text:
Barack Obama's Presidential Press Conference - 10 January 2013

THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon, everybody. Please have a seat. A little more than four years ago, I stood with Mr. Tim Geithner and announced him as my first nominee to my Cabinet. We were barely two months into the financial crisis. The stock market had cratered. The housing market had cratered as well. Bank after bank was on the verge of collapse. And worst of all, more than 800,000 Americans would lose their jobs in just that month. And the bottom was not yet in sight.

So I couldn’t blame Tim when he tried to tell me he wasn’t the right guy for the job. But I knew that Tim’s extensive experience with economic policy made him eminently qualified, and I also knew that he could hit the ground running. As Chairman of the New York Federal Reserve, he had just spent several sleepless and chaotic weeks immersed in the complexities of the crisis, and had been working closely with his Republican predecessor at Treasury to save the financial system.

Then, with the wreckage of our economy still smoldering and unstable, I asked Tim to help put it back together. And thanks in large part to his steady hand, our economy has been growing again for the past three years, our businesses have created nearly 6 million new jobs. The money that we spent to save the financial system has largely been paid back. We’ve put in place rules to prevent that kind of financial meltdown from ever happening again. An auto industry was saved. We made sure taxpayers are not on the hook if the biggest firms fail again. We’ve taken steps to help underwater homeowners come up for air, and open new markets to sell American goods overseas. And we’ve begun to reduce our deficit through a balanced mix of spending cuts and reforms to a tax code that at the time that we both came in was too skewed in favor of the wealthy at the expense of middle-class Americans.

So when the history books are written, Tim Geithner is going to go down as one of our finest Secretaries of the Treasury. All right, don't embarrass him.

On a personal note, Tim has been a wonderful friend and a dependable advisor throughout these last four years. There’s an unofficial saying over at Treasury -- “no peacocks, no jerks, no whiners.” That would be a good saying for all of Washington: "no peacocks, no jerks, no whiners." Few embody that ideal better than Tim Geithner. That’s why, when Tim was thinking about leaving a couple of years ago, I had to personally get on my knees with Carole to help convince him to stay on a little bit longer. And I could not be more grateful to Carole and the entire Geithner family for allowing him to make the sacrifices that so many of our Cabinet members ask of their families in serving the country.

The fact is, while a lot of work remains, especially to rebuild a strong middle class and offer working folks new pathways to rise into the middle class, our economy is better positioned for tomorrow than most of those other countries hit by the financial crisis. The tough decisions Tim made and carried out deserve a lot of credit for that. So I understand that Tim is ready for a break. Obviously, we're sad to see him go. But I cannot think of a better person to continue Tim's work at Treasury than Jack Lew.

This is bittersweet not only because Tim is leaving, but also because Jack has been my Chief of Staff for the last year. He was my budget director before that. I trust his judgment. I value his friendship. I know very few people with greater integrity than the man to my left. And so I don’t want to see him go because it's working out really well for me to have him here in the White House. But my loss will be the nation’s gain.

Jack has the distinction of having worked -- and succeeded -- in some of the toughest jobs in Washington and the private sector. As a congressional staffer in the 1980s, he helped negotiate the deal between President Reagan and Tip O’Neill to save Social Security. Under President Clinton, he presided over three budget surpluses in a row. So for all the talk out there about deficit reduction, making sure our books are balanced, this is the guy who did it -- three times. He helped oversee one of our nation’s finest universities and one of our largest investment banks.

In my administration, he has managed operations for the State Department and the budget for the entire executive branch. And over the past year, I’ve sought Jack’s advice on virtually every decision that I’ve made, from economic policy to foreign policy.

One reason Jack has been so effective in this town is because he is a low-key guy who prefers to surround himself with policy experts rather than television cameras. And over the years, he’s built a reputation as a master of policy who can work with members of both parties and forge principled compromises.

And maybe most importantly, as the son of a Polish immigrant, a man of deep and devout faith, Jack knows that every number on a page, every dollar we budget, every decision we make has to be an expression of who we wish to be as a nation, our values. The values that say everybody gets a fair shot at opportunity and says that we expect all of us to fulfill our individual obligations as citizens in return. So Jack has my complete trust. I know I'm not alone in that.

In the words of one former senator, “Having Lew on your team is the equivalent as a coach of having the luxury of putting somebody at almost any position and knowing he will do well.” And I could not agree more. So I hope the Senate will confirm him as quickly as possible. I want to personally thank both of these men and their families, especially Carole and Ruth, for their extraordinary service to our country. And with that, I'd like to invite them to say a few words, starting with Tim.

SECRETARY GEITHNER: Mr. President, it's been a privilege to serve you. I'm honored and grateful that you asked me to do this, really I am. And I'm very proud of what my colleagues at Treasury and your economic team was able to help you accomplish these first four years.

When you stepped into this building as President, you were confronted with a world in crisis, the worst crisis in generations. And you made the necessary, the hard, the politically perilous choices that saved the American people, saved American industry, saved the global economy from a failing financial system. And your successful response to the crisis of course did not solve all the nation's challenges. It could not have done so. But the actions you took along with those of a forceful and creative Federal Reserve have made the country stronger and have put us in a much better position to face the many challenges still ahead of us -- and they are many.

I have the greatest respect for Jack Lew. I know him as a man of exceptional judgment, calm under pressure, with an extraordinary record of accomplishment and experience over decades spent at the center of American economic policy. He's committed to defending the safety net for the elderly and the poor. He understands what it takes to create the conditions for stronger economic growth and broader economic opportunity. And he understands that to govern responsibly is to govern with a recognition that we have limited fiscal resources.

Now, like Jack, I've spent my professional life in this world of public policy and public service. And as all of you know, our families carry a large share of the burdens we assume in public life. And I feel incredibly fortunate that my wife Carole and my family have been willing to allow me to do this. And I thank them for their support and their patience. And I understand their occasional impatience.

I want to express my admiration and my appreciation for the women and the men of the Treasury Department. Those who came to serve you these years of crisis and the civil servants of the Treasury with whom I first started working in 1988, they are exceptionally talented and honorable public servants. I'm very proud of what they have helped you accomplish. And I am confident that my successor will find them the extraordinary asset they are to the nation.

And I also hope that Americans will look at the challenges we face today and decide, as many of you in this room have, that in spite of the divisive state of our political system today that serving your country is compelling and rewarding work. That was my experience, and I am grateful and will always be grateful to you for having given me the opportunity to serve you as the 75th Secretary of the Treasury.

MR. LEW: Mr. President, it has been my honor to serve as your Chief of Staff and before that at OMB and the State Department. It’s really been a privilege to come to work every day as part of a team that’s dedicated to building a sound economy and a safer world.

Tim, you have been a friend and a colleague for many years -- actually, decades -- and the American people are better off for your outstanding service. And I thought I knew you pretty well, but it was only yesterday that I discovered that we both share a common challenge with penmanship. Tim, I join the President and everyone here in wishing you and Carole and your whole family well.

As a kid growing up in Queens, I had dreams of making a difference in the world. These dreams were nurtured in a home where the gifts of American freedom and opportunity were cherished and never taken for granted, and the responsibility to engage in issues of public concern were part of daily life. I will always be grateful to my parents for grounding me in the values that have remained central to my personal and professional life.

I grew up professional in the office of Speaker O’Neill, whose compass was always clear and who demanded unvarnished advice on how best to reach the desired destination. Mr. O’Neill cared little about your age or rank, and only about whether or not you did the hard work to inform the decisions of the day. And he took a big chance giving a lot of responsibility to a very young man, and for that I’ll always be thankful.

Serving at OMB first under President Clinton and more recently in this administration, I worked with one of the finest teams in the government to execute a responsible fiscal policy while advancing policies to promote economic growth. I’m delighted to see so many of my friends from OMB here today.

At the State Department, I worked closely with our great Secretary of State and my friend, Hillary Clinton, to advance our nation’s national security agenda, including our international economic policies. And as Chief of Staff, I’ve had the pleasure of working with a tremendously talented White House team, which manages policy, politics, communications, and complex operations every day with grace, skill, and loyalty. If confirmed, I look forward to joining the Treasury Department, whose people are legendary for their skill and knowledge. It’s a team that I’ve collaborated with closely over many years and have come to respect greatly.

Finally, thank you to Ruth, Shoshi, Danny, Zahava, and the kids for your endless tolerance with the demands of a schedule that tests all family patience. And thank you, Mr. President, for your trust, your confidence, and friendship. Serving in your administration has allowed me to live out those values my parents instilled in me, and I look forward to continuing with the challenges ahead.

THE PRESIDENT: These are two outstanding public servants. I think the only point that I want to make -- leave you with is the fact that I had never noticed Jack’s signature, and when this was highlighted yesterday in the press, I considered rescinding my offer to appoint him. Jack assures me that he is going to work to make at least one letter legible in order not to debase our currency should he be confirmed as Secretary of the Treasury.

Thank you very much, everybody.


text:
Page:English as She is Spoke.djvu/49

Rh

Go to send for.

Have you say that?

Have you understand that he says?

At what purpose have say so?

Put your confidence at my.

At what o'clock dine him?

Apply you at the study during that you are young.

Dress your hairs.

Sing an area.

These apricots and these peaches make me and to come water in mouth.

