three miles up each of these rivers. It is separated from Georgetown by Rock Creek, over which are two bridges, and there is a bridge over the Potomac more than a mile in length, leading to Alexandria. A canal is constructed from the Potomac, passing up the Tiber, a small stream which flows through Washington, and then across the plain of the city to the Eastern Branch, forming a communication between the two rivers.

The natural situation of Washington is pleasant and salubrious; and it is laid out on a plan which, when completed, will render it one of the handsomest and most commodious cities in the world. It is divided into squares by spacious streets or avenues, running north and south, intersected by others at right angles; these are crossed transversely by fifteen other spacious streets, or avenues, named after the different states. The rectangular streets are designated by the letters of the alphabet and by numbers. The grand avenues, and such streets as lead immediately to public places, are from 130 to 160 feet wide; the other streets are from ninety to 110 feet wide. A very small part of the plan only is as yet completed. The buildings, which cover but a small portion of the site as laid out, stand in four or five separate divisions; and Washington at present exhibits the appearance, not of one regular city, but of a collection of villages, in which the splendid edifices appear of a disproportionate grandeur. About three-fourths of the buildings are of brick, and there are some elegant private mansions.

The principal public buildings and institutions in the city are the Capitol, the president's house, the buildings for the great departments of the national government, the General Post office, the navy yard, extensive barracks for the marine corps, a jail, a theatre, a public library, four banks (including a branch of the United States' bank), and ten houses of public worship, two for Presbyterians, two for Episcopalians, two for Baptists, two for Methodists, one for Catholics, and one for Friends. The Capitol is situated on an eminence, commanding a beautiful prospect of the Potomac, of every part of the city, and of a wide extent of the surrounding country. It is surrounded by an elegant iron railing, enclosing a large extent of ground, which is planted with various kinds of trees and shrubs. The two wings only have yet been erected. They are each 100 feet square, and are to be connected by a well-proportioned centre. The foundation of the central part has recently been laid, and the Capitol is now in rapid progress, and is finishing in a style of elegance and grandeur worthy of a nation of great resources. It is built of white freestone, and when completed will be a most magnificent edifice, presenting a front of 362 feet. The president's house is situated on a gentle elevation about a mile and a half west of the Capitol, and is built of the same kind of stone. It is a very elegant edifice, 170 feet by eighty-five, of two stories, with a suitable basement story. The buildings which contain the offices for the great depart ments of government consist of four spacious brick edifices of two stories, situated at a small distance from the president's house. In these buildings are kept the papers, records, archives, and offices of the departments of state, of the treasury, of war, and of the navy. The General Post-office is a large brick edifice, situated about a mile W. N. W. of the Capitol, and contains, besides the various

offices belonging to the post-office establishment; the general land office; the patent office, where are deposited all the models of inventions for which patents have been granted, forming a very extensive and curious collection; and a temporary library room for the national library, purchased, in 1815, of the honorable Thomas Jefferson, late president of the United States, and consisting of about 8000 volumes. The navy yard is situated on the Eastern Branch, which forms a safe and commodious harbour, being sufficiently deep for large ships about four miles from its month.

On the 24th of August, 1814, this city was taken by the British, who burnt the public edifices, not sparing even the national library. All these edi. fices are now rebuilt and repaired, except the Capitol. The foundation of the centre of the Capitol was laid on the 24th of August, 1818, just four years after the conflagration. It is expected that it will be completed in four years: earlier, probably, than it would have been, but for the visit of the British. This event has tended greatly to increase the prosperity of the city, the national pride having been excited not only to rebuild what was destroyed, but to complete what was unfinished.

This is likewise the name of many post-towns and counties of the United States.

WASHINGTON ISLANDS. The group called Washington Islands, was discovered in the year 1791 by captain Ingraham from Boston, in a voyage from the Mendoza Islands to the north-west of that continent. They were also seen a few weeks after by M. Marchand, in the French ship Le Solide, who considered them as previously unknown, and called them Isles de la Revolution. In the following year they were again seen by lieutenant Hergest of the British navy, and captain Brown, the master of a merchant ship belonging to the same nation. The last of their discoverers was captain Roberts, of the American ship Jefferson, who fell in with them in 1793. Ingraham had conferred the name of Washington upon Uahuga, and Roberts now gave the same appellation to the whole group.

