b. March 24, 1490 and d. November 1, 1555

German mineralogist. He became well versed in metallurgy and the art of mining. He discovered bismuth in 1530. Cuvier said, “He was to mineralogy what Gesner was to zoölogy.” His prncipal works are: “Concerning Ores” (1546) and “On the Origin and Causes of Subterranean Things.”

How nitrous Gas, from iron ingots driven,
Drinks with red lips the purest breath of heaven;
How, white Conferva, from its tender hair,
Gives in bright bubbles empyrean air,
The crystal floods phlogistic ores calcine,
And the pure ether marries with the Mine.

—Botanic Garden: Dr. Darwin

1612—Simon Sturtevant obtained a patent for smelting iron with bituminous coal.

1751 or 1754—Axil Frederick Cronstadt discovered nickel.

1783—Henry Cort patented the process of puddling.

1787, September 5-1852, December 10—Francois Sulpice Beudant lived. In 1818 he studied the minerals of Hungary. He published “Researches on the Causes which Determine Variations of Crystalline Forms of the same Mineral Substance” (1818) and an “Elementary Treatise on Mineralogy” (2d ed., 1831).

1829—Neilson introduced hot-blast in blast furnace.

1830—Nils Gabriel Sefstrom discovered the metal Vanadium.

1891, February 8—Tin ore was found in Mexico.

b. October 31, 1835 and d. ?

German chemist. He has acquired fame by his work in organic chemistry, above all by his researches on the action of the aldehydes, which led him to the discovery of a green coloring matter, coraleine; a red coloring matter, eosine, and to the discovery of indol, the base of indigo.

Then first carnations learn’d to speak,
And lilies unto life were brought;
While, mantling on the maiden’s cheek,
Young roses kindled into thought.
Then hyacinths their darkest dyes
Upon the locks of Beauty threw;
And violets, transform’d to eyes,
Inshrin’d a soul within their blue.

—Thomas Moore

925—The first dyers’ guild was established.

1581—The indigo used in Europe first came from the East Indies. It was first mentioned in English statutes, and was first procured in Mexico.

1681—Nitric ether was discovered by Kunkel.

1747—The cultivation of indigo was begun in Carolina.

1756—The secret of making India ink was brought to Goettingen by a Dutch supercargo.

1786—Oxymuriatic was first used as a black agency.

Dihl discovered a means of preserving the colors painted on glass.

b. ? 1591 and d. October 31, 1626

Dutch mathematician. He discovered the law of the refraction of light, that the sines of the angles of incidence and refraction have to each other a constant ratio. He published “Cyclometricus” (1621) a treatise on the measurement of a circle.

In these days, unhappily, the news of battle is
familiar to us, but every shock and every charge is
an application or misapplication of the mechanical
force of the sun. He blows the trumpet, he urges
the projectile, he bursts the bomb. And remember,
this is not poetry, but rigid mechanical truth. He
rears, as I have said, the whole vegetable world,
and through it the animal; the lilies of the field are
his workmanship, the verdure of the meadows and
the cattle upon a thousand hills.

—The Sun: John Tyndall

600 B. C.—Jupiter was known as a planet and inserted in a chart of the heavens, in which 1,460 stars are accurately described.

1201—Astronomy was studied by the Moors and by them brought to Europe.

1577—Leeuwenhoek proposed the undulatory theory of light and the law of double refraction.

1590—The microscope was invented by Zacharias Janssen or Zanse at Middleburg (1621), or by Drebbel.

1624—Willebrod Snell discovered the law of refraction.

1861—The spectrum analysis was applied to astronomy.