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41 Morse, Samuel Finley Breeze
SUBJECT AREA: Telecommunications[br]b. 27 April 1791 Charlestown, Massachusetts, USAd. 2 April 1872 New York City, New York, USA[br]American portrait painter and inventor, b est known for his invention of the telegraph and so-called Morse code.[br]Following early education at Phillips Academy, Andover, at the age of 14 years Morse went to Yale College, where he developed interests in painting and electricity. Upon graduating in 1810 he became a clerk to a Washington publisher and a pupil of Washington Allston, a well-known American painter. The following year he travelled to Europe and entered the London studio of another American artist, Benjamin West, successfully exhibiting at the Royal Academy as well as winning a prize and medal for his sculpture. Returning to Boston and finding little success as a "historical-style" painter, he built up a thriving portrait business, moving in 1818 to Charleston, South Carolina, where three years later he established the (now defunct) South Carolina Academy of Fine Arts. In 1825 he was back in New York, but following the death of his wife and both of his parents that year, he embarked on an extended tour of European art galleries. In 1832, on the boat back to America, he met Charles T.Jackson, who told him of the discovery of the electromagnet and fired his interest in telegraphy to the extent that Morse immediately began to make suggestions for electrical communications and, apparently, devised a form of printing telegraph. Although he returned to his painting and in 1835 was appointed the first Professor of the Literature of Art and Design at the University of New York City, he began to spend more and more time experimenting in telegraphy. In 1836 he invented a relay as a means of extending the cable distance over which telegraph signals could be sent. At this time he became acquainted with Alfred Vail, and the following year, when the US government published the requirements for a national telegraph service, they set out to produce a workable system, with finance provided by Vail's father (who, usefully, owned an ironworks). A patent was filed on 6 October 1837 and a successful demonstration using the so-called Morse code was given on 6 January 1838; the work was, in fact, almost certainly largely that of Vail. As a result of the demonstration a Bill was put forward to Congress for $30,000 for an experimental line between Washington and Baltimore. This was eventually passed and the line was completed, and on 24 May 1844 the first message, "What hath God wrought", was sent between the two cities. In the meantime Morse also worked on the insulation of submarine cables by means of pitch tar and indiarubber.With success achieved, Morse offered his invention to the Government for $100,000, but this was declined, so the invention remained in private hands. To exploit it, Morse founded the Magnetic Telephone Company in 1845, amalgamating the following year with the telegraph company of a Henry O'Reilly to form Western Union. Having failed to obtain patents in Europe, he now found himself in litigation with others in the USA, but eventually, in 1854, the US Supreme Court decided in his favour and he soon became very wealthy. In 1857 a proposal was made for a telegraph service across the whole of the USA; this was completed in just over four months in 1861. Four years later work began on a link to Europe via Canada, Alaska, the Aleutian Islands and Russia, but it was abandoned with the completion of the transatlantic cable, a venture in which he also had some involvement. Showered with honours, Morse became a generous philanthropist in his later years. By 1883 the company he had created was worth $80 million and had a virtual monopoly in the USA.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsLLD, Yale 1846. Fellow of the Academy of Arts and Sciences 1849. Celebratory Banquet, New York, 1869. Statue in New York Central Park 1871. Austrian Gold Medal of Scientific Merit. Danish Knight of the Danneborg. French Légion d'honneur. Italian Knight of St Lazaro and Mauritio. Portuguese Knight of the Tower and Sword. Turkish Order of Glory.BibliographyE.L.Morse (ed.), 1975, Letters and Journals, New York: Da Capo Press (facsimile of a 1914 edition).Further ReadingJ.Munro, 1891, Heroes of the Telegraph (discusses his telegraphic work and its context).C.Mabee, 1943, The American Leonardo: A Life of Samuel Morse; reprinted 1969 (a detailed biography).KFBiographical history of technology > Morse, Samuel Finley Breeze
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42 Vitruvius Pollio
SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building[br]b. early first century BCd. c. 25 BC[br]Roman writer on architecture and engineering subjects.[br]Nothing is known of Vitruvius apart from what can be gleaned from his only known work, the treatise De architectura. He seems to have been employed in some capacity by Julius Caesar and continued to serve under his heir, Octavianus, later Emperor Augustus, to whom he dedicated his book. It was written towards the end of his life, after Octavianus became undisputed ruler of the Empire by his victory at Actium in 31 BC, and was based partly on his own experience and partly on earlier, Hellenistic, writers.The De architectura is divided into ten books. The first seven books expound the general principles of architecture and the planning, design and construction of various types of building, public and domestic, including a consideration of techniques and materials. Book 7 deals with interior decoration, including stucco work and painting, while Book 8 treats water supply, from the location of sources to the transport of water by aqueducts, tunnels and pipes. Book 9, after a long and somewhat confused account of the astronomical theories of the day, describes various forms of clock and sundial. Finally, Book 10 deals with mechanical devices for handling building materials and raising and pumping water, for which Vitruvius draws on the earlier Greek authors Ctesibius and Hero.Although this may seem a motley assembly of subjects, to the Roman architect and builder it was a logical compendium of the subjects he was expected to know about. At the time, Vitruvius' rigid rules for the design of buildings such as temples seem to have had little influence, but his accounts of more practical matters of building materials and techniques were widely used. His illustrations to the original work were lost in antiquity, for no later manuscript includes them. Through the Middle Ages, manuscript copies were made in monastic scriptoria, although the architectural style in vogue had little relevance to those in Vitruvius: these came into their own with the Italian Renaissance. Alberti, writing the first great Renaissance treatise on architecture from 1452 to 1467, drew heavily on De architectura; those who sought to revive the styles of antiquity were bound to regard the only surviving text on the subject as authoritative. The appearance of the first printed edition in 1486 only served to extend its influence.During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Vitruvius was used as a handbook for constructing machines and instruments. For the modern historian of technology and architecture the work is a source of prime importance, although it must be remembered that the illustrations in the early printed editions are of contemporary reproductions of ancient devices using the techniques of the time, rather than authentic representations of ancient technology.[br]BibliographyOf the several critical editions of De architectura there are the Teubner edition, 1899. ed. V.Rose, Leipzig; the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1962, ed. F.Granger, London: Heinemann, (with English trans. and notes); and the Collection Guillaume Budé with French trans. and full commentary, 10 vols, Paris (in progress).Further ReadingApart from the notes to the printed editions, see also: H.Plommer, 1973, Vitruvius and Later Roman Building Manuals, London. A.G.Drachmann, 1963, The Mechanical Technology of Greek and Roman Antiquity Copenhagen and London.S.L.Gibbs, 1976, Greek and Roman Sundials, New Haven and London.LRD -
43 a mixed bag
paзг.paзнoшёpcтнaя публикa, кoмпaния, caмыe paзличныe люди; paзнopoднaя cмecь, мeшaнинa'It's a mixed bag, isn't it?' he said. 'Oh, completely, Italian, Spanish, Portugese, Syrian, Puerto Rican, Chinese. We have a little bit of everything. Including home-grown stock' (E. O"Connor). The houses were a mixed bag, in every style from mullion and half -timber to what... I took to be Spanish (J. Braine)
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