mal opening
of the Assuan dam, for which he was consulting-engineer, he was created
K.C.B. Sir Benjamin Baker, who also had a large share in the introduction
of the system widely adopted in London of constructing intra-urban railways
in deep tubular tunnels built up of cast iron segments, obtained an
extremely large professional practice, ranging over almost every branch of
civil engineering, and was more or less directly concerned with most of the
great engineering achievements of his day. He was also the author of many
papers on engineering subjects. He died at Pangbourne, Berks, on the 19th
of May 1907.

BAKER, HENRY (1698-1774), English naturalist, was born in London on the 8th
of May 1698. After serving an apprenticeship with a bookseller, he devised
a system of instructing the deaf and dumb, by the practice of which he made
a considerable fortune. It brought him to the notice of Daniel Defoe, whose
youngest daughter Sophia he married in 1729. A year before, under the name
of Henry Stonecastle, he was associated with Defoe in starting the
_Universal Spectator and Weekly Journal_. In 1740 he was elected fellow of
the Society of Antiquaries and of the Royal Society. He contributed many
memoirs to the _Transactions_ of the latter society, and in 1744 received
the Copley gold medal for microscopical observations on the crystallization
of saline particles. He was one of the founders of the Society of Arts in
1754, and for some time acted as its secretary. He died in London on the
25th of November 1774. Among his publications were _The Microscope made
Easy_ (1743), _Employment for the Microscope_ (1753), and several volumes
of verse, original and translated, including _The Universe, a Poem intended
to restrain the Pride of Man_ (1727). His name is perpetuated by the
Bakerian lecture of the Royal Society, for the foundation of which he left
by will the sum of L100.

BAKER, SIR RICHARD (1568-1644/5), author of the _Chronicle of the Kings of
England_ and other works, was probably born at Sissinghurst in Kent, and
entered Hart Hall, Oxford, as a commoner in 1584. He left the university
without taking a degree, studied law in London and afterwards travelled in
Europe. In 1593 he was chosen member of parliament for Arundel, in 1594 his
university conferred upon him the degree of M.A., and in 1597 he was
elected to parliament as the representative of East Grinstead. In 1603 he
was knighted by King James I., in 1620 he acted as