HARRIS. 



HARRISON. THOMAS. 



301 



1745 he married the daughter of John CUrke, Eq., of San.iford, near 

 BrWrwaU-r, by whom he had fir* children. In 1781 be wu returned 

 n.tchurcb, which wt ho retained till bis death. In 1762 he 

 was appointed to the port of * lord of the Admiralty, ind next y. r 

 to that of a lord f the Treasury, wliich be held for two yean, when 

 hU party went out of office. In 1774 he became secretary and comp- 

 troller to the qu. en. He died in 1780. 



Htrri* U bwt known by hit ' Hermes, or a 1'hilosophicnl Inquiry 

 concerning Language and Universal Grammar,' a work which Lowth, 

 with abundaut extravagance, characterised a* one of the meet beautiful 

 piceet of analyiis which had appeared since the dayi of Aristotle. 

 The real merit of this work of Harris U perhaps best expressed in 

 the following frw words from the first sentence of his sensible preface : 

 " The chief red proposed by the author of this treatise in making it 

 public has been to excite bis readers to curiosity and inquiry." A 

 curt ful |<eru*l of the treatise cannot foil to make a man think more 

 accurately, though be may, as he ought to do, reject some of the 

 writer's premises, and consequently many of his conclusion*. 



Harris's 'Hermes' was published in 1751. Some years before, he 

 had written three treatises, on Art, on Music, Painting, and Poetry, 

 and on Happiness; and in 1775 be published bis ' Philosophical 

 Arrangements,' a part of a large work on the Aristotelian Logic. His 

 last work is called 'Philological Enquiries;' it does not however 

 answer to its title, as it is in fact a history of literature subjoined to 

 dissertation! on criticism. It in considerably interlarded with quota- 

 tions from the authors of antiquity, but not nearly to such an extent 

 as hu other works. 



His private character appears to have been excellent, and his son's 

 [UAUUSBORT, EARL OF] admiration for him proves that his moral 

 nature was so perfect as to secure the respect of those who had the 

 best opportunity of judging it 



HARRIS. [MALMESBOBY, KARL OF.] 



HARRIS, JOHN, D.D., born about 1667, died September 7, 1719, 

 a voluminous writer, in the list of whose works we find numbers of ser- 

 mons, treatises on algebra and fluxions, geometry, trigonometry, astro- 

 nomy, and navigation. He also wrote ' Remarks on some late papers 

 relating to the Universal Deluge and the Nat. Hist, of the Earth ; ' ' Navi- 

 pantium atq. Itiuerautium Bibliotheca, or a complete collection of 

 Voyages and Travels,' &.C., 1705, 2 vols., fol., reprinted with additions 

 and corrections in 1744 and 1764; 'Lexicon Technologicum, or an 

 Universal English Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences, explaining not 

 only the terms of Arts, but the Arts themselves,' 2 vols., fol., 

 1704-10. From this, says Watt, "Lave originated all the other dic- 

 tionaries of arts and science and cyclopaedias that have since 

 appeared ; " and it is as the originator of this important and useful ': 

 class of works that bis memory best deserves to bo preserved. 

 Hii-tory of Kent,' 2 vols. fol, 1719. Harris was secretary and vice- 

 president of the Royal Society, and possessed considerable church 

 preferment, but was reduced to poverty by neglect of his affairs. He 

 died in want, and wag buried at the expense of his friend*. 



HARRIS, JOHN, D.D., Principal of New College, St. John's Wood, 

 the chief seminary of instruction for the ministry amongst the English 

 Independent*, is a native of Ugborough, in Devonshire, where he was 

 born in 1804. In his twentieth year he became a student at Hoxton 

 Independent College, and after completing his course of study for the 

 ministry, accepted an invitation to be pastor of the Independent 

 Church at Epsom. Though esteemed as a pastor, and popular as a 

 preacher, it was chiefly by his writings that Mr. Harris became known 

 to the public. His first production, ' The Great Teacher,' win very 

 favourably received ; but the work by which he acquired most fame 

 was entitled 'Mammon, or Covetousness the mn of the Christian 

 Church,' written in competition for a prize of 100 guineas offered by 

 Dr. Conquest of London. Mr. Harris's essay was the successful one, 

 and when published the sole amounted in a very short time to about 

 80,000 copies. Subsequently, the author of ' Mammon ' wrote several 

 works in competition, and was equally successful, as in ' Britannia,' 

 written on behalf of the spiritual interest of British seamen, and the 

 'Great Commiision,' a work on the subject of Christian Missions. He 

 also published ' The Christian Citizen,' an enlarged edition of a sermon 

 preached for the London City Mission. In 1838 he received from an 

 American college the diploma of D.D. In the same year he became 

 the head of Chesbunt College, the training seminary for students of 

 the Countess of Huntingdon's connexion. The friends of the Inde- 

 pendent cause having resolved to unite somo of their smaller divinity 

 coll-gm into one, in order to increase their usefulness, the New 

 Collage was built in St. John's Wood, and Dr. Harris was invited to 

 become Principal, a post which, tince 1850, he has filled with much 

 efficiency. Dr. Harris married in 183S Miss Wrangham, a niece of 

 Archdeacon Wrangham. His more important works, published of 

 laU years, aie three octavo volume*, intended to form part of a 

 series ext-nding to eitht volumei in all ; The 1're- Adamite Earth ; 

 Man Primeval ; [Patriarchy, or the Family : its Constitution, and 

 Probation. 



