b. January 29, 1798 and d. October 28, 1856

American civil engineer and inventor. In 1830 he devised and constructed an apparatus for measuring the base line of the trigonometrical survey of Massachussetts. Later he was engaged in the construction of railways. In 1851 he accomplished the feat of stringing a telegraph wire across the Hudson River from the Palisades to Fort Washington.

He rends the oak, and bids it ride
To guard the shores its beauty graced;
He smites the rock—upheavel in pride,
See towers of strength and domes of taste.
Earth’s teeming caves their wealth reveal;
Fire bears his banner on the wave,
He bids the mortal poison heal,
And leaps triumphant o’er the grave.

—Genius Slumbering: Percival

Reason’s comparing balance rules the whole.
Man, but for that, no action could attend,
And but for this, were active to no end;
Fix’d like a plant on his peculiar spot,
To draw nutrition, propagate and not:
Or, meteor-like, flame lawless through the void,
Destroying others, by himself destroy’d.
Most strength the moving principle requires;
Active its task, it prompts, impels, inspires.

—Essay on Man: Pope

1816, August 6—U. S. Coast and Geodetic surveys were begun by F. R. Hasler.

Only $ 13.00

b. January 29, 1817 and d. September 18, 1891

American astronomer and meteorologist. He developed a theory of the gyroscope or rotascope; of vision and of the stereoscope; of the irregularity in the period of Algol, and of radiation. He filled out Newton’s and La Place’s tidal theories, and announced the retardation of the earth’s rotation. He has done more than any other single person to establish on firm foundations the mechanics of meteorology. He invented the maxima and minima tide-predicting machine. He has written “Motions of Fluids and Solids Relative to the Earth’s Surface” (1859); “Tidal Researches” (1874), and “Temperature of the Atmosphere and the Earth’s Surface” (1884).

Say, why should the collected main
Itself within itself contain?
Why to its caverns should it sometimes creep
And with delighted silence sleep
On the lov’d bosom of its parent deep?
Why should its num’rous waters stay
In comely discipline and fair array,
Till winds and tides exert their high commands?
Then prompt and ready to obey,
Why do the rising surges spread
Their op’ning ranks o’er earth’s submissive head,
Marching through different paths to different lands?

—Prior

400 B. C.—An areometer was invented in Alexandria.