838 L Y O 
debted. Under his aufpices, the mechanifm of arts ar¬ 
rived to great perfection. Time and labour were econo¬ 
mized, and French productions acquired a noted fupe- 
riority over others. 
Confiderable numbers of the citizens are occupied in 
cultivating the furrounding high-lands, which are natu¬ 
rally Iterile and unproductive. It is univerfally admitted, 
that the entire Department of the Rhone, which contains 
135 fquare leagues, is fo mountainous, that it does not pro¬ 
duce corn fufticient to ferve Lyons two months in the 
year. The price of bread, the ftaple and alinoft foie food 
of the poorer people, is comparatively high. Generally, 
the land is compofed of a very light, gravelly, and fome- 
times calcareous, loam, which owes molt of its fertility to 
the vapours which a rife from the rivers, and depofit their 
humidity on the adjacent hills. In thefe mountains are 
found blue limeftone, calcareous fpar, fchiitofe mica, le- 
pidolite, gneifs, hornblende, quartz, common fand-ltone, 
and granite. The labour is chiefly performed by the wo¬ 
men, the men being too lazy or indolent to work in the 
fields; leaving it to the female fex to manure, till, and 
low, their lands. To effeCl this, much labour is required ; 
and thefe poor women are not unfrequently obliged to 
carry manure upon their backs, where the declivity is fo 
upright that the afcent of afl'es is impracticable. Here 
the produCl in corn is certainly a very poor recompenfe; 
vines are fomewhat more advantageous ; not that the 
quantity of wine is either great or good, but that they are 
fomewhat eafler to cultivate on the face of fuch declivi¬ 
ties. I11 general the wines are very inferior; are poor, 
thin, and vapid ; the more itrong and lively wines of Bur¬ 
gundy and Champaigne fell very high. The fruits and 
vegetables too are both high-priced, and of very indif¬ 
ferent quality ; as much inferior as they are dearer than 
thofe of Paris. Of the aCtual ftate of agriculture, both 
here and throughout all France, it may be truly faid, that 
it is all and every-where tilled, but no-where cultivated. 
The climate of Lyons is cold, notwithftanding its fouth- 
ern fituation. On one fide are chains of mountains from 
two to five thouland feet high, on the other the hoary- 
headed Alps, where refrigerating breezes inceffantly 
fpring. At noon, during the fummer months, the heat 
is confiderable ; but the mornings and evenings are con¬ 
tinually frefli, and not unfrequently chilling. In winter 
the frofis are often long and very intenfe. Agues and 
other nervous difeafes are common ; and the Convent of 
St. Anthony was formerly an hofpital called Damns coit- 
iraBoria a con.traB.ione nervorum. Various are the Abatements 
of the actual population of this city; eftimates of the 
number of its inhabitants have varied, according to the 
prejudice of the calculator, from 120 to 78,000, all of 
which were called official returns! The authors of the 
Statiflique Generale de France have gratuitoufly given it 
109,500 perfons ; but, as is ufual with thole writers, with¬ 
out entering into any details; a later account lets it down 
at 88,919. Monthly Mag. for May 1803. and Dec. 1804.. 
LY'ONS, a town of New York, in Ontario county : 
fixteen miles north of Genefee. 
LY'ONS (Ifrael), an able mathematician and botanifl, 
was the fon of a Polilh Jew, who fettled at Cambridge in 
England, where he followed the bufineifs of a filverlrnith, 
and alfo taught the Hebrew language ; and where the Sub¬ 
ject of this article was born in the year 1739. When very 
young he exhibited indications of extraordinary talents 
and ingenuity, and difcovered a Itrong inclination for 
learning, particularly for the mathematics; on which ac¬ 
count he was much putronifed by Dr. Smith, mailer, of. 
Trinity-college. That gentleman offered to fend him to 
School at his own expenfe ; but young Lyons could only 
be perfuaded to avail himfelf for a few days of that li¬ 
beral propolal, faying, that, “ he could learn more by 
himfelf in an hour than in a day with his malter.” About 
the year 1755 he began to fiudy botany, to which he oc- 
cafionally continued his attention till Ins death. In this 
fcience he made confiderable progrefs, being able to re- 
L Y P 
member not only the Linnaean names of almoft all the 
Englilh plants, but even the fynonyma of the old bota- 
nifts, which form a ftrange and barbarous farrago of great 
bulk. He had alfo prepared large materials for a Flora 
Cantabrigienfis, defcribing fully every part of each plant 
from the fpecimen, without being obliged to confult, or 
being liable to be milled by, former authors. In the year 
1758, he acquired much celebrity by publiffiing A Trea- 
tife on Fluxions, which he dedicated to his early patron. 