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

title: Page:English as She is Spoke.djvu/49


text:
Page:Beowulf (Wyatt).djvu/120

96

Nealles mid gewealdumwyrm-horda cræft [sōhte], sylfes willum,sē ðe him sāre gescēod; ac for þrēa-nēdlanþ[ēow] nāt-hwylces hæleða bearnahete-swengeas flēah, [ærnes] þearfa,ond ðǣr inne fealh, secg syn-bysig.Sōna getīd[d]e, þæt : : : : : ðām gyst[egryre-]brōga stōd;

title: Page:Beowulf (Wyatt).djvu/120


text: Beowulf (Wyatt)/Beowulf 31

title: Beowulf (Wyatt)/Beowulf 31


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 33.djvu/6

Rh vi List of Writers. G. P. M-Y. . G. P. MOBIABTY. A. N Albert Nicholson. E. T. N.. . E. T. NicoLLE. G. Le G. N.. G. Le Grts Noroate. F. M. O'D. . F. M. O'DoNooHUE. H. P Henrt Paton. J. F. P.. . . J. F. Payne, M.D. G. P The Be v. Charles Platts. B. P Miss Porter. D'A. P.. . . D'Arcy Power, M.B., F.B.C.S. W. B-L. . . The Bev. William Beynell, B.D J. M. B.. . J. M. Biao. W. B Walter Bye. L. G. S.. . Lloyd C. Sanders. T. B. S.. . T. Bailey Saunders. T. S Thomas Seccombe. I B. F. S.. W. A. S.. G. F. S.. G. W. S.. L. S. .. . G. W. S.. I J. T-T. . . 0. W. T.. D. Ll. T. T. F. T.. E. V. .. . B. H. V.. A. W. W. ( M. G. W. . G. W-h. . W. W. . . . B. Farquharson Sharp. . W. A. Shaw. . Miss Fell Smith. . The Bev. G. W. Sprott, D.D. . Leslie Stephen . G. W. Sutton. . James Tait. . The Bev. 0. W. Tancock. . D. Lleufer Thomas. . Professor T. F. Tout. . The Bev. Canon Venables. . Colonel B. H. Vetch, B.E. . A. W. Ward, LL.D. . The Bev. M. G. Watkins. . Charles Welch, F.S.A. . Warwick Wroth, F.S.A.


text:
1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Houghton, William Stanley

HOUGHTON, WILLIAM STANLEY (1881–1913), English playwright, was born at Manchester Feb. 1881, and was educated at the Manchester grammar school. He became a cotton-broker, but employed his leisure in dramatic criticism for the Manchester Guardian and in the writing of plays. The Dear Departed was produced by Miss Horniman in Manchester in 1908 and afterwards in London. With Hindle Wakes (1912) he leapt into fame. It had a long run in London and later in the same year The Younger Generation (written and played in Manchester in 1910) was successfully produced at the Haymarket theatre, London, with Trust the People the following year at the Garrick and The Perfect Cure at the Apollo. His early death in Manchester Dec. 10 1913 cut short a career of much promise.


text:
Page:English as She is Spoke.djvu/79

Rh I am not so dexte rous that you.

Nothing is more easy than to swim; it do not what don't to be afraid of.

Do you study?

Yes, sir, I attempts to translate of french by portuguese.

Do you know already the principal grammars rules?

I am appleed my self at to learn its by heart.

Do speak french alwais?

Some times: though I flay it yet.

You jest, you does express you self very well.

title: Page:English as She is Spoke.djvu/79


text:
Page:English as She is Spoke.djvu/80

48

My uncle what will to treat her beshop in a great sumptuouness, he was go Avignon for to buy what one not should find there, and he had leave me the charge to provide all things. I have excellent business, as you see, and I know some thing more than to eat my soup, since I know do to prepare it. I did learn that it must give to the first, to second, and to the third service, by dishes that want to join, and yet some thing more; because we does pretend make a feast at four services without to account the dessert.

Good bye, my dear sir, etc.

title: Page:English as She is Spoke.djvu/80


text:
Page:English as She is Spoke.djvu/81

Rh

My lady, I have a complaint to present you. So much happy that might I one's self, one have not all theirs eases in this world. Your letters are shortest. You have plaied wonderfully all sentiments; less her prattle. etc.

Allow me, my dear abbot, who I remind me of your friendship. I recommend you M. of the Condamine. I shall tell you nothing, else he is a of my friends. Her great celebrity may tell you from others things, and her presence will say you the remains. My dear abbot, I will love you even the death.

title: Page:English as She is Spoke.djvu/81


text:
Page:English as She is Spoke.djvu/82

50

Cuttler, a very rich man too many avaricious, commonly he was travel at a horse, and single for to avoid all expenses. In the evening at to arrive at the inn did feign to be indispose, to the end that one bring him the supper. He did ordered to the stable knave to bring in their room some straw, for to put in their boots he made to warm her bed and was go lo sleep. When the servant was draw again, he come up again, and with the straw of their boots, and the candle what was leave him he

title: Page:English as She is Spoke.djvu/82


text:
Page:Darwin Journal of Researches.djvu/144

122 the death bellow; a noise more expressive of fierce agony than any I know: I have often distinguished it from a long distance, and have always known that the struggle was then drawing to a close. The whole sight is horrible and revolting: the ground is almost made of bones; and the horses and riders are drenched with gore.


text:
Page:English as She is Spoke.djvu/55

Rh

How does your father do?

He is very well.

I am very delight of it. Were is it?

I shall come back soon, I was no came that to know how you are.

Is your master at home?

Yes, sir.

Is it up.

title: Page:English as She is Spoke.djvu/55


text:
1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hours of Labour

HOURS OF LABOUR.—The decade following 1910 witnessed a rapid advance and extension in the already widespread movement in favour of the reduction of the hours of labour. This was mainly due, apart from general trade-union pressure, firstly to the repercussions of the World War and of experience of industry under war conditions, and, secondly, to the international recognition of the principle of the 8-hour day in the Treaty of Peace of Versailles as one of the “principles. . . well fitted to guide the policy of the League of Nations.”

Until the outbreak of the World War the movement in favour of the reduction of hours, and particularly in favour of the 8-hour day, had gone forward but only slowly and spasmodically. International conferences of workers passed the ordinary resolutions demanding the 8-hour day, as did the International Socialist Conference of 1910, the International Textile Workers' Conference in 1911 and the eighth Congress of Trade Union Secretaries in 1913. In 1912 the International Association for Labour Legislation asked for a 56-hour week for glass-workers, an 8-hour day for the iron and steel trades, for workers in paper and pulp mills and in the manufacture of chemicals. In the following year the Miners' International Congress demanded the day of eight hours “bank to bank.” The official delegates of the Berne Conference in 1913 contented themselves with a proposal to limit the hours of child workers to 10 daily—a proposal which the International Association for Labour Legislation adopted in 1918, with the suggestion that part of the working day should be devoted to trade education. The Berne Conference further suggested a 10-hour day for women workers.

The comparatively moderate nature of the majority of these pre-war proposals—and indeed of certain later ones, such as that of the Congress of Inter-Allied Trade Unions at Leeds in 1916, which asked for the 10-hour day, and that of the International Trade Union Congress held at Berne in 1917, which demanded that the daily maximum should be gradually reduced to 8 hours—would hardly have prepared the student of these matters for the very striking advances which became operative in the chief industrial countries between the Armistice and 1921. The advance is also to be noted in recent expressions of trade union opinion, in the movement for the 7- and even for the 6-hour day in coal-mining, and in such pronouncements as that of so influential an employer as Lord Leverhulme in England, who in 1918 himself advocated the 6-hour day on economic grounds.

The outbreak of war had been followed in all the belligerent countries by the suspension of all limitations upon the hours of labour worked in industries of importance in the conduct of the .war, whether these limitations arose from agreements with the trade unions, from legislation or from custom. In all cases the general course of events was the same. After some difficulty, varying in degree with the imminence of the threat to national safety and with the strength of trade unionism, the workers consented, were persuaded by tempting rates of wages, or were coerced to lengthen the working day. In all cases, after the experience of a period of excessively long hours, it was found that the returns from overtaxed labour rapidly diminished, and in all cases limitations were sooner or later re-imposed, not, however, reducing

hours to the pre-war standards, but calculated to yield the highest return in output from the personnel available.

War experience would thus seem to have effectively killed the long-lived notion that output in industry varies directly with the number of hours worked. The argument in favour of the shorter working day was indeed formidably (and perhaps unexpectedly in certain quarters) strengthened by the scientific investigation of hours in relation to output, which was undertaken, by Great Britain and America in particular, in the height of the desperate struggle to produce adequate supplies of munitions of war. The results of the British investigations, published in the various reports of the Health of Munition Workers Committee (appointed by the Ministry of Munitions in Sept. 1915) and of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, were of the highest scientific value, and these, corroborated by the evidence of American, French and German experience, and themselves corroborating much of the argument of certain investigators whose work had been done before the war, undoubtedly were an important factor in determining the attitude of mind which is reflected in the above quoted “principle” enshrined in the Treaty of Peace.

