fastening to the church-yard, and went in. My sister Mary lay in this church-yard now. I had until this day known only sister Sophie, and in my heart I thanked Miss Axtell for her story. I went in to look at Mary’s grave. A sweet perfume filled the inclosure; it came to me through the branching evergreens; it was from Mary’s grave, covered with the pale pink flowers of the trailing-arbutus. I knew that Abraham Axtell had brought them hither. I gathered one, the least of the precious fragments. I knew that Mary, out of heaven seeing me, would call it no sacrilege, and with it went to my tower.
Spring fingers had gathered up the leaves of snow, winter’s growth, from in among the crevices of stone. I noticed this as I went in. The great stone was over the passage-opening, just where Mr. Axtell had dropped it, lest Aaron should see. Something said to me that my love for the tower was gone, that never more would I care to come to it; and I think the voice was speaking truly, everything did seem so changed. The time moss was only common moss to me, the old rocks might be a part of _any_ mountain now. I had caught up all the romance, all the poetry, which is mystery, of the tower, and henceforth I might leave it to stand guard over the shore of the Sea of Death, white with marble foam. I went up to the very window whence I had taken the brown plaid bit of woman’s wear. I looked out from where I had seen the dying day go down. I heard the sound, from the open door of the parsonage, of Sophie’s voice, humming of contentment; I saw the little lady come and look down the village–street for me; I saw her part those bands of softly purplish hair, with fingers idly waiting the while she stood looking for me. I looked up at the window, down at the floor, down through the winding way of stair, where once I had trembling gone, and, with a farewell softly spoken, I left my churchyard tower with open door and key in the lock. Henceforth it was not mine. I left it with the hope that some other loving soul would take up my devotion, and wait and watch as I had done.
Aaron chanced at dinner-time to let fall his eyes on the door, swinging in the wind. Turning, he looked at me. I, divining the questioning intent of his eyes, answered,–
“It is I, Aaron. I’ve left the key in the door. I resign ownership of the tower.”
The grave minister looked pleased. Sophie said,–
“Oh, I am so glad, you _are_ growing rational, Anna!”–and Anna Percival did not tell these two that she had emptied the tower of all its mystery, and thrown the cup afloat on the future.
Aaron and Sophie were doomed to wonder why I came to Redleaf. Sophie begged my longer stay; Aaron thought, with his direct, practical way of looking at all things, save Sophie, that I “had better not have come at all, if only to stay during the day-journey of the sun.”
The stars were there to see, when I bade good–bye to Chloe at the parsonage, and went forth burdened with many messages for Jeffy. Aaron and Sophie went with me to the place of landing. It was past Miss Axtell’s house. Only one light was visible; that shone from Miss Lettie’s room. Aaron said,–
“I saw Mr. Axtell this morning. He was going across the country, he said.”
No one asked him “Where?” and he said no more.
We were late at the steamboat. I had just time to bid a hasty farewell, and hear a plank-man say, “Better hurry, Miss, if you’re going on,” and in another minute I was at sea.
I had so much to think of, I knew it would be impossible for sleep to come to me; and so I went on deck to watch the twinkling lights of Redleaf and the stars up above, whilst my busy brain should plan a way to keep my promise to Miss Axtell. I could not break up her fancied security; I could not deprive her of the “time to think” before crossing the great bridge, by telling her of the stranger sick in Doctor Percival’s house, and so I let her dream on. It might be many weeks, nay, months, ere Mr. McKey would recover, hence there was no need that she should know; by that time she would be quite strong again.
Once on deck, and well wrapped from the March sea-breeze, blowing its latest breath over the sea, I took a seat near a large party who seemed lovers of the ocean, they sat so quietly and so long.
My face was turned away from all on deck. I heard footsteps going, coming, to and fro, until these steps came into my reverie. I wished to turn and see the owner, but, fearing that the charm would vanish, I kept my eyes steadily seaward. I scarcely know the time, it may have been an hour, that thus I had sat, when once again the footsteps drew near. The owner paused an instant in passing me. I fancied some zephyr of emotion made his footsteps falter a little. Nothing more came. He walked, as before, and once, when I was certain that all the deck lay between my eyes and him who so often had drawn near, I turned to look. I saw only a gentleman far down the boat, wrapped in an ordinary travelling-shawl. Neither form nor walk was, I thought, familiar, and I lost my interest.
I began to dream of other things,–of the going home, and should I find Mr. McKey improved during my absence? The party near me began to talk; it was pleasant to hear soft home words spoken by them,–it gave me, alone as I was, a sense of protection.
When the owner of the footsteps again came near, I scarcely noticed it. I had reason to do so a moment later. Instead of going straight on, as before, the gentleman stopped an instant,–then, with a strong gesture of excitement, stepped quite near to me, and saying hurriedly, as one does in sudden emergencies, “I beg your pardon, Madam,” he bent to look at the railing of the guard, just beside me. It so happened that a boat-light illumined a little space just there, and that within it lay a hand whose glove I had a few moments before removed, to put back some stray hairs the sea-breeze had brought from their proper place. No sooner did I divine his intent than I took my hand from off the railing. The gentleman looked up suddenly; he was quite near then, and no more light than that the stars gave was needful for me. I saw Mr. Axtell, and Mr. Axtell must have seen Miss Percival, for he said,–
“This is a great surprise. I did not hear of your being in Redleaf, Miss Anna.”
“Why should you, when I have only been there one day?”
“Did you see my sister?” he asked.
“I was with her during the morning,” I said.
“And she was as usual?”
“Better, I thought.”
“I trust so, for I have not been home since morning. I received a letter, as I came through the village, from your father, desiring to see me, and I had time only to send a message to Lettie. I hope Doctor Percival is well?”
“Oh, yes,–else I should not be here.”
I had gloved my hand again during these words of recognition. Mr. Axtell noticed it, and asked to see a ring that had attracted his attention.
“Excuse me,” I said,–“it is one of my father’s gifts to me,–I cannot take it off,–it is a simple ring, Mr. Axtell”; and I held it out for him to see.
“I knew it!” he exclaimed; “there could not be two alike; years have not changed its lustre. Mary wore it first on the day we were engaged.”
“Was it your gift to her, Mr. Axtell?”
He answered, “Yes”; and I, drawing it off, handed it to him, saying, “It should have been returned to you long ago.”
“No, no,” he said, quite solemnly, “it is in better keeping”; and he took the tiny circlet of gold, and looked a moment at it, with its shining cluster of brilliants, then gave it back to me.
“Have you no claim upon this?” I asked.
“On the ring? Oh, no,–none.”
I put back with gladness the gift my father gave.
My time had come. The opportunity was most mysteriously given me to redeem the promise made in the morning to Miss Lettie. I began, quite timidly at first, to say that I had a message for Mr. Axtell, one from his sister,–that I was to tell him of events whose occurrence he never knew. He listened quietly, and I went on, commencing at the afternoon of my imprisonment in the tower. I told every word that I had heard from Miss Axtell,–no more. I trembled, it is true, when I came to the death of Alice, and the new life that came to his elder sister. I came at last to Mary. I told it all, the night when he came home, the very words he had spoken to his sister I repeated in his ears, and he was quiet, with a quietness Axtells know, I took out the package and opened it, saying,–
“Your sister bade me give this to you.”
The careful folds were unwrapped, and within a box lay only a silver cup. Mr. Axtell took it into his hands, turned it to the light, and read on it the name of my sister. I said to him,–
“Look on the inside.”
He did. It was the fatal cup from which Mary Percival drank the death-drops. Poisonous crystals lay in its depth. I told him so. I told him how Bernard McKey, driven to despair, had made the fatal mistake.
I thought to have seen the sunlight of joy go up his face. I looked for the glance whose coming his sister so dreaded; but it came not. My story gave no joy to this strange man. He asked a few questions only, tending to illumine points that my statement had left in uncertainty, and then, when my last words were said, he rose up, and, standing before me, very lowly pronounced these words:–
“Until to-night, Abraham Axtell never knew the weight of his guilt. He must work out his punishment.”
“How can you, Mr. Axtell? Heaven hath appointed forgiveness for the repentant.”
“And freedom from punishment, Miss Percival, is that, too, promised?”
“Strength to bear is freely offered in forgiveness.”
“May it come to me! In all God’s earth to-night there dwells not one more needy of Heaven’s mercy.”
“Mary forgives you,” I said.
“Bernard McKey, whom I have made most miserable, Lettie’s life-long suffering, is there any atonement that I can offer to them?”
“Yes, Mr. Axtell”; and I, too, arose, for the party had gone whilst I was telling my story.
“Will you name it?”
“Give unto the two a brother’s love. Good night, Mr. Axtell.”
“I will,” said a deep, solemn voice close beside me. I turned, and Mr. Axtell was gone. I heard footsteps all that night upon deck. They sounded like those that came and stood beside me hours before.
Day was scarcely breaking when we came to land in New York. I waited for the carriage to come from home. Mr. Axtell, was it he who came, with whitened hair, to ask for Miss Percival, to know if he could offer her any service? What a night of agony he must have lived through! He saw my look of astonishment, and said,–
“It is but the beginning of my punishment.”
Ere I had answered Mr. Axtell’s question, my father appeared. He had come for me so early on this March morning,–or was it to meet Mr. Axtell? He said more, in words, to him than to his child. It was several years since my father had met Mr. Axtell, therefore he did not note the change last night had wrought. As I looked at him, during our homeward drive, I repented not having said words of comfort, not telling him that I believed Bernard McKey was at that hour in my father’s house; but I had not exceeded my instructions, by one word I had not gone beyond Miss Lettie’s story. Until Mr. McKey chose to reveal himself, he must exist as a stranger.
Jeffy reported the “hospital man” as “behaving just like other people.” Jeffy evidently regretted, with all the intensity of his Ethiopian nature, the subsiding of the delirium.
Not long after our arrival home, father went, with Mr. Axtell, into his own room, where, with closed doors, the two remained through half the morning. What could my father have to say to the “incomprehensible man,” his daughter Anna asked herself; but no answer breathed through mahogany, as several times she passed near. All was silent in there to other ears than those inside.
At last I heard the door open, and footsteps along the hall. “Surely,” I thought, “they are going the way to Mr. McKey’s room.” I was right. They went in. What transpired in there I may never know, but this much was revealed to me: there came thence two faces whereon was written the loveliness of the mercy extended to erring man. My father looked, like all who feel intensely, older than he did in the morning, and yet withal happier. Mr. Axtell went away without seeing me. Father made apology for him by saying that it was important that he should return home immediately, and asked “could I make ready to receive some visitors the following day?”
“Who, papa?” I asked.
“Mr. Axtell and his sister.”
Mr. McKey was able that evening to cross the room, and sit beside the fire. I went in to inquire concerning his comfort. Papa was away. Mr. Axtell must have told him something of me, for I had not been long there, when he, turning his large, luminous eyes from the coals, into which he had been peering, said,–
“Do you know the sweetness of reconciliation, young lady? If not, get angry with some one immediately.”
“I never had an enemy in my life, Mr. McKey,” I replied.
He started a little at the name, and only a little, and he questioned,–
“Where did you learn the name you give to me?”
“From Miss Axtell, yesterday.”
Question and answer succeeded, until I had told him half the story that I knew. I might have said more, but father’s coming in interrupted me.
