Hackensack, New Jersey.
I would like to tell the readers of Young People how nice it is to go all through Harper's establishment. Papa took me there the other day, and got a permit to go through it, and we saw so many interesting things that I don't know where to begin to tell about them. We went into the rooms where all the machinery and presses are. I saw them printing Harper's Monthly Magazine and a whole lot of things. I think it is very nice to look at the man spattering different-colored paints on the water to make the marbling on the edges of books. I liked to watch the women who were spreading gold-leaf on the covers of books. After this is done they are placed in a press, and the letters and pictures are stamped on the cover, and the gold-leaf that is not needed is brushed off. We visited the room of the Editor of Young People, and had a very pleasant time there. He showed us an Easter-egg which one of the young people had sent him. A great many people think that the letters in Our Post-office Box are not genuine, but I know they are, for the Editor showed me a pile of them which he had just received. He said he expected to get as many as that twice a day, and that they came from all parts of the United States, and even from Canada and Europe. If they printed all the letters which come from the children, they would have no room for anything else in the paper. I think Harper's Young People is delightful, and I mean to take it until I am a woman. I am eight years old now.
Emma S.
Emma's papa assures us that this letter, in spelling, composition, and writing is entirely Emma's own work, without any assistance. It is a very well-written letter in every sense for a little girl of eight.
Moline, Illinois.
I think that a short account of the Artesian well which is being bored here will interest the members of the Young People's Natural History Society. The well is being bored near the Moline Paper-Mill for the purpose of procuring pure water to be used in the manufacture of paper. It is not bored with an auger like an ordinary well, but is drilled with a drill which works up and down in the well in the same way that a man drills a hole in rock to blast it, only of course this drill is larger, and is worked by a steam-engine and a walking-beam like those on steamboats. The drill is fastened to one end of the walking-beam by long wooden rods. It grinds the rock quite fine, like sand, and some of it is ground to a fine powder. They drill several hours or more, according to the hardness of the rock, and then pull up the drill, and let down a hollow iron tube with a valve in the bottom, into which the pulverized rock, which is mixed with water, runs, and where it is prevented from coming out by the valve. They have at present drilled to the depth of 700 feet, and expect to find water at 800 feet.
Stillman G.
Lyons Falls, New York.