b. August 31, 1797 and d. September 26, 1867

Scotch-American civil engineer and astronomer. He was assistant civil engineer on the Erie Canal in 1817-1819; assistant surveyor on the Boundary Commission under the Treaty of Ghent in 1819-1822; astronomical surveyor in 1822-1827; civil engineer for the State of Pennsylvania in 1827-1832; first assistant of the United States Coast Survey in 1833-1847, and assistant astronomer of the United States Naval Observatory from 1847 until his death. While there he discovered three asteroids.

These earthly godfathers of heaven’s lights,
That gives a name to every fix’d star,
Have no more profit of their shining nights,
Than those who walk, and wot not what they are.

—Love’s Labor Lost: Shakespeare

1761—James Brindley practiced pudding of clay in making the walls of canals water-tight.

1796—Parker patented Parker’s cement, an argillaceous stone, calcined in kilns and afterwards reduced to powder.

1818—Macadam’s improved roads were introduced in London.

1824—Portland cement was first mentioned.

1833-1893, November 25—Johann Bauschinger lived. He was foremost among German engineers in investigating the strength of materials. He was at the head of the mechanical and technical laboratory of the Royal Bavarian Polytechnikum.

b. ? 1715 and d. ? 1773

French engineer. He drained marshes in Flanders and Hainault, which had been abandoned as impracticable; and also constructed sluices in rivers. The falls of water at Brunoy and Chaunteloup were his work. He constructed an artificial arm for an invalid soldier.

Difficult? Yes, it will be difficult. The short-
fiber Cotton; that too was difficult. The waste
cotton-shrub, long useless, disobedient, as the thistle
by the wayside,-have ye not conquered it; made it into
beautiful bandana webs: White woven shirts for men;
bright-tinted air-garments wherein flit goddesses?
Ye have shivered mountains asunder, made the hard
iron pliant to you as soft putty; the Forest-giants,
Marsh-jötuns bear sheaves of golden grain; Ægir the
Sea-demon himself stretches his back for a sleek
highway to you, and on Firehorses and Windhorses
ye career. Ye are most strong. Thor red-bearded,
with his blue sun-eyes, with his cheery heart and
strong thunder-hammer, he and you have prevailed.
Ye are most strong, ye Sons of the icy North, of
the far East,- far marching from your rugged
Eastern Wilderness, hitherward from the gray Dawn
of Time! Ye are Sons of the Jötun-land; the land
of Difficulties Conquered. Difficult? You must
try this thing. Once try it with the understanding
that it will and shall have to be done.

—Past and Present: Carlyle

b. September 25, 1807 and d. January 18, 1859

American inventor. He made the telegraph practicable. He produced the first available Morse machine and invented the first combination of the horizontal lever motion to actuate a pen, pencil or stylus, and then applied Morse’s telegraphic alphabet of dots, spaces and dashes, but Mr. Vail claims to have first applied it alphabetically. In 1844 he devised the lever and grooved roller which embossed on paper the characters, and the finger-key. On May 24, 1844, he received at Mount Claire Depot the first message from Washington. Prior to 1837 Morse and Joseph Henry worked alone; from 1837-’44 Morse, Henry and Vail worked together, and the parts that Morse contributed were eliminated.

Thought awakens: now before us
Lies the world in one embrace;
Quickly nation after nation
The electric wires enlace;
Land to land is nearer drawing,
City unto city bound;
Space becomes annihilated,
Thought begirts the world around;
Thought hath scaled the lofty mountains,
Valley unto valley chained;
Now it darts through ocean’s caverns;-
Thought triumphant is proclaimed.

—Thought and the Telegraph: G. A. Hamilton