Preparations for the Forbes Expedition, 1758, in Adams County, with Particular Focus on the Reverend Thomas Barton

In the year 1755, two events occurred which left their impress upon the history of what was to become Adams county. One was momentous, and its consequences, like concentric ripples produced by a stone hurled into a large body of water, continued to move and shape the history of Pennsylvania\u27s frontier long afterwards. By comparison, the other was insignificant, the mere, almost undetectable slipping of a pebble into the rushing torrent of Time. Yet this second happening eventuated in ways that profoundly contributed to our understanding of Adams county\u27s, and Pennsylvania\u27s, history during the years 1755-59. The lesser of these occurrences had its genesis in the religious needs of a people often neglected in accounts of colonial Pennsylvania, the Anglicans (or members of the Church of England) who dwelt along the western frontier and who, as it fell out, were largely Anglo-Irish and Scots-Irish in origin. Numerically fewer than their Presbyterian neighbors clustered to the north in Cumberland county and to the south in the settlements of Marsh Creek, the people of the Church of England had informally staked out an area for themselves along the Conewago and the Bermudian Creeks in Huntington, Tyrone and Reading townships in what was then western York county. A shoal precariously situated in a sea of Presbyterians, Seceders, and Covenanters, and cut off from the nearest Anglican church, St. James\u27s in Lancaster, by the triple geographic barriers of dense forest, broad river, and vast distance, they felt the survival of their religion an uncertain thing indeed. [excerpt

The Bermudian Creek Tories

The history of the American Revolution which most Americans have learned and which is everyday reinforced in the public media is essentially but one of several competing interpretations of that conflict. We rarely think about this, so successfully has that particular history taken root in our culture. Common sense, however, should caution us that the British also possess a version or versions which differ in important ways from ours. The French, our allies during the Revolution, offer yet another construction, one stressing that war\u27s place in their own long history of conflict with Great Britain. And had the northeastern American Indians possessed a written, instead of an oral, tradition, doubtless they would have recorded how their involvement in the war between the two English-speaking opponents hastened the destruction of their culture. [excerpt

Do Individual Investors Drive Post-Earnings Announcement Drift? Direct Evidence from Personal Trades

This study examines whether individual investors are the source of post- earnings announcement drift (PEAD). We provide evidence on how individual investors trade in response to extreme quarterly earnings surprises and on the relation between individual investors' trades and subsequent abnormal returns. We find no evidence that either individuals or any sub-category of individuals in our sample cause PEAD. Individuals are significant net buyers after both negative and positive earnings surprises. There is no indication that trading by any of our investor sub-categories explains the concentration of drift at subsequent earnings announcement dates. While post-announcement individual net buying is a significant negative predictor of stock returns over the next three quarters, individual investor trading fails to subsume any of the power of extreme earnings surprises to predict future abnormal returns.post earnings-announcement drift, trading activity, individual investors, market efficiency

Geometric effects in applied-field MPD thrusters

Three applied-field magnetoplasmadynamic (MPD) thruster geometries were tested with argon propellant to establish the influence of electrode geometry on thruster performance. The thrust increased approximately linearly with anode radius, while the discharge and electrode fall voltages increased quadratically with anode radius. All these parameters increased linearly with applied-field strength. Thrust efficiency, on the other hand, was not significantly influenced by changes in geometry over the operating range studied, though both thrust and thermal efficiencies increased monotonically with applied field strength. The best performance, 1820 sec I(sub sp) at 20 percent efficiency, was obtained with the largest radius anode at the highest discharge current (1500 amps) and applied field strength (0.4 Tesla)