Washington Islands lie north-east of the Marquesas, and are eight in number, stretching from 9° 30′ to 7° 50′ of S. lat., and from 139° 5' to 140° 13′ W. long. These islands are the following: viz. Nukahiwa, which is the chief island of the group, from its being about seventeen miles long. Uahuga is the most easterly island, and its extreme length nine miles. Uapoa lies farther south. At the distance of about a mile and a half from Uapoa there is a small flat island, about two miles in circumference, which Marchand called Isle Platte. Thirty-three miles nearly north-west of the southern extremity of Nirkahuwa lie the two small uninhabited islands of Mottuaity, which are separated from each other by a channel about a mile broad. The inhabitants of the other islands occasionally visit them in their fishing expeditions, but they never undertake this voyage without being impelled to it by necessity, as the imperfect construction of their canoes renders it dangerous. Hiau and Fattuuhu are the other two islands, which are situated about sixty miles nearly north from the west end of Nukahiwa. Krusenstern describes the inhabitants of this group as indisputably the handsomest in the South Seas. The men are all stout and well made, possessing great regularity of features, and strongly marked by an air of real goodness. Their

complexions in a natural state are but a little darker than those of Europeans, though rendered almost black by tattooing. WASP, n. s. > Sax. pearp; Lat. vespu; Fr. WASP'ISH, adj.guespe. A brisk stinging insect, in form resembling a bee: waspish is malignant; peevish; irascible.

More wasps, that buz about his nose,

Will make this sting the sooner.

Come, you wasp, you are too angry, -If I be waspish, best beware my sting.

Encountering with a wasp,

He in his arms the fly doth clasp.

Shakspeare.

Id.

Drayton.

The tailor's wife was only a good hearty shrew, under the impotency of an unruly waspish humour: she would have her will. L'Estrange.

Much do I suffer, much, to keep in peace This jealous, waspish, wrong-head, rhiming race. Pepe. WAS'SAIL, n. s. Į From Sax. pærhæl, your WAS'SAILER. Shealth. An ancient English liquor made of apples, sugar, and ale: drunken

bout he who revels in such bouts.

The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse, Keeps wassail, and the swaggering upspring reels. Shakspeare. I'm loth to meet the rudeness and swill'd insolence Of such late wassailers. Milton.

WASSOTA, a celebrated fortress of Hindostan, in Bejapore, and in the district of the Concan. There are two forts about 1000 yards from each other, both situated on rocks nearly perpendicular, and 3000 feet high. The adjacent scenery is of the grandest description. In April, 1818, a British force, accompanied by the rajah, laid siege to it, and, notwitstanding its great strength, such was the effect of the British shells, that the governor capitulated in a few days, and delivered up the ladies in safety, along with the family jewels, to the amount of several lacks of rupees. WASTE, v. a., v. n., adj., &· WASTE FUL, adj.

WASTE FULLY, adv.

WASTE FULNESS, n. s. WAST'ER.

[n. s.

Sax. apertan; Teutonic waste;

Belgic woesten ; Italian guastare ; Latin vastare. To

WATCH, n. s., v. N., & WATCH'ER, N. S. [v. a. WATCH FUL, adj. WATCH FULLY, adv. WATCH FULNESS, n. s. WATCH'-HOUSE, WATCH'ING, WATCH'-MAKER, WATCH'MAN, WATCH'-TOWER, WATCH WORD.

Carew.

Sax. pæcce; Teut. wacht; Swed. wakt. Forbearance of sleep; attendance or guard involving such forbearance; vigilance; place, post, office, or sphere of a guard; a man on guard; period of the night; a pocket clock: to watch is, to wake; forbear sleep; be vigilant, attentive, or observing: as a verb active, to guard; have in keep; tend; observe: the derivatives and compounds are of obvious meaning.

