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Life estate

In common law and statutory law, a life estate (or life tenancy) is the ownership of immovable property for the duration of a person's life. In legal terms, it is an estate in real property that ends at death, when the property rights may revert to the original owner or to another person. The owner of a life estate is called a "life tenant". The person who will take over the rights upon death is said to have a "remainder" interest and is known as a "remainderman".

Principles
The ownership of a life estate is of limited duration because it ends at the death of a person. Its owner is the life tenant (typically also the 'measuring life') and it carries with it right to enjoy certain benefits of ownership of the property, chiefly income derived from rent or other uses of the property and the right of occupation, during his or her possession. Because a life estate ceases to exist at the death of the measuring person's life, the life tenant, a temporary owner, may short-term let but cannot sell, give or bequeath the property indefinitely (including assuming it could pass to heirs (intestate)) or creating a purported document leaving it to devisees (testate).

A life estate pur autre vie (Law French, "for the life of another") is held for the rest of the lifetime of a person who does not hold the estate, known as the cestui que vie (Law French, "the person who lives"). This form of life estate arises where a life tenant has disposed of the property, assuming such a disposal does not trigger any special forfeiture under the life interest instrument. It also arises where the grantor chooses to make the measuring life that of someone other than the life tenant's life. A life estate pur autre vie is most commonly created in one of two circumstances.
 * First, when the owner of property conveys his interest in that property to another person, for the life of a third person. For example, if A conveys land to B during the life of C, then B owns the land for as long as C lives; if B dies before C, B's heirs will inherit the land, and will continue to own it for as long as C lives.
 * Second, if A conveys land to C for life, C can then sell the life estate to B. Again, B and B's heirs will own the land for as long as C lives.
 * In either scenario, once C dies, the ownership of the land will revert to A. If A has died, ownership will revert to A's heirs. The right to succeed to ownership of the property upon the expiration of the life estate is called a reversion. However, the remainder interest granted to a third party (A to B for life, with a remainder interest in C), is called "remainder".

A clear distinction should be made with an estate for (a) term of years, interpreted as lease or licence.

At death, assuming no mis-dealings to certain innocent purchasers, the property involved in a life estate falls into the ownership of the remainderman ( remaindermen) or reverts to its grantor (all of which confusingly can be called 'reversions' and 'reversioners'). There is a small market for reversions in real estate, which necessitates a buyer to carry out enhanced documentary due diligence and physical checks.

A land owner of an estate cannot give a "greater interest" in the estate than he or she owns. That is, a life estate owner cannot give complete and indefinite ownership (fee simple) to another person because the life tenant's ownership in the property ends when the person who is the measuring life dies. For instance, if Ashley conveyed to Bob for the life of Bob, and Bob conveys a life estate to another person, Charlie, for Charlie's life [an embedded life estate], then Charlie's life estate interest would last only until Charlie or Bob dies. Charlie's life interest or pur autre vie interest (interest for the life of another, whichever has applied) and most often the remaining rights of ownership in the property (the 'reversionary interest') devolve to the persons under the terms of the will/rules of intestacy/declaration of trust/trust deed (UK) or will/rules of intestacy/'grant or deed of life interest' (or similar) (U.S.) in remainder or revert to the original grantee, depending on terms of Ashley. Such a life estate in the U.S. can also be conveyed for the life of the grantor, such as "A conveys X to B until A dies" and in the UK by trust transferring upon trust or assigning rather than conveying X.

If a life tenant purports to transfer the underlying 'reversionary' interest, which a life tenant never has, this constitutes an actionable breach of trust for damages and may constitute criminal fraud however may not entitle the ultimate reversioner (or substituted beneficiaries) to be able to obtain a court declaration that the property is their own if that property is in the hands of an innocent purchaser for value without notice (bona fide purchaser).

Financial and physical responsibility falls to the life tenant under the legal doctrine of waste, which prohibits life tenants from damaging or devaluing the asset. In short, as the life tenant's ownership is temporary, failing to maintain or reasonably protect the asset resulting in its diminution in value, or indeed, destruction constitutes a cause of action for the reversioner.

A further limitation is the rule against perpetuities in many states and countries which prohibits long-running pre-19th-century style successions of life tenancies and may result in the premature and compensation-entitling termination of such successive life interests. In England and Wales this is fixed at one lifetime, or 80 years whichever is longer.

Selling property while keeping a life estate is commonly known in France as "viager" where it is used more often than elsewhere, most famously in the case of Jeanne Calment, the longest lived human ever recorded.

In the combined jurisdiction of England and Wales since 1925 a freehold estate intended to be 'held' as a life interest takes effect only as an interest enjoyed in equity, specifically as an interest in possession trust. The other type of land ownership is leasehold and although most long leases are for a period of between 99 and 999 years 'leases for life' will be interpreted in often unpredictable ways as either as a licence or a lease.

Uses of a life estate
In the United States, a life estate is typically used as a tool of an estate planning. A life estate can avoid probate and ensure that an intended heir will receive title to real property. For example, Al owns a home and desires that Bill inherit it after Al's death. Al can effectuate that desire by transferring title to the home to Bill and retaining a life estate in the home. Al keeps a life estate and Bill receives a vested fee simple remainder. As soon as Al dies, the life estate interest merges with Bill's remainder, and Bill has a fee simple title. An advantage of such a transfer is that it makes the use of a will unnecessary and eliminates the need to probate the asset. A disadvantage is the small risk of a fraud on the part of beneficiary Bill, if he could easily show in a particular jurisdiction an unfettered fee simple, he could sell the estate prematurely to an innocent purchaser such as when Al is on vacation. A second disadvantage to the grantor is that provision for any remainderman (or men) (party C) is irrevocable without the remainderman's consent. "Beneficiary deeds" have been statutorily created in some states to address this issue.

The intestacy laws of certain American states, such as Arkansas Delaware, and Rhode Island limit the surviving spouse's rights (inheritance) to the deceased spouse's real estate to a life estate. Louisiana, applying civil law, has a similar default provision in intestate successions called a usufruct, which is only over community property and ends with the earlier of death or remarriage.

Some American states allow for an enhanced life estate deed, in which the grantor retains the ability to transfer to property to a third party without the consent of the remainderman. If the enhanced life estate holder still owns the property at the time he or she dies, and the remaindermen survive the life estate holder, the property automatically passes to the remaindermen outside of probate. Enhanced life estate deeds are also sometimes referred to as Lady Bird Deeds.

The intestacy laws of England and Wales from 1 October 2014 provide for £250,000 (or the whole non-joint estate if less) and 50% of any excess to the spouse, remainder to adult children. This abolished the remaining 50% being enjoyed as a life interest which had applied from the 1920s.

The surviving spouse (and rarely, others) benefit from survivorship of any joint property.

The arrangement in the first paragraph would in the UK be interpreted as an interest in possession trust and is usually avoided as for inheritance tax is considered 'reservation of benefit' requiring fully backdated sums of annual income tax on whatever market rent ought to have been paid to the legal owner, in England and Wales for continued enjoyment of the asset.

Valuation of a life estate
A valuation is typically derived from the present value of the net benefit derived by the life (or lives) over the residual term of the interest. Where these valuations are based on a single life, reference can be made to tables such as life tenant factors by gender and age. These factors are prepared taking into account life expectancies and prevailing interest rates for a specific jurisdiction or purpose. An example is a table of life tenancy factors that is used to determine the proportion of a property attributable to a particular life tenant for any stamp duty payable upon its transfer. More complicated examples can involve impaired or joint lives and specialist advice is usually required such as that provided by an actuary.

Duration of a life estate
Life estates are measured either by the life of the property recipient (pur sa vie), or by the life of some other person (pur autre vie).

At law and in equity (US)
Life estates in real estate are still created today. The life estate is more commonly used in trust instruments, typically in an attempt to minimize the effect of the inheritance tax or other taxes on transfers of wealth. A prospective reduction in tax for the creator ('settlor') often follows if the settlor has parted with all current and future interest. However many tax codes transfer the burden of estate taxes to the holder of the interest in possession (life tenant) and may treat that person or the remaindermen as owning a second/surplus property.

Formally, where a system is derived from English law, the law divides into common law and equitable law. A claim under equitable law cannot usually defeat a claim to title from a bona fide purchaser for value without notice, as such a person has reasonably researched the ownership position based upon the legal title (common law) position. The owner of a legal interest can create from a life estate further embedded or legal interests consistent with the form of ownership.

Accordingly, due to their potential versatility and complexity in the U.S., common law seldom recognizes a life estate in personal property (tangible items and livestock other than land including buildings) but such interests are recognized at equity where of adequate form — statutes and regulations impose formalities on the creation of lifetime interests in personalty.

At equity (England and Wales)
Since 1925 registered titles in England and Wales preferably should, but mostly do not, reveal an 'interest for life', 'life estate' or 'life tenancy' in the form of a restriction on the register. Instead the registered legal owner may hold various degrees of leasehold or freehold interest, but usually absolute interest. This provides a reliable 'mirror of title' which can only be subjected to a very few overriding interests. A maxim of equity is 'Where equities are equal, the law will prevail'. Equity defers to the position at law of a bona fide purchaser for value without notice (including any tenant or mortgagee), and as 'equity will not suffer a wrong to be without remedy,' where there is such, will be limited to in personam remedies against the settlor or life tenant where it confirms life estates, upon trust, to have been validly created:
 * 1) for the life tenant(s); and thereafter
 * 2) for remainderman, remaindermen or the reversionary settlor.

Life tenants are never recorded as proprietors at the Land Registry as they are temporary, equitable owners and are not entitled to have the a transfer of the land effected. If the proprietor has died, executors of the will, administrators or beneficiaries all have the right to apply for the standard form A restriction and are encouraged by the official guidance to do so.