War experience did, in point of fact, supply the scientific basis which the general propaganda, carried on for so long by the organizations of workers in all industrial countries in favour of the reduction of hours, had lacked. Such scientific data as existed had been provided or interpreted for the most part by writers on so-called “scientific management” who were concerned primarily with questions of output. Governmental investigations had to consider output in relation to the labour available, and were led inevitably to considerations of the health of workers and even of their satisfaction or dissatisfaction. In other words, whilst previous investigations were, rightly or wrongly, suspected by workers generally to be directed by motives which, if not hostile, tended at least to a certain neglect of the workers' side of the case, the war investigations were much more widely accepted as being a fair attempt at an adequate study of the question of hours in relation not only to output but also to the effect on the worker.

It need only be added here that the general result of those investigations was that a reduction of hours was not incompatible with an increase in output, arising from the improved health of the worker and his increased capacity for effort during the shorter hours worked.

The war, however, was responsible for another and perhaps even more effective factor in the eventual restriction of hours. The repercussions of the successive Russian revolutions were everywhere felt and everywhere dreaded. It became a commonplace of polemic on the subject of improved conditions of labour that such improved conditions (including the reduction of the hours of labour) were the alternative to Bolshevism. Thus scientific experience, fear of revolutionary movements and the normal liberalism of the nations successful in the war were united in support of a general reduction in the hours of labour at the moment of relief and optimism which succeeded, in the later months of 1918, the long and oppressive years of warfare.

The results of this combination are to be found in the rapid extension of legal restrictions upon the hours of labour which took place in many of the belligerent countries immediately upon (or even before) the Armistice of Nov. 1918, and in the inclusion in the treaties of peace of the “Labour Part” (Part XIII. in the Treaty of Versailles) which creates machinery for international legislation upon labour conditions, and which recognizes the 8-hour day as an end to be pursued by international action.

In the middle of 1921 signs were indeed not lacking that a characteristic of the next few years might be a reaction in this connexion. Hopes of rapid recovery to the economic position of pre-war days had been disappointed, and there was a manifest tendency to place part of the blame for this upon the reduced hours of labour. It can only be noted here that this reaction seemed likely to result in a check to the movement for a further reduction in hours of labour.

National legislation for the limitation of the hours of labour has taken various forms. In some cases, e.g. France, Spain,

Portugal, acts or decrees have prescribed a general limitation for all workers, or for all workers in large groups of occupations such as “industry,” or “commerce,” whilst the detailed application has been left to be elaborated by administrative decrees or orders. Usually these decrees are issued after consultation with the organized workers and employers concerned, and they appear to result in a considerable elasticity in the application of the law. In other cases (e.g. Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Belgium) the act itself is made to apply to a detailed list of industries, and the exceptions are usually indicated. Again, as in the case of Great Britain (Coal Mines Act) a special Act may regulate the hours worked in a particular industry.

Another group of legislative measures deals with the hours of labour of specified classes of workers, women and children and men, engaged in hazardous occupations. In Great Britain the Factory Acts have attempted to regulate the hours of women and children, who were regarded as being less favourably situated for “free bargaining” than men, but it was not until 1908 that legal restrictions were placed upon the working hours of the latter, and then only in the case of a single industry, coal-mining, which was of a peculiarly difficult and laborious nature.

A third type of legislation secures the aim of limiting hours of labour by indirect means. In the Commonwealth of Australia, for example, and in its constituent states, the Arbitration Laws provide for the settlement of disputes in labour matters (including disputes about the hours of labour) by a process of arbitration and the legal enforcement of arbitration awards. Again, in the case of Germany and some other countries, collective agreements arrived at voluntarily between employers and workers' organizations may under certain conditions be given the force of law.

There remains to be noted the huge mass of collective agreement upon hours of labour which, though not always possessing the force of law, does in fact regulate hours very successfully in many countries. This is notably the method adopted for most industries in Great Britain, but the practice is common even in countries where legislative limits are enforced. In these cases the collective agreement is usually an advance, from the workers' point of view, upon the provisions of the existing legislation.

The analysis, given later, of the position in 1921 in the more important industrial countries of the world will illustrate these methods of limitation.

.—The 8-hour day was established in the mining of coal, stratified ironstone, shale and fireclay by the Coal Mines Regulation Act of 1908, and the amending Act of 1919 further reduced the daily hours of underground workers, with certain exceptions, to seven. Article 1 of the Act provided for a future reduction in certain eventualities to six hours daily. Other legislative restrictions of hours are to be found in the Factory and Workshop Consolidation Act of 1901, the Shops Act of 1912, and the Employment and Closing Order Act of the same year. A bill was introduced in Aug. 1919 for the establishment of the 8-hour day in industry, and clauses were proposed to be added extending its scope to cover also maritime employment and agriculture, but it went no further in 1921.

In the United Kingdom legislation has played a comparatively unimportant part in the restriction of hours except in the cases of women and children. Before the war a large number of collective agreements had been made, and after the war these were widely extended. The spheres now (1921) covered by agreements

the working week to 48 hours or less are best indicated by an enumeration of the cases in which a longer week is still worked.

(H. A. G.*)

.—In the United States regulations of hours worked in industry are made by state or Federal legislation or by agreement between employer and trade union. When trade unions fix the length of the working day, they mean the basic workday, with a higher rate of pay for overtime. The theory of the basic workday is that extra pay for overtime acts as a tax on the employer to induce him to introduce a shorter actual workday. In the week ending Dec. 13 1919, for the entire state of New York, 35.76% of telephone operators worked from 3 to 6 hours overtime, 35.02% worked 6 to 9 hours overtime.

According to the census of 1910, of the 6,615,046 wage-earners enumerated in manufacturing enterprises, 7.9% worked 48 hours or less a week, 30.6% worked 54 hours or less, 60.7% worked more than 54 hours but not more than 60 hours, and 8% worked more than 60 hours. The census shows that 114,118 or 1.7% worked where the prevailing hours were more than 72 a week. These figures, which do not include agriculture, building, mining, domestic and personal service, show the number of hours normally worked by the majority of workers in the establishments enumerated. Of the 86 principal manufacturing industries employing more than 10,000 wage-earners in 1909, 20 employed over 10% of their workers more than 60 hours a week.

Among railway employees continuous service for long hours has been very common. Records of the Interstate Commerce

Commission show that during the year ending June 30 1913, 261,332 railway men were reported as on duty for periods exceeding the legal limit of 16 hours, and that over 33,000 of them worked more than 21 hours continuously. In 1914, of the 7,000,000 wage-earners enumerated in manufacture in the United States, 11.8% worked 48 hours a week or less, 51% worked 54 hours or less a week, 43.1% worked more than 54 hours but not more than 60 hours, and 5.8 % worked more than 60 hours. The number working more than 72 hours was 0.8%. The number working the 8-hour day or less was 833,330, chiefly in the building trades.

Hours of Work in U.S. in 1919.

(From investigations of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.)

(J. R. Co.)

Demands for international agreement or legislation on the standardizing of the hours of labour have been frequent since 1890, when the International Conference on Labour in Factories and Mines—the Conference summoned officially by the then German Emperor—suggested a general adoption of the 8-hour day in mines. The need for uniformity in hours in order to remove at least one awkward cause of friction in international relations was voiced in 1893 at Zurich by the Metal Workers' Congress, and again in 1904 at Amsterdam. In 1894 it was the turn of the Tobacco Workers; in 1905 of the International Conference of Trade Union Secretaries. At Geneva in 1906, and again at Zurich in 1912 the International Association for Labour Legislation emphasized the same point. In 1916 the General Federation of Trade Unions of Great Britain, and in 1918 the United States Socialist party adopted resolutions on the subject. Steps were taken in the same direction by the Scandinavian and Inter-Allied Conferences of 1918.

This movement culminated in the inclusion of the international labour agreement (see ) in the Peace Treaty of Versailles. The Labour part of the Treaty was drafted by an International Commission on Labour Legislation, appointed by the Peace Conference on Jan. 31 1919. Its chairman, Samuel Gompers, of the American Federation of Labor, submitted a declaration of the aims of labour, which included the following clause:—

Various national delegations proposed amendments in the terms, but finally certain “principles” were adopted by the Commission, including the following:—

The Peace Conference approved of these general principles in its plenary sitting of April 28 1919. An International Organizing Committee, representative of the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Belgium and Switzerland, appointed to prepare for the first session of the International Labour Conference created by the Labour part of the Treaty, placed first upon the Agenda for that Conference the question: “Application of principle of the eight hours' day and of the forty-eight hours' week.”

Working Hours in Industry.—On May 10 1919 the Organizing Committee issued to the Governments of all the States which were named in the Annexe to the Covenant of the League of Nations a questionnaire, the object of which was, firstly, to secure information as to how far the 8-hour day was already observed, whether as a result of legal enactment, collective agreement, or custom; and as to the immediate intentions (if any) of the various Governments in the matter; and secondly, to elicit by categorical questions the attitude of the Governments towards the proposed limitation of the working day to 8 hours and the working week to 48.

Thirty-five Governments replied to the questionnaire. To the categorical question: “Is the Government prepared to adopt the limit of eight hours a day exclusive of rest-time?” not one Government returned a definitely negative reply. The Government of Siam did not contemplate legislative action “in the

present circumstances.” In the United States and Canada the distribution of legislative power between the central and state or provincial authorities made a direct reply difficult if not impossible. The Japanese Government doubted the possibility of the immediate application in Japan of the 8-hour day, in view of the relatively unadvanced state of most of her industries and the inexperience of her workers. Similar considerations were argued by India and by Greece. Every other State replying to the questionnaire indicated its readiness to adopt the 8 and 48-hour limits. Many of them indicated that these limits (or lower ones, as in the case of Poland, which had a 46-hour week) were already enforced within their territories.

