acquired+company

SUBJECT AREA: Land transport, Railways and locomotives, Steam and internal combustion engines

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Orphaned as a child, Hamilton went to work for Southern Pacific Railroad in his teens, and then worked for several other companies. In his spare time he learned mathematics and physics from a retired professor. In 1911 he joined the White Motor Company, makers of road motor vehicles in Denver, Colorado, where he had gone to recuperate from malaria. He remained there until 1922, apart from an eighteenth-month break for war service.

Upon his return from war service, Hamilton found White selling petrol-engined railbuses with mechanical transmission, based on road vehicles, to railways. He noted that they were not robust enough and that the success of petrol railcars with electric transmission, built by General Electric since 1906, was limited as they were complex to drive and maintain. In 1922 Hamilton formed, and became President of, the Electro- Motive Engineering Corporation (later Electro-Motive Corporation) to design and produce petrol-electric rail cars. Needing an engine larger than those used in road vehicles, yet lighter and faster than marine engines, he approached the Win ton Engine Company to develop a suitable engine; in addition, General Electric provided electric transmission with a simplified control system. Using these components, Hamilton arranged for his petrol-electric railcars to be built by the St Louis Car Company, with the first being completed in 1924. It was the beginning of a highly successful series. Fuel costs were lower than for steam trains and initial costs were kept down by using standardized vehicles instead of designing for individual railways. Maintenance costs were minimized because Electro-Motive kept stocks of spare parts and supplied replacement units when necessary. As more powerful, 800 hp (600 kW) railcars were produced, railways tended to use them to haul trailer vehicles, although that practice reduced the fuel saving. By the end of the decade Electro-Motive needed engines more powerful still and therefore had to use cheap fuel. Diesel engines of the period, such as those that Winton had made for some years, were too heavy in relation to their power, and too slow and sluggish for rail use. Their fuel-injection system was erratic and insufficiently robust and Hamilton concluded that a separate injector was needed for each cylinder.

In 1930 Electro-Motive Corporation and Winton were acquired by General Motors in pursuance of their aim to develop a diesel engine suitable for rail traction, with the use of unit fuel injectors; Hamilton retained his position as President. At this time, industrial depression had combined with road and air competition to undermine railway-passenger business, and Ralph Budd, President of the Chicago, Burlington \& Quincy Railroad, thought that traffic could be recovered by way of high-speed, luxury motor trains; hence the Pioneer Zephyr was built for the Burlington. This comprised a 600 hp (450 kW), lightweight, two-stroke, diesel engine developed by General Motors (model 201 A), with electric transmission, that powered a streamlined train of three articulated coaches. This train demonstrated its powers on 26 May 1934 by running non-stop from Denver to Chicago, a distance of 1,015 miles (1,635 km), in 13 hours and 6 minutes, when the fastest steam schedule was 26 hours. Hamilton and Budd were among those on board the train, and it ushered in an era of high-speed diesel trains in the USA. By then Hamilton, with General Motors backing, was planning to use the lightweight engine to power diesel-electric locomotives. Their layout was derived not from steam locomotives, but from the standard American boxcar. The power plant was mounted within the body and powered the bogies, and driver's cabs were at each end. Two 900 hp (670 kW) engines were mounted in a single car to become an 1,800 hp (l,340 kW) locomotive, which could be operated in multiple by a single driver to form a 3,600 hp (2,680 kW) locomotive. To keep costs down, standard locomotives could be mass-produced rather than needing individual designs for each railway, as with steam locomotives. Two units of this type were completed in 1935 and sent on trial throughout much of the USA. They were able to match steam locomotive performance, with considerable economies: fuel costs alone were halved and there was much less wear on the track. In the same year, Electro-Motive began manufacturing diesel-electrie locomotives at La Grange, Illinois, with design modifications: the driver was placed high up above a projecting nose, which improved visibility and provided protection in the event of collision on unguarded level crossings; six-wheeled bogies were introduced, to reduce axle loading and improve stability. The first production passenger locomotives emerged from La Grange in 1937, and by early 1939 seventy units were in service. Meanwhile, improved engines had been developed and were being made at La Grange, and late in 1939 a prototype, four-unit, 5,400 hp (4,000 kW) diesel-electric locomotive for freight trains was produced and sent out on test from coast to coast; production versions appeared late in 1940. After an interval from 1941 to 1943, when Electro-Motive produced diesel engines for military and naval use, locomotive production resumed in quantity in 1944, and within a few years diesel power replaced steam on most railways in the USA.

