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enforced. But, for one, I wish to record my protest against our modern living-cellar. A well-ventilated basement is almost an impossibility from its low level, and it is so difficult to get our ideal conditions perfectly executed, that practically they are seldom met with. I have seen a great many cases of sickness which seemed to me due to basement-living, and many cases of tuberculosis which seemed to have been there developed. The last is particularly noticeable among servant-girls of foreign birth. In the experience of physicians in some sections, it is rare to find a servant-girl living and working in a low basement who has good health, though previous to coming to this country, and being subjected to such conditions, good health is stated to be the general rule. Many people have attacks of sickness, following a time of exposure in a basement, with great regularity.

Would it not be better for house-builders and architects to plan for dwellings built more above-ground? More of a lot has to be sacrificed, but perhaps enough may be saved in healthfulness and stairclimbing to compensate for the loss. City yards are of slight value at best. A good cellar is gained by such a change, and up-stairs diningrooms and kitchens are not only luxuries, but, it may be argued, almost necessities.

Ν

SKETCH OF CHESTER S. LYMAN.

IN the company of Puritans who, in the severe winter of 1635, trav

eled from Massachusetts Bay through the wilderness and settled at Hartford and Windsor, was Richard Lyman, who had come over from England four years before in the same ship with John Eliot, the Indian Apostle, and who, through his two sons Richard and John, was the ancestor of all the Lymans in America. Nearly two hundred years later, in the little country town of Manchester, ten miles from Hartford, CHESTER SMITH LYMAN, his eighth lineal descendant, was born January 13, 1814, the son of Chester and Mary Smith Lyman.

He had in his boyhood only the advantages of a common country school, and, like other country boys, alternated going to school with working on the farm. Before he was nine years old he evinced unusual mechanical ingenuity, making many curious toys, windmills, water-wheels, and the like, which rendered him a favorite with his playmates. He also began soon to show a great interest in astronomy and the kindred sciences, which was first awakened by an intense curiosity to know how a common almanac was made. Books of all kinds in that town were then rare, and of scientific books there were almost none; but he managed somehow to get hold of a few-one on natural philosophy, one on surveying (Gibson's), and one on navigation (Bowditch's)—to borrow the last of which he walked five miles. From one of these he learned the nature of lenses, and soon extempo

rized for himself a rude telescope by means of his mother's spectacles, a small burning-lens, and a yard-stick. In later life he said, "I can never forget the delight with which I turned this upon the Pleiades, and for the first time saw this cluster expand into a large number of brighter stars." From Gibson and Bowditch he learned, without a teacher, the rudiments of geometry and trigonometry, and in due time obtained a good knowledge of surveying and navigation.

When he was thirteen a copy of Ferguson's "Astronomy" fell into his hands, and was devoured by him as eagerly as most boys read "Robinson Crusoe." He also had access to the articles "Astronomy," "Optics," and some others, in the "Edinburgh Encyclopædia." From thirteen until he was sixteen, except the twelve weeks of Latin mentioned farther on, he spent most of his spare time either studying, entirely without assistance, or in a little tool-shop of his father's, constructing astronomical and other instruments which he had never seen except in the diagrams of his few much-prized books. Among these instruments, which were mainly of wood, were a quadrant, sextant, terrestrial and celestial globes, orrery, eclipsareon, solar microscope, and many others. He also constructed a reflecting Herschelian telescope four feet long, which enabled him to show Jupiter's satellites and belts, Saturn's rings, the moon, and other celestial objects, to the country-folk who came from miles around to look through it. He computed all the eclipses for fifteen years to come, and made almanacs for 1830 and 1831. In order to give the places of the planets in these almanacs (never having seen a nautical almanac or astronomical tables of the planets), he made rough tables for himself, computing them from the elements of the planet's orbits as given in his book on natural philosophy. When about fourteen he with five other boys was made the subject of an experiment in teaching Latin, which impressed him with a life-long conviction that, in the ordinary methods of teaching the classics, one half the time at least is unnecessarily wasted.