Dr. Smith. This was followed, in 1763, by his “ Fafci- 
culus Plantarum circa Cantabrigiam nafcentium, quae poll 
Raium obfervatae fuere,” 8vo. Either in this year, pr the 
preceding, on the invitation of Mr. now fir Jofeph Banks, 
bart. and prefident of the Royal Society, whom he firft in- 
ftruCted in botany, he was induced to read a courfe of 
lectures in that fcience at the univerfity of Oxford. Thefe 
lectures lie. delivered with great applaufe, to an audience 
of at leaft fixty pupils; but he could not be prevailed 
upon to make a long.abfence from Cambridge. Forlome 
time Mr. Lyons was employed as one of the calculators 
of the Nautical Almanac; for which Service he received 
an annual Salary of iool. and lie was frequently recom¬ 
pensed by other prefents from the Board of Longitude, 
for his own inventions. He had alfo fludied the Englifli 
liiltory, and could quote whole paflages from the monk- 
ilh writers verbatim. In the year 1773, he was appointed 
by the Board of Longitude to accompany captain Phipps, 
afterwards lord Mulgrave, during his voyage towards the 
north pole, in the capacity of altronomical observer; and 
he discharged that employment entirely to the Satisfaction 
of his employers. Soon after his return from this expe¬ 
dition, he married and fettled in London, where, in about 
t.wo years, lie died of the meafles. At the time of his 
death, Mr. Lyons was engaged in preparing for the prefs 
a complete edition of all the works of the learned Dr. 
Halley; which would have proved a very defirable pre¬ 
sent to the fcientific world. In the fixty-fifth volume of 
the Phil.Tranf. for the year 1775, are inferted his Cal¬ 
culations on Spherical Trigonometry abridged;, and after 
his death, his name appeared in the title page of A Geo¬ 
graphical Dictionary, the altronomical parts of which were 
Said to be “ taken from the papers of the late Mr. Ifrasl 
Lyons, of Cambridge, author of Several valuable mathe¬ 
matical productions, and alironomer in lord Mulgrave’s 
voyage to the northern hemisphere.” We may add, that 
the altronomical and other mathematical calculations, 
printed in the account el that voyage, were made by our 
author. As to “The Scholar’s Inftru&or, or Hebrew 
Grammar, by Ilrael Lyons ;”ar.d another treatile, entitled, 
“ Observations and Enquiries relating to various Parts of 
Scripture Hiftory,” 1761, they were the productions of 
our author’s father. Nichols's Anecdotes ofBowyer, 
LYON'S!A, f. [from the fubjeCt of the preceding ar¬ 
ticle.] In botany, a genus of the dais pentandria, order 
rnonogynia, natural order contortte, Linn, (apocineae, 
Juf. Brown.) Generic effentiai characters—Corolla fun- 
nel-ffiaped ; its mouth and tube without feales ; limb in 
five deep, recurved, equilateral Segments. Stamens pro¬ 
minent; filaments thread-fhaped, inferred into the mid¬ 
dle of the tube ; antherte arrow-lhaped, cohering with the 
Stigma by the middle, their hind lobes void of pollen. 
Germen of two cells; ftyle one, thread-ffiaped, dilated at 
the top ; fligma Somewhat conical. Scales at the bale of 
the germen combined. Capfule cylindrical, of two cells, 
its valves like follicles, with a parallel diltinCt partition, 
bearing the Seeds on each fide upon fixed receptacles. 
Lyoniia ftraminea, the only Species, gathered by Mr, 
Brown at Port Jackion, and in Van Diemen’s Lanfl. A 
climbing fhrub, with oppofite leaves. Cymes terminal, 
three-forked. Flowers among the lmalle.it of this tribe ; 
their limbs bearded. 
LYPERAN'TfiUS, J. [from the Gr. Kvtt/i, fadnefs, 
and m 9 cs, a flower; becaufe of the very dark-red gloomy 
hue of the bloffoms, which is nnulual in this tribe.] In 
botany, a genus of the clafs gynandria, order monandria, 
natural 