Hal Hamilton remained President of Electro-Motive Corporation until 1942, when it became a division of General Motors, of which he became Vice-President.

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SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy

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William Humfrey, goldsmith of the parish of St Vedast, was appointed Assay Master of the Royal Mint in 1561. At the Tower of London he assumed responsibility for the weight of silver and for production standards at a time of intense activity in recoining the debased coinage of the realm. Separation of copper from the debased silver involved liquation techniques which enabled purification of the recovered silver and copper. German co-operation in introducing these methods to England developed their interest in English copper mining, resulting in the formation of the Mines Royal Company. Shareholders in this government-led monopoly included Humfrey, whose assay of Keswick copper ore, mined with German expertise, was bitterly disputed. As a result of this dispute, Humfrey promoted the formation of a smaller monopoly, the Company of Mineral Battery Works, with plans to mine lead and especially the zinc carbonate ore, calamine, using it to introduce brassmaking and wire manufacture into England. Humfrey acquired technical assistance from further skilled German immigrants, relying particularly on Christopher Schutz of Annaberg in Saxony, who claimed experience in such matters. However, the brassmaking project set up at Tintern was abandoned by 1569 after failure to make a brass suitable for manufacturing purposes. The works changed its production to iron wire. Humfrey had meanwhile been under suspicion of embezzlement at the Tower in connection with his work there. He died intestate while involved in litigation regarding infringement of rights and privileges claimed from his introduction of new techniques in later lead-mining activities under the auspices of the Company of Mineral and Battery Works.

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1 to get (beca, cargo, puntos).

2 to obtain, to gain, to get, to acquire.

Ricardo ganó reconocimiento Richard gained renown.

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Conjugation model [ TENER], like link=tener tener

► verbo transitivo

1 (beca, resultados) to get, obtain; (premio) to win; (ganancias) to make

■ obtener el perdón to be pardoned

► verbo pronominal obtenerse

1 to get, be obtained

■ con este detergente se obtienen resultados sorprendentes with this detergent you get surprising results

■ la energía se obtiene de la descomposición del átomo energy is obtained by splitting the atom

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1) to obtain, get

2) attain

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VT [+ resultado, información, permiso] to get, obtain; [+ mayoría, votos] to win, obtain; [+ premio, medalla, victoria] to win; [+ apoyo] to gain, get, obtain; [+ beneficios] to make

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verbo transitivo < premio> to win, receive; <resultado/autorización> to obtain; < calificación> to obtain, set

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= derive, gain, generate, get, obtain, procure, secure, yield, spin off, elicit, reap, receive, come by, acquire.

Ex. The scheme was designed for the Library of Congress and many of the features of the scheme derived from this fact.

Ex. To many, therefore, this emphasis on information can provide a much-needed opportunity to gain the public library new influence and respect.

Ex. Human indexers sometimes make inappropriate judgements, misinterpret ideas, have lapses of memory or concentration, and generate omissions and inconsistencies in their indexing.

Ex. DOBIS/LIBIS does not get a new document number, but reserves this document for you, so that no one else can change it while you are working on it.

Ex. In the event that the position in the matrix contains more than 32 entries, it is necessary for the user to interact with the system to obtain the miniature catalog that will contain the entry s/he seeks.

Ex. They are responsible for putting together advertisements, securing proofs, procuring the matrices, electrotypes, and other duplicate plates needed for insertion in publications.

Ex. They are responsible for putting together advertisements, securing proofs, procuring the matrices, electrotypes, and other duplicate plates needed for insertion in publications.

Ex. This mixture of approaches is designed to yield maximum retrieval for as many users as possible by combining the different strengths of controlled and natural language indexing.

