several iron gun-boats with many novel features of his own invention.
He has since acquired reputation as projecting and constructing
engineer of the Illinois and St. Louis bridge, and by building jetties
at the South Pass of the Mississippi, by which the depth of the river
is increased, and it is made more navigable. These jetties are
projecting dikes of brush, fascines, and stone.

_Fascines_, bundles of rods or of small sticks of wood,
bound at both ends and at intermediate points, used in
filling ditches, etc.


Give the names of some distinguished American inventors.

Eli Whitney, the inventor of the Cotton Gin, born in Westborough,
Mass., 1765; died 1825. Jethro Wood, the inventor of the modern
cast-iron plow, born at White Creek, N.Y., 1774; died 1834. Cyrus H.
McCormick, inventor of the mowing machine, born at Walnut Grove,
Virginia, in 1809.


Who was the inventor of the Sewing Machine?

Elias Howe. He was born at Spencer, Mass., July 9, 1819. When a boy he
worked in a cotton mill at Lowell, but afterwards entered a machine
shop in Boston. Here he conceived the idea of the sewing machine, and
after long days of labor, part of which time he and his family lived
on the kindness of a friend, he completed his invention. After many
struggles, his talent, industry, and perseverance were rewarded, and
long before his death, which occurred in October, 1867, he had