Gray
Gray names 5 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Gray ASA, an American botanist
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ASA, an American botanist; born in Paris, Oneida co., N. Y., Nov. 18, 1810. He took his degree of M. D. in 1831, but soon relinquished the pracand devoted himself to tice of medicine, and botany. In 1834 he received the appoint- He died in 1902. ment of botanist of the United States exploring expedition to the S. seas; but, as a long delay took place before it was ready to sail, he resigned his post in 1837. He was afterward elected Professor of Botany in the University of Michigan, but declined the appointment, and in 1842 became Fisher Professor of Natural History at Harvard. In 1873 he retired from the chair, but still retainel charge of the great herbarium he had presented to the university in 1864; and in 1874 he succeeded Agassiz as a regent of the Smithsonian Institution. He ranked among the leading botanists of his age, and became an influential supporter of the Darwinian theories of evo- "Flora of North lution. He wrote: America" (begun with Dr. Torrey, in 1838); "Flora of North Eastern America, Illustrated" (1848-1850); memoirs on the botanical results of several government exploring expeditions; a number of text-books; "A Free Examination of Darwin's Treatise" (1861); "Darwinia" (1876); and "Natural Science and Religion" (1880). He died in Cambridge, Mass., Jan. 30, 30, 1888.
Gray THOMAS, an English poet
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
THOMAS, an English poet; born in London, England, Dec. 26, 1716. He was educated at Eton, and Peter House, Cambridge, and entered at the Inner Temple, with a view of studying for the bar. Becoming intimate, however, with Horace Walpole, he accompanied him in his tour of Europe; but they parted at Reggio, and Gray returned to England in 1741. In 1747 his "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College" appeared; and it was only in consequence of the printing of a surreptitious copy, that, in 1751, he published his "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard." He declined the office of laureate on Cibber's death, in 1757; and the same year published his odes "On the Progress of Poesy" and "The Bard." In 1768 the Duke of Grafton presented him with the Professorship of Modern History at Cambridge. He was a man of extensive acquirements in natural history, the study of ancient architecture, etc.; his correspondence places him among the best English epistolary writers. He died in Eton, England, July 30, 1771.
Gray ELISHA, an American inventor
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ELISHA, an American inventor; born in Barnesville, O., Aug. 2, 1835; was educated at Oberlin College. He designed a self-adjusting telegraph relay in 1867 and a little later invented the telegraphic switch and annunciator GRAY FRIARS. for hotels, the telegraphic repeater, the private telegraph line printer, etc. In 1876 he claimed the invention of the telephone, but after a notable contest the courts decided in favor of Alexander Graham Bell. In 1893 Professor Gray brought out his telautograph, by which five species, written messages could be transmitted north Europe over the telephone and the telegraph. ica. The He was the founder of the Gray Electric but local Company in Highland Park, Ill., and in sides are 1893 organized and was chairman of dusky streaks the Congress of Electricians at the by rows of World's Columbian Exposition. His publications include "Experimental Researches in Electro Harmonic Telegraphy and Telephony " (1878) and "Elementary Talks on Science." He died in Newtonville, Mass., Jan. 21, 1901. See BELL, ALEXANDER GRAHAM.
Gray HORACE, an American jurist
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
HORACE, an American jurist; born in Boston, Mass., in 1829; was graduated at Harvard in 1845, and its law school in 1849; admitted to the bar in 1851; appointed reporter of the Massachusetts Supreme Court in 1854, and served till 1862; associate-justice of the Massachusetts 'Supreme Court, 1864- 1873, and chief-justice, 1873-1881, when he was appointed successor to Judge Clifford in the United States Supreme Court.
Gray a town in the department of Haute-Saône
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a town in the department of Haute-Saône, France, on the Saône, here cencrossed by a stone bridge of the 13th tury; 25 miles N. W. of Besançon. It has remains of an ancient castle of the dukes of Burgundy, some trade in corn, flour, and iron, and iron industries and boatbuilding.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Four of these five entries are historical and still stand: Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" remains one of the most anthologised poems in English, and Asa Gray is still ranked as the botanist who made the strongest American case for Darwin, though his death date is the 30 January 1888 given at the end of his entry, not the stray "He died in 1902" that Collier's typesetting has dropped into it — 1902 is the year Horace Gray died, a fact the jurist's own entry, which stops at his 1881 appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, never reaches. The one live question is Elisha Gray: Collier's records flatly that "in 1876 he claimed the invention of the telephone, but after a notable contest the courts decided in favor of Alexander Graham Bell," and that verdict has never been overturned, but historians have kept arguing over the caveat Gray filed at the Patent Office on the same February day as Bell's application, and over how Bell's liquid transmitter came to resemble Gray's design. His telautograph, presented in 1893 as a marvel, is now a museum curiosity, superseded by the fax and then by digital transmission. Gray in Haute-Saône is still a small town on the river, its 13th-century bridge and Burgundian castle remains intact, but the corn, flour and iron trade the entry describes has largely gone.
Written for this edition, 2026.