“I expect our visitors by the day-boat,” papa said to me the day following. The carriage went for them. I watched its coming from afar down the street. I knew the expression of honest Yest’s hat out of all the street-throng. The carriage came laden. I saw faces other than the Axtells’, even Aaron’s and Sophie’s.
What glad visitors they were, Aaron and Sophie! and what a surprise to them to see Miss Axtell there! I took off her wrappings, drew an easy-chair, made her sit in it, and she actually looked quite comfortable, outside of the solemn old house. “She had endured the journey well,” she said. Abraham was so anxious that she should come that she would not refuse his request. “Abraham has forgiven me,” she whispered, as I bent over her to adjust some stray folds,–“forgiven me for all my years of silent deceit.”
I shook my head a little at the word; speak I could not, for the minister’s wife was not deaf.
Aaron called her away a moment later.
“It was deceit, Miss Percival,” Miss Axtell said, so soon as she found our two selves alone. “I could not well avoid it; if I were tried again, I might repeat the sin; but, thank Heaven, two such trials never come into a single life. I sometimes wish Bernard were not at sea, that he were here to know my release and his forgiveness; it will be so sweet to feel that no longer I have the sin to bear of concealing his wrong.”
I knew from this that Miss Axtell did not know of Mr. McKey’s presence in the house; but she ought to know. What if a sound from his voice should chance to come down the passage-way, as I often had heard it? I watched the doors painfully, to see that not one was left open a hair’s-breadth, until the time Miss Axtell went up to her own room. Talking rapidly, giving her no time to speak, I went on with her. Safely ignorant, I had her at last where ears of mortals could not intrude. Then I said,–
“We all of us are become wonderful story-tellers. Now it comes to pass that I have a little story to tell; my time is come at last”; and, watching every muscle of her face, and all the little veins of feeling that I had learned so well, I began.
Carefully I let in the light, until, without a shock, Miss Axtell learned that the room below contained Bernard McKey.
“They did not understand me,” she said, “or they would not have brought me here thus.”
After a long, long lull, Miss Axtell thanked me for telling her alone, where no one else could see how the knowledge played around her heart. Dear Miss Axtell, sitting there, in my father’s house, only last March, with a holy joy stealing up, in spite of her endeavor to hide it from my eyes even, and suffusing her white face with warm, rosy tints, dear Miss Axtell, I hoped your day-dawn drawing near.
Miss Axtell said “she hated to have other people see her feel”; she asked “would I manage it for her, that no one should be nigh when she met Mr. McKey?”
It was that very evening that papa, calling Sophie and me into his room, told us a little of the former history of the people in his house.
“I want you to help me, children,” he said; “ladies manage such things better than we men know how to.”
I said, close to papa’s astonished hearing, “I know all about it; just let me take care of this mission”; and he appointed me diplomate on the occasion.
Sophie was strangely disconcerted; she had such fearsome awe of the Axtells, “she couldn’t think of interfering,” she said, “unless to make gruel or some condiment.”
I coaxed Miss Lettie to have her tea in her own room: she certainly did not look like going down. Under pretext of having the care of her, I seated sister Sophie at my station, and thus I had the house, outside of the tea-room, under my control.
“Come down now; don’t lose time,” I said to Miss Axtell, running up to her, half breathless from my haste.
“What for? What is it?” she said.
“Papa is anticipating some grand effort in the managerial line from me, regarding two people in his house, and I don’t choose to manage at all. Mr. McKey is waiting to see you. I knocked to see, as I came up, and all the family are at tea.”
I went down with her. There was no trembling, only a stately calm in her manner, as she drew near.
I knocked. Mr. McKey answered, “Come in,” in his low, musical, variant tones. I turned the knob; the door opened. A moment later, I stood alone within the hall. I walked up and down, a true sentinel on true duty, that no enemy might draw near to hear the treaty of true peace which I knew was being written out by the Recording Angel for these two souls. They must have had a pleasant family-talk in the tea-room, they stayed so long.
At last I heard footsteps coming. I told Miss Lettie, thinking that she would leave; but no, she said “she would stay awhile”; and so, later on, the two were sitting there in quietness of joy, when my father came up to see his patient. Mr. Axtell was with him. They went in; indifferent words were spoken,–until, was it Abraham Axtell that I saw as I kept up my walking in the hall? What mysterious change had come to transfigure his face so that I scarcely believed the evidence of my own eyes? He came to the door and said, “Will you come in, Miss Percival?” I obeyed his request. He closed the door, and turned the key.
“In the presence of those against whom he had sinned he would confess his fault,” were his first words; and he went on, he of whom _they_ had asked a pardon, and drew a fiery picture of all that he had done, of the murder that he had doubly committed, for he had made another soul to bear his sin.
It was terrible to hear him accuse himself. It was touching to see this proud Axtell begging forgiveness. He offered the fatal cup to my father,–
“Therein lies the evidence of my murder. It was I who killed your daughter, Doctor Percival. Although no court on earth condemns me, the Judge of all the Earth holds me responsible for her death.”
Doctor Percival tried to reason with him, said words of comfort, but he heeded them not: they might as well have fallen on the vacant air.
“Blessings be upon you two! if, out of suffering, God will send joy, it will be yours,” Mr. Axtell said; and he offered his hand to Mr. McKey and his sister, as one does when taking farewell.
He went from them to my father, and offered his hand doubtingly, as if afraid it might be refused.
Papa took it in both his own. An instant later Mr. Axtell came to me. Surely he had no forgiveness to ask of Anna Percival. No; he only said, and I am certain that no one heard, save me, “I thank God that He has not let me shadow _your_ life. Farewell!”
He left the room. We all looked, one at another, in that dim astonishment which is never expressed in words. Papa broke the spell by putting on fresh coals.
Miss Lettie said, “Poor Abraham!” and yet she looked so happy, so as I had never seen her yet!
A few moments later Jeffy came rushing in, his eyes dilate with amazement.
“The gentleman is gone,” he said, “gone entirely.”
It was even so. Mr. Axtell had gone, no one knew whither. It was late at night, when a letter came for Doctor Percival by a special messenger.
I never saw it. I only know that in it Mr. Axtell explained his intention of absence, and wrote, for his sister’s sake, to make arrangements for her future. She was to return to Redleaf, at such time as she chose to go hence, with Mr. McKey; and to Aaron’s and Sophie’s care Mr. Axtell committed her.
Papa gave the letter to Miss Lettie. She read it in silence, and her face was immovable. I could divine nothing from it.
Last March! how long the time seems! Scarce six months have gone since I gave the record, and now the summer is dying.
I thought Miss Axtell would have ventured out on the bridge, far and high, ere now; but no, she says “the time is not yet,–that she will wait until Abraham comes home”; and Bernard McKey is content.
The solemn old house is closed. No longer Katie opens the door and Kino looks around the corner. Kino died, perhaps of grief: such deaths have been.
Miss Axtell has put off the old Dead-Sea-wave face. She has just put a calm, beautiful, happy one in at my door, to ask Anna Percival “why she sits and writes, when the last days of summer are drawing nigh?” Miss Axtell stays with me, and a great contentment sings to those who have ears to hear through all her life. If only Mr. Axtell would come home! Why does he stay away so long, and take such a dreary line of travel, where old earth is seamed _in memoriam_ of man’s rebellion? I’ll send to him the althea-bud, when next his sister writes.
The leaves are fallen now. Winter is almost come. There is no need that I should send out the althea-fragment. Mr. Axtell wrote to me. Last night I received these words only,–and yet what need I more?
“God hath given me peace. I am coming home.”
THE LEGEND OF RABBI BEN LEVI.
Rabbi Ben Levi, on the Sabbath, read A volume of the Law, in which it said,
“No man shall look upon my face and live.” And as he read, he prayed that God would give His faithful servant grace with mortal eye To look upon His face and yet not die.
Then fell a sudden shadow on the page, And lifting up his eyes, grown dim with age, He saw the Angel of Death before him stand, Holding a naked sword in his right hand. Rabbi Ben Levi was a righteous man,
Yet through his veins a chill of terror ran, With trembling voice he said, “What wilt thou here?” The Angel answered, “Lo! the time draws near When thou must die; yet first, by God’s decree, Whate’er thou askest shall be granted thee.” Replied the Rabbi, “Let these living eyes First look upon my place in Paradise.”
Then said the Angel, “Come with me and look.” Rabbi Ben Levi closed the sacred book,
And rising, and uplifting his gray head, “Give me thy sword,” he to the Angel said, “Lest thou shouldst fall upon me by the way.” The Angel smiled and hastened to obey,
Then led him forth to the Celestial Town, And set him on the wall, whence gazing down, Rabbi Ben Levi, with his living eyes,
Might look upon his place in Paradise.
Then straight into the city of the Lord The Rabbi leaped with the Death Angel’s sword, And through the streets there swept a sudden breath Of something there unknown, which men call death. Meanwhile the Angel stayed without, and cried, “Come back!” To which the Rabbi’s voice replied, “No! in the name of God, whom I adore,
I swear that hence I will depart no more!”
Then all the Angels cried, “O Holy One, See what the son of Levi here has done! The kingdom of Heaven he takes by violence, And in Thy name refuses to go hence!”
The Lord replied, “My Angels, be not wroth; Did e’er the son of Levi break his oath? Let him remain; for he with mortal eye
Shall look upon my face and yet not die.”
Beyond the outer wall the Angel of Death Heard the great voice, and said, with panting breath, “Give back the sword, and let me go my way.” Whereat the Rabbi paused and answered, “Nay! Anguish enough already has it caused
Among the sons of men!” And while he paused, He heard the awful mandate of the Lord
Resounding through the air, “Give back the sword!”
The Rabbi bowed his head in silent prayer; Then said he to the dreadful Angel, “Swear, No human eye shall look on it again;
But when thou takest away the souls of men, Thyself unseen and with an unseen sword Thou wilt perform the bidding of the Lord.”
The Angel took the sword again, and swore, And walks on earth unseen forevermore.
* * * * *
MY FRIEND THE WATCH.
For two years I have had a most faithful, intimate, and useful friend, whom I have constantly worn next my heart. I do not know him for a Spiritualist, but by some mysterious sympathy he hears the incessant, ghostly foot-falls of Time, and repeats them accurately to my ear. While I wake he tells me how Time is passing. While I sleep he is still marking his steps, so that sometimes I have a feeling of awe, as if my mysterious friend were counting my own life away. Then again I am sure that in the faint, persistent monotone of his voice I hear the singing of the old mower’s inevitable scythe. The Imagination contemplates this friend of mine with wonder. But Science sees him holding the hand of a captain in his ship at sea, or of a conductor in a train on shore, and honors in him the friend of civilization.
His native place is Waltham, in Massachusetts, and he invited me but a few days since to accompany him in a little visit thither. I cheerfully assented, and we took the cars in Boston, at the Worcester Depot, and after passing a range of unsavory back-yards and ill-favored houses, and winding beneath streets and by the side of kennels, we emerged upon the broad meadows and marshes from which rise in the distance the Roxbury and Brookline hills. The whole region is covered with bright, wooden houses. The villages have a pert, thrifty, contented air, which no suburbs in the world surpass. If the houses are very white and a village looks like a camp, it is because the instinct of the inhabitants assures them that they may strike their tents to-morrow and move Westward or elsewhere to a greater prosperity. In older countries the stained and ancient stone houses are symbols of the inflexible state of society to which they belong. The dwellers are anchored to that condition. There is no “Westward ho” for them. Like father, like son. The hod-carrier’s son carries hods. Even the headsman’s office is hereditary.
