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 No. 14. The Great I^ake Country: A Land of Progress. 
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ALONG THE ATLANTIC 
 
 The Companion Library. 
 
 Number Sixteen. 
 
 SELECTIONS 
 From The Youth's Companion. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE CAPITOL HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. 3 
 
 MOUNT VERNON HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. 9 
 
 WASHINGTON'S BIRTHPLACE JOHN W. EWING. 13 
 
 THE LURAY CAVERN MORTON DEXTER. 16 
 
 ON THE CAROLINA BANKS . . . . . THOMAS C. HARRIS. 21 
 
 GEORGIA CRACKERS .... .. . . W. F. PATTERSON. 26 
 
 PEANUTS GEORGE B. SPEAR. 32 
 
 CHESAPEAKE OYSTERS THOMAS W. KNOX. 37 
 
 MARYLAND FISHING-FARMS .... AGNES BAILEY ORMSBEE. 42 
 
 HOW MILK IS MARKETED CHARLES MClLVAINE. 46 
 
 THE STATUE OF LIBERTY MAX OWEN. 51 
 
 THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE WILLIAM H. RIDEING. 55 
 
 THE GRANT MONUMENT C. A. STEPHENS. 59 
 
 ELEVATED RAILROADS MAX OWEN. 62 
 
 Copyright, 1898. 
 PERRY MASON & COMPANY, 
 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
\ 
 
The Capitol. 
 
 No true American can go to Washington and gaze upon the 
 great white Temple of lyiberty on Capitol Hill without feeling 
 his heart beat high with pride and patriotism. Critics may tell 
 us that it will not be a perfect building until the central front 
 is built out beyond the front of the wings, and until the main 
 dome is supported by lesser domes that are visible. But 
 nobody cares for critics when looking at the marble pile rising 
 over the velvet turf and lifting its snowy dome like a cloud 
 itself among the clouds. 
 
 Wherever you go, in Washington or its neighborhood, turn 
 about, and there is the dome looking over your shoulder. You 
 see it as you approach the city, you see it when you are far 
 down the river, you see it from Arlington Heights, from the 
 Maryland hills, and out at the Soldier's Home, not only 
 through the famous Vista, where it rises out of the surrounding 
 branches all by itself, like a phantom of old Rome, but as you 
 look over a charming landscape where the Potomac gleams 
 like a silver thread out of the deep blue of the haze on the 
 horizon. 
 
 The Capitol stands almost in the centre of the plan of the 
 city. The corner-stone was laid in 1793 by Washington. 
 The building was of freestone from Acquia Creek, painted 
 white, and was originally much smaller and more symmetrical. 
 It was burned by the British in the War of 181 2, and was only 
 rebuilt after a stormy debate in Congress, assembled in tempo- 
 rary quarters. But with the growth of the country it was 
 found much too small ; the extensions were ordered, the 
 corner-stone was laid, with Daniel Webster as the orator of 
 the day, and they were completed in 1863. The structure 
 has cost, in all, about thirteen million dollars. 
 
 One would gather little idea of the size of this building by 
 being told that it is seven hundred and fifty feet long by three 
 
4 
 
 THE CAPITOL. 
 
 hundred and twenty-five broad ; one might better comprehend 
 it, perhaps, on learning that its ground plan occupies three 
 and a half acres. 
 
 As you stand before it you see that it consists of the old 
 building in the centre, a beautiful thing in itself, of classic 
 style, connected on each side by a corridor of fluted columns 
 with the vast wings, which are built of white marble from 
 Massachusetts, and are each a temple in itself. The one on 
 the south side is the Senate wing ; the other is used by the 
 House of Representatives. The whole building stands upon a 
 basement of granite, and beneath that is a sub-basement, hidden 
 by the green turf of the terraces. 
 
 Each of the wings has three porticoes of fluted Corinthian 
 columns, every column cut from a single piece of marble. A 
 carriageway runs under the eastern porticoes, by which one 
 enters the basement, the middle entrance opening into the 
 Crypt. On the fronts are the most superb staircases of 
 white marble that can be imagined, supported by immense 
 blocks or buttresses, and so broad and lofty that when one 
 looks at either of them one only remembers the motto : Sic itur 
 ad astra. And so it is indeed. 
 
 As you mount the central one of the flights, you observe on 
 the pediment, a group carved in high relief representing the 
 Genius of America replying to flattering Hope by pointing to 
 Justice holding the Constitution ; a corresponding group, by 
 Crawford, occupies the same position on the front of the Senate 
 wing. 
 
 On the flat top of the upper buttress of the main stairway 
 are two groups of statuary, one representing Columbus holding 
 a globe, with an Indian girl at his feet ; and the other repre- 
 senting Civilization, or the Settlement of America, by means of 
 a hunter with his dog saving a woman and her boy from the 
 tomahawk of an Indian. 
 
 The portico itself here is one hundred and sixty feet long, 
 and carries twenty-four columns, each thirty feet high. In 
 niches at either side of the great doors are colossal figures of 
 
The Rogers Bronze Doors. 
 
6 
 
 THK CAPITOL. 
 
 Peace and War, and over the doors is another bas-relief 
 representing Fame and Peace crowning Washington. 
 
 Here open the great Rogers Bronze Doors, nine feet wide 
 and seventeen feet high, of solid bronze, weighing ten tons. 
 They were designed in 1858, and cast in bronze three years 
 later at a total cost of twenty-five thousand dollars. They 
 represent scenes in the life of Columbus, and attract attention 
 not only because of their historical interest, but also by the 
 harmony of design, and the beauty and skill with which their 
 panels are marked out. 
 
 As you pause and look back, you have the Capitol 
 surfounded on every side by an ample space of greensward ; 
 directly in front of it stretches a paved space in which is 
 Greenough's huge statue of Washington, and on either side of 
 that and beyond it, picturesquely enclosed by low copings 
 of colored stone, is a park exquisitely laid out with flowers and 
 urns, fountains and lamps and many trees. 
 
 Over all this beauty towers the dome, rising from base to 
 crest a height of three hundred and seven feet. As it clears 
 the top of the building, it rests first on an octagonal base ; 
 above that it is enclosed by columns twenty-seven feet high, 
 surrounded by a balustrade ; at the apex is the lantern, fifty 
 feet in height, surrounded by another row of pillars, and on 
 the top of the lantern is Crawford's colossal bronze statue of 
 Freedom. This dome is entirely of iron, painted white, and 
 weighs a little more than eight million pounds. It is supported 
 by solid masonry, and by forty columns carrying arches which 
 uphold the floor of the rotunda. 
 
 It is not, by any means, the largest dome in the world ; 
 there are several larger, but we doubt if there are any more 
 beautiful, more buoyant and perfect. So you would think if 
 you sometimes saw it early in the morning with the mist 
 streaming away from it as clouds are stripped from a mountain 
 side ; or at night when the light burns at the summit, and 
 shines over the town, announcing that Congress is in session, 
 and almost giving it a place among the stars. 
 
I^HK CAPITOI.. 
 
 7 
 
 In summer, sometimes, when Congress sits in the night, 
 and the radiance gleams from the dome and from all the 
 windows, and the moon shines full upon it, the great white 
 splendor, sitting in the dense greenery of its trees, has seemed 
 the very palace of light itself. One hardly knows whether it 
 is more beautiful then, or when, unlighted above, on a dark 
 night, the lamps twinkle in long distances under the arches of 
 
 Capitol from the Mall. 
 
 the outer basement, the lines of columns retreat spectrally 
 into the gloom, and the dome soars above, a shadow on the 
 shadow of the midnight heavens ; or when, on a spring 
 morning, as one comes up the avenue, one sees it throned 
 above the tree-tops of the western side, that rise from banks 
 purple with violets. 
 
 The chief attractions of the Capitol belong to the seasons 
 when Congress holds its most important sessions, but its 
 outward beauty is best displayed in summer-time. 
 
 Harriet Prkscott Spofford. 
 
Mount Vernon 
 
 A trip to Mount Vernon is one of the chief pleasures of the 
 springtime to visitors in Washington. The steamer leaves 
 the wharf every morning, skirts the low, green grounds of the 
 Arsenal, and passes the mouth of the Eastern Branch, in 
 the bay of the Potomac, which is overlooked by Arlington 
 Heights, and a little above spanned by the Long Bridge. 
 
 The steamer stops at Alexandria, quite an ancient and 
 grass-grown city, where there is a church of which George 
 Washington was a vestryman. Pursuing its way, presently 
 the passengers may see a lighthouse which stands near the 
 Initial Stone marking the Virginia boundary of the district, 
 and shortly after stopping at Fort Washington the boat touches 
 the little wharf at Mount Vernon. 
 
 In a hollow, midway between the river and the house, is 
 the tomb of the Father of his Country. Near it are the obelisks 
 of the later Washingtons. Through the grating of the door 
 may be seen the two sarcophagi which enclose the remains 
 of Washington and of his wife. 
 
 Here Lafayette paused to do honors to his old companion 
 in arms ; and in pledge of peace is a tree planted by the 
 grandson of the king against whom he fought. 
 
 The mansion of Mount Vernon stands on a lofty green 
 bluff, and commands a wide and delightful view of rolling 
 woods and river, retreating into that alluring blue mist 
 which haunts Southern horizons. 
 
 The mansion house itself is of wood, squared in blocks, of 
 a cream color. It has an immense portico with stone steps, 
 and with large pillars going to the top of the second story, 
 which is surmounted by a cupola and balustrade. 
 
 On the lawn is a very large magnolia-tree, planted by 
 Washington himself, and some ash-trees. On one side of the 
 house is a garden also laid out by Washington. One cannot 
 
lO 
 
 MOUNT VERNON. 
 
 but think how delightful, in the olden times, life must have 
 been here in summer, when the days are long. 
 
 The estate was inherited by Washington when he was about 
 twenty years of age, from his eldest brother lyawrence, who had 
 named it in compliment to Admiral Vernon, with whom he had 
 served. It had previously been used for little more than a 
 hunting-lodge. The new owner added wings to it, which gave 
 it its length of nearly one hundred feet. 
 
 Somewhat removed from the house are the kitchens, 
 smokehouse and laundry, the spinning and weaving houses, 
 the remains of the servants' quarters and the stables. New 
 conservatories have replaced the old ones, which were the 
 delight of Mrs. WavShington, and which were destroyed by fire. 
 On the whole, it seems to have been rather a princely residence 
 according to the manner of life in its day. 
 
 The buildings and grounds were formerly very much 
 neglected. In 1856 the place was purchased by an association 
 of ladies, Mr. Edward Everett writing and lecturing for some 
 time in their aid. 
 
 Within, the house used to be desolate enough, cut up into 
 some twenty small, dark and dreary rooms. The dining-room 
 was empty of all save its very splendidly carved marble mantel. 
 The library, where Washington loved to sit over his work, and 
 in which he warmed himself in coming in from the cold on the 
 last evening that he spent out of his bed, was stripped of every 
 book. In fact, nothing was left but Eleanor Custis's harpsi- 
 chord to tell of the old merry life. 
 
