Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Isaac LEA
Isaac engaged in the wholesale importing business of his eldest brother, John Lea. In 1814 he joined a volunteer rifle company which offered its services to the Governor and held itself in readiness to march at any time. The English army was then in possession of Washington, and the need seemed urgent, but in the following autumn, the Governor disbanded the company. For this volunteering act, he lost his birthright in the Society of Friends.
Isaac entered the publishing house of his father-in-law in 1821 and became a member of the firm of M. Carey & Sons, then the most extensive publishers in the United States. He retired form the firm of Lea & Febiger in 1851. In 1828 he became a member of the "Wistar Association" of which he was Dean from 1841 to 1861. In 1832 and again in 1852, he went to Europe to meet the learned men there in his special branches; geology, Mineralogy and Conchology. From 1851 his life was devoted entirely to scientific research and writing. He was most prolific, His works numbering 279. He was made Doctor of Laws by Harvard University in 1852. His contributions to science at home and abroad was of great importance. The issues of the Academy of Natural Sciences and the American Philosophical Society for sixty years justify this fact. More than fifty American and foreign Societies conferred thew honor of membership on him.
ISAAC LEA, one of the most eminent of Philadelphia scientists, was born in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1792. Early in life he developed a fondness for the study of nature, which was encouraged by his mother, who was well versed in botany. To this study he added geology and mineralogy. His parents were Friends, but he lost his birthright in the Society by joining a military company in 1814, though the company was not called into service. In 1815 he was elected a member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, and soon began contributing to its Proceedings. In 1821, having married
the daughter of Mathew Carey, the book publisher, he became a partner in the business, with which he remained connected till 185I.
His attention to business did not decrease his diligence in scientific research, all his leisure being given to the study of natural history, and particularly to that of land and fresh-water shells, of which he began a series of descriptions of newly-discovered species, which was continued throughout his life. His attention was particularly directed to the wide-spread and diversified genus Unio, on which his first paper was published in i827. His total contributions to the literature of this genus, entitled " Observations on the Genus Unio," embrace thirteen quarto volumes, magnificently illustrated. His collection of Unionidoc contains io,ooo specimens. In 1833 the results of his geological studies were embodied in
a work named "Contributions to Geology," the best illustrated paleontological work which had appeared in the United States up to that time. Twenty years afterwards, in 1853, he published " Fossil Footmarks in the Red Sandstones of Pottsville," in which are described footprints in sandstones seven hundred feet below the conglomerates of the coal formation. He subsequently found in the same strata bones and teeth of an animal which he named Clepsysaurus Pennsylvanicus. The existence of an air-breathing animal so low as the coal measures had not before been definitely known.
In 1858 Mr. Lea was elected President of the Academy of Natural Sciences, and held this chair till 1863.
In 1860 he officiated as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The members of this association, and of the British association of the same name, were entertained by him at his residence in Long Branch in I884. He was a member of many other scientific societies in the United States and Europe, and in I852 received from Harvard University the honorary degree of LL.D.
Mr. Lea's contributions on conchology to the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society are looked upon as the most valuable that have yet appeared on that subject. His discoveries in all embrace nearly 2000 new species, while, in addition to his extensive collection of shells, his museum includes numerous fine examples of minerals, fossils, geological specimens, etc. All these were bequeathed by him to the National Museum at Washington, with the provison that they should be kept in a special room, and named the "Isaac Lea Collection."
Mr. Lea died in i886. In the same year a sketch of him, biographical and bibliographical, prepared
by N. P. Scudder, was published by the Smithsonian Institution.
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