“Yes, yes,” hummed my friend, in his patient, persistent monotone, “the American citizen is an aerial plant. He has no roots. There is no wrenching, when he changes place. If there were, how could he overrun the continent in time? He must carry lighter weight than Caesar’s soldiers. What has he to do with old houses? His very inventions would make his house intolerable to him in twenty or thirty years.”
“But we are going at this very moment to see your ancestral halls, are we not?” I modestly inquired.
“Yes,” he replied; “but they are not ten years old, and every year changes them.”
By this time we were gliding through the gardens of Brookline and Brighton, which have been afflicted of late years with the Mansard epidemic. It has swept the whole region. Scarcely a house has escaped. Even the newest are touched,–sometimes only upon the extremities or outbuildings, but more frequently they are covered all over with the Mansard.
“That affection of the house-top,” whispered I to my friend, “was originally derived from the dome of the Invalides, and has raged now for a century and a half.”
“Yes,” replied my companion, gravely, “we are not very fastidious in our importations.”
He went on murmuring to himself as usual. Then he resumed more audibly,–
“I suppose that most people, upon looking at me, would take me for a foreigner. But you know how peculiarly native American I am. I am indeed only a watch, and,” added my modest friend, glancing at the gold chain which hung from my waistcoat button-hole to the pocket, “if you will pardon my melancholy joke, I am for putting Americans only upon guard.”
This military expression suddenly sent my thoughts elsewhere; and for some time the rattling of the cars sounded in my ears like another rattling, and the gentle Charles River was to my eyes the historic Rapidan or Rappahannock.
“Don’t you think,” unobtrusively ticked my watch, “that the exhortation to encourage home-industry has a peculiar force just now? I mean nothing personal; and I hope you will not think me too forward or fast.”
“I have never had reason to think so,” I answered; “and I am so used to look upon your candid face to know exactly what the hour is, that I shall be very much obliged, if you will tell me the time of day in this matter also; unless, indeed, you should find the jar of the cars too much for you, and prefer to stop before you talk.”
“If I stopped, I certainly could not talk,” my watch answered; “and did you ever know me to stop on account of any jar?”
I hastened to exculpate myself from any intention of unkind insinuation, and my watch ticked steadily on.
“If your mill turns only by a stream that flows to you through your neighbor’s grounds, your neighbor has your flour at his mercy. You can grind your grist when he chooses, not when you will.”
I nodded. My watch ticked on,–
“When you live on a marsh where the tide may suddenly rise house-high without warning, if you are a wise man, you will keep a boat always moored at the door.”
“I certainly will,” responded I, with energy.
“Very well. Every nation lives on that marsh which is called War. While war is possible,–that is to say, in any year this side of the Millennium,–there is but one sure means of safety, and that is actual independence. At this moment England is the most striking illustration of this truth. She is the most instructive warning to us, because she is the least independent and the most hated nation in the world. England and France and the United States are the three great maritime powers. We all know how much love is lost just now between England and ourselves. How is it with her ancient enemy across the Channel? The answer is contained in the reported remark of Louis Napoleon: ‘Why do the English try to provoke a war with me? They know, if I should declare war against England, that there is not an old woman in France who would not sell her last shift to furnish me with means to carry it on.’ Great Britain is at this moment under the most enormous bonds to keep the peace. They are the bonds of vital dependence upon the rest of the world.–Shall I stop?” asked my watch.
“No, no; lose no time; go regularly on,” answered I.
“Very well; while England sneers and rages at us, let us be warned by her. She lives by her looms; but her looms and her laborers are fed from abroad. Therefore she lies at the mercy of her enemies, and she takes care never to make friends. She snarls and shows her teeth at us. She sees us desperately fighting, and yet she can neither spring nor bite. It is the moment most favorable for her to strike, but she cannot improve it. She hopes and prays for the ruin of our government, seeing, that, if it falls from internal disease, and not from a foreign blow, her most threatening political and commercial rival is overthrown. And she does not shrink from those hopes and prayers, although she knows that the result she so ardently desires will be the establishment by military power of a huge slave-empire, a counter-civilization to that of Christianity. Fear of her life makes England false and timid. Her dependence upon other nations has compelled her to abdicate her position as the head of Saxon civilization, which is the gradual enlarging of liberty as the only permanent security of universal international prosperity and peace. Indeed, it is not denied that the tone of British opinion in regard to human slavery is radically changed. That change is the measure of the timidity and sophistication, the moral deterioration inevitably produced in any people by the consciousness of its dependence for the means of labor and life upon other nations. The crack of the plantation-whip scares Washington no longer, but it pierces the heart of Westminster with terror.
“See how utterly mean and mortifying is her attitude toward us. John Bull looks across the highway of the world into his neighbor’s house. ‘D’ ye see,’ he mutters, ‘that man chastising his son in his house yonder? Let’s play that they are not related, and ask him what he means by assaulting an innocent passenger.’ Then he turns to the rest of the people in the street, who know exactly how virtuous and mild John Bull is in his own family-relations, who have watched his tender forbearance with his eldest son Erin, and his long-suffering suavity with his youngest son India, and says to them,–‘To a moral citizen of the world it is very shocking to see such an insolent attack upon a peaceable person. That man is an intolerable bully. If he were smaller, I’d step over and kick him.’–Do you feel drowsy?” asked my watch.
“I was never more awake,” I answered; “but you seem to me,–although, when I look at you and think of Waltham, it is the most natural thing in the world,–yet you do seem hard upon Old England, Mother England, spite of all.”
“Ah!” ticked my American watch, “not even I would for a moment seem to be unjust to all that is manly and noble and friendly in England and among Englishmen. There are two nations there, as Disraeli had already said in one sense, when Gasparin said it in another. There is the sound old stock from which flowers the finest modern civilization. From that come the sweetness, the candor, the perception and sympathy of men like Mill and Cairnes and Bright. From that springs all the nobler thought of England. It is to that thought, to that spirit of lofty humanity and pure justice, that Garibaldi appeals in his address to the English people from his prison,–an appeal which seems utterly ludicrous, if you think of it as addressed to the historic John Bull, but which is perfectly intelligible and appropriate, if you remember that Sir Philip Sidney was an Englishman as well as George IV., and that John Stuart Mill is no less English than Lord Palmerston or Russell. It is with that spirit that American civilization is truly harmonious. But there is the other, merely trading, short-sighted, selfish spirit, which is typified by the coarse John Bull of the pictures, and which has touched almost to a frenzy of despair Carlyle in the “Latter-Day Pamphlets” and Tennyson in “Maud.” That is the dominant England of the hour. That is the England which lives at the mercy of rivals. And that is the England which, consequently, with feverish haste, proclaims equal belligerence between the leaders of an insurrection for the extension and fortification of slavery and the nation which defends its existence against them. That is the England whose prime-minister alleges that a friendly power has authorized an insult, while at the very moment in which he speaks he carries in his pocket the express disclaimer of that power. That is the England which incessantly taunts and reviles and belies a kindred people, whose sole fault is that they were too slow to believe their brothers parricides, and who were credulous enough to suppose that England loved not only the profit, but the principle, of Liberty under Law.”
“It is very sad; but it certainly seems so,” said I.
“Seems, my dear friend? nay, it is,” ticked my watch, persistently. “It is the inevitable penalty of national deterioration which any people must pay that in its haste to be rich forgets to secure its actual independence. Thus Richard Cobden, the most sagacious of English statesmen, is the most unflinching apostle of peace, because he knows that England has put it out of her power to go to war. I saw you reading his late argument against a blockade. Did you reflect that it was really an argument against war? ‘How absurd,’ he cries, ‘that a commercial nation, which lives by imports and exports, paying for the one by the other, should, by shutting up ports in which it wishes to buy and sell, cut its own hands and feet off, and so bleed to death!’ ‘In a commercial nation,’ says the orator, ‘the system of blockade is mere suicide.’
“But a blockade may be clearly as effective a means of warfare as a cannonade. If you can cut off your enemy from all that he gives and all that he gets from without, you have taken the first great step in war. Unless he can supply himself, he must presently surrender or perish. For war is brute force. It is a process of terrible compulsion. ‘Do this,’ says War, ‘or you shall burn, and starve, and hunger, and be shot, and die.’
“The point to be settled between the two combatants is, which can stand starving and shooting longest. If one of them depends for his food upon the sale to others of what he makes, and depends for what he makes upon what he can get from others, it is easy enough to see, that, if the other is self-supporting, his victory is sure, if he have only the means to cut off supplies. England is at the mercy of a skilful and effective blockade. No wonder her shrewdest statesman implores her to see it.
“‘My dear John Bull,’ says Cobden, ‘an honorable member of your Parliament, a miller and grain-merchant, estimates that the food imported into England between September of last year and June of this year was equal to the sustenance of between three and four millions of people for a twelve-month; and his remark to me was, that, if that food had not been brought from America, all the money in Lombard Street could not have purchased it elsewhere, because elsewhere it did not exist.’
“That is the position of a nation with the hand of another upon its throat.–Do I tire you?” ticked my watch.
“Not at all. I am listening intently, and trying to see what you are coming to,” I answered.
“We are coming, and very rapidly, to West Newton and the Waltham Watch-Factory,” ticked my companion.
“I hope so. It was where I understood you to invite me to go,” said I.
“Courage, my friend! Before we get to the factory, let us understand the reason of it. Let me finish showing you why I have a national pride in my ancestral halls, and why I think that the American flag floats over that building as appropriately as over Fort Adams or Monroe.”
“I have always trusted you implicitly,” I answered.
“Well, then, England is a nation whose mill grinds at the will of a neighbor. Is it wonderful that so sagacious a statesman as Cobden says that the blockade is a terrible thing for a commercial people? Take the estimate of his authority, and imagine the supply of food from this country into England stopped, and the bumptious little island necklaced with Monitors to cut off the Continental supply. Do we not hold one of her hands with our grain, and the other with our cotton? The grain she gets, but the cotton is substantially stopped; what is the consequence? Listen to Mr. Cobden. The case, he says, ‘is so grave, so alarming, and presents itself to those who reflect upon what may be the state of things six months hence in such a hideous aspect, that it is apt to beget thoughts of some violent remedy.’ He computes that by Christmas the Government must come to the aid of the pauper operatives, of whom there are now seven hundred and fifty thousand, a number which will then have increased to nearly a million.
“Of all nations, then, the industrial example of England is to be avoided by every sensible people. She has been willing to wear chains, because they were gold. But the pre-Millennial nations must be able to stand alone; and we at this moment know more than ever that we must work out our own national salvation, not only without aid, which we had no reason to ask, but without sympathy, which we had every honorable right to expect. But, to be a truly independent people, we must practically prove our self-sufficiency; and at this moment patriotism shows itself not only in defending the nation against the Rebellion, but in the heartiest encouragement of every art and manufacture for which our opportunities and capacities fit us.”
My watch here ticked so loudly and defiantly that I feared some neighboring passenger might have a Frodsham or Jurgensen in his pocket and feel insulted.
“A nation like ours,” steadily ticked my watch, “seated upon a continent from sea to sea, with so propitious a variety of climate and with such imperial resources of every kind, if it brought all its powers to bear upon its productions and opportunities, would be absolutely invincible, because entirely independent. It need not, therefore, sit a cynic recluse on the Western sea. It need not, therefore, deny nor delay the dawn of the Millennial day, which the poet beheld, when
‘The war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furled,
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.’
