Identifier: americanjournalo23183233newh (find matches)
Title: The American journal of science and arts
Year: 1820 (1820s)
Authors:
Subjects:
Publisher: New-Haven : S. Converse
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
necessary to add, that, in accordance with the usual state ofpopular impression in similar cases, it is confidently asserted here,that the oil spring, was, when first known, literally a bottomless pit;we may however, safely conclude that it was then much deeper thanat present. When I asked a plain man, in the vicinity, how he ima-gined it was first formed, he replied, that he believed the gas-airy(as he called it,) blew up the ground, at the time when the fountainfirst rose, and that the flow of the water and gas had preserved it eversince, although it had been greatly filled and clogged by earth andother substances, falling or thrown into the cavity. I shall not attemptto substitute any theory of my own, for this indigenous hypothesis, ofan uninstructed man, who certainly reasoned ingeniously, if not con-clusively. I presume he had never heard either of Pluto or Nep-tune, and therefore drew his conclusions from his own mind and notfrom any geological theory. Woods Inking Machine. 103
Text Appearing After Image:
Art. XVI.—JVotice of WoocVs Inking Machine.* Of all the inventions produced by the ingenuity of man, none hashad so extensive and beneficial an influence as the Press; and anyimprovement in a machine so widely affecting the interests of society,cannot be considered unimportant. Accordingly, the history of print-ing, from the rudely carved block and simple press of the inventorof the art, to the movable types and complicated machinery of thepresent day, would be found at once curious and interesting. But,though a general view of the progress of this chief of arts, couldnot be unacceptable, it is proposed, at present, merely to invitepublic attention to a machine which will perhaps be considered notone of the least important of its improvements. * This Journal is printed on a press, to which one of the above named machinesis attached.—Ed. 104 Wood^s tnhins: Machi, S ne. It is well krloWn that the increased demands made upon the press,by the eager thirst for knowledge, and the genera

Note About Images