Bulletin of the Philosophical Society of Washington Volume 1-4 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1874 edition. Excerpt: ...of Presidential Administrations, cannot be estimated, as its history can never be written. Whatever material for it existed in the form of abstracts of inquiries, trials, and reports, prior to 1865, unfortunately perished in the Executive Documents, No. 94, Forty-flfth Congress, 2d Session, Senate, pp. 2, 3. It is gratifying to know that on the presentation of his report and recommendation to Congress, by the high-minded Secretary of the Treasury, a moderate appropriation in slight recognition of l-lenry's " inesti1nable"serviees was at once passed for the benefit of his bereaved family. lire of that year. Whenever in any important case a scientific adviser could be useful to the proper conduct of:1. Bureau, Henr_v's reputation generally pointed him out as the most suitable expert and arbiter. On the outbreak of the great civil war, the number of such references was naturally very considerably increased. The Departments of War, of the Navy, and of the Treasury, were besieged by projectors with every imaginable and impossible scheme for saving the country, and demolishing the enemy. Torpedo balloons, electric-light balloons, wonderful compounds destined to supersede gunpowder, and revolutionize the art of war; cheap methods for the manufacture of Government bonds and paper-money, multitudinous expedients for the prevention of counterfeiting, by devices in the engraving, by secret markings, by anti-photographic inks, by peculiar textures of paper, -applicable to coupons, to circulating notes, to revenue stamps, --each warranted to be infallible, --such were among the agencies by which patriotic patentees and adroit adventurers were willing to serve their country and to reap their reward by the moderate royalty or...