Ex. A computerized search facility has been spun off from the basic work.

Ex. This article looks at ways in which librarians in leadership roles can elicit the motivation, commitment, and personal investment of members of the organisation.

Ex. Women suffragists reaped an unexpected publicity bonanza when the 1913 national suffrage parade in Washington was broken up by a drunken mob.

Ex. If you receive a large number of titles on you initial search, you can narrow your search by using qualifiers.

Ex. This article shows how teachers came by such information and the use they made it of in their work.

Ex. Many libraries have special collections of foreign, unpublished or unusual materials which include items unlikely to be acquired by other libraries.

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* difícil de obtener = difficult to come by.

* fácil de obtener = easy to come by.

* obtener acceso = gain + access, gain + admittance.

* obtener algo de = get + something out of.

* obtener beneficios = gain + benefit, make + a profit, realise + benefits, derive + benefit, reap + rewards, reap + benefits, reap + returns, make + profit.

* obtener conocimiento = gain + an understanding.

* obtener credibilidad = attain + credibility.

* obtener de = get out of.

* obtener el derecho para = win + the right to.

* obtener el enunciado del problema = elicit + problem statement.

* obtener el máximo beneficio = reap + full potential.

* obtener el mayor rendimiento posible = maximise + opportunities.

* obtener éxito = achieve + success.

* obtener éxitos y fracasos = experience + problems and successes.

* obtener fondos de = derive + finances from.

* obtener ganancia = gain + benefit.

* obtener gratificación = obtain + gratification.

* obtener gratis = obtain + free.

* obtener indicios sobre = get + an indication of.

* obtener información = obtain + information, glean + information, gain + information, pick up + information, secure + information.

* obtener información de = elicit + information from.

* obtener la aprobación = meet with + approval.

* obtener partido de = capitalise on/upon [capitalize, -USA].

* obtener perspectiva de = gain + perspective on.

* obtener pistas sobre = get + an indication of.

* obtener placer = take + pleasure, obtain + pleasure from, derive + pleasure.

* obtener placer de = get + pleasure from.

* obtener + Posesivo + aprobación = meet + Posesivo + approval.

* obtener promoción = arrive at + promotion.

* obtener provecho = get + Posesivo + money's worth out of.

* obtener reconocimiento = gain + recognition.

* obtener resultado = obtain + result.

* obtener resultados = get + things done.

* obtener satisfacción = derive + satisfaction, gain + satisfaction, derive + gratification, obtain + satisfaction.

* obtenerse = accrue.

* obtenerse de = flow from.

* obtener titulación = receive + degree.

* obtener + Título = earn + Título.

* obtener una categoría = gain + status.

* obtener una cita bibliográfica = glean + citation.

* obtener una idea = get + a sense of, gain + a sense of.

* obtener una idea de = get + a taste of.

* obtener una impresión = gain + picture.

* obtener una perspectiva = gather + perspective.

* obtener una referencia = glean + reference.

* obtener un estatus = gain + status.

* obtener un premio = earn + an award, win + award, win + prize.

* obtener un puesto de trabajo = obtain + position.

* obtener un título = gain + a degree in.

* obtener ventaja = gain + advantage.

* obtener ventajas = reap + advantages.

* se obtendrá algo de provecho = something is bound to come of it.

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verbo transitivo < premio> to win, receive; <resultado/autorización> to obtain; < calificación> to obtain, set

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obtener [ E27 ]

‹premio› to win, receive; ‹resultado› to obtain, achieve; ‹calificación/autorización/préstamo› to obtain, get

se han obtenido importantes mejoras significant improvements have been obtained o achieved

obtuvimos los fondos necesarios del banco we got o obtained o ( frml) secured the necessary funding from the bank

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obtener vt

obtuvieron dos millones de beneficio de la venta de su casa they made a profit of two million from the sale of their house;

la sidra se obtiene de las manzanas cider is obtained o made from apples

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<part obtuvo> v/t get, obtain fml

