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himself the principle of his own invention. It is a screw with a very broad thin worm, or rather it is a thin plate with its edge ap plied spirally round an axis. This being turned, operates on the air, as a screw does, and may be literally said to screw the vessel along : the thinness of the medium, and its want of resistance, oc casion a loss of much of the force. The screw, I think, would be more effectual if placed below the surface of the water. I very much suspect that a countryman of ours, Mr. Bushnel of Connecticut, is entitled to the merit of a prior discovery of this use of the screw. I remember to have heard of his submarine navigation during the war, and, from what Colonel Humphreys now tells me, I conjecture that the screw was the power he used. He joined to this, a machine for exploding under water at a given moment. If it were not too great a liberty for a stranger to take, I would ask from him a narration of his actual experiments, with or without a communication of his principle, as he should choose. If he thought proper to communicate it, I would engage never to dis close it, unless I could find an opportunity of doing it for his bene fit. I thank you for your information as to the great bones found on the Hudson river. I suspect that they must have been of the same animal with those found on the Ohio : and if so, they could not have belonged to any human figure, because they are ac companied with tusks of the size, form and substance, of those of the elephant. I have seen a part of the ivory, which was very good. The animal itself must have been much larger than an elephant. Mrs. Adams gives me an account of a flower found in Connecti cut, which vegetates when suspended in the air. She brought one to Europe. What can be this flower? It would be a curious present to this continent.
The accommodation likely to take place between the Dutch and the Emperor, leaves us without that unfortunate resource for news, which wars give us. The Emperor has certainly had in view the Bavarian exchange of which you have heard ; but so formidable an opposition presented itself, that he has thought pro per to disavow it. The Turks shew a disposition to go to war with him, but if this country can prevail on them to remain in peace, they will do so. It has been thought that the two Imperial courts have a plan of expelling the Turks from Europe. It is really a pity, so charming a country should remain in the hands of a people, whose religion forbids the admission of science and the arts among them. We should wish success to the object of the two empires, if they meant to leave the country in posses sion of the Greek inhabitants. We might then expect, once more, to see the language of Homer and Demosthenes a living language.