 But since the ladies of the association took it in hand it 
 has presented a very different aspect. The rooms have been 
 furnished by the ladies of various states by restoring the 
 furniture of the family or of the generation. 
 
 Among others, there is Lafayette's room, fitted up appro- 
 priately, and on entering Washington's room you will find 
 restored to it the bed on which he died. His wife, who after 
 his death was unable to open the door of that room, breathed 
 her last, two or three years later, in the room above it. 
 
MOUNT VERNON. 
 
 II 
 
 In one of the parlors are certain portions of Washington's 
 garments, one of his swords, his spy-glass, a part of his theodo- 
 lite. Copies of Trumbull's and Stuart's portraits of him are in 
 the dining-room, with Rembrandt Peale's painting of Yorktown, 
 which portrays him with his generals about him. Other 
 
 The Main Hall of the Mansion. 
 
 paintings are on the walls, and many objects of note attract 
 the patriotic stranger. 
 
 But probably as interesting a thing as any on the place is 
 the great key of the Bastile, which lyafayette sent Washington 
 by the hand of Tom Paine. You feel, in looking at it, the 
 dreadful sorrows and tragedies on which it has turned, and it 
 seems like a seal on our liberties to have it hanging at last in 
 so sacred a place. 
 
 Outside the doors, the old gardens, set in their high brick 
 
12 
 
 MOUNT VERNON. 
 
 walls, are exceedingly inviting. The breast-high hedges of 
 box are full of a spicy odor. One sees the descendants of some 
 of the flowers which made life pleasanter to Washington 
 himself, and one crushes wild hyacinths in the grass of the 
 lawn as one walks. 
 
 The question naturally arises, what spot can be more 
 delightful than those lawns and gardens on the Virginia hill- 
 sides, with the historic house close at hand, and the senses 
 
 pleased with the odor of 
 flowers, the songs of birds, 
 and the beauty and stillness 
 of river and forest. 
 
 One is apt to wonder if 
 the groups, gaily lunching 
 and talking and exploring, 
 have any realization of the 
 greatness of the character 
 of the man who so often 
 paced these paths, and so 
 loved the quiet and the 
 pleasure of his farm ; if 
 
 Washington's Tomb. 
 
 they appreciate the integ- 
 rity and honor and cool courage, the dignity and devotion to 
 duty, the modesty and the magnificence of Washington ; if they 
 ever think that there is no character in history, among its 
 great soldiers and governors, of such simple grandeur, with 
 that equipoise and calm power which are so sublime. 
 
 Yet if we could but know, doubtless we vShould learn that 
 there are few who do not have their love of country and of 
 all manly virtues stirred by a visit to Mount Vernon, and that, 
 as the bell rings and the boat is off, every visitor had been 
 thinking much the same thought. 
 
 Harriet PrEvSCott Spofford. 
 
Washington's Birthplace. 
 
 In Westmoreland County, Virginia, on the western bank of 
 the famous Potomac River and about seventy miles from the 
 city of Washington, lies Wakefield, the birthplace of the 
 Father of our Country. The old homestead is about one mile 
 west of the town, and upon the crest of a small hill at Pope's 
 Creek, overlooking a broad expanse of the Potomac. 
 
 The house itself was a plain four-roomed structure with an 
 immense brick chimney built on the outside at each end. In 
 the best room was a large chimneypiece of Dutch tiles, 
 ornamented with rude Scriptural scenes. 
 
 When Washington was a small child the house was burned 
 to the ground, and the family moved to another house on his 
 father's estate near Fredericksburg. This second home so 
 much resembled the Wakefield house that a picture of it gives 
 a fair representation of Washington's birthplace. 
 
 All that remained of the first home was one chimney which, 
 being big and built of very large, sound bricks, stood until the 
 autumn of 1893, when it was 
 blown over. The ruins are a 
 great heap of brick and mortar. 
 The bricks are about twice the 
 size of those made nowadays, 
 and the name of the English 
 manufacturer is stamped on the 
 back of each. 
 
 The mortar is very firm and 
 hard, despite its exposure to the 
 elements for over a century. The pile of debris is still almost 
 intact, for relic-hunters do not go there. Indeed, most people 
 think that Washington was born at Mount Vernon, which he 
 inherited from his brother Lawrence, with whom he lived much 
 of the time after their father's death. 
 
WASHINGTON'S BIRTHPLACE. 
 
 The birthplace has not always been forgotten, for in the 
 year 1815, George Washington Parke Custis, the grandson of 
 Mrs. Washington, placed on the old foundations of the house a 
 suitable piece of freestone inscribed with the words, "Here, 
 the nth of February, 1732, George Washington was born," 
 but no care whatever has been taken to preserve that tablet. 
 
 After many years of neglect steps have been taken to mark 
 Washington's birthplace with a suitable monument. Such a 
 memorial was suggested many years ago, but it was not until 
 
 Site of Washington s Birthplace. 
 
 June, 1879, that Congress took any action in the matter. Then 
 an appropriation of three thousand dollars was secured, and 
 the Secretary of State was instructed to see that it was properly 
 expended. 
 
 Nothing was done till the following year, when Mr. Kvarts, 
 then Secretary of State, after he had returned from a visit to 
 Wakefield, asked an increase in the appropriation to thirty 
 thousand dollars. He also submitted designs for a commem- 
 orative structure, to be built of granite with a tiled roof, and a 
 bronze tablet bearing an appropriate inscription. 
 
WASHINGTON'S BIRTHPLACE. 
 
 15 
 
 Bronze doors and windows were to be so arranged with 
 screens that the interior of the structure might be plainly seen 
 from the outside. The proposed building would require no 
 care ; would be dignified and graceful in proportions, and be 
 constructed to endure for centuries. 
 
 In the year 1881 Congress granted the appropriation of 
 thirty thousand dollars for the purchase of the old homestead 
 and erection of a monument. The Secretary of State 
 immediately secured the transfer of the property to the 
 government, with the right of way to a suitable landing-place. 
 
 Then authority was asked for the construction of a wharf of 
 iron screw-piles with a timber deck. Nothing was done in the 
 matter for almost nine years ; then Congress authorized its 
 construction, at a cost limited to eleven thousand dollars, to 
 be deducted from the original appropriation of thirty thousand 
 dollars. The Secretary of State at once delegated the 
 execution of the work, and in 1894 it was completed. 
 
 So now all the work is done with the exception of erecting 
 the memorial structure, the character of which has not yet been 
 decided upon. Perhaps a simpler and more rugged" structure 
 would be better suited to the character of Washington. 
 
 When Washington's birthplace shall have been properly 
 marked, it is probable that many who make the pilgrimage to 
 his tomb at Mount Vernon will continue their journey a few 
 miles farther down the river to the old homestead where his 
 inestimable life began. 
 
 John W. Ewing. 
 
The Luray Cavern 
 
 The Luray Cavern, in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, 
 is so much superior to the Mammoth Cave in beauty, that a 
 competent observer, who has visited both, has compared them 
 respectively to a lady's parlor and a great barn. 
 
 About a mile west of the little town of Luray lies a gently 
 rising ridge, under which the cavern extends. You might 
 drive by the spot a hundred times without suspecting the 
 existence of anything remarkable. Indeed, the cavern was 
 not discovered until 1878, when a strolling photographer 
 blundered upon its mouth and entered it. Even to-day it 
 contains galleries and recesses which never have been fully 
 explored. 
 
 But it has become so well known that more than ten 
 thousand persons visit it annually ; and so great are the 
 variety and beauty of its formations that a committee, specially 
 sent from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington to 
 examine it, has reported that, "Comparing this great natural 
 curiosity with others of the same class, it is safe to say that 
 there is probably no other cave in the world more completely 
 and profusely decorated with stalactites and stalagmites than 
 the Luray." 
 
 The cavern is a great hollow in a long limestone range. 
 Its cause was the passing of a current of water through the 
 limestone while this was in process of hardening during some 
 past period. After the hollow had been shaped roughly, drops 
 of water, each containing a minute quantity of lime in solution, 
 began to drip from the top. Some clung to the roof and to 
 each other long enough to deposit their burden of lime, and 
 thus points of limestone, like icicles, gradually extended 
 downward. These are called stalactites. 
 
 Other drops fell to the floor, and built up a series of 
 pinnacles known as stalagmites. 
 
the: luray cavkrn. 
 
 17 
 
 In time, as the stalactites grew down, while the stalagmites 
 beneath them rose higher, many united and formed massive 
 yet graceful columns. Some drippings from the side walls 
 grew out and crystallized at various angles, and in many 
 diverse shapes, into formations properly called stalactites, but 
 also termed helictites. 
 
 These processes still continue, but are so gradual that their 
 annual accumulations are perceptible only by the most skilful 
 measurements. Their result is a palace of wonders surpassing 
 the most marvellous de- 
 scriptions of fairy - land 
 which the human fancy 
 has invented. 
 
 Entering the little house 
 above its mouth, the visitor 
 pays a dollar, puts on over- 
 shoes to guard against the 
 damp floor of the interior, 
 receives a tin reflector 
 holding a candle or two, 
 and follows his guide into 
 the opening. 
 
 The principal halls and 
 galleries have been supplied with incandescent electric lights ; 
 but candles still are necessary to illuminate the deeper recesses, 
 and also many particular formations, the beauty of which is in 
 the exquisite proportion and finish of their details. 
 
 Without expert aid many of -the most noteworthy sights 
 would be overlooked. The guide also acts as a watchman, 
 for thoughtless or malicious visitors have injured certain 
 formations in an effort to obtain souvenirs. 
 
 The guide leads the way down a dim, sloping passage. As 
 you emerge into the light cast by an electric burner, he 
 remarks, " This is the Vegetable Market." You look around 
 and catch your breath in surprise. 
 
 In a large alcove at one side you behold, hanging from the 
 
 Fish Market. 
 
i8 
 
 THK I,URAY CAVERN. 
 
 roof or the walls, or piled upon the floor, what seem to be 
 hundreds of beets, carrots, turnips, potatoes, bunches of 
 asparagus and heads of cabbage, each only a stone, yet almost 
 as perfect a reproduction of the familiar vegetable as if a skilful 
 sculptor had chiselled it. 
 
 You find it hard to believe that nature alone is responsible 
 for these apparent carvings. They bear examination, too. 
 The illusion does not vanish. It does not depend upon 
 contrasts of light and shade, nor much upon the aid of the 
 imagination. They are nearly as like vegetables as if they 
 had been carted in from the neighboring farms. 
 
 Soon you enter the Fish Market, which is similarly amazing. 
 Here the limestone has taken the forms of fishes, and you seem 
 to see tons of perch, trout, bass and shad hanging or lying in 
 orderly rows. The illusion is completed by the drops of water 
 which drip from their tails. 
 
 Turning a corner, you enter next a vast gallery, five 
 hundred feet long and one hundred wide. Although not 
 proportionately high, it is larger than many a cathedral. It is 
 the Elfin Ramble ; and if ever the underground fairies desired 
 a play-room vast enough for a multitude at once and full of 
 hiding-places, they had it here. 
 