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obtener {80} vt

: to obtain, to secure, to get

♦ obtenible adj

* * *

obtener vb

1. (conseguir en general) to get / to obtain

2. (conseguir premios, medallas, etc) to win [pt. & pp. won]

SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

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David Dale, the son of a grocer, began his working life by herding cattle. His connection with the textile industry started when he was apprenticed to a Paisley weaver. After this he travelled the country buying home-spun linen yarns, which he sold in Glasgow. At about the age of 24 he settled in Glasgow as Clerk to a silk merchant. He then started a business importing fine yarns from France and Holland for weaving good-quality cloths such as cambrics. Dale was to become one of the pre-eminent yarn dealers in Scotland. In 1778 he acquired the first cotton-spinning mill built in Scotland by an English company at Rothesay on the Isle of Bute. In 1784 he met Richard Arkwright, who was touring Scotland, and together they visited the Falls of the Clyde near the town of Lanark. Arkwright immediately recognized the potential of the site for driving water-powered mills. Dale acquired part of the area from Lord Braxfield and in 1785 began to build his first mill there in partnership with Arkwright. The association with Arkwright soon ceased, however, and by c.1795 Dale had erected four mills. Because the location of the mills was remote, he built houses for the workers and then employed pauper children brought from the slums of Edinburgh and Glasgow; at one time there were over 400 of them. Dale's attitude to his workers was benevolent and humane. He tried to provide reasonable working conditions and the mills were well designed with a large workshop in which machinery was constructed. Dale was also a partner in mills at Catrine, Newton Stewart, Spinningdale in Sutherlandshire and some others. In 1785 he established the first Turkey red dye works in Scotland and was in partnership with George Macintosh, the father of Charles Macintosh. Dale manufactured cloth in Glasgow and from 1783 was Agent for the Royal Bank of Scotland, a lucrative position. In 1799 he was persuaded by Robert Owen to sell the New Lanark mills for £60,000 to a Manchester partnership which made Owen the Manager. Owen had married Dale's daughter, Anne Caroline, in 1799. Possibly due in part to poor health, Dale retired in 1800 to Rosebank near Glasgow, having made a large fortune. In 1770 he had withdrawn from the established Church of Scotland and founded a new one called the "Old Independents". He visited the various branches of this Church, as well as convicts in Bridewell prison, to preach. He was also a great benefactor to the poor in Glasgow. He had a taste for music and sang old Scottish songs with great gusto.

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SUBJECT AREA: Paper and printing

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After education at a private school, Dickinson was apprenticed to a London stationer. In 1806 he started in business as a stationer, in partnership with George Longman; they transferred to 65 Old Bailey, where the firm remained until their premises were destroyed during the Second World War. In order to secure the supply of paper and be less dependent on the papermakers, Dickinson turned to making paper on his own account. In 1809 he acquired Apsley Mill, near Hemel Hempstead on the river Gade in Hertfordshire. There, he produced a new kind of paper for cannon cartridges which, unlike the paper then in use, did not smoulder, thus reducing the risk of undesired explosions. The new paper proved very useful during the Napoleonic War.

Dickinson developed a continuous papermaking machine about the same time as the Fourdrinier brothers, but his worked on a different principle. Instead of a continuous flat wire screen, Dickinson used a wire-covered cylinder which dipped into the dilute pulp as it revolved. A felt-covered roller removed the layer of wet pulp, which was then subjected to drying, as in the Fourdrinier machine. The latter was first in use at Frogmore, just upstream from Apsley Mill on the river Gade. Dickinson patented his machine in 1809 and claimed that it was superior for some kinds of paper. In feet, both types of machine have survived, in much enlarged and modified form: the Fourdrinier for general papermaking, the Dickinson cylinder for the making of board. In 1810 Dickinson acquired the nearby Nash Mill, and over the years he extended the scope of his papermaking business, introducing many technical improvements. Among his inventions was a machine to paste together continuous webs of paper to form cardboard. Another, patented in 1829, was a process for incorporating threads of cotton, flax or silk into the body of the paper to make forgery more difficult. He became increasingly prosperous, overcoming labour disputes with unemployed hand-papermakers. and lawsuits against a canal company which threatened the water supply to his mills. Dickinson was the first to use percolation gauges to predict river flow, and his work on water supply brought him election to a Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1845.

