Dripread - Book

education. At the age of seventeen he was apprenticed to a millwright near Macclesfield, and soon after completing his apprenticeship he set up in business for himself as a wheelwright at Leek, quickly becoming known for his ingenuity and skill in repairing all kinds of machinery. In 1752 he designed and set up an engine for draining some coal-pits at Clifton in Lancashire. Three years later he extended his reputation by completing the machinery for a silk-mill at Congleton. In 1759, when the duke of Bridgewater was anxious to improve the outlets for the coal on his estates, Brindley advised the construction of a canal from Worsley to Manchester. The difficulties in the way were great, but all were surmounted by his genius, and his crowning triumph was the construction of an aqueduct to carry the canal at an elevation of 39 ft. over the river Irwell at Barton. The great success of this canal encouraged similar projects, and Brindley was soon engaged in extending his first work to the Mersey, at Runcorn. He then designed and nearly completed what he called the Grand Trunk Canal, connecting the Trent and Humber with the Mersey. The Staffordshire and Worcestershire, the Oxford and the Chesterfield Canals were also planned by him, and altogether he laid out over 360 m. of canals. He died at Turnhurst, Staffordshire, on the 30th of September 1772. Brindley retained to the last a peculiar roughness of character and demeanour; but his innate power of thought more than compensated for his lack of training. It is told of him that when in any difficulty he used to retire to bed, and there remain thinking out his problem until the solution became clear to him. His mechanical ingenuity and fertility of resource were very remarkable, and he undoubtedly possessed the engineering faculty in a very high degree. He was an enthusiastic believer in canals, and his reported answer, when asked the use of navigable rivers, "To feed canals," is characteristic, if not altogether authentic.

BRINTON, DANIEL GARRISON (1837-1899), American archaeologist and ethnologist, was born at Thornbury, Pennsylvania, on the 13th of May 1837. He graduated at Yale in 1858, studied for two years in the Jefferson Medical College, and then for one year travelled in Europe and continued his studies at Paris and Heidelberg. From 1862 to 1865, during the Civil War in America, he was a surgeon in the Union army, acting for one year, 1864-1865, as surgeon in charge of the U.S. Army general hospital at Quincy, Illinois. After the war he practised medicine at Westchester, Pennsylvania, for several years; was the editor of a weekly periodical, the Medical and Surgical Reporter, in Philadelphia, from 1874 to 1887; became professor of ethnology and archaeology in the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia in 1884, and was professor of American linguistics and archaeology in the university of Pennsylvania from 1886 until his death at Philadelphia on the 31st of July 1899. He was a member of numerous learned societies in the United States and in Europe, and was president at different times of the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Philadelphia, of the American Folk-Lore Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. During the period from 1859 (when he published his first book) to 1899, he wrote a score of books, several of them of great value, and a large number of pamphlets, brochures, addresses and magazine articles. His principal works are:?The Myths of the New World (1868), the first attempt to analyse and correlate, according to true scientific principles, the mythology of the American Indians; The Religious Sentiment: Its Sources and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and Philosophy of Religion (1876); American Hero Myths (1882); Essays of an Americanist (1890); Races and Peoples (1890); The American Race (1891); The Pursuit of Happiness (1893); and Religions of Primitive People (1897). In addition, he edited and published a Library of American Aboriginal Literature (8 vols. 1882-1890), a valuable contribution to the science of anthropology in America. Of the eight volumes, six were edited by Brinton himself, one by Horatio Hale and one by A.S. Gatschet.

BRINVILLIERS, MARIE MADELEINE MARGUERITE D'AUBRAY, Marquise de (c. 1630-1676), French poisoner, daughter of Dreux d'Aubray, civil lieutenant of Paris, was born in Paris about 1630. In 1651 she married the marquis de Brinvilliers, then serving in the regiment of Normandy. Contemporary evidence describes the marquise at this time as a pretty and much-courted little woman, with a fascinating air of childlike innocence. In 1659 her husband introduced her to his friend Godin de Sainte-Croix, a handsome young cavalry officer of extravagant tastes and bad reputation, whose mistress she became. Their relations soon created a public scandal, and as the

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 / "Brescia" to "Bulgaria"