154 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



disturbing causes which might endanger the stability of large structures. A compe- 

 tent knowledge of these various subjects would enable our architects to insure the 

 permanency of their works without involving the expenditure of enormous sums, either 

 to replace ill-constructed, tottering edifices or to surmount imaginary impossibilities. 



Other subjects of inquiry, incidental to the department of art now referred to, 

 would also merit attention. An understanding of the laws which regulate the motions 

 and reverberations of sound would not be found unprofitable to those who construct 

 halls for the sessions of legislative and judicial bodies. Exemplifications of this 

 statement are but too well known at the seat of government. 



Many of the truths which experimental research might develop would be equally 

 applicable to every species of architecture, whether civil, military, or naval. Many 

 would have reference chiefly to buildings on land, while others would pertain exclu- 

 sively to submarine constructions, such as the foundations of piers and docks, sea 

 walls, and breakwaters. 



7. That the country has such an interest in the inventive genius of its citizens as 

 would authorize the establishment of an institution capable of testing the value, as 

 well as of proving the novelty, of any invention seems to have been fully admitted 

 by the Constitution and laws of the United States. 



Several appropriations have, indeed, already been made for special purposes of 

 this nature, and others have been recently asked for objects highly deserving of con- 

 sideration, as connected with the welfare and safety of the public. The advantages 

 to be expected from this particular application of scientific labor are not limited to 

 any one great interest. In every branch of the public service inventions and improve- 

 ments may be found beneficial, and in all of them may investigations be deemed 

 necessary before an impartial decision can be anticipated. 



8. The bearing of numerous investigations on the vast and complicated interests of 

 commerce is, perhaps, too obvious to require even the slightest elucidation. AVhat- 

 ever facilitates navigation, such as improvements in steamboats or other vessels; 

 whatever diminishes the risks attendant on its prosecution, as improvements in 

 charts, beacons, light-houses, telegraphs, and lifeboats, and whatever transmits 

 rapidly information, or funds, or persons, or merchandise, is essentially interwoven 

 with the prosperity of commerce. 



9. And since all the facilities and improvements in commerce, all the elements and 

 productions and moving forces of nature, all the inventions of ingenuity, all the 

 obscure movements of mining industry, all the skill of the architect, all the science 

 of the engineer, and all the productions of the agriculturist are directly or indirectly 

 conducive to the manufacturing and mechanical interests of the country, there can 

 not exist a doubt of the value to those interests of an institution for researches in 

 practical science. 



It is by no means supposed by your memorialist that all the ramifications of each 

 of the great interests, which have now been shown to have a stake in the advance- 

 ment of useful knowledge, would come simultaneously under investigation. 

 Researches in each would naturally follow in the order of its relative importance 

 and of the facilities for its examination. To obtain these facilities would be a pri- 

 mary step in the operations of the establishment. 



The foundation of an institution for practical science is, in itself, no novel project 

 for the enlightened government of a civilized nation to entertain. What an intelli- 

 gent stranger might, perhaps*, consider more remarkable in the case is the fact that 

 so long a period has been allowed to elapse without witnessing an attempt to erect 

 in our country such an institution. If examples were required, we might find them 

 in England, in her Royal Institution and Society of Arts; in Scotland, in the Ander- 

 sonian Institution, at Glasgow; in France, in her Polytechnic School and School of 

 Mines; and in Prussia, in her " Gewerbverein," at Berlin. To these might be added 

 some local establishments in our own country. But even if no precedent existed, it 