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SUBJECT AREA: Photography, film and optics

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He was born Edward Muggeridge, but later changed his name, taking the Saxon spelling of his first name and altering his surname, first to Muygridge and then to Muybridge. He emigrated to America in 1851, working in New York in bookbinding and selling as a commission agent for the London Printing and Publishing Company. Through contact with a New York daguerreotypist, Silas T.Selleck, he acquired an interest in photography that developed after his move to California in 1855. On a visit to England in 1860 he learned the wet-collodion process from a friend, Arthur Brown, and acquired the best photographic equipment available in London before returning to America. In 1867, under his trade pseudonym "Helios", he set out to record the scenery of the Far West with his mobile dark-room, christened "The Flying Studio".

His reputation as a photographer of the first rank spread, and he was commissioned to record the survey visit of Major-General Henry W.Halleck to Alaska and also to record the territory through which the Central Pacific Railroad was being constructed. Perhaps because of this latter project, he was approached by the President of the Central Pacific, Leland Stanford, to attempt to photograph a horse trotting at speed. There was a long-standing controversy among racing men as to whether a trotting horse had all four hooves off the ground at any point; Stanford felt that it did, and hoped than an "instantaneous" photograph would settle the matter once and for all. In May 1872 Muybridge photographed the horse "Occident", but without any great success because the current wet-collodion process normally required many seconds, even in a good light, for a good result. In April 1873 he managed to produce some better negatives, in which a recognizable silhouette of the horse showed all four feet above the ground at the same time.

Soon after, Muybridge left his young wife, Flora, in San Francisco to go with the army sent to put down the revolt of the Modoc Indians. While he was busy photographing the scenery and the combatants, his wife had an affair with a Major Harry Larkyns. On his return, finding his wife pregnant, he had several confrontations with Larkyns, which culminated in his shooting him dead. At his trial for murder, in February 1875, Muybridge was acquitted by the jury on the grounds of justifiable homicide; he left soon after on a long trip to South America.

He again took up his photographic work when he returned to North America and Stanford asked him to take up the action-photography project once more. Using a new shutter design he had developed while on his trip south, and which would operate in as little as 1/1,000 of a second, he obtained more detailed pictures of "Occident" in July 1877. He then devised a new scheme, which Stanford sponsored at his farm at Palo Alto. A 50 ft (15 m) long shed was constructed, containing twelve cameras side by side, and a white background marked off with vertical, numbered lines was set up. Each camera was fitted with Muybridge's highspeed shutter, which was released by an electromagnetic catch. Thin threads stretched across the track were broken by the horse as it moved along, closing spring electrical contacts which released each shutter in turn. Thus, in about half a second, twelve photographs were obtained that showed all the phases of the movement.

Although the pictures were still little more than silhouettes, they were very sharp, and sequences published in scientific and photographic journals throughout the world excited considerable attention. By replacing the threads with an electrical commutator device, which allowed the release of the shutters at precise intervals, Muybridge was able to take series of actions by other animals and humans. From 1880 he lectured in America and Europe, projecting his results in motion on the screen with his Zoopraxiscope projector. In August 1883 he received a grant of $40,000 from the University of Pennsylvania to carry on his work there. Using the vastly improved gelatine dry-plate process and new, improved multiple-camera apparatus, during 1884 and 1885 he produced over 100,000 photographs, of which 20,000 were reproduced in Animal Locomotion in 1887. The subjects were animals of all kinds, and human figures, mostly nude, in a wide range of activities. The quality of the photographs was extremely good, and the publication attracted considerable attention and praise.

Muybridge returned to England in 1894; his last publications were Animals in Motion (1899) and The Human Figure in Motion (1901). His influence on the world of art was enormous, over-turning the conventional representations of action hitherto used by artists. His work in pioneering the use of sequence photography led to the science of chronophotography developed by Marey and others, and stimulated many inventors, notably Thomas Edison to work which led to the introduction of cinematography in the 1890s.

