NAIL MACHINE. 



NATIONAL CEMETERIES. 



orientalist*, Syl "id Che/;.. 



iiii^l.i'i-I, ami ip limo 



I'niv.-r-iiy f Oxford, collecting mate- 

 edition of Maimonidea 1 oele- 



1 u ,,rk of .!/ ' ikhun (" (Jniilo 



i.f th '.in the original Arabic text in 



lle!.iv\\ letters. Tlii- be published in 1886-'4Q, 

 irli translation and notes. In 1840 

 is appointed <loputy -keeper of Oriental 

 Manuscripts in tlio I loyal Library of Paris. Sir 

 Mnntiiioro and M. Cetnieux visited the. 

 i.- - iMie year on their mission ia behalf 

 of tin' persecuted Jews of Damascus, and in- 

 vited M. Munck to accompany them. Ho glad- 

 I. and secured, while in Egypt, many 

 -ting MSS. in Arabic relating to the early 

 literature of tho Caraites, and other subjects of 

 early Arabic literature. On his return ho de- 

 himself so assiduously to his Arabic 

 studios, that he eventually lost his eyesight, 

 a:id from 1852 was entirely blind.' He was 



compelled to rclinquMi his office in the Library, 

 and lived in ivtir.-m.-nt, until 1864, wh< 



; .pointed by tho French Government suc- 

 cessor to M. Renan as Professor of Semi tic- 

 Languages in the College of France, \vhi< -h \, .- 

 sition lie lii-ld till his death. I'nif.-.sor Munck 

 waa an author of great note and authority on 

 subjects connected with his lifelong stndit-.. 

 Hi-i principal works, written in I-'ivm-h, but 

 some of them translated into German, were: 

 u Palestine, a Geographical, Historical, and Ar- 

 chreological Description of it" (PaYis, 1846), 

 included in Didot's ('nivers pittoresque ; 

 flections upon the Worship of the Ancient He- 

 brews in its Connection with the other Worships 

 of Antiquity" (1833); u Philosophy and Phil- 

 osophic Writings of the J VJ) ; " Con- 

 tributions to the Dictionary of Philosophical 

 Sciences," and to other encyclopedias and 

 transactions of learned societies, as well as sev- 

 eral other scientific works. 



N 



NAIL MACHINE, WIOKERSIIAM'S. This 

 machine, of which there was an example in tho 

 American section of the Paris Exhibition, pro- 

 duces a headed nail pointed like a chisel and 

 gradually tapered for its whole length. The 

 usual plan has hitherto been to make the plate, 

 from which the nails are cut, wide enough for 

 the length of the nail, and then commence cut- 

 ting from one end and continuing the operation 

 until it is all cut into nails, the machine cutting 

 only one at a time. In the Wickersham ma- 

 chine, a sheet of metal of from 20 to 25 inches is 

 placed, and a series of nails cut from its edges 

 at each stroke of the knives. To do this there 

 are two series of cutters, viz.. bed and moving 

 cutters, so arranged that, by shifting the nail- 

 sheet laterally the distance equal to the length 

 of two nails, each time a series of nails is cut, 

 the nails being alternately reversed as to heads 

 and points. The motions cf the machine are 

 only three, viz., tho crank motion of tho cutter- 

 jaw, the cam motion for shifting the nail-plate, 

 iind the feed motion which moves the nail-sheet 

 toward the cutters each time it is shifted and a 

 - of nails cut. In cutting half-inch patent 

 brads or shoe-nails from a 20-inch plate, forty 

 nails are cut at each stroke of the knives, or 160 

 per second, the machine driving the knives four 

 times per second. Of patent brads from f to 2 

 inches long, and shoe-nails of all sizes, one ma- 

 chine will cut 3,600 Ibs. per day. Of the large- 

 size nails, one machine will cut 5,000 Ibs., and 

 .-hip-spikes i to Ibs. each, ono machine will 

 out 25,000 Ibs. per day of ten hours. This 

 form of nail is said to bo more easily driven, 

 and to have a firmer hold on the wood, than 

 nails of tho ordinary form. 

 NATIONAL CEMETERIES. Since the de- 



finitive close of the war, the Government has 

 taken upon itself the work of providing and 

 preparing national cemeteries where our sol- 

 diers who fell in battle, those who died in the 

 field or temporary hospitals from wounds and 

 disease, and those who perished from wounds, 

 disease, and hunger in tho prisons of the 

 South, might receive honorable burial, and, so 

 far as possible, recognition. To these ceme- 

 teries, which have been adorned by the art and 

 skill of the landscape gardener, the bodies of all 

 Union soldiers have been transferred who 

 died or were slain in tho vicinity, and in some 

 instances all who had fallen in the State where 

 the cemetery is situated. In two instances, 

 only, the cemeteries have been laid out and 

 decorated, and monuments provided by associ- 

 ations receiving grants from the several States 

 whose soldiers are among the dead who repose 

 there. These two are the Gettysburg Ceme- 

 tery and the Antietam Cemetery, both contain- 

 ing only the bodies of those killed or subse- 

 quently deceased from wounds received in these 

 great battles. The others have been laid out 

 by order of tho War Department, under the 

 direction of Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel J. M. 

 Moore, A. Q. M. The whole number is about 

 thirty. Of those situated in the vicinity of 

 Washington, D. C., the principal are: The 

 cemetery at the did Soldiers' Home, situated 

 2J miles from Washington, contains 5,717 

 bodies, and is now closed ; Harmony Cemetery, 

 situated two miles from Washington, contains 

 3,251 bodies; Battle Cemetery, situated four 

 miles from Washington, contains 40 bodies; 

 Arlington Cemetery, on the Arlington estate, 

 Va., three miles from Washington, 9,795 bodies; 

 Union Cemetery, near the boundary, between 



