Bunner, Henry Cuyler

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

Henry Cuyler (1855-1896), an American journalist and author. He was born in Oswego, New York . He began a journalistic career at the age of eighteen. He became the editor of Puck shortly after its start and held the position for the rest of his life. Among his writings may be mentioned A Woman of Honor, The Story of a New York House, The Midge, Short Sixes, and The Runaway Browns. Bunner will be longer remembered, perhaps, and better loved, for some of his tender little poems than for any of his prose. Everybody knows One, Two, Three, the story of An old, old, old, old lady And a boy that was half-past three. Bunner excels, too, in certain French forms of poetry, which have become favorites in later years. An example of one of these is the triolet given below. A triolet is limited to eight lines and two rhymes: A pitcher of mignonette In a tenement's highest casement; Queer sort of a flower pot--yet That pitcher of mignonette Is a garden of heaven set To the little sick child in the basement, The pitcher of mignonette In the tenement's highest casement. `Bunsen, boon'sen, Robert Wilhelm (1811-1899), an eminent German chemist. He entered the University of Gottingen when he was seventeen years old and devoted himself to the study of zoology and chemistry. He later continued his studies at Paris, Berlin, and Vienna. He wrote numerous papers on physics and geology, as well as on chemistry. He invented the magnesium light, which is so important in photography. His greatest discovery was that connected with spectrum analysis. The spectrum is essentially a magnifying lens attached to a glass prism. By means of this instrument, elementary substances, such as sodium, copper, or lead, may be discovered in the sun and stars. Dark lines occur among the colored spaces in the solar spectrum, and Bunsen, together with his friend Kirchhoff, demonstrated the meaning of these lines, first observed by Fraunhofer in 1815. Bunsen's and Kirchhoff's discovery has been of great value to chemistry and to astronomy. Its first result was the discovery of two new metals. Besides being a great discoverer in chemistry, Bunsen was an able teacher. He held a number of important chairs--at Cassel, Marburg, and Breslau. From 1851 to 1889 he was a leading professor at Heidelberg, one of the men who drew a crowd of American students to that celebrated university. The laboratory burner which bears his name is constructed on the principle of a round-wicked lamp. The burning gas or oil is fed up a hollow cylinder. Air comes up the hollow core as well as on the outside and produces active combustion with correspondingly intense heat. See Chemistry ; Light