The Bonus Bill was an American bill submitted by Calhoun on the 23rd of December 1816, appropriating $1.5 million 'for constructing roads and canals and improving the navigation of watercourses.' The bill was passed, being strongly supported by New York and the South. It was supposed the money would immediately be applied to the construction of a canal between Albany and the lakes. President James Mason vetoed the bill during the last days of his administration, insisting that internal improvement measures needed a constitutional amendment. Accordingly, New York State undertook the construction of the Erie Canal. Research Bonus Bill
The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty was a treaty drawn up between the USA and Great Britain in 1850, and named after the negotiators, John M Clayton and Sir H Lytton Bulwer, under the treaty neither power was to obtain exclusive control over any canal across the Central American Isthmus, but all such communications by canal or railway were to be neutral. The treaty was superseded by the 1901 Hay-Pauncefote Treaty. Research Clayton-Bulwer Treaty
A dyke (dike) is a ditch or trench, and also an embankment, rampart, or wall. It is specially applied to an embankment raised to oppose the incursions of the sea or of a river, the dikes of Holland being notable examples of work of this kind. These are often raised 12 metres above the high-water mark, and are wide enough at the top for a common roadway or canal, sometimes for both. Research Dyke
Head is the term applied to the anterior part of the body of an animal when marked off by a difference in size, or by a constriction (neck). A gradual increase of complexity in the structure of the head is observable as we ascend from the lowest to the highest forms of life. In the Protozoa, Infusoria, and Coelenterates nothing that can be regarded as a head is found, and it is not until we ascend to the worms proper, the articulated animals (crustaceans, myriapods, spiders, and insects), the land and fresh-water gasteropods (snails and whelks), and the cuttle-fishes, that a head proper is found.
The cuttle-fishes have a remarkable cartilaginous box, which, like a skull, protects their anterior nervous ganglia and gives support to the muscles. The head of the vertebrated animals presents a regular series of increasing complexity from the lancelet upwards, and as the anterior nervous mass enlarges, and its ganglia increase in complexity, so do the anterior vertebra change their character; as the brain becomes specialized, so does the brain-case or skull, attaining its highest development in man.
In man, and in the higher vertebrates, the head consists of an upper chamber, lodging the brain, the eyes, and other sense organs, and a lower, lodging the first portion of the alimentarycanal. In proportion as the vertebrates become developed, the brain increases in size, and its position advances anteriorly, until, in man, it comes to overhang the face.
Head is the unit of measurement of cattle. Thus a herd of 100 cattle is referred to as 100 head.
The Potomac Company was an American company chartered in 1784, with George Washington as president, for the purpose of connecting the Potomac valley with the West by means of a canal, and for general land improvement. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company succeeded it in 1828. Research Potomac Company
In negotiating the treaty of 1846, by which the forty-ninth parallel, from the Rocky Mountains to the sea, was made the boundary between the American and British possessions, a controversy arose concerning the course of the line through the channel which divides Vancouver Island from the mainland. The Americans contended for the Canal de Haro, the British for the Rosario Strait. To avoid conflict, it was decided that both nations occupy the island of San Juan at opposite ends. In 1872 the German Emperor, acting as arbitrator, decided for America. Research San Juan Question
In the early part of the 19th century the people of Southampton, Hampshire cut a tollcanal for barges between Southampton and Redbridge. However, as barges could travel through the Southampton Water without charge, the canal was never used and became a source of great amusement to the British public who subsequently ironically referred to 'Southampton's Wise Sons'. Research Southampton's Wise Sons
Acamthocephala are a compact group of cylindrical, parasitic worms, with no near allies in the animal kingdom. Its members are quite devoid of any mouth or alimentarycanal, but have a well-developed body cavity into which the eggs are dehisced and which communicates with the exterior by means of an oviduct. The size of the animals varies greatly, from some forms a few millimetres in length to Gigantorhynchus gigas, which measures from ten to 65 centimetres. The adults live in great numbers in the alimentarycanal of some vertebrate, usually fish, the larvae are as a rule encysted in the body cavity of some invertebrate, most often an insect or crustacean, more rarely a small fish. The body is divisible into a proboscis and a trunk with sometimes an intervening neck region. Research Acamthocephala
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Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Bonus Bill