“Tick, tick, tick,” urged my watch. But I made no reply.
“Why, then,” it continued, “do we consent to look longer to Europe for any of the essential conveniences of life? Why are our clothes not made of American cloth or of American silk? Why are our railroads not laid with American iron? Yes, and why,–pardon me, but we are very near Waltham,–why is our time not told by American watches? Tea and coffee, doubtless, we cannot grow, nor do lemons and bananas ripen in our sun. But has not the time come when every hearty American will say, ‘All that I can get here which is good enough and cheap enough for the purpose, I will not look for elsewhere; and all that I can do to develop every resource and possibility, I will do with all my heart’?”
“I do not wish to dampen your enthusiasm,” answered I, “but I remember a story of that friend of Southern liberty and author of the Fugitive-Slave Bill, Mason of Virginia. He appeared in the Senate during the Secession winter, in a suit of Southern-made clothes. The wool was grown and spun and woven in Virginia, and Mason wore it to show that Virginia unassisted could clothe her children. But a shrewder man than Mason quietly turned up the buttons on the Secession coat and showed upon them the stamp of a Connecticut factory.”
“Have you ever found me unreasonable?” ticked my friend. “Have you ever seen even my hand tremble, as it pointed out to you so many hours in which you have been earnestly interested? I am not excited even by my own existence, and I claim nothing extravagant. There will always be some things that we may not be able to make advantageously. Absolute independence of the rest of the world is no more possible than desirable. But everything which tends to increase instead of diminishing a vital dependence is nationally dangerous. I think, if you will consider me attentively, you will agree that I ought to know that trade is everywhere controlled by positive laws; nor will any wise watch expect them to be long or willingly disregarded by the most enthusiastic patriotism. Knowing that, we do not need to go far to discover why so many important conveniences are still made for us by foreign hands. The immense and compact population of Europe compels a marvellous division of labor, whereby the detail of work is more perfected, and it also forces a low rate of wages, with which in a new country sparely peopled like ours the manufacture of the same wares can scarcely compete. This is the great practical difficulty; but it can be obviated in two ways. If a people assume that the fostering of its own manufactures is a cardinal necessity, it can secure that result either by the coarse process of compulsory duties upon all foreign importations, or by developing the ingenuity and skill which will so cheapen the manufacture itself as to make up the difference of outlay in wages.
“Then, if the work is as well done and as cheaply furnished”—-ticked my watch, a little proudly and triumphantly.
“Then it needs only to be known, to be universally and heartily welcomed,” said I. “Patriotism and the laws of trade will coincide, and there will be no excuse for depending longer upon the foreign supply.”
“But the fact must be made known,” ticked my watch, thoughtfully.
“It certainly must,” I answered.
“Well, it _is_ a fact that a man can get a better watch more cheaply, if he buys an American instead of a foreign one.”
Friendship and gratitude inspired my reply.
“I will put my mouth to the ‘Atlantic Trumpet,’–I mean ‘Monthly,’–and blow a blast.”
“That is not necessary; but as we are very near the station at West Newton where we leave the railroad, and as I have endeavored to show you the national importance of doing everything for ourselves that we reasonably can, you will probably interest your hearers more, if you give them a little description of your visit to my birthplace. Excuse me, but I have watched you pretty constantly for two years, and, if you will be governed by me, as you have generally been during that time, you will not undertake any very elaborate mechanical description, but say a few words merely of what you are going to see.”
This sensible advice was but another proof of the accuracy of my watch.
While it was yet ticking, the train stopped at West Newton, and we stepped out upon the platform. The station nearest to the Watch-Factory is that at Waltham upon the Fitchburg Railroad; but by taking the Worcester cars to West Newton, you secure a pleasant drive of a mile or two across the country. If you can also secure, as my watch took care to do for me, the company of the resident manager of the factory, the drive is entirely pleasant and the talk full of value.
We import about five millions of dollars’ worth of watches every year, mainly from England and Switzerland through France, and then pay about as much more to get them to go. Of course inquisitive Yankee ingenuity long ago asked the question, Why should we do it? If anything is to be made, why should not we make it better than anybody in the world? The answer was very evident,–because we could not compete with the skilled and poorly paid labor of Europe. But during the last war with England the question became as emphatic as it is now, and a practical answer was given in the excellent watches made at Worcester in Massachusetts, and at Hartford in Connecticut.
But these were merely prophetic protests. The best watches in use were Swiss. Four-fifths of the work in making them was done by hand in separate workshops, subject of course to the skill, temper, and conscience of the workmen. The various parts of each were then sent in to the finisher. Every watch was thus a separate and individual work. There could be no absolute precision in the parts of different watches even of the same general model; and only the best works of the best finishers were the best watches. The purchase of a watch became almost as uncertain as that of a horse, and many of the dealers might be called watch-jockeys as justly as horse-dealers horse-jockeys.
A.L. Dennison, of Maine, seems to have been the first who conceived American watch-making as a manufacture that could hold its own against European competition. It was clear enough that to put raw and well-paid American labor into the field against European skill and low wages, with no other protection than four per cent., which was then the tariff, was folly. But why not apply the same principle to making watches that Eli Whitney applied to making fire-arms, and put machinery to do the work of men, thereby saving wages and securing uniform excellence of work? There was no reason whatever, provided you could make the machinery. Mr. Dennison supplied the idea; who would supply the means of working it out? He was an enthusiast, of course,–visionary, probably; for in all inventors the imagination must be so powerful that it will sometimes disturb the conditions essential to the practical experiment; but he interested others until the necessary tools began to appear, and enough capital being willing to try the chances, the experiment of making American watches by machinery began in Roxbury in the year 1850. After various fortunes, the manufacture passed from the original hands into those of the present company, which is incorporated by the State of Massachusetts.
“Do you think,” whispered I to my watch, as I listened to these facts, “that the experiment is still doubtful?”
My companion ticked so indignantly that my friend the manager evidently suspected what question I had asked, and he answered at once,–
“The experiment is already perfectly successful. We have had our critical moments, but”—-
“But now,” proudly ticked my watch, “now we have weathered the Cape Horn of adversity and doubt, and ride secure upon the deep Pacific sea of prosperity and certainty. You had better blow a note like that through your Atlantic Bugle. Set your tune high, and play it up loud and lively.”
“It seems to me,” answered I, “that the tune plays itself. There is no need of puffing at the instrument.”
While my watch was thus pleasantly jesting, we had passed through a low pine wood and come out upon the banks of the Charles River. Just before us, upon the very edge of a river-basin, was a low two-story building full of windows, and beyond, over the trees, were spires. They were the steeples of Waltham, and the many-windowed building was the factory of the American Watch Company. It stands upon a private road opened by the Company in a domain of about seventy acres belonging to them. The building thus secures quiet and freedom from dust, which are essential conditions of so delicate and exquisite a manufacture.
The counting-room, which you enter first, is cheerful and elegant. A new building, which the Company is adding to the factory, will give them part of the ampler room the manufacture now demands; and within the last few months the Company has absorbed the machinery and labor of a rival company at Nashua, which was formed of some of the graduate workmen of Waltham, but which was not successful. Every room in the factory is full of light. The benches of polished cherry, the length of all of them together being about three-quarters of a mile, are ranged along the sides of the rooms, from the windows in which the prospect is rural and peaceful. There is a low hum, but no loud roar or jar in the building. There is no unpleasant smell, and all the processes are so neat and exquisite that an air of elegance pervades the whole.
The first impression, upon hearing that a watch is made by machinery, is, that it must be rather coarse and clumsy. No machine so cunning as the human hand, we are fond of saying. But, if you will look at this gauge, for instance, and then at any of these dainty and delicate machines upon the benches, miniature lathes of steel, and contrivances which combine the skill of innumerable exquisite fingers upon single points, you will feel at once, that, when the machinery itself is so almost poetic and sensitive, the result of its work must be correspondingly perfect.
My friend–not the watch, but the watchmaker–said quietly, “By your leave,” and, pulling a single hair from my head, touched it to a fine gauge, which indicated exactly the thickness of the hair. It was a test of the twenty-five hundredth part of an inch. But there are also gauges graduated to the ten-thousandth part of an inch. Here is a workman making screws. Can you just see them? That hardly visible point exuding from the almost imperceptible hole is one of them. A hundred and fifty thousand of them make a pound. The wire costs a dollar; the screws are worth nine hundred and fifty dollars. The magic touch of the machine makes that wire nine hundred and fifty times more valuable. The operator sets them in regular rows upon a thin plate. When the plate is full, it is passed to another machine, which cuts the little groove upon the top of each,–and of course exactly in the same spot. Every one of those hundred and fifty thousand screws in every pound is accurately the same as every other, and any and all of them, in this pound or any pound, any one of the millions or ten millions of this size, will fit precisely every hole made for this sized screw in every plate of every watch made in the factory. They are kept in little glass phials, like those in which the homoeopathic doctors keep their pellets.
The fineness and variety of the machinery are so amazing, so beautiful,–there is such an exquisite combination of form and movement,–such sensitive teeth and fingers and wheels and points of steel,–such fairy knives of sapphire, with which King Oberon the first might have been beheaded, had he insisted upon levying dew-taxes upon primroses without the authority of his elves,–such smooth cylinders, and flying points so rapidly revolving that they seem perfectly still.–such dainty oscillations of parts with the air of intelligent consciousness of movement,–that a machinery so extensive in details, so complex, so harmonious, at length entirely magnetizes you with wonder and delight, and you are firmly persuaded that you behold the magnified parts of a huge brain in the very act of thinking out watches.
In various rooms, by various machines, the work of perfecting the parts from the first blank form cut out of Connecticut brass goes on. Shades of size are adjusted by the friction of whirring cylinders coated with diamond dust. A flying steel point touched with diamond paste pierces the heart of the “jewels.” Wheels rimmed with brass wisps hum steadily, as they frost the plates with sparkling gold. Shaving of metal peel off, as other edges turn, so impalpably fine that five thousand must be laid side by side to make an inch. But there is no dust, no unseemly noise. All is cheerful and airy, the faces of the workers most of all. You pass on from point to point, from room to room. Every machine is a day’s study and a life’s admiration, if you could only tarry. No wonder the director says to me, as we move on, that his whole consciousness is possessed by the elaborate works he superintends.
He opens a door, while we speak, and you would not be in the least surprised, in the exalted condition to which the wonderful spectacle has brought you, to hear him say, “In this room we keep the Equator.” In fact, as the door opens, and the gush of hot air breathes out upon your excited brain, it seems to you as if it undoubtedly were the back-door to–the Tropics. It is the dial-room, in which the enamel is set. The porcelain is made in London. It is reduced to a paste in this room, and fused upon thin copperplates at white heat. When cooled, it is ground off smoothly, then baked to acquire a smooth glaze. It is then ready for painting with the figures.
When all the pieces of the watch-movement are thus prepared, they are gathered in sets, and carried to the putting-up room, where each part is thoroughly tested and regulated. The pieces move in processions of boxes, each part by itself; and each watch, when put together, is as good as every other. In an old English lever-watch there are between eight and nine hundred pieces. In the American there are but about a hundred and twenty parts. My friend the director says, that, if you put a single American against a single European watch, the foreign may vary a second less in a certain time; but if you will put fifty or a hundred native against the same number of foreign watches, the native group will be uniformly more accurate. In the case of two watches of exactly the same excellence, the regulator of one may be adjusted to the precise point, while that of the other may imperceptibly vary from that point. But that is a chance. The true test is in a number.
