b. ? 1726 and d. November 7, 1817

Swiss chemist and geologist. His chief works are “Letters on the Origin and Formation of the Earth,” “Elements of Geology” and “Geological Travels in the North of Europe, England, France, Switzerland and Germany.”

With all the sons of reason scatter’d wide
Through habitable space, wherever born,
Howe’er endow’d! To live free citizens
Of universal Nature! to lay hold
By more than feeble faith on the Supreme!
To call heav’ns ruch unfathomable mines
(Mines which support archangels in their state)
Our own! to rise in science, as in bliss,
Initiate in the secrets of the skies!
Tor read creation; read its mighty plan
In the bare bosom of the Deity!
The plan, and execution, to collate!
To see, before each glance of piercing thought,
All cloud, all shadow, blown remote; and leave
No mystery.

—Night Thoughts: Young

1755, November 1—An earthquake at Lisbon threw down the greater part of the city in six minutes and caused the death of 60,000 people.

1854—An earthquake at Japan caused a sea wave 30 feet in height to travel 370 miles per hour.

1883—Krakatoe, a volcano in Sunda Straits, exploded and caused an earthquake. Where land formerly existed there was afterward 900 feet of water.

b. November 6, 1801 and d. January 11, 1874

American inventor and surveyor. He established the first newspaper in Texas. His attention being attracted to the need of more suitable food supplies for emigrants and travelers across the plains, he produced a “meat biscuit.” He next invented a process of condensing milk and in 1856 obtained a patent on it. He produced an extract of beef of superior quality, also extracts of condensed tea, coffee and cocoa. In 1862 he patented a process for reducing the juices of fruits to one-seventh their original bulk.

What is ambition? ‘Tis a glorious cheat!
It follows not with fortune. It is seen
Rarely or never in the rich man’s hall.
It seeks the chamber of the gifted boy,
And lifts his humble window and comes in.
The narrow walls expand, and spread away
Into a kingly palace, and the roof
Lifts to the sky, and unseen fingers work
The ceiling with rich blazonry, and write
His name in burning letters over all.

—Ambition: Willis

1500—Cocoa was unknown in Europe until the discovery of America.

1865—Introduction in this country of deep and cold setting of milk.

1882—Ensilage, a system of preserving corn and green fodder for cattle in pits made air and water tight, came into practice.

b. November 6, 1638 and d. October ? 1675

Scotch philosopher and mathematician. He invented the refracting telescope and his mathematical discoveries placed him in the first rank of philosophers. He published at the age of 24 “Optica Promota” (1663), a description of a reflecting telescope; his invention dated from 1661. He solved by infinite series the Keplerian problem of drawing tangents to curves geometrically, and devised a rule for the direct and inverse method of tangents. On June 15, 1668, he gave an “Account of a Controversy betwixt Stephano de Angelis and John Baptist Riccioli” respecting the motion of the earth. He was a professor in the University of Edinburgh.

Thou hast the secret strange
To read that hidden book, the human heart;
Thou hast the ready writer’s practis’d art;
Thou hast the thought to range
The broadest circle intellect hath ran-
And thou art God’s best work-an honest man.

—Willis

600 B. C.—Miletus divided the earth into five climatic zones, introducing the equator and meridians and made a rough measurement of the inclination of the equator to the ecliptic.

276-195 B. C.—Eratosthenes lived, and made measurements of the lengths of the sun’s shadow at Alexandria and at the first cataract of the Nile and thus calculated the earth’s circumference at about 25,000 miles.

1200—The Moors introduced astronomy into Europe.