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LE LEA 243 beggars, and all without a fixed place of abode. The name is derived from that of the beggar Lazarus mentioned in the parable of Christ. During the middle ages lepers were obliged to wear a peculiar dress, consisting simply of. short drawers, shirt, and hood, and down to a recent time this costume was generally retained by the lazzaroni. At the end of the last cen- tury their number was estimated at 40,000, most of them sleeping in the open air, in arch- ways, or in large baskets which they carried with them. Though idle, ignorant, and vicious, they are abstemious, frugal, and, when not ex- cited, proverbial for their good nature. They used to elect yearly their chief, the capo laz- earo, who was formally acknowledged by the government which was better able to control the lazzaroni through him. The lazzaroni have frequently played an important part in political revolutions. They aided Masaniello in the rev- olution of 1647, and during the siege of Naples by Championnet in 1799 they fought bravely, their capo Michele being afterward appointed a French colonel. In recent times the lazza- roni have generally been identified with the Bourbon interests and reaction ; the dread of their -being turned loose to pillage the city hav- ing been used during the last reigns of the over- thrown dynasty as an effectual check on the middle classes. Of late they have lost many of their peculiarities ; efforts have been made by the government of Victor Emanuel to in- spire them with a love of cleanliness and or- der ; and they are no longer recognized as a separate class, but are enrolled in different dis- tricts, and subjected to the same police regula- tions as other citizens. LE. See LEH. LEAt I. Isaac, an American naturalist, born in Wilmington, Del, March 4, 1792. His an- cestors followed William Penn from England, and were ministers in the society of Friends. At the age of 15 he was placed with his elder brother, a merchant in Philadelphia, but re- tained a fondness for natural objects. With Prof. Vanuxem, then a youth, he collected minerals, fossils, &c., and observed the rocks of Pennsylvania. In 1815 both were elected members of the academy of natural sciences of Philadelphia, and Mr. Lea shortly after pub- lished his first paper in the " Journal of the Academy," being an account of the minerals which he had observed in the neighborhood of Philadelphia. To a collection of minerals and geological specimens made by his own exertions, those of palaeontology and recent shells were added, which at the present time have grown to great magnitude ; that of fresh- water shells is entirely unequalled, the family of unionidaz alone consisting of about 9,500 selected specimens of both sexes, all ages and varieties, and of wide geographical distribu- tion. In 1821 he joined the firm of his father- in-law, Mathew Carey, who was engaged in the largest publishing business in the United States. In 1827 he began a series of memoirs on new forms of fresh-water and land shells, which have been continued to the present time. These were published in the "Transactions of the Philosophical Society," vols. iii. to x., and in the " Journal of the Academy of Natural Sci- ences," vols. iii. to vi., and separately under the title of " Observations on the Genus Unio," &c. (13 vols. 4to, 1827 etseq. ; the 13th volume being prepared for press in 1873). In 1832 he visited Europe, and in 1833 published "Con- tributions to Geology," consisting of descrip- tions of 228 species of tertiary fossils from Alabama, illustrated with great exactness in colors. He retired from business in 1851, and his time has since been devoted to his favorite scientific pursuits. In all he has read 157 original papers to learned societies. In 1852 he made a second visit to Europe, and soon after his return published, in large folio, with colored plates, " Fossil Footmarks in the Red Sandstones of Pottsville," intended to illustrate the remarkable discovery made by himself of saurian footprints in the red sandstone 700 ft. below the conglomerate of the coal formation at Pottsville, and named by him sauropus pri- mcevus. This discovery was of great interest, as it had been believed until within a few years that no " air-breathing animal " had ex- isted even so low as the coal measures. In another memoir he described the bones and teeth of a saurian from the new red sandstones of Pennsylvania. These constituted the first bones and teeth observed in this formation in the United States, and the animal was named by him clepsysaurus Pennsylvanicus. These discoveries were followed by others which have been communicated to the academy of natural sciences. Mr. Lea has contemplated the publication of a large work on the unwnidcs of the United States, which is to be a complete monograph of the genera and species of that family. His memoirs published within the last 46 years are preparatory to this object. He was elected a member of the American philo- sophical society in 1828, and subsequently of the zoological society of London, the Linnsean society of Bordeaux, the imperial society of natural history of Moscow, honorary mem- ber of the Asiatic society of Bengal, &c. In December, 1858, he was elected president of the academy of natural sciences of Philadel- phia. Among his works, besides those already mentioned, are " Description of a New Genus of the Family Melaniana" (8vo, 1851), and "Synopsis of the Family of Naiades" (4th ed. enlarged, 4to, 1870). II. Thomas Gibson, an American botanist, brother of the preceding, born in Wilmington, Del., Dec. 14, 1785, died in Waynes ville, O., Sept. 25, 1844. He was engaged in mercantile affairs until his 43d year, when he retired from business and devo- ted himself to botany. He left an extensive herbarium with the synonomy and description of many new species, and an unfinished cata- logue. A " Catalogue of Plants, Native and Naturalized, collected in the Vicinity of Cin'