“If now we add,” ticked the faithful friend in my pocket, “that watch-movements of a similar grade without the cases are produced here at half the cost of the foreign, doesn’t it seem to you that we have Lancashire and Warwickshire in England and Locle and La Chaux de Fond in Switzerland upon the hip?”
“It certainly does,” I answered,–for what else could I say?
Five different sizes of watches are made at Waltham. The latest is the Lady’s Watch, for which no parent or lover need longer go to Geneva. And the affectionate pride with which the manager took up one of the finest specimens of the work and turned it round for me to see was that of a parent showing a precious child.
While we strolled through every room, the workers were not less interesting to see than the work. There are now about three hundred and fifty of them, of whom nearly a third are women. Scarcely twenty are foreigners, and they are not employed upon the finest work. Of course, as the machinery is peculiar to this factory, the workers must be specially instructed. The foremen are not only overseers, but teachers; and I do not often feel myself to be in a more intelligent and valuable society than that which surrounded me, a wondering, staring, smiling, inquiring, utterly unskilful body in the ancestral halls of my tried friend and trusty counsellor, The American Watch.
* * * * *
BENJAMIN BANNEKER, THE NEGRO ASTRONOMER.
In these days, when strong interests, embodied in fierce parties, are clashing, one recalls the French proverb of those who make so much noise that you cannot hear God thunder. It does not take much noise to drown the notes of a violin; but go to the hill a fourth of a mile off, and the noises shall die away at its base, whilst the music shall be heard. Those who can remove themselves away from and above the plane of party-din can hear God’s modulated thunder in the midst of it, uttering ever a “certain tune and measured music.” And such can hear now the great voice at the sepulchre’s door of a race, saying, Come forth! This war is utterly inexplicable except as the historic method of delivering the African race in America from slavery, and this nation from the crime and curse inevitably linked therewith in the counsels of God, which are the laws of Nature. If the friends of freedom in the Government do not understand this, it is plain enough that the myrmidons of slavery throughout the land understand it. And hence it is that we are witnessing their unremitting efforts to exasperate the prejudices of the vulgar against the negro, and to prove degradation, and slavery to be his normal condition. They point to his figure as sculptured on ancient monuments, bearing chains, and claim that his enslavement is lawful as immemorial custom; but as well point to the brass collars on our Saxon forefathers’ necks to prove _their_ enslavement lawful. The fact that slavery belonged to a patriarchal age is the very reason why it is impracticable in a republican age,–as its special guardians in this country seem to have discovered. But this question is now scarcely actual. The South, by its first blow against the Union and the Constitution, whose neutrality toward it was its last and only protection from the spirit of the age, did, like the simple fisherman, unseal the casket in which the Afreet had been so long dwarfed. He is now escaping. Thus far, indeed, he is so much escaped force; for he might be bearing our burdens for us, if we only rubbed up the lamp which the genie obeys. But whether we shall do this or not, it is very certain that he is now emerging from the sea and the casket, and into it will descend no more. Henceforth the negro is to take his place in the family of races; and no studies can be more suitable to our times than those which recognize his special capacity.
The questions raised by military exigencies have brought before the public the many interesting facts drawn from the history of Hayti and from our own Revolution, showing the heroism of the negro, though we doubt whether they can surpass the stories of Tatnall, Small, and others, which have led a high European authority to observe that in this war no individual heroism among the whites has equalled that of the blacks. But the forthcoming social questions concerning the negro will be even more exciting than the military. What are we to expect from the unsealed Afreet,–good or evil? It was whilst studying in this direction that I came upon the few facts which relate to Benjamin Banneker,–facts which, though not difficult of access, are scarcely known beyond the district in Maryland where, on the spot where he was born, his unadorned grave receives now and then a visit from some pilgrim of his own race who has found out the nobleness which Jefferson recognized and Condorcet admired.
Benjamin Banneker was born in Baltimore County, near the village of Ellicott’s Mills, in the year 1732. There was not a drop of the white man’s blood in his veins. His father was born in Africa, and his mother’s parents were both natives of Africa. What genius he had, then, must be credited to that race. Benjamin’s mother was a remarkable woman, and of a remarkable family. Her name was Morton, before marriage, and a nephew of hers, Greenbury Morton, was gifted with a lively and impetuous eloquence which made its mark in his neighborhood. Of him it is related that he once came to a certain election-precinct in Baltimore County to deposit his vote; for, prior to the year 1809, negroes with certain property-qualifications voted in Maryland. It was in this year, in which the law restricting the right of voting to free whites was passed, that Morton, who had not heard of its passage, came to the polls. When his vote was refused, Morton in a state of excitement took his stand on a door-step, and was immediately surrounded by the crowd, whom he addressed in a strain of passionate and prophetic eloquence which bore all hearts and minds with him. He warned them that the new law was a step backward from the standard which their fathers had raised in the Declaration, and which they had hoped would soon be realized in universal freedom; that that step, unless retraced, would end in bitter and remorseless revolutions. The crowd was held in breathless attention, and none were found to favor the new law.
This man, we have said, was the nephew of Benjamin’s mother. She was a woman of remarkable energy, and after she was seventy years of age was accustomed to run down the chickens she wished to catch. Her husband was a slave when she married him, but it was a very small part of her life’s task to purchase his freedom. Together they soon bought a farm of one hundred acres, which we find conveyed by Richard Gist to Robert Bannaky, (as the name was then spelt,) and Benjamin Bannaky, his son, (then five years old,) on the tenth of March, 1737, for the consideration of seven thousand pounds of tobacco. The region in which Benjamin was born was almost a wilderness; for in 1732 Elkridge Landing was of more importance than Baltimore; and even in 1754 this city consisted only of some twenty poor houses straggling on the hills to the right of Jones’s Falls. The residence of the Bannekers was ten miles into the wilderness from these.
It was under these unpromising circumstances that little Benjamin grew up, his destiny being apparently nothing more than to work on the little farm beside his poor and ignorant parents. When he was approaching manhood, he went, in the intervals of toil, to an obscure and remote country-school; for, until the cotton-gin made negroes too valuable on the animal side for the human side to be allowed anything so perilous as education, there were to be found here and there in the South fountains whereat even negroes might slake their thirst for learning. At this school Benjamin acquired a knowledge of reading and writing, and advanced in arithmetic as far as “Double Position.” Beyond these rudiments he was entirely his own teacher. After leaving school he had to labor constantly for his own support; but he lost nothing of what he had acquired. It is a frequent remark that up to a certain point the negroes learn even more rapidly than white children under the same teaching, but that afterward, in the higher branches, they are slow, and, some maintain, incapable. Young Banneker had no books at all, but in the midst of his labor he so improved upon and evolved what he had gained in arithmetic that his intelligence became a matter of general observation. He was such an acute observer of the natural world, and had so diligently observed the signs of the times in society, that it is very doubtful whether at forty years of age this African had his superior in Maryland.
Perhaps the first wonder amongst his comparatively illiterate neighbors was excited, when, about the thirtieth year of his age, Benjamin made a clock. It is probable that this was the first clock of which every portion was made in America; it is certain that it was as purely his own invention as if none had ever been made before. He had seen a watch, but never a clock, such an article not being within fifty miles of him. The watch was his model. He was a long time at work on the clock,–his chief difficulty, as he used often to relate, being to make the hour, minute, and second hands correspond in their motion. But at last the work was completed, and raised the admiration for Banneker to quite a high pitch among his few neighbors.
The making of the clock proved to be of great importance in assisting the young man to fulfil his destiny. It attracted the attention of the Ellicott family, who had just begun a settlement at Ellicott’s Mills. They were well-educated men, with much mechanical knowledge, and some of them Quakers. They sought out the ingenious negro, and he could not have fallen into better hands. It was in 1787 that Benjamin received from Mr. George Ellicott Mayer’s “Tables,” Ferguson’s “Astronomy,” and Leadbetter’s “Lunar Tables.” Along with these, some astronomical instruments, also, were given him. Mr. Ellicott, prevented from telling Benjamin anything concerning the use of the instruments for some time after they were given, went over to repair this omission one day, but found that the negro had discovered all about them and was already quite independent of instruction. From this time astronomy became the great object of Banneker’s life, and in its study he almost disappeared from the sight of his neighbors. He was unmarried, and lived alone in the cabin and on the farm which he had inherited from his parents. He had still to labor for his living; but he so simplified his wants as to be enabled to devote the greater portion of his time to astronomical studies. He slept much during the day, that he might the more devotedly observe at night the heavenly bodies whose laws he was slowly, but surely, mastering.
And now he began to have a taste of that persecution to which every genius under similar circumstances is subject. He was no longer seen in the field, where formerly his constancy had gained him a reputation for industry, and some who called at his cabin during the day-time found him asleep; so he began to be spoken of as a lazy fellow, who would come to no good, and whose age would disappoint the promise of his youth. There was a time when this so excited his neighbors against him that he had serious fears of disturbance. A memorandum in his hand-writing, dated December 18, 1790, states:–
“—— ——informed me that —— stole my horse and great-coat, and that the said —— intended to murder me when opportunity presented. —— —— gave me a caution to let no one come into my house after dark.”
The names were originally written in full; but they were afterward carefully cancelled, as though Banneker had reflected that it was wrong to leave on record an unauthenticated assertion against an individual, which, if untrue, might prejudice him by the mere fact that it had been made.
Very soon after the possession of the books already mentioned, Banneker determined to compile an almanac, that being the most familiar use that occurred to him of the information he had acquired. To make an almanac was a very different thing then from what it would be now, when there is an abundance of accurate tables and rules. Banneker had no aid whatever from men or tables; and Mr. George Ellicott, who procured some tables and took them to him, states that he had advanced far in the preparation of the logarithms necessary for his purpose. A memorandum in his calculations at this time thus corrects an error in Ferguson’s Astronomy:–
“It appears to me that the wisest men may at times be in error: for instance, Dr. Ferguson informs us, that, when the sun is within 12 deg. of either node at the time of full, the moon will be eclipsed; but I find, that, according to his method of projecting a lunar eclipse, there will be none by the above elements, and yet the sun is within 11 deg. 46′ 11″ of the moon’s ascending node. But the moon being in her apogee prevents the appearance of this eclipse.”
Another memorandum makes the following corrections:–
“Errors that ought to be corrected in my Astronomical Tables are these:–2d vol. Leadbetter, p. 201, when [symbol] anomaly is 4^s 30 deg., the equation 3 deg. 30′ 41″ ought to have been 3 deg. 28′ 41″. In [symbol] equation, p. 155, the logarithm of his distance from [symbol] ought to have been 6 in the second place from the index, instead of 7, that is, from the time that his anomaly is 3^s 24 deg. until it is 4^s O deg..”
Both Ferguson and Leadbetter would have been amazed, had they been informed that their elaborate works had been reviewed and corrected by a negro in the then unheard-of valley of the Patapsco.
