b. November 26, 1810 and d. December 27, 1900

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.

b. November 25, 1816 and d. ?

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.

b. November 25, 1835 and d. ?

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.”