The Great Seal of the United States, adopted in 1782, shows a shield of 13 perpendicular red and white stripes (the States), upholding a blue field (Congress). The shield is borne on the breast of a displayed eagle, whose right talon holds an olive branch, and his left talon holds a bundle of 13 arrows. In his beak he carries a scroll, inscribed with the motto: E PLURIBUS UNUM ("One out of many," che government formed from numerous States). A similar phrase occurs in the Latin poets, Horace and Virgil, and had been printed for many years prior to the Revolution on the title-page of The Gentleman's Magazine, of London, then largely circulated in the American colonies. The Great Seal has as a crest a golden glory, breaking through a cloud, and enclosing a blue field, with a constellation of 13 white stars. The American Eagle, or Bald Eagle (Haliaëtus leucocephalus), is a dark brown or blackish bird, three feet long, with pure white head and tail. This noble "Bird of Freedom" for over a century has been the National emblem.

The American Ensign, as arranged by the Navy Department, contains an upper row of eight stars and a lower row of eight, with four rows, each of seven stars, between them. The colors are red, signifying Divine love, valor and war; white, whose language is hope and truth, purity and peace; and blue, the color of loyalty, sincerity and justice. The 13 stripes (six the full length of the flag, and seven from the blue union) typify the original 13 States; the 44 stars represent the 44 States in 1891, grouped in the constellation of the Union, "The radiant heraldry of Heaven."

The flag raised over the American camps at Cambridge in 1776 was composed of the 13 stripes, with the British union. In 1777 the stars and stripes came into being.

The American Jack is the union of the flag. The Revenue Flag shows 16 perpendicular red and white stripes, and a white union bearing 13 blue stars. Many of the States have flags of their own, which are carried alongside the National standard, by their militia or volunteer troops.

"As at the early dawn the stars shine forth even while it grows light, and then, as the sun advances, that light breaks into banks and streaming lines of color, the glowing red and intense white striving together and ribbing the horizon with bars effulgent. So on the American flag, stars and beams of many-colored light shine out together. And where this flag comes, and men behold it, they see in its sacred emblazonry no ramping lions and no fierce eagle, no embattled castles or insignia of imperial authority; they see the symbols of light. It is the banner of dawn. It means LIBERTY; and the down-trodden creature of foreign despotism sees in the American flag that very promise and prediction of God: The people which sat in darkness saw a great light.' * Our flag carries American ideas, American history, and American feelings. Beginning with the Colonies, in its sacred heraldry, in its glorious insignia, it has gathered and stored chiefly this supreme idea: Divine right of liberty in man. Every color means liberty; not lawlessness, not license; but organized institutional liberty, liberty through law, and laws for liberty !"-HENRY WARD BEECHER.

The Presidents of the United States have been: George Washington, 1789-97; John Adams, 1797-1801; Thomas Jefferson, 1801-9; James Madison, 1809-17; James Monroe, 1817-25; John Quincy Adams, 1825-9; Andrew Jackson, 1829-37; Martin Van Buren, 1837-41; William Henry Harrison, 1841; John Tyler, 1841-5; James Knox Polk, 1845-9; Zachary Taylor, 1849-50; Millard Fillmore, 1850-3; Franklin Pierce, 1853-7; James Buchanan, 1857-61; Abraham Lincoln, 1861-5; Andrew Johnson, 1865-9; Ulysses Simpson Grant, 1869-77; Rutherford Birchard Hayes, 1877-81; James Abram Garfield, 1881; Chester Alan Arthur, 1881-5; Grover Cleveland, 1985-9; and Benjamin Harrison, 1889-93.

WASHINGTON:

Descriptive. The United States (excluding Alaska) occupies a position as to latitude, longitude and area which would correspond to that part of the Old World lying between Cairo and Prague, and between the west of Ireland and the eastern coast of the Black Sea. It faces the Atlantic Ocean with the deep fiords and rocky promontories of New England; the low sandy strands of New Jersey and Virginia, cut deep into by Delaware and Chesapeake Bays; and the long southern beaches, OLYMPIC MOUNTAINS AND STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA. behind which open still and shallow lagoons. Nearly parallel with the coast, and from 20 to 100 miles inland, the Appalachian Mountains run from Alabama northeastward for 1,300 miles, to Gaspé, on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, including the Blue Ridge and Alleghany Mountains of Pennsylvania and the South, the Adirondacks and Catskills and Highlands of New York, and the Taconic, White and Green Mountains of New England. This highland country has a breadth of about 100 miles, and a height of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet, culminating in North Carolina and New Hampshire in peaks above 6,000 feet high. The only practicable break in the range is where the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers have cut their way through, and afford an avenue for a vast movement of freight by water. Beyond the Appalachian Range opens the Central Valley, 1,250 miles square, and covering 1,500,000 square miles, drained by the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes. So slight an elevation intervenes between the Mississippi and the lakes, that a cutting of 100 feet deep would open a practical ship-canal between the two systems of waters, whose outlets are so widely separated. The Great Plains sweep up to the Rocky Mountains, which are 300 miles wide, and extend from Mexico to Canada, with many majestic ranges and peaks, and beautiful park-like valleys. Next westward comes the Great Basin of Utah and Nevada, an elevated plateau covering 250,000 square miles, with vast treeless mountains, tracts of desert, and rivers evaporating on their arid plains. To the north lies the Columbian Plateau, largely of barren volcanic soil; and to the south stretches the Colorado Plateau, with its stupendous cañons. Westward rise the majestic Sierra Nevada and the Cascade Range, running from Mexico into British Columbia. Beyond the broad valleys of California and Oregon the Coast Range fronts the Pacific Ocean, broken at wide intervals by harbors. The Geographer of the United States divides the Republic into the Atlantic States, including the North Atlantic and South Atlantic groups; the Central States, including the North Central and South Central Groups; and the Western, or Cordilleran States, including Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico, and all lying to the westward of these.

Gannett's Bulletin on the Distribution of Population in Accordance with Topographic Features (May, 1891), sub-divides the Republic into 21 differing areas, as follows: The Wooded Coast Swamps and rice-lands along the South Atlantic and the Gulf have 1,809,000 in

The

habitants (mainly negroes). The Atlantic Plain, between the swamps and the fall line, from New York to the Mississippi, low and level, and with much forest-growth, has 8,784,000 people. Piedmont Region, between the fall line and the mountains, extends from Maine to Alabama, hilly in New England, level in the South, and abounding in woodlands, with 7,858,000 people. The broken and forest-clad New-England Hills (including also the Adirondacks) have 2,290,000. The Appalachian-Mountain System, from New Jersey to Alabama, includes the Blue Ridge and