If a lease is for more than seven years, the lease must be registered. Most long leases are for a period of between 99 and 999 years, and 'leases for life' will be interpreted either as a licence or a lease.

Torrens title jurisdictions
In most Torrens Title jurisdictions a life tenant has, like in UK and US, the right to possession and enjoyment of the property, but once the tenant dies the property will return to the remainderman. The main difference is that, the life estate will be registered by the Registrar general of that jurisdiction, and will appear on the registered title. This has the effect of making them one of the 9 types of recognised interest in land, and one of the four that confirm possession. The registration process in Torrens title systems usually confers indefeasibility on the life estate.

A holder of a life estate can alienate his rights, but they will still expire on his death, regardless of whom he alienates it to. At that point, that buyer will have to forfeit the land.

Life tenancy investments
It is becoming increasingly popular for private investors to place funds into a life tenancy investment. This type of investment is being offered as an alternative to traditional buy to let and is becoming increasingly popular in the United Kingdom with over £30 million worth of Life Tenancies being delivered in 2018.

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Mathematical problem

A mathematical problem is a problem that can be represented, analyzed, and possibly solved, with the methods of mathematics. This can be a real-world problem, such as computing the orbits of the planets in the solar system, or a problem of a more abstract nature, such as Hilbert's problems. It can also be a problem referring to the nature of mathematics itself, such as Russell's Paradox.

Real-world problems
Informal "real-world" mathematical problems are questions related to a concrete setting, such as "Adam has five apples and gives John three. How many has he left?". Such questions are usually more difficult to solve than regular mathematical exercises like "5 − 3", even if one knows the mathematics required to solve the problem. Known as word problems, they are used in mathematics education to teach students to connect real-world situations to the abstract language of mathematics.

In general, to use mathematics for solving a real-world problem, the first step is to construct a mathematical model of the problem. This involves abstraction from the details of the problem, and the modeller has to be careful not to lose essential aspects in translating the original problem into a mathematical one. After the problem has been solved in the world of mathematics, the solution must be translated back into the context of the original problem.

Abstract problems
Abstract mathematical problems arise in all fields of mathematics. While mathematicians usually study them for their own sake, by doing so, results may be obtained that find application outside the realm of mathematics. Theoretical physics has historically been a rich source of inspiration.

Some abstract problems have been rigorously proved to be unsolvable, such as squaring the circle and trisecting the angle using only the compass and straightedge constructions of classical geometry, and solving the general quintic equation algebraically. Also provably unsolvable are so-called undecidable problems, such as the halting problem for Turing machines.

Some well-known difficult abstract problems that have been solved relatively recently are the four-colour theorem, Fermat's Last Theorem, and the Poincaré conjecture.

Computers do not need to have a sense of the motivations of mathematicians in order to do what they do. Formal definitions and computer-checkable deductions are absolutely central to mathematical science.

Degradation of problems to exercises
Mathematics educators using problem solving for evaluation have an issue phrased by Alan H. Schoenfeld:
 * How can one compare test scores from year to year, when very different problems are used? (If similar problems are used year after year, teachers and students will learn what they are, students will practice them: problems become exercises, and the test no longer assesses problem solving).

The same issue was faced by Sylvestre Lacroix almost two centuries earlier:
 * ... it is necessary to vary the questions that students might communicate with each other. Though they may fail the exam, they might pass later. Thus distribution of questions, the variety of topics, or the answers, risks losing the opportunity to compare, with precision, the candidates one-to-another.

Such degradation of problems into exercises is characteristic of mathematics in history. For example, describing the preparations for the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos in the 19th century, Andrew Warwick wrote:
 * ... many families of the then standard problems had originally taxed the abilities of the greatest mathematicians of the 18th century.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Mathematical problem


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Salon.com

Salon is an American politically progressive and liberal news and opinion website created in 1995. It publishes articles on U.S. politics, culture, and current events.

Content and coverage
Salon covers a variety of topics, including reviews and articles about books, films, and music; articles about "modern life", including friendships, human sexual behavior, and relationships; and reviews and articles about technology, with a particular focus on the free and open-source software (FOSS) movement.

According to the senior contributing writer for the American Journalism Review, Paul Farhi, Salon offers "provocative (if predictably liberal) political commentary and lots of sex."

In 2008, Salon launched the interactive initiative Open Salon, a social content site/blog network for its readers. Originally a curated site with some of its content being featured on Salon, it fell into editorial neglect and was closed in March 2015.

Responding to the question, "How far do you go with the tabloid sensibility to get readers?," former Salon.com editor-in-chief David Talbot said: "Is Salon more tabloid-like? Yeah, we've made no secret of that. I've said all along that our formula here is that we're a smart tabloid. If by tabloid what you mean is you're trying to reach a popular audience, trying to write topics that are viscerally important to a readership, whether it's the story about the mother in Houston who drowned her five children or the story on the missing intern in Washington, Chandra Levy."

Staff and contributors
Salon.com, originally salon1999.com, was founded in 1995 by David Talbot, Gary Kamiya, Andrew Ross, Mignon Khargie, Scott Rosenberg, and Laura Miller.

Regular contributors have included the political-opinion writers Amanda Marcotte, Scott Eric Kaufman, Heather Digby Parton and Sean Illing, critic Andrew O'Hehir and pop-culture columnist Mary Elizabeth Williams.

David Talbot, founder and original editor-in-chief, also served several stints as CEO, most recently replacing Richard Gingras, who left to join Google as head of news products in July 2011. Joan Walsh was the second editor-in-chief, serving in that role starting in 2005. She stepped down as editor-in-chief in November 2010 and was replaced by Kerry Lauerman. David Daley took over the editor-in-chief position in June 2013.

Jordan Hoffner took over as CEO in May 2016, also serving as editor-in-chief. He resigned in May 2019, and was succeeded as editor-in-chief by Erin Keane.

Salon's CEO was Chris Richmond, and its editor-in-chief was Erin Keane.

History
Salon was created in the wake of the San Francisco newspaper strike of 1994, by former San Francisco Examiner arts and features editor David Talbot who wished to explore the potential of Web. It launched as salonmag.com in November 1995. In its early days, readers noticed a specifically Northern California flavor. In 1996, Talbot agreed: "We swim in the soup of San Francisco. There are a lot of odd fish we've plucked out of the bay here and it gives us some of that Left Coast, Weird Coast style." Time magazine named it one of the Best Web Sites of 1996.

Salon purchased the virtual community The WELL in April 1999 (switching to its current URL, salon.com, at roughly that time), and made its initial public offering (IPO) of Salon.com on the NASDAQ stock exchange on June 22 of that year. Subsequently, for the month of October 1999, Nielsen/NetRatings reported that Salon had over two million users.

Salon Premium, a pay-to-view (online) content subscription was introduced on April 25, 2001. The service signed up 130,000 subscribers and staved off discontinuation of services. However, in November 2002, the company announced it had accumulated cash and non-cash losses of $80 million, and by February 2003 it was having difficulty paying its rent and made an appeal for donations to keep the company running. On October 9, 2003, Michael O'Donnell, the chief executive and president of Salon Media Group, said he was leaving the company after seven years because it was "time for a change." When he left, Salon.com had accrued $83.6 million in losses since its inception, and its stock traded for 5¢ on the OTC Bulletin Board. David Talbot, Salon 's chairman and editor-in-chief at the time, became the new chief executive. Elizabeth "Betsy" Hambrecht, then Salon 's chief financial officer, became the president.

In July 2008, Salon launched Open Salon, a "social content site" and "curated blog network". It was nominated for a 2009 National Magazine Award in the category "best interactive feature." On March 9, 2015, Salon announced it would be closing Open Salon after six years of hosting a community of writers and bloggers.

Salon closed its online chat board "Table Talk" on June 10, 2011, without stating an official reason for ending that section of the site.

On July 16, 2012, Salon announced that it would be featuring content from Mondoweiss.

Salon Media Group sold The WELL to the group of members in September 2012.

Business model and operations
Salon has been unprofitable through its entire history. Since 2007, the company has been dependent upon repeated cash injections from board Chairman John Warnock and William Hambrecht, father of former Salon CEO Elizabeth Hambrecht. During the nine months ending on December 31, 2012, these cash contributions amounted to $3.4 million, compared to revenue in the same period of $2.7 million. In December 2016 and January 2017, the company was evicted from its New York offices at 132 West 31st Street, a block from Madison Square Garden, for non-payment of $90,000 in back rent. In February 2017, Spear Point Capital invested $1 million into Salon, taking a 29% equity stake and three seats on the company's board. On August 30, 2019, Salon.com was sold for $5 million by Salon Media Group (otc expert: SLNM) to privately held Salon.com, LLC, which is owned by Chris Richmond and Drew Schoentrup.

Aspects of the Salon.com site offerings, ordered by advancing date:

 * Free content: around 15 new articles posted per-day, revenues wholly derived from in-page advertisements.
 * Per-day new content was reduced for a time.
 * Salon Premium subscription: Approximately 20 percent of new content was made available to subscribers only. Other subscription benefits included free magazines and ad-free viewing. Larger, more conspicuous ad units were introduced for non-subscribers.
 * A hybrid subscription model: Readers can now read content by viewing a 15-second full screen advertisement to earn a "day pass" or gain access by subscribing to Salon Premium.
 * Salon Core: After Salon Premium subscriptions declined from about 100,000 to 10,000, it was rebranded in 2011 as Salon Core subscriptions featuring a different mix of benefits.
 * In 2018, Salon launched a beta program allowing customers to opt out of advertising in exchange for mining cryptocurrency.

Retracted article on vaccine conference
An article called "Deadly Immunity" written by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared on the Salon and simultaneously in the July 14, 2005 issue of Rolling Stone. The article focused on the 2000 Simpsonwood CDC conference and claimed that thimerosal-containing vaccines caused autism, as well as the conspiracy theory that government health agencies have "colluded with Big Pharma to hide the risks of thimerosal from the public." The article was retracted by Salon on January 16, 2011, in response to criticisms of the article as inaccurate.