My soul waiteth for the Lord, more than they that watch for the morning. Psalm cxxx. 6. Saul sent ministers unto David's house to watch him and to slay him. 1 Sam. xix. 11. I will watch over them for evil, and not for good. Jer. xlv.

Be watchful, and strengthen the things ready to die. Rev. iii.

A watchword every minute of the night goeth about the walls, to testify their vigilancy.

Sandys.

Bacon.

Before her gate high God did sweat ordain, And wakeful watches, ever to abide.

Spenser.

Still, when she slept, he kept both water and ward.

Id.

Id.

Thin air is better pierced, but thick air preserveth the sound better from waste.

The profuse wasters of their patrimonies,

Divers Roman knights,

So threaten with their debts, as they will now Run any desperate fortune.

Ben Jonson.

We have heard the chimes at midnight, master Shal low. --That we have, Sir John: our watchword, hem! boys Shakspeare.

clocks, as accurate measurers of time. Mathematicians saw that their vibrations had some regular dependence on uniform gravity, and in their writings we meet with many attempts to determine the time and demonstrate the isochronism of the vibrations. Riccioli, Gassendus, and Galileo, made similar attempts to explain the motion of pendulums, but without success. This honor was reserved for Mr. Huyghens, the most elegant of modern geometers. He had succeeded in 1656 or 1657 in adapting the machinery of a clock to the maintaining of the vibrations of a pendulum. Charmed with the accuracy of its performance, he began to investigate with scrupulous attention the theory of its motion. By the most ingenious and elegant application of geometry to mechanical problems, he demonstrated that the wider vibrations of a pendulum employed more time than the narrower, and that the time of a semicircular vibration is to that of a very small one nearly as thirty-four to twenty nine; and aided by a new department of geometrical science invented by himself, viz. the evolution of curves, he showed how to make a pendulum swing in a cycloid, and that its vibrations in this curve are all performed in equal times, whatever be their extent. But before this time Dr. Hooke, the most ingenious and inventive mechanician of his age, had discovered the great accuracy of pendulum clocks, having found that the manner in which they had been employed had obscured their real merit. They had been made to vibrate in very large arches, the only motion that could be given them by the contrivances then known; and in 1656 he invented another method, and made a clock which moved with astonishing regularity. Using a heavy pendulum, and making it swing in very small arches, the clocks so constructed were found to excel Mr. Huyghens's cycloidal pendulums. It has been found that the unavoidable inaccuracies, even of the best artists, in the cycloidal construction, make the performance much inferior to that of a common pendulum vibrating in arches which do not exceed three or four degrees from the perpendicular. Such clocks alone are now made, and they exceed all expectation. We have said that a pendulum needed only to be removed from the perpendicular, and then let go, in order to vibrate and measure time. Hence it might seem that nothing is wanted but a machinery so connected with the pendulum as to keep a register, as it were, of the vibration. It could not be difficult to contrive a method of doing this but more is wanted. The air must be displaced by the pendulum. This requires some force, and must therefore employ some part of the momentum of the pendulum. The pivot on which it swings occasions friction-the thread or thin piece of metal by which it is hung, in order to avoid this friction, occasions some expenditure of force by its want of perfect flexibility or elasticity. These, and other causes, make the vibrations grow more and more narrow by degrees, till at last the pendulum is brought to rest. We must therefore, have a contrivance in the wheel-work which will restore to the pendulum the small portion of force which it loses in every vibration. The action of the wheels therefore may be called a maintaining power, because it keeps up the vibrations. But we now see that this may affect the regularity of vibration. If it be supposed that the action of gravity renders all the vibrations isochronous, we must grant that the additional impulsion by the wheels

will destroy that isochronism, unless it be so applied that the sum total of this impulsion and the force of gravity may vary so with the situation of the pendulum, as still to give a series of forces, or a law of variation, perfectly similar to that of gravity. This cannot be effected, unless we know both the law which regulates the action of gravity, producing isochronism of vibration, and the intensity of the force to be derived from the wheels in every situation of the pendulum. The necessary requisite for the isochronous motion of the pendulum is, that the force which urges it toward the perpendicular, be proportional to its distance from it; and therefore, since pendulums swinging in small circular arches are sensibly isochronous, we must infer that such is the law by which the accelerating action of gravity on them is really accommodated to every situation in these arches.

