CLAFLIN

claflin, horace brigham (1811-1885), american merchant, was born in milford, massachusetts, on the 18th of december 1811. he was educated at milford academy, became a clerk in his father's store in milford, and in 1831, with his brother aaron and his brother-in-law samuel daniels, succeeded to his father's business. in 1832 the firm opened a branch store in worcester, mass., and in 1833 horace b. claflin and daniels secured the sole control of this establishment and restricted their dealing to dry goods. in 1843 claflin removed to new york city and became a member of the firm of bulkley & claflin, wholesale dry goods merchants. in 1851 and in 1864 the firm was reorganized, being designated in these respective years as claflin, mellin & company and h.b. claflin & company. under claflin's management the business increased so rapidly that the sales for a time after 1865 probably exceeded those of any other mercantile house in the world. though the firm was temporarily embarrassed at the beginning of the civil war, on account of its large business interests in the south, and during the financial panic of 1873, the promptness with which mr claflin met these crises and paid every dollar of his liabilities greatly increased his reputation for business ability and integrity. he died at fordham, new york, on the 14th of november 1885. clairault (or clairaut), alexis claude (1713-1765), french mathematician, was born on the 13th or 7th of may 1713, at paris, where his father was a teacher of mathematics. under his father's tuition he made such rapid progress in mathematical studies that in his thirteenth year he read before the french academy an account of the properties of four curves which he had then discovered. when only sixteen he finished a treatise, _recherches sur les courbes a double courbure_, which, on its publication in 1731, procured his admission into the academy of sciences, although even then he was below the legal age. in 1736, together with pierre louis maupertuis, he took part in the expedition to lapland, which was undertaken for the purpose of estimating a degree of the meridian, and on his return he published his treatise _theorie de la figure de la terre_ (1743). in this work he promulgated the theorem, known as "clairault's theorem," which connects the gravity at points on the surface of a rotating ellipsoid with the compression and the centrifugal force at the equator (see earth, figure of the). he obtained an ingenious approximate solution of the problem of the three bodies; in 1750 he gained the prize of the st petersburg academy for his essay _theorie de la lune_; and in 1759 he calculated the perihelion of halley's comet. he also detected singular solutions in differential equations of the first order, and of the second and higher degrees. clairault died at paris, on the 17th of may 1765.