Otto Warmbier
In March 2016, while American tourist Otto Warmbier was imprisoned in North Korea for allegedly trying to steal a propaganda poster there, the site posted an article about him headed: "This might be America's biggest idiot frat boy: Meet the UVa student who thought he could pull a prank in North Korea." After Warmbier's death, the article was removed. Andrew O'Hehir, the executive editor of Salon, said the article was a summary of the opinions of television comedian Larry Wilmore.

Todd Nickerson
In September 2015, Salon published an article written by Todd Nickerson, moderator of Virtuous Pedophiles, about his experiences with being a non-offending pedophile, titled: "I'm a pedophile, but not a monster." This caused controversy at the time, with some commentators accusing it of being "pro-pedophile" (in the sense of being pro-child sexual abuse) and Nickerson himself subject to a "backlash." This article, along with an accompanying video and a follow-up article, was deleted in early 2017. Some saw a connection between the removal of the articles and the controversy surrounding Milo Yiannopoulos's remarks on child sexual abuse that emerged in February 2017, although Salon Media Group CEO and Salon acting editor-in-chief Jordan Hoffner told New York magazine that they had been removed in January 2017 due to unspecified "new editorial policies." A third article by sex researcher Debra Soh defending Nickerson's side is still published as of April 2022.

Cryptocurrency mining
In February 2018, it was noted that Salon was preventing readers using ad blockers from seeing its content. Such users are offered a choice of disabling their blocker, or allowing Salon to run an in-browser script, using the user's resources, to mine Monero, a form of cryptocurrency.

Ron DeSantis headline
On June 23, 2021, Salon published an article with a headline falsely claiming that a bill signed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis would force Florida students and professors to register their political views with the state of Florida. The article went viral on Twitter and its false claim was promoted by various Democratic commentators, by Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried (who later deleted her tweet linking to the Salon article), and by novelist Stephen King (who later expressed regret for posting the headline). In 2022, Salon executive editor Andrew O'Hehir said that Salon had recently concluded that the headline "conveyed a misleading impression of what the Florida law actually said, and did not live up to our editorial standards", and the headline was changed. Another Salon editor had initially defended the headline in 2021. DeSantis spokesperson Christina Pushaw said that her colleagues had tried unsuccessfully to get Salon to change the headline in 2021, adding: "It's good to see that Salon finally changed its false headline after the pushback they received yesterday. It should have happened much sooner. Better yet, the Salon reporter and editors should have read the legislation before writing an article about it (a good practice for journalism, in general!)."

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Leo Baekeland

Leo Hendrik Baekeland (November 14, 1863 – February 23, 1944) was a Belgian chemist. Educated in Belgium and Germany, he spent most of his career in the United States. He is best known for the inventions of Velox photographic paper in 1893, and Bakelite in 1907. He has been called "The Father of the Plastics Industry" for his invention of Bakelite, an inexpensive, non-flammable and versatile plastic, which marked the beginning of the modern plastics industry.

Early life
Leo Baekeland was born in Ghent, Belgium, on November 14, 1863, the son of a cobbler, Charles Baekeland, and a house maid, Rosalia Merchie. His siblings were: Elodia Maria Baekeland; Melonia Leonia Baekeland; Edmundus Baekeland; Rachel Helena Baekeland and Delphina Baekeland.

He told The Literary Digest: "The name is a Dutch word meaning 'Land of Beacons.'" He spent much of his early life in Ghent, Belgium. He graduated with honours from the Ghent Municipal Technical School and was awarded a scholarship by the City of Ghent to study chemistry at the Ghent University, which he entered in 1880. He acquired a PhD maxima cum laude at the age of 21. After a brief appointment as Professor of Physics and Chemistry at the Government Higher Normal School in Bruges (1887–1889), he was appointed associate professor of chemistry at Ghent University in 1889.

Personal life
Baekeland married Céline Swarts (1868–1944) on August 8, 1889, and they had two children. One of their grandsons, Brooks (whose father was George Washington Baekeland) married the model Barbara Daly a.k.a. Barbara Daly Baekeland in 1942 and had one child, a boy named Anthony "Tony" Baekeland.

Career
In 1889, Baekeland and his wife Céline took advantage of a travel scholarship to visit universities in England and the United States. They visited New York City, where he met Professor Charles F. Chandler of Columbia University and Richard Anthony, of the E. and H.T. Anthony photographic company. Professor Chandler was influential in convincing Baekeland to stay in the United States. Baekeland had already invented a process to develop photographic plates using water instead of other chemicals, which he had patented in Belgium in 1887. Although this method was unreliable, Anthony saw potential in the young chemist and offered him a job.

Baekeland worked for the Anthony company for two years, and in 1891, set up in business for himself working as a consulting chemist. However, a spell of illness and disappearing funds made him rethink his actions and he decided to return to his old interest of producing a photographic paper that would allow enlargements to be printed by artificial light. After two years of intensive effort, he perfected the process to produce the paper, which he named "Velox"; it was the first commercially successful photographic paper. At the time, the US was suffering a recession and there were no investors or buyers for his proposed new product, so Baekeland became partners with Leonard Jacobi and established the Nepera Chemical Company in Nepera Park, Yonkers, New York.

In 1899, Jacobi, Baekeland, and Albert Hahn, a further associate, sold Nepera to George Eastman of the Eastman Kodak Co. for $750,000. Baekeland earned approximately $215,000 net through the transaction.

With a portion of the money he purchased "Snug Rock", a house in Yonkers, New York, where he set up his own well-equipped laboratory. There, he later said,"'in comfortable financial circumstances, a free man, ready to devote myself again to my favorite studies... I enjoyed for several years that great blessing, the luxury of not being interrupted in one's favorite work.' "One of the requirements of the Nepera sale was, in effect, a non-compete clause: Baekeland agreed not to do research in photography for at least 20 years. He would have to find a new area of research. His first step was to go to Germany in 1900, for a "refresher in electrochemistry" at the Technical Institute at Charlottenburg.

Upon returning to the United States, Baekeland was involved briefly but successfully in helping Clinton Paul Townsend and Elon Huntington Hooker to develop a production-quality electrolytic cell. Baekeland was hired as an independent consultant, with the responsibility of constructing and operating a pilot plant. Baekeland developed a stronger diaphragm cell for the chloralkali process, using woven asbestos cloth filled with a mixture of iron oxide, asbestos fibre, and iron hydroxide. Baekeland's improvements were important to the founding of Hooker Chemical Company and the construction of one of the world's largest electrochemical plants, at Niagara Falls.

Baekeland was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1935 and the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1936.

Invention of Bakelite
Having been successful with Velox, Baekeland set out to find another promising area for chemical development. As he had done with Velox, he looked for a problem that offered "the best chance for the quickest possible results". Asked why he entered the field of synthetic resins, Baekeland answered that his intention was to make money. By the 1900s, chemists had begun to recognize that many of the natural resins and fibers were polymeric, a term introduced in 1833 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius. Adolf von Baeyer had experimented with phenols and formaldehydes in 1872, particularly Pyrogallol and benzaldehyde. He created a "black guck" which he considered useless and irrelevant to his search for synthetic dyes. Baeyer's student, Werner Kleeberg, experimented with phenol and formaldehyde in 1891, but as Baekeland noted "could not crystallize this mess, nor purify it to constant composition, nor in fact do anything with it once produced".

Baekeland began to investigate the reactions of phenol and formaldehyde. He familiarized himself with previous work and approached the field systematically, carefully controlling and examining the effects of temperature, pressure, and the types and proportions of materials used.

The first application that appeared promising was the development of a synthetic replacement for shellac (made from the secretion of lac beetles). Baekeland produced a soluble phenol-formaldehyde shellac called "Novolak" but concluded that its properties were inferior. It never became a big market success, but is still used to this day (e. g. as a photoresist).

Baekeland continued to explore possible combinations of phenol and formaldehyde, intrigued by the possibility that such materials could be used in molding. By controlling the pressure and temperature applied to phenol and formaldehyde, he produced his dreamed-of hard moldable plastic: Bakelite. Bakelite was made from phenol, then known as carbolic acid, and formaldehyde. The chemical name of Bakelite is polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride. In compression molding, the resin is generally combined with fillers such as wood or asbestos, before pressing it directly into the final shape of the product. Baekeland's process patent for making insoluble products of phenol and formaldehyde was filed in July 1907, and granted on December 7, 1909. In February 1909, Baekeland officially announced his achievement at a meeting of the New York section of the American Chemical Society.

In 1917, Baekeland became a professor by special appointment at Columbia University.

The Smithsonian has documents from the county courthouse for Westchester County in White Plains, New York, indicating that he was admitted to U. S. Citizenship on December 16, 1919.

In 1922, after patent litigation favorable to Baekeland, the General Bakelite Co., which he had founded in 1910, along with the Condensite Co. founded by Aylesworth, and the Redmanol Chemical Products Company founded by Lawrence V. Redman, were merged into the Bakelite Corporation.

The invention of Bakelite marks the beginning of the age of plastics. Bakelite was the first plastic invented that retained its shape after being heated. Radios, telephones and electrical insulators were made of Bakelite because of its excellent electrical insulation and heat-resistance. Soon, its applications spread to most branches of industry.

Baekeland received many awards and honors, both during his lifetime and beyond, including the Perkin Medal in 1916 and the Franklin Medal in 1940. In 1974 he was posthumously inducted into the Plastics Hall of Fame and in 1978 he was likewise inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio.

