DAVIS C.H.

DAVIS C.H. 16.01. 1807 Boston MA/USA 18.02. 1877 Washington DC/USA Charles Henry Davis was commissioned as midshipman in 1823. He served on a frigate until 1828 in the Pacific, and was promoted to lieutenant in 1834. From 1846 to 1849, he worked for the US Coast Survey, discovering a previously unknown shoal that had caused shipwrecks off the coast from New York. He was also responsible for researching tides and currents and acted as inspector for various shipyards. From 1849 to 1855 he was the first superintendent of the American Nautical Almanac Office. Davis was promoted in 1854 to commander and given the command of the St. Mary’s. In 1859, while commanding it, he was ordered to go to Baker Island in the North Pacific to obtain samples of guano, which was used as fertilizer, becoming possibly the first American to set foot there since it was annexed by the USA in 1857. It was previously thought that this island is inaccessible. During the Civil War, Davis was appointed to the Blockade Strategy Board in 1861, and shortly later promoted to captain. He was made acting Flag Officer in command of the Western Gunboat Flotilla. It fought a short battle with Confederate ships on the Mississippi River at Plum Point Bend TN in 1862. Two of the Union ships were badly damaged and had to run into shoal water to keep from sinking. The Confederate vessels escaped with only minor damage. In summer 1862 with another flotilla in the attack on Vicksburg MS, they were forced to withdraw. Davis then proceeded up the Yazoo River and successfully seized Confederate supplies and munitions. After this excursion he was made chief of the Bureau of Navigation, returning to Washington DC. From 1865 to 1867 he was the superintendent of the US Naval Observatory, from when he was given the command of the South Atlantic Squadron with Guerriere as his flagship. In 1869 he returned home and served both on the Lighthouse Board as well as in the Naval Observatory. His son, Commander Charles H. Davis, Jr., served as Chief Intelligence Officer of the Office of Naval Intelligence from 1889 to 1892. Several ships of the US Navy were named in the father’s honor, namely the torpedo boat USS Davis (TB-12), and the destroyers USS Davis (DD-65 and DD-395). Davis, finally a Rear Admiral, advanced therefore the US Coast Survey and was a notable American hydrographer. Anonymous (1877). C.H. Davis. Proc. American Academy of Arts and Sciences 12: 313-320. Davis, Jr., C.H. (1902). Biographical memoir of Charles Henry Davis. National Academy of Sciences 4: 23-55. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Henry_Davis P

DAWSON 03.09. 1889 Truro NS/CA 23.03. 1963 Iowa City IA/USA Francis Murray Dawson graduated in 1913 as a civil engineer from Cornell University. He began as a construction engineer in 1906, becoming from 1910 to 1912 an instructor in civil engineering and dock construction at Halifax. Dawson was from 1921 to 1922 assistant professor of hydraulics at Cornell University, then until 1924 associate hydraulics professor at University of Kansas, and there full professor until 1928. Until 1936 he was a professor of hydraulics and sanitary engineering at University of Wisconsin, Madison WI, and finally the Dean of the College of Engineering, University of Iowa IA until retirement. In parallel, Dawson was also a consultant on engineering projects. He was a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers ASCE, and of the American Society for Engineering Education ASEE, which he presided in 1951. Dawson authored in collaboration with Ernest William Schoder (1879-1968) the basic text Hydraulics. Its chapters are: 1. Hydrostatics, 2. Total liquid pressure, 3. Stability of gravity dams, 4. Air and gases, 5. Buoyancy and flotation, 6. Logarithmic plotting, 7. Flow of liquids through orifices, 8. Converging and diverging flows, Bernoulli’s theorem, 9. Flow of water over weirs, 10. Exponential laws of variation, 11. Steady uniform flow of water in pipes and open channels, 12. Flow of water in pipes, 13. Exact formulas of flow of water in pipes, 14. Equivalent, compound, looping and branching pipes, 15. Uniform flow of water in open channels, 16. Viscous flow of oil and water, 17. Nozzletype water turbines, 18. Water turbines, and 19. Centrifugal pumps. This book is of ‘old style’ both in terms of topics as also in presenting the material. Limited recourse to laboratory observations is for instance made, despite the authors’ activities in this field. Anonymous (1951). Dawson, Francis Murray. Who’s who in America 28: 652. Marquis: Chicago. Anonymous (1964). Francis M. Dawson. Trans. ASCE 129: 936-937. Dawson, F.M., Kalinske, A.A. (1937). Report on Hydraulics and pneumatics of plumbing drainage systems. University of Iowa: Iowa City. Dawson, F.M., Kalinske, A.A. (1937). Cross-connections and back-siphonage research. Tech. Bulletin 1. Natl. Association of Plumbing, Housing, Heating: Washington DC. Dawson, F.M., Kalinske, A.A. (1939). Methods of calculating water-hammer pressures. Journal of the American Water Works Association 31(11): 1835-1864. Schoder, E.W., Dawson, F.M. (1927). Hydraulics. McGraw-Hill: New York. https://www.telusplanet.net/public/jrbaines/v91.html P