WHEATSTONE, CHARLES. 



of impeachment against the State Treasurer, 

 twenty-one in number, for action. They were 

 voted upon separately, and adopted. The arti- 

 cles against the State Auditor, numbering eight, 

 were acted upon in the same way on Novem- 

 ber 29th, and also adopted. 



The Board of Managers appointed by the 

 House to prosecute the Treasurer and the Au- 

 ditor of the State laid the said articles before 

 the Senate on December 2d, and in the name 

 of the House of Delegates, and the people of 

 West Virginia, formally requested that body, 

 as a high court of impeachment, to try those 

 two officers upon the charges preferred against 

 them, for misdemeanor and malfeasance in 

 office. 



At the close of the year 1875 these im- 

 peachment cases had not been determined. 



WHEATSTONE, CHAKLES, an English in- 

 ventor, born at Gloucester in 1802 ; died Octo- 

 ber 20, 18T5. In early life he was a manufact- 

 urer of musical instruments, and made re- 

 .searches in the science of acoustics. He dis- 

 played much mechanical ingenuity in the con- 

 struction of instruments and apparatus. He 

 published, in 1834, an "Account of Experi- 

 ments to Measure the Velocity of Electricity 

 and the duration of Electric Light." In the 

 same year he became Professor of Philosophy 

 in King's College, London. He invented the 

 stereoscope, which he described in his "Con- 

 tributions to Physiology of Vision," published 

 in 1838. He was one of the several persons 

 who, in 1837, claimed the honor of the inven- 

 tion of the electric telegraph. Wheatstone and 

 his partner, Cooke, obtained, in 1837, a patent 

 for apparatus which they invented for sending 

 signals by means of electric currents. They 

 were successful in the practical application of 

 their invention, which soon came into exten- 

 sive use. He afterward invented several im- 

 provements, among which is the magneto-al- 

 phabetical telegraph. He was vice-president 

 of the Royal Society, and was a corresponding 

 member of the French Institute, as well as of 

 several of the leading academies of Europe. 

 At the Universal Exhibition of Paris, in 1855, 

 he was one of the jurors in the class " Heat, 

 Light, and Electricity," and was created a 

 Knight of the Legion of Honor. 



WILKINSON, Sir JOHN GAKDINER, F. R. S., 

 a British archaeologist and geographer, born in 

 1797; died October 29, 1875. After having 

 finished his studies in Harrow and Exeter Col- 

 lege, Oxford, he made a trip to Egypt. Here 

 he applied himself with great zeal and energy 

 to the study of the ancient history and the 

 architectural remains of that country. He was 

 knighted in 1839, in reward of his valuable 

 contributions to archaeological literature. He 

 wrote : " Manners and Customs of the Ancient 

 Egyptians, derived from a Comparison of the 

 Painting, Sculpture, and Monuments still exist- 

 ing with the Accounts of the Ancient Authors " 

 (1837-'41) ; " History of Modern Egypt and 

 Thebes " (1844) ; " Dalmatia and Montenegro, 



WILSON, HENRY. 



759 



with a Journey to Mostar, in Herzegovina, and 

 Remarks on the Sclavonic Nations" (1848); 

 "Egyptians in the Time of the Pharaohs" 

 (1857) ; and " On Color " (1858). 



WILLIS, Rev. ROBERT, F. R. S., a British 

 scholar, born in 1800; died in January, 1875. 

 He graduated from Caius College, Cambridge, 

 in 1826, and was chosen Fellow of his college. 

 In 1837 he was appointed Jacksonian Profess- 

 or of Natural and Experimental Philosophy in 

 Cambridge. He was one of the founders of 

 the Archasological Society in 1843, and from 

 its annual meetings he prepared the " Archi- 

 tectural Histories " of the principal English 

 cathedrals. He also wrote " Apparatus for the 

 Use of Lecturers in Mechanical Philosophy " 

 (1831), " Remarks on the Architecture of 'the 

 Middle Ages and of Italy " (1835) ; " Princi- 

 ples of Mechanism for the Use of Students " 

 (1841), "Architectural History of the Holy 

 Sepulchre," and "Architectural Nomenclature 

 of the Middle Ages." 



WILSON, HENRY, was born in Farmington, 

 N. H., February 16, 1812, and died at Wash- 

 ington, D. C., November 22, 1875, aged 63 

 years. His original name was Jeremiah Jones 

 Colbath or "Colbaith." His father was a 

 hired farm-laborer whose ancestors were from 

 the north of Ireland. At the age of ten Jere- 

 miah was apprenticed to a farmer in his native 

 town. He went to school at intervals about a 

 year during the eleven years of his apprentice- 

 ship. At the age of twenty-one he was en- 

 abled by an act of the Legislature to bear the 

 name of Henry Wilson. In December, 1833, 

 he walked from Farmington to Natick, Mass., 

 in search of work, and hired himself to a shoe- 

 maker until he had learned the trade. Having 

 worked for two years and saved some money, 

 he returned to his native State and studied in 

 the academies of Stafford, Walsborough, and 

 Concord ; but, the person to whom he had in- 

 trusted his savings having failed, he was in 

 1838 compelled to return to Natick and resume 

 work as a shoemaker. While here he was ac- 

 tive in forming and sustaining a debating so- 

 ciety among the young men of the town. In 

 1835, when attempts were made in some parts 

 of the country violently to put down the dis- 

 cussion of the slavery question, young Wilson 

 entered ardently in the contest as an Aboli- 

 tionist. In 1838 he made his first visit to Wash- 

 ington. The impressions made on his mind by 

 the slavery he saw in the District of Columbia 

 were given in a speech he delivered many 

 years afterward (1863) in Philadelphia. He 

 first appeared in politics in 1840 as the advo- 

 cate of the election of General Harrison, the 

 Whig candidate for the presidency. During the 

 next five years he was three times elected a 

 Representative to the Legislature from Natick, 

 and twice a State Senator from Middlesex 

 County. In 1845 he took a leading part in 

 calling a convention in Massachusetts in oppo- 

 sition to the admission of Texas into the Union 

 as a slave State, and was appointed with the 