Under the head of CLOCK-MAKING we have entered very fully into the construction of those large horological machines that are intended to measure the time by means of a weight and pendulum. In watches, on the contrary, a spring is the usual maintaining power.

From what we have already seen of the nature of the pendulum, it will be apparent that its oscillations can only approach to a true measure of time when the point of support is fixed and immoveable. An approximation, however, to this desideratum may be obtained by a pocket watch regulated by a balance. This useful machine, in its most perfect form, contains within itself a colection of inventions which have exercised the skill of some of the most ingenious mechanics for the three last centuries, and it is gratifying to know that we are indebted to our countrymen Hooke, Graham, Earnshaw, Arnold, and Harrison, for its invention and present improved form.

To explain the mechanism of a watch it is necessary to refer to the figs. 1, 2, 3, plate WATCHES, as they contain engravings of a sunk pocket-watch of the best construction. Fig. 1 is a plan of the wheelwork all exhibited at one view, for which purpose the upper plate of the watch is removed. Fig. 2 is a plan of the balance, and the work situated upon the upper plate. Fig. 3 is an elevation of all the movements together, the works being supposed to be opened out into a straight line, to exhibit them all at once.

The principal frame for supporting the acting parts of the watch consists of two circular plates, marked C and D in the figures; of these the former is called the upper plate, and D is called the pillar plate, from the circumstance of the four pillars, E, E, which unite the two plates and keep them a proper distance asunder, being fastened firmly into the lower plate; the other ends pass through holes made in the upper plate, C, and small pins, being put through the ends of the pillars, keep all together; but, by drawing out these pins, the whole watch may be taken to pieces and the pivots of the several wheels being received in small holes made in these plates, they of course fall to pieces as soon as the plates are separated.

The maintaining power is a spiral steel spring. which is coiled up close by a tool used for the purpose, and put into a brass box called the barrel, it is marked A in all the figures; the pivots of its arbor pass through the top and bottom of the barrel, and one of them is filed square to hold a ratchet wheel, which has a click, and retains the arbor

from turning round except in one direction; the two pivots of the arbor are received in pivot holes in the plates C, D, of the watch, and the pivot which has the ratchet wheel upon it passes through the plate, and the wheel marked b, with its click, is therefore on the outside of the pillar plate D of the watch; the top of the barrel has a cover or lid fitted into it, through which the upper pivot of the arbor projects; thus the arbor of the barrel is to be considered as a fixture, the click of the ratchet wheel preventing it from turning round, and the interior end of the spiral spring being hooked, this arbor is stationary likewise. The barrel thus mounted has a small steel chain, d, coiled round its circumference, and attached to it by a small hook of the chain which enters a little hole, made in the circumference of the barrel at its upper end; the other extremity of this chain is hooked to the lower part of the fusee, marked F, and the chain is disposed either upon the circumference of the barrel, or in the spiral groove cut round the fusee for its reception, the arbor of which has pivots at the ends, which are received into pivot holes made in the plates of the watch; one pivot is formed square and projects through the plate, to adapt the key by which the watch is wound up.

It is evident that, when the fusee is turned by the watch-key, it will wind the chain off the circumference of the barrel on itself; and as the outer end of the spring is fastened to the barrel, and the other is hooked to the barrel arbor, which, as before mentioned, is prevented from turning by the click of the ratchet wheel, a b, beneath, the spring will be coiled up into a smaller compass than before, and, by its reaction, will, when the key is taken off, turn the barrel, and by the chain turn the fusee and give motion to the wheels of the watch, which will be hereafter described. The fusee has a spiral groove cut round it, in which the chain lies; this groove is cut by an engine, in such a form that the chain shall pull from the smallest part or radius of the fusee, when the spring is quite wound up, and therefore acts with its greatest force on the chain; from this point the groove gradually increases in diameter, as the spring unwinds and so acts with less power, the chain operates on a larger radius of the fusee, so that the effect upon the arbor of the fusee, or the cog-wheel attached to it, may always be the same, and cause the watch to go with regularity.

