Only one side of a sheet is printed at a time; thus each one goes through the press twice before it leaves the press-room. Each sheet has its own special care. It is carried into the drying-room with a pile. Each one takes its place on a large frame which is pulled out on hanging rollers. When one of these frames is covered with damp sheets it is pushed into the drying-machine, which is made of ranges of steam tubes, which keep a high temperature, while the vapor is carried off by a system of ventilation.
When the sheets are dried, the frames are pulled out, and the printed sheets are taken from them to be pressed. Each printed sheet is put between two sheets of hard, smooth pasteboard, and its high piles of alternate layers are subjected again to the intense power of the hydraulic-press. It comes forth from that embrace smooth, clear, complete.
From the pressing-room the sheets are taken to the folding-room in the third story, conveyed thither by an elevator lifted by steam. Here they are folded by the swift hands of girls. Hundreds are busy at it. Looking down the long room and seeing them work is a sight worth quite a journey to see. The folded pages then pass to the fingers of the eager stitchers. These pages are now a book in need of a binding. Thus it comes into the bindery for its black cotton cloak, or its coat of cloth of gold, according to its station and lot in life.
This, good friends, is the story of a Pub. Doc. from its birth to the hour when it starts on its first journey out into “the wide, wide world.”
CHAPTER XLVII.
INSIDE THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION—ITS TREASURES OF ART AND SCIENCE—THE LARGEST COLLECTION IN THE WORLD.
A Singular Bequest—Strange Story of James Smithson—A Good Use of Money—Seeking the Diffusion of Knowledge—Catching a Tear from a Lady’s Cheek—Analysis of the Same Tear—The Attainments of a Philosopher—A brief Tract on Coffee-Making—James Smithson’s Will—A Genealogical Declaration—Announcing a Bequest to Congress—Discussions and Reports—Praiseworthy Efforts of Robert Dale Owen—The Bequest Accepted—The Board of Regents—The Plan of the Institution—Its Intent and Object—Changes Made by the Regents—Ex-Officio Members of the Institution—“The Power Behind the Throne”—The Secretary—The Smithsonian Reservation—The Smithsonian Building—Its Style of Architecture—Inside the Building—Injuries Received by Fire—Loss of Works of Art—The Museum—Treasures of Art and Science—The Results of Thirty Government Expeditions—The Largest Collection in the World—Valuable Mineral Specimens—All the Vertebrated Animals of North America—Classified Curiosities—The Smithsonian Contributions—Comprehensive Character of the Institution—Its Advantages and Operations—Results—The Agricultural Bureau—Its Plan and Object—Collecting Valuable Agricultural Facts—Helping the Purchaser of a Farm—The Expenses of the Bureau—The Library—Nature-Printing—In the Museum—The Great California Plank—Vegetable Specimens—International Exchanges.
An Englishman, of the name of James Smithson, gave all his property to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, “an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.”
But few are aware of the singularity of the bequest. Such a donation, from a citizen of Europe, would be remarkable under any circumstances; but it was much more singular coming from an Englishman, endued with no small degree of pride of country and lineage, if we may judge from the pains he takes, in the caption of his will, to detail his descent from the nobility. He is not known to have ever visited the United States, or to have had any friends residing here. Mr. Rush informs us that he was a natural son of the Duke of Northumberland, his mother being Mrs. Macie, of an ancient family in Wiltshire, of the name of Hungerford; he was educated at Oxford, where he took an honorary degree. In 1786, he took the name of James Lewis Macie, until a few years after he left the University, when he changed it to Smithson. He does not appear to have had any fixed home, living in lodgings when in London, and occasionally, a year or two at a time, in the cities on the continent, as Paris, Berlin, Florence, and Genoa; at which last place he died. The ample provision made for him by the Duke of Northumberland, with retired and simple habits, enabled him to accumulate the fortune which passed to the United States. He interested himself little in questions of government, being devoted to science, and chiefly to chemistry. This had introduced him to the society of Cavendish, Wollaston, and others, advantageously known to the Royal Society in London, of which he was a member.
In a paper relative to one of the publications of the Smithsonian Institution, read before a scientific society at Dublin, it is stated, on the authority of Chambers’ Journal, that he had gained a name by the analysis of minute quantities, and that “it was he who caught a tear as it fell from a lady’s cheek, and detected the salts and other substances which it held in solution.”
In a notice of his scientific pursuits, by Professor Johnson, of Philadelphia, there are enumerated twenty-four papers, or treatises by Smithson, published in the Transactions of the Royal Society, and other scientific journals of the day, containing articles on mineralogy, geology, and more especially mineral chemistry. In the Annals of Philosophy (Vol. 22, page 30) he has a brief tract on the method of making coffee. The small case of his personal effects, which is to be preserved in a separate apartment of the Institution, consists chiefly of minerals and chemical apparatus.