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SUBJECT AREA: Domestic appliances and interiors, Textiles

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The son of a millwright, Singer was employed as an unskilled labourer at the age of 12, but later gained wide experience as a travelling machinist. He also found employment as an actor. On 16 May 1839, while living at Lockport, Illinois, he obtained his first patent for a rock-drilling machine, but he soon squandered the money he made. Then in 1849, while at Pittsburgh, he secured a patent for a wood-and metal-carving machine that he had begun five years previously; however, a boiler explosion in the factory destroyed his machine and left him penniless.

Near the end of 1850 Singer was engaged to redesign the Lerow \& Blodgett sewing machine at the Boston shop of Orson C.Phelps, where the machine was being repaired. He built an improved version in eleven days that was sufficiently different for him to patent on 12 August 1851. He formed a partnership with Phelps and G.B. Zieber and they began to market the invention. Singer soon purchased Phelps's interest, although Phelps continued to manufacture the machines. Then Edward Clark acquired a one-third interest and with Singer bought out Zieber. These two, with dark's flair for promotion and marketing, began to create a company which eventually would become the largest manufacturer of sewing machines exported worldwide, with subsidiary factories in England.

However, first Singer had to defend his patent, which was challenged by an earlier Boston inventor, Elias Howe. Although after a long lawsuit Singer had to pay royalties, it was the Singer machine which eventually captured the market because it could do continuous stitching. In 1856 the Great Sewing Machine Combination, the first important pooling arrangement in American history, was formed to share the various patents so that machines could be built without infringements and manufacture could be expanded without fear of litigation. Singer contributed his monopoly on the needle-bar cam with his 1851 patent. He secured twenty additional patents, so that his original straight-needle vertical design for lock-stitching eventually included such refinements as a continuous wheel-feed, yielding presser-foot, and improved cam for moving the needle-bar. A new model, introduced in 1856, was the first to be intended solely for use in the home.

Initially Phelps made all the machines for Singer. Then a works was established in New York where the parts were assembled by skilled workers through filing and fitting. Each machine was therefore a "one-off" but Singer machines were always advertised as the best on the market and sold at correspondingly high prices. Gradually, more specialized machine tools were acquired, but it was not until long after Singer had retired to Europe in 1863 that Clark made the change to mass production. Sales of machines numbered 810 in 1853 and 21,000 ten years later.

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1ª persona singular (yo) presente indicativo

3ª persona singular (él/ella/usted) pretérito indicativo

◊ ¿te gustó el libro? did you like o enjoy the book?;

◊ como guste as you wish;

◊ ¿gustan tomar algo? would you like something to drink?

a) (sentido, sabor) taste;

◊ resulta amargo al gusto it has a bitter taste;

b) ( sentido estético) taste;

◊ tiene muy buen gusto para vestirse she has very good taste in clothes;

a) (placer, agrado) pleasure;

◊ tendré mucho gusto en acompañarlos (frml) it will be a pleasure for me to accompany you (frml);

b) ( en fórmulas de cortesía):

◊ mucho gusto (en conocerla) pleased o nice to meet you;

tr['gʌstəʊ]

noun

1 entusiasmo

gusto ['gʌs.to:] n, pl gustoes : entusiasmo m

with gusto: con deleite, con ganas

• entusiasmo s.m.

• gusto s.m.

• placer s.m.

['ɡʌstǝʊ]

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repreneur nm Écon buyer; péj raider; ( qui sauve l'entreprise) rescuer.

[rəprənɶr] nom masculin

les repreneurs de la chaîne the people who bought up ou acquired the channel

verbo transitivo acquisire [skill, experience, information, habit]; acquistare [house, company, shares]; assumere [ meaning]

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- acquisition

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verbo transitivo acquisire [skill, experience, information, habit]; acquistare [house, company, shares]; assumere [ meaning]

1) (object) acquisto m.; (process) acquisizione f.

2) econ. (company) acquisizione f.

