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 610 WHITMAN WHITNEY and free incisions as soon as there is reason to believe that the formation of pus is taking place. In the severer forms, the finger is often rendered permanently stiff, owing to adhesions between its tendon and the neighboring parts. WHITMAN, a S. E. county of Washington ter- ritory, bounded E. by Idaho, S. by Snake river, and W. by the Columbia; area, about 3,000 sq. m. It has been formed since 1870 from the S. portion of Stevens co., and is intersect- ed by the Palouse river. Capital, Colfax. WHITMAN, Sarah Helen (POWER), an Ameri- can poetess, born in Providence, R. I., in 1803. She married in 1828 John Winslow Whitman, a lawyer of Boston, since whose death in 1833 she has resided in Providence. She has pub- lished " Hours of Life, and other Poems " (1853); "Edgar Poe and his Critics" (1860); and with her sister, Anna Marsh Power, two fairy ballads, " Cinderella " and " The Sleeping Beauty " (revised ed., 186T-'8). WHITMAN, Walt, an American poet, born at West Hills, Suffolk co., L. I., May 31, 1819. He was educated in the public schools of Brooklyn and New York, learned the printer's trade, worked at it in summer, and taught school in winter. In 1847-"8 he made an ex- tended tour through the United States and Canada, following for long distances the courses of the great western rivers. For brief periods he edited papers in New Orleans and in Hun- tington, L. 1., and then learned the carpen- ter's trade in Brooklyn. In 1855 he published " Leaves of Grass," a volume of rhapsodical poems, without rhyme and often without rhythm, which has been increased in each of five successive issues. From 1862 to 1865 he was a volunteer nurse in the military hospitals in Washington and in Virginia. From 1865 to 1874 he held a government clerkship at Washington. In 1873 he was disabled by par- alysis. His miscellaneous writings, including his diary of camp and hospital experience, are collected in a volume entitled " Two Rivulets." In 1876 he published now editions of this and of " Leaves of Grass." He now (1876) resides at Camden, N. J. He has never married. WHITNEY, HI, an American inventor, born in Westborough, Mass., Dec. 8, 1765, died in New Haven, Conn., Jan. 8, 1825. He gradu- ated at Yale college in 1792, went to Georgia, and studied law in Savannah while residing in the house of the widow of Gen. Greene. At this time a pound of green-seed cotton was all that a negro woman oould clean in a day, and Whitney, at the instance of Mrs. Greene, undertook to devise a machine to do the work. He was compelled to draw his iron wire, and to manufacture his own tools. Mrs. Greene and Mr. Miller, who afterward became Whitney's partner, were the only persons per- mitted to see the machine ; but rumors of it had gone through the state, and before it was quite finished the building was broken open by night, and the machine carried off. Before Whitney could complete his model and obtain his patent, several machines based on his in- vention had been made, and were in operation. Mr. Miller formed a partnership with him in May, 1793, and Whitney went to Connecticut to manufacture the machines, but the patent was continually infringed upon. The South Carolina legislature granted him $50,000 for his invention, which was finally paid after vexatious delays and lawsuits. North Carolina allowed 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 ac- cumulated misfortunes, lawsuits, the burning of his factory, the report that his machine in- jured the fibre of the cotton, the refusal of congress through the opposition of southern members to allow the patent to be renewed, and the death of his partner, Whitney strug- gled on until, convinced that he should never receive a just compensation for his invention, he turned his attention to the manufacture of firearms for the government, from which he reaped a fortune. He was the first who made each single portion of the gun adapted to any one of the thousands of arms in process of manufacture at the same time. His factory was at Whitneyville, Conn. The application of several of his inventions to other manufac- tures of iron and steel added to his reputation, though but little to his wealth. (See COTTON, vol. v., p. 406.) WHITNEY, Jodah Dwlght, an American geolo- gist, born in Northampton, Mass., Nov. 23, 1819. He graduated at Yale college in 1839, and studied in Europe between 1842 and 1846. He was engaged in the geological survey of New Hampshire in 1840; of the Lake Superior mineral region, with J. W. Foster, in 1847-'50 ; of Iowa (and the lead region of Wisconsin) in 1855-'60 ; and he was head of the California survey from 1860 to 1874, when it was aban- doned. On the results of the three surveys last mentioned he has published reports. Since 1865 he has been professor of practical geology in Harvard university. He has also published " Use of the Blowpipe," &c., translated from Berzelius (Boston, 1845); "Metallic Wealth of the United States" (Philadelphia, 1854); the " Yosemite Guide Book " (San Francisco, 1869) ; and many papers in American and for- eign journals. WHITNEY, William Dwight, an American phi- lologist, brother of the preceding, born in Northampton, Mass., Feb. 9, 1827. He grad- uated at Williams college in 1845, and studied at Berlin and Tubingen from 1850 to 1853. At Berlin he transcribed from the manuscripts in the royal library the text of the Atharva- Veda, which he collated with manuscripts of the poem in Paris and England, and published in connec- tion with Prof. Roth (8vo, Berlin, 1856); a second volume, containing translation, notes, &c., is in preparation (1876). In 1854 he was appointed professor of Sanskrit and compara-