HOMAN N, JOHN BAPTIST, an eminent German geo grapher and mechanic, and a very excellent engraver of maps, was born at Kamlach, a village of Suabia, on the 20th of March, 1663. His parents, who were Catholics, intended that he should embrace the monastic life ; but having repaired at an early age to Nuremberg, he be came a convert to the tenets of Lutheranism, and devoted himself to the art of engraving, particularly that of maps, which he executed with a degree of correctness and ele gance then very uncommon. His first performances of this kind gained him so great a reputation, that he was summoned to Leipsic, where he was employed in engrav ing the maps to Cellarius' Orbis ?ntiquas. On his return to Nuremberg, he undertook to execute the maps to Scherer's Atlas Novus, which was published at Augsburg in 1710. In the year 1702, he established at Nuremberg a manufactory of maps, from which there issued, succes sively, specimens to the number of two hundred. In 1719, he published an Atlas methodicus, for young persons, in eighteen sheets. Under the direction, and with the as sistance of another able geographer, Doppelmayer, he also undertook the execution of an astronomical atlas, which appeared, after his death, along with Doppelmayer's Elements of Astronomy, in 1742. Besides maps, he like wise constructed small armillary spheres and pocket globes, and a very curious and ingeniously contrived geo graphical shue-piece.
The scientific and mechanical talents of Homann were deservedly held in high estimation ; and his merit was not suffered to languish unrewarded. He was patronised by the Emperor Charles VI. who appointed him his Majesty's geographer ; and also by Peter the Great, of Russia. The Royal Society of Berlin admitted him a member of their institution. He died in the year 1724. The manufactory of maps which he established at Nuremberg subsists to this day, and is still conducted under the auspices of his name.
Homann is chiefly known as an excellent engraver of maps; but lie likewise possessed a great deal of geogra phical and astronomical knowledge ; and, with an active and enterprising spirit, he combined an inventive genius and uncommon mechanical WILLIAM, an eminent chemist, was born at Batavia, in the Island of Java, on the 8th of January 1652. His father was a Saxon, who had entered into the Dutch service, and obtained the command of the arsenal of Batavia. Having left this settlement, and gone to Am sterdam, he scot his son to the principal universities m Germany and Italy, where he successively pursued the studies of law, anatomy, botany, astronomy, and chemistry.
He was admitted to the bar at Magdeburg in 1674 ; but having become acquainted with Otto Guericke of that city, the celebrated inventor of tl:e air-pump, he devoted most of his time to the acquisition of the sciences. He now went to the university of Padua, where lie studied medicine, anatomy, and botany. After visiting Rome and Bologna, where he discovered the method of making the Bologna stone luminous, he went through France to Eng land, and laboured for some time with our celebrated countryman Mr Boyle. Returning to Holland, he resum ed his anatomical studies under De Graaf, and took out his medicJI degree at Wirtemberg. his passion for travel ling, however, prevented him from settling to the practice of medicine. After visiting Baldwin and Kunkel, and ex changing some of his chemical secrets for their methods of preparing phosphorus, he the mines of Saxony, Hungary, Bohemia, and Sweden. lie next returned through Holland to Paris, where he remained for some time ; and when, at the desire of his father, he was about to leave the metropolis, the great Colbert made him such high offers in the name of the King, that he was induced to settle in Palls. He embraced the Catholic religion in 1682, and in the following year he was disinherited by his fattier for having renounced the faith of his ancestors. In 1685 he again went to Rome, where he practised medicine for some years with great success. On the 4th February 1699, he was admitted a member of the Academy of Sciences, and was allowed the constant use of the labora tory of the Academy. The Duke of Orleans, afterwards Regent of France, erected a magnificent laboratory in 1702, and put it under the charge of Homberg. He allow ed him a pension, and in 1704 appointed him his first physician. In 1708, he married Mademoiselle Dodart, the daughter of an eminent medical practitioner ; but be ing naturally of a weak constitution, he lived only a few years, and was carried off by a dysentery, to which he had been liable, on the 24th September 1715. Homberg was not the author of any separate work ; but he published no fewer than 102 memoirs in the volumes of the Academy of Sciences, on various subjects, on chemistry, optics, pneumatics, electricity, anatomy, natural history, and the fine arts. See his Eloge in the Memoirs of the Academy for 1715. Hist. p. 82.