 A little farther on a shallow pit is seen, which has a petrified 
 human bone embedded in its bottom. The guide here relates 
 the legend of Massanutto, an Indian chief, said to have deserted 
 his squaw for a pale-faced bride, and therefore to have been 
 shut into the cavern to die by his tribe. 
 
 But what is this? A blanket hung from a line? Yes, and 
 not only in shape, size and apparent texture does it seem 
 genuine, but red bands run evenly across it, a few inches 
 from the edge, reproducing the stripes upon a real blanket. 
 
 And what is this ? You hardly need the guide's reply, 
 " This is the Saracen's Tent." The peculiar, dome-like canopy 
 and the gracefully flowing curtains which formed the Oriental 
 tent are before you in this stately yet exquisite structure of 
 stone, into which you actually can enter. 
 
THE LURAY CAVERN. 
 
 19 
 
 Next conies the Giants' Hall, less beautiful than grand, 
 but fit for an assembly of the Titans, containing several 
 enormous connected rooms forming one huge apartment. 
 Gigantic columns rise on either side, some simple shafts, of 
 which the only striking features are their massiveness or their 
 symmetry, and others adorned with capitals and decorative 
 work, like those of the old Egyptian temples. 
 
 Hovey's Hall, near by, exhibits quite a number of 
 well-proportioned statues, 
 some being draped with much 
 grace. These lack distinct 
 features, but at a short dis- 
 tance one almost might 
 imagine one's self in the 
 lyouvre. One such statue, 
 dimly visible in Pluto's 
 Chasm, a deep cleft in the 
 side of the cavern, well 
 merits its title, the Spectre. 
 
 An object which lingers 
 long in memory is Titania's 
 Veil. Passing around an 
 enormous column into a 
 huge recess, one perceives, 
 as it hangs loosely in folds 
 from a sort of branch, a sur- 
 face resembling the veil of a 
 bride. It is transparent, and its texture and ornamentation 
 are like those of delicate lace. No masterpiece of the looms 
 of Brussels or Valenciennes ever surpassed its indescribable 
 elegance. It appeals most strongly to the feminine eye, 3'et 
 all appreciate something of its rare beauty. 
 
 Another charming spot is the Bridal Chamber, which 
 contains many of the furnishings of such a room. There is a 
 cathedral also, which alone would reward a visit, with its fine 
 columns and the tracery of its roof. Moreover, it contains an 
 
20 
 
 THK I.URAY CAVERN. 
 
 organ, which has pipes ahiiost as regular as those to be seen at 
 York or Canterbury. 
 
 The Chimes deserve mention, too. At one point the guide 
 indicates a group of five small columns, by striking which with 
 
 a mallet he produces a succession 
 of sweet, bell-like tones delight- 
 fully musical. 
 
 At another place a frozen 
 cascade, as wide and high as the 
 side of a large house and glitter- 
 ing like an Alpine glacier, leaps 
 from the wall of a deep recess. 
 
 The prevailing color of the 
 walls is a dull cream- white, but 
 there are streaks or surfaces as 
 dazzling as alabaster, and others 
 are tinted in red or blue. Here 
 and there in the cavern also are 
 charming pools, and even lakelets, 
 so transparent as to be almost 
 invisible. Indeed, many a visitor 
 has stepped into one before dis- 
 covering where he was. 
 a few of the wonders of the lyuray Cavern ; it 
 describe them adequately. That there is a 
 limit to the power of language is never realized more distinctly 
 than when one tries to portray such marvels. 
 
 Frozen Fountain. 
 
 These are but 
 is impossible to 
 
 Morton Dkxter. 
 
On the Carolina Banks. 
 
 Bogue Banks is the name given to the strip, or rather the 
 strips, of land which lie off the coast of North Carolina, and 
 follow its course from Beaufort Inlet toward Wilmington. The 
 banks vary in width from a few hundred yards to two or three 
 miles, but whether wide or narrow, they are nothing but 
 sand-banks. 
 
 Along the entire seaboard of North Carolina the mainland is 
 separated from the ocean by a narrow fringe of such sand-banks, 
 leaving Currituck, Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds on the land 
 side of them, and forming a frail and insignificant-looking but 
 impassable barrier to the ocean waves. At intervals these 
 banks are perforated by inlets, which form a means of passage 
 from the sound to the ocean. 
 
 Since they are composed almost entirely of fine white sand, 
 the surface of these banks is constantly moved and shifted 
 by the winds, and heaped up into conical hillocks called 
 sand-dunes, which are from fifty to a hundred feet in height. 
 
 Along the ocean side the banks are almost entirely destitute 
 of vegetation, and no sooner does the wind drift the sand into a 
 little hillock than it begins to tear it down and move it else- 
 where, or to carve it into fantastic shapes by its ever- varying 
 changes of direction. 
 
 Sometimes a hill of considerable size seems to move bodily 
 in one direction without a change of shape, and even to 
 overwhelm houses if they happen to be in the way. 
 
 The movement is merely one of the surface sand, and if the 
 wind happens to blow for a long time in one direction, 
 the constant movement of loose particles from one side steadily 
 cuts away that side of the hill, only to deposit the material on 
 the lee side of the hill, where the draught is not so strong. 
 This will account for the apparent movement of the whole 
 mass together. 
 
22 ON THE CAROLINA BANKS. 
 
 It is a curious sight to stand on a tall dune and see miles of 
 these conical hills of snow-white sand, with the constant 
 thunder of the Atlantic waves on one side, and the placid 
 waters of the sound and its fleet of little fishing craft and 
 oyster-boats on the other. 
 
 During heavy gales from the east, the ocean spray is blown 
 entirely across the narrow places, and the waves sometimes 
 bury many acres out of sight for a time, making such places 
 too dangerous for a habitation. A complete system of life- 
 saving stations is in operation during the winter months. 
 
 Occasional areas of tall marsh-grass, with patches of 
 live-oak and palmetto, form the only green coloring to the 
 
 scene. Droves of wild ponies, called 
 bankers, subsist on the scanty veg- 
 etation. They wade far out into 
 the sound for the marsh-grass, and 
 paw holes among the sand-hills to 
 procure fresh water. 
 
 Once a year these ponies are 
 corralled by the owners, and the 
 occasion is called a pony-penning. 
 At such times the young colts are 
 branded, and the surplus stock is 
 carried to the mainland for sale. 
 The ponies are rough and hardy little animals, and need to 
 be broken to the saddle or harness like the wild horses of the 
 Western prairies. When first taken from their native shores 
 they know no food except marsh-grass, and need to be taught 
 to eat in a civilized manner of hay and oats. Sometimes one 
 will almost starve before learning to take strange food out of a 
 manger. 
 
 A sparse population of hardy fishermen inhabit these banks, 
 and subsist mainly on fish and game. They are practically 
 cut off from the rest of the world, and seem to know and care 
 nothing for its fashions and follies. 
 
 They are content to eke out a scanty subsistence, with an 
 
 Bankers. 
 
ON THE CAROIylNA BANKS. 
 
 23 
 
 occasional windfall in the way of a wrecked vessel or the 
 capture of a whale. 
 
 Perched on the very top of a small sand-hill, near Fort 
 Macon, there is a strange-looking hut or wigwam built of 
 rushes or tall grass. Its thatched sides and roof have a queer, 
 foreign look, reminding one strongly of the huts used by the 
 native tribes of Africa. 
 
 It is the shelter of the fisherman on the watch for 
 whales, which are frequently seen and captured near Cape 
 lyookout in February and March. From his elevated place the 
 sentinel can overlook all of that great bend of the shore just 
 south of the cape, and if a whale blows within ten miles, he 
 hoists a flag to warn the fishing crew at Beaufort, several miles 
 away and on the opposite side of the sound. An exciting 
 chase now begins. If there are several boats in the chase, the 
 different crews strain every nerve to be first in the battle. 
 
 The fishermen here use a peculiar kind of sailboat called a 
 sharpie, which has a fiat bottom, a very sharp bow and an 
 immense centreboard. It spreads a large area of canvas in 
 triangular sails, on foremast and mainmast. 
 
 This style of boat is not often seen except on this coast, 
 although it is reputed to sail closer to the wind and be faster 
 than any other. The sails are strained very taut and fiat by 
 means of a peculiar boom Across the lower and widest part of 
 the sail, and this wnll explain, in part, its remarkable sailing 
 qualities. The equipment of a crew consists of the ordinary 
 harpoons and lances with the addition of the modern bomb- 
 gun. The last-named weapon is the main dependence of our 
 whalemen, and is usually very effective. Beaufort fishermen 
 do not hesitate to follow a whale many miles out to sea, for if 
 successful their reward is great. 
 
 I^arge numbers of porpoise are caught near these banks in 
 seines made for the work. They furnish some oil, but are 
 sought for mainly for their hides, which make an excellent 
 leather, very soft, strong and flexible. Much of it is cut into 
 shoe-laces, to which it is specially adapted. 
 
ON O'HB^ CAROIvlNA BANKS. 
 
 The wooded parts of these banks afford hiding-places for 
 deer, and being not very accessible the deer are not often 
 hunted. During the winter months the sounds swarm with 
 many varieties of wild fowl. Ducks, brant, geese and swans 
 may be seen in countless flocks. To a sportsman fond of this 
 
 kind of shooting there is abundant opportunity to test his skill 
 and endurance. 
 
 In the summer and autumn months the waters about the 
 different inlets are alive with fish. Here the sport with hook 
 and line is probably better than it is anywhere else on the 
 Atlantic coast. Trolling for bluefish and Spanish mackerel 
 is the favorite method of fishing, and is quite exciting. It 
 does not differ except in minor details from the bluefishing in 
 more northern waters, but is rather more exciting on account 
 of the speed of the boats. 
 
ON THK CAROI.INA BANKS. 
 
 25 
 
 In the more shallow Waters of the sounds bottom-fishing is 
 much practised, both for pleasure and profit. The boat 
 is anchored in three or four fathoms of water, and the fish-lines 
 are dropped over the side. 
 
 Trout, blackfish, sheepshead, small sharks and many other 
 kinds of fish are thus caught. Ladies and children often 
 derive much pleasure from this style of fishing, and it is a 
 frequent occurrence to haul in three or four fish at once. 
 
 In places along the shore are still to be seen mounds and 
 shell-heaps of considerable size. They are supposed to have 
 been made by the various tribes of Indians who frequented 
 that part of the coast before the discovery of America by 
 Columbus, and who probably subsisted mainly on fish. Bits 
 of broken pottery and stone implements leave no room to doubt 
 that these shell-heaps were the work of the aborigines. 
 
 In many places along the banks the Carolina tea, called 
 yapon, may be seen growing. Its botanical name is Ilex C as sine ^ 
 and it is of the same genus as the mate, or Paraguay tea of 
 South America. 
 
