Page:The Ladies of the White House.djvu/731

Rh to the building during the administration of President Jackson.

The latitude to the nearest second, 38° 53′ 12″, north. Longitude of the Presidents' House from the Paris observatory, 79° 17′ 16″, west.

In 1793, about eighty paces west of the brick arch on Pennsylvania Avenue, a log was thrown over the Tiber, which served as a bridge over which the procession passed, headed by General George Washington. Here the boys caught herring and other fish. The waters of the Tiber occasionally extended in places over the present Pennsylvania Avenue, the road to the Presidents' House being considerably north of it, and along which a traveller in that day might pass from the Capitol square to the former without seeing a human being. The house of David Burns, which stood in the grounds south of the Presidents' House, is now owned by his descendants, and is an object of interest to all who remember Washington's notion of him as the "obstinate" Mr. Burns.

In 1796, as President Washington passed the Presidents' House (then building), a salute of sixteen guns was fired by the artillery company stationed at that point.

The Presidents' House is situated in the western part of the city, on a plot of ground of twenty acres; fortyfour feet above high-water mark. It has a southern and a northern front; the southern sloping towards the Potomac and commanding a view of it. A