To prevent too much chain being wound upon the fusee, and by that means breaking the chain or overstraining the spring, a contrivance called a guard gut is added; it is a small lever, e, moving on a stud fixed to the upper plate, C, of the watch, and pressed downwards by a small spring, f; as the chain is wound upon the fusee, it rises in the spiral groove, and lifts up the lever until it touches the upper plate, and it is then in a position to intercept the edge or tooth, g, of the spiral piece of metal seen on the top of the fusee, and thus stops it from being wound up any further.

The power of the spring is transmitted to the balance by means of several toothed wheels, which multiply the number of revolutions that the chain makes on the fusee, to such a number, that though the last or balance wheel turns nine times and a half every minute, the fusee will at the same time turn so slowly that the chain will not be all drawn off from it in less than twenty-eight or thirty hours, and it makes one turn in about four hours; this VOL. XXII.

assemblage of wheels is called the train of the watch. The great wheel, G, has forty-eight teeth on its circumference, which take into and turn a pinion of twelve teeth, fixed on the same arbor with the centre wheel H, so called from its situa tion in the centre of the watch; it has fifty-four teeth to turn a pinion of six leaves, on the arbor of the third wheel I, which has forty-eight teeth; it is sunk in a cavity formed in the pillar plate, and turns a pinion of six, on the arbor of the contrate wheel K, which has forty-eight teeth cut parallel with its axis, by which it turns a pinion of six leaves, fixed to the balance wheel L; one of the pivots of the arbor of this wheel turns in a frame, called the pottance, fixed to the upper plate, and the other pivot runs in a small piece fixed to the upper part, called the counter pottance (not shown in any of the figures), so that when the two plates are put together, the balance wheel pinion may work into the teeth of the contrate wheel, as is shown in fig. 4. The balance wheel, 7, has fifteen teeth, by which it impels the balance op; the arbor of the balance, which is called the verge, has two small leaves or pallets projecting from it, nearly at right angles to each other; these are acted upon by the teeth of the balance wheel in such a manner that, at every vibration, the balance receives a slight impulse to continue its motion, and every vibration so made suffers a tooth of the wheel to escape or pass by; whence this part is called the escapement of the watch, and constitutes its most essential part. The wheel is sometimes called the scape wheel, or crown wheel. Suppose the pinion h on the arbor of the balance wheel, or crown wheel, ik, to be actuated by the main spring which forms the maintaining power, by means of the train of wheel-work in the direction of the arrow, while the pallets m and n, attached to the axis of the balance, and standing at right angles to each other, or very nearly so, are long enough to fall in the way of the ends of the sloped teeth of the wheel, when turned round at an angle at 45°, so as to point to opposite directions, as in the figure; then a tooth in the wheel below, for instance, meets with the pallet n (supposed to be at rest), and drives it before it a certain space, till the end of the tooth escapes; in the mean time the balance, o s pr, attached to the axis of the pallets, continues to move in the direction r o s p, and winds up the small spiral or pendulum spring 9, one end of which is fast to the axis, and the other to a stud on the upper plate of the frame; in this operation the spring opposes the momentum given to the balance by this push of the tooth upon the pallet, and prevents the balance going quite round, but, the instant the tooth escapes, the upper pallet, m, meets with another tooth at the opposite side of the wheel's diameter, they therefore moving in an opposite direction to that below; here this pallet receives a push which carries the balance back again (having as yet but little power in the direction os pr), and aids the spring, which now unbends itself till it comes to its equiescent position, but it swings beyond that point, partly by the im pulse from the maintaining power on the pallet m, and partly by the acquired momentum of the moving balance, particularly when this pallet, m, has escaped; at length the pallet n again meets with the succeeding tooth, and is carried backward by it in the direction in which the balance is now moving, till the maintaining power and force of

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