At the time of Baekeland's death in 1944, the world production of Bakelite was ca. 175,000 tons, and it was used in over 15,000 different products. He held more than 100 patents, including processes for the separation of copper and cadmium, and for the impregnation of wood.

Later life and death

As Baekeland grew older he became more eccentric, entering fierce battles with his son and presumptive heir over salary and other issues. He sold the General Bakelite Company to Union Carbide in 1939 and, at his son's prompting, he retired. He became a recluse, eating all of his meals from cans and becoming obsessed with developing an immense tropical garden on his winter estate in Coconut Grove, Florida. He died of a stroke in a sanatorium in Beacon, New York, in 1944. Baekeland is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York.

Children
Jenny Nina Rose Baekeland (October 9, 1890 – 1895)

George Washington Baekeland (February 8, 1895 – January 31, 1966)

Nina Baekeland (July 22, 1896 – May 19, 1975)

title: Leo Baekeland


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Minnie Riperton

Minnie Julia Riperton Rudolph (November 8, 1947 – July 12, 1979) was an American soul singer and songwriter best known for her 1975 single "Lovin' You", her five-octave vocal range, and her use of the whistle register.

Born in 1947, Riperton grew up in Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood on the South Side. As a child, she studied music, drama and dance at Chicago's Abraham Lincoln Center. In her teen years, she sang lead vocals for the Chicago-based girl group the Gems. Her early affiliation with the Chicago-based Chess Records afforded her the opportunity to sing backing vocals for various established artists such as Etta James, Fontella Bass, Ramsey Lewis, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters. While at Chess, Riperton also sang lead for the psychedelic soul band Rotary Connection from 1967 to 1971.

On April 5, 1975, Riperton reached the apex of her career with her No. 1 single "Lovin' You". The single was the last release from her 1974 gold album titled Perfect Angel. In January 1976, Riperton was diagnosed with breast cancer; in April, she underwent a radical mastectomy. By the time of diagnosis, the cancer had metastasized and she was given about six months to live. Despite the prognosis, she continued recording and touring. She was one of the first celebrities to go public with a breast cancer diagnosis, but she did not disclose that she was terminally ill. In 1977, she became a spokesperson for the American Cancer Society. In 1978, she received the American Cancer Society's Courage Award, which was presented to her at the White House by President Jimmy Carter. Riperton died of breast cancer on July 12, 1979, at the age of 31.

Early life
Minnie Julia Riperton was born in Chicago, the daughter of Thelma Inez (née Matthews) (1911–2005) and Daniel Webster Riperton (1898–1991), a Pullman porter. The youngest of eight children in a musical family, she embraced the arts early. Although she began with ballet and modern dance, her parents recognized her vocal and musical abilities and encouraged her to pursue music and voice training. At Chicago's Abraham Lincoln Center, she received operatic vocal training from Marion Jeffery. She practiced breathing and phrasing, with particular emphasis on diction. Jeffery also trained Riperton to use her full range. While studying under Jeffery, she sang operettas and show tunes, in preparation for a career in opera. Jeffery was so convinced of her pupil's abilities that she strongly pushed her to further study the classics at Chicago's Junior Lyric Opera. The young Riperton was, however, becoming interested in soul, rhythm and blues, and rock. After graduating from Hyde Park High School (now Hyde Park Academy High School), she enrolled at Loop College, now named Harold Washington College, and became a member of Zeta Phi Beta sorority. She dropped out of college to pursue her music career.

Early career
Riperton's first professional singing engagement was with The Gems, when she was 15. Raynard Miner, a blind pianist, heard her singing during her stint with Hyde Park's A Cappella Choir and became her musical patron. The Gems had relatively limited commercial success, but proved to be a good outlet for Riperton's talent. Eventually the group became a session group known as Studio Three and it was during this period that they provided the backing vocals on the classic 1965 Fontella Bass hit "Rescue Me". In 1964, The Gems released a local hit, I Can't Help Myself, and their last single, He Makes Me Feel So Good, was released in 1965. The Gems later released records under numerous names—most notably 1966's Baby I Want You by the Girls Three and 1967's My Baby's Real by the Starlets. The latter has achieved cult status with northern soul fans and remains a favorite. It was a Motown-style song reminiscent of Tammi Terrell. In 1968, Watered Down was released as a follow-up, under the name The Starlets. It was the last release of Riperton's former girl group. While a part of Studio Three, Riperton met her mentor, producer Billy Davis, who wrote her first local hit, "Lonely Girl", as well as its B-side, "You Gave Me Soul". In honor of Davis, she used the pseudonym Andrea Davis for the release of those two singles.

Rotary Connection
In 1966, some months after her Andrea Davis singles hit the radio, Riperton joined Rotary Connection, a funky rock-soul group creation of Marshall Chess, the son of Chess Records founder Leonard Chess. Rotary Connection consisted of Riperton, Chess, Judy Hauff, Sidney Barnes, and Charles Stepney. They released their debut album Rotary Connection in 1968 and, subsequently, five more albums: 1968's Aladdin and Christmas album Peace, Songs (1969), Dinner Music (1970), and Hey Love (1971).

In 1969 Riperton, along with Rotary Connection, played in the first Catholic Rock Mass at the Liturgical Conference National Convention, Milwaukee Arena, Milwaukee, WI, produced by James F. Colaianni.

Come to My Garden
Riperton's debut solo album entitled Come to My Garden was produced, arranged, as well as orchestrated by her Rotary Connection band mate Charles Stepney and released in 1970 by GRT Records. Several of the songs were co-written by Stepney and Richard Rudolph, who married Riperton in August 1970. She was presented as a solo artist by Ramsey Lewis on Saturday, December 26, 1970, at Chicago's famed London House. Riperton went on to perform several numbers from the album while accompanied by Stepney. Although the record was not commercially successful at the time of its release, Come to My Garden is now acclaimed by music critics.

Perfect Angel and "Lovin' You"
In 1973, a college intern for Epic Records found Riperton in semi-retirement. She had become a homemaker and a mother of two in Gainesville, Florida. After he heard a demo of the song "Seeing You This Way", the rep took the tape to Don Ellis, VP of A&R for Epic. Riperton signed with Epic Records, and the family moved to Los Angeles, California. The subsequent record, Perfect Angel, turned out to be one of Riperton's best-selling albums. Included were the rock-soul anthem "Reasons"; the second single, "Take a Little Trip" (written by Stevie Wonder, who also coproduced the album); and the third single, "Seeing You This Way". Sales of the album started out slow. Epic was ready to move on to the next record, but Rudolph convinced them to release another single. With the fourth single, "Lovin' You", the album caught on, and in April 1975, the song went to the top of the charts in the U.S. and 24 other countries. The song reached no. 2 in the UK Singles Chart, and number three on the U.S. R&B charts. It sold more than one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA in April 1975. Perfect Angel went gold and Riperton was finally revered as the "lady with the high voice and flowers in her hair." The album also featured the song "Every Time He Comes Around", with Deniece Williams singing the background vocals.

Later career
After Perfect Angel, Riperton and her husband, songwriter and music producer Richard Rudolph started on Riperton's third album, Adventures in Paradise (1975). Joe Sample of The Crusaders cowrote the title song, "Adventures in Paradise", and Crusaders producer Stewart Levine co-produced the album. While shooting a promotional clip for the album, she was attacked by a lion, but was not seriously injured. During an appearance on The Sammy Davis, Jr. Show, she played the footage of the incident for Sammy and her fellow guests, including Richard Pryor. The album was a modest success. Despite the R&B hit "Inside My Love" (a no. 5 U.S. R&B hit, later covered by Trina Broussard, Chanté Moore, and Delilah), the album did not match the success of Perfect Angel. Some radio stations refused to play "Inside My Love" due to the lyrics: "Will you come inside me?"

Her fourth album for Epic Records, titled Stay in Love (1977), featured another collaboration with Stevie Wonder in the funky disco tune "Stick Together".

In 1978, Richard Rudolph and Riperton's attorney Mike Rosenfeld orchestrated a move to Capitol Records for Riperton and her CBS Records catalog. In April 1979, Riperton released her fifth and final album, Minnie. "Memory Lane" was a hit from the album.

Collaborations
Riperton provided backing vocals on Stevie Wonder's songs "Creepin'" and "It Ain't No Use" from 1974's Fulfillingness' First Finale and "Ordinary Pain" from 1976's Songs in the Key of Life. In 1977, she lent her vocal abilities to a track named "Yesterday and Karma" on Osamu Kitajima's album, Osamu.

Personal life
Riperton was married to songwriter and music producer Richard Rudolph from August 1970 until her death in July 1979. Together, Riperton and Rudolph had two children: music engineer Marc Rudolph (born 1968) and actress and comedian Maya Rudolph (born 1972), a Saturday Night Live cast member from 2000 to 2007. Maya was a toddler when "Lovin' You" was recorded. According to the liner notes from Riperton's Petals compilation CD, the melody to "Lovin' You" was created as a distraction for Maya when she was a baby so that Riperton and Richard Rudolph could spend time together. Near the end of the unedited "Lovin' You", Riperton sings "Maya, Maya, Maya".

Illness and death
On August 24, 1976, Riperton revealed on The Tonight Show that she had undergone a mastectomy due to breast cancer. At the time of her diagnosis, Riperton found out her cancer had already spread to the lymphatic system, and she was given about six months to live. She continued touring in 1977 and 1978, and she became the national spokeswoman for the American Cancer Society's 1978–1979 campaign. During the recording of her final non-posthumous album, Minnie, her cancer progressed to the point that she was in a great deal of pain. Extreme lymphedema immobilized her right arm in early 1979. In her final singing appearances on television (most notably on the Mike Douglas Show), her right arm remained in a fixed position during her performances. Near her death, in concert, she changed the end of "Lovin' You", "Maya, Maya, Maya" to "Maya, Maya, Ringo, Maya." Ringo was her nickname for her son, Marc. By mid-June, Riperton was confined to bed. She entered Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on July 10.

