UMBRELLA  , a portable folding

protector from rain (Fr. parapluic), the name parasol being given to the smaller and more fanciful article carried by ladies as a sunshade, and the en-tout-cas being available for both purposes . Primarily the umbrella (ombrella, Ital. dim. from Lat. umbra, shade) was a sunshade alone—its original home having been in hot, brilliant climates . In Eastern countries from the earliest times the umbrella was one of the insignia of royalty and power . On the sculptured remains of ancient Nineveh and Egypt there are representations of kings and sometimes of lesser potentates going in procession with an umbrella carried over their heads; and throughout Asia the umbrella had, and still has, something of the same significance . The Mahratta princes of India had among their titles " lord of the umbrella." In 1855 the king of Burma in addressing the governor-general of India termed himself " the monarch who reigns over the great umbrella-wearing chiefs of the Eastern countries." The baldachins erected over ecclesiastical chairs, altars and portals, and the canopies of thrones and pulpits, &c., are in their origin closely related to umbrellas, and have the same symbolic significance . In each of the basilican churches of Rome there still hangs a large umbrella . Among the Greeks and Romans the umbrella (oiaa.r, aiceabewv, umbraculum, umbella) was used by ladies, while the carrying of it by men was regarded as a sign of effeminacy . Probably in these southern climes it never went out of use, and allusions by Montaigne show that in his day its employment as a sun-shade was quite common in Italy . The umbrella was not unknown in England in the 17th century, and was already used as a rain protector . Michael Drayton, writing about the be-ginning of the 17th century, says, speaking of doves: " And, like umbrellas, with their feathers Shield you in all sorts of weathers." Although it was the practice to keep an umbrella in the coffee-houses early in the 18th century, its use cannot have been very familiar, for in 1752 Colonel Wolfe, writing from Paris, mentions the carrying of them there as a defence against both rain and sun, and wonders that they are not introduced into England . The traveller Jonas Hanway, who died in 1786, is credited with having been the first Englishman who habitually carried an umbrella . The umbrella, as at first used, was based on its Eastern prototype, and was a heavy, ungainly article which did not hold well together .

It had a

long handle, with ribs of whalebone or cane, very rarely of metal, and stretchers of cane . The jointing of the ribs and stretchers to the stick and to each other was very rough and imperfect . The covering material consisted of oiled silk or cotton, heavy in substance, and liable to stick together in the folds . Gingham soon came to be substituted for the oiled cloth, and in 1848 William Sangster patented the use of alpaca as an umbrella covering material . One of the most notable inventions for combining lightness, strength and elasticity in the ribs of umbrellas was the ` Paragon " rib patented by Samuel Fox in 1852 . It is formed of a thin strip of steel rolled into a U or trough section, a form which gives great strength for the weight of metal . Umbrella silk is chiefly made at Lyons and Crefeld ; much of it is so loaded that it cuts readily at the folds . Textures of pure silk or of silk and alpaca mixed have better wear-resisting properties .