174 
stop the two water-wheels, and with an apparatus which is moved 
by the engine, draw the mud from the bottom. According 
to another model, the same operation can be performed by means 
of a draw-wheel. A great many models are intended to sepa¬ 
rate seed from cotton, to beat, spin, and weave it; none of them, 
however, are reputed to be superior to the known English 
machines. 
Of steam-engines and steam-boats there are a great many mo¬ 
dels of very singular form, also steam-boats with rotatory motions; 
they however do not answer the purpose. I saw patterns of rail¬ 
ways, and models of machines to draw boats from a lower canal 
into a higher one, by help of an inclined plane. Then two models 
of floating covered batteries. One of them was an oblong case, 
in which is fixed a steam-engine, giving to two long iron bars a 
rotatory motion. These bars, like two clock-hands, projecting 
off the deck^are intended to keep off a boarding enemy. A mo¬ 
del to compress leaden bullets, in order to give them more weight. 
A great number of household and kitchen apparatus, fire-places 
of different descriptions, an earth-augur for seeking water, fire- 
engines of various kinds, a fire-proof roof, contrived by a Ger¬ 
man, several machines to make bricks, instruments by means of 
which, in navigating the Mississippi, trees lying underwater can 
be taken hold of and sawed to pieces without stopping the vessel 
in its course, machinery to bore holes in rocks, and others to hoist 
rocks out of water; the machine contrived in London by Perkins 
to print with steel; models of book printing-presses; models for 
combing wool, and dressing woollen stuffs; fan-mills; leather 
manufacturing instruments, and among others, an instrument for 
splitting hides; a great number of agricultural instruments, name¬ 
ly, a great many ploughs for every kind of soil, invented by 
Germans; machines for mowing grass, for thrashing and cutting 
straw. Among the most important machines, I will mention one 
for making blocks, which is considered not to be inferior in any 
respect to that of Brunei, in Portsmouth, and another which ren¬ 
ders steeping of flax unnecessary, and yet fits it after fourteen 
days drying to be broken and heckled. For permission to take 
a copy of the machine, one must pay ten dollars to the inventor. 
I ordered two copies; one for the Agricultural Society of Ghent, 
and another to present to my father. Several fine models of 
bridges, especially of hanging ones, among others, one of the 
bridges in Trenton, near Philadelphia, and another of that near 
Fayetteville, in North Carolina; also one of a hanging bridge, 
under which is suspended a canal passing over the river. Re¬ 
specting arms I did not find much improvement. There was also 
a triangle of steel, weighing six pounds, upon which three different 
hammers struck, to supply the place of church bells. This ring- 
