b. October 9, 1852 and d. ?

German chemist. He has succeeded in synthetizing fruit and grape sugars. The hydrazines, which stand near relation to the diazo-compounds, were discovered by him in 1875.

The glorious sun
Stays in his course, and plays the alchemist;
Turning with splendor of his precious eye,
The meager cloddy earth to glittering gold (sweet).

—King John: Shakespeare

From Nature’s magic hand whose touch makes sadness
Eventual gladness,
The reverent moral Alchemist may learn
The art to turn
Fate’s roughest, hardest, most forbidding dross,
Into the metal gold that knows not change or loss.

—Horace Smith

1753, April 28-1821, April 20—Charles Frederick Achard lived. He extracted sugar from beets successfully, and in his essays on the subject, he contributed much to introduce this industry into France.

1811—Sugar was made from starch by Kischof at St. Petersburg.

1817 (about)—Arfwedson discovered lithium.

1824—Cobalt blue was discovered by Johann F. Kopfner.

1869—G. C. Caldwell published the pioneer work on agricultural analysis.

Only $ 12.00

b. October 8, 1846 and ?

American artist and engraver. One of the founders of the American Society of Wood-Engravers. As an engraver he takes rank with the best in the country.

The world is always ready to receive talent with
open arms. Very often it does not know what to do
with genius. Talent is a docile creature. It bows
its head meekly while the world slips the collar
over it. It backs into the shafts like a lamb. It
draws its load cheerfully, and is patient of the
bit and of the whip. But genius is always impatient
of its harness; its wild blood makes it hard to
train. Talent is a very common family-trait;
genius belongs rather to individuals. Talent is
often to be envied, and genius very commonly to be
pitied. It is a perpetual insult to mediocrity; its
every word is a trespass against somebody’s vested
ideas.

—The Professor at the Breakfast-Table: Holmes

1755-1803, December 6—Nicholas Jacques Conte lived. He invented a hydraulic machine; in 1793 he secured the decomposition of water by iron instead of sulphuric acid. He invented a graving machine which economized the time and trouble of artists, and introduced in France the manufacture of crayons.

1763—Aquatinta was greatly improved at Paris.

1818—Engraving on soft steel, which was afterwards to be hardened, was introduced into England by Perkins and Heath, of Philadelphia, U. S. A.

1870, January 17—Alexander Anderson, the first wood engraver in America, died.