 The natives often use the yapon as a beverage, as a 
 substitute for tea or coffee, and by many it is highly esteemed. 
 It possesses valuable medicinal properties also, and was the 
 source of the black drink of the Southern Indians, who 
 considered it a panacea. 
 
 Since these banks serve as an effectual barrier to the ocean 
 waves, and many rivers continue to pour into the sounds their 
 constant streams of water and sediment, it is merely a question 
 of time that the sounds will become more and more shallow, 
 until they will finally appear as marshes of reeds and grass and 
 afterward dry land. 
 
 Thomas C. Harris. 
 
Georgia Crackers. 
 
 Among the many peculiar sights that a traveller sees in a 
 Georgia town is the clustering together on some street of rough 
 and rickety carts, mud-covered, and drawn generally by a bull 
 or an antiquated mule. 
 
 There is an air of shiftlessness about them which at once 
 attracts you ; a piece of rope for a trace, the harness patched 
 up and held together with wire or cord ; or it may be the 
 driver is a tall, lank man with a heavy growth of hair, a rough, 
 unkempt beard, a broad-brimmed felt hat jammed down upon 
 his ears and a general appearance as if it were too laborious a 
 thing to live. 
 
 Whatever it is that attracts you, whether mule, or cart, or 
 owner, or perhaps curiosity as to the cart's contents, at any 
 rate you stop and ask a bystander who those fellows are and 
 where they come from. He will say, "Oh, they're some of 
 the po' white trash that live out in the country. Georgia 
 Crackers we call 'em." 
 
 A person cannot travel very far through the South without 
 hearing frequently of the Crackers, and curiosity at once 
 prompts you to learn more of them. You go up to the group 
 and ask one of them what he has in his cart, and a reply will 
 come back in a peculiar, drawly tone, Fat-pine kin'lin's, two 
 bunches fer a nickel. Come twenty mile with it since 
 mornin'." 
 
 You are not in immediate need of kindlings and so move on 
 to the next cart, which looks more pretentious. Its load 
 consists of two or three pairs of chickens, some eggs, and a 
 small general assortment of dairy products. Another cart has 
 wood, a hog or a small calf, or small holly or bay trees for 
 garden decoration. 
 
 The whole group forms a picture which is highly interesting. 
 These are some of the poor Southern farmers called pretty 
 
GEORGIA CRACKKRS. 
 
 ^1 
 
 generally through the South, Crackers, famous alike for their 
 peculiar mode of life, their hospitality and their laziness. As 
 is generally the case with a true lazy man's philosophy, they 
 take great pains to attain a very small result, often coming 
 miles to a town to sell a dollar's worth of goods. 
 
 lyCt us follow one of them in his weary march homeward, 
 over the lonely road, climbing up behind the slow, plodding 
 bull, or else walking beside the cart as it winds its way 
 steadily through the forests of yellow pine and oak trees, which 
 line the road on either side. 
 
 The road-bed is of clay and it has a rich red color that fits 
 in well with the dark green 
 of the sombre and stately 
 pines. The oaks and other 
 hardwood trees are leaf- 
 less, for it is the last of 
 December and the foliage 
 has long since fallen. The 
 holly trees, with their red 
 berries, alone are bright 
 and cheerful. 
 
 Although the scene is 
 sombre and lifeless, yet the 
 coloring of sky and woods 
 and road is extremely rich 
 and the mighty stretches 
 of unbroken pine forests are always awe-inspiring. But in 
 spite of the beauty and sublimity of our surroundings, the 
 ride soon becomes tedious and tiresome ; for the old black bull 
 moves along very slowly. We haven't yet learned to follow 
 the lead of the owner, who is already sound asleep on the 
 bottom of the cart, trusting to the patient animal to take him 
 home in safety. 
 
 We haven't passed a house for some time now, and are just 
 commencing to despair of ever reaching the end of our journey, 
 when a light appears faint and far off through the trees. 
 
28 
 
 GEORGIA CRACKERS. 
 
 The old bull seems to recognize it and quickens his pace. 
 Soon we turn off the main road and go bumping over the 
 roughest of roads through the woods. The jolting at last 
 awakens our host, and he comforts us with the assurance, 
 " Most thar neow." A few minutes more of torture and then 
 the bull stops in front of a small log house in a clearing, and 
 we are at last at the home of a typical Georgia Cracker. 
 
 The house has no windows at all, but the logs are so loosely 
 and unevenly put together that the cracks are large enough to 
 let in plenty of light, and also rather more air than would be 
 pleasant on a chilly night. 
 
 The roof is made of rude slabs and hewn shingles, nailed 
 on in a way that is very typical of its builder and owner, but 
 which could hardly be called water-tight. 
 
 The chimney is built entirely on the outside of the house, 
 the lower part being made of stones picked up off the farm and 
 cemented by the common red clay on which the house rests, 
 while the upper portion is made of sticks laid crosswise and 
 cemented on the inside and outside with the same clay, 
 and finally, to hold the clay in place, boards are braced against 
 it from the outside. 
 
 These clay chimneys are seen all over the State of Georgia, 
 and often excite wonder in the minds of travellers at the way 
 in which they are built and how it is that the houses to which 
 they are connected do not burn up. 
 
 There appeared to be little difference between the shed used 
 as a shelter for the bull, and the house used for the man's 
 abode, except, perhaps, a slight difference in size, and in the 
 fact that the upper part of the shed, which is used to stow 
 away a winter's supply of corn-stalks, is all open on the ends. 
 
 The house was in a picturesque location at the base of a 
 wooded slope on the bank of a small stream. Near by was 
 a small cotton patch, and next to that a corn-field of about two 
 or three acres in extent. This was all the cultivated land 
 visible. 
 
 While we are looking at the outside of the house and its 
 
GKORGIA CRACKKRS. 
 
 29 
 
 surroundings, we are in turn being gazed at by a group of 
 brown-faced, tow-headed children, who seem to find us as 
 strange and curious as we find them and their home. 
 
 There are seven of them, three boys and four girls, the 
 oldest boy being about sixteen or seventeen years of age and 
 quite tall, and the oldest girl being about fifteen. All seemed 
 healthy, strong children, their faces tanned by contact with the 
 
 The Home of a Georgia Cracker. 
 
 weather ; and although they could hardly be called intelligent- 
 looking, yet they were not without good looks, especially the 
 younger ones. 
 
 The boys were all clothed in rough cotton jeans, homespun 
 and homemade, and were barefooted, excepting the oldest, who 
 had so far approached the dignity of manhood as to be the 
 possessor of a heavy pair of topboots. The girls were also 
 clothed in homemade cotton cloth, and were without ribbons 
 or decorations of any kind, and all were barefooted, as was also 
 
30 
 
 GEORGIA CRACKERS. 
 
 the mother, who came forward to welcome us with the usual 
 free hospitality. 
 
 We entered the house and found a bright fire burning in 
 the fireplace, which served the double purpose of heat and 
 light. No lamps are used by these people, not even candles, 
 and the only light obtainable is that of the fat pine fire. 
 
 There was very little attempt at order or decoration in the 
 house. A few cheap chromos, most of them advertisements, 
 decked the walls, and a piece of looking-glass about a foot 
 square was fastened up over a table which holds the common 
 basin and pail of water. 
 
 In one corner stands the spinning-wheel and loom, with 
 which the mother makes all the clothes. Near it is a little 
 cupboard, loosely built of rough boards and containing si few 
 dishes, many of which were the worse for wear, and also a 
 few cooking utensils, chief among which was a large iron pot. 
 
 On the top of the cupboard was a small wooden clock that 
 had long since ceased to tell of flying moments, whether from 
 lack of winding or not is a question not answerable. 
 
 Two chairs drawn up before the fireplace, and three beds 
 completed the furniture of this one-roomed mansion. These 
 three beds were arranged side by side at the farther end of the 
 room, one for the girls, one for. the boys, and the last for 
 the parents. 
 
 As there were only three in the house, and all seemed to be 
 pretty well supplied with occupants, we wondered where we 
 were to sleep ; but when the time came for retiring, which 
 happened about half-past eight, or very shortly after we 
 arrived, the three boys, without waiting to be told and without 
 murmur, coiled themselves up on a pile of cotton in one corner, 
 leaving us their bed. 
 
 This primitive mode of life might have many embarrassments 
 to a stranger, but there is no disrobing at night among these 
 people, farther than the taking off of boots and hats, so there 
 is nothing to do but to throw yourself on the bed and go to 
 sleep if you can. 
 
GEORGIA CRACKERS. 
 
 31 
 
 In the morning we arise early, wash at the common basin 
 and use the common towel, and then are given a spoon 
 each and invited to dip into the pot of steaming corn-meal. As 
 an extra treat coffee w^as served, but without sugar or milk. 
 Such is breakfast, and such would have been dinner and 
 supper, with perhaps a piece of pork with the meal ; but we 
 did not wait for any more, and after thanking our host 
 we start out for the next place, to try and hire a mule to drive 
 us to the town again. 
 
 To those whose ideal of life is one close to nature there 
 might be many points of attraction in the lives of these people. 
 They retire early and rise with the lark ; they do no more 
 work than is absolutely necessary for an existence, rarely 
 looking ahead ; living in one room together ; eating their 
 standard dish of yellow meal out of a common pot, and drinking 
 their home-made corn-whiskey out of a common bottle ; caring 
 little or nothing for education or religion in any form ; hospi- 
 table and kind to all but revenue agents, and are fairly moral 
 and honest. 
 
 But to those who care for any of the comforts or advantages 
 of civilization, one visit to the homes of the Georgia Crackers 
 will be enough, and they will never more long for an earthly 
 Utopia where wants are few and all things are held in common. 
 
 W. F. Patterson. 
 
Peanuts. 
 
 Many people would mistake a field of growing peanuts for 
 a field of clover. During the Civil War the boys in blue often 
 ran with eagerness into clover fields in search of peanuts, and 
 could not be convinced of their mistake until they had pulled 
 up a considerable number of the roots and had been roundly 
 laughed at by their more knowing comrades. 
 
 The peanut, sometimes called ground pea or ground nut, is 
 known in the Southern States as the pindar and goober. It 
 is generally believed to be a native of Africa, where it is the 
 principal food of some of the Congo tribes ; but four or five 
 species of the nut are found growing wild in Brazil. 
 
 In this country it is raised principally in the States of 
 Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee, and has been more 
 recently cultivated in California. 
 
 The culture of the peanut is not difficult. Land suited to 
 the raising of corn or melons is generally selected, and care 
 
 is taken that there be nothing in 
 the ground that would stain the 
 shells. 
 
 Planting-time begins when the 
 danger to plants from frost has 
 passed. The ground is plowed 
 five or six inches deep, and then 
 harrowed. The nuts are taken 
 from the pod without breaking 
 their skins, are planted two or 
 three together in rows about three 
 feet apart and twenty inches from 
 hill to hill, and are covered with two inches of earth. Five 
 pecks of shelled seed are needed for an acre. The work of 
 planting was formerly done by hand, but it is now done by a 
 machine, with which one man can plant six to eight acres a day. 
 