The list of these States comprised every Power of industrial importance, with the exception of Russia, Finland and the ex-enemy States, and included Argentina, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Ecuador, France, Great Britain, Guatemala, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Panama, Peru, Rumania, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Uruguay, in addition to those mentioned above.

Of the States which were not consulted or which did not reply, it was known at the time that Finland, Germany, German-Austria and Russia had already taken action by law.

This evidence pointed clearly to the possibility of the successful conclusion of an International Convention on the subject; and the Organizing Committee proceeded at once to the drafting of a project to be submitted for the consideration of the Conference. The basis of this project was the adoption of the 48-hour week rather than the 8-hour day, the Committee giving as its reason for this, that “it allows more elasticity in the arrangement of the hours of work, and it facilitates the adoption of a half-holiday, or even a whole holiday, on Saturday or some other day of the week, by enabling a longer period than 8 hours to be worked on other days. Secondly, it helps to secure the weekly rest-day, whereas the principle of an 8-hour day by itself does not.” The greater part of the project was concerned with the limitations within which exceptions to the general rule should be permitted. It was clearly undesirable to leave unlimited scope for exceptions. “The mere affirmation of the principle of a 48-hour week, while leaving a wide discretion to each State to allow such exceptions as it considers desirable in the circumstances of its country, would not, so it seems to the Committee, fulfil the purpose for which the International Labour Organization has been created.” Since one of the motives of such a convention, as indeed of all international labour legislation, is the removal so far as possible of such sources of international friction as those which arise from the competition of “cheap” labour, or of labour suffering under relatively disadvantageous conditions, the Committee was obviously adopting the proper attitude in this respect.

The discussions of the International Labour Conference, which met at Washington in Oct.-Nov. 1919, turned for the most part on the permissible exceptions. To the general principle little or no opposition was offered. The Organizing Committee's project was, after some preliminary discussion, referred to a Commission of the Conference, and a Special Countries Commission was entrusted with the task of considering the application of this and other projects to tropical lands and countries displaying unusual conditions.

The Commission on Hours amended the draft in several particulars, and clauses were added to meet the special cases of Japan (a 57-hour week); British India (a 60-hour week, with a clause indicating that further limitation of hours is to be considered at a future session of the Conference); China, Persia and Siam (consideration at a future session); Greece (postponement of the date at which the provisions of the Convention should come into operation for two years in the case of certain industries, three years in the case of others); and Rumania (postponement for three years).

The Organizing Committee's omission of a provision for the establishment of the 8-hour day was not upheld by the Conference, which approved, in the final draft, the wording:—

The draft Convention came before the Conference for its final vote on Nov. 28 1919 and secured the two-thirds majority which is necessary for the formal adoption of a draft Convention.

The authentic text of the draft Convention was communicated to the Governments of all States Members of the International Labour Organization by the Secretary-General of the League of Nations on Jan. 15 1920.

Since a large number of the industrial States had already adopted, by legal enactment, or otherwise, the 8-hour day, it might have been expected that the ratification of the draft Convention would be rapid and practically universal. But this was not the case. Up to Aug. 1921 two countries only, Greece and Rumania, had ratified. Some countries (e.g. Great Britain and Switzerland) had definitely declined to ratify.

In the first place, certain difficulties arose as to the interpretation of those articles of the Treaty which govern the action to be taken by States in connection with the draft Convention. Article 405 of the Treaty of Peace provided that “Each of the members undertakes that it will, within the period of one year at most from the closing of the session of the Conference, or if it is impossible owing to exceptional circumstances to do so within the period of one year, then at the earliest practicable moment, and in no case later than eighteen months from the closing of the session of the Conference, bring the recommendation or draft Convention before the authority or authorities within whose competence the matter lies, for the enactment of legislation or other action.” The wording of the last sentence has given rise to certain hesitation, but the bulk of the States members have construed “the authority or authorities within whose competence the matter lies” to mean their respective Parliaments, and have submitted the draft Convention together with the Governmental proposals for action upon it, to those bodies. In Great Britain the difficulty arose from the fact that Article 405 provides also that draft Conventions be submitted “for ratification by the Members.” It was contended that the ratifying authority in Great Britain is the Crown, and that the Government was therefore under no obligation to submit a draft Convention for the consideration of Parliament unless legislative action in pursuance of the provisions of the draft Convention was contemplated.

Secondly, difficulties arose in connexion with the actual procedure of ratification. The Treaty provides an apparently simple formula:—

But this procedure was, in certain cases, found to fit awkwardly into the complicated framework of the older diplomatic practice. France considered it necessary to sign with Belgium a convention embodying the terms of the draft Convention on hours, and to add a protocol which was left open for the signature of other States. France and Belgium may thus in some sort be said to have ratified the Hours Convention, though they did not complete the procedure laid down in the Treaty. But the act of France and Belgium led to some misgiving on the part of other states members of the organization, who naturally asked whether these two countries would consider themselves bound not only in respect of one another and of any other countries which might adhere to the Franco-Belgian convention by signing the open protocol, but also in respect of other States which might ratify the Washington Convention by the procedure indicated.

Thirdly, the exceptions provided for in the text of the Hours Convention did not appear to meet the circumstances of all countries. Thus, Switzerland, which had adopted the 8-hour day on its railways and in certain branches of industry, and which, in its reply to the Organizing Committee's questionnaire, stated that “The Government prefers the 48-hour week system and is prepared to adopt this limit in factories,” declared itself unable to ratify the Hours Convention, principally on the ground that it considered its application to the small trades and undertakings

of the rural and mountain districts to be undesirable. Again, Sweden, whose Government was “prepared to adopt both limitations (i.e., the 8-hour day and 48-hour week) at the same time,” was faced by similar difficulties. The British Government was “prepared to adopt the limit of 48 hours a week exclusive of rest-time.” In Great Britain the 8-hour day and 48-hour week (or less) are all but universal. Yet the Minister of Labour declared that the Government was unable to ratify because of existing collective agreements governing the working of the railways, which permit overtime in certain cases which are not provided for in the Convention. The same or similar circumstances delayed or prevented ratification by Denmark, Holland, Norway and possibly other States.

Other factors making for non-ratification were the disturbed economic state of post-war Europe, and a reaction both in Government circles and in public opinion, as to the wisdom of shorter hours of labour in view of the need for greater production. The failure of the Russian revolutionaries to establish a satisfactory social system, the crushing of the attempts of their sympathizers in Hungary and Germany, and the failure of great strike movements in France, Great Britain and elsewhere, had moderated the fears of revolutionary action which were a factor in the creation of the International Labour Organization in 1919.

(H. A. G.*)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Landmann, George Thomas


text: Author:Harold Atheling Grimshaw

title: Author:Harold Atheling Grimshaw


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Landmann, Isaac


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Landon, Letitia Elizabeth


text:
1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/House, Edward Mandell

HOUSE, EDWARD MANDELL (1858-), American politician, was born at Houston, Tex., July 26 1858. He was educated at the Hopkins grammar school, New Haven, Conn., and at Cornell University (A.B. 1877). He returned to Texas, where he became interested in politics. He never sought office, but as a trusted adviser he became influential in the Democratic party. He became a friend of President Wilson, with whose political ideals he sympathized, and after the outbreak of the World War in 1914 visited the belligerent countries as the President's personal representative, conferring with the leading diplomats informally and advising American ambassadors of the President's attitude on various questions. He himself repeatedly declared that he was not a peace envoy. In 1915 and in 1916 he was again in Europe observing conditions and from time to time making confidential reports to the President. This method of approaching foreign Governments through private personal contact instead of stereotyped diplomatic formality brought

some criticism upon the President, many believing that the powers of the recognized head of the State Department were being infringed upon. In 1917 he was elected a director of the Fort Worth (Tex.) Record. After America's entrance into the World War in 1917 Col. House was appointed to gather information which the U.S. peace representatives would need when the terms of peace should ultimately be discussed. He represented the United States at the Inter-Allied Conference in Paris, Nov. 1917. In Dec. of the same year he represented the United States in the Supreme War Council at Versailles. In 1918 he was delegated by the President to act for the United States in negotiating the Armistice and was a member of the American Peace Commission. He took a prominent part in drafting the Peace Treaty in 1919. In 1920 he joined the staff of the Philadelphia Public Ledger, and visited Europe as a correspondent of that paper.


