E. E Pluribus Unum. Its earliest oc- tion of the mouth of the Mississippi by currence is in a Latin poem called More- jetties. He was authorized to undertake tum, which is ascribed to Virgil. It was it (and was very successful), for which suggested as the motto for the SEAL OF the government paid him $5,125,000. At THE UNITED STATES (q. v.) by the com- the time of his death, in Nassau, N. P., mittee of the Great Seal, consisting of March 8, 1887, he was engaged in the proBenjamin Franklin, John Adams, and motion of a project he had conceived of Thomas Jefferson, on Aug. 10, 1776. constructing a ship railway across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In 1881 he received the Albert medal from the British Society of Arts, the first American to be thus honored. Eads, JAMES BUCHANAN, engineer; born in Lawrenceburg, Ind., May 23, 1820. In 1861 he was employed by the national government to construct gunboats suitable for use in Western rivers. In the space of sixty-five days he constructed The jetty system consists simply of a seven iron-clad gunboats. In 1862 he built dike or embankment projecting into the six more; also heavy mortar-boats. At 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 14 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 beginning of July, 1874, he completed the channel was necessary to prevent the the magnificent iron railroad bridge across continual grounding of vessels upon it. the Mississippi at St. Louis. Then he Captain Eads was the first to suggest pressed upon the attention of the govern- that this laborious and expensive dredgent his plan for improving the naviga- ing process might be done away with by JAMES BUCHANAN EADS. following amount of material had been used: Willow, 592,000 cubic yards; stone, 100,000 cubic yards; gravel, 10,000 cubic yards; concrete, 9,000 tons; piling and lumber, 12,000,000 feet. Captain Eads's plan has been proved to be very successful, for the banks of the jetty continue firm, and the channel is kept clear by the movement of the concentrated current between them. Gulf some 2 miles or more, it would tion of this important improvement the produce force enough to excavate a channel the whole length of the bar. This project he undertook to carry out at his own expense, agreeing not to receive compensation for the work until it was completed; and the truth of his reasoning was proved by the results. In the winter of 1874-75 he laid his plan before Congress, and in March, 1875, a bill was passed empowering him to put it into execution. The work was begun in June, 1875. The jetties were laid out parallel with the current of the river, and at right angles with the Gulf current, extending with a slight curve 24 miles out from the mouth of the river. Piles were first driven in to mark the path of the jetties; then willows fastened together in enormous mattresses were sunk, and these filled in with stones and gravel. This work was done on the 1899, was tried by court-martial for critiSouth 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 Eagan, CHARLES PATRICK, military officer; born in Ireland in January, 1841; served through the Civil War in the 1st Washington Territory Infantry; was commissioned 2d lieutenant 9th United States Infantry in 1866; and became brigadiergeneral and commissary-general May 3, 1898. During the American-Spanish War he was in charge of the commissary department of the army, and in January, cising 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 England; China - Collecting in America; the empire, as it is now of Austria, Rus- Customs and Fashions in Old New Engsia, and Prussia. The great seal of the land; Life of Margaret Winthrop; Diary United States (see SEAL OF THE UNITED of a Boston School - Girl; Costume of STATES) bears a shield on the breast of Colonial Times; Colonial Dames and the eagle. The $10 gold coin of the Goodwives; Old Narragansett; Colonial United States is also called an eagle. It was first coined in 1794. No eagles were coined between 1805 and 1837. The $20 gold coin is popularly known as the double eagle. Eagle, HENRY, naval officer; born in New York City, April 7, 1801; entered the navy in 1818; and had command of the bomb-vessel Etna and also a part of the Gulf fleet during the Mexican War. At the beginning of the Civil War he carried important messages from Brooklyn to Washington. While in command of the Monticello he was engaged in the first naval engagement of the war, silencing the guns of Sewell's Point battery, Va., May 19, 1861. He was promoted commodore in 1862; retired in January, 1863. He died in November, 1882. Days in Old New York; Curious Punish- Earle, PLINY, inventor; born in Leicester, Mass., Dec. 17, 1762; became connected with Edward Snow in 1785 in the manufacture of machine and hand cards for carding wool and cotton. Mr. Earle had first made them by hand, but afterwards by a machine of his own invention. OLIVER EVANS (q. v.) had already invented a machine for making card-teeth, which produced 300 a minute. In 1784 Mr. Crittenden, of New Haven, Conn., invented a Eagle, JAMES PHILLIP, clergyman; born machine which produced 86,000 cardin Maury county, Tenn., Aug. 10, 1837; teeth, cut and bent, in an hour. These acquired a country-school and a collegiate card-teeth were put up in bags and diseducation; served in the Confederate tributed among families, in which the army in the Civil War, and attained the women and children stuck them in the rank of colonel. After the war he became leather. Leicester was the chief seat of a Baptist minister and cotton-planter; this industry, and to that place SAMUEL was a member of the Arkansas legislature SLATER (q. v.), of Rhode Island, went for four years; and of the constitutional for card clothing for the machines in his convention in 1874; one of the commissioners to adjust the debt of the BrookBaxter war over the governorship in 1874; and was governor of Arkansas in 1889-93. Eames, WILBERFORCE, librarian; born in Newark, N. J., Oct. 12, 1855; appointed and it worked admirably. A few years assistant in the Lenox Library, 1885; li- afterwards Eleazer Smith (see WHITTEbrarian in 1893. He is the author