b. May 31, 1744 and d. June 13, 1817

British inventor and author. A desire to know the result of a race led him to invent a plan for telegraphing. It is said to have been the first attempt. He made other inventions for sailing carriages and for a kind of velocipede. In 1768 he was awarded a silver medal for a land-measuring machine.

Whatever is, is in its causes just,
Since all things are by fate; but purblind man
Sees but a part o’ th’ chain-the nearest link,
His eyes not carrying to that equal beam
That poises all above.

—Oedipus: Dryden

Naturally, men will choose to learn poetry; from
the beginning of time they have done so. To immortal
verse the memory gives a willing, a joyous, and a
lasting home. However, some prose is poetical, is
poetry, and altogether worthy to be learned by heart,
and the learning is not so very difficult. It is not
difficult or toilsome to learn that which pleases us,
and the labor once given, is forgotten while the
result remains.

—Vernon Lushington

1818—A velocipede was invented by Joseph Nicphore Niepce.

1881—The Otto bicycle was first patented.

1890—Pneumatic tire safety bicycles were introduced.

1843, May 20—Albert Augustus Pope was born. He was America’s pioneer manufacturer of bicycles and the founder of the magazine “Outing.”

b. December 17, 1778 and d. May 30, 1829

English chemist, and the Father of Experimental Philosophy. His discovery of the properties of chlorine and his decomposition of earths by galvanisms wrought great changes in the science of chemistry. The metal he obtained from potash he called potassium; and from soda, sodium. He discovered barium, calcium and strontium in 1807. He invented the miner’s safety lamp. In 1802 he first showed the electric arc or “arch” on a small scale between pieces of carbon.

That lamp’s metallic gauze,
That curtain of protecting wire,
Which Davy delicately draws
Around explosive, dangerous fire.

Be this our trust, that ages (filled with light
More glorious far than those faint beams which shine
In this our feeble twilight) yet to come
Shall see distinctly what we now but hope,—
The world immutable in which alone
Wisdom is found, the light and life of things,
The breath divine, creating power divine,
The One of which the human intellect
Is but a type, as feeble as that image
Of the bright sun seen on the bursting wave—
Bright, but without distinctness; yet in passing
Showing its glorious and eternal source.

—Thought: Sir Humphrey Davy

1816, Jan. 9—Davy’s safety lamp first used in coal pit.

Only $ 51.00