GREAT SEAL OF UNITED STATES. 5 



1870 by our Joseph Prestwich in the * Geological Maga- 

 zine ' for that year. In 1775 his book on 'Mineral, 

 Animal, and Vegetable Poisons ' appeared ; but he is 

 best known by a work published in 1787, entitled 

 ' Respublica, or a Display of the Honours, Ceremonies, 

 and Enseignes of the Commonwealth under the Pro- 

 tectorship of Oliver Cromwell,' &c. 



It is interesting to note that it is to this Sir John 

 Prestwich that the United States are indebted for the 

 design of their Great Seal. Three committees had been 

 appointed, one after another, to prepare a seal, but as 

 none of their designs gave satisfaction to Congress, on 

 June 13th of the same year (1782) the whole matter 

 was finally referred by that body to Charles Thomson, 

 its secretary. 



He procured several devices, among them an elaborate one 

 by William Barton of Philadelphia ; but none of them met with 

 approval until John Adams, then in London, sent him a design 

 suggested by Sir John Prestwich, an Englishman who was a 

 warm friend of America and an accomplished antiquarian. 



It was described in 1782 as follows : 



Arms. Paleways of thirteen pieces, argent and gules ; a chief 

 azure ; the escutcheon on the breast of the American eagle dis- 

 played proper, holding in his dexter talon an olive branch, and 

 in his sinister a bundle of thirteen arrows, all proper, and in his 

 beak a scroll inscribed with this motto : E Pluribus Unum. 



For the Crest. Over the head of the eagle, which appears 

 above the escutcheon, a glory or breaking through a cloud 

 proper, and surrounding thirteen stars, forming a constellation, 

 argent on an azure field. 



Reverse. A pyramid unfinished. In the zenith an eye in a 

 triangle, surrounded with a glory proper. Over the eye these 

 words, Annuit Cceptis (God has favoured the undertaking). On 

 the base of the pyramid the numerals MDCCLXXVI., and 



