agitated on the night of the 7th, what awful havoc the Merrimac would have made along the coast! There were at Hampton Roads on that memorable Sabbath morning of March 9th, 1862, seventeen government vessels, mounting in all 222 guns, beside a number of transports, chartered vessels and private property, swelling to a large amount the values of life and property exposed to the Merrimac. All this captured or destroyed, the Atlantic cities would have been at the mercy of the Rebel ram, and the Civil war would have been largely prolonged. The Monitor was built at the right time, and the men who built her and manned her seemed to have been inspired to their work. The hand of God was upon them for the salvation of the country.

Some who read this article will remember the patriotic joy that rose like waves of light through all the Northern States at the triumph of the Monitor-the ovations of praise awarded to her gallant crew and commander. At Washington the demonstrations of joy were enthusiastic and intensc. Commodore Smith, whose son was killed on the Congress, meeting Mr. Winslow in one of the Navy offices, seized his hands convulsively, saying, "Winslow, you have saved our Navy, but I have lost my Joe!" In Congress, a vote of thanks to its inventor was passed, and the President, with his Cabinet, personally awarded to Messrs. Griswold and Winslow the title of "Benefactors of their Country."

Orders for more Monitors were given, and the firm of Winslow & Griswold had the confidence and gratitude of the whole American Government. The great regret was that the Monitor was not at Hampton Roads one day sooner, to save the Cumberland and the Congress, with the brave men who fell and went down in the murderous fight. All honor to the heroes who manned the Monitor on the 9th of March, 1862. Honor, too, to him out of whose brain and thought the Monitor was born. Honor, also, to the men who took the thought and wrought it into substance and power for the country in its hour of direst need and peril; whose enterprise, courage and patriotism made the Monitor a fact and her encounter with the Merrimac a triumph. One of these men has passed beyond the reach of human praise-the Hon. John A. Griswold; the other, the Hon. John F. Winslow, whose pleading patriotism almost forced upon the Government the Monitor; by whose indomitable will and persistent energy the enterprise was carried through all storm of opposition to the full tide of success, still lives, at Woodcliff, on the banks of the Hudson, near Poughkeepsie a beautiful home, well earned, and as well deserved, where, in ripening years, honored and beloved, the memory of the important part he had in the great Rebellion is one of the fondest recollections of a long

and useful life. To his and his associate Griswold's wise forecast, practical and scientific knowledge and good sense, unflagging zeal, untiring determination and intense loyalty that burned all the brighter as the days darkened, we owe the Monitor; and without the Monitor just at the time when she entered Hampton Roads, what a set-back to national affairs there would have been!

The story, therefore, of this marvelous vessel is not well and properly told till the part these gentlemen had in her construction is made known and their names are enshrined in the affections of their countrymen as among the saviors of the Republic.

The life of the Monitor was short as it was eventful. From the 10th of March until the final destruction of the Merrimac, on the 11th of the following May, 1862, she lay at Hampton Roads, in guard and defense of manifold interests there. On the 12th of May she led the vessels that went to Norfolk, on the evacuation of that city by the Confederates, afterward proceeding up the James River as one of the flotilla under the command of Commodore Rodgers, of the iron-plated steamer Galena. On the 15th of May she was in the engagements at Fort Darling, seven miles below Richmond, Va.; from this time until the retreat of the army from the Peninsula, she was employed in patrolling the James River, arriving on the 21st of August at Newport News, being the last vessel that came down the James River. In September following she was at the Washington Navy Yard for repairs, sailing again for Hampton Roads in November.

On the 29th of December, 1862, she sailed for Beaufort, N. C., in company with the steamer Rhode Island, her convoy, and on the night of the 30th she foundered near Cape Hatteras. About half of her officers and crew were carried down with her; the others were saved by her convoy, the Rhode Island. The cause of her foundering is not known, though it is thought that, having lain all summer in the hot sun of James River, the oak timber which had been fitted to the top edge of the iron hull had shrunk so that in a heavy sea the water found its way through some open space, flowing in great volumes into the ship with fatal effect. Thus her career was a short one, but so marked that her name and exploits will ever have a brilliant place in the history of the great Rebellion. Marking this, in all great movements and emergencies, there is present an Almighty and a controlling hand, that men and means are raised up for special needs, and blessed are those who come into the kingdom at such times and fall into the line of their high calling.