PKANUTS. 
 
 33 
 
 When in a short time the vine is eight or ten inches long 
 and begins to blossom, it is covered with an inch of soil, care 
 being taken to leave the tip end uncovered. The vines 
 blossom profusely with small yellow flowers, and as the flower 
 fades away a sharp-pointed stem grows out from its base, turns 
 downward and buries itself in the ground ; on the end of the 
 stem a thick-shelled pod forms, and enlarges rapidly. 
 
 All the care that is necessary after the stem returns to the 
 ground is to keep the land free from weeds. The cultivation 
 consists in running a plow between the rows. After the plants 
 
 stacks of Peanuts. 
 
 have fallen over, they cover the earth so thickly as to smother 
 all other growth. 
 
 In October, when the nuts are ripe, the farmer loosens the 
 earth by running a plow under each row to cut off the main 
 roots and throw out the pods. Then he pulls up the vines, to 
 which the nuts adhere, and turns them over to dry. He 
 performs this work only in pleasant weather, and when the 
 ground is dry. 
 
 After the vines have lain in the sun for a day, which is 
 generally a sufficient time for drying them, the grower stacks 
 them around a stake about seven or eight feet high. The 
 
34 
 
 PEANUTS. 
 
 vines remain in stack from three to five weeks, after which the 
 nuts are picked off, placed in sacks and shipped to market. A 
 vine under favorable conditions bears more than a hundred 
 nuts, and the yield per acre averages forty bushels. 
 
 Most of the Virginia and North Carolina crop, which is 
 about two-thirds of the whole crop of the country, is marketed 
 
 Picking fronn the Vines. 
 
 in Norfolk and Petersburg, Virginia. In each of these cities 
 are factories where the nuts are bought as they are delivered 
 by the farmer. The nuts as they appear at this stage, with 
 earth and their stems still clinging to them, are hardly to be 
 recognized as the bright nuts we afterwards see on the corner 
 stand. 
 
 To polish them, and to remove the earth and stems, the 
 nuts are scoured in large iron cylinders, from which they pass 
 through blast fans, in which a strong - current of air separates 
 the fully developed nuts having sound kernels from those 
 imperfectl}^ filled, and from empty pods. 
 
 The sound nuts fall through the fan upon picking tables, 
 
PfiANUTS. 
 
 35 
 
 where those which are discolored are taken out, and the bright 
 ones are passed on into sacks which will each hold about one 
 hundred pounds of nuts. Bach sack is marked with the brand 
 which indicates the grade of its contents. 
 
 The dark and the partially filled nuts are shelled, and the 
 kernels are used by confectioners in making peanut candy. 
 The work of picking over and separating the nuts is performed 
 by little girls, about twenty of whom are employed at every 
 table. 
 
 Three varieties of peanuts are grown in this country, the 
 white, the red, and the vSpanish. The white, which is the most 
 important variety, has two kernels with pink skins ; its vine 
 spreads along the ground, unlike that of the red variety, which 
 grows more upright and in a bunch. 
 
 The pod of the red nut holds three and sometimes four 
 kernels, and has a deep red skin. The Spanish is a much 
 smaller nut, with a lighter skin and milder flavor than either 
 of the others. The entire 
 crop is shelled, and used 
 especially in that rich con- 
 fection known as nougat. 
 
 The history of the com- 
 petition between the home 
 product and the imported 
 peanut is interesting and 
 gives one some idea of the 
 importance of the peanut 
 trade. In 1872, and for 
 several years previous, there were annually imported into New 
 York a half million bushels of peanuts, the greater part of 
 which came from Africa, and the rest from Spain. 
 
 The American farmers gradually awakened to a perception 
 of the profits to be made by raising the nuts. Melon patches 
 were turned into peanut fields, and in 1878 the seed of the 
 Spanish nut was planted in Virginia. The product was found 
 to equal that of the foreign nut, and as it cost two or three 
 
36 
 
 1>EANUYS. 
 
 cents a pound less to market the crop, it was not long before 
 the imported nut was driven from the market. At present 
 Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee count goober-raising 
 as one of their chief industries. 
 
 The peanut is a more useful product than people in general 
 think it to be. We all know how eagerly it is sought after in 
 the roasted state to help boys enjoy a baseball match or a 
 circus ; but its use in the roasted form by no means measures 
 the extent of its value, or the variety of the uses to which it 
 is put. 
 
 The nuts contain from forty-two to fifty per cent, of a nearly 
 colorless, bland, fixed oil, which resembles olive-oil and is 
 used for similar purposes. This oil is principally employed in 
 the manufacture of the finer grades of soap. 
 
 In 1883 Virginia began to manufacture peanut flour, which 
 makes a peculiarly palatable biscuit, and North Carolina has 
 long made pavStry of pounded peanuts. It is also eaten for 
 dessert, and it is roasted as a substitute for coffee. 
 
 The peanut is very nutritive. The negroes use it in very 
 many places in making porridge custard, and prepare from it a 
 beverage. The vine forms a fodder as good as clover hay, and 
 hogs fatten on what they find on the fields after the crop has 
 been gathered. 
 
 George B. Spear. 
 
Chesapeake Oysters. 
 
 The value of Chesapeake Bay for other purposes than those * 
 of navigation is in its oyster and fishery trade. Not counting 
 rowboats, there are fully a thousand craft of various sizes 
 engaged in the collection and transportation of oysters in and 
 from Chesapeake Bay, and a large amount of money is 
 invested in the industry. 
 
 The oyster-beds are theoretically under the control of the 
 State of Maryland, and its legislature has passed laws intended 
 to regulate the trade. From time immemorial there has been a 
 vast difference between theory and practice, and Chesapeake 
 Bay furnishes no exception to the rule. The laws are openly 
 violated, and piracy has flourished on the Chesapeake as it 
 flourished on the Spanish Main and other parts of the high 
 seas in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 
 
 There are two ways of taking oysters from their beds : by 
 tonging and by dredging. 
 
 In the first method the oystermen use tongs with long 
 handles ; a pair of tongs, with its jaws open, is lowered to the 
 bottom, and tiien the jaws are slowly brought together to 
 secure whatever oysters come within their grasp. In the other 
 process a dredge, or large rake with curved teeth, is drawn 
 over the oyster-bed. When the dredge is filled with oysters 
 it is brought to the vessel's side by means of a windlass, and 
 the contents are placed on her deck. 
 
 There are certain grounds where dredgers may work 
 without interference, and certain other grounds, where the 
 water is shallow, which are reserved for the tongers, and leased 
 by the state to companies and individuals. 
 
 The tonging process is slow, but it is not destructive ; 
 dredging is far more rapid than tonging, but it is terribly 
 injurious to the oyster-beds where the water is shallow, as a 
 dozen oysters are destroyed for every one that is secured. 
 
3§ 
 
 CHESAPEAKE^ OYSICERS. 
 
 The law prohibiting dredging in the shallow waters was 
 enacted in order to preserve the oyster-beds, and raise a 
 revenue for the state, which claims jurisdiction over the bay. 
 The complete ruin of the oyster industry there is threatened 
 unless dredging is prohibited, and the friends of the law say 
 
 Where Dredges are Made. 
 
 that in a few years there will be no oysters left for either 
 dredgers or tongers to gather. 
 
 To protect the beds from pirate dredgers the State of 
 Maryland has an oyster police with its steamers and sloops. 
 Down to a few years ago the pirates were held fairly in check 
 by the navy, and their depredations were not very serious ; 
 occasionally they came down at night and sailed across the 
 forbidden grounds during the darkness until their dredges 
 
CHESAPEAKE OYSTERS. 
 
 39 
 
 were filled, and they were off and out of sight before daylight, 
 unless detained by adverse wind or no wind at all. 
 
 There have been many conflicts between the dredgers and 
 the Maryland navy ; these conflicts were bloodless for the most 
 part, as the police were instructed to fire only at the sails and 
 rigging of the pirate craft, and must not shed blood except in 
 self-defence. 
 
 But sometimes the fighting became severe owing to the 
 vigorous resistance of the dredgers, and the bullets did more 
 than make rents in sail-cloth. Policemen and pirates were 
 wounded, and in some instances killed, during these encounters, 
 and the pirates on more than one occasion were completely 
 victorious. 
 
 The pirates argued that they had a right to take oysters 
 anywhere and in their own way, and they prepared to defy the 
 law openly. When the vessels of the navy appeared some of 
 the dredgers surrounded and fought them, while the rest went 
 on with their work without interruption. 
 
 Occasionally the pirates boarded the vessels belonging to 
 the lessees of the oyster-beds and forcibly took away whatever 
 bivalves they had on hand ; if a despoiled tonger offered any 
 protest he wa-s knocked down and silenced, and in case he 
 made any resistance to being plundered he was flung into the 
 water and had to take his chance of being drowned. 
 
 After a few experiences of this sort the tongers lost patience 
 and began to strike back. The lessees of the grounds armed 
 some of their men with rifles and other weapons, and fights 
 between tongers and dredgers were of daily occurrence. 
 Sometimes one party was victorious and sometimes the other ; 
 but the dredgers were the more numerous and powerful and 
 the tongers suffered accordingly. 
 
 The dredgers proceeded to fit up their vessels for war ; they 
 provided themselves with Winchester rifles, w^hich were placed 
 in racks as on board a regular naval vessel, the crews were 
 armed with revolvers, and some of the larger schooners had 
 swivel cannon mounted on their decks. 
 
40 
 
 CHESAPEAKE OYSTERS. 
 
 One of them actually came out one day with a black flag 
 displayed at her topmast and a plank rigged at the side as an 
 intimation that any prisoners might expect to walk the plank 
 in the style of the old-fashioned freebooters of the sea. 
 
 For some time the dredgers actually drove off the tongers 
 
 Oyster Pirates, 
 
 from the reserved grounds by firing upon them whenever they 
 appeared, and when a police-boat went out to interfere, she 
 was fired upon, too, and her assailants were so numerous that 
 she was compelled to retire. 
 
 The strife has broken up families. A tonger went out one 
 day and was fired upon from his son's boat, his son having 
 
41 
 
 gone into the dredging business and turned pirate. The fish- 
 ermen in the same neighborhood were prevented from setting 
 their nets, and a party of gentlemen who have a duck-shooting 
 club on the shore were also fired upon by these nineteenth 
 century buccaneers. 
 
 The tongers of Kent Island bought an old cannon and 
 placed it in a position to command their grounds. When the 
 dredgers appeared the battle began ; the tongers were getting 
 the best of it when their cannon burst, happily without injuring 
 anybody. Then the dredgers went to work and filled their 
 boats. Imagine the feelings of the tongers as they helplessly 
 looked on and saw their oysters dredged up and carried away ! 
 
 Many of the dredgers are from the eastern shore of 
 Maryland, but the larger vessels are from Baltimore and 
 other Maryland ports, and also from New York. There is 
 much difficulty in obtaining crews for these craft which openly 
 defy the law. It appears that the owners and captains are as 
 lawless in the treatment of their men as they are in obtaining 
 their cargoes. 
 