The first almanac prepared by Banneker for publication was for the year 1792. By this time his acquirements had become generally known, and amongst those who were attracted by them was James McHenry, Esq. Mr. McHenry wrote to Goddard and Angell, then the almanac-publishers of Baltimore, and procured the publication of this work, which contained, from the pen of Mr. McHenry, a brief notice of Banneker. In their editorial notice Goddard and Angell say, “They feel gratified in the opportunity of presenting to the public through their press what must be considered as an extraordinary effort of genius,–a complete and accurate Ephemeris for the year 1792, calculated by a sable son of Africa,” etc. And they further say that “they flatter themselves that a philanthropic public, in this enlightened era, will be induced to give their patronage and support to this work, not only on account of its intrinsic merits, (it having met the approbation of several of the most distinguished astronomers of America, particularly the celebrated Mr. Rittenhouse,) but from similar motives to those which induced the editors to give this calculation the preference, the ardent desire of drawing modest merit from obscurity, and controverting the long-established illiberal prejudice against the blacks.”
Banneker was himself entirely conscious of the bearings of his case upon the position of his people; and though remarkable for an habitual modesty, he solemnly claimed that his works had earned respect for the African race. In this spirit he wrote to Thomas Jefferson, then Secretary of State under Washington, transmitting a manuscript copy of his almanac. The letter is a fervent appeal for the down-trodden negro, and a protest against the injustice and inconsistency of the United States toward that color. Mr. Jefferson’s reply is as follows:–
“_Philadelphia, Pa._, August 30, 1791.
“Sir,–I thank you sincerely for your letter of the 19th instant, and for the almanac it contained. Nobody wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that Nature has given to our black brethren talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing only to the degraded condition of their existence both in Africa and America. I can add with truth that no one wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition both of their body and mind to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecility of their present existence, and other circumstances which cannot be neglected, will admit. I have taken the liberty of sending your almanac to Monsieur de Condorcet, Secretary of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and Member of the Philanthropic Society, because I considered it a document to which your whole color had a right for their justification against the doubts which have been entertained of them.
“I am, with great esteem, Sir,
“Your most obedient serv’t,
“THO. JEFFERSON.”
When his first almanac was published, Banneker was fifty-nine years of age, and had received tokens of respect from all the scientific men of the country. The commissioners appointed after the adoption of the Constitution in 1789 to run the lines of the District of Columbia invited the presence and assistance of Banneker, and treated him as an equal. They invited him to take a seat at their table; but he declined, and requested a separate table.
Banneker continued to calculate and publish almanacs until the year 1802. Besides numerous valuable astronomical and mathematical notes found amongst his papers are observations of passing events, showing that he had the mind of a philosopher. For instance:–
“_27th Aug. 1797._ Standing at my door, I heard the discharge of a gun, and in four or five seconds of time the small shot came rattling about me, one or two of which struck the house; which plainly demonstrates that the velocity of sound is greater than that of a cannon-bullet.”
“_23d Dec. 1790._ About 3 o’clock A.M., I heard a sound and felt a shock like unto heavy thunder. I went out, but could not observe any cloud. I therefore conclude it must be a great earthquake in some part of the globe.”
In April, 1800, he writes:–
“The first great locust year that I can remember was 1749. I was then about seventeen years of age, when thousands of them came creeping up the trees. I imagined they came to destroy the fruit of the earth, and would occasion a famine in the land. I therefore began to destroy them, but soon saw that my labor was in vain. Again, in the year 1766, seventeen years after their first appearance, they made a second. I then, being about thirty-four years of age, had more sense than to endeavor to destroy them, knowing they were not so pernicious to the fruit as I had imagined. Again, in the year 1783, which was seventeen years later, they made their third appearance to me; and they may be expected again in 1800. The female has a sting in her tail as sharp and hard as a thorn, with which she perforates the branches of trees, and in the holes lays eggs. The branch soon dies and falls. Then the egg, by some occult cause, immerges a great depth into the earth, and there continues for the space of seventeen years, as aforesaid.”
The following is worthy of Pliny:–
“In the month of January, 1797, on a pleasant day for the season, I observed my honey-bees to be out of their hives, and they seemed to be very busy, excepting one hive. Upon examination, I found all the bees had evacuated this hive, and left not a drop behind them. On the 9th of February ensuing, I killed the neighboring hives of bees, and found a great quantity of honey, considering the season,–which I imagine the stronger had taken from the weaker, and the weaker had pursued them to their home, resolved to be benefited by their labor, or die in the contest.”
Mr. Benjamin H. Ellicott, who was a true friend of Banneker, and collected from various sources all the facts concerning him, wrote in a letter as follows:–
“During the whole of his long life he lived respectably and much esteemed by all who became acquainted with him, but more especially by those who could fully appreciate his genius and the extent of his acquirements. Although his mode of life was regular and extremely retired,–living alone, having never married, cooking his own victuals and washing his own clothes, and scarcely ever being absent from home,–yet there was nothing misanthropic in his character; for a gentleman who knew him thus speaks of him: ‘I recollect him well. He was a brave-looking, pleasant man, with something very noble in his appearance. His mind was evidently much engrossed in his calculations; but he was glad to receive the visits which we often paid him.’ Another writes: ‘When I was a boy I became very much interested in him, as his manners were those of a perfect gentleman: kind, generous, hospitable, humane, dignified, and pleasing, abounding in information on all the various subjects and incidents of the day, very modest and unassuming, and delighting in society at his own house. I have seen him frequently. His head was covered with a thick suit of white hair, which gave him a very dignified and venerable appearance. His dress was uniformly of superfine drab broadcloth, made in the old style of a plain coat, with straight collar and long waistcoat, and a broad-brimmed hat. His color was not jet-black, but decidedly negro. In size and personal appearance, the statue of Franklin at the library in Philadelphia, as seen from the street, is a perfect likeness of him. Go to his house when you would, either by day or night, there was constantly standing in the middle of the floor a large table covered with books and papers. As he was an eminent mathematician, he was constantly in correspondence with other mathematicians in this country, with whom there was an interchange of questions of difficult solution.'”
Banneker died in the year 1804, beloved and respected by all who knew him. Though no monument marks the spot where he was born and lived a true and high life and was buried, yet history must record that the most original scientific intellect which the South has yet produced was that of the pure African, Benjamin Banneker.
* * * * *
THE SLEEPING SENTINEL.
When the great Theban, in his midnight tramp, A sleeping guard beside the postern saw, He slew him on the instant, that the camp Might read in blood a soldier’s swerveless law.
“Blame not your General!”–pointing to the slain,– The wise, severe Epaminondas said,–
“I was not cruel, comrades, for ‘t is plain I only left him, as I found him, dead!”
IRON-CLAD SHIPS AND HEAVY ORDNANCE.
The new system of naval warfare which characterizes the age was proposed by John Stevens of Hoboken during the War of 1812, recommended by Paixhans in 1821, made the subject of official and private experiment here and in Europe during the last ten years especially, subjected to practical test at Kinburn in 1855, recognized then by France and England in the commencement of iron-clad fleets, first practised by the United States Government in the capture of Fort Henry, and at last established and inaugurated not only in fact, but in the principle and direction of progress, by the memorable action of the ninth of March, 1862, in the destruction of the wooden sailing-frigates Cumberland and Congress by the steam-ram Merrimack, and the final discomfiture of that powerful and heavily armed victor by the turreted, iron, two-gun Monitor.
The consideration of iron-clad vessels involves that of armor, ordnance, projectiles, and naval architecture.
ARMOR.
_Material_. In 1861, the British iron-plate committee fired with 68-pounders at many varieties of iron, cast-steel and puddled-steel plates, and combinations of hard and soft metals. The steel was too brittle, and crumbled, and the targets were injured in proportion to their hardness. An obvious conclusion from all subsequent firing at thick iron plates was, that, to avoid cracking on the one hand, and punching on the other, wrought-iron armor should resemble copper more than steel, except that it should be elastic, although not necessarily of the highest tensile strength. Copper, however, proved much too soft. The experiments of Mr. E.A. Stevens of Hoboken, with thick plates, confirm this conclusion. But for laminated armor, (several thicknesses of thin plates,) harder and stronger iron offers greater resistance to shot, and steel crumbles less than when it is thicker. The value of hard surfaces on inclined armor will be alluded to.
_Solid and Laminated Armor compared. Backing_. European experimenters set out upon the principle that the resistance of plates is nearly as the square of their thickness,–for example, that two 2-inch plates are but half as strong as one 4-inch plate; and the English, at least, have never subjected it to more than one valuable test. During the last year, a 6-inch target, composed of 5/8-inch boiler-plates, with a 1-1/2-inch plate in front, and held together by alternate rivets and screws 8 inches apart, was completely punched; and a 10-inch target, similarly constructed, was greatly bulged and broken at the back by the 68-pounder (8 inch) smooth-bore especially, and the 100-pounder rifle at 200 yards,–guns that do not greatly injure the best solid 4-1/2-inch plates at the same range. On the contrary, a 124-pounder (10 inch) round-shot, having about the same penetrating power, as calculated by the ordinary rule, fired by Mr. Stevens in 1854, but slightly indented, and did not break at the back, a 6-5/8-inch target similarly composed. All the experiments of Mr. Stevens go to show the superiority of laminated armor. Within a few months, official American experiments have confirmed this theory, although the practice in the construction of ships is divided. The Roanoke’s plates are solid; those of the Monitor class are laminated. Solid plates, generally 4-1/2 inches thick and backed by 18 inches of teak, are exclusively used in Europe. Now the resistance of plates to punching _in a machine_ is directly as the sheared area, that is to say, as the depth and the diameter of the hole. But, the argument is, in this case, and in the case of laminated armor, the hole is cylindrical, while in the case of a thick armor-plate it is conical,–about the size of the shot, in front, and very much larger in the rear,–so that the sheared or fractured area is much greater. Again, forged plates, although made with innumerable welds from scrap which cannot be homogeneous, are, as compared with rolled plates made with few welds from equally good material, notoriously stronger, because the laminae composing the latter are not thoroughly welded to each other, and they are therefore a series of thin plates. On the whole, the facts are not complete enough to warrant a conclusion. It is probable that the heavy English machinery produces better-worked thick plates than have been tested in America, and that American iron, which is well worked in the _thin_ plate used for laminated armor, is better than English iron; while the comparatively high velocities of shot used in England are more trying to thin plates, and the comparatively heavy shot in America prove most destructive to solid plates. So that there is as yet no common ground of comparison. The cost of laminated armor is less than half that of solid plates. Thin plates, breaking joints, and bolted to or through the backing, form a continuous girder and add vastly to the strength of a vessel, while solid blocks add no such strength, but are a source of strain and weakness. In the experiments mentioned, there was no wooden backing behind the armor. It is hardly possible,–in fact, it is nowhere urged,–that elastic wooden backing prevents injury to the _armor_ in any considerable degree. Indeed, the English experiments of 1861 prove that a rigid backing of masonry–in other words, more armor–increases the endurance of the plates struck. Elastic backing, however, deadens the blow upon the structure behind it, and catches the iron splinters; it is, therefore, indispensable in ships.
_Vertical and Inclined Armor_. In England, in 1860, a target composed of 4-1/2-inch plates backed with wood and set at 38 deg. from the horizon was injured about one-half as much by round 68-pounder shot as vertical plates of the same thickness would have been. In 1861, a 3-1/4 plate at 45 deg. was more injured by elongated 100-pounder shot than a 4-1/2 vertical plate, both plates having the same backing and the weights of iron being equal for the same vertical height. When set at practicable angles, inclined armor does not glance flat-fronted projectiles. Its greater cost, and especially the waste of room it occasions in a ship, are practically considered in England to be fatal objections. The result of Mr. Stevens’s experiments is, substantially, that a given thickness of iron, measured on the line of fire, offers about equal resistance to shot, whether it is vertical or inclined. Flat-fronted or punch shot will be glanced by armor set at about 12 deg. from the horizon. A hard surface on the armor increases this effect; and to this end, experiments with Franklinite are in progress. The inconvenience of inclined armor, especially in sea-going vessels, although its weight is better situated than that of vertical armor, is likely to limit its use generally.