of MORE, AMOS) made a great improvement many bibliographical books, among them by inventing a machine that not only an account of the early New England cat- pricked the holes, but set the teeth more echisms, a comparative edition of the va- expertly than human fingers could do. rious texts of Columbus's letter announc- About 1843 William B. Earle, son of ing the discovery of America, and editor Pliny, improved Smith's invention, and of several volumes of Sabin's Dictionary the machine thus produced for making of Books relating to America, besides card clothing proved the best ever made. many articles on bibliographical subjects. Earle, ALICE MORSE, author; born in Worcester, Mass., April 27, 1853. She has written extensively on the manner and customs of the colonial periods in New England and New York. Among her publications are The Sabbath in Puritan New cotton-mill. Hearing that Pliny Earle was an expert card-maker, he went to him and told him what he wanted. Mr. Earle invented a machine for pricking the holes in the leather-a tedious process by hand By Mr. Earle's first invention the labor of a man for fifteen hours could be performed in fifteen minutes. Mr. Earle possessed extensive attainments in science and literature. He died in Leicester, Nov. 19, 1832. Earle, THOMAS, statesman; born in Leicester, Mass., April 21, 1796; removed to Early, JUBAL ANDERSON, military officer; born in Franklin county, Va., Nov. 3, 1816; graduated from West Point in 1837, and served in the Florida war the same year. In 1838 he resigned his commission and studied law. In 1847 he severe Philadelphia in 1817; he edited succes- tinued thunder, and the shock lasted about sively The Columbian Observer, Standard, four minutes. The earth shook with such Pennsylvanian, and Mechanics' Free Press violence that in some places the people and Reform Advocate. He was a member could not stand upright without difficulty, of the Pennsylvania constitution conven- and many movable articles in the houses tion of 1837, and is believed to have draft- were thrown down. The earth was unquiet ed the new constitution. He died in Phila- for twenty days afterwards. On Jan. 26, delphia, July 14, 1849. 1663, a heavy shock of earthquake was felt in New England and in New York, and was particularly severe in Canada, where it was recorded that "the doors opened and shut of themselves with a fearful clattering. The bells rang without being touched. The walls were split asunder. The floors separated and fell down. The fields put on the appearance of precipices, and the mountains seemed to be moving out of their places." Small rivers were dried up; some mountains appeared to be much broken and moved, and half-way between Quebec and Tadousac two mountains were shaken down, and formed a point of land extending 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, a distance of about 700 miles. It occurred at about twenty minutes before eleven o'clock in the morning, and the sky was serene. Pewter and china were cast from their shelves, and stone walls served as a major-general of volunteers and chimney-tops were shaken down. In during the war with Mexico. He was ap- some places doors were burst open, and pointed colonel in the Confederate ser- people could hardly keep their feet. vice at the outbreak of the Civil War. He There had been an interval of fifty-five was one of the ablest and most successful years since the last earthquake in New of the Confederate generals, but was de- England. On the same day the island of feated at Winchester, Fisher's Hill, and Martinique, in the West Indies, was Cedar Creek. At Gettysburg he com- threatened with total destruction by an manded a division of Lee's army, and the earthquake which lasted eleven hours. second at Cedar Creek, where Sheridan On Nov. 18, 1755, an earthquake shock arrived in time to rally his men after his was felt from Chesapeake Bay along the famous ride. In 1888 he published a book coast of Halifax, Nova Scotia, about 800 giving the history of the last year of the miles; and in the interior it seems to Civil War, during which time he was in have extended, from northwest to southcommand of the army of the Shenandoah. east, more than 1,000 miles. In Boston He died in Lynchburg, Va., March 2, 1894. 100 chimneys were levelled with the roofs Earthquakes. On June 1, 1638, be- of the houses, and 1,500 shattered. The tween the hours of 3 and 4 P.M., the vane on the public market was thrown to weather clear and warm, and the wind the earth. At New Haven, Conn., the westerly, all New England was violently ground moved like waves of the sea; the shaken by an internal convulsion of the houses shook and cracked, and many It ocearth. It came on with a noise like con- chimneys were thrown down. JUBAL A. EARLY. of the island of Madeira, 660 miles southwest from Portugal, became a waste. The last earthquake of consequence was on Aug. 31, 1886, when a large part of the city of Charleston, S. C., was destroyed, with many lives. curred at four o'clock in the morning, 2,000 houses were overthrown; and half and lasted four and a half minutes. At the same time there was a great tidalwave in the West Indies. In April, the same year, Quito, in South America, was destroyed by an earthquake; and eighteen days before the earthquake in North America there was an awful and extensive one in southern Europe that extended into Africa. The earth was violently shaken for 5,000 miles-even to Scotland. In eight minutes the city of Lisbon, with 50,000 inhabitants, was swallowed up. Other cities in Portugal and Spain were partially destroyed. One half of Fez, in northern Africa, was destroyed, and more than 12,000 Arabs perished. In the islan. of Mitylene, in the Grecian Archipelago, East India Company, THE. At the close of 1600, Queen Elizabeth granted a charter to a company of London merchants for the monopoly of the trade over a vast expanse of land and sea in the region of the East Indies, for fifteen years. The charter was renewed from time to time. The first squadron of the company (five vessels) sailed from Torbay (Feb. 15, 1601) and began to make footholds, speedily, on the islands and continental |