 These men are compelled to work from four in the morning 
 till nine or ten at night ; are fed upon bread and a nauseous 
 mixture called coffee. They have neither beds nor shelter at 
 night, and are exposed to rain and snow and cold all through 
 the winter months. 
 
 They are frequently maltreated, and often cheated out of 
 their wages. In short, the lot of the pirate before the mast has 
 always been a hard one, whatever may be that of the captain 
 or the owner of the vessel. 
 
 Thomas W. Knox. 
 
Maryland Fishing-- Farms. 
 
 Nothing could be more strongly contrasted than the lives 
 and methods of the New England farmer and the farmer of 
 that long, level peninsula known as the Eastern Shore 
 of Maryland, lying between the Chesapeake Bay and the 
 Atlantic Ocean. In driving along the smooth clay and oyster- 
 shell roads of the Eastern Shore, the first thing that would 
 make the Northern farmer sigh with envy is the absence of 
 stones, big or little. About the only homes to be seen close 
 beside the main roads are the small whitewashed cabins with 
 chimneys built outside, belonging to those negroes whose 
 thrift has secured the coveted five acres and a mule. 
 
 The real farmhouses are often half a mile back from the 
 road. A long, private driveway, called the lane, leads to 
 them, through an avenue of trees. The front door of the large, 
 rambling house opens on the lawn, alwaj^s generous in its 
 size, while the rear door of the hall is equally sure to open on 
 a broad piazza looking out on the bay. The true Marylander 
 is proud of his water-front, and the first hospitable invitation is 
 to come and see the view or to walk out to the bank. 
 
 A few of the farms on the main arms of the bay can boast 
 a tiny beach, where the water laps the yellow sand in true 
 seashore style, but for the most part grass grows to the water's 
 edge. Every farmer has his sailboat, and social life receives a 
 constant impetus from it. Calls are made, evening parties 
 come and go, and business engagements are comfortably 
 attended to by boat. Coal for the furnaces, ice for the 
 ice-houses, which must be bought after a mild winter, and 
 freight of various sorts are landed at the small docks. 
 
 But the financial help which the bay gives the owners of 
 water-farms is greater than all. A goodly portion of the living 
 comes from its waters, and the sales of fish are great aids to 
 make farming pay. Farms which have a good water-front are 
 
MARYI^AND FISHING-FARMS. 
 
 43 
 
 worth nearly twice as much per acre as inland farms, but 
 are rarely for sale, as they are kept in the same family for 
 generations. 
 
 Six hundred dollars from the season's sale of fish is a fair 
 return for a farm of two hundred and fifty acres with half a 
 mile of shore lines, while many years show even greater gains. 
 
 Driveway to the Farmhouse. 
 
 The cost of nets, boats and other needs averages about one 
 hundred to one hundred and twenty-five dollars a year. The 
 farmer usually conducts his fishing on shares with the regular 
 fishermen, and if, at the end of the fishing season of sixty 
 days, he has two or three hundred dollars for his half of the 
 profits he is satisfied. 
 
 The outlook along the shore of these fishing-farms is 
 
44 
 
 MARYI^AND FISHING- FARMS. 
 
 curious. By each farm there are two or three long lines of 
 hedging, running out from the shore. This hedging, which 
 begins in moderately shallow water and not directly at the 
 shore, is made of heavy poles or piles driven into the water, 
 each one from twelve to twenty feet in length, according to the 
 water's depth. It is capped at intervals with long poles, to 
 which heavy twine nets are fastened. These nets are wide 
 enough to be half a foot above the water at high tide. 
 
 The piles and nets form a wall against the sea, and as 
 the fish swim up or down stream they find this obstruction to 
 their course. Fish never turn backward, and, true to their 
 instinct, they swim along the line of hedging, trying to find an 
 outlet. At the deep-water end of the hedging is a netting, 
 strong and heavily tarred, which is funnel-shaped, the small 
 end inviting the fish to enter. The confiding fish does so, 
 and finds himself in a square room with walls of netting. The 
 fishermen come in their boats at ebb-tide, and carefully lifting 
 the net, empty all the unlucky fishes into the boat. 
 
 This room is the fisher's weir, or pound, and is from 
 fourteen to twenty feet square and from twelve to eighteen feet 
 deep, varying with the depth of the water. The weir is 
 provided with a rope, by which the men draw the net up till 
 the fish are all in a small space, and then scoop them out with 
 a hand-net. Fish of all sorts, herring, catfish, bass or rock, 
 white and yellow perch, eels and the like are caught in this 
 way. Herrings, which come in large schools, are caught in 
 great numbers. Sometimes five hundred or more are scooped 
 in ; but one hundred is thought a big haul of shad. 
 
 Shad are the most valuable and salable, and another 
 method is devised for catching them. Large nets, fourteen feet 
 long and thirty-six feet deep, are made of fine gilling-twine. 
 These nets are hung at each end by wooden rings to poles, 
 which are staked out at quite a distance from the shore. 
 They are weighted by iron rings and hang down into the 
 water like a sheet upon a clothes-line. The shad go up 
 the river with the flood-tide, and at ebb-tide they are found 
 
MARYLAND FISHING-FARMS. 
 
 45 
 
 caught by the gills in this fine net. It is certainly not 
 flattering to finny instincts that a slender net should hold fast 
 such heavy, powerful fish. The fish are gathered in once or 
 twice a day, and then are packed in barrels and boxes to ship 
 to city markets. 
 
 Strange enough, there are plenty of men who do not 
 consider the fish the property of the fishing-farmers, even when 
 in the weirs, and constant watching alone keeps them from 
 being plundered. The farmers have built little houses along 
 the shore, where their men can sleep nights and keep one eye 
 upon their nets. The only thing that holds these thieves 
 within bounds is a gun loaded with buckshot. 
 
 After the fishing season closes the farmer turns his attention 
 to crabbing, though not so extensively. The soft-shelled crab 
 is quite scarce, but he is the same crustacean as the hard- 
 shelled, the only difference being that his shell is soft during 
 the time he is shedding the old one and growing a new one. 
 The fisherman rows along the shallow water and scoops them 
 up with a hand-net. A trap is made for the hard-shelled crab. 
 Poles are driven into the water and connected by strong 
 cords. To these cords other cords, baited with meat, are tied 
 and let down into the water. The crabs come to feed on the 
 meat, and are easily caught in hand-nets. 
 
 Terrapin, once so plentiful, are growing fewer and fewer. 
 Some effort has been made to propagate them, but it is difficult 
 and is not generally attempted. Oyster-raising, except for 
 private use, is not attempted by the farmers. To supply the 
 family table, small beds are planted and cared for and gathered 
 by tonging. 
 
 Agnes Bailfy Ormsbee. 
 
How Milk is Marketed. 
 
 When the milkman rattles at the alley gate, or the front 
 doorbell tinkles to his early pull on a winter's morning, how 
 many know where the fluid comes from that is carefully ladled 
 from the can into the answering pitcher, or know the system of 
 production and transportation by which it reaches its destina- 
 tion at thousands of houses so regularly and promptly every 
 morning in the year ? 
 
 There are places in other countries than America where the 
 milkmen drive their cows from door to door, to serve milk 
 fresh and warm wherever needed ; but such a method is far too 
 primitive for our large cities and go-ahead people. 
 
 It would take a good-sized drove of cows to supply the milk 
 that is consumed in one of the large city hotels, and most of 
 the residence streets of our towns would have a double row 
 of cows and milkers from one end to the other more than 
 half the day, if such were the custom here. Other means have 
 had to be devised to supply the people of our cities with milk. 
 
 Winter, when the fields are covered with snow or brown 
 from frost-nippings, is the best time in which to visit a farm 
 where cows are kept for the purpose of supplying milk to 
 cities. Then all the resources of the dairy farmer are brought 
 to bear in order properly to care for his herd, and secure its 
 best yield for market. 
 
 When the country is green, when clover grows in inviting 
 clusters, when timothy stands in lustrous tufts, and the green 
 grass mats its tender shoots of which the milking herds may 
 eat their fill, then Nature is doing by far the greater half of the 
 farmer's work. Each cow then feeds herself, attends to her 
 own sleeping arrangements, and makes her own bed. 
 
 One winter's day found me forty miles from Philadelphia, 
 driving with a dairy farmer from the railroad station to his 
 home. Nestled against a hillside, his house, with massive 
 
HOW MILK IS MARKETED. 
 
 47 
 
 chimneys and broad porches, had an old-fashioned air of solid 
 comfort. 
 
 It Vv'as near the evening milking-time when we stepped from 
 under the sleigh-robes to the swept path at the house-yard 
 gate ; so at my friend's suggestion we went directly to the 
 barn to witness the operation. The girls, a rosy, laughing 
 party of them, were selecting their milking-buckets, clean and 
 
 Milking in Summer. 
 
 bright as new pins, from the milk-room shelves, or their 
 milking-stools from the rack outside. 
 
 Equipped with these, they entered the wide door of the 
 main barn to pass in the rear of twenty-five or thirty cows, 
 chained by the neck to their feed-bins. The pleasant odor of 
 kine blended with the sweet perfume of hay and ground corn 
 upon which the animals were feeding. Fat, sleek, well-fed 
 creatures they were, clean and warmly bedded with bright 
 straw ; for the yield of a dairy is largely increased by liberal 
 feeding and constant care of the cows. 
 
 Kach girl had her allotment of cows, and for the time 
 
48 
 
 HOW mii^k: is MARKE'TKD. 
 
 assumed absolute control over them. Chubby Gertie, bucket 
 and stool in hand, stepped bravely up on the right of a 
 great red beast, ten times as big as herself, gave her an admon- 
 ishing poke with the stool-legs, and said, authoritatively, 
 ' ' Stand over, Reddy ! ' ' which Reddy immediately did without 
 protest. 
 
 Down the girl plumped upon her stool, gave her skirts a 
 quick tuck under herself, nestled her bucket with a slant in the 
 straw, rested her head against the cow's soft flank, and went 
 earnestly to work with both hands at the round, full udder, 
 causing its contents to dash in rhythmic spurts into the 
 sounding bucket. 
 
 As the milking-buckets are filled, they are emptied into 
 others much larger, having broad, lip-like spouts and partl)^ 
 covered tops, called strainers. These, when filled, are carried 
 by men to the cooling-room, where the warm, frothy milk is 
 carefully poured through the fine wire strainers guarding the 
 spout, into cans made of heavy tin and bound substantially 
 with either iron or brass bands. 
 
 The cans are about two and a half feet high, wdth wide 
 mouths into which a handled lid fits tightly. They are of two 
 sizes, holding, respectively, twenty and forty quarts. It is in 
 these cans that the milk is shipped to its destination. 
 
 Cleanliness and proper cooling are necessities in handling 
 milk. Everything that it touches must be scrupulously 
 cleaned and scalded, and the spring-house or the cooling-room 
 must be pure and well ventilated ; if not, sour or distasteful 
 milk is the consequence of the neglect. 
 
