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. 



In 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 

 vessel 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. 



Art. XI. — Architecture in the United States. 



The fine arts have hitherto received little cultivation 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 simphcity 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 



