b. October 20, 1810 and d. March 29, 1879

Columbia, 1829

American engineer, who also studied law. He was a railroad engineer and manager; also engineer to Croton Water Board of New York. He supervised the building of Central Park Reservoir; the enlargement of pipes across High Bridge and the construction of the reservoir at Boyd’s Corners, Putnam Country. He also built the New York Central Tunnel. Original member of the American Society of Civil Engineers; director for many years and president from November, 1869, to November, 1871.

Water leaps as if delighted,
While the conquered foes retire;
Pale contagion flees affrighted,
With the baffled demon Fire.
Water shouts a glad hosanna,
Bubbles up the earth to bless;
Cheers it like the precious manna
In the barren wilderness.

Round the aqueducts of story,
As the mists of Lethe throng:
Croton’s waves, in all their glory,
Troop in melody along,
Ever sparkling, bright and single,
Will this rock-ribbed spring appear,
When posterity shall mingle
Like the gathered waters here.

b. October 20, 1632 and d. February 25, 1723
Wadham College, Oxford

English architect and mathematician. At thirteen he invented an astronomical instrument and a pneumatic machine; at fifteen he wrote “A New System of Spherical Trigonometry.” He made many discoveries in astronomy, natural philosophy and other sciences. Between 1668 and 1718 he built St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Monument, the hospitals of Chelsea and Greenwich, various edifices at Oxford and Cambridge, Winchester Castle, the new part of Hampton Court and nearly sixty churches. He invented a planting implement. The practical use of the barometer to foretell the weather is attributed to him. He invented a method for the transfusion of blood from one animal to another. He contrived a thermometer to be its own register; an instrument to measure the rain that falls and he devised many subtle ways for easily finding the gravity of the atmosphere and the degrees of drought and moisture.

A man that is young in years may be old in
hours, if he have lost no time.

—Bacon

Age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

—Morituri Salutamus