LAMB'S QUARTERS, one of the names most commonly given to the widely diffused cosmopolitan weed, Chenopodiurn album, of the goosefoot family (Chenopodiaceae), growing in moist soil throughout all agricultural regions, except in the ex treme north. It is an erect, usu ally slender, much branched, pale green annual, I ft. to io ft. high, with somewhat lance-shaped, more or less lobed or toothed, three-nerved leaves, 1 in. to 4 in. long, commonly white-mealy be neath. The very numerous small green flowers are borne in dense terminal or axillary clusters. The seeds, which are usually matured in great profusion, are very small, black and shining. While exceedingly abundant and of rapid growth, this weed is readily controlled in fields in which the growing crop is frequently cultivated, and, because of its later germination, does not usu ally become injurious in fields of growing grain. The young shoots of this plant are sometimes used as pot-herb, like spinach. Lamb's quarters and also Amarantus retroflexus and A. hybridus, likewise of very wide distribution,
are also called (See CHENOPODIUM. ) LAME, GABRIEL (1795-187o), French mathematician, was born at Tours on July 22, 1795, and educated at the Poly technic school, Paris. He went to Russia as an engineer; returned to France in 1832, and was appointed professor of physics in the Polytechnic school. He contributed many memoirs to Liouville's Journal, mostly dealing with theories of elasticity and heat. He solves the problem concerning the equilibrium of temperature in an ellipsoid by introducing functions now known as Lame's func tions (Liouville's Journal, 1836). He died in Paris on May 1, 187o.
His works include : Cours de physique (3 vols., Paris, 1st. ed., 1837) ; Lecons sur la, theorie mathematique de l'elasticite (1852, st ed.) ; Les fonctions inverses des transcendantes et les surfaces isothermes (1857) ; Les co-ordonnees curvilignes (1859) ; La theorie analytique de la chaleur (1861).