On Thursday, July 12, 1979, at 10:00 am, she died in the arms of her husband. That Sunday, following a funeral service attended by more than five hundred mourners, Riperton was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. Her epitaph is the opening line of her most famous song: "Lovin' you is easy 'cause you're beautiful". Stevie Wonder paid tribute to Riperton during an episode of the TV show Soul Train, which aired shortly after her death in September 1979. On June 7, 2009, TV One (US TV network's) Unsung series premièred a one-hour documentary on Riperton's career and life. It included interviews with her husband Richard, son Marc, daughter Maya, sister Sandra Riperton, and many others who worked with her.

Posthumous releases
After Riperton died, several artists contributed vocals to tracks she had recorded before her death, to help compile Richard Rudolph's final tribute to his wife, Love Lives Forever. Included, among others, were Peabo Bryson, Michael Jackson, and Stevie Wonder. Riperton's last single, "Give Me Time", was released in 1980. Richard Rudolph wrote the song, "Now That I Have You" for her, but she never got the chance to record it; he gave the song to Teena Marie, who recorded it (and co-produced it with Rudolph) on Marie's second LP, Lady T. Finally, in 1981, Capitol Records released The Best of Minnie Riperton, a greatest hits collection. The "new" song on the album was a remake of Joni Mitchell's "A Woman of Heart and Mind", which was a holdover from the Minnie sessions. Also included were an alternate mix of "Memory Lane"; live versions of "Can You Feel What I'm Saying", "Lover And Friend", and "Young, Willing, and Able"; and two "Moments with Minnie". It also included the hits "Perfect Angel", "Lovin' You", "Inside My Love", "Adventures In Paradise", and two tracks from Love Lives Forever: the single "Here We Go" (a duet with Peabo Bryson), and the song "You Take My Breath Away". During the 1990s, Riperton's music was sampled by rap and hip-hop artists including Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, A Tribe Called Quest, Blumentopf, the Orb and Tragedy Khadafi.

Vocal ability
Riperton's official "press bio" reported that she had a coloratura soprano vocal range. Aside from her various hits, she is also remembered for her ability to sing in high head voice (occasionally the whistle register which is often mistakenly confused with the former), in which she had rare facility. In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked Riperton at number 65 on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.

Mariah Carey cited Riperton as one of her musical influences.

Grammy Awards
Riperton received a sum of two Grammy nominations.

Tours

 * George & Minnie Live! (1976–77)

Riperton joined with established jazz guitarist George Benson, to kick-off a co-headlining North American concert tour. The tour ran from 1976 through the fall of 1977.

Set list

Notes
 * On select dates during the tour, Riperton's performance of her hit song "Lovin' You" included a reprise version that featured George Benson.
 * Riperton performed "Can You Feel What I'm Saying?" only at select dates during the tour.

Dates

 * Not all North American dates are listed.

title: Minnie Riperton


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Talk:Athenaeus

Comments
The two books mentioned in the text actually are the same, the titles being in Latin and in Greek. The book contains a fictional conversation between most learned man concerning numerous issues. The book is valuable as a source of innumerable quotes from sources otherwise unknown. Andres

I've edited the text, adding the point that Andres rightly makes. I've also added some references, here and at Deipnosophistae. Andrew Dalby http://perso.wanadoo.fr/dalby/ 13:39, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the addition on pederasty but it is really needed not in Athenaeus's biography but in the article Deipnosophists, which needs to outline the contents of the book, so I have moved it there. Hope everyone approves. Andrew Dalby http://perso.wanadoo.fr/dalby/ 22:28, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Additions by User:Bleh999
The additions seem to be from the Ency. Brit. 1911 (or some equally old and POV source) and to be mostly about the Deipnosophistae: therefore, I suggest, most of the new text belongs in that article, if anywhere. Indeed, some of it is already there. However, the details about Athenaeus's other works are definitely useful. And rew D alby 18:09, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Epaenetus
Was Epaenetus Athenaeus's real name? The linked page gives a source claiming so, but it's a Greek language source and I don't speak Greek. Ego White Tray (talk) 06:02, 22 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I can read Greek, but I can't find the link you refer to. Could you copy the link here?
 * At first sight, there could be no way either to prove or disprove the hypothesis. It seems highly likely that it is false, because Athenaeus cites about 700 authors, and in the great majority of cases, even the most obscure of cases, it can be shown independently that the works which he cites existed. So why, in just one case, should he insert citations to himself, disguised as a minor and uninteresting author called Epaenetus? Incidentally, if he did for some devious reason work that trick, how would one say which was his "real name"? Andrew Dalby 09:06, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

title: Talk:Athenaeus


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Mortgage law

A mortgage is a legal instrument of the common law which is used to create a security interest in real property held by a lender as a security for a debt, usually a mortgage loan. Hypothec is the corresponding term in civil law jurisdictions, albeit with a wider sense, as it also covers non-possessory lien.

A mortgage in itself is not a debt, it is the lender's security for a debt. It is a transfer of an interest in land (or the equivalent) from the owner to the mortgage lender, on the condition that this interest will be returned to the owner when the terms of the mortgage have been satisfied or performed. In other words, the mortgage is a security for the loan that the lender makes to the borrower.

The word is a Law French term meaning "dead pledge," originally only referring to the Welsh mortgage (see below), but in the later Middle Ages was applied to all gages and reinterpreted by folk etymology to mean that the pledge ends (dies) either when the obligation is fulfilled or the property is taken through foreclosure.

In most jurisdictions mortgages are strongly associated with loans secured on real estate rather than on other property (such as ships) and in some jurisdictions only land may be mortgaged. A mortgage is the standard method by which individuals and businesses can purchase real estate without the need to pay the full value immediately from their own resources. See mortgage loan for residential mortgage lending, and commercial mortgage for lending against commercial property.

Participants and variant terminology
Legal systems in different countries, while having some concepts in common, employ different terminology. However, in general, a mortgage of property involves the following parties. The borrower, known as the mortgagor, gives the mortgage to the lender, known as the mortgagee.

Lender/mortgagee
A mortgage lender is an investor that lends money secured by a mortgage on real estate. In today's world, most lenders sell the loans they write on the secondary mortgage market. When they sell the mortgage, they earn revenue called Service Release Premium. Typically, the purpose of the loan is for the borrower to purchase that same real estate. As the mortgagee, the lender has the right to sell the property to pay off the loan if the borrower fails to pay.

The mortgage runs with the land, so even if the borrower transfers the property to someone else, the mortgagee still has the right to sell it if the borrower fails to pay off the loan.

So that a buyer cannot unwittingly buy property subject to a mortgage, mortgages are registered or recorded against the title with a government office, as a public record. The borrower has the right to have the mortgage discharged from the title once the debt is paid.

Borrower/mortgagor
A mortgagor is the borrower in a mortgage—he or she owes the obligation secured by the mortgage. Generally, the borrower must meet the conditions of the underlying loan or other obligation in order to redeem the mortgage. If the borrower fails to meet these conditions, the mortgagee may foreclose to recover the outstanding loan. Typically the borrowers will be the individual homeowners, landlords, or businesses who are purchasing their property by way of a loan.

Other participants
Because of the complicated legal exchange, or conveyance, of the property, one or both of the main participants are likely to require legal representation. The agent used for conveyancing varies based on the jurisdiction. In the English-speaking world this means either a general legal practitioner, i.e., an attorney or solicitor, or in jurisdictions influenced by English law, including South Africa, a (licensed) conveyancer. In the United States, real estate agents are the most common. In civil law jurisdictions conveyancing is handled by civil law notaries.

Because of the complex nature of many markets the borrower may approach a mortgage broker or financial adviser to help him or her source an appropriate lender, typically by finding the most competitive loan.

The debt instrument is, in civil law jurisdictions, referred to by some form of Latin hypotheca (e.g., Sp hipoteca, Fr hypothèque, Germ Hypothek), and the parties are known as hypothecator (borrower) and hypothecatee (lender). A civil-law hypotheca is exactly equivalent to an English mortgage by legal charge or American lien-theory mortgage.

Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman law
In Anglo-Saxon England, when interest loans were illegal, the main method of securing realty was by wadset (ME wedset). A wadset was a loan masked as a sale of land under right of reversion. The borrower (reverser) conveyed by charter a fee simple estate, in consideration of a loan, to the lender (wadsetter) who on redemption would reconvey the estate to the reverser by a second charter. The difficulty with this arrangement was that the wadsetter was absolute owner of the property and could sell it to a third party or refuse to reconvey it to the reverser, who was also stripped of his principal means of repayment and therefore in a weak position. In later years the practice—especially in Scotland and on the continent—was to execute together the wadset and a separate back-bond according the reverser an in personam right of reverter.

An alternative practice imported from Norman law was the usufructory pledge of real property known as a gage of land. Under a gage the borrower (gagor) conveyed possession but not ownership to the lender (gagee) for an unlimited term until redemption. The gage came in two forms: The gage was unattractive for lenders because the gagor could easily eject the gagee using novel disseisin, and the gagee—merely seized ut de vadio “as of gage”—could not bring a freeholder's remedies to recover possession. Thus, the unprofitable living gage fell out of use, but the dead gage continued as the Welsh mortgage until abolished in 1922.
 * the living gage (Norman vif gage, Welsh prid), whereby the estate's accruing rents, profits, and crops went toward reducing the debt (that is, the debt was self-redeeming);
 * the dead gage (Norman mort gage, Scots deid wad), whereby the rents and profits were taken in lieu of interest but did not reduce the debt.

