American scientist. Professor at Johns Hopkins University. His principal discoveries were the magnetic action due to electrical convection, the exact determination of the mechanical equivalent of heat, the discovery of concave gratings and the machine for ruling by which the analysis of the solar spectrum was revolutionized. By his diffraction gratings, ruled by a method of his own, to 30,000 lines to the inch on concave mirrors, he produced an image of the spectrum without the aid of lenses. Photographs of the solar spectrum made with these gratings surpass anything else produced. He showed that a moving charge of static electricity caused the same magnetic effect as a current.

Thy hand the magic sceptre holds,
Before which Monarchs kneel;
The power to unking kings, and make
Both thrones and empires reel.
For education buildeth mind,
Thought on thought the tower doth rise;
A workman thou; the architect,
And Master, in the skies!

—The Teacher: Abby Allin

1868, February—The siderostat, an apparatus for observing the light of stars in precisely the same way as the light of the sun may be studied in the camera obscura, was constructed by Leon Foucault.

Swedish astronomer. In 1736 he was selected by the French government to assist in the measurement of the length of a degree in Lapland. He introduced in about 1742 the Centigrade or Celsius thermometer.

I can is a hero, the first in the field;
Tho’ others may falter he never will yield;
He makes the long marches, he strikes the last blow,
His charges is the whirlwind that scatters the foe.
How grandly and nobly he stands to his trust!
When roused at the call of a cause that is just!
He weds his strong will to the valor of youth,
And writes on his banner the watchword of truth.

—I Can and I Can’t: Macaulay

Macaulay 760—Astronomy and geography were cultivated by the Arabs.

1620—Cornelius Drebbel invented the alcohol thermometer.

1720—Gabriel D. Fahrenheit invented his thermometer.

1731—The pyrometer was invented by Musschenbroeck.

1835, March 12—Simon Newcomb was born. In 1861 he was professor of mathematics in the United States Navy and assigned to the United States Navy Observatory in Washington. He purchased the 26-inch equatorial telescope, supervised its erection, and planned the tower and dome in which it is mounted. He has written many memoirs and text books on mathematical and astronomical subjects.

English mechanic and inventor of cast-steel. He was bred to a mechanical calling and became celebrated for his expertness in repairing clocks, in making and repairing locks, smoke-jacks, roasting-jacks and other articles requiring mechanical skill. He practiced surgery with dexterity. He introduced several improved tools but was much hindered by the inferior quality of the metal, and he then turned his attention to the making of a better kind of steel. His experiments extended over many years, and finally he invented the process of making cast-steel.

 Little thinking if we work our souls as nobly as our iron,
Or if angels will commend us at the goal of pilgimage.

—Mrs. Browning

 Draw thy fierce streams of blinding ore,
Smite on a thousand anvils, roar
Down to the harbor-bars;
Smoulder in smoky sunsets, flare
On rainy nights, while street and square
Lie empty to the stars.
From terrace proud to alley base,
I know thee as my mother’s face.

 —Glasgow: Alexander Smith

 The painful smith, with force of fervent heat,
The hardest iron soon doth mollifie,
That with his heavy sledge he can it beat,
And fashion to what he it list apply.

—Spenser

English inventor of the hydro-electric machine and of the gun which bears his name. 1856 he was appointed engineer-in-chief for rifled ordnance and superintendent of the foundry at Woolwich.

 Then towns he quickened by mechanic arts,
 And bade the fervent city glow with toil;
 Bade social commerce raise renowned marts,
 Join land to land, and marry soil to soil;
 Unite the poles, and without bloody spoil
 Bring home of either Ind the gorgeous stores;
 Or, should despotic rage the world embroil,
 Bade tyrants tremble on remotest shores,
 While o’er the encircling deep of Britannia’s thunder roars. 

—The Castle of Indolence: Thomson

Thomson 1330—Guns invented; in 1344, in use by the Moors; in 1354, adopted by Denmark; in 1377, in use by the Venetians, and in 1406, first used by the Spanish.

 1718—James Puckle obtained the earliest patent for repeating fire-arms in this country.

 1770—Joseph Cugnot constructed a steam automobile for artillery transport.

 1830—Percussion arms were used in the U. S. army.

 1835—Colonel Colt obtained his first patent in America; in 1849, he made improvements in his revolver.

 1847, October 29—Henry Metcalfe was born. He invented the first detachable magazine that was used with military small arms.

 1851—Adams improved the revolver.

American physicist. He discovered the use of the star-spectroscope to show the exact state of achromatic correction in an object glass, particularly for the rays used in photography. He constructed a micrometer for the measurement of astronomical photographs, for use upon pictures of solar eclipses or transits, and upon groups of stars. His photographs of the moon have not been surpassed. He constructed a ruling engine in 1870 that produced interference-gratings on glass and speculum metal.

 What is glory? What is fame?
 The echo of a long-lost name;
 A breath; an idle hour’s brief talk;
 The shadow of an arrant naught;
 A flower that blossoms for a day,
 Dying next morrow;
 A stream that hurries on its way,
 Singing of sorrow;
 The last drop of a bootless shower,
 Shed on a sear and leafless bower;
 A rose stuck in a dead man’s breast,-
 This is the world’s fame at the best!

 —William Motherwell

 1765, March 7-1833, July 5—Joseph Nicephore Niepce lived. He first discovered the transient images of the camera-obscura. His process he termed “Heliography.” He invented the “Pyreolophore” and other apparatus.