_Fastening Armor_. A series of thin plates not only strengthen the whole vessel, but fasten each other. All methods of giving continuity to thick plates, such as tonguing and grooving, besides being very costly, have proved too weak to stand shot, and are generally abandoned. The _fastenings_ must therefore be stronger, as each plate depends solely on its own; and the resistance of plates must be decreased, either by more or larger bolt-holes. The working of the thick plates of the European vessels Warrior and La Gloire, in a sea-way, is an acknowledged defect. There are various practicable plans of fastening bolts to the backs of plates, and of holding plates between angle-irons, to avoid boring them through. It is believed that plates will ultimately be welded. Boiler-joints have been welded rapidly and uniformly by means of light furnaces moving along the joint, blowing a jet of flame upon it, and closely followed by hammers to close it up. The surfaces do not oxidize when enveloped in flame, and the weld is likely to be as strong as the solid plate. Large plates prove stronger than small plates of equally good material. English 4-1/2-inch armor-plates are generally 3-1/2 feet wide and to 24 feet long. American 4-1/2-inch plates are from 2 to 3 feet wide and rarely exceed 12 feet in length. Armor composed of light bars, like that of the Galena, is very defective, as each bar, deriving little strength from adjacent, offers only the resistance of its own small section. The cheapness of such armor, however, and the facility with which it can be attached, may compensate for the greater amount required, when weight is not objectionable. The 14-inch and 10-inch targets, constructed, without backing, on this principle, and tested in England in 1859 and 1860, were little damaged by 68-and 100-pounders.
The necessary thickness of armor is simply a question of powder, and will be further referred to under the heads of Ordnance and Naval Architecture.
ORDNANCE AND PROJECTILES.
_Condition of Greatest Effect_. It is a well-settled rule, that the penetration projectiles is proportionate directly to their weight and diameter, and to the square of their velocity. For example, the 10-1/2-inch Armstrong 150-pound shot, thrown by 50 pounds of powder at 1,770 feet per second, has nearly twice the destructive effect upon striking, and four times as much upon passing its whole diameter through armor, as the 15-inch 425-pound shot driven by the same powder at 800 feet. The American theory is, that very heavy shot, at necessarily low velocities, with a given strain on the gun, will do more damage, by racking and straining the whole structure than lighter and faster shot which merely penetrate. This is not yet sufficiently tested. The late remarkable experiments in England–firing 130-and 150-pound Whitworth steel shells, holding 3 to 5 pounds of powder, from a 7-inch Armstrong gun, with 23 to 27 pounds of powder, through the Warrior target, and bursting them in and beyond the backing–certainly show that large calibres are not indispensable in fighting iron-clads. A destructive blow requires a _heavy charge of powder_; which brings us to
_The Strain and Structure of Guns, and Cartridges_. The problem is, 1st, to construct a gun which will stand the heaviest charge; 2d, to reduce the strain on the gun without reducing the velocity of the shot. It is probable that powder-gas, from the excessive suddenness of its generation, exerts a percussive as well as a statical pressure, thus requiring great elasticity and a certain degree of hardness in the gun-metal, as well as high tensile strength. Cast-iron and bronze are obviously inadequate. Solid wrought-iron forgings are not all that could be desired in respect of elasticity and hardness, but their chief defect is want of homogeneity, due to the crude process of puddling, and to their numerous and indispensable welds. Low cast-steel, besides being elastic, hard, tenacious, and homogeneous, has the crowning advantage of being produced in large masses without flaw or weld. Krupp, of Prussia, casts ingots of above 20 tons’ weight, and has forged a cast-steel cannon of 9 inches bore. One of these ingots, in the Great Exhibition, measured 44 inches in diameter, and was uniform and fine-grained throughout. His great success is chiefly due to the use of manganesian iron, (which, however, is inferior to the Franklinite of New Jersey, because it contains no zinc,) and to skill in heating the metal, and to the use of heavy hammers. His heaviest hammer weighs 40 tons, falls 12 feet, and strikes a blow which does not draw the surface like a light hammer, but compresses the whole mass to the core. Krupp is now introducing the Bessemer process for producing ingots of any size at about the cost of wrought-iron. These and other makes of low-steel have endured extraordinary tests in the form of small guns and other structures subject to concussion and strain; and both the theory and all the evidence that we have promise its superiority for gun-metal. But another element of resistance is required in guns with thick walls. The explosion of the powder is so instantaneous that the exterior parts of the metal do not have time to act before the inner parts are strained beyond endurance. In order to bring all parts of a great mass of metal into simultaneous tension, Blakely and others have hooped an inner tube with rings having a successively higher initial tension. The inner tube is therefore under compression, and the outer ring under a considerable tension, when the gun is at rest, but all parts are strained simultaneously and alike when the gun is under pressure. The Parrott and Whitworth cannon are constructed on this principle, and there has been some practice in winding tubes with square steel wire to secure the most uniform gradation of tension at the least cost. There is some difficulty as yet in fastening the wire and giving the gun proper longitudinal strength. Mr. Wiard, of New York, makes an ingenious argument to show that large cannon burst from the expansion of the inner part of the gun by the heat of frequent successive explosions. In this he is sustained to some extent by Mr. Mallet, of Dublin. The greater the enlargement of the inner layer of metal, the less valuable is the above principle of initial tension. In fact, placing the inner part of the gun in initial tension and the outer part in compression would better resist the effect of internal heat. But Mr. Wiard believes that the _longitudinal_ expansion of the inner stratum of the gun is the principal source of strain. A gun made of annular tubes meets this part of the difficulty; for, if the inner tube is excessively heated, it can elongate and slip a little within those surrounding it, without disturbing them. In fact, the inner tube of the Armstrong gun is sometimes turned within the others by the inertia of the rifled projectile. On the whole, then, hooping an inner steel tube with successively tighter steel rings, or, what is better, tubes, is the probable direction of improvement in heavy ordnance. An inner tube of iron, cast hollow on Rodman’s plan, so as to avoid an inherent rupturing strain, and hooped with low-steel without welds, would be cheaper and very strong. An obvious conclusion is, that perfect elasticity in the metal would successfully meet all the foregoing causes of rupture.
In America, where guns made entirely of cast-iron, and undoubtedly the best in the world for horizontal shell-firing, are persisted in, though hardly adequate to the heavy charges demanded by iron-clad warfare, the necessity of decreasing the strain on the gun without greatly reducing the velocity of the shot has become imperative. It would be impossible even to recapitulate the conflicting arguments of the experts on this subject, within the limits of this paper. It does appear from recent experiments, however, that this result can be accomplished by compressing the powder, so that, we will suppose, it burns slowly and overcomes the inertia of the shot before the whole mass is ignited; and also by leaving an airspace around the cartridge, into which the gases probably expand while the inertia of the shot is being overcome, thus avoiding the excessive blow upon the walls of the gun during the first instant of the explosion. Whatever the cause may be, the result is of the highest importance, not only as to cast-iron guns, but as to all ordnance, and warrants the most earnest and thorough investigation. The principles of the Armstrong gun differ in some degree from all those mentioned, and will be better referred to under the head of _Heavy Ordnance Described_. The Armstrong gun is thus fabricated. A long bar of iron, say 3 by 4 inches in section, is wound into a close coil about 2 feet long and of the required diameter,–say 18 inches. This is set upon end at a welding heat under a steam-hammer and “upset” into a tube which is then recessed in a lathe on the ends so as to fit into other tubes. Two tubes set end to end are heated to welding, squeezed together by a heavy screw passing through them, and then hammered lightly on the outside without a mandrel. Other short tubes are similarly added. Five tubes of different lengths and diameters are turned and bored and shrunk over one another, without successively increasing tension, however, to form a gun. The breech-end of the second tube from the bore is forged solid so that its grain will run parallel with the bore and give the gun longitudinal strength. Both the wedge and the screw breech-loading apparatus are employed on guns of 7 inches bore (110-pounders) and under. It will thus be seen that the defects of large solid forgings are avoided; that the iron may be well worked before it is formed into a gun; and that its greatest strength is in the direction of the greatest strain; and on the other hand, that the gun is weak longitudinally and excessively costly, (the 7-inch gun costs $4,000, and tin 10-1/2-inch, $9,000,) and that the material, although strong and pretty trustworthy in the shape of bars, has insufficient elasticity and hardness. Still, it is a formidable gun, especially when relieved of the weak and complex breech-loading apparatus, and used with a better system of rifling and projectiles than Armstrong’s. The 110-pounder Armstrong rifle has 99-1/2 inches length and 7 inches diameter of bore, 27 inches maximum diameter, and weighs 4-1/3 tons. The “300-pounder” smooth-bore has 11 feet length and 10-1/2 inches diameter of bore, 38 inches maximum diameter, and weighs 10-1/2 tons. The Mersey Iron-Works guns are of wrought-iron, and are forged solid like steamboat-shafts, or hollow by laying up staves into the form of a barrel and welding layers of curved plates upon them until the whole mass is united. But few of these guns have been fabricated. The most remarkable of them are, 1st, the Horsfall smooth-bore, of 13 inches bore, 44 inches maximum diameter, and 24 tons weight,–price, $12,500; 2d, the “Alfred” rifle, in the recent Exhibition, of 10 inches bore,–price, $5,000; 3d, the 12-inch smooth-bore in the Brooklyn Navy-Yard, which, though very light, has fired a double 224-pound shot with 45 pounds of powder: if properly hooped, it would make the most formidable gun in America. Blakely has constructed for Russia two 13-inch smooth-bore guns, 15 feet long and 47 inches maximum diameter, of cast-iron hooped with steel: price, $10,000 each. He has also fabricated many others of large calibre, on the principles before mentioned. The 15-inch Rodman smooth-bore cast-iron gun is of 48 inches maximum diameter, 15 feet 10 inches long, and weighs 25 tons. The cost of such guns is about $6,000. The Dahlgren 15-inch guns on the Monitors are about four feet shorter.
_Results of Heavy Ordnance_. The 10-1/2-inch Armstrong gun sent a round 150-pound shot, with 50 pounds of powder, through a 5-1/2-inch solid plate and its 9-inch teak backing and 5/8-inch iron lining, at 200 yards, and one out of four shots with the same charge through the Warrior target, namely, a 4-1/2-inch solid plate, 18-inch backing, and 5/8-inch lining. The Horsfall 13-inch gun sent a round 270-pound shot, with 74 pounds of powder, entirely through the Warrior target at 200 yards, making an irregular hole about 2 feet in diameter. The same charge at 800 yards did not make a clean breach. The Whitworth shell burst in the backing of the same target has been referred to. Experiments on the effect of the 15-inch gun are now in progress. Its hollow 375-pound shot (3-inch walls) was broken without doing serious damage to 10-1/2-inch laminated armor backed with 18 inches of oak. The comparative test of solid and laminated armor has already been mentioned. The best 4-1/2-inch solid plates, well backed, are practically proof against the guns of English iron-clads, namely, 68-pounder smooth-bores and Armstrong 110-pounder rifles, the service charge of each being 16 pounds.