HARRIS, SIR WILLIAM SNOW, is a member of the College of 

 Surgeons, but is chiefly known for his researches iu meteorology, and 

 bis demonstration of the course of action of the electric fluid in 

 thunderstorms, a* well as of the modification in the form and con- 

 struction of lightning conductors, requirtd to ensure protection for ship* 



and buildings. He was born at Plymouth in the year 1791. His 

 researches have gone to remove certain popular errors as to what have 

 been called ' conductors ' and ' non-conductors ' of electricity, and to 

 show the inutility of the old form of lightning-rod in the majority of 

 oases ; it being necessary, in place of such mere form, to link into one 

 great chain all the metallic bodies employed in the construction of a 

 buildiug, providing, in connection with these, conductors between the 

 highest parts and the ground, the single conductor, iu one highest 

 part, being possibly insufficient to divert the course of the fluid, and 

 protect the whole fabric. These general principles have been largely 

 applied to the protection of the ships of the Royal navy during the 

 last five-and twenty years, under his advice and direction ; and, laying 

 aside the opinions which had been commonly received, the masta 

 themselves of a ship have all been rendered perfectly conducting, by 

 incorporating with the spars capscious plates of copper, whilst all 

 the largo metallic masses iu the hull have been tied as it were into a 

 general conducting chain, communicating with the great conducting 

 channels in the masts, and with the sea. This may be considered as 

 the greatest experiment ever made by any country in the employment 

 of metallic conductors for ships ; and the result has been to secure 

 the navy from a destructive agent, and to throw new light upon an 

 interesting department of science. Sir W. S. Harris was employed 

 to affix the lightning conductors to Buckingham Palace upon his 

 system. He is aUo the inventor of a new steering compass. He has 

 received the Copley medal of the Royal Society, of which ho is a 

 fellow ; in 1845 the late Emperor of Russia presented to him a vase ; 

 and in 1847 be was knighted in acknowledgment of his scientific 

 services. He is the author of several papers and tracts on electricity 

 and magnetism, and on the danger by lightning to the British navy, 

 and of a work on thunderstorms; and he has given report* on 

 meteorology to the British Association for the Advancement of 

 Science. 



HARRISON. [HOUHSHED.] 



HARRISON, JOHN, was bom at Faulby, near Pontefract, iu York- 

 shire, in the year 1693. He was the son of a carpenter, which profession 

 he also followed during several years. In 1700 the family removed 

 to Barrow, in Lincolnshire. Harrison early displayed an attachment 

 to mechanical pursuits, and hia attention was particularly directed to 

 the improvement of clocks. After many failures and many minor 

 improvements, he at length succeeded in constructing a pendulum, 

 the excellence of which depended on the different degrees in which 

 metals are expanded or contracted by variations of temperature. This 

 important principle is now employed in the construction of the 

 balance-wheels of chronometers, and is that on which the accuracy of 

 those timekeepers mainly depends. 



In the year 1714 an act was passed offering a reward of 10,0002., 

 15,0001., and 20,0002. respectively, for a method of ascertaining the 

 longitude within 60, 40, or 30 miles. In 1735 Harrison came up to 

 London with a timepiece which he had constructed. Having obtained 

 certificates of its excellence from Halley, Graham, and others, he was 

 allowed, in 1736, to proceed with it to Lisbon in a king's ship, and 

 was enabled to correct the reckoning a degree and a half. Ou this 

 the commissioners under the act gave him 5002. to enable him to 

 proceed with his improvements. After constructing two other tiuie- 

 pifces, he at last made a third, which he considered sufficiently correct 

 to entitle him to claim a trial of it, and the commissioners accordingly, 

 in 1761, sent out his son William in a king's ship to Jamaica. On hia 

 in-rival at Port Royal, the watch was found to be wrong only 5 T \, 

 seconds; and on his return to Portsmouth, in 1762, only 1 minute 

 54} seconds. This was sufficient to determine the longitude within 

 18 miles, and Harrison accordingly claimed the reward. After another 

 voyage to Jamaica and some further trials, an act was passed, in 1735, 

 which awarded the 20,0002. to Harrison, one-half to be paid on his 

 explaining the principle of construction of his time-piece, the other 

 half as soon as it was ascertained that the instrument could be 

 made by others. After some delays and disputes, Harrison, in 1767, 

 received the whole sum of 20,0002. 



Next to the principle of the different expansibility of metals, which 

 is applicable both to the pendulums of clocks and the balance-wheels 

 of watches, the most important of the many inventions and improve- 

 ments which in the course of fifty years he introduced, is perhaps that 

 of the going fusee, by which a watch can be wound up without 

 inti rrupting its movement. 



He died at his house in Red Lion Square in 1770, in his eighty- 

 third year. HU phraseology is said to have been uncouth. On 

 mechanics and subjects connected with that science he could converse 

 with considerable clearness ; but he found great difficulty iu express- 

 ing his sentiments in writing, as is evident in his ' Description con- 

 cerning such Mechanism as will afford a nice or true Mensuration of 

 Time.' In the last volume of the Eiographia Jiritannica, published 

 in 1766, there is a memoir of Harrison drawn up from materials 

 furnished by himself. See also Mutton's Mathcmat. Diet, and the 

 Gallery } Portrailt, vol. v., p. 153. 



HARRISON, THOMAS, generally cilled 'Harrison of Chester,' 

 from his residence iu that city, was born at Wakeficld in Yorkshire, 

 in 1744. While yet little more than a mere lad, he was sent to Italy, 

 then considered almost the only efficient school for architectural 

 study. During his stay at Rome, where he remained for several 



