Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Meriam, Ebenezer

MERIAM, Ebenezer, meteorologist, b. in Concord, Mass., 20 June, 1794; d. in Brooklyn, N. Y., 19 March, 1864. He removed in early manhood to Kentucky, where he engaged in the manufacture of saltpetre and other mineral products of the Mammoth cave, and subsequently was a dry-goods merchant in Zanesville, Ohio. About 1838 he settled in New York city, where he acquired wealth in the manufacture of soap and candles. He then devoted himself to meteorological research, and was the originator of the theory of cycles of atmospherical phenomena, upon which he published articles that attracted the attention of scientists at home and abroad. He began in 1841, at his own expense, the publication of “The Municipal Gazette,” a scientific paper, and was a contributor to the scientific columns of most of the New York city journals, and to a statistical almanac (1858), also printing many pamphlets. He spent all his fortune in the cause of science and benevolence.