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Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test - Reading Questions 126–130 (page: 27)

For the last hour I have been watching President Lincoln and General McClellan as they sat together in earnest conversation on the deck of a steamer closer to us. I am thankful, I am happy, that the President has come--has sprung across the dreadful intervening Washington, and come to see and hear and judge for his own wise and noble self. While we were at dinner someone said, "Why, there's the President!" and he proved to be just arriving on the Ariel, at the end of the wharf. I stationed myself at once to watch for the coming of McClellan. The President stood on deck with a glass, with which, after a time, he inspected our boat, waving his handkerchief to us. My eyes and soul were in the direction of the general headquarters, over which the great balloon was slowly descending. What does the author mean by "the dreadful intervening Washington"?

For the last hour I have been watching President Lincoln and General McClellan as they sat together in earnest conversation on the deck of a steamer closer to us. I am thankful, I am happy, that the President has come--has sprung across the dreadful intervening Washington, and come to see and hear and judge for his own wise and noble self. While we were at dinner someone said, "Why, there's the President!" and he proved to be just arriving on the Ariel, at the end of the wharf. I stationed myself at once to watch for the coming of McClellan. The President stood on deck with a glass, with which, after a time, he inspected our boat, waving his handkerchief to us. My eyes and soul were in the direction of the general headquarters, over which the great balloon was slowly descending.
How does the author feel toward Lincoln?

For the last hour I have been watching President Lincoln and General McClellan as they sat together in earnest conversation on the deck of a steamer closer to us. I am thankful, I am happy, that the President has come--has sprung across the dreadful intervening Washington, and come to see and hear and judge for his own wise and noble self. While we were at dinner someone said, "Why, there's the President!" and he proved to be just arriving on the Ariel, at the end of the wharf. I stationed myself at once to watch for the coming of McClellan. The President stood on deck with a glass, with which, after a time, he inspected our boat, waving his handkerchief to us. My eyes and soul were in the direction of the general headquarters, over which the great balloon was slowly descending.
As used in the passage, the word glass means

For the last hour I have been watching President Lincoln and General McClellan as they sat together in earnest conversation on the deck of a steamer closer to us. I am thankful, I am happy, that the President has come--has sprung across the dreadful intervening Washington, and come to see and hear and judge for his own wise and noble self. While we were at dinner someone said, "Why, there's the President!" and he proved to be just arriving on the Ariel, at the end of the wharf. I stationed myself at once to watch for the coming of McClellan. The President stood on deck with a glass, with which, after a time, he inspected our boat, waving his handkerchief to us. My eyes and soul were in the direction of the general headquarters, over which the great balloon was slowly descending.
The "great balloon slowly descending" is apparently

Big earthquakes are naturally occurring events well outside the powers of humans to create or stop. An earthquake is caused by a sudden slip on a fault. Stresses in the earth's outer layer push the side of the fault together. The friction across the surface of the fault holds the rocks together so they do not slip immediately when pushed sideways. Eventually enough stress builds up and the rocks slip suddenly, releasing energy in waves that travel through the rock to cause the shaking that we feel during an earthquake. Earthquakes typically originate several tens of miles below the surface of the earth. It takes many years--decades to centuries--to build up enough stress to make a large earthquake, and the fault may be tens to hundreds of miles long. The scale and force necessary to produce earthquakes are well beyond our daily lives. Likewise, people cannot prevent earthquakes from happening or stop them once they've started--giant nuclear explosions at shallow depths, like those in some movies, won't actually stop an earthquake.
The two most important variables affecting earthquake damage are the intensity of ground shaking cased by the quake and the quality of the engineering of structures in the region. The level of shaking, in turn, is controlled by the proximity of the earthquake source to the affected region and the types of rocks that seismic waves pass through en route (particularly those at or near the ground surface). Generally, the bigger and closer the earthquake, the stronger the shaking. But there have been large earthquakes with very little damage either because they caused little shaking or because the buildings were built to withstand that shaking. In other cases, moderate earthquakes have caused significant damage either because the shaking was locally amplified or more likely because the structures were poorly engineered.
The word fault means?