MEMOIR OF DANIEL TREADWELL. 425 



The making of the thirty-two pounders seems to have been attended with some 

 unexpected ditKculties, and the appearance of cracks in some of the guns alarmed 

 Mr. Treadwell. He immediately communicated the foot to those associated with 

 him, and charged himself with the expenses of the work going on at the Mill-dam 

 to the amount of $2,000, if it should not prove successful. He went with Mr. 

 Francis C. Lowell to Washington, and laid the matter before Colonel Talcott, who 

 had been urging the adoption of the guns by the Navy Department. Colonel Talcott 

 considered the accident as most unpleasant, but believed it could be overcome. 

 The work went on, until the cannon, twenty-two in all, were completed.* 



In 1845 M. Buggraff, an agent of the French Government, visited Mr. Treadwell's 

 works at the Mill-dam, investigated his method of manufacture, and made himself 

 acquainted with the results of the proving of the guns at Washington. After this 

 visit he received the following letter from Mr. Treadwell, offering one of the 32- 

 pounders to the King of the French. 



To Mr. Bl'GGR-VFF, A(/ent of French Government. 



Cambridge, NovomTipr, 1845. 

 Sir, — I have placed in Boston, subject to your order, ouc cannon, witli the rei|nest that you 

 will forward it to the proper officer of the government of His Majesty the Kin<^ of the French, 

 to whom I wish it to be presented. This gun, the calibre being of tlie size of an English 32- 

 pounder, is made of wrought iron after a method invented and reduced to practice by me, and 

 a short account of which is contained in the pamphlet which you will receive with this. I have 

 already furnished to you an account of the proof to which several field guns, made by me, have 

 been subjected by the Ordnance officers of the United States. The gun now forwarded was 

 manufactured by the same process, but is less perfect than the field guns, in being made all of 

 iron, instead of having its calibre faced with steel as used in the field guns. The reason of this 

 difference, and the deficiency of hardness which results from it, is noticed in the pamphlet, page 

 13, and in consequence of it a lodgement may be produced if soft wads are used with high 

 charges and several shot. With the exception of the particular above alluded to, this gun is, 

 I believe, every way perfect ; it has been proved with twelve pounds of powder, two shot, and 



* Similar difficulties have siuce been met with elsewhere. At the Russian government foundry it often 

 happens that cracks are found in the cylinders of which the bodies of the guns are formed, after being submitted to 

 the hammers during the prooess of weldiug. " Some of these are inconsiderable, not deep, and have no influence on 

 the quality of the metal, or the resistance of the cannon itself. Sometimes, on the contrary, these fissures are of a 

 sufficiently great extent to cause the rejection of the piece. Minute observations have shown, that of these non- 

 malleable pieces there have been some of which the casting, forging, and reheating have taken place under 

 exactly the same conditions as with other cylinders that have proved of the best quality. Chemical analysi.s has not 

 been able to assign an explanation for these fissures ; even at the point where they have occurred. . . . Unfor- 

 tunately, this fact, than which there can be none more interesting, awaits, like a great many others respecting the 

 production of cannon steel, a satisfactory explanation, which as yet the engineers and chemists of the works have 

 not been able to furnish." — Notes on the Construction of Ordnance, No. 21. p. 16. "Fabrication of Cannon in 

 Russia, by Lieut. Michel Levitzky, Russian Navy." Wa-shington, May 14, 1663. 



