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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Richard Gatling Biography GATLING, RICHARD JORDAN (1818-1903). An American inventor. He was born in Hertford Co., N. C., and during his boyhood he acquired considerable skill and mechanical acumen working as his father's assistant in the perfection of a machine for sowing cottonseed. His principal invention, and the one by which be became famous, was the revolving machine gun, since known by its inventor's name. In 1886 he invented a new gun metal of steel and aluminium. Congress afterwards voted him $40,000 to experiment on a new method of casting cannon. Among his other inventions may be noted a hemp-breaking machine and a steam plow. Although a graduate of the Ohio Medical College (1850), he never practiced medicine. The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. IX (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 512. |