POUND STERLING, VALUE OF. 



POWERS, HIRAM. 



645 



The commercial navy of Portugal consisted, 

 on January 1, 1872, of 813 vessels, of a total 

 burden of 88,510 tons. The total length of 

 railways in operation was, in September, 1873, 

 787 kilometres ; and those in the course of con- 

 struction, 82 kilometres. The number of post- 

 offices, in 1872, was 599, and the number of 

 telegraph-offices 121. The aggregate length 

 of telegraph-lines was 3,110, and of telegraph- 

 wires, 5,723 kilometres. 



The Portuguese Chambers were opened on 

 January 4th. The speech from the throne 

 announced that, in consequence of the reforms 

 introduced in the financial administration of 

 the country, the budget no longer showed any 

 deficit. The condition of the country was rep- 

 resented as flourishing, and especially agricult- 

 ure and industry as rapidly advancing. The 

 overwhelming majority of the Chambers de- 

 clared, on occasion of the establishment of the 

 Spanish Republic, their unflinching devotion 

 to the ruling family. The so-called Iberian 

 party, which aims at a union between Portu- 

 gal and Spain, was found to have but little 

 strength in the country. The Government 

 believed it to be necessary to call in the re- 

 serves, and the Second Chamber, by a vote of 

 50 against 31 votes, adopted measures for the 

 protection of the independence of the country. 

 The minority was of opinion that it was un- 

 necessary to incur so heavy expenses. 



In October a manifesto was published by 

 the pretender Dom Miguel, in which he renews 

 bis claims to the throne, and expressed his 

 wish to cooperate as much as possible for the 

 restoration of Pope Pius IX. Dom Miguel is 

 the only son of the nsnrper Dom Miguel who 

 in 1828 occupied the throne of Portugal, but 

 in 1834 gave way to Queen Maria Gloria, the 

 mother of the present King. He never re- 

 nounced his claims to the Portuguese crown ; 

 and after his death, which occurred in 1866, at 

 the castle Braunbach, in the grand-duchy of Ba- 

 den, they were inherited by his son, who was 

 born on Sept. 19, 1853, at the castle Heubach. 



POUND STERLING, VALUE OF. By an act 

 of Congress, approved March 3, 1873, it was 

 provided that, in nil payments by or to the 

 Treasury of the United States, whether made 

 here or in foreign countries, where it becomes 

 necessary to compute the value of the sover- 

 eign or pound sterling, it shall be deemed equal 

 to four dollars, eighty-six cents, and six and 

 one-half mills ; and the same rule shall be 

 applied in appraising merchandise imported, 

 where the value is, by the invoice, in sover- 

 eigns or pounds sterling, and in the construc- 

 tion of contracts payable in sovereigns or 

 pounds sterling; and this valuation shall be 

 the par of exchange between Great Britain 

 and the United States ; and all contracts made 

 after January 1, 1874, based on an assumed 

 par of exchange with Great Britain of fifty- 

 four pence to the dollar, or four dollars, forty- 

 four and four-ninths cents to the sovereign or 

 pound sterling, shall be null and void. 



POWERS, HIRAM, an American sculptor, 

 born in Woodstock, Vt., July 29, 1805 ; died 

 in Florence, June 27, 1873. He was the eighth 

 of a family of nine children, and passed his 

 youth on hi* father's farm, with only such 

 opportunities for an education as could be 

 procured at a district school, and among his 

 acquirements was a knowledge of the first 

 principles of drawing. The farm proving un- 

 successful, he removed with his family to 

 Ohio, and the death of his father, soon after, 

 leaving him in destitute circumstances, he was 

 successively a clerk in an hotel reading-room, a 

 commercial traveller, and an apprentice to a 

 Cincinnati clock-maker. Having become ac- 

 quainted with a Prussian sculptor, who was 

 engaged at Cincinnati on a bust of General 

 Jackson, he acquired from this man a taste 

 and knowledge of modeling in clay, and ex- 

 ecuted several busts and medallions which 

 were not without merit. For seven years 

 Mr. Powers had charge of the wax-work de- 

 partment of the Western Museum at Cincin- 

 nati. This employment was not calculated to 

 suit his aspiring genius, and in 1835 he made a 

 journey to Washington, where he was actively 

 engaged in modeling busts of prominent men. 

 During his residence at Cincinnati he had 

 formed the acquaintance of Mr. Nicholas Long- 

 worth, through whose assistance and with the 

 money which his occupation had enabled him 

 to save, he undertook a journey to Florence. 

 Henceforth he continued to reside in Italy and 

 devoted himself to modeling busts. After a 

 year's residence, having gained considerable 

 skill in the practice of his art, he produced his 

 statue of Eve. So great were the merits of 

 this work that Thorwaldsen, who was the 

 most eminent sculptor of the time, pronounced 

 it a masterpiece. The reputation which Pow- 

 ers gained by his Eve increased his confidence 

 in his own ability, and a year afterward he 

 produced the model of his Greek Slave. This 

 is the most popular of his works. At least 

 six repetitions of it have been executed in 

 marble, and there are innumerable plaster 

 casts and copies in Parian. The " Fisher 

 Boy," " II Penseroso," and " Proserpine," 

 followed, and orders for copies soon gave the 

 artist more work than he was able to ac- 

 complish. When the projectors of the Syd- 

 enham Crystal Palace desired representative 

 works from the chief artists of the world, 

 Powers produced " America," which obtained 

 for him additional laurels. Among his statues 

 are " Washington," " Oalhoun," and " The 

 Indian Girl." The bronze statue of Webster, 

 which now adorns the State-House grounds at 

 Boston, is one of his latest works. Of his 

 busts, which comprise by far the greater part 

 of the productions of bis genius, those of Ad- 

 ams, Jackson, Webster, Calhonn, Chief-Justice 

 Marshall, Everett, Van Bnren, and other dis- 

 tinguished Americans, possess the highest rep- 

 utation. Mr. Powers was the inventor of a 

 process of modeling in plaster which, by ob- 



