ISAAC LEA. 



1792-1886. 



FEW naturalists have enjoyed a longer working life, or 

 been able to make it more fruitful in finished achievement, 

 than Isaac Lea. His first paper, being a simple account of the 

 minerals then known to exist in the vicinity of Philadelphia, 

 was published in 1818. Additions to this contribution were 

 made but slowly for a few years, but as the list swelled they 

 became frequent, giving evidence of indefatigable industry in 

 research; and the last paper, standing as No. 279 on the cata- 

 logue, is dated 1876, closing a record of fifty-eight years of 

 productive activity. During most of this time Dr. Lea was 

 associated in the conduct of a large publishing house, and was 

 able to give only his hours of leisure to science. 



Isaac Lea was born in Wilmington, Delaware, March 4, 

 1792. He was descended from ancestors who came over from 

 Gloucestershire, England, with William Penn, and were de- 

 scribed as " a couple of noted and valued preachers." He was 

 the fifth son of James Lea, a wholesale merchant, and Eliza- 

 beth, daughter of Thomas Gibson, and was at first put in 

 a course of classical instruction at the academy in Wilmington, 

 in preparation for the medical profession. This purpose was 

 afterward given up, and, when he was fifteen years old, Isaac 

 was sent to Philadelphia to engage in mercantile business in 

 association with his brother. The business panic which fol- 

 lowed the peace of 1815 broke up the firm, and in 1820 Mr. 

 Lea married Frances Ann, daughter of Mathew Carey, at that 

 time the leading publisher and bookseller in the United States. 

 He entered the house of M. Carey & Sons, which he continued 

 under the well-known firms of Carey & Lea and Lea & Blanch- 

 ard until 1851, when he retired from business. The children 

 of his marriage were M. Carey Lea, whose researches in chem- 

 ical physics are widely known ; Henry Charles Lea, LL. D., 



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