in a state of minute division, prepared chiefly from the impure resin and other refuse left after the distillation of turpentine. These secondary products are burnt in iron pots, or in a furnace, with a supply of air inadequate to their complete combustion, and the dense smoke thus produced is passed into chambers lined with sheep skin, or with sacking, upon which the soot or lamp-black forms a deposit. It is swept off from time to time, and sold without any further preparation. In this state, however, it contains salts of ammonia, and certain resinous and bituminous matters, all of which may be driven off by heating the crude lamp-black to redness in a close vessel. Thus purified, the lamp-black is almost entirely pure carbon, and when heated in the air it will burn away with scarcely any residue. Lamp-black was formerly prepared by burning lamps fed with crude refuse oils, in a close chamber, and collecting the soot from the smoky flames in the manner above mentioned, whence the origin of the name lamp-black. The theory of its formation is simple: if a compound of hydrogen and carbon be raised to a temperature sufficient to convert it into an inflammable vapour, and enough oxygen be introduced to combine with the hydrogen only, water will be formed, and the carbon be deposited.

The chief demand for lamp-black is in the manufacture of black paint and printer's ink, for which it is often prepared by burning coal-tar. A coarse lamp-black, used in paying ships, &c., is also prepared from some kinds of coal. (c.t.)

LAMPADEPHÓRIA, i.e., the torch-bearing, or the torch-race, an Athenian ceremony at the festivals of the fire-gods Prometheus, Vulcan, and Minerva, in which the runners carried lighted torches, sheltered by shields, from the joint altar of these gods in the outer Ceramicus to the Acropolis. After the battle of Marathon, it was introduced into the festivals of Pan; and in the time of Socrates, into those of Artemis, on which occasion horses were first used. The art seems to have consisted in carrying a lighted torch from the starting-place to the goal without letting it go out. Several chains of runners were stationed along the race-course, which was about half a mile in length. The first runner in each chain passed the lamp to the second, he in his turn to the third, and so on. That chain which was the first to pass the still burning torch to its destination was declared victorious. The ceremony was most probably intended to symbolize the theft of the fire from the chariot of the sun by Prometheus, and to commemorate the benefits which have accrued to mankind from his crime.