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1) (the act of acquiring: the acquisition of more land.) acquisizione

2) (something acquired: Her recent acquisitions included a piano.) acquisto

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1) (object) acquisto m.; (process) acquisizione f.

2) econ. (company) acquisizione f.

   Special privileged terms of retirement and pension rights for certain groups of employees, notably in the state sector. The most well-known and talked-about of the régimes spéciaux arre the pension terms for employees of the former state electricity company EDF, and of the French railways SNCF, where many employees have acquired the rite to retire at 50 with a full pension. Furthermore, pensions in these régimes spéciaux are index-linked to wages in the company, not to inflation, and pensions are generally calculated on the basis of the final salary. In the private sector, pensions are calculated on the basis of average salary over the best 25 years..

   The régimes spéciaux, considered as acquis sociaux, have been achieved in the course of the years as a result of the strength of trade unions in these sectors. There is now consensus in France that they need to be reformed, and reform is currently underway in 2008.

destructive actions taken by an organization in defense against a hostile takeover. Extreme actions under a scorched earth policy may include voluntary liquidation, or selling off critical assets. A scorched earth policy may come into play if the value of the company to be acquired exceeds the value of the company making a hostile bid. (slang)

SUBJECT AREA: Broadcasting, Electronics and information technology, Photography, film and optics

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During the early years of the motion picture industry, Jenkins made many innovations, including the development in 1894 of his own projector, the "Phantoscope", which was widely used for a number of years. In the same year he also suggested the possibility of electrically transmitting pictures over a distance, an interest that led to a lifetime of experimentation. As a result of his engineering contributions to the practical realization of moving pictures, in 1915 the National Motion Picture Board of Trade asked him to chair a committee charged with establishing technical standards for the industry. This in turn led to his proposing the creation of a professional society for those engineers in the industry, and the following year the Society of Motion Picture Engineers (later to become the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) was formed, with Jenkins as its first President. Soon after this he began experiments with mechanical television, using both the Nipkow hole-spiral disc and a low-definition system of his own, based on rotating bevelled glass discs (his so-called "prismatic rings") and alkali-metal photocells. In the 1920s he gave many demonstrations of mechanical television, including a cable transmission of a crude silhouette of President Harding from Washington, DC, to Philadelphia in 1923 and a radio broadcast from Washington in 1928. The following year he formed the Jenkins Television Company to make television transmitters and receivers, but it soon went into debt and was acquired by the de Forest Company, from whom RCA later purchased the patents.

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See also: Baird, John Logie; Ives, Herbert Eugene; Zworykin, Vladimir Kosma

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

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Martin acquired a general knowledge of engineering as an industrial worker in Belfast. In 1929 he established the Martin Aircraft Company, which was merged five years later with another concern to form the Martin-Baker Aircraft Company at Denham, Buckinghamshire. They became known for designing and constructing efficient, lightweight military aircraft, and Martin supervised personally every aspect of the work of his factory. During the Second World War they developed a number of aircraft weapons, including an explosive device carried on a bomber's wings for cutting the cables of barrage balloons, the flat-feed system for the 20 mm Hispano cannon used on British fighter planes and the twelve-gun pack mounted in the nose of the Havoc night fighter. Martin began devising means of rapid escape from a disabled fighter plane. First came a quick-release canopy for the Spitfire, followed by an improved form sliding on guides set in the fuselage. Then came the Martin-Baker seat, which ejected the pilot from his plane by an explosive charge. Ground tests were made to determine the rates of acceleration that could be tolerated by the pilot, and the first test in the air with a pilot took place in July 1946 at a speed of 320 mph (515 km/h) and an altitude of 8,000 ft (2,400 m). Its first use in a genuine emergency was in May 1949.

