SWEET, Homer lie Lois, engineer, born in Pompey, Onondaga County, New York, 24 January, 1826. He worked on his father's farm, attended the district schools, and, becoming a civil engineer, built the reservoir of the Syracuse water company at Onondaga hill in 1862-'4, and in 1865 designed and superintended the erection of the large stone bridge in Syracuse. For three years he was employed on "French's Map of New York State," for which he surveyed Onondaga county, and he also made a map of the "great wilderness " in northern New York in 1867. From 1864 till 1873 he was secretary of the New York state sheep breeders' and wool growers' association, and secretary of the Onondaga historical association for more than twenty years. At an early age he contributed songs, poems, and later essays on art, agriculture, and engineering to newspapers under the pen-name of "Parmenus Smartweed." He has also published "Twilight Hours in the Adirondacks" (Syracuse, 1870), and has now (1888} ready for the press "The Philosophy of English Versification."--His brother, John Edson, inventor, born in Pompey, Onondaga County, New York, 21 October, 1832, was educated in a district school, and in 1873-'9 was professor of practical mechanics at Cornell university. He was a founder of the American society of mechanical engineers, of which he was president in 1883-'4. He is believed to be the first to suggest the use of pipe-lines for transporting oil from the oil-wells, and is the inventor of the straight-line high-speed engine, and one of the first to construct a composing-machine to form a matrix for casting stereotype-plates directly without the use of movable type. He is a contributor to the London "Engineering" and "American Machinist."