American manufacturer. He was one of the first to read telegraphic signals by sound. Associated with others, he established a rolling mill and from this has grown the most extensive and complete system of steel and iron industries ever controlled by an individual. He is a frequent contributor to periodicals on the labor question. He wrote “Triumphant Democracy; or, Fifty Years’ March of the Republic” (1886). He has given enormous sums to the founding of public libraries throughout the United States and Great Britain, and has contributed largely to educational institutions.

 For just experience tells, in ev’ry soil,
 That those who think must govern those that toil;
 And all that Freedom’s highest aims can reach
 Is but to lay proportion’d loads on each.

 —Traveller: Goldsmith

 Kings are said to have long arms but every man
 should have long arms, and should pluck his living,
 his instruments, his power and his knowing, from
 the sun. moon and stars. Is not then the demand
 to be rich legitimate? Yet, I have never seen a rich
 man. I have never seen a man as rich as all men
 ought to be, or with an adequate command of nature.

 —Wealth: Emerson

 His own suggestion of an appropriate epitaph for his tomb is: “Here lies a man who knew how to get around him much cleverer men than himself.”

American engineer. In 1818-1824 he was an engineer of the Erie Canal; the first aqueduct at Rochester was designed and superintended by him; 1825-1829 he was engineer of the canal system of Ohio and chief engineer of the Louisville and Portland Canal; in 1829 he was chief engineer of the surveys and location of the Chenango Canal from Utica to Binghamton; in 1830 was commissioned to survey the Genesee Valley Canal and in 1834 made surveys for the Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad in Michigan.

 Things of the noblest kind his genius drew,
 And look’d through nature at a single view;
 A loose he gave to his unbounded soul,
 And taught new lands to rise, new seas to roll;
 Call’d into being scenes unknown before,
 And, passing nature’s bounds, was something more.

—Rosciad: Churchill

 Suppose they did construct substantial works of
 masonry. The Cloaca maxima attests it. But what,
 think you, would a Roman engineer have said of
 putting a seven-mile bore, entirely through an
 Alpine barrier of solid rock, and of taking Pompey’s
 legions through it beneath the avalanche, from
 flank to flank, as quick as he could swallow a
 dish of Lucrine oysters?

 1808, February 4—Canals first acted upon in New York.

 1817—Construction of Erie Canal was begun.

French inventor. In 1869 he devised an ammoniacal fireless engine for the propulsion of street cars. The motor has not been adopted in the United States but in France and Germany it is extensively used for street cars and vehicles. He patented another fireless engine in 1872 which is now in practical use; also a process for the manufacture of sponge gold, which product is used largely by dentists throughout the United States.

 The spirit of Palsey’s maxim, that “he alone
 discovers who proves,” is applicable to the history
 of inventions and discoveries; for certainly he
 alone invents to any good purpose who satisfies the
 world that the means he may have devised have been
 found competent to the end proposed.

 —Dr. Samuel Brown

 1791—John Barber patented his gas engine, using hydro-carbon gas.

 1794—Robert Street patented his explosive engine, using turpentine.

 1803—Sir George Cayley invented the first known air engine; in 1807 a hot-air engine.

 1825—Mr. Brown, of London, patented his pneumatic or gas-vacuum engine.

 1833—Ericsson obtained a patent for his caloric engine, and a subsequent patent for improvements was taken out in 1851 and another in 1856.

 1868, October—John Ericsson announced a device for obtaining motive power by condensing rays of sun.

English mathematician and clergyman. He had consummate skill in the art of deciphering and was one of the first to give power of communication to the deaf and dumb. His mathematical works form three volumes; the principles of analogy and continuity were introduced by him into mathematical science. His interpretation of negative exponents and unrestricted employment of fractional exponents greatly widened the range of higher algebra. Finally he invented the symbol for infinity, ∞.

 Whoso with patient and inquiring mind
 Would seek the stream of science to ascend,
 Must count the cost, and never hope to find
 Rest to his feet, or to his wanderings end.
 The faithless road doth ever onward tend,
 And clouds and darkness are its utmost bound.
 The sacred fount no human eye hath kenn’d,
 Though many a wight, bequiled by sight or sound,
 ”Evpnxa!” may exclaim; “I-I the place have found.” —The Pursuit of Knowledge: John H. Merivale

John H. Merivale 1505—Scipio Ferro solved cubic equations of the form of x³ + mx = n.

 1541—Tartaglia discovered general solution of cubic equations.

 1545—Lodovico Ferrari solved equations of the fourth degree.

 1596-1650—Rene Descartes interpreted negative quantities and their systematic use.

American hydrographer. He made the first accurate survey of New York Harbor; in 1819-’20 the first survey of the Bahama banks and the shoals of George and Nantucket, and in 1824 he surveyed the entrance of New York Harbor from Barnegat to Fire Island. In 1825-’26 he ran levels from the river San Juan to the Pacific Ocean for a canal on the Nicaragua route. In 1855-’56 he determined the exterior lines of New York Harbor. He advocated Fresnel’s system of signal lights and invented the dividing-engine.

 Who, that surveys this span of earth we press,
 This speck of life in time’s great wilderness,
 This narrow isthmus ‘twixt two boundless seas,
 The past, the future, two eternities!
 Would sully the bright spot or leave it bare,
 When he might build him a proud temple there,
 A name, that long shall hallow all its space,
 And be each purer soul’s high resting-place!

 —Lalla Rookh: Moore

 If you have great talents, industry will improve
 them; if moderate abilities, industry will supply
 their deficiencies. Nothing is denied to well-directed
 labor; nothing is ever to be attained without it.

 —Sir J. Reynolds

 1799, November 4—Ralph Gout secured a patent on the pedometer, an instrument for numbering the steps taken by a walker.