_Rifling and Projectiles_. The spherical shot, presenting a larger area to the action of the powder, for a given weight, than the elongated rifle-shot, has a higher initial velocity with a given charge; and all the power applied to it is converted into velocity, while a part of the power applied to the rifle-shot is employed in spinning it on its axis. But, as compared with the rifle-shot, at long ranges, it quickly loses, 1st, velocity, because it presents a larger area to the resisting air; 2d, penetration, because it has to force a larger hole through the armor; and 3d, accuracy, because the spinning of the rifle-shot constantly shifts from side to side any inaccuracy of weight it may have on either side of its centre, so that it has no time to deviate in either direction. Practically, however, iron-clad warfare must be at close quarters, because it is almost impossible to _aim_ any gun situated on a movable ship’s deck so that it will hit a rapidly moving object at a distance. It is believed by some authorities that elongated shot can be sufficiently well balanced to be projected accurately from smooth-bores; still, it is stated by Whitworth and others that a spinning motion is necessary to keep an elongated shot on end while passing through armor. On the whole, so far as penetrating armor is concerned, the theory and practice favor the spherical shot. But a more destructive effect than mere penetration has been alluded to,–the bursting of a shell within the backing of an iron-clad vessel. This can be accomplished only by an elongated missile with a solid head for making the hole and a hollow rear for holding the bursting charge. The rifle-shot used in America, and the Armstrong and some other European shot, are covered with soft metal, which in muzzle-loaders is expanded by the explosion so as to fill the grooves of the gun, and in breech-loaders is planed by the lands of the gun to fit the rifling,–all of which is wasteful of power. Whitworth employs a solid iron or steel projectile dressed by machinery beforehand to fit the rifling. But as the bore of his gun is hexagonal, the greater part of the power employed to spin the shot tends directly to burst the gun. Captain Scott, R.N., employs a solid projectile dressed to fit by machinery; but the surfaces of the lands upon which the shot presses are radial to the bore, so that the rotation of the shot tends, not to split the gun, but simply to rotate it in the opposite direction.
_Mounting Heavy Ordnance_, so that it may be rapidly manoeuvred on shipboard and protected from the enemy’s shot, has been the subject of so much ingenious experiment and invention, that in a brief paper it can only be alluded to in connection with the following subject:–
THE STRUCTURE OF WAR-VESSELS.
_Size_. To attain high speed and carry heavy armor and armament, war-vessels must be of large dimensions. By doubling all the lineal dimensions of a vessel of given form, her capacity is increased eight fold, that is to say, she can carry eight times as much weight of engines, boilers, armor, and guns. Meanwhile her resistance is only quadrupled; so that to propel each ton of her weight requires but half the power necessary to propel each ton of the weight of a vessel of half the dimensions. High speed is probably quite as important as invulnerability. Light armor is a complete protection against the most destructive shells, and the old wooden frigates could stand a long battle with solid shot. But without superior speed, the most invulnerable and heavily armed vessel could neither keep within effective range of her enemy, nor run her down as a ram, nor retreat when overpowered. And a very fast vessel can almost certainly run past forts, as they are ordinarily situated, at some distance from the channel, without being hit. Indeed, the difficulty of hitting a moving object with heavy cannon is so great that slow wooden ships do not hesitate to encounter forts and to reduce them, for a moving ship can be so manoeuvred as to hit a stationary fort.
The disadvantages of large ships are, first, great draught. Although draught need not be increased in the same degree as length, a stable and seaworthy model cannot be very shallow or flat-bottomed. Hence the harbors in which very large vessels can manoeuvre are few, and there must be a light-draught class of vessels to encounter enemies of light draught, although they cannot be expected to cope very successfully with fast and heavy vessels. Second, a given sum expended exclusively in large vessels concentrates coast-defences upon a few points, while, if it is devoted to a greater number, consisting partly of small vessels, the line of defences is made more continuous and complete.
_System of Protection_. But the effectiveness of war-vessels need not depend solely upon their size. First, twice or thrice the power may be obtained, with the same weight of boilers and machinery, and with considerable economy, by carrying very much higher steam, employing simple surface-condensers, and maintaining a high rate of combustion and vaporization, in accordance with the best commercial-marine practice. Second, _the battery may be reduced in extent_, and the armor thus increased rather than diminished in thickness, with a given buoyancy. At the same time, _the fewer guns may be made available in all directions and more rapidly worked_, so that, on the whole, a small ship thus improved will be a match in every respect for a large ship as ordinarily constructed. Working the guns in small revolving turrets, as by Ericsson’s or by Coles’s plan, and loading and cooling them by steam-power, and taking up their recoil by springs in a short space, as by Stevens’s plan, are improvements in this direction. The plan of elevating a gun above a shot-proof deck at the moment of aiming and firing, and dropping it for loading or protection by means of hydraulic cylinders, and the plan of placing a gun upon the top of the armor-clad portion of the ship, covering it with a shot-proof hood, and loading it from below, and the plan of a rotating battery, in which one gun is in a position to fire while the others attached to the same revolving frame are loading,–all these obviously feasible plans have the advantages of avoiding port-holes in the inhabited and vital parts of the vessel, of rendering the possible bursting of a gun comparatively harmless to the crew and ship, and of rapid manoeuvring, as compared with the turret system, besides all the advantages of the turret as compared with the casemate or old-fashioned broadside system. The necessity of fighting at close quarters has been remarked. At close quarters, musket-balls, grape, and shells can be accurately thrown into ordinary port-holes, which removes the necessity of smashing any other holes in the armor.
Protection at, and extending several feet below the water-line, is obviously indispensable around the battery of a vessel. It is valuable at other points, but not indispensable, provided the vessel has numerous horizontal and vertical bulkheads to prevent too great a loss of buoyancy when the vessel is seriously damaged between wind and water. Harbor-craft may be very low on the water, so that only a little height of protection is required. But it is generally supposed that sea-going vessels must be high out of water. Mr. Ericsson’s practice, however, is to the contrary; and it may turn out that a low vessel, over which the sea makes a clean breach, can be made sufficiently buoyant on his plan, If high sides are necessary, the plan of Mr. Lungley, of London, may be adopted,–a streak of protection at the water-line, and another forming at the top of the battery at the top of the structure, with an intermediate unprotected space. A shot-proof deck at the water-line, and the necessary shot-proof passages leading from the parts below water to the battery, would of course be necessary.
Considering the many expedients for vastly increasing the thickness of armor, the idea, somewhat widely expressed, especially in England, that, in view of the exploits of Armstrong, Clay, and Whitworth, iron-protection must be abandoned, is at least premature. The manner in which the various principles of construction have thus far been carried out will be noticed in a brief.
_Description of Prominent Iron-Clad Vessels_. CLASS I. Classified with reference to the protection, the dimensions of the English Warrior and Black Prince are, length 380 feet, beam 58 feet, depth 33 feet, measurement 6,038 tons. Their armor (previously described) extends from the upper deck down to 5 feet below water, throughout 200 feet of the length amidships. Vertical shot-proof bulkheads joining the side armor form a box or casemate in the middle of the vessel, in which the 26 casemate-guns, mostly 68-pounder smooth-bores, are situated and fired through port-holes in the ordinary manner. Their speed on trial is about 14 knots,–at sea, about 12. The Defence and Resistance, of 275 feet length and 3,668 tons, and carrying 14 casemate-guns, are similarly constructed, though their speed is slow. All these vessels are built entirely of iron.
CLASS II. This differs from the first mentioned in having protection all around at the water-line. The New Ironsides, (American,) of 3,250 tons, 240 feet length, 58-1/2 feet beam, 28-1/2 feet depth, and 15 feet draught, and built of wood, has 4-1/2-inch solid armor with 2 feet backing, extending from the upper deck down to 4 feet below water, with vertical bulkheads like the Warrior, making a casemate 170 feet long, in which there are sixteen 11-inch smooth-bores and two 200-pounder Parrott rifles. A streak of armor, 4 feet below water and 3 feet above, runs from this forward and aft entirely around the vessel. Her speed is 8 knots. The Stevens Battery, (American,) 6,000 tons, constructed of iron and nearly completed, is 420 feet long, 53 feet wide, and 28 feet deep from the top of the casemate, and is iron-clad from end to end along the water-line. As proposed to the last Congress, the central casemate was to be about 120 feet long on the top, its sides being inclined 27-1/2 degrees from the horizon, and composed of 6-3/4 inches of iron, 14 inches of locust backing, and a half-inch iron lining. Upon the top of it, and to be loaded and manoeuvred from within it, were to be five 15-inch smooth-bores and two 10-inch rifled guns clad with armor. The actual horse-power of this ship being above 8,000, her speed would be much higher than that of any other war-vessel. Congress, declining to make an appropriation to complete this vessel, made it over to Mr. Stevens, who had already borne a considerable portion of its cost, and who intends to finish it at his own expense, and is now experimenting to still further perfect his designs. The Achilles (English) now building of iron, about the size of the Warrior, and of 6,039 tons, with a casemate 200 feet long holding 26 guns, belongs to this class. The Enterprise, 180 feet length, 990 tons, 4 casemate-guns, and the Favorite, 220 feet length, 2,168 tons, 8 casemate-guns, are building in England on the same plan. The Solferino and Magenta, (French,) built of wood, and a little longer than the Royal Oak, (see Class III.,) are iron-clad all round up to the main deck, and have two 13-gun casemates above it.
CLASS III. The Minotaur, Agincourt, and Northumberland, 6,621 tons, and 390 feet length, resembling, but somewhat larger than the Warrior, in all their proportions, and now on the stocks in England; are built of iron, and are to have 5-1/2-inch armor and 9-inch backing extending through their whole length from the upper deck to 5 feet below water, forming a casemate from stem to stern, to hold 40 broadside-guns. Five vessels of the Royal-Oak class, 4,055 tons, building in England, 277 feet long and 58-1/2 feet wide, are of wood, being partially constructed frigates adapted to the new service, and are iron-clad throughout their length and height to 5 feet below water. They are to carry thirty-two 68-pounders. The Hector and Valiant, 4,063 tons, and 275 feet long, are English iron vessels not yet finished. They are completely protected, and carry 30 casemate-guns. All the above vessels are to carry two or more Armstrong swivel-guns fore and aft. Four vessels of La Gloire class, (French,) 255 feet long and built of wood, resembling the Royal Oak, carry 34 guns, and are completely clad in 4-1/2-inch solid armor. Ten French vessels, of a little larger dimensions, are similarly constructed. The Galena (American) is of this class as to extent of protection. The quality of her armor has been referred to.
CLASS IV. _Ships with Revolving Turrets_. The Roanoke, (American,) a razeed wooden frigate of 4,500 tons, is 265 feet long, 521/2 feet wide, and 32 feet deep, and will draw about 21 feet, and have a speed of 8 to 9 knots. This and all the vessels to be referred to in this class are iron-clad from end to end, and from the upper deck to 4 or 5 feet below the water-line. The Roanoke’s plates (solid) are 4-1/2 inches thick, except at the ends, where they are 3-1/2, and are backed with 30 inches of oak. She has three turrets upon her main-deck, each 21 feet in diameter inside, 9 feet high, and composed of 11 thicknesses of 1-inch plates. Her armament is six 15-inch guns, two in each turret. Of the Monitors, which are all constructed of iron, two now building are to