The Rev. V. R. Osborn had recently started in Manchester a school in which he aimed to apply what was then widely known as the Hamiltonian system of instruction to the classics-a system, in the main, advocated by Milton and Locke, as well as by other high authorities in education, from Cardinal Wolsey and Erasmus down to Hamilton, who used it in the early part of this century. In order to settle a controversy in the Hartford papers as to the merits of the system, it was suggested that it should be applied in teaching a class of boys who knew absolutely no Latin. Accordingly, young Lyman (not then a member of the school) and a few others were invited to form the class. At the first meeting the first six lines of the "Eneid" were slowly read and translated by Mr. Hart, the teacher, with explanations, the boys one at a time repeating the translation after him, sentence by sentence, until all had gone over the lesson. It was afterward made familiar by

using an interlinear translation prepared for them by Mr. Hart. These lessons being gradually increased in length, the first three books were soon read. With their review a Latin grammar for the first time was used, which, now that the text was understood, proved a fascinating exercise instead of the usual bugbear. With this start the remaining nine books were read by means of the clavis of the Delphin edition of Virgil, as Mr. Hart's translation then only included three books.* The whole "Eneid" was thus completed in twelve weeks, at the end of which an examination of the class by a professor at Trinity (then Washington) College, Hartford, was pronounced highly creditable, and excited much interest at the time.

Two or three years later several of the leading men in Manchester, together with Major Bissell, an army officer, having become interested in Lyman's mechanical and scientific pursuits, and wishing him to have the advantages of a thorough education, sent an application to the Secretary of War for a cadetship at West Point. There was every prospect that the appointment would be given him, but, before the requisite time had elapsed, he, having become interested in religious matters, determined, instead of entering the military profession, to go to college with a view of becoming a minister. He had now reached the age of eighteen, had taught school two winters in his native town, and been active in a society which he had started for debate and literary practice, giving occasional lectures on scientific and other subjects. He had, withal, fallen into the habit of occasionally writing verses, which now and then got into the newspapers. This habit, begun at the age of ten or twelve, followed him to college and on occasions through life. Entering, in June, 1832, the Ellington School, then one of the most prominent preparatory schools in New England, he fitted for college in twelve months' time, entering Yale in 1833, without conditions.

During his college course he took several literary prizes; and in his junior year he was one of the originators and editors of the "Yale Literary Magazine," being associated with W. T. Bacon, W. M. Evarts, and others. In addition to his regular studies, in which he took high rank, he continued through his course his scientific pursuits, being assistant to the Professor of Natural Philosophy and having access to the observatory, from which he saw, among other objects, the famous Halley's comet at its return in 1835.

On graduating in 1837 he declined several eligible positions, among them a professorship in a Western university, a place in the Wilkes Exploring Expedition, an examinership in the Patent-Office, etc., and became for two years Superintendent of the Ellington School, among his immediate predecessors having been Hon. Alphonso Taft, of Cin

* This translation was subsequently completed and published in Baltimore, with the names of V. R. Osborn and Levi Hart on the title-page, and serves to this day as a pony for students in Virgil.

cinnati, and Professor John L. Taylor, of Andover. After studying theology in Union and Yale Seminaries, and holding a short pastorate over the First Church in New Britain, Connecticut, he was obliged to travel for his health.

After a seven and a half months' vovage in a sailing-vessel he reached the Sandwich Islands via Cape Horn in May, 1846, where he remained a little more than a year. While there, he visited and mapped the volcanic crater of Kilauea, which he afterward described fully in the "American Journal of Science."

While staying at Hilo, in the family of Mr. Coan, the missionary, the unusually large rainfall on that side of Hawaii (over ten feet annually) led Mr. Lyman to construct an ingenious self-registering raingauge, which, by means of clock-work, drew a line on a ruled diagram, showing the time of day and all the circumstances of the rainfall.*

During his stay at Honolulu, Mr. Lyman was called upon to teach the Royal School for a few months, having among his pupils four young chiefs, who later successively occupied the Hawaiian throne, and also the chiefess who was afterward Queen Emma.

