Santos Dumont, who has attained world wide publicity in connection with his daring and novel experiments in ærostatics, is still a young man. He was born in Brazil in 1873 and is of French ancestry, although his father was also a Brazilian by birth. The Santos Dumont plantations at San Paulo are said to be the largest in the country in question, so large indeed that a small railroad runs around it, which is used for the transportation of labor and products. At an early age Santos Dumont developed a taste for mechanics and the railroad was his constant study and delight. When still a boy he was sent to France to be educated, and in that country, some thirteen years since, began to experiment with automobiles, abandoning them, however, in 1893, for ærostatics. His first ascents were made in spherical balloons, but he quickly adopted those of cylindrical form. He has practically invented the dirigible balloon of to-day through the medium of his ingenious arrangement of screws, rudders, motors, cars, shifting weights, etc. He was the first to give up the net and attach his car to the balloon itself. On July 12, 1901, he sailed from St. Cloud to the Eiffel Tower and around in Paris. He has made over half a dozen machines and is engaged on others. During his experiments he has had more than one narrow escape from death, but these have had little or no effect upon his nerve or his enthusiasm. PETER COOPER HEWITT. Peter C. Hewitt—who is much in the eye of the scientific world by reason of his invention of an electric “convertor” and his discovery of a wonderful method of electric lighting—is the grandson of the late Peter Cooper, the philanthropist. Mr. Hewitt was born in New York city in 1861, his father being Abram Stevens Hewitt, who held the office of mayor of the metropolis from 1887 to 1889. After being educated by private tutors, he entered the Columbia university, New York city, and on graduating therefrom studied for some years in a technical school in New Jersey. Afterward he became connected with the glue factory established by his grandfather and owned by his father. But that bent toward scientific investigations which seems to have been born in him, prompted him to devote himself to experimental work in the laboratory. A portion of the result of such work has already been alluded to. There are not wanting indications that the electric light devised by Mr. Hewitt will, to a very great extent, take the place of that now furnished by the arc or incandescent filament. It is described as “soft sunlight.” Mr. Hewitt is married, his wife being Lucy, daughter of the late Frank Work. He is popular socially, and his private charities prove that he has inherited his grandfather’s great-heartedness to no small degree. JOHN P. HOLLAND.