FIRST AERIAL VOYAGE ACROSS THE ENGLISH CHANNEL

DIARY OF DR. JOHN JEFFRIES, THE AERONAUT

It has been very generally supposed that the aeronaut who first crossed the British Channel was an Englishman. He was of English ancestry, but an American by birth. His great-grandfather, David Jeffries, removed from England to Boston in 1677, and married the daughter of Governor Usher. David Jeffries the aeronaut's father was treasurer of the town of Boston for twenty-eight years prior to the Revolution. Dr. John Jeffries was born 1744, was graduated with first honors from Harvard University in 1763, and read medicine with the distinguished Dr. James Lloyd of Boston. He commenced practice in 1766, was successful, but desiring further opportunities, went to England in 1768 to study under the most celebrated physicians and surgeons of London. He received the medical degree from the University of Aberdeen in 1769, and returned to Boston, where he again met with great success in his practice. His English visit and intimacy with the British officers in Boston made him a loyalist by association, though his father was a stanch patriot, deacon of the old South Church. He viewed with the commanding officers from Copp's Hill the battle of Bunker Hill, and crossed over and identified to Genl. Howe the body of Dr. Warren. They had been Freemasons together in St. Andrew's Lodge. He naturally retired to Halifax with the troops when they evacuated Boston. Through his warm friend, Genl. Eyre Massey, commander-in-chief of the Province, he was employed as surgeon in the military hospitals, and went to England in 1779, and there passed the examination at Surgeons' Hall, and was commissioned Surgeon Major. He was with the troops before Savannah and Charleston. He had left his wife and two children under the care of his friend, Benj. Thompson, Count Rumford. News of her sudden death induced him to give up his commission and go back to England, when he declined Lord McCartney's offer of a position on the medical staff about to go to India. During the next ten years, till his return in 1789 to his native Boston, he was a very successful practitioner in London; and becoming scientifically interested in aerostation he made two aerial voyages, in which experiments he was aided by Sir Joseph Banks the President and Dr. Blagden the Secretary of the Royal Society. His accounts of these voyages read before the Society were highly commended as contributions to science. They were printed and published in

London in 1786. Dr. Jeffries said: "I wished to see the following points more clearly determined; first, the power of ascending or descending at pleasure while suspended and floating in the air; second, the effect which oars or wings might be made to produce towards the purpose, and in directing the course of the balloon; third, the state and temperature of the atmosphere at different heights from the earth; fourth, by observing the

varying course of the currents of air or winds at certain elevations, to throw some new light on the theory of winds in general."

Nothing scientific had yet been done by any of the balloonists. Among them was the Frenchman, Blanchard, who had made three ascents in France and one partially successful in England with Dr. Sheldon, F.R.S. Dr. Jeffries paid Blanchard one hundred guineas for a seat in his fifth ascent, which was from the Rhedarium in London, November 30th,

1784, witnessed and patronized by the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Devonshire. They landed safely in the county of Kent. He next determined to carry out his scientific investigations by crossing the channel, the possibility, etc., of which was then doubted. Balloon ascents were very expensive when there were no railroads, telegraphs or gasometers. Dr. Jeffries, however, agreed to pay all expenses, etc., for a voyage across the channel, amounting to over £700. Even with his bills paid Blanchard endeavored by various means to avoid fulfilling his contract. A vest lined with lead the tailor unfortunately brought to Dr. Jeffries at the hotel at Dover. This ascent was finally arranged from the cliff near the castle. From Dr. Jeffries' personal diary, March 1777 to 1819, still extant, the following notes are extracted:

Jan. 7, 1785. This morning, at six o'clock, my little hero Blanchard entered my bed chamber, and told me he believed the wind and weather were fair, and would do for our intended aerial voyage from the cliff below the royal castle of Dover, for the continent of France. Between eight and nine o'clock went with Mr. Hugget, the pilot, to the pier and pilots' lookout. The pilots were of opinion that the wind was not decided, and did not extend beyond mid channel, and that the wind was equally from the French land as from the English coast. This opinion embarrassed me much, although I did not think as they did. While I was at the lookout, the signal gun for our intended voyage was fired, and the flag hoisted, and soon after several other guns, to give notice to the adjacent towns, etc. The balloon and net, etc. were carried down to our apparatus, the balloon hung up, and we began the process for filling it. At nine o'clock went to the castle and breakfasted with the Deputy Governor Lane, after which retired to Capt. Arch. Campbell's apartments to dress for my voyage; after, called to pay my respects to Capt. James Campbell and his lady, and then went down to our apparatus, where I found my little heroick Captain, and the balloon half filled. At half after eleven o'clock let off a small Mongolfier, which went very well, and took a very good direction for us. At twelve o'clock filled and sent off from the hands of Governor Lane our little Devonshire balloon, (which had been the herald of our aerial voyage from London into Kent) and it took the same course as the Mongolfier had done. At half after twelve, we carried our aerial car and placed it under the balloon, and began attaching the cords of the net to it. At one o'clock had completed it, fastened and adjusted in its place the barometer. We then took in our bladders, other things, and eighty pounds of ballast, in bags of ten pounds each, compass, chart, loosened the ropes