Late Middle Ages
By the 13th century—in England and on the continent—the gage was limited to a term of years and contained a forfeiture proviso (pactum commissorium) providing that if after the term the debt was not repaid, title was forfeited to the lender, i.e., the term of years would expand automatically into a fee simple. This is known as a shifting fee and was sufficient after 1199 to entitle the gagee to bring an action for recovery. However, the royal courts increasingly did not respect shifting fees since there was no livery of seisin (i.e., no formal conveyance), nor did they recognize that tenure could be enlarged, so by the 14th century the simple gage for years was invalid in England (and Scotland and the near continent ).

The solution was to merge the latter-day wadset and gage for years into a single transaction embodied in two instruments: (1) the absolute conveyance (the charter) in fee or for years to the lender; (2) an indenture or bond (the defeasance) reciting the loan and providing that if it was repaid the land would reinvest in the borrower, but if not the lender would retain title. If repaid on time, the lender would reinvest title using a reconveyance deed. This was the mortgage by conveyance (aka mortgage in fee) or, when written, the mortgage by charter and reconveyance and took the form of a feoffment, bargain and sale, or lease and release. Since the lender did not necessarily enter into possession, had rights of action, and covenanted a right of reversion on the borrower, the mortgage was a proper collateral security. Thus, a mortgage was on its face an absolute conveyance of a fee simple estate, but was in fact conditional, and would be of no effect if certain conditions were met.

The debt was absolute in form, and unlike a gage was not conditionally dependent on its repayment solely from raising and selling crops or livestock or simply giving the crops and livestock raised on the gaged land. The mortgage debt remained in effect whether or not the land could successfully produce enough income to repay the debt. In theory, a mortgage required no further steps to be taken by the lender, such as acceptance of crops and livestock in repayment.

Renaissance and after
However, if the borrower was a single day late in repaying the debt, he forfeited his land to the lender while still remaining liable for the debt. Increasingly the courts of equity began to protect the borrower's interests, so that a borrower came to have under Sir Francis Bacon (1617–21) an absolute right to insist on reconveyance on redemption even if past due. This right of the borrower is known as the equity of redemption.

This arrangement, whereby the lender was in theory the absolute owner, but in practice had few of the practical rights of ownership, was seen in many jurisdictions as being awkwardly artificial. By statute the common law's position was altered so that the mortgagor (borrower) would retain ownership, but the mortgagee's (lender's) rights, such as foreclosure, the power of sale, and the right to take possession, would be protected. In the United States, those states that have reformed the nature of mortgages in this way are known as lien states. A similar effect was achieved in England and Wales by the Law of Property Act 1925, which abolished mortgages by the conveyance of a fee simple.

Since the 17th century, lenders have not been allowed to carry interest in the property beyond the underlying debt under the equity of redemption principle. Attempts by the lender to carry an equity interest in the property in a manner similar to convertible bonds through contract have been therefore struck down by courts as "clogs", but developments in the 1980s and 1990s have led to less rigid enforcement of this principle, particularly due to interest among theorists in returning to a freedom of contract regime.

Mortgage Law and Colonization Practices
Mortgage and foreclosure were used as a means by the Dutch and other colonists to acquire land from native peoples in North America. This was a successful endeavor partially due to cultural differences in the understanding of land ownership. The practice followed a series of steps. Colonists would draw native peoples into their debts through credit that the natives would then need to create mortgages to repay. The debt would generally be one that the natives would be unable to pay in a reasonable time frame and thus foreclosure would be enforced, and the land acquired by the colonists.

Default on divided property
When a tract of land is purchased with a mortgage and then split up and sold, the "inverse order of alienation rule" applies to decide parties liable for the unpaid debt.

When a mortgaged tract of land is split up and sold, upon default, the mortgagee first forecloses on lands still owned by the mortgagor and proceeds against other owners in an 'inverse order' in which they were sold. For example, Alice acquires a 3 acre lot by mortgage then splits up the lot into three 1 acre lots (X, Y, and Z), and sells lot Y to Bob, and then lot Z to Charlie, retaining lot X for herself. Upon default, the mortgagee proceeds against lot X first, the mortgagor. If foreclosure or repossession of lot X does not fully satisfy the debt, the mortgagee proceeds against lot Z (Charlie), then lot Y (Bob). The rationale is that the first purchaser should have more equity and subsequent purchasers receive a diluted share.

Legal aspects
Mortgages may be legal or equitable. Furthermore, a mortgage may take one of a number of different legal structures, the availability of which will depend on the jurisdiction under which the mortgage is made. Common law jurisdictions have evolved two main forms of mortgage: the mortgage by demise and the mortgage by legal charge.

Mortgage by demise
In a mortgage by demise, the mortgagee (the lender) becomes the owner of the mortgaged property until the loan is repaid or other mortgage obligation fulfilled in full, a process known as "redemption". This kind of mortgage takes the form of a conveyance of the property to the creditor, with a condition that the property will be returned on redemption.

Mortgages by demise were the original form of mortgage, and continue to be used in many jurisdictions, and in a small minority of states in the United States. Many other common law jurisdictions have either abolished or minimised the use of the mortgage by demise. For example, in England and Wales this type of mortgage is no longer available in relation to registered interests in land, by virtue of section 23 of the Land Registration Act 2002 (though it continues to be available for unregistered interests).

Mortgage by legal charge
In a mortgage by legal charge or technically "a charge by deed expressed to be by way of legal mortgage", the debtor remains the legal owner of the property, but the creditor gains sufficient rights over it to enable them to enforce their security, such as a right to take possession of the property or sell it.

To protect the lender, a mortgage by legal charge is usually recorded in a public register. Since mortgage debt is often the largest debt owed by the debtor, banks and other mortgage lenders run title searches of the real estate property to make certain that there are no mortgages already registered on the debtor's property which might have higher priority. Tax liens, in some cases, will come ahead of mortgages. For this reason, if a borrower has delinquent property taxes, the bank will often pay them to prevent the lienholder from foreclosing and wiping out the mortgage.

This type of mortgage is most common in the United States and, since the Law of Property Act 1925, it has been the usual form of mortgage in England and Wales (it is now the only form for registered interests in land – see above).

In Scotland, the mortgage by legal charge is also known as Standard Security.

In Pakistan, the mortgage by legal charge is most common way used by banks to secure the financing. It is also known as registered mortgage. After registration of legal charge, the bank's lien is recorded in the land register stating that the property is under mortgage and cannot be sold without obtaining an NOC (No Objection Certificate) from the bank.

Equitable mortgage
Equitable mortgages originate in English Common Law and may lack some legal formalities.

In an equitable mortgage the lender is secured by taking possession of all the original title documents of the property and by borrower's signing a Memorandum of Deposit of Title Deed (MODTD). This document is an undertaking by the borrower that he/she has deposited the title documents with the bank with his own wish and will, in order to secure the financing obtained from the bank. Certain transactions are recognized therefore as mortgages by equity, which are not so recognized by common law.

Foreclosure and non-recourse lending
In most jurisdictions, a lender may foreclose on the mortgaged property if certain conditions—principally, non-payment of the mortgage loan – apply. A foreclosure will be either judicial or extrajudicial (non-judicial), depending upon whether the jurisdiction within which the property to be foreclosed interprets mortgages according to title theory or lien theory, and further depending upon the type of security instrument used to secure the loan. Subject to local legal requirements, the property may then be sold. Any amounts received from the sale (net of costs) are applied to the original debt.

In some jurisdictions mainly in the United States, mortgage loans are non-recourse loans: if the funds recouped from sale of the mortgaged property are insufficient to cover the outstanding debt, the lender may not have recourse to the borrower after foreclosure. In other jurisdictions, the borrower remains responsible for any remaining debt, through a deficiency judgment. In some jurisdictions, first mortgages are non-recourse loans, but second and subsequent ones are recourse loans.

Specific procedures for foreclosure and sale of the mortgaged property almost always apply, and may be tightly regulated by the relevant government. In some jurisdictions, foreclosure and sale can occur quite rapidly, while in others, foreclosure may take many months or even years. In many countries, the ability of lenders to foreclose is extremely limited, and mortgage market development has been notably slower. The relatively slow, expensive and cumbersome process of judicial foreclosure is a primary motivation for the use of deeds of trust, because of their provisions for non-judicial foreclosures by trustees through "power of sale" clauses.

Three theories of mortgages
There are three legal theories pertaining to mortgages: title theory, lien theory, and intermediate theory. These three theories pertain particularly to the operation of mortgages, and so provide the key to understanding the differences which exist in the operation of mortgages across jurisdictions.

Title theory
Title theory is "the idea that a mortgage transfers legal title of the mortgaged property from the mortgagor to the mortgagee, which retains it until the mortgage has been satisfied or foreclosed. Only a few American States...have adopted this theory." Under title theory, a mortgage has the effect of a deed passing legal title, though conditionally, of the mortgaged property to the mortgagee (the lender in a loan agreement being secured by the mortgage), with so-called "equitable title" (which is really equity of redemption) being retained by the mortgagor (the borrower in the loan). The fact of the mortgagor's retaining of the "equity of redemption" is the fact which renders the passing of title under title theory conditional. Mortgages within title theory jurisdictions, then, may be viewed as having the action of what might be called "conditional deeds". Though legal title is passed pursuant to a mortgage therein, the arrangement is generally construed by courts to recognize the mortgagor as "owner" of the mortgaged property within title theory jurisdictions. Even so, foreclosure of the property as a remedy for default under title theory is most often extrajudicial (non-judicial).

