Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 4).djvu/775

Rh  captain. See his &ldquo;Letters,&rdquo; edited and arranged by his sister, with a sketch of his life by Com. George E. Belknap (Concord, N. H., 1886).

PERKINS, George Henry, naturalist, b. in East Cambridge, Mass., 25 Sept., 1844. He was graduated at Yale in 1867, and in 1869 received the degree of Ph. D. there for post-graduate studies. In 1869 he was elected to the chair of natural history in the University of Vermont, which appointment he has since filled, and for several years he has held also the office of state entomologist of Vermont. Prof. Perkins has devoted considerable study to the archaeology of the Champlain valley, concerning which he has written numerous articles for periodicals and the transactions of scientific societies, of which he is a member. He has also lectured on natural history with success in various places. Besides technical papers in scientific journals, he has published, under the authority of the state of Vermont, reports &ldquo;On the Injurious Insects of Vermont&rdquo; (3 vols., 1876-'7-'8); &ldquo;More Important Parasites infesting Man and the Lower Animals&rdquo; (1880); and &ldquo;The Flora of Vermont&rdquo; (1882).

PERKINS, George Roberts, mathematician, b. in Otsego county, N. Y., 3 May, 1812 ; d. in New Hartford, Conn., 22 Aug., 1876. He was self-edu- cated, and at the age of eighteen was employed in the slackwater survey of the Susquehanna river. He was a teacher of mathematics in Clinton, N. Y., from 1831 till 1838, when he became principal of Utica academy. On the opening of the New York state normal school in 1844 he was chosen professor of mathematics there, and in 1848 he became prin- cipal, which post he resigned in 1852 on being as- signed to superintend the erection of the Dudley observatory. In 1858-'62 he was deputy state en- gineer, and in the latter year he was elected a regent of the university of the state. His works had a wide circulation, and some of them were translated into Spanish. They include •' Higher Arithmetic " (New York, 1841)'; "Treatise on Al- gebra" (1841); "Elements of Algebra" (1844); "Elements of Geometry" (1847); "Trigonometry and Surveying " (1851); "Plane and Solid Geom- etry " (1854) ; also a text-book on astronomy. He contributed many articles to the scientific journals. PERKINS, (iranville, artist, b. in Baltimore, ]Md., 16 Oct., 1830 ; d. in New York city, 18 April, 1895. He studied drawing and painting, and for several years he devoted himself mainly to scene- painting, finding employment in Richmond, Va., Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. He began working for the illustrated papers about 1851, and in 1855 took a post on " Frank Leslie's Weekly." About 1860 he was engaged by Harper Brothers, with whom he remained for several years. He fur- nished a large number of illustrations for books, his specialty being marine views, and became wide- ly known through his excellent work in that di- rection. He exhibited frequently at the National academy since 1862, and at the exhibitions of the Water-color society, of which he was a member.

PERKINS, Jacob, inventor, b. in Newburyport, Mass., 9 July, 1766; d. in London. England, 30 July, 1849. In childhood he was apprenticed to a goldsmith, and at the age of fifteen he carried on the business of a goldsmith in his native town, and invented a method of plating shoe-buckles. When he was about twenty-one years of age he was em- ployed by the state of Massachusetts to make dies for copper coinage, and three years afterward he invented a machine for cutting and heading nails at one operation. Through the mismanagement of his partners he was at this time involved in great pecuniary distress. He made great improvements in bank-note engraving by substituting steel for copper plates. After residing for some time in Boston and in New York, he removed to Philadel- phia in 1814, and became associated with a firm of bank-note engravers. In 1818 he went to England, accompanied by Mr. Fairman and several work- men, and obtained a conti-act for supplying the Bank of Ireland with plates. He carriecl on his business extensively for many years in London, and was employed in perfecting engines and ma- chines to be worked by steam-power. He origi- nated a process for transferring engravings from one steel plate to another, an instrument called the bathometer, to measure the depth of water, and the pleometer, to mark with precision the speed at which a vessel moves through the water. He con- structed a gun in which steam, generated at an enormous pressure, was used for propulsion in- stead of gunpowder, and with it passed balls through eleven planks of the hardest deal, each an inch thick, placed some distance apart. With a pressure of only 65 atmospheres he penetrated an iron plate a quarter of an inch thick. He also screwed to a gun-barrel a tube filled with balls, which, falling into the barrel, were discharged at the rate of nearly 1,000 a minute.

PERKINS, James Breck, author, b. in St. Croix Falls, Wis., 4 Nov., 1847. He was graduated at Rochester university in 1867, admitted to the bar in 1868, and was city attorney of Rochester in 1874-'8. He has contributed to periodicals, and has published " France under Richelieu and Maza- rin " (2 vols.. New York, 1886).

PERKINS, Jonathan Cogswell, author, b. in Ipswich, Mass., 21 Nov., 1809 ; d. in Salem, Mass., 12 Dec, 1877. He was graduated at Amherst in 1842, studied law in the office of Ruf us Choate at Salem and at Harvard law-school, and was ad- mitted to the bar in 1835. He practised success- fully at Salem for thirteen years, when he became judge of the court of common pleas of Massachu- setts. He served in the state senate in 1846-'8, and was an able and voluminous commentator and writer on law subjects. He edited Chitty's " Crimi- nal Law" (3 vols., Boston, 1836); Chitty on "Con- tracts " (1839) ; Jarman on "Wills" (1845); Abbot on " Shipping " (1846) ; DanielFs " Chancerv Prac- tice" (3 vols.. 1846); Collver on " Partner.-<hip" (1848) ; Angell on " Water Courses " (1869) ; Pick- ering's "Reports," vols. ii. to x. ; and wrote "Arbi- trations and Awards." He also assisted in editing " Digest of Decisions of the Courts of Common Law and Admiralty " (6 vols., 1854-'6).

PERKINS, Joseph, capitalist, b. in Warren, Trumbull co., Ohio, 5 Julv, 1819 ; d. in Saratoga Springs. N. Y., 26 Aug., 1885. His father was in 1798 appointed by the Erie land company agent and surveyor for their lands on the Western Re- serve, and acted in that capacity till 1844, accumu- lating a large property. The son was graduated at Marietta college in 1839, and entered his father's office, taking entire charge of his estate at the lat- ter's death five years later. He removed to Cleve- land in 1852, aiid did much to build uj) tliat city. He became president of the National bank of com- merce, and was identified with a large number of business and benevolent institutions, acquiring a reputation for probity and benevolence. One of his favorite charities was the Protestant orphan asylum of Cleveland. He was its founder, and for many years its president and principal benefactor.

PERKINS, Justin, missionary, b, in West Springfield, Mass., 12 March, 1805 ;" d. in Chicopee, Mass. 31 Dec, 1869. Until his eighteenth year he lived on his father's farm, but, desiring to qualify