Just before leaving the islands for California, Mr. Lyman bought an outfit of surveying instruments from his friend Chief-Justice Lee. With these instruments he arrived, in July, 1847, at San Francisco, just then newly laid out among scrub-oaks and sand-hills, and adopting that name instead of its previous one of Yerba Buena. He found it a small settlement, and the only one of its streets on which there were enough buildings of any sort to show which way it ran was Montgomery Street, which then was at the water-front, and in one place was covered with water at high tide, but now is many blocks inland.

Having been commissioned as surveyor by Colonel Mason, the military governor, Mr. Lyman soon found himself fully occupied in the survey of ranches and towns in various parts of California, espccially in the country between San Francisco and San José. Among these was a resurvey of the city and adjacent lands of San José (which had been fraudulently laid out by his predecessor, so that many of the lots existed only on his chart), and also the original survey of the famous New Almaden mine, probably the richest quicksilver-mine in the world.

In May, 1847, while he was engaged in surveying the town of San José, there came reports, at first uncredited, that gold had been discovered at Sutter's Mill, on the American River, a hundred and fifty miles or so up in the mountains. At length, a man who had come from the diggings showed some gold specimens in a store at San José, and, the report being at last believed, men began soon to flock to the

* One peculiarity of this rain-gauge was the device by which, in extra heavy rainfalls, which would more than have filled the reservoir, a valve, by which it was emptied, automatically opened and closed, bringing the recording pencil back to zero.

mines. When Mr. Lyman's assistants, who were earning twenty-five dollars a month, heard that their friends at the mines were making as much each day, they also were for starting immediately. Mr. Lyman induced them to finish the work in hand by the promise of going with them if they waited, which was indeed his only alternative, as no more assistants were to be had.

Accordingly, in June, he with a small party started for the mountains, in reaching which they had many difficulties to encounter. Having learned that in order to cross the Strait of Carquinez, which lay in the regular route thither, they must wait three weeks at the ferry, to take their turn with the crowds of gold-seekers already before them, they decided to take a bee-line across the flooded San Joaquin Valley. This they accomplished by improvising a unique boat out of a wagon-body, set into an envelope of rawhides, which they had obtained from wild cattle shot on the way and sewed together for the purpose.

After many other rough experiences of this kind, they reached Sutter's Mill in about a fortnight.

Though they found the district already overrun with diggers, they succeeded in extracting for themselves amounts of gold varying from fifteen to a hundred dollars each daily. The extraordinary price of provisions and all useful articles naturally used up much of their profits-potatoes, sugar, coffee, etc., costing a dollar a pound (and later three dollars!); butter, a dollar and a half a pound; shovels, ten dollars a piece; milk-pans, five to ten dollars; shirts, as high as twentyfive dollars each, etc.

From the mines Mr. Lyman sent to the East some of the first authentic accounts of the gold discovery, which produced much excitement, and found their way into many newspapers. One account was published in "The American Journal of Science."

But life in the gold-region being exceedingly rough, Mr. Lyman after about two months left them, and resumed his work of surveying, which he continued until, with entirely restored health, he returned to New Haven via Panama, in 1850.

Being married in that city, in June of the same year, to Miss Delia W. Wood, a daughter of the Hon. Joseph Wood and granddaughter of Chief-Justice Oliver Ellsworth, he settled permanently in New Haven, engaging in scientific and literary pursuits, among which was the preparation of the definitions of scientific words for new editions of Webster's Dictionary. In 1859 he became Professor of Industrial Mechanics and Physics in Yale College, taking an active part in organizing the Sheffield Scientific School, in which he also taught astronomy, and in the early years of the school rhetoric and moral science. In 1871, with the growth of the school, he was relieved of mechanics, and his professorship was changed to that of Astronomy and Physics. On account of impaired health, he resigned the chair of

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