LEVY, AUGUSTE MICHEL (1844- ), French geologist, was born in Paris on the 7th of August 1844. He became inspector-general of mines, and director of the Geological Survey of France. He was distinguished for his researches on eruptive rocks, their microscopic structure and origin; and he early employed the polarizing microscope for the determination of minerals. In his many contributions to scientific journals he described the granulite group, and dealt with pegmatites, variolites, eurites, the ophites of the Pyrenees, the extinct volcanoes of Central France, gneisses, and the origin of crystalline schists. He wrote Structures et classification des roches éruptives (1889), but his more elaborate studies were carried on with F. Fouqué. Together they wrote on the artificial production of felspar, nepheline and other minerals, and also of meteorites, and produced Minéralogie micrographique (1879) and Synthèse des minéraux et des roches (1882). Levy also collaborated with A. Lacroix in Les Minéraux des roches (1888) and Tableau des minéraux des roches (1889).
LEVY (Fr. levée, from lever, Lat. levare, to lift, raise), the raising of money by the collection of an assessment, &c., a tax or compulsory contribution; also the collection of a body of men for military or other purposes. When all the able-bodied men of a nation are enrolled for service, the French term levée en masse, levy in mass, is frequently used.
LEWALD, FANNY (1811-1889), German author, was born at Königsberg in East Prussia on the 24th of March 1811, of Jewish parentage. When seventeen years of age she embraced Christianity, and after travelling in Germany, France and Italy, settled in 1845 at Berlin. Here, in 1854, she married the author, Adolf Wilhelm Theodor Stahr (1805-1876), and removed after his death in 1876 to Dresden, where she resided, engaged in literary work, until her death on the 5th of August 1889. Fanny Lewald is less remarkable for her writings, which are mostly sober, matter-of-fact works, though displaying considerable talent and culture, than for her championship of “women’s rights,” a question which she was practically the first German woman to take up, and for her scathing satire on the sentimentalism of the Gräfin Hahn Hahn. This authoress she ruthlessly attacked in the exquisite parody (Diogena, Roman von Iduna Gräfin H.... H.... (2nd ed., 1847). Among the best known of her novels are Klementine (1842); Prinz Louis Ferdinand (1849; 2nd ed., 1859); Das Mädchen von Hela (1860); Von Geschlecht zu Geschlecht (8 vols., 1863-1865); Benvenuto (1875), and Stella (1883; English by B. Marshall, 1884). Of her writings in defence of the emancipation of women Osterbriefe für die Frauen (1863) and Für und wider die Frauen (1870) are conspicuous. Her autobiography, Meine Lebensgeschichte (6 vols., 1861-1862), is brightly written and affords interesting glimpses of the literary life of her time.
A selection of her works was published under the title Gesammelte Schriften in 12 vols. (1870-1874). Cf. K. Frenzel, Erinnerungen und Strömungen (1890).
LEWANIKA (c. 1860- ), paramount chief of the Barotse and subject tribes occupying the greater part of the upper Zambezi basin, was the twenty-second of a long line of rulers, whose founder invaded the Barotse valley about the beginning of the 17th century, and according to tradition was the son of a woman named Buya Mamboa by a god. The graves of successive ruling chiefs are to this day respected and objects of pilgrimage for purposes of ancestor worship. Lewanika was born on the upper Kabompo in troublous times, where his father—Letia, a son of a former ruler—lived in exile during the interregnum of a foreign dynasty (Makololo), which remained in possession from about 1830 to 1865, when the Makololo were practically exterminated in a night by a well-organized revolt. Once more masters of their own country, the Barotse invited Sepopa, an uncle of Lewanika, to rule over them. Eleven years of brutality and licence resulted in the tyrant’s expulsion and subsequent assassination, his place being taken by Ngwana-Wina, a nephew. Within a year abuse of power brought about this chief’s downfall (1877), and he was succeeded by Lobosi, who assumed the name of Lewanika in 1885. The early years of his reign were also stained by many acts of blood, until in 1884 the torture and murder of his own brother led to open rebellion, and it was only through extreme presence of mind that the chief escaped with his life into exile. His cousin, Akufuna or Tatela, was then proclaimed chief. It was during his brief reign that François Coillard, the eminent missionary, arrived at Lialui, the capital. The following year Lewanika, having collected his partisans, deposed the usurper and re-established his power. Ruthless revenge not unmixed with treachery characterized his return to power, but gradually the strong personality of the high-minded François Coillard so far influenced him for good that from about 1887 onward he ruled tolerantly and showed a consistent desire to better the condition of his people. In 1890 Lewanika, who two years previously had proposed to place himself under the protection of Great Britain, concluded a treaty with the British South Africa Company, acknowledging its supremacy and conceding to it certain mineral rights. In 1897 Mr R. T. Coryndon took up his position at Lialui as British agent, and the country to the east of 25° E. was thrown open to settlers, that to the west being reserved to the Barotse chief. In 1905 the king of Italy’s award in the Barotse boundary dispute with Portugal deprived Lewanika of half of his dominions, much of which had been ruled by his ancestors for many generations. In 1902 Lewanika attended the coronation of Edward VII. as a guest of the nation. His recognized heir was his eldest son Letia.
See [Barotse], and the works there cited, especially On the Threshold of Central Africa (London, 1897), by François Coillard.