150 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



number of practical subjects which, in that service, it is necessary to determine by 

 actual experiment. Questions relating to the form, construction, and efficiency of 

 ordnance and arms of every description, the effect of projectiles as related to their 

 weight, bulk, and velocity and to the charges by which they are projected, or to the 

 length, weight, windage and other circumstances of the guns employed to the dura- 

 bility of the latter as dependent on the quality of metal used in their fabrication, 

 or on the method of casting and subsequent preparation for service, are often pre- 

 sented for solution. 



In connection with the products of a national foundry, should such an establish- 

 ment be authorized the prosecution of experiments would be of the utmost conse- 

 quence, and they certainly can not be less important when the ordnance for our Army 

 and Navy is manufactured entirely by contract. Much of that skill which is required 

 in the fabrication of small arms is dependent on a just application of scientific prin- 

 ciples, and careful researches into the nature of the materials and the best methods 

 of working them is often demanded. Nor are inquiries for this department of public 

 service confined to one or a few materials. Iron, copper, and zinc, brass, and many 

 other alloys; materials for tents, clothing, and accouterments; the whole range of 

 substances employed in pyrotechny; the materials for constructing fortifications, 

 whether on