b. November 15, 1814 and d. ? 1894

German inventor. Discoverer of the Mannesmann process for rolling seamless steel tubes. By this process a hot steel billet is passed between two conical rolls set with their axes at a small angle to each other. The billet comes out as a tube with uniform walls, without the use of a mandril or anything else to make the central opening. The bicycle trade creates a great demand for Mannesmann tubes. The inventor and his brothers were leading makers of files in Germany. The former made special research into the nature of crucible steel. He was one of the first to suggest the electro-magnetic separation of ores.

 He gathered all the tools of Ages; instruments shaped by his
 elders-
 Mediums of ancient sages, alchemists and iron-welders;
 Gathered them and reared a tower-blocks of Science, pile
 stupendous,
 Apex dizzily tremendous-dazzling spire of Truth and
 Power!
 The giant’s dying, but it shall be said by progeny of Time, He
 is not dead!

 —Will S. Reynolds

 1790—Wilkinson patented a process of drawing a leaden pipe through dies.

 1797, March 12—Jean Denis Gandillot was born. He brought into use in France a method of welding square or round tubes of sheet-iron.

b. November 15, 1738 and d. August 25, 1822

German astronomer in England. In 1781 he discovered a new world which he names Georgian Star, but generally called Herscal or Uranus, March 13, 1781. Afterwards he discovered six moons, belonging to his new planet. His largest telescope was forty feet long, erected at Slough and ready for use August 28, 1789. He was the virtual founder of sidereal science. He discovered more than eight hundered double stars, measuring their “angles of position” by means of his “revolving wire micrometer,” and their angular distances apart with his “lamp micrometer.” In 1774 he first saw Saturn through a five-foot reflecting telescope made by his own hands. As an astronomer he was surpassed by no one of the age; and the depth of his scientific researches and the extent of his observations rendered him, perhaps, second only to the immortal Newton. He was also a musician and in 1766 he was an organist at Halifax.

 “So, late descry’d by Herschel’s piercing sight,
 Hang the bright squadrons of the twinkling Night;
 Ten thousand marshal’d stars, a silver zone,
 Effuse their blended lustres round her throne;
 Suns call to suns, in lucid clouds conspire,
 And light exterior skies with golden fire;
 Resistless rolls the illimitable sphere,
 And one great circle forms the unmeasured year.

 —Botanic Garden: Dr. Darwin

b. November 14, 1797 and d. February 22, 1875

Exeter College, Oxford, B. A., 1819; M. A., 1821

English geologist. He divided the tertiary period into eocene, miocene and pliocene, which has met with world-wide acceptance. In 1838 he published “Elements of Geology” and in 1871 a virtually new work, “The Student’s Elements of Geology.” For years this was the only good text book on geology.

 On heavenly ground they stood; and, from the shore
 They viewed the vast, immeasurable abyss,
 Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild,
 Up from the bottom turned by furious winds
 And surging waves, as mountains, to assault
 Heaven’s height, and with the centre mix the pole.

 —Raphael’s Account of Creation: Milton

 All the means of action-
 The shapeless masses-the materials-
 Lies everywhere about us. What we need
 Is the celestial fire to change the flint
 Into transparent crystal, bright and clear.

 —The Spanish Student: Longfellow

 2349 B. C., Decemebr 7—The Noachian deluge began in Armenia. It continued 377 days (Blair).

 2348 B. C., May 6—Noah’s ark rested on one of the mountains of Ararat. December 18 Noah and family left the ark (Blair).