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Landor, Robert Eyres


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Landseer, Charles


text:
Author:Pedro Carolino

Works

 * English As She Is Spoke (1884)

title: Author:Pedro Carolino


text:
Author talk:Pedro Carolino

Dates
Birth and death dates (1788-1866) are taken from pt:w:English_As_She_Is_Spoke, no more reliable source was found on creation of this author page.

title: Author talk:Pedro Carolino


text:
Author:Gustav Robert Kirchhoff

Books

 * Untersuchungen über das Sonnenspectrum und die Spectren der chemischen Elemente, (The Researches on the Solar Spectrum), (1859).
 * Chemische Analyse durch Spectralbeobachtung (Vienna, 1861). With Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen.
 * Vorlesungen über mathematische Physik (1876)
 * Gesammelte Abhandlungen (Collected Papers), (1882, 1891)

Papers

 * "Ueber den Durchgang eines elektrischen Stromes durch eine Ebene, inbesondere durch eine kreisförmige." Poggend. Annal. LXIV., 1845, pp. 497-514
 * "Ueber eine Ableitung der Ohm'schen Gesetze, welche sich and die Theorie der Electrostatik anschliesst." Poggend. Annal. LXXVIII., 1849, pp. 506-513.
 * Translated in Phil. Mag. XXXVII., 1850, pp. 463-468.
 * "Ueber die Fraunhofer'schen Linien" Berlin, Monatsber. 1859, pp. 662-665
 * Translated in Phil. Mag. XIX., 1860, pp. 193-197.
 * "Ueber das Verhältniss der Quercontraction zur Längendilatation bei Stäben von federhartem Stahl." Poggend. Annal. CVIII., 1859, pp. 369-392
 * Translated as "Mr. G. Kirchoff on the relation of the Lateral Contraction to the Longitudinal Expansion in Rods of Spring Steel. (With a Plate.)" in Phil. Mag. XXIII., 1862, pp. 28-47
 * "Ueber das Verhältniss zwischen dem Emissions vermögen der Körper für Wärme und Licht." Poggend. Annal. CIX., 1860, pp. 275-301
 * "Zur Geschichte der Spectral-Analyse und der Analyse der Sonnenatmosphäre," Poggend. Annal. CXVIII., 1863, pp. 94-111
 * Translated in Phil. Mag. XXV., 1863, pp. 250-262.

title: Author:Gustav Robert Kirchhoff


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Landseer, Edwin Henry


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Landseer, Jessica


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Landseer, John


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Landseer, Thomas


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lane, Charles Edward William


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lane, Edward (1605-1685)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lane, Edward William


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lane, Hunter


text: Grimm's Household Tales, Volume 1/Allerleirauh


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lane, Jane


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lane, John (fl.1620)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lane, John Bryant


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lane, Ralph


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lane, Richard (1584-1650)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lane, Richard James


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lane, Samuel


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lane, Theodore


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lane, Thomas


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lane, William


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Laneham, Robert


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Laney, Benjamin


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lanfranc


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lang, John Dunmore


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Langbaine, Gerard (1656-1692)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Langdaile, Alban


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Friendly Societies


text:
The Congo (Lindsay)

black bucks in a wine-barrel room, Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable,

Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table, Pounded on the table, Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom, Hard as they were able, Boom, boom, , With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom, Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay,. I had religion, I had a vision. I could not turn from their revel in derision.

, . Then along that riverbank A thousand miles Tattooed cannibals danced in files; Then I heard the boom of the blood-lust song And a thigh-bone beating on a tin-pan gong.

And “!” screamed the whistles and the fifes of the warriors, “!” screamed the skull-faced, lean witch-doctors; “Whirl ye the deadly voo-doo rattle, Harry the uplands, Steal all the cattle, Rattle-rattle, rattle-rattle, Bing! Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, !”

A roaring, epic, rag-time tune From the mouth of the Congo To the Mountains of the Moon. Death is an Elephant,

Torch-eyed and horrible, Foam-flanked and terrible. , steal the pygmies, , kill the Arabs, , kill the white men, .

Listen to the yell of Leopold’s ghost Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host. Hear how the demons chuckle and yell Cutting his hands off, down in Hell. Listen to the creepy proclamation, Blown through the lairs of the forest-nation, Blown past the white-ants’ hill of clay, Blown past the marsh where the butterflies play:— “Be careful what you do, Or Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo, And all of the other Gods of the Congo, Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you, Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you, Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you.”

Wild crap-shooters with a whoop and a call Danced the juba in their gambling-hall And laughed fit to kill, and shook the town, And guyed the policemen and laughed them down With a boomlay, boomlay, boomlay,.

, . A negro fairyland swung into view, A minstrel river Where dreams come true. The ebony palace soared on high Through the blossoming trees to the evening sky. The inlaid porches and casements shone With gold and ivory and elephant-bone. And the black crowd laughed till their sides were sore At the baboon butler in the agate door, And the well-known tunes of the parrot band That trilled on the bushes of that magic land. A troupe of skull-faced witch-men came Through the agate doorway in suits of flame, Yea, long-tailed coats with a gold-leaf crust And hats that were covered with diamond-dust. And the crowd in the court gave a whoop and a call And danced the juba from wall to wall.

But the witch-men suddenly stilled the throng With a stern cold glare, and a stern old song: “Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you.”…

Just then from the doorway, as fat as shotes Came the cake-walk princes in their long red coats, Canes with a brilliant lacquer shine, And tall silk hats that were red as wine.

And they pranced with their butterfly partners there, Coal-black maidens with pearls in their hair, Knee-skirts trimmed with the jassamine sweet, And bells on their ankles and little black feet. And the couples railed at the chant and the frown Of the witch-men lean, and laughed them down. (Oh, rare was the revel, and well worth while That made those glowering witch-men smile.) The cake-walk royalty then began To walk for a cake that was tall as a man To the tune of “Boomlay, boomlay, ,”

While the witch-men laughed, with a sinister air, And sang with the scalawags prancing there: “Walk with care, walk with care, Or Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo, And all of the other Gods of the Congo, Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you. Beware, beware, walk with care, Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom. Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom, Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom, Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, .”

Oh, rare was the revel, and well worth while That made those glowering witch-men smile.

A good old negro in the slums of the town Preached at a sister for her velvet gown. Howled at a brother for his low-down ways, His prowling, guzzling, sneak-thief days. Beat on the Bible till he wore it out Starting the jubilee revival shout. And some had visions, as they stood on chairs, And sang of Jacob, and the golden stairs. And they all repented, a thousand strong, From their stupor and savagery and sin and wrong, And slammed with their hymn-books till they shook the room With “Glory, glory, glory,” And “Boom, boom, .” ,.

And the gray sky opened like a new-rent veil And showed the apostles with their coats of mail. In bright white steel they were seated round, And their fire-eyes watched where the Congo wound. And the twelve Apostles, from their thrones on high,

Thrilled all the forest with their heavenly cry: “Mumbo-Jumbo will die in the jungle; Never again will he hoo-doo you, Never again will he hoo-doo you.”

Then along that river, a thousand miles The vine-snared trees fell down in files. Pioneer angels cleared the way For a Congo paradise, for babes at play, For sacred capitals, for temples clean. Gone were the skull-faced witch-men lean.

There, where the wild ghost-gods had wailed, A million boats of the angels sailed With oars of silver, and prows of blue And silken pennants that the sun shone through. ’Twas a land transfigured, ’twas a new creation. Oh, a singing wind swept the negro nation, And on through the backwoods clearing flew:— “Mumbo-Jumbo is dead in the jungle. Never again will he hoo-doo you. Never again will he hoo-doo you.” Redeemed were the forests, the beasts and the men, And only the vulture dared again By the far, lone mountains of the moon

To cry, in the silence, the Congo tune: “Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you, Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you. Mumbo … Jumbo … will … hoo-doo … you.”

title: The Congo (Lindsay)


text:
User talk:78.97.86.11

Welcome
Welcome

Hello, and welcome to Wikisource! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

 * Help pages
 * Style Guide
 * Inclusion policy
 * For Wikipedians

You are welcome to continue editing articles without logging in, but you may wish to  [ create an account] . Doing so is free, requires no personal information, and provides several benefits. Creating an account on Wikisource has many of the same benefits as creating an account on Wikipedia. For one thing, if you continue to edit without a username, your IP address is used to publicly identify you.

In any case, I hope you enjoy donating your time to grow the Wikisource library that is free for everyone to use! In discussions, please sign your comments using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically produce your IP address (or username if you're logged in) and the date. If you need help, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question here (click  [ edit] ) and place  before your question. Again, welcome! Beeswaxcandle (talk) 18:49, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Revert
Your edit some works were reverted please see Possible_copyright_violations for the related conversaion. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 17:32, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

title: User talk:78.97.86.11


text:
Page:Scientific Memoirs, Vol. 1 (1837).djvu/47

Rh 1 to infinity when we consider the effects produced by sources of a low temperature.

Hitherto we have made no account of the colours [of the diathermanous bodies], or, rather, have considered them only in relation to the diminution of transparency, or to the greater or less opacity which they always cause in diaphanous substances.

We must now examine them more particularly, and determine their influence on transmission. Such is the object of the fourth table. The tints of those kinds of glass marked with an asterisk are the purest, and approach nearest to those prismatic colours that bear the same names. Of this I have satisfied myself by the following experiments. Having by means of a heliostat introduced a horizontal sheaf of solar rays into a dark chamber, I divided it into two by causing it to pass through two apertures made in an opake screen. I contrived to make one of the sheaves fall on a vertical prism, and the other on a coloured glass which I wished to try. Thus the solar spectrum was seen cast on one side, and a coloured spot in the line of the direct rays. To bring this spot into contiguity with the corresponding colour of the spectrum, I placed behind the glass a second vertical prism which turned about until the desired effect was obtained. The two analogous tints are always easily compared when they are near each other, and at the same time we are able to judge whether the colour of the glass be more or less pure by the new tints which are always developed in the passage of the coloured rays of the glass through the prism. Of fourteen colours selected from several species of glass, I have found but five making any near approach to the prismatic colours and producing very feeble secondary tints. These tints were absolutely imperceptible only in the case of red glass.