 As the cans are filled, they are placed side by side in the 
 running water of the cooling-trough, which is of about the same 
 depth as the milk in the cans. The milk is frequently stirred 
 with a wooden paddle until all of the animal heat has departed 
 from it, and here it remains uncovered during the night. 
 
 In some places more remote from the city the milk is sent 
 to the railroad as soon as it is cooled, together with the 
 morning's milking, to meet the late evening train ; but our 
 
HOW MILK IS MARKETED. 
 
 49 
 
 farmer rises while it is yet night to hurry off his product to the 
 early milk-train. 
 
 Four o'clock in the morning ! The milk-cans have been 
 loaded into the bed of the sled, and the horses are impatient to 
 be off. Not a ray of light yet appears in the east, and overhead 
 the bright stars are shining. The horses' feet creak as they 
 tread the snow and the sled-runners sing as they glide over it. 
 We are not alone. As we near the station, sleds driven by 
 fur-capped, muffled drivers join us, coming from all directions, 
 some* from five or six miles away. 
 
 At the railroad station the sled halts by the edge of a 
 
 The Station, Philadelphia. 
 
 wooden platform at the steel track's side, whose floor is on 
 a level with the car doors. Here is a busy scene. The station 
 agent's calls of " Name ? " How many cans ? " " How many 
 quarts ? ' ' rise above the jingle of sleigh-bells as he stands with 
 lantern on his arm, noting the names and amount brought by 
 each person. 
 
 When the cans have been unloaded from the sleds upon the 
 platform, and registered by the agent, they become in a sense 
 passengers, and the agent proceeds to collect tickets for them. 
 Drawing off their mittens, which they hold in their teeth, the 
 drivers fumble in their pockets until a package of tickets is 
 
50 
 
 HOW MII.K IS MARKKTKD. 
 
 found. From thCvSe each one selects as many tickets as he has 
 twenty-quart cans, or two for each forty-quart, and hands them 
 to the agent. 
 
 These tickets represent the passage-money for the cans. In 
 this respect the tin reservoirs are treated precisely as human 
 passengers. 
 
 There is a shout : ' ' Here comes the train ! ' ' As it glides 
 to the platform, the driver whose morning turn it is to load 
 the milk, seizes a can and whirls it on its bottom edge to the 
 waiting train official ; he in turn grasps it, and keeps it 
 whirling across the car until it settles with a thud among a 
 group of every-morning companions from more distant stations. 
 When all the cans are loaded and the passengers are on board, 
 there is a wild wave of a lantern, a shriek of the locomotive's 
 whistle, and on goes the train with its precious burden of life 
 and life-giving fluid. 
 
 At every village, cross-road and station similar scenes are 
 enacted, until one, two or three cars are filled with their tin 
 passengers. Before half of the people of the city are out of 
 their warm beds, the train glides into the station. Outside 
 of it are double rows of milk- wagons, gaudily painted, and 
 lettered "Pure Country Milk," "Diamond Spring Dairy," or 
 some other seductive title chosen by the milkman to attract 
 customers. 
 
 A railroad official examines the tags on the cans, and 
 delivers to each milkman those marked with his name. The 
 milkman hurries off with them to his wagon, unblankets his 
 horse, climbs to his seat, tucks the blanket about his legs, and 
 away he goes to rattle the alley gates or tinkle the front 
 door-bells along the route he serves. 
 
 Chart.ks McIi^vaink. 
 
The Statue of Liberty 
 
 The entrance to New York harbor is adorned with the 
 largest statue the world has ever seen. But the idea of thus 
 marking the mouth of a seaport is not new. A statue which 
 may be reasonably compared with Liberty Enlightening the 
 World was erected more than two thousand years ago. 
 
 The Colossus of Rhodes was one of the seven wonders of 
 the world. It was twelve years in building and was two-thirds 
 as tall as the lyiberty Statue. About 224 B. C. it was thrown 
 down by an earthquake after it had excited the admiration of 
 travellers for only about sixty years. 
 
 Engineering science is much farther advanced now than it 
 was two thousand years ago, and it is the opinion of men 
 competent to decide the point, that our statue will be able to 
 withstand the fiercest gales that rage. Certainly extraordinary 
 care was taken to make the foundation upon which it stands 
 strong enough to endure forever. 
 
 This statue is the gift of Frenchmen to America. The 
 money to pay for it was contributed in large and small sums by 
 French people of every social standing. The statue itself is 
 one hundred and fifty-one feet high, but the pedestal on which 
 it stands is so great a structure that the statue towers more 
 than three hundred feet from the ground. It is visible twent}'- 
 five miles at sea. 
 
 During the progress of the work in Paris, thousands upon 
 thousands of interested men and women visited the shops 
 where the statue was building. The French are a very 
 impressionable people, and one who has ever seen a group of 
 them under political excitement can easily see the manner in 
 which they would shout, with nervous enthusiasm, Vive la 
 Republique Amei'icahie / ' ' 
 
 A description of the process of building the statue, for it 
 was really built up with copper plates, is extremely interesting. 
 
The Statue of Liberty. 
 
THK STATUK OF LIBERTY. 
 
 53 
 
 First, the artist Bartholdi made a life-size statue. Next, each 
 part was taken by itself, and multiplied in size according to a 
 definite rule. 
 
 Then a framework of wood was built as a sort of mold, and 
 the plates, nearly an inch thick, were fitted to it. Finally 
 all the parts were joined together.. But before the statue was 
 shipped to this country it was all taken apart, and was 
 transferred to New York in more than three hundred pieces. 
 
 Some of the measurements are astonishing. Ten men can 
 stand with comfort inside the torch which Liberty holds aloft 
 with a right arm forty-two feet long. Forty men can stand 
 within the head, which they reach by a spiral staircase within 
 the structure. 
 
 The statue stands in New York Bay, but it is an object of 
 pride to every American, both as a compliment paid to the 
 greatest republic in the world by the greatest of European 
 republics, and as a conspicuous emblem of our proud but true 
 boast that here the torch of liberty has burned with the 
 brightest and steadiest flame. 
 
 Moreover, the statue was not presented to New York City, 
 or to the state, or to the national government, but to the 
 American people, and while there are good reasons why New 
 Yorkers should be specially interested, it is difficult to see 
 how any true American can be indifferent. 
 
 The statue is the gift from one people to another ; from 
 Frenchmen, who love liberty, to Americans who love it no 
 less, although it may be true that the methods by which the 
 French sought to win liberty are not ours, and that they do not 
 recommend themselves in all respects to men who love law as 
 well as liberty. 
 
 Some men, also, will be disposed to admit that a colossal 
 statue standing on an island in a harbor is not the highest form 
 of art. But what of it ? Let us look to the spirit of the givers, 
 and the grandeur of the gift. 
 
 Max Owe:n. 
 
Brooklyn Bridge from the New York side. 
 
The Brooklyn Bridge 
 
 In every bird's-eye view of Greater New York the 
 Brooklyn Bridge must always be a prominent object. Its 
 two magnificent towers rising from the water's edge on both 
 shores loom up in the outlook from every eminence in the 
 neighborhood. 
 
 Seen from the base, they rise toward the sky with a solid 
 and indestructible splendor, and from the river they lose 
 nothing of their superb height, while the bridge itself, hung 
 from shore to shore with unparalleled boldness, is more fully 
 revealed here than at any other point. 
 
 No general view, however, can show the scope of the entire 
 work. The long span may be depicted, for it is high above 
 all the surrounding objects, but one must be on the bridge 
 itself to see what a wonder of engineering it is. It is not 
 merely a suspension bridge across a wide and deep tidal river, 
 but by means of enormous masonry arches it is continued high 
 over the housetops, until at one end it reaches the level of City 
 Hall Park, in the centre of commercial New York, and at the 
 other end the heart of Brooklyn. 
 
 It not merely bridged the East River, but it practically 
 made one city of two which hitherto were connected only by 
 tedious ferries, which at the best were always liable to the 
 delays of fog and ice. The bridge opened an ample and direct 
 path by which one can accomplish in five minutes what 
 formerly took thirty minutes, and therein the utility of the 
 work is shown. 
 
 It is not simply a footway for pedestrians. It is eighty-five 
 feet wide and is divided into five parallel avenues, two for 
 railway tracks, two for carriages and other vehicles drawn by 
 horses, and one for pedestrians. The latter is much higher 
 than all the others, and gives to foot-passengers an uninter- 
 rupted view over the roofs of the cars which run on both sides 
 
56 
 
 THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE. 
 
 of it, a view so comprehensive and impressive that the footway 
 is a favorite resort to sightseers. 
 
 The entrance to the bridge is a rather small structure, 
 opposite the City Hall, and is dwarfed by the much finer 
 buildings surrounding it. Passing out of the station one 
 walks on a masonry viaduct which becomes higher and higher 
 as the land over which it is built slopes down to the river. 
 Now the observer is on a level with the top-story windows of 
 the houses, now above their chimneys, and now marching 
 directly over the tracks and trains of the elevated railway. 
 With each step taken along the smooth path, the men and 
 women in the streets below grow more like pigmies, and a 
 desert of roofs, with wreaths of steam and smoke issuing from 
 the chimneys, spreads out in all directions. 
 
 By and by the end of the viaduct is reached and we enter 
 upon the bridge itself. The massive cables by which it is 
 suspended sweep up in front of us and pass over the top of the 
 New York tower, from which they sweep down again with an 
 exquisite curve to the very middle of the bridge, thence up 
 over the top of the Brooklyn tower and down to the anchorage 
 on that side of the river. 
 
 Now we are high above the ships lying at their wharves 
 and we can see them from stem to stern. In a few seconds 
 more we are walking under the archway of the New York 
 tower, and the splendor of the work touches us with increasing 
 awe. The bridge hangs across the river without other support 
 than the cables for a distance of sixteen hundred feet ; the floor 
 is one hundred and thirty-five feet above high water, and the 
 tower rises two hundred and seventy-seven feet above the 
 level of the shore, or as high as the dome of the Capitol at 
 Washington. 
 
 The real size of the tower cannot be seen, however, for 
 from the sea-level it is built down out of sight under the 
 rushing water to its foundations on the bed-rock seventy-eight 
 feet below the surface, and thus from top to bottom it is 
 actually three hundred and fifty-five feet high. 
 
the: BROOKLYN bridge:. 
 
 57 
 
 Advancing to the middle of the vSpan we look down again. 
 Two cities with two million people are below us, and the eye 
 can pick out every notable building. Looking straight down, 
 the great Sound steamers and large ships can be seen passing 
 under our very feet, for we are higher than their topmasts, 
 and it seems as if we had acquired the power of wings and 
 
 Railway and Driveway, South side. 
 
 were poised soniewhere up in the sky. The harbor is visible 
 down beyond the Statue of Liberty, and the ocean steamers are 
 pouring endless ribbons of smoke toward the Narrows. We 
 can see the fortifications, the low shores of New Jersey, with 
 the purple band of the Orange Mountains in the distance, and 
 the blue, curving hills of Staten Island. 
 
