Posted on 05/01/2003 9:35:00 AM PDT by Texas Mom
The Declaration of Independence had something like 56 signers.
Not exactly. The balance scale is for measuring precious metals; the Treasury is NOT responsible for a balanced budget. The center is an heraldic bend, a mere dividing line between the scales and the key, not a carpenter's square - and the easiest way to prove this is to hold the corner of one bill against this bend and you'll see that it's not a true right angle.
Some of the details of the Great Seal on the back of the dollar bill are of comparatively recent vintage. The original seal - made around 1789 - was very crude art and looks as if I had doodled it on a cocktail napkin (in the original, it would be hard to identify the eagle as something other than an underfed turkey). But around 1880, the govt commissioned Louis Comfort Tiffany, the very famous jeweler and artist, to work up a new and more artistic seal; many of the details mentioned in this essay originated in Tiffany's artwork ... without any evidence that they were any other than Tiffany's own innovations. The significant features of the front of the Seal (the part with the eagle) is the recurrence of the number thirteen, for the 13 original colonies (13 stars, 13 clouds, 13 leaves in the olive branch, 13 arrows, 13 feathers in the tail, etc.) - most of these did not exist prior to Tiffany's work. The pyramid (on the back of the Great Seal) rather obviously, to us, does not match the angles or proportions of the Egyptian pyramids ... but this discrepency would have been little known or recognized in Tiffany's time or earlier.
Also I belive that the United States is the only country with a two sided Great Seal
Each Colony had several representatives. Although approval was unanimous among the Colonies, it was not unanimous in each of the Colonies.
Interestingly in the white house pictures of "the adults in charge" during the war, you will notice that the arrows and talons are showing on the flag to the right of the President.
This is a nice myth but it is demonstrably false. The $ symbol was being used for Spanish silver dollars even before the American Revolution. A major book on the history of mathematical symbols devoted a chapter to it. The $ might have been inspired by the actual design on the Spanish dollar, which had a capital S between two Roman pillars (that resembled the capital I, so the whole image looked a bit like ISI); other suggestions are that it served as a sort of monogram or abbreviation for "solidis" or something similar. In any case, it predates the first use of "United States".
Another myth is that a $ sign with one vertical stroke means something different from a $ with two vertical strokes. This is complete nonsense and unsupported by any book on banking or accounting as far back as the dollar sign existed. Type foundries (and typewriters) only offer one $ sign with any typeface; some have two strokes, some have one, it seems to be a matter of whim or aesthetics.
Does this mean you actually understood the content of Library Lady's post?
I was intensely curious to discover what the heck it would mean for "the United States" to be descended from Manasseh. Which people in the United States? The Indians? The British colonists (but then why not just say all of England is descended from Manasseh)? the Dutch? I was dying to know.
And now you've burst my bubble saying there's nothing to it to begin with. Darn! ;-)
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