There is another mode (and it has not been overlooked) of


text:
User talk:N2~enwikisource

Welcome
Welcome

Hello, N2, and welcome to Wikisource! Thank you for. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:
 * Help pages
 * Style guide
 * Inclusion policy
 * For Wikipedians

You may be interested in participating in Add the code active projects, PotM or CotW to your page for current wikisource projects.
 * Proofread of the Month
 * Community collaboration
 * Requested texts

You can put a brief description of your interests on your user page and contributions to another Wikimedia project, such as Wikipedia and Commons.

I hope you enjoy contributing to Wikisource, the library that is free for everyone to use! In discussions, please "sign" your comments using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically produce your IP address (or username if you're logged in) and the date. If you need help, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question here (click  [ edit] ) and place  before your question.

Again, welcome! Beeswaxcandle (talk) 19:03, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called N2. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name N2~enwikisource that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:29, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 06:47, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:N2~enwikisource


text:
Page:Scientific Memoirs, Vol. 1 (1837).djvu/48

36 the influence of colour in diaphanous media. It consists in causing corresponding rays of the spectrum to pass through the glasses. The passage is attended only with a very inconsiderable loss when the tints are very pure. Now by fixing one side of my five plates of glass at proper distances on the margin of a sheet of pasteboard exposed to the coloured sheaf of the prism, I found that each prismatic ray traversed glass of the same colour without suffering any loss of intensity. At least, the alteration produced by these glasses on the corresponding solar rays was nearly the same in all cases. This fact is inferred from a comparison of the prismatic rays which fall on the wall directly and those which reach it after having passed through the coloured pieces of glass. The shadows brought by the latter rays are so very light as to be almost imperceptible. In every other case they are very strongly marked. If for instance we substitute the violet for the red, the spot on the wall is almost dark; if the violet be not perfectly pure, it will not at least transmit a quantity of red rays less than that which passes through the red glass.

It is known that in the solar spectrum produced by a prism of common glass, the greatest heat is found in the red, and that the intermediate temperatures continually decrease until we come to the violet. Does this calorific distribution in the coloured rays, separated by the refracting power of the prism, exist also when they are separated by the absorptive power of the colouring matter?

In order to ascertain this we have only to compare, at the different temperatures of the spectrum, the numbers which represent the calorific transmissions of our five coloured glasses; they are as follows: The order of the colours considered relatively to their degrees of heat and the numerical relations of those degrees are so altered that the violet light, which in the spectrum possesses a temperature twenty-five or thirty times lower than that of the red light, appears here of a higher temperature. Such a difference is not to be explained by supposing that, in the transmission of the violet glass, there passes a great quantity of red rays; for it should, on this hypothesis, be found to transmit them in a greater proportion than they are transmitted by the red glass; which, according to the preceding experiments, is impossible.

These facts seem to be opposed to the opinion of those philosophers who hold that in luminous heat the same rays simultaneously excite the two sensations of light and heat, but would be easily comprehended if we supposed caloric and light to be two distinct agents. In the latter case we should say that in the prism the refractive force acts unequally on the different caloric rays, as it does, in a greater or less degree, on


text:
User talk:Claudio Pistilli

Welcome
Welcome

Hello, Claudio Pistilli, and welcome to Wikisource! Thank you for. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:
 * Help pages
 * Style guide
 * Inclusion policy
 * For Wikipedians

You may be interested in participating in Add the code active projects, PotM or CotW to your page for current wikisource projects.
 * Proofread of the Month
 * Community collaboration
 * Requested texts

You can put a brief description of your interests on your user page and contributions to another Wikimedia project, such as Wikipedia and Commons.

I hope you enjoy contributing to Wikisource, the library that is free for everyone to use! In discussions, please "sign" your comments using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically produce your IP address (or username if you're logged in) and the date. If you need help, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question here (click  [ edit] ) and place  before your question.

Again, welcome! Beeswaxcandle (talk) 19:07, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

title: User talk:Claudio Pistilli


text:
User talk:OTAVIO1981

Welcome
Welcome

Hello, OTAVIO1981, and welcome to Wikisource! Thank you for. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:
 * Help pages
 * Style guide
 * Inclusion policy
 * For Wikipedians

You may be interested in participating in Add the code active projects, PotM or CotW to your page for current wikisource projects.
 * Proofread of the Month
 * Community collaboration
 * Requested texts

You can put a brief description of your interests on your user page and contributions to another Wikimedia project, such as Wikipedia and Commons.

I hope you enjoy contributing to Wikisource, the library that is free for everyone to use! In discussions, please "sign" your comments using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically produce your IP address (or username if you're logged in) and the date. If you need help, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question here (click  [ edit] ) and place  before your question.

Again, welcome! Beeswaxcandle (talk) 19:07, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

title: User talk:OTAVIO1981


text:
Page:Scientific Memoirs, Vol. 1 (1837).djvu/49

Rh the different luminous rays, and thus throws certain quantities of heat on the very spaces occupied by the different colours of the spectrum; but that in the coloured glasses and, generally, in bodies more or less diathermanous, the absorbent force does not act in the same manner as the force of refraction, which sometimes extinguishes more heat than light and at others more light than heat.

But those who maintain the identity of the two agents will reply, that the differences observed in the calorific and luminous transmissions of the diaphanous or coloured media are produced by rays of obscure heat which mix in great quantities with the rays of light emitted by the flame.

In order to decide how far it is allowable to maintain the one or the other hypothesis, we should have data which, at present, are not within our reach. We shall resume this subject at the end of the next Memoir, and conclude the present one with an account of a very remarkable application of the numerical results contained in the foregoing tables.

It had been established by the beautiful experiments of Seebeck that the place of the maximum of temperature in the solar spectrum varies with the chemical composition of the substance of which the prism is made. This eminent philosopher observed that the highest degree of heat which, in the spectrum furnished by a prism of crown glass, was in the red, passed to the orange when the prism employed was a hollow glass one filled with sulphuric acid, and was found in the yellow when the same prism was filled with pure water.

I discovered some months since that the caloric rays scattered on the colours given by a common prism do not undergo the same alteration in passing through a layer of water; the loss varies inversely as the refrangibility, so that the most refrangible rays pass undiminished and the least refrangible are entirely stopped by the liquid.

This experiment led to a very simple explanation of the results obtained by Seebeck.

The solar heat which presents itself to the anterior face of the prism of water contains rays of every degree of refrangibility. Now the ray which has the same index of refraction as the red light, suffers in passing through the prism a loss porportionally greater than the ray which possesses the refrangibility of orange light, and less is lost by the latter in the passage than by the heat of the yellow ray. These increasing ratios in the losses of heat sustained by the less refrangible rays have an evident tendency to transfer the maximum to the violet. It may therefore be stopt at the yellow.


text:
Page:Scientific Memoirs, Vol. 1 (1837).djvu/50

38 If we suppose the action of sulphuric acid analogous to that of water, but not so energetic, we shall see the reason why, with the prism of acid, the maximum takes place in the orange. In short, the very glass of which the common prisms are made must operate in a similar manner, and cause in each ray a loss inversely proportioned to its refrangibility. Therefore, if we employed in the construction of the common prism a substance less active than common glass, the losses sustained by the less refrangible rays would be diminished in a greater ratio; so that they would gain on the more refrangible rays, and the maximum would pass in a direction opposite to the preceding, that is, fr»m the violet to the red.

This is exactly the result obtained by Herschel, Englefield, and Seebeck by operating on prisms of flint glass; for the maximum was transferred to the obscure space quite close to the last red stripe of the spectrum.

Let us compare these effects with the numbers which represent the calorific transmissions. We shall find that the maximum of heat, in passing from the yellow, where it is found when we use a prism of water, departs from it always in the same direction in proportion as the substances of the prisms substituted for the water are more diathermanous. It passes a little out of the spectrum when, instead of crown, we employ flint glass. Admitting then the correctness of such a theory, the line of greatest heat must pass quite beyond the colours into a space far distant from the red limit if we employ rock salt, a substance possessing a far greater diathermancy as compared with flint glass than flint glass does as compared with crown. I tried the experiment; it was completely successful. I found that the maximum of temperature in the spectrum derived from the prism of salt was thrown into the dark space as far at least from the last band as the blue is (in an opposite direction) from the red. At the moment I cannot assign more exact measures; for in the first place I operated with very small prisms, and when I subsequently obtained larger pieces the season did not allow me to reconsider and study the result more nicely. But the effect has been so marked in the experiment which I made, and so invariable in several successive repetitions, that I look upon it as decisive, and have not the least doubt as to the removal of the maximum of temperature to the last band of the red rays in the spectrum produced with rock salt.

The distribution of the degrees of temperature in the solar spectrum


text:
Page:Scientific Memoirs, Vol. 1 (1837).djvu/51

Rh is therefore a phænomenon entirely depending on the order which we have found to exist in respect to the calorific transmissions of diaphanous bodies.

