Architecture in the United States. 99 
their bores, at any height below this pressure ; and the reason to be 
assigned is, that the contractile surfaces of the liquid columns not 
only permit of evaporation, but act against the elastic force which this 
evaporation produces. 
the following experiment, when water is contained in an inverted 
vessel, and connected with a small column of water in a capillary 
tube inserted above it, it is sustained in the open atmosphere ; but if 
the inverted vessel with its capillary tube, be placed under the re- 
ceiver of an air pump, the diminished pressure will cause the column of 
liquid in the inverted vessel to break off from the column in the capil- 
lary tube above it, leaving it still in the tube, and will descend till it 
meets the common level, not because it wants a pressure sufficiently 
elastic to support it, but on account of the evaporation which takes 
place more readily on that section of a liquid which is under the least 
pressure, which in this case is at the top of the column under the in- 
verted vessel. This has been called, “a perplexing experiment,” 
but it admits of the above very obvious. explanation ; and it may be 
illustrated by means of a glass tube, having one end immersed in a 
yessel of water, and placed under the receiver of an air pump. _ This 
tube must contain a piston, with its rod passing through at the top of 
the receiver, secured by means of a collar of leather ; and when the 
air is sufficiently exhausted, let the piston be quickly raised, and the 
water will follow the piston to a given height, but the evaporation will 
produce an elastic air, and soon force it down to the common level. 
see 
Arr. XI.— Architecture in the United States. 
Tur fine arts have hitherto received little cultivauon or encour- 
agement in our country—a fact usually attributed to its infancy.— 
But this is not the only. cause. There is in most minds among us, 
even among persons of enlightened understanding and liberal views, 
a secret recoil when they are mentioned, a kind of vague feeling that 
they would be dangerous to that simplicity of manners, and purity of 
morals, which must form both the basis and bulwark of a republic. 
The feeling is a natural one, but does great injustice to the subject.— 
The fine arts are perfectly consonant with good morals, and, so far 
from being the handmaid of luxury and licentiousness, have always 
operated as a check on their extravagance. True it is, they have 
