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Rh after vexatious delays and lawsuits. North Carolina allowed him a percentage for the use of each saw for five years, and collected and paid it over to the patentees in good faith, and Tennessee promised to do the same thing, but afterward rescinded her contract. For years—amid accumulated misfortunes, lawsuits wrongfully decided against him, the destruction of his manufactory by fire, the industrious circulation of the report that his machine injured the fibre of the cotton, the refusal of congress, on account of the opposition of southern members, to allow the patent to be renewed, and the death of his partner—Mr. Whitney struggled on until he was convinced that he should never receive a just compensation for his invention. In 1791 the amount of cotton that was exported amounted to only 189,500 pounds, while in 1803, owing to the use of his gin, it had risen to more than 41,000,000 pounds. Despairing of gaining a competence, he turned his attention in 1798 to the manufacture of fire-arms near New Haven, from which he eventually gained a fortune. He was the first manufacturer of fire-arms to effect the division of labor to the extent of making it the duty of each workman to perform by machinery but one or two operations on a single part of the gun, and thus made interchangeable the parts of the thousands of arms in process of manufacture at the same time. His first contract was with the U. S. government for 10,000 stand of muskets to be finished in about two years. For the execution of this order he took two years for preparation and eight more for completion. He gave bonds for $30,000, and was to receive $13.40 for each musket, or $134,000 in all. Immediately he began to build an armory at the foot of East Rock, two miles from New Haven, in the present village of Whitneyville, where, through the successive administrations from that of John Adams, repeated contracts for the supply of arms were made and fulfilled to the entire approbation of the government. The construction of his armory, and even of the commonest tools, which were devised by him for the prosecution of the business in a manner peculiar to himself, evinced the fertility of his genius and the precision of his mind. The buildings became the model upon which the national armories were afterward arranged, and many of his improvements were transferred to other establishments and have become common property. His advance in the manufacture of arms laid this country under permanent obligations by augmenting the means of national defence. Several of his inventions have been applied to other manufactures of iron and steel and added to his reputation. He established a fund of $500 at Yale, the interest of which is expended in the purchase of books on mechanical and physical science. In 1817 he married a daughter of Judge Pierpont Edwards. Robert Fulton said that &ldquo;Arkwright, Watt, and Whitney were the three men that did most for mankind of any of their contemporaries,&rdquo; and Macaulay said: &ldquo;What Peter the Great did to make Russia dominant, Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton-gin has more than equalled in its relation to the power and progress of the United States.&rdquo; See &ldquo;Memoir of Eli Whitney,&rdquo; by Denison Olmsted (New Haven, 1846).

WHITNEY, James Amaziah, lawyer, b. in Rochester, N. Y., 30 June, 1839. He removed in childhood with his parents to Maryland, Otsego co., N. Y., where he received a common-school education, and began life as a farmer, but in 1860-'5 studied chemistry, mechanics, and engineering without a master, and in the latter year became a writer of specifications in the office of a firm of

patent solicitors. In 1868 he became an editor of the &ldquo;American Artisan,&rdquo; and took an active part in organizing the New York society of practical engineers, of which he was president for several years. In 1869-'72 he was professor of agricultural chemistry in the American institute, and in the latter year he established himself as a solicitor of patents. In 1876 he was admitted to practice in the U. S. circuit courts. Iowa college gave him the degree of LL. D. in 1880. Besides numerous essays on scientific, mechanical, legal, and political subjects, Mr. Whitney is the author of a monograph on &ldquo;The Relations of the Patent Laws to the Development of Agriculture&rdquo; (New York, 1874); &ldquo;The Chinese and the Chinese Question&rdquo; (1880; enlarged ed., 1888); &ldquo;Shobab, a Tale of Bethesda,&rdquo; a poem (1884); &ldquo;Sonnets and Lyrics&rdquo; (1884); &ldquo;The Children of Lamech,&rdquo; a poem (1885); and &ldquo;Poetical Works&rdquo; (2 vols., 1886).

WHITNEY, Josiah Dwight, geologist, b. in Northampton, Mass., 23 Nov., 1819. He was graduated at Yale in 1839, and then spent six months in the chemical laboratory of Dr. Robert Hare in Philadelphia. In 1840 he joined the survey of New Hampshire as assistant geologist under Charles T. Jackson, and remained connected with that work until May, 1842, when he went abroad. For five years he travelled on the continent of Europe, and pursued chemical, geological, and mineralogical studies. On his return to this country in 1847 he engaged in the geological exploration of the Lake Superior region, and with John W. Foster was in the same year appointed by the U. S. government to assist Charles T. Jackson in making a geological survey of that district. Two years later the completion of the survey was intrusted to Foster and Whitney, who published &ldquo;Synopsis of the Explorations of the Geological Corps in the Lake Superior Land District in the Northern Peninsula&rdquo; (Washington, 1849), and &ldquo;Report on the Geology and Topography of a Portion of the Lake Superior Land District in the State of Michigan&rdquo; (part i., Copper Lands, 1850; part ii., The Iron Region, 1851). On the completion of this work he travelled for two years through the states east of the Mississippi for the purpose of collecting information with regard to the mining and mineral interests in this country. His results were issued as &ldquo;The Metallic Wealth of the United States described and compared with that of other Countries&rdquo; (Philadelphia, 1854). In 1855 he was appointed state chemist and professor in the Iowa state university, and was associated with James Hall in the geological survey of that state, issuing &ldquo;Reports on the Geological Survey of Iowa&rdquo; (2 vols., Albany, 1858-'9). During 1858-'60 Prof. Whitney was engaged on a geological survey of the lead region of the upper Missouri in connection with the official surveys of Wisconsin and Illinois, publishing, with James Hall, a &ldquo;Report on the Geological Survey of the State of Wisconsin&rdquo; (Albany, 1862). He was appointed state geologist of California in 1860, and engaged in conducting a topographical, geological, and natural history survey of that state until 1874, when the work was discontinued by act of legislature. Besides various pamphlets and annual reports on the subject, he issued six volumes under the title of &ldquo;Geological Survey of California&rdquo; (Cambridge, 1864-'70). In 1865 he was appointed professor of geology in Harvard, which chair he still retains, with charge of its school of mining and practical geology. The degree of LL. D. was conferred on him by Yale in 1870. Prof. Whitney was one of the original members of the National academy of sciences named