¶ The Paragraph

“Water! Water! Water!” wrote an early surveyor of northwestern Ohio, “tall timber! deep water! Not a blade of grass growing or a bird to be seen50.” The surveyor was traveling in the Great Black Swamp, a forty mile (64 km) swath stretching from the western end of Lake Erie nearly to Fort [...]

The citizens of Washington, D.C., planned a celebration for the United States’ 50th anniversary, and invited the living signers of the Declaration of Independence, among whom was its author, Thomas Jefferson. But he was too sick to attend, and sent his regret in a letter41:

It adds sensibly to the sufferings of sickness, to be [...]