After the Second World War, the firm specialized in making components, particularly the ejector seat, rather than complete aircraft. The higher speeds and altitudes of supersonic jet aircraft made it necessary to modify the ejector seat: a device to hold the pilot's legs together, to prevent their being broken, was incorporated. In addition, with the Institute of Aviation Medicine, Martin developed a face blind to prevent skin damage at low temperatures. Another modification was to allow the seat to fall freely for the first 10,000 ft (3,000 m) to enable the pilot to reach breathable air more quickly; in October 1959 a successful demonstration took place at 1,250 mph (2,000 km/h) and 40,000 ft (12,000 m) altitude. During the inventor's lifetime, it is estimated that his ejector seat saved the lives of some 4,700 airmen.

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SUBJECT AREA: Paper and printing

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Mergenthaler came from a family of teachers, but following a mechanical bent he was apprenticed to a clockmaker. Having served his time, Mergenthaler emigrated to the USA in 1872 to avoid military service. He immediately secured work in Washington, DC, in the scientific instrument shop of August Hahl, the son of his former master. He steadily acquired a reputation for skill and ingenuity, and in 1876, when Hahl transferred his business to Baltimore, Mergenthaler went too. Soon after, they were commissioned to remedy the defects in a model of a writing machine devised by James O.Clephane of Washington. It produced print by typewriting, which was then multiplied by lithography. Mergenthaler soon corrected the defects and Clephane ordered a full-size version. This was completed in 1877 but did not work satisfactorily. Nevertheless, Mergenthaler was moved to engage in the long battle to mechanize the typesetting stage of the printing process. Clephane suggested substituting stereotyping for lithography in his device, but in spite of their keen efforts Mergenthaler and Hahl were again unsuccessful and they abandoned the project. In spare moments Mergenthaler continued his search for a typesetting machine. Late in 1883 it occurred to him to stamp matrices into type bars and to cast type metal into them in the same machine. From this idea, the Linotype machine developed and was completed by July 1884. It worked well and a patent was granted on 26 August that year, and Clephane and his associates set up the National Typographic Company of West Virginia to manufacture it. The New York Tribune ordered twelve Linotypes, and on 3 July 1886 the first of these set part of that day's issue. During the previous year the company had passed into the hands of a group of newspaper owners; increasing differences with the Board led to Mergenthaler's resignation in 1888, but he nevertheless continued to improve the machine, patenting over fifty modifications. The Linotype, together with the Monotype of Tolbert Lanston, rapidly supplanted earlier typesetting methods, and by the 1920s it reigned supreme, the former being used more for newspapers, the latter for book work.

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SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy, Railways and locomotives

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Reynolds was born into a Quaker family, his father being an iron merchant and a considerable customer for the products of the Darbys (see Abraham Darby) of Coalbrookdale in Shropshire. After education at a Quaker boarding school in Pickwick, Wiltshire, Reynolds was apprenticed to William Fry, a grocer of Bristol, from whom he would have learned business methods. The year before the expiry of his apprenticeship in 1757, Reynolds was being sent on business errands to Coalbrookdale. In that year he met and married Hannah Darby, the daughter of Abraham Darby II. At the same time, he acquired a half-share in the Ketley ironworks, established not long before, in 1755. There he supervised not only the furnaces at Ketley and Horsehay and the foundry, but also the extension of the railway, linking this site to Coalbrookdale itself.

On the death of Abraham Darby II in 1763, Reynolds took charge of the whole works during the minority of Abraham Darby III. During this period, the most notable development was the introduction by the Cranage brothers of a new way of converting pig-iron to wrought iron, a process patented in 1766 that used coal in a reverberatory furnace. This, with other processes for the same purpose, remained in use until superseded by the puddling process patented by Henry Cort in 1783 and 1784. Reynolds's most important innovation was the introduction of cast-iron rails in 1767 on the railway around Coalbrookdale. A useful network had been in operation for some time with wooden rails, but these wore out quickly and were expensive to maintain. Reynolds's iron rails were an immediate improvement, and some 20 miles (32 km) were laid within a short time. In 1768 Abraham Darby III was able to assume control of the Coalbrookdale works, but Reynolds had been extending his own interest in other ironworks and various other concerns, earning himself considerable wealth. When Darby was oppressed with loan repayments, Reynolds bought the Manor of Madely, which made him Landlord of the Coalbrookdale Company; by 1780 he was virtually banker to the company.

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