Lena

Lena, a river of eastern Siberia, 3000 miles long, rises amid the mountains on the north-west shore of Lake Baikal, in the government of Irkutsk, flows first NE. to Yakutsk, where it is 6 1/2 miles wide, then N. to the Arctic Ocean, into which it falls by several mouths, forming a delta 250 miles wide. It receives the Vilui (1300 miles) on the left, and the Vitim (1400), Olekma (800), and Aldan (1300) on the right. Navigation is open from Yakutsk upwards from May till October. During spring the waters overflow their banks. See Melville's In the Lena Delta (1885).

Lencoran

Lencoran, a Russian seaport on the Caspian Sea, 130 miles S. of Baku. Near it are sulphur-springs. Pop. 5540. Persia ceded it in 1813.

Lencziza

Lencziza, an ancient Polish town. 80 miles WSW. of Warsaw. Pop. 15,546.

Lennep

Lennep, a town of Rhenish Prussia, 18 miles E. of Dusseldorf. Pop. 9844.

Lennox

Lennox (Levenachs, ' fields of the Leven'), an ancient Scottish territory, comprising the basin of the Leven and Loch Lomond - the whole of Dumbartonshire, great part of Stirlingshire, and a portion of Perthshire. The Lennox Hills, between Dumbarton and Stirling, attain 1894 feet. The Lennox gave name to an earldom (1174-1581), and then to a dukedom, conferred by Charles II. in 1680 on one of his illegitimate sons, Charles, Duke of Richmond and Lennox, who in 1702 sold the Lennox estates to the Marquis of Montrose. See The Lennox, by Sir W. Fraser (3 vols. 1874).

Lennoxtown

Lennoxtown, a village of Stirlingshire, 11 miles N. by E. of Glasgow by rail, with bleach-works, print-works, and alum-works. Pop. 2638.

Lens

Lens (Long), a town in the French dep. of Pas-de-Calais, 17 miles by rail SW. of Lille. Here are coal-mines, sugar-factories, etc. Pop. 24,862.

Lentini

Lentini (anc. Leontini), a town of Sicily, on a lake, 17 miles SW. of Catania. Pop. 17,740.

Leobschutz

Leobschutz, a town in Prussian Silesia, 24 miles by rail NW. of Ratibor. Pop. 15,239.

Leominster

Leominster (Lemster), a market-town of Herefordshire, on the Lug, 13 miles N. of Hereford. A monastery was founded here in 658; and the fine church of a later priory presents every style from Norman to Perpendicular. The quaint old timber Butter Cross (1633) was in 1855 transferred to a new site to make room for an Italian town-hall; there is also a corn exchange (1859). Leather gloves are the staple manufacture, and there is a great trade in hops and cider. Incorporated as a municipal borough by Queen Mary, Leominster till 1868 returned two members, and till 1885 one. Pop. (1851) 5214; (1901) 5826. See local histories by Price (1795) and Townsend (1863).

Leonforte

Leonfor'te, a walled Sicilian town, 49 miles by rail W. by N. of Catania. Pop. 19,645.

Lepanto

Lepanto (anc. Naupactus; mod. Greek Epakto), a small town of Greece, seat of a bishop, is situated on the north side of the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth. Near it was fought the great naval battle in which the Papal, Venetian, and Spanish galleys under Don John of Austria defeated the Turks, 7th October 1571.