b. July 28, 1809 and d. October 30, 1862

American astronomer. In 1848 he invented a chronograph for automatically measuring and recording right ascensions by an electro-magnetic mechanism; in 1849, an apparatus for the accurate measurement of large differences of declination which was attached to the equatorial in 1854. He discovered the duplicity of certain stars and made observations of nebulæ, solar spots, double stars and comets. He determined the longitude of Cincinnati and invented an apparatus for finding personal equations. His works include “The Planetary and Stellar Worlds” (New York, 1848); “The Orbs of Heaven” (1851); and “The Astronomy of the Bible” (1863).

The heavens themselves, the planets and this center,
Observe degree, priority, and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office, and custom, in all line of order.

—Troilus and Cressida: Shakespeare

From some superior point (where, who can tell?
Suffice it, ’tis a point where gods reside)
How shall the stronger man’s illumin’d eye,
In the vast ocean of unbounded space,
Behold an infinite of floating worlds
Divide the crystal waves of ether pure,
In endless voyage, without port? The least
Of these disseminated orbs, how great?

—Night Thoughts: Young

b. July 4, 1833 and d. October 29, 1898

American sanitary engineer. He was one of the engineers of the Central Park, New York, 1857-’61. In 1880, he executed the new sewerage works of Memphis, Tennessee. In 1895, he was appointed street commissioner of New York, where he established an efficient system of street cleaning. In 1898 he went to Havana to eradicate the causes of yellow fever and he himself became a victim of the disease. Among his books are “Elements of Agriculture” (1854), “Sanitary Drainage” (1875) and “Village Improvements and Farm Villages” (1877).

Call your light legions, tread the swampy heath,
Pierce with sharp spades the tremulous peat beneath;
With colters bright the rusty sward bisect,
And in new veins the gushing rills direct:-
So flowers shall rise in purple light array’d,
And blossom’d orchards stretch their silver shade;
Admiring glebes their amber ears unfold,
And Labour sleep amid the waving gold.

—Botanic Garden: Dr. Darwin

1812, October 18—Julius Walker Adams was born. He was a hydraulic, sanitary and railroad engineer. He established the Brooklyn system of sewers, 1856, and in 1860 was engineer of the New Haven (Conn.) water-works. He was the projector of the East River Suspension Bridge.

1870-’76—Garbage disposal plants were first erected and put in operation in Great Britain. 1887, first plant in the U. S. built at Des Moines, Iowa.

b. October 29, 1827 and d. ?

French chemist. He distinguished himself in the annals of mechanic arts by indicating the use of chlorine for dyeing. He also discovered acetylene an inflammable gas, about 1862.

In boyhood dreams my Fancy loved to look
Within the spirit-haunted cells of old,
Where great magicians dealt with things unknown;
Where crucibles and deadly alkalies,
Black liquors, crooked flasks, and frightful skulls,
Of Wisdom spake, that dared the realsm of Fear;-
Or, in laboratories richly built,
Where princess vied with plodding penury,
To tear the secret heart of nature out.

—Love’s Alchemy: H. W. Parker

I love it not, the crowded, murky town,
Yet there are treasures, which I fain would seize;
And Learning there extends her laurel crown-
Though crowns I reck not, nor her bald degrees-
Baubles designed the shallow mind to please.
But much I long to sit at Learning’s feet,
And drink her drafts of knowledge to the lees.
For this farewell each wild and calm retreat,
And welcome smoke and dust, the foul and noisy street.

—Alwyn: James C. Moffat

1836—Edmund Davy discovered calcium-carbide; in 1862 Wöhler of Göttingen and Berthelot of Paris obtained it in minute quantities; in 1892 it was accidentally discovered by Thomas L. Wilson in smelting for metallurgical purposes. Henri Moisseau of Paris announced its discovery about the same time. Acetylene gas is prepared commercially from it.

1902—Ethyl-Alcohol is said to have been produced commercially from acetylene in France.