Lien theory
Lien theory is "the idea that a mortgage resembles a lien, so that...", pursuant to a mortgage, "...the mortgagee acquires only a lien on the property and the mortgagor retains both legal and equitable title unless a valid foreclosure occurs. Most American states...have adopted this theory." Sometimes this theory is referred to as the "Equitable Theory of Mortgages". Under lien theory. a mortgage acts to place a lien on the mortgaged property in favor of the mortgagee, and legal title is retained by the mortgagor. Judicial foreclosure is most often necessary as a remedy to default pursuant to mortgages within lien theory jurisdictions, and this process has been found to be cumbersome, time-consuming and costly. Resultantly, lenders within lien theory jurisdictions most often have recourse to non-mortgage instruments for the securement of loans, which instruments usually take the form of trust deeds or, within the State of Georgia, the security deed. Deeds always act to convey legal title to a parcel of real property, and the ubiquitous usage of such deeds within lien theory jurisdictions has generally served to subvert the action of mortgages therein.

Intermediate theory
Under what has come to be called the "intermediate theory" of mortgages, a mortgage is viewed as creating a lien on the mortgaged property until such a time as an event of default occurs pursuant to the loan contract. After such a time, the same mortgage is construed under title theory. This is accomplished by the inclusion of a stipulation within the loan contract to the effect that the borrower is allowed to retain legal title to the collateralized property with the express agreement that the lender may foreclose in a non- or extrajudicial manner if the borrower defaults on the loan.

In the United States, more states are lien-theory states than are title-theory or intermediate-theory states. In title-theory states, a mortgage continues to be a conveyance of legal title to secure a debt, while the mortgagor still retains equitable title. In lien-theory states, mortgages and deeds of trust have been redesigned so that they now impose a nonpossessory lien on the title to the mortgaged property, while the mortgagor still holds both legal and equitable title.

Types of security interests in realty
Four types of security over real property are commonly used in the United States: the title mortgage, the lien mortgage, the deed of trust, and particularly within the State of Georgia, the security deed. In the United States, these security instruments proceed off of debt instruments drawn up in the form of promissory notes and which are known variously as mortgage notes, lender's notes, or real estate lien notes.

The mortgage
A mortgage operates to collateralize real property by means of lien or through conditional conveyance of title, depending upon jurisdiction. A mortgage creates a security interest in realty created by a written instrument (traditionally a deed) that either conveys legal title (according to the "title theory of mortgages") or hypothecates title by way of a nonpossessory lien (according to the "lien theory of mortgages") to a lender for the performance under the terms of a mortgage note. In slightly less than half of states, a mortgage creates a lien on the title to the mortgaged property. Foreclosure of that lien almost always requires a judicial proceeding declaring the debt to be due and in default and ordering a sale of the property to pay the debt. Many mortgages contain a power of sale clause, also known as nonjudicial foreclosure clause, making them equivalent to a deed of trust. Most "mortgages" in California are actually deeds of trust. The effective difference is that the foreclosure process can be much faster for a deed of trust than for a mortgage, on the order of 3 months rather than a year. Because this foreclosure does not require actions by the court, the transaction costs can be quite a bit less.

The deed of trust
The deed of trust is a conveyance of title made by the borrower to a third party trustee (not the lender) for the purposes of securing a debt. In lien-theory states, it is reinterpreted as merely imposing a lien on the title and not a title transfer, regardless of its terms. It differs from a mortgage in that, in many states, it can be foreclosed by a nonjudicial sale held by the trustee through a power of sale. It is also possible to foreclose them through a judicial proceeding.

Deeds of trust to secure repayments of debts should not be confused with trust instruments that are sometimes called deeds of trust but that are used to create trusts for other purposes, such as estate planning. Though there are superficial similarities in the form, many states hold deeds of trust to secure repayment of debts do not create true trust arrangements.

The security deed: specialty of Georgia
Georgia is often stated to be a title theory state, but such is not the case. Note O.C.G.A. §44-14-30, which states clearly that "A mortgage in this state is only security for a debt and passes no title." Also note O.C.G.A. §44-14-31, which states that "No particular form is necessary to constitute a mortgage. However, a mortgage must clearly indicate the creation of a lien and must specify the debt for which it is given and the property upon which it is to take effect." It is clear, then, that mortgages are construed within the Official Georgia Code and by the Courts of the State of Georgia as placing a lien upon a mortgaged property in favor of the mortgagee, while the mortgagor retains both legal and equitable title to that property. It is equally clear, then, that Georgia is, by virtue of the foregoing facts, a lien theory state. Even so, the Georgia Legislature has formally provided for a lender being able to secure its loan by means of having legal title to a collateralized property conveyed to it.

The so-called "Deed to Secure Debt" is a security instrument used in the state of Georgia to accomplish securing of a debt by means of the passing of legal title to real property. Though it is characterized within the Official Code of Georgia (the "O.C.G.A.") to be an "absolute conveyance" of title, it is, in fact, not, for the grantor of the deed in this scheme does retain the "equity of redemption", otherwise known as "equitable title". The nature of the Georgia "Deed to Secure Debt" is set forth in O.C.G.A. §44-14-60, within which (somewhat oxymoronically) it is stated that: "Such conveyance shall be held by the courts to be an absolute conveyance,..." (assumedly meaning an actual conveyance of "absolute" or "perfect" title to the grantee) "...with the right reserved by the grantor to have the property reconveyed to him upon the payment of the debt or debts intended to be secured agreeably to the terms of the contract,..." (in other words, the grantor retains "equitable title", a.k.a. the equity of redemption, which appears to contradict the preceding phrase within the same sentence) "...and shall not be held to be a mortgage." (which is true, but only within a "lien theory" jurisdiction). Despite the assertion within the O.C.G.A. of "absolute conveyance", the fact that the grantor of a security deed retains equitable title to the deeded property, means that the conveyance of title effected by said security deed is, in fact, not absolute, but is conditional, and the security deed effectively functions as a mortgage construed under title theory.

Upon the execution of such a deed, "legal title" passes to the grantee or beneficiary (usually lender), while the grantor (borrower) maintains "equitable title" to use and enjoy the conveyed land subject to compliance with debt obligations. In this, the security deed in Georgia operates no differently than does a mortgage within "title theory" jurisdictions. Hypothetically, if "absolute" or "perfect" title were held by a grantee such that the grantor did not retain the equity of redemption, then the grantee/lender would theoretically not have need to foreclose upon the grantor/borrower, but rather might cure a default by simple means of eviction or "summary reposession". However, foreclosure, albeit extrajudicial, is found to be necessary in Georgia to cure a default. Because of the apparently self-contradictory nature of the Georgia statute, the Courts within Georgia have construed the operation of security deeds to mean that the grantor retains the equity of redemption, such that non- or extrajudicial foreclosure is necessary as a remedy for default on a loan.

In order to be effectual, security deeds must be recorded in the county of Georgia within which the land is located. Although there is no specific time within which such deeds must be filed, the failure to timely record the deed to secure debt may affect priority and therefore the ability to enforce the debt against the subject property.

Priority
The lien is said to attach to the title when the mortgage is signed by the mortgagor and delivered to the mortgagee and the mortgagor receives the funds whose repayment the mortgage secures. Subject to the requirements of the recording laws of the state in which the mortgaged property is located, this attachment establishes the priority of the mortgage lien with respect to most other liens on the property's title. Liens that have attached to the title before the mortgage lien are said to be senior to, or prior to, the mortgage lien. Those attaching afterward are said to be junior or subordinate. The purpose of this priority is to establish the order in which lienholders are entitled to foreclose their liens in order to recover their debts. If a property's title has multiple mortgage liens and the loan secured by a first mortgage is paid off, the second mortgage lien will move up in priority and become the new first mortgage lien on the title. Documenting this new priority arrangement will require the release of the mortgage securing the paid-off loan.

Assignment
Mortgages, along with the Mortgage note, may be assigned to other parties. Some jurisdictions hold that the assignment of the note implies the assignment of the mortgage, while others contend it only creates an equitable right.

title: Mortgage law


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Abraham Pineo Gesner

Abraham Pineo Gesner, ONB (May 2, 1797 – April 29, 1864) was a Nova Scotian and New Brunswickan physician and geologist who invented kerosene. Gesner was born in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia (now called Chipmans Corner) and lived much of his life in Saint John, New Brunswick. He died in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He was an influential figure in the development of the study of Canadian geology and natural history.

Early life
Abraham Pineo Gesner was born on May 2, 1797, in Cornwallis, King's County, Nova Scotia. He was one of 12 children raised by Henry Gesner and Sarah Pineo, His father was a Loyalist, who emigrated to Nova Scotia after the American Revolution. Gesner was noted to be a great reader and a diligent student.

In his early twenties, Gesner began a venture selling horses to plantations in the Caribbean and the United States, but this enterprise failed after he lost most of his horses in two shipwrecks. Financially drained, Gesner returned to the family farm and married Harriet Webster, daughter of prominent Kentville doctor Isaac Webster in 1824. Reportedly, Webster offered to take care of Gesner's debts if he would study medicine and secure a steady income for his family. In 1825, Gesner travelled to London to study medicine at St Bartholomew's Hospital under Sir Astley Paston Cooper, and surgery at Guy's Hospital under John Abernethy. While primarily a medical student, Gesner developed an interest in the earth sciences and took lectures in mineralogy and geology. Gesner also established a lifelong relationship with Charles Lyell.

Early career
Gesner qualified as a doctor of medicine and settled in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia in 1827 as a travelling physician. Gesner also continued to pursue his passion for geology, reading the writings of notable geologists and developing a habit of picking up mineral specimens that caught his attention while making his rounds on horseback. In 1836, Gesner published his first book, Remarks on the Geology and Mineralogy of Nova Scotia. The book expanded on an earlier geological study by Charles T. Jackson and displayed Gesner's ability to express complicated concepts in simple language. Following the publication of Remarks on the Geology and Mineralogy of Nova Scotia, Gesner focused his efforts on studying geology and the sciences connected to it.