This phænomenon now constitutes a striking relation between the properties of the caloric rays of the sun and those of the radiant heat of terrestrial bodies; but we shall see relations yet more intimate appear between these two species of rays when we examine the alterations produced in calorific transmissions by changing the temperature of the radiating source.

HE experiments described in the former Memoir have shown that diaphanous bodies do not act in the same manner on the rays of heat and the rays of light simultaneously emanating from the most brilliant flame. We have seen, in fact, that thin flakes of alum and of citric acid, because of their transparency, perceptibly transmit all the luminous rays of an Argand lamp, and stop from eight to nine tenths of the caloric; while, on the other hand, thick pieces of smoky rock crystal intercept nearly the whole of the light and allow the radiant heat to pass freely. Do the different properties thus exhibited by each body, relatively to the two agents, and the relations of the calorific transmissions of the one screen to those of the other, remain constant, whatever be the source (luminous or obscure) whence the rays emanate? Such are the first questions that I have undertaken to solve in this second series of researches.

That the comparison between the quantities transmitted in each particular case might be fairly made, it was necessary to operate upon rays


text:
Scientific Memoirs

 * Volume 1, 1837.
 * Volume 2, 1841.
 * Volume 3, 1843.
 * Volume 4

title: Scientific Memoirs


text: Scientific Memoirs/1

title: Scientific Memoirs/1


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Laidlaw, William


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Laing, Alexander (1778-1838)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Laing, Alexander (1787-1857)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Laing, Alexander Gordon


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Laing, David (1774-1856)


text: Scientific Memoirs/1/List of Plates

title: Scientific Memoirs/1/List of Plates


text: Scientific Memoirs/1/Errata

title: Scientific Memoirs/1/Errata


text:
Page:English as She is Spoke.djvu/50

18 How do you can it to deny?

Wax my shoes.

That is that I have think.

That are the dishes whose you must be and to abstain.

This meat ist not too over do.

This ink is white.

This room is filled of bugs.

This girl have a beauty edge.

It is a noise which to cleave the head.

This wood is fill of thief's.

Tell me, it can one to know?

Give me some good milk newly get out.

To morrow hi shall be entirely (her master) or unoccupied.

She do not that to talk and to cackle.

Dry this wine.

He laughs at my nose, he jest by me.

He has spit in my coat.

He has me take out my hairs.

He does me some kicks.

title: Page:English as She is Spoke.djvu/50


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Laing, James


text:
Page:English as She is Spoke.djvu/51

Rh He has scratch the face with hers nails.

He burns one's self the brains.

He is valuable his weight's gold.

He has the word for to laugh.

He do the devil at four.

He make to weep the room.

He was fighted in duel.

They fight one's selfs together.

He do want to fall.

It must never to laugh of the unhappies.

He was wanting to be killed.

I am confused all yours civilities.

I am catched cold.

I not make what to coughand spit.

Never I have feeld a such heat.

Till say-us?

Till hither.

I have put my stockings outward.

I have croped the candle.

I have mind to vomit.

I will not to sleep on street.

title: Page:English as She is Spoke.djvu/51


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Laing, John (d.1483)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Laing, Samuel


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Laing, William


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Laird, John


text:
Page:English as She is Spoke.djvu/52

20 I am catched cold in the brain.

I am pinking me with a pin.

I dead myself in envy to see her.

I take a broth all morning.

I shall not tell you than two woods.

Have you understanded?

Let him have know?

Have you understand they?

Do you know they?

Do you know they to?

The storm is go over.

The sun begins to dissipe it.

Witch prefer you?

The paving stone is sliphery.

The thunderbolt is falling down.

The rose-trees begins to button.

The ears are too length.

The hands itch at him.

Have you forgeted me?

Lay him hir apron.

Help-to a little most the better yours terms.

title: Page:English as She is Spoke.djvu/52


text: Scientific Memoirs/1/Memoir on the Free Transmission of Radiant Heat through different Solid and Liquid Bodies


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Laird, Macgregor


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lake, Arthur


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lake, Edward (1600?-1674)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lake, Edward (1641-1704)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lake, Edward John


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lake, Gerard


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lake, Henry Atwell


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lake, John


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lake, Thomas


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lakingheth, John de


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lalor, James Finton


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lalor, Peter


text:
Page:Scientific Memoirs, Vol. 1 (1837).djvu/41

Rh


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lamb, Caroline


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lamb, Frederick James


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lamb, George


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lamb, James


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lamb, Matthew


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lamb, John


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lamb, William


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lambarde, William


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lambart, Charles


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lambart, Oliver


text:
Page:Biographies of Scientific Men.djvu/212

164 with only the advantages of a remote country town, his talent appeared in the earnestness with which he cultivated at once the most various branches of knowledge and speculation. He was fond of metaphysics; he was fond of experiment; he was an ardent student of Nature; and he possessed at an early age poetic powers which, had they been cultivated, would, in the opinion of competent judges, have made him eminent in literature as he became in science. All these tastes endured throughout life. Business could not stifle them—even the approach of death was unable to extinguish them. The reveries of his boyhood on the sea-worn cliffs of Mount's Bay may yet be traced in many of the pages dictated during the last year of his life amidst the ruins of the Colosseum."

Davy's first paper, published while at Bristol, was on heat, light, and respiration. The memoir laid the foundations of the present dynamical theory of heat. At this period he showed great abilities, was young, enthusiastic, energetic, and ambitious. He was bound to succeed.

While at Dr Beddoes', Davy was introduced to Samuel Taylor Coleridge (poet and philosopher) and Robert Southey (poet, essayist, and historian), and there is no doubt that meeting such men helped to develop his genius and erudition. Davy was one of the most remarkable chemists of his or any age. Chemistry in


text:
Page:Biographies of Scientific Men.djvu/213

Rh those days was a young science. "The chains with which Stahl and his successors had so long bound the limbs of the young science had been broken by Lavoisier."

Modern chemistry was developing, and developing at a rapid rate. There were giants in those days whose names are immortal: Berthollet, Proust, Gay-Lussac, Thénard, Dalton, Berzelius, and others.

In 1797 Davy discovered the anæsthetic properties of nitrous oxide gas—a gas used largely by the dentist. About the same time he published his Researches—a work "characterized by vigour and novelty of conception." This work attracted the attention of Count Rumford, the founder of the Royal Institution in London, who required a lecturer for the Institution. Davy was appointed to the post, and about a year later he was elected professor of chemistry. He came to London with the utmost enthusiasm, but "his ungainly appearance was against him," as his lectures were delivered before the élite of London society. Soon, however, "the ability of the young man won the approval of this aristocratic audience, until, in a year or two, he was courted by the highest society in the metropolis, and took that position in the fashionable world which was so well suited to his temperament."

The words of Dr S. Johnson are appropriate for Davy's career in London:—


text:
Page:Biographies of Scientific Men.djvu/214

166

At the Royal Institution he had plenty of time for research, a good laboratory, and influential friends who took the greatest interest in his work and welfare. How different it was with poor Linnæus!

Concerning Davy's first course of lectures at the Royal Institution, it has been stated that

The age of Davy was essentially the age of the voltaic battery in chemical research; and what he did with the battery, recently invented by Volta, were discoveries in chemistry second to no others.

The researches, indicated in his Bakerian lecture of 1806, were rewarded with a prize of three thousand francs by the Académie des Sciences. He began his electrochemical researches in the early years of the last century. In his Elements of Chemical Philosophy he says:—


text:
Page:English as She is Spoke.djvu/53

Rh Dont you are awaken yet?

That should must me to cost my life.

We are in the canicule.

No budge you there.

Do not might one's understand to speak.

Where are their stockings, their shoes, her shirt and her petlicot?

One's can to believe you?

One's find-modest the young men rarely.

If can't to please at every one's.

Take that boy and whip him to much.

Take attention to cut you self.

Take care to dirt you self.

Dress my horse.

Since you not go out, I shall go out nor I neither.

That may dead if I lie you.

What is it who want you?

Why you no helps me to?

Upon my live.

All trees have very deal bear.

A throat's ill.

title: Page:English as She is Spoke.djvu/53


text:
Page:English as She is Spoke.djvu/54

22 You shall catch cold one's.

You make grins.

Will some mutton?

Will you fat or slight?

Will you this?

Will you a bon?

You not make who to babble.

You not make that to prate all day's work.

You interompt me.

You mistake you self heavily.

You come too rare.

title: Page:English as She is Spoke.djvu/54


text:
Page:Biographies of Scientific Men.djvu/215

Rh

The Wollaston battery of two hundred cells was constructed for Davy in 1807, and by it many brilliant researches were performed, which excited the rivalry of foreign savants. Among these were the investigations of Gay-Lussac and Thénard, entitled Recherches Physico-Chimiques, published in 1811, and in which are to be found many remarkable observations on the physical and chemical effects of the voltaic battery.

Davy's brilliant researches with the Wollaston battery caused Napoleon I. to have one constructed in 1813 for the École Polytechnique; and one day the Emperor, when speaking to Berthollet, said: "Pourquoi ces découvertes n'avaient pas été faites en France." "Sire," said Berthollet, "c'est que jusqu'à jour nous n'avons pas possédé de pile voltaïque assez puissante." Napoleon had one constructed with six hundred cells (with elements of


text:
Page:English as She is Spoke.djvu/56

24 No, sir, he sleep yet.

I go make that he get up.

