31To Thomas Jefferson from Charles Willson Peale, 19 May 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
Yours of the 15th Instant received yesterday. The Cabinet work of your Polygraph is nearly complete, it is a neat and good piece of work but without any ornaments of fineering. I am now making tryal of the machinery and finding some advantage by a different length of the horozontal part. I have ordered such to be made as I think will best suit the desk; something shorter than that you have in...
32To Thomas Jefferson from Charles Willson Peale, 24 May 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
Your Polygraph was nearly finished before I received your favor of the 21st. Instant, and your improvement to command the pull of the spiral Spring shall be made to it. The Machine appears on a short tryal of it, to perform with great accuracy & considerable freedom. The joints are made to fit close without being stiff, and I have thought it best, not to use a single drop of oil in puting it...
33To Thomas Jefferson from Charles Willson Peale, 3 June 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
The Baron requests me to present his compliments that he will do himself the pleasure to wait on you with Messrs. Bonpland & Montufar. Doctr Woodhouse also desires me to include his respects that he will also wait on you. Doctr Fothergill is not at present within, but I shall see him this afternoon—& I believe he will isteem your invitation, an honour not to be neglected—& therefore I answer...
34To Thomas Jefferson from Charles Willson Peale, 15 June 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
My Sons here are very desireous of having the outline of your profile taken in the size which the argand Lamp will give on the wall, resting the head against a beer or other long Glass. It will only be the loss of one minute of time to sit, while Mr Burrill might trace the shadow with a Pencil, from which my Son Raphaelle can cut it out, and with his Physiognotrace produce numbers. The...
35To Thomas Jefferson from Charles Willson Peale, 18 June 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
Making use of a Polygraph which is placed in the Room of my Sons Exhibition of the Skeleton of the Mammoth, that had one of the steel pens broke (a case which may often occur by philipping them against a table to free them of Ink) and a quill pen having been substituted, it appears to me an improvement. The advantages are, that from the quill which hold more, the ink flows more readily; the...
36To Thomas Jefferson from Charles Willson Peale, 24 June 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
I Send enclosed a clumsey pen-case, the want of a clamp machine for making screws (which cannot be had at present in Philadelphia) obliged him to use the Clockmakers screw plate, which has too strong a thread to admit the pieces screwed, to be made thinner. But if this invention is found to be useful I shall then endeavor to get made the proper tools for making fine threads to screws of large...
37To Thomas Jefferson from Charles Willson Peale, 28 June 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
My son Rembrandt now at Baltemore exhibiting his Skeleton of the Mammoth, writes me as follows. “Saterday there was a young man here, lately (4 weeks) from Pittsburg, who saw Reeder and his Bones. He gave me a very accurate description of them. He has a very fine thigh bone much like mine, an underjaw not so large as mine but a good deal broken, a great number of back bones of different...
38To Thomas Jefferson from Charles Willson Peale, 22 July 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
Your Polygraph is in the Schooner Charming Mary, Captn. Potter, now on his passage to Richmond—It is in a tight packing case agreable to your directions. I have fortunately found an ingenious invention of Mr. Stansbury Junr. of New York for making several pens of a single quil, which will apply well to the Polygraph, I send enclosed a specimen of his Pens—and as soon as I can have made a pr....
39To Thomas Jefferson from Charles Willson Peale, 24 July 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
The enclosed pen-cases I flatter myself will be found very convenient, the slits are made longer for the stay-pin to moove a greater distance, & therefore will require less attention to the length of the quill. on reconsidering the last paragraph of my letter of the 22d, I have thought that a sketch in addition would have better illustrated Mr. Latrobes improvement of the cover of the...
40To Thomas Jefferson from Charles Willson Peale, 19 August 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
This morning my son Rembrandt shewed me his invention of Pens to hold a greater quantity of Ink than Pens made in the common fashion—with the hope that you will be as pleased with it as myself, I hasten to send you the enclosed Pens, and as every trifle which tends to the economizing of time must be valuable to those of industrous habits, I beleive I am in my line of duty in not delaying this...