In 1838, the government of New Brunswick appointed Gesner Provincial Geologist, and he moved to Saint John to conduct a geological survey of the province. For five years, Gesner spent his summers on geological fieldwork and his winters classifying specimens and writing reports. Although Gesner's geological studies were of high quality by the standards of the 1840s, he had no experience in mining and failed to make a realistic appraisal of the province's mineral reserves. Following the publication of Gesner's geological surveys, local entrepreneurs opened coal and iron mines in Queens County and were quickly disappointed by the extent and quality of the ore. Unhappy investors questioned the validity of Gesner's surveys and the provincial government terminated his employment in 1843.

During the first summer of his geological surveys, Gesner found a bituminous substance on the Petitcodiac River in Albert County, which he named albertite to differentiate it from coal or asphalt.

While in St. John, Gesner amassed an extensive collection of minerals and wildlife specimens, which he assembled into a museum in 1842. Gesner's museum was one of its first of its kind in British North America and had 2173 items in its catalogue. The museum was a financial failure, and when Gesner left New Brunswick, the Saint John Mechanics’ Institute acquired the objects. In 1890, the Natural History Society of New Brunswick took over the collection, which is today a part of the New Brunswick Museum.

Following the termination of his geological appointment in 1843, Gesner returned to his family homestead at Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, in order to be with his father who was then 87 years old. While working on the family farm, Gesner also continued to practice medicine, write books, give public lectures and conduct experiments. He published notes for emigrants to New Brunswick, outlined the industrial resources of Nova Scotia, and built an electrical motor driven by a voltaic battery. In 1846, the government of Nova Scotia appointed Gesner Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and the following year he submitted a report on the living conditions of the Miꞌkmaq population. While visiting Mi'kmaq habitations across the province for his report, Gesner was known to donate his own money to assist impoverished families.

In 1842, looking for coal, Gesner travelled to Quebec, where he discovered the first of the great fossil deposits of the future Miguasha National Park. However, little notice was taken of his report until the fossils were rediscovered in 1879.

Discovery of kerosene
Gesner likely began experimenting with hydrocarbons in the 1840s. Utilizing a sample of bitumen from Trinidad's Pitch Lake that he collected while shipping horses across the Atlantic, Gesner developed a method of extracting oils and gas from bituminous substances. Gesner found that the first product was not satisfactory, as it had an offensive odour, the raw material was expensive to obtain, and his experiments suggested that one ton of Trinidad bitumen would produce only 42 gallons of oil. Switching his experiments from Trinidad's bitumen to albertite, Gesner found that the burning oil extracted from the substance produced a brighter and cleaner flame compared to lamps using whale oil or coal oil. While undertaking a series of public lectures in Charlottetown, Gesner reportedly gave the first public demonstration of the preparation and use of the new lamp fuel in August 1846. Gesner first called his product "keroselain" from two Greek words, κηρός (wax) and λάδι (oil), but later contracted the name to kerosene.

Shortly after Gesner's father died on October 13, 1850, he moved his family to Sackville, a small town near Halifax, and in 1852 to Halifax. In Halifax, Gesner made the acquaintance of Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald. The pair planned to set up a company that would illuminate Halifax by using albertite from Albert County, New Brunswick, and bitumen from Trinidad's pitch lake. However, Cochrane's terms of service expired in April 1851, and he returned to England before the pair could bring the project to fruition. Gesner attempted to continue the project on his own, but Halifax's city council awarded the gas license to a rival group, the Halifax Gas Company. Moreover, although Gesner attempted to receive a lease to mine bitumen in Albert County, another entrepreneur, William Cairns, had already purchased the rights to mine coal in the area. After Cairns had Gesner's men forcibly expelled from the site of the bitumen deposit, Gesner brought suit against Cairns for trespassing. The trial centered on whether the albertite deposit was coal or asphalt. The jury, told by the judge that Cairn's license to mine coal included "other mines and minerals," ultimately sided against Gesner, resulting in albertite's misidentification as "Albert Coal" for the next 30 years. In early 1853, following the outcome of the trial, Gesner and his family moved to New York City, where he had earlier exhibited his kerosene and amassed significant publicity.

The North American Kerosene Company
After arriving in New York, Gesner focused on finding financial backing for his kerosene venture. In March 1853, Gesner partnered with shipbroker Horatio Eagle, who issued an eight-page circular entitled, Project for the Formation of a Company to Work the Combined Patent Rights of Dr. Abraham Gesner, Nova Scotia, and the Right Hon. the Earl of Dundonald of Middlesex, England. The pamphlet offered for sale $100,000 in shares of a new company called the Asphalt Mining and Kerosene Company, later renamed the North American Kerosene Company. The pamphlet outlined the numerous uses for kerosene oils and noted that Gesner was the company's chief chemist, hired on for a "moderate salary." On June 27, 1854, Gesner obtained U.S patents 11,203, 11,204, and 11,205 for "Improvement in kerosene burning fluids," but he transferred patent rights to the North American Kerosene Company. In the patents, Gesner described three distinct types of kerosene, which he labelled kerosenes A, B and C. Kerosene A was the most volatile fraction, known today as gasoline. Kerosene B was slightly less volatile and was intended mainly for mixing with the other grades. Kerosene C was the lamp fuel, which came to be known as "coal-oil" or "carbon-oil."

Under Gesner's guidance, the North American Kerosene Company began constructing a coal oil refinery on a seven-acre tract at Newtown Creek, Long Island, the first of its kind in North America. By 1856, the firm was selling kerosene for use as lamp fuel. According to an article in the New York Commercial Advertiser in August 1859, the plant cost $1.25 million to build, employed 200 men, used 30,000 tons of coal per year, and exported 5,000 gallons of kerosene per day. Modern engineers have praised Gesner's efficient design of the factory, differing very little from manufactories built as late as 1914. While the enterprise had not made Gesner extremely wealthy, he lived comfortably in Brooklyn, New York, where he was a prominent figure in the local church and community.

By the late 1850s, the North American Kerosene Company began to face increased competition as various coal oil competitors entered the scene. In response to the increased competition, the North American Kerosene Company published a pamphlet on March 28, 1859, that advised customers that kerosene is their registered trademark and that oils made by others can not use the name. One prominent rival manufacturer, Samuel Downer of Boston, Massachusetts, made an agreement in early 1859 to license the name and Gesner's refinement process. When James Young, a Scottish chemist, who had independently developed a process of distilling a petroleum fuel into a product he named "paraffin oil," became aware of the North American Kerosene Company's claims, he filed for patent infringement and won. Although Young only began his distillation experiments in 1848, two years after Gesner's first public demonstration of Kerosene, he was first to file an American patent for his process in 1852. Thereafter, the North American Kerosene Company had to pay royalties to Young.

Following the discovery of oil in Enniskillen Township and Pennsylvania, the North American Kerosene Company began using petroleum to produce kerosene instead of coal at about one third the cost. Sometime after the trial, the company replaced Gesner with Luther Atwood as chief chemist. The Newton Creek plant eventually passed into the hands of Charles Pratt and Company, a subsidiary of Standard Oil, and continued to operate until May 1951. In 1952, a junk dealer bought the refinery and sold the equipment for scrap.

Marriage and children
Gesner married Harriet Webster, daughter of prominent Kentville doctor Isaac Webster in 1824. Together, they had seven sons and three daughters, but three children died in infancy. Three of his sons, Brower (1834–1873), John Frederick (1839–1899), and George Weltden (1829–1904), pursued careers in geology and chemistry.

Later life and death
For a time, Gesner remained in New York, practising medicine and continuing his research into hydrocarbons. In 1861, Gesner published A Practical Treatise on Coal, Petroleum and Other Distilled Oils, which was extremely influential in the future development of the petroleum industry and remarkable for the accuracy of his predictions on the future course the refining business would take. Gesner was humble about his contribution to the development of the petroleum industry, writing in A Practical Treatise on Coal that "The progress of discovery in this case, as in others, has been slow and gradual. It has been carried on by the labors, not of one mind, but of many, so as to render it difficult to discover to whom the greatest credit is due."

After the publication of A Practical Treatise on Coal, Gesner became a distillation consultant, visiting the oil fields in Enniskillen Township sometime around 1860. Gesner might have helped James Miller Williams in the development of his petroleum refinery in Hamilton in 1861.

In 1863, Gesner returned to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he was offered the chair of Natural History at Dalhousie University, but he died on April 29, 1864, before he could take up the position. Gesner was buried in an unmarked grave at Halifax's Camp Hill Cemetery.

Legacy
In 1933, Imperial Oil Ltd., then a Standard Oil subsidiary, erected a memorial at Gesner's grave in Camp Hill Cemetery to pay tribute to his contribution to the petroleum industry. The monument reads "His treatise on the geology and mineralogy of Nova Scotia, 1836, was one of the earliest works dealing with those subjects in this province and about 1852 he was the American inventor of the process of kerosene oil. Erected by Imperial Oil Ltd. as a token of appreciation and for his important contribution to the oil industry."

In 2007, Gesner was inducted into the Canadian Petroleum Hall of Fame for his contributions to the petroleum industry.

The City of Halifax renamed a street at the west end of Fairview between Melrose and Adelaide in honor of Gesner. Formerly a part of Dunbrack Street, the construction of the Dunbrack Street/North West Arm Drive connector during the 1980s prompted the renaming of this segment.

There is a street named for Gesner in the west part of Ottawa's Katimavik-Hazeldean neighbourhood, where the residential streets are named for Canadian inventors. Whether by plan or by coincidence, it dead-ends at an Esso (Imperial Oil) gas station.

In 2000, he was honored by the placement of his image on a postage stamp by Canada Post. In 2016, Gesner was posthumously awarded the Order of New Brunswick by the province of his longtime residence.

Starting in 1998, the Fundy Geological Museum in Parrsboro Nova Scotia, a former residence of Gesner, has awarded an "Abraham Gesner Work Scholarship" to a local student who shows keen interest in the sciences.

title: Abraham Pineo Gesner