It come in one's? How is it, you are in bed yet?

Yesterday at evening, I was to bed so late that I may not rising me soon that morning.

Well! what you have done after the supper?

We have sung, danced, laugh and played.

What game?

To the picket.

Whom I am sorry do not have know it!

Who have prevailed upon?

I had gained ten lewis.

Till at what o'clock its had play one?

Un till two o'clock after mid night.

At what o'clock are you go to bed.

Half pass three.

I am no astonished if you get up so late.

What o'clock is it?

What o'clock you think is it?

I think is not yet eight o'clock.

How is that, eight 'clock! it is ten 'clock struck.

title: Page:English as She is Spoke.djvu/56


text:
Page:English as She is Spoke.djvu/57

Rh It must then what I rise me quickly.

Adieu, my deer, I leave you. If can to see you at six clock to the hotel from ***, we swill dine togetter.

Willingly. Good by.

John, make haste, lighted the fire and dress-me.

Give me my shirt.

There is it sir.

Is it no hot, it is too cold yet.

If you like, I will hot it.

No, no, bring me my silk stocking's.

Its are make holes.

Make its a point, or make to mend them.

Comb me, take another comb. Give me my handkarchief.

There is a clean, sir.

What coat dress you to day?

Those that I had yesterday.

The tailor do owe to bring soon that of cloth.

title: Page:English as She is Spoke.djvu/57


text:
Page:Biographies of Scientific Men.djvu/216

168 copper and zinc). This battery, although non-existent now, was the means of producing valuable discoveries in the hands of Gay-Lussac and Thénard.

Davy proved that oxygen was not the acidifying principle of acids, as stated by Lavoisier; and he led the way to the ultimate definition of an acid.

In 1803 Davy was elected F.R.S.; in 1807, Secretary of the Royal Society; and in 1820, its President. During these years a vast number of papers were published by him; and he published the following books: Elements of Agricultural Chemistry (1813); Elements of Chemical Philosophy; Salmonia, or Days of Fly-fishing; and Consolation in Travels, or the Last Days of a Philosopher (published in 1831, two years after his death). The last-named book contains some finely written theories on ethical and moral questions, with descriptions of Italian scenery.

In his book on Agricultural Chemistry, Davy says:—

Agricultural chemistry has not yet received a regular and systematic form. It has been pursued by competent experimenters for a short time only. . . . I am sure you will receive with indulgence the first attempt made in this country to illustrate it by a series of experimental demonstrations. . . . It is evident that the study of agricultural chemistry ought to be commenced by some general inquiries into the composition and nature of material bodies, and the law of their changes. The surface of the earth, the atmosphere, and the water deposited from it, must either together, or separately, afford all the principles concerned in vegetation; and it is only by examining the chemical nature of these principles that we are capable of discovering what is the food of plants,


text:
Page:Biographies of Scientific Men.djvu/217

and the manner in which this food is supplied and prepared for their nourishment. … Nothing is more wanting in agriculture than experiments, in which all the circumstances are minutely and scientifically detailed.

The attractions of society and his early death (he was only fifty) stopped his work on agricultural chemistry; and it was not until 1840, eleven years after Davy's death, that Liebig published his ever famous work on the same subject.

Rumford and Davy proved that heat was not matter, as had been previously supposed, but a form of energy—the vis viva of the molecules. But the crowning discoveries of Davy were those necessitating the use of the electric battery. To Davy, "the electrolysis of every chemical compound was a new application of the great law established by Newton: 'to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." By means of the electric battery he decomposed bodies which were generally regarded as elements or simple bodies.

On 19th October 1807 Davy isolated the metals potassium and sodium by electrolyzing potash and soda. In the former case, potassium and hydrogen were evolved at the negative pole, and oxygen at the positive pole of the battery. When Davy first saw the metallic globules of potassium, "he could not contain his joy—he actually bounded about the room in ecstatic delight; and some little time was required for him to compose himself sufficiently to continue the experiment." This was the


text:
Page:Biographies of Scientific Men.djvu/218

 reward for six years' hard work. His discoveries he described in his second Bakerian lecture before the Royal Society.

The decomposition of potash and soda, proving their compound nature, led to the discovery of barium, strontium, calcium, magnesium, and boron. Thus, by means of the electric battery, Davy proved that the alkalis and alkaline earths were compounds, and contained metals. These discoveries were the foundation of Davy's fame, and are, perhaps, "the greatest in chemistry." As Professor T. E. Thorpe says: "It was a wonderful triumph, and all London marvelled at the production from such common and familiar substances of new, white, soft, easily-oxidized, shining metals, which the eye of man had never seen before!"

In 1812 Davy was knighted, and married a rich Scottish lady, Mrs Apreece. The same year he resigned the chair at the Royal Institution, and in 1813 travelled with his wife on the Continent.

From 1802 to 1812 his labours were intense, and his discoveries were of the highest importance.

In 1813 Michael Faraday became Davy's assistant, and he helped the master in the work on the explosive chloride of nitrogen.

In 1815 (the year of the battle of Waterloo) Sir Humphry Davy invented the miner's safety-lamp. For this invention he was created a baronet in 1818; and the


text:
Page:Biographies of Scientific Men.djvu/219

 coal-owners of the north of England presented him with a service of plate worth £3000. How many lives this invention has saved from a horrid death it is impossible to estimate.

Davy proved the elementary nature of chlorine, and that hydrochloric acid is a compound of chlorine and hydrogen. His experiments were always most convincing as well as brilliant. While in Paris, he proved that iodine was an element, using the simplest of appliances.

Unremitting devotion to chemistry and society had undermined his constitution to such an extent that in 1826 he was attacked by paralysis, and was forced to relinquish most of his work. He visited the Continent for the benefit of his health; but another attack of paralysis seized him while visiting Rome. He, however, rallied sufficiently to continue the homeward journey. At Geneva he was attacked again, and died on Royal Oak Day (29th May) 1829. Sir Humphry Davy was buried in the cemetery outside the city of Geneva, Switzerland.

He was an untiring and enthusiastic worker, a brilliant experimentalist, an eloquent lecturer, a genius: and "he was full of eager desire to know the secrets of the world in which he lived"; in fact, as Cuvier said of him, "he occupied the first rank among the chemists of this or of any other age."

His work on the elemental nature of chlorine, iodine, etc., his synthesis of hydriodic acid, and his work on


text:
Page:Biographies of Scientific Men.djvu/220

 the chloride and iodine of nitrogen are examples of first-class work; but they are as nothing to the isolation of the metals of the alkalis and alkaline earths. The era of Davy has been called the "golden age of chemistry in this country"; certainly it was most brilliant, and one never to be forgotten in the history of science.

Sir Humphry Davy said: "The foundations of chemical knowledge are observation, experiment, and analogy. By observation facts are distinctly and minutely impressed on the mind; by analogy similar facts are connected; by experiment new facts are discovered; and in the progress of knowledge, observation, guided by analogy, leads to experiment; and analogy, confirmed by experiment, becomes scientific truth."

Sir Humphry Davy "was a somewhat vain and irritable man, whom early success had made haughty to his inferiors. Indeed, in the recollections of Faraday, who as a young man attended upon him in his travels, we have a rather disagreeable picture of the savant who had forgotten the 'pit out of which he was digged.'"

Later on, however, he appreciated the talents of Faraday, although he strongly opposed the latter's nomination for the fellowship of the Royal Society. Was he jealous of Faraday's successes? Davy was never popular with assistants and colleagues. He was far too


text:
Page:Biographies of Scientific Men.djvu/221

 imperious, and was "regardless of minor etiquette." Snobbish to aristocrats, arrogant to inferiors, "it is mortifying to think that this great man, captivated by the flatteries of the fashionable world, lost much of the winning simplicity of his early manner and his devotion to science."

Davy received every honour awarded to men of science, but he was refused the Order of the Bath, which he expected.

Of posthumous honours, the Royal Society awards a Davy medal; Dr Ludwig Mond has endowed a research laboratory (called the "Davy-Faraday Laboratory") at the Royal Institution; and there is a statue to his memory in Market Jew Street, Penzance.

It was Count Rumford who was instrumental in bringing Davy to the Royal Institution; therefore a few words about him will not be out of place. Benjamin Thompson Rumford was born in America in 1753, and at the outbreak of the War of Independence he embraced the royalist cause. He was a commander of the King's American Dragoons; in 1784 he entered the Bavarian service, rose to be Minister of War, and was created Count of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1806 he married the widow of Lavoisier, but the marriage was a failure, and they separated in 1809.

Rumford was a celebrated physicist. He invented the


text:
Page:Biographies of Scientific Men.djvu/222

174 photometer known by his name, and his researches in heat and light are well known to men of science—so much so that the Royal Society perpetuates his name by awarding a Rumford medal for researches in physics. He was the founder of the Royal Institution, and a philanthropist. Rumford died on 21st August 1814, and lies buried in the Cimetière d'Auteuil, Paris.

The large and beautiful monument on his grave was destroyed by a shell during the Commune in 1871, but was restored in 1876, at the expense of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences of the College of Harvard, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.


text: Biographies of Scientific Men/Davy

title: Biographies of Scientific Men/Davy