tower, cut in ivory when he was rineteen years old. He designed his tower for use both on land and sea, and his first patent, dated January 18, 1843, specifies this twofold use. On shore, his invention would be a revolving, iron-clad fort; employed on the sea, it is a revolving, iron-clad, floating battery.

In the spring of 1843, having obtained his patent, the young inventor proceeded to construct a model of a revolving fortress, twenty-one feet in circumference. This model was made at Syracuse, and was afterwards brought to New York, where it was publicly exhibited, and described in the newspapers. When President Tyler passed through New York, in June of that year, it was shown to him in the Governor's Room of the City Hall. The invention was admired by all competent persons who inspected it; but no one, it appears, appreciated its importance. No iron-clad vessels having yet been built, and rifled cannon being unknown, the necessity of iron-clad forts was not apparent. The inventor was told, by the military authorities at Washington, that the forts already existing were sufficient for the defence of our harbors, and his invention was totally neglected by them.

As on a lovely day in summer it is difficult to realize that, ere many months have passed, the earth will be covered with snow, and wintry winds howling through the leafless trees, so, when peace has long blessed a country, it is not easy to believe that war will one day threaten and desolate its shores. I well remember walking over Governor's Island, in New York harbor, some years ago, and finding its principal fortification without a serviceable gun, and tenanted only by one woman. For many years before the outbreak of the late war, another island in the harbor, filled with warlike stores, was in the custody of one sergeant. In 1843 Mr. Timby could get no official person to urge the adoption of his invention, which he had expended several thousand dollars in completing. In 1848 he made such progress as to get a committee appointed to examine his plans and models. One member of this committee was Jefferson Davis. These gentlemen joined the Chief of Ordnance in reporting favorably upon the invention to Mr. Marcy, the Secretary of War; and there the matter rested. It would have

required, indeed, a very bold and far-seeing Secretary of War to have undertaken, in 1848, the erection of revolving iron-clad forts and floating batteries.

Mr. Timby then went to France, and submitted his plans to the government of Louis Napoleon. He had no better success at Paris than at Washington.

Never did he cease to meditate and improve upon his original conception, although compelled to direct his chief attention to other business. He made several valuable inventions, twenty of which were patented. When the war broke out, in 1861, he felt that the time had come to bring his favorite scheme to bear upon the defence of his country, and he immediately made a new model of his revolving tower, which combined all the improvements which eighteen years of reflection had suggested. This model he took to Washington, and placed it in a room of the Treasury Department, where it was seen by the members of the cabinet and the public. The value of the idea was not yet fully recognized. It was not until the immortal Monitor had done her glorious morning's work in Hampton Roads, a year later, that Mr. Timby's invention was hailed throughout the world as a most important addition to the art of war.

It is pleasant to record that the inventor of the iron-clad revolving turret, after waiting twenty-two years for his reward, obtained it at last, and without difficulty. His claim to the invention was not disputed, and could not be. A new patent was issued to him, covering all his late improvements. The gentlemen who had contracted to build Monitors for the government offered terms to the inventor, which he considered just, and which he accepted. His emoluments, of course, have not been as great as those of some enterprising sutlers, who sold whiskey and water to the troops at five dollars a bottle, but they have been such as satisfy a man of moderate desires and intellectual tastes.

The turret principle has not yet been applied to the construction of forts, and I know not whether such an application of it is in contemplation. One thing may be regarded as certain: no fort made of masonry can resist the ordnance now employed in the navies of Great Britain, France, and the United States.

I believe that both France and England possess vessels that could run by the forts defending New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Charleston, and anchor off either of those cities, holding them at their mercy. The only safeguard our cities have is the fleet of turreted iron-clads, which originated in the ingenious brain of Theodore R. Timby. Whether these are sufficient, without the aid of iron-clad forts on land, is a question, the solution of which ought not to be deferred until we are again involved in war.

RECOLLECTIONS OF WINFIELD SCOTT.

THE first time I ever saw the late Lieutenant-General Scott, he was fifty years of age, and I was fourteen. He lived then at Elizabethtown, New Jersey, where he had a large, old, and dilapidated mansion, that stood in the midst of grounds worse kept than any others in the neighborhood. The general was seldom at home in those days, and, during his long absences, there was nobody in the house except the family in charge.

At that time, too, General Scott had little more than his pay and allowances as a major-general, and his family was an expensive one. Moreover, a general on distant service, or in active campaigning, has to maintain two establishments, both of which should be upon a scale of some liberality. His family have to be maintained at home, and his own tent in the field ought to be the scene of frequent hospitality. Some of our generals, during the late war, were compelled sometimes to keep up three establishments, one at home, one in the field, and one at the head-quarters of their departments. This was frequently the case with General B. F. Butler, who spent. during the five years he was in the service, a little more than three times as much as he received. General Scott, for many years of his life, was constantly pinched to make his six thousand dollars a year last till the year was at an end, and hence the forlorn appearance of his house and grounds.

But his own appearance was most strikingly superb thirty years ago. I saw him as he was stepping on board a steamboat at Elizabethport, in undress uniform, with a magnificent blue cloak upon his shoulders, lined with red. His height, as I afterwards heard him say, was six feet four inches, and his form was finely developed, crect, and symmetrical. His dark hair