Chapter I: Front Matter

THE NEW YORK SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

A WEEKLY JOURNAL OF PRACTICAL INFORMATION, ART, SCIENCE, MECHANICS, CHEMISTRY, AND MANUFACTURES.

NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 26, 1846.

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SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

_Published Weekly at_ 128 _Fulton Street_,

(_Sun Building_,) _New York_.

BY MUNN & COMPANY.

RUFUS PORTER, EDITOR.

TERMS.--$2 a year--$1 in advance, and the remainder in 6 months.

[Symbol: right Index] _See Advertisement on last page_.

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CONTENTS.

Nature's Image of Washington 1 The Viol Seraphine* 1 An Eclipse in Arabia 1 Giving Credit 1 The Bowie Knife and its Inventor 1 Forests and Streams 1 Prussian Music 1 Philosophy 1 Polite Preaching 1 Pure Air 2 The Deerfield (N. H.) Phenomena 2 Extraordinary Instance of Gambling 2 Gen. Taylor's Patriotism 2 The Columbian Magazine 2 A Mountain In Labor 2 The Pope's Will 2 Improved Railroad 2 Sageisms 2 As Good as Cash 2 How Very Hot It Is 2 California Farming 2 Diversification of Language 2 "Keep that Testament In your vest pocket, over your heart." 2 Temperance in the Army 2 Modes of Raising Ponderous Articles 3 Information to persons having business to transact at the Patent Office 3 The Regulator(?)* 3 A Remarkable Mineral Spring 3 Cool Forethought 3 It May Be So 3 Howe's Sewing Machine 4 Steering Apparatus 4 Electro-Magnetic Boat 4 Improvement in Boats 4 Casting Iron Cannon by a galvanic Process 4 New Shingle Machine 4 Improvement in Blacksmiths Forges 4 Improved Fire Engine 4 A simple Cheese-Press* 4 Cast Iron Roofing 4 The New and Wonderful Pavement 4 To render Shingles Durable 4 Best Plan of a Barn 4 Robert Fulton 4 Introduction to Volume II 5 Advantage of Low Fares 5 Avalon Railroad Iron 5 The Magnetic Telegraph 5 Advertising In London 5 Deerfield Bridge 5 Information Wanted 5 Railroad Intelligence 5 Arrival of the Cambria 5 The Mexican War 5 Trade to Santa Fe 5 THE SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN--subscriptions 5 The Harbor of Havana* 6 A Very Long Nose 6 Sol. Smith 6 A Profitable Hoax 6 Reforming 6 Wrong Side Up* 6 Importance of Humility 6 The Eureka: or Journal of the National Association of Inventors 7 ADVERTISEMENTS 7 The Ball of the Bears 7 All is not Gold that Glitters 7 Painting In Imitation of Rose-Wood 8 India Rubber 8 Communication on Atmospheric Resistance 8 The Conical Windlass* 8 Requisite Strength of Steam Boilers 8 Bagley's Gold Pens 8 The Humming Bird 8

(Illustrated articles are marked with an asterisk.)

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NATURE'S IMAGE OF WASHINGTON.

BY MARSHALL S. PIKE, OF THE HARMONEONS

DESCRIPTIVE: Opposite Harper's Ferry,--which is situated on a pleasant elevation at the junction of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers--a few rods north of "Pinnacle Bluff," a flighty eminence on the Blue Ridge Mountains, stands a most singular formation of rock, known as 'Washington's Face'; and which, to a casualist void of imaginative powers, is easily recognized if pointed out by a guide; but to a close observer, however, with common discernable perception, it presents _at first sight_ a most striking and correct resemblance of _the great original_. From midway the bridge which crosses the Potomac, the countenance and contour of the face _to me_, appeared discriminatingly perfect, and constrained me to look upon it as _one_ of the most wonderful, and the noblest work of revealed nature.

In the high barren cliffs of the Blue Mountain Ridge,
That frightfully hang o'er the trestle-built bridge,
Juts out into space a huge rocky bluff,
Which the elements rudely left broken and rough.
Near this, stands a bust so exquisitely fair,
That the chisel of art would be uselessness there!
For nature wrought well till the model was done--
An impress on stone of our GREAT WASHINGTON.

The Earth born from chaos at some mighty shock,
Left the image to rest on the high mountain rock,
On a turret-like peak, in the heavens above,
_As a sentinel over the country we love:_
Where the sunbeam could linger till daylight had fled,
Where the bright stars of night, form a crown o'er its head;
And where, through the greenwood, the faintest breeze creeps,
To sigh for the Hero, who deathlessly sleeps.

There it stands like a giant in storm and in calm,
Like the Hero in battle, no foeman could harm!
And commandingly looks with a Patriot's pride,
On the wild mountain stream of Potomac's fast tide,
Whose waters swell on in the valley between,
Through the vast hilly regions and forests of green;
O'er a rock-bottomed track, to the blue-bosomed sea,
From its struggles to rest, like our sire of the free.

Stand up there in might, till the bright sun shall die,
Till the stars glimmer out their light in the sky,
And the moon shall no longer lend beauty or light,
But _all_ shall again be dark chaos and night,--
Till then, let its base be the tall craggy steep,
Where rocks are o'er moss-grown, and ivy-vines creep;
With the Heaven's wide canopy over its head,
_An immortal image of greatness that's dead._

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