E.

Eads, JAMES BUCHANAN, engineer; improving the navigation of the mouth of born in Lawrenceburg, Ind., May 23, the Mississippi by jetties. He was au1820. His controlling genius was mani- thorized to undertake it (and was very fested in early childhood. His first in- successful), for which the government vention was an apparatus for recovering paid him $5,125,000. At the time of his vessels with their cargoes from the death, in Nassau, N. P., March 8, 1887, muddy depths of a river. Eads made a he was engaged in the promotion of a fortune by it. In 1861 he was employ- project he had conceived of constructing a ed by the national government to con- ship railway across the Isthmus of Testruct gunboats, suitable for use in West- huantepec, between the Atlantic and Pacific ern rivers. In the space of sixty-five oceans. In 1881 he received the Albert days he constructed seven iron-clad gun- medal from the British Society of Arts, boats. In 1862 he built six more; also the first American to be thus honored. heavy mortar-boats. These vessels performed mighty deeds during the War. At the beginning of July,

JAMES BUCHANAN EADS.

Civil 1874,

he completed a magnificent iron railroad bridge across the Mississippi at St. Louis, one of the finest structures of the kind in the world. Then he pressed upon the attention of the government his plan for

The jetty system consists simply of a dike or embankment projecting into the water, whose purpose is to narrow the channel so that the natural action of the water will keep it clear of sediment or other obstruction. The Mississippi River is, at its mouth, 40 feet deep and 134 miles wide, and carries every minute 72,000,000 feet of water to the Gulf, which holds in solution nearly 20 per cent. of mud and sand. The river has three channels to the sea-the Southwest Pass, the Passe l'Outre, and the South Pass the first carrying out about 50 per cent. of its water, the second 40 per cent., and the third 10 per cent. There is a bar at the mouth of each pass, and each has a channel through which large vessels may pass. This channel is about 1,200 feet wide and 50 feet deep in the large passes, and 600 feet wide and 35 feet deep in the small one. The swift and concentrated current keeps the channel open, but the bar is continually spreading outward, and as it thus spreads the water excavates a channel through it, though not of a uniform depth or width. Thus, a frequent dredging of the channel was necessary to prevent the continual grounding of vessels upon it. Captain Eads was the first to suggest that this laborious and expensive dredging process might be done away with by

Gulf some 2 miles or more, it would tion of this important improvement the produce force enough to excavate a following amount of material had been channel the whole length of the bar. used: Willow, 592,000 cubic yards; stone, This project he undertook to carry out 100,000 cubic yards; gravel, 10,000 cubic at his own expense, agreeing not to re- yards; concrete, 9,000 tons; piling and ceive compensation for the work until it lumber, 12,000,000 feet. Captain Eads's was completed; and the truth of his rea- plan has been proved to be very successsoning was proved by the results. In ful, for the banks of the jetty continue the winter of 1874-75 he laid his plan be- firm, and the channel is kept clear by fore Congress, and in March, 1875, a bill the movement of the concentrated current was passed empowering him to put it between them. into execution. The work was begun in Eagan, CHARLES PATRICK, military offiJune, 1875. The jetties were laid out cer; born in Ireland in January, 1841; parallel with the current of the river, served through the Civil War in the 1st and at right angles with the Gulf cur- Washington Territory Infantry; was comrent, extending with a slight curve 24 missioned 2d lieutenant 9th United States miles out from the mouth of the river. Infantry in 1866; and became brigadierPiles were first driven in to mark the general and commissary-general May 3, path of the jetties; then willows fastened 1898. During the American-Spanish War together in enormous mattresses were he was in charge of the commissary desunk, and these filled in with stones and partment of the army, and in January, gravel. This work was done on the South Pass, the narrowest of the three channels of the Mississippi delta. Captain Eads wished to try his experiment on the Southwest Pass, the deepest and widest channel, but Congress would not permit him to do so. The work of making the South Pass jetties was completed July 9, 1879. A channel 30 feet deep, with a minimum width of 45 feet, had been made from the river to deep water

1899, was tried by court-martial for criticising General Miles during an investigation into the character of supplies furnished to the army during the war; was suspended from rank and duty for six years on Feb. 9; and was restored and immediately retired Dec. 6, 1900.

Eagle, the standard of the Persian and the Roman; also adopted by Charlemagne with a second head as the standard of the holy Roman empire of Germany. The

eagle was the standard of France during for card clothing for the machines in his

his men after his famous ride. In 1888 he published a book giving the history of the last year of the Civil War, during which time he was in command of the Army of the Shenandoah. He died in Lynchburg, Va., March 2, 1894.

severe

ing some distance into the St. Lawrence. On Oct. 29, 1727, there was a earthquake in New England, lasting about two minutes. Its course seemed to be from the Delaware River, in the southwest, to the Kennebec, in the northeast, Earthquakes. On June 1, 1638, be- a distance of about 700 miles. It octween the hours of 3 and 4 P.M., the curred at about twenty minutes before weather clear and warm, and the wind eleven o'clock in the morning, and the westerly, all New England was violently sky was serene. Pewter and china were

shaken by an internal convulsion of the cast from their shelves, and stone walls earth. It came on with noise like con- and chimney-tops were shaken down. In tinued thunder, and the shock lasted about some places doors were burst open, and four minutes. The earth shook with such people could hardly keep their feet. violence that in some places the people There had been an interval of fifty-seven could not stand upright without difficulty, years since the last earthquake in New and many movable articles in the houses England. On the same day the island of were thrown down. The earth was unquiet Martinique, in the West Indies, was for twenty days afterwards. On Jan. 26, threatened with total destruction by an 1663, a heavy shock of earthquake was earthquake which lasted eleven hours. felt in New England and in New York, On Nov. 18, 1755, an earthquake shock and was particularly severe in Canada, was felt from Chesapeake Bay along the where it was recorded that "the doors coast of Halifax, Nova Scotia, about 800 opened and shut of themselves with a miles; and in the interior it seems to fearful clattering. The bells rang with- have extended, from northwest to southout being touched. The walls were east, more than 1,000 miles. In Boston split asunder. The floors separated and 100 chimneys were levelled with the roofs fell down. The fields put on the appear- of the houses, and 1,500 more or less shatance of precipices, and the mountains tered. The ends of several brick buildings seemed to be moving out of their places." were thrown down with the chimneys. The Small rivers were dried up; some moun- vane on the public market was thrown to tains appeared to be much broken and the earth. At New Haven, Conn., the moved, and half-way between Quebec and ground moved like waves of the sea; the Tadousac two mountains were shaken houses shook and cracked, and many down, and formed a point of land extend- chimneys were thrown down. It oc