TUCK, Joseph Henry, inventor, born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, 12 March, 1812. He is a grandson of John Tuck, who was a chaplain in the Revolutionary army. Joseph was graduated at the Boston high-school, and afterward apprenticed to a watchmaker, He was subsequently employed in a candle-factory, where he brought to perfection his first invention, the endless wick. He went to England in 1837, began business as an engineer in London, and for twenty-five years was constantly engaged in the invention and introduction of improved machinery. He took out fifty-five patents in different countries. Among his inventions are a candle-machine, wrought-iron and bitumen gas and water-pipes, a ventilating-machine, a dredging-machine, a rotary engine, a new system of breakwaters for harbors, and his steam-engine packing, the most profitable of his inventions. In spite of great opposition on the part of English engineers, he organized a company to lay the first submarine electric cable, between Dover and Calais, in 1848-'9. He derived no pecuniary advantage from this great enterprise, as he was defrauded of the profits by those whom he had aided in its promotion. He furnished plans for the excavation of the Suez canal, which were accepted by the contractors ; but ill health forced him to abandon his connection with this enterprise, and he returned to the United States in 1865. His constitution had been so much injured by his long-continued and severe labors in Europe that he was forced to live in retirement for several years, but he engaged in real-estate operations in Brooklyn in 1869.