LEMUR 



3379 



LENS 



and hot lemonade is highly valued for break- 

 ing up a cold. Lemon juice will restore the 

 color to cloth discolored by alkali stains; its 

 efficacy in removing such spots from the hands 

 is well known. Medicinally, it has mildly 

 laxative qualities. Calico printers use it to 

 produce greater clearness in the white part of 

 patterns dyed with colors containing iron, and 

 it is also an important source of commercial 

 citric acid (which see). 



The Industry in America. From two great 

 fruit-bearing states, California and Florida, is 

 obtained practically the entire lemon crop of 

 the United States, which amounts annually to 

 about 2,770,000 boxes, valued at nearly $3,000,- 

 000. Of this output, California produces 99Mj 

 per cent, the yearly crop averaging 2,756,000 

 boxes, or 5,000 carloads, valued at about 

 $2,976,500. Each year there are imported into 

 the United States and Canada over 150,000,000 

 pounds of the fruit, having a value of over 

 $6,000,000. Nearly all importations are from 

 Italy, of which the United States 'is becoming 

 a keen competitor. B.M.W. 



LEMUR, lee' mur, an animal allied to the 

 monkey, native to Madagascar, though also 

 found in Africa, India and the Comoro Islands. 

 The lemur is lower in the zoological scale than 

 the ape and the monkey, its brain being simpler 



THE LEMUR 



in structure. It is a pretty little animal, about 

 the size of a cat, with soft fur and long, bushy 

 tail. The head is round and the nose so long 

 and pointed that it has been called the fox- 

 nosed monkey. It lives in trees, eats fruits, 

 insects, small birds, eggs, reptiles, etc. Of the 

 fifty species the 'best known are the ring- 

 tailed, which is gray in color with black and 

 white rings around its tail; the ruffled, one of 

 the largest of the species; the mouse lemur, 

 which is about the size of a rat; the indris, 

 which is black with white legs. The lemur is 

 easily tamed and is very playful in captivity. 

 Lemur means ghost, a name given the little 

 animal on account of its spectral appearance 



and its habit of feeding at night. Its howl 

 resembles that of a dog, and for this reason 

 the natives of Madagascar give it a name 

 which means dog of the forest. 



LE'NA, a river of Eastern Siberia, the main 

 trade artery of a large district. It rises on 

 the slopes of the Baikal Mountains, 186 miles 

 northeast of Irkutsk. Its entire length is 2,700 

 miles, the whole of which lies in the Russian 

 dominions. At Irkutsk it attains a width of 

 six miles, then flows north to the Arctic Ocean, 

 where it forms a delta 250 miles wide. The 

 chief tributaries are the Vilim, Kirenga, 

 Olekma, Aldan and Vilyui. There is little 

 agricultural land along its upper course, and 

 it becomes navigable at its junction with the 

 Kuta River, about 430 miles from its source. 

 Along its middle course the country is sparsely 

 inhabited by Yakuts, a people who live by 

 fishing. The river drains an area of about one 

 million square miles, nearly equal to one-third 

 the area of Canada. 



LENINE, NIKOLAI (1870- ), whose real 

 name is ULADIMIR ILITCH ULYANOFF, is a Rus- 

 sian, who with Trotzky, became dictator in the 

 bolshevik regime after the overthrow of the 

 provisional republican government of 1917. He 

 was the autocrat who by the end of 1918 was 

 leader and virtual master of the bolshevist 

 forces of the world. 



Lenine was bora of a family of caste. By 

 1905 he had become a member of the Duma, 

 but was expelled for his revolutionary utter- 

 ances, and sought refuge in Switzerland, where 

 he remained until 1917. In accord with Ger- 

 man plans he gained entrance to Russia in 

 May, 1917, and began to spread propaganda 

 against the Kerensky government and to pro- 

 pose peace with Germany. He was arrested, 

 but was released, and in November became 

 the most famous man in Russia by heading the 

 new revolutionary government, with the title 

 of Premier. His theories spread into Germany 

 and Hungary, and in the latter state the bolshe- 

 vists, under Bela Kun, Lenine 's Hungarian emis- 

 sary, gained control of the government in 1919. 

 See RUSSIA; WAR OF THE NATIONS, TROTZKY, 

 LEON. 



LENNI-LENAPE, len'i len'ape. See DELA- 

 WARE (Indians). 



LENS, lenz, a transparent substance, having 

 at least one curved surface. Lenses thickest 

 in the middle are convex; those thickest at 

 the edges are concave. The six kinds of lenses 

 are shown in the figure on page 3380, and there 

 is explanation of their forms. 