 Constant trains of cars are passing over it, and the carriage- 
 ways on both sides are filled with a stream of trucks, wagons 
 
58 
 
 'THK BROOKI^YN BRIDGE^. 
 
 and coaches. At night hundreds of electric lights sparkle along 
 the bridge, and to the mariner coming into harbor through the 
 Narrows, they appear to be some new and brilliant constellation 
 in the sky. Passing under the arches of the Brooklyn tower, 
 over which the vast supporting cables are again carried, we 
 reach the Brooklyn end of the bridge, a little over a mile from 
 the point at which we started. 
 
 The work on the bridge was begun in 1870, and day by day 
 passengers by the ferry saw the towers growing in height, until 
 in 1876 both of them were complete, though there was as yet 
 no connecting link between them. How could the first wire be 
 stretched across the water ? 
 
 Traffic in the river was stopped for an hour, until a scow 
 could carry a wire rope from one tower to the other and back 
 again, so as to form an endless belt running from anchorage 
 to anchorage. A board seat slung by its four corners to this 
 belt and passing over it, was used in the preliminary stages by 
 the workmen for uniting other wires to the original one. 
 By slow degrees wire was spliced to wire and multiplied until, 
 after seven years of work, the splendid suspension bridge was 
 completed. 
 
 Each of the four enormous cables which sustain the bridge 
 contains five thousand wires one-eighth of an inch in thickness. 
 They all rest upon the tops of the towers, without dragging 
 upon them, and thence they are carried to anchorages nine 
 hundred and thirty feet inshore from the towers, where they 
 are secured under a weight of about sixty thousand tons of 
 masonry. 
 
 Everything about the Brooklyn bridge is substantial, as 
 indeed it ought to be, for the work cost nearly sixteen million 
 dollars. The superstructure is calculated to last for a century 
 at least, and the imagination cannot compass the distance of 
 the future when the towers shall have fallen. 
 
 W11.1.IAM H. RiDEING. 
 
The Grant Monument 
 
 The formal national crowning of the career of General 
 Grant occurred in 1897, when his grand tomb at Riverside 
 Park, New York, was dedicated. The ceremony was as 
 impressive as befitted the occasion, and is not unlikely to be 
 remembered as the culminating incident of the great Civil War 
 period of our national history. 
 
 Napoleon Bonaparte's mortal remains, lying in the magnifi- 
 cent marble crypt beneath the golden dome of the Hotel des 
 Invalides in Paris, have hitherto been more grandly entombed 
 than those of any man of modern times. This distinction is 
 henceforth to be shared by the relics of our patriot warrior 
 whose humanity was signalized by his famous words, " I^et us 
 have Peace." 
 
 These benign words of the man who, though bred to arms 
 and preeminent in war, never forgot the gentle instincts of a 
 Christian, have perhaps more endeared General Grant to the 
 American people than all his victories. It is eminently 
 appropriate, therefore, that the inscription, "Let us have 
 Peace," should be most conspicuous on the hero's mausoleum 
 as proclaiming for all time to our people, and especially to our 
 military leaders, that the one justification for war arises when 
 no other means can secure an honorable peace. 
 
 The history of the Grant Monument is well known. As 
 soon as it was determined that the General's tomb should be in 
 New York, the Monument Association opened its books for 
 popular contributions. Owing to various difficulties, the 
 undertaking made little progress until 1892, when Gen. Horace 
 Porter assumed charge of the work. His prestige as a soldier, 
 his long service on General Grant's staff during the Civil 
 War, and his close friendship with the great leader made him 
 thoroughly acceptable to the nation as the directing mind of 
 the enterprise. Money immediately began to accumulate. 
 
6o 
 
 THE GRANT MONUMKNT. 
 
 Eighty thousand persons contributed sums averaging seven 
 dollars and fifty cents each, or in all about six hundred 
 thousand dollars. 
 
 No finer location for such a monument could have been 
 selected. It stands at the northerly end of the high ridge, in 
 the loop of the Riverside driveway, just at the point where two 
 noble views are obtained, northward up the Hudson River past 
 the Palisades, and southward down the harbor. 
 
 The monument itself is so original, so unique in design as 
 
 with a double row of granite pillars, over which is inscribed, 
 " L^et us have Peace." 
 
 Even granite is susceptible to erosion by the elements. 
 Consequently the best possible quality of stone was sought. 
 Specimens from the quarries of New York, Michigan, Pennsyl- 
 vania, Virginia and Rhode Island were tested by the committee 
 and found unsatisfactory. At length a very superior granite 
 was discovered far in the interior of the State of Maine. 
 
 This stone is very light in color, so nearly white, indeed, as 
 
 to startle the beholder at 
 first sight ; but after the 
 first impression has passed, 
 the grave and noble sim- 
 plicity of the architectural 
 conception commends it to 
 the soul. It dignifies the 
 fame of American art, for the 
 designer was our country- 
 man, Mr. John H. Duncan. 
 
 General Grant's Tomb. 
 
 The structure consists of 
 a huge square erection of 
 smooth white granite, sur- 
 mounted centrally by a 
 capped dome encircled by 
 columns. All four sides are 
 alike except the south, where 
 there is an entrance portico. 
 
THE GRANT MONUMP:nT. 
 
 6l 
 
 to resemble marble, and be mistaken for it at a little distance. 
 It is quite without blemish or cleavage sheen, and experts 
 believe it will resist the action of climate for many centuries. 
 The cost for transportation, labor and special machinery for 
 working it was very great. 
 
 Internally, the monument is occupied entirely by the 
 memorial hall and central pit, or crypt, at the bottom of which 
 stands th^ great granite sarcophagus 
 containing the coffin. One looks 
 down upon it from the main floor 
 through a circular opening eighteen 
 feet in diameter, surrounded by a 
 heavy, handsomely wrought rail. 
 
 The sarcophagus itself is cut from 
 a single block of stone, and weighs 
 about five tons. It rests upon a 
 low pedestal, or support, of Quincy 
 granite. The crypt is about fifteen 
 feet in depth below the floor of the hall ; on either side are 
 recesses for military emblems or busts, as at the tomb of 
 Napoleon. 
 
 The ceiling of the memorial hall consists of four grand 
 arches springing from the four sides of the edifice and of the 
 interior of the dome, the central point of which is a hundred 
 and sixty-five feet above the floor. There are no columns of 
 support here ; the entire weight of the dome rests on the four 
 great corner piers of the structure, which contain staircases by 
 which visitors may ascend to the circular gallery about the 
 dome, a hundred feet or more above the floor of the hall. 
 
 The interior work is of marble, both Italian and American, 
 but has been kept austerely plain and free of ornamentation. 
 Two of the corner piers were built to contain cases in which 
 to show the swords, medals and other war relics of General 
 Grant. 
 
 C. A. Stephens. 
 
 The Sarcophagus. 
 
Elevated Railroads 
 
 For a great many years the city of New York was hindered 
 from making its natural growth by the lack of means of getting 
 quickly from one part of it to another. 
 
 Manhattan Island is long and narrow, and the lower end is 
 wholly given up to business. A ride from two to six miles 
 every morning and evening in a slowly moving street-car takes 
 too much valuable time, and is very uncomfortable, owing to 
 the crowds travelling at the beginning and end of each business 
 day. 
 
 There were only three ways to remedy the evil. Horse- 
 power had to be given up, and steam or electricity used with 
 fast trains on a surface railroad, or above or below the surface. 
 The dangers of a surface road would be so great and its 
 interference with business so annoying that it was never 
 seriously considered. The great objection to an underground 
 road was its excessive cost. 
 
 The elevated road was unpopular at first. An experimental 
 section was built, which was afterward extended, so that for 
 two or three years there was in operation a railroad on stilts, 
 running from the Battery, at the lower end of the city, to 
 Central Park, a distance of about five miles. 
 
 After years of contest for right of way and popular approval, 
 a system of elevated railways was completed, consisting of 
 four lines. They start from the Battery with one double track 
 road on each side of the city, then each separating, the two 
 eastern lines run to the Harlem River, and of the western roads 
 one ends at Central Park and the other far up at 155th Street. 
 
 The increasing popularity of these elevated roads, and the 
 rapid rise in prices of land in the upper part of New York, as 
 block after block of dwellings was erected, naturally influenced 
 real estate men in Brooklyn to build rapid transit roads to the 
 outlying districts of that great city. 
 
ELEVATED RAItROADS. 
 
 63 
 
 The completion of the Brookhni Bridge removed the risk of 
 dela3's by the ferries, and insured a quick passage from New 
 York City Hall to the great region of homes across East River, 
 b}^ the lines of elevated road that start near the Brooklyn end 
 of the bridge and connect with other roads that run to all 
 parts of the city and its suburbs. 
 
 In some streets the railroad is supported b}' a single line of 
 
 rOPyRIGHT, 1895. LOEFFLER, S. I., N. Y. 
 
 Elevated Road in the Bowery. 
 
 pillars standing at the edge of the sidewalk, so that the trains 
 run on each side of the street. In other streets the tracks rest 
 on double rows of pillars connected b}' iron girders. The 
 pillars rise from the sidewalks in narrow^ streets, and in some 
 places from the central part of the wide avenues. 
 
 The one-legged system, as it is called, looks insecure ; but 
 
64 
 
 EI.KVATED RAII^ROADS. 
 
 competent engineers say it is perfectly safe, and that there is 
 more danger from straining the works in the direction of the 
 road, when trains are started or stopped, than there is from 
 giving way in the direction across the track. 
 
 The stations are reached by long flights of steps, as the 
 road runs along on a level with the second-story windows, or 
 higher. Those who are observant will notice that the rails 
 rest on sleepers placed more closely together than on a surface 
 railroad, that the rails are more solidly spiked down, and that 
 there is a guard inside each rail, along its whole length, to 
 prevent cars or engines from running off the track. The fare 
 is the same for any distance, five cents. The stations are 
 about half a mile apart, or less, and the trains do not stop 
 except at the stations. 
 
 A ride on the elevated railroad is a pleasant trip. It 
 gives a curious sensation at first to be whirled along over 
 the sidewalk, so near to the second-story windows of tenement- 
 houses that you could see what the families living there had 
 on the table for breakfast, if the cars did not go so fast ; to 
 look down upon the heavy teams jogging along in the street, 
 or to watch the train as it runs upon a sharp curve. 
 
 Those who travel every day soon get accustomed to the 
 strangeness of the trip, and think no more of it than farmers' 
 boys think of a ride in a hay-cart. They run up the long 
 stairway, fling down a nickel and snatch the ticket, which they 
 drop into the box as they rush to the cars. They quietly read 
 their daily paper till they have almost reached their destination, 
 when they push to the doorway, ready to step off as soon as 
 the guard opens the gates. 
 
 These roads are a great blessing to New York, because 
 they enable people to live farther away from the centre of the 
 city, and therefore more cheaply, and yet lose but little time in 
 travelling. They add immensely to the opportunities of New 
 York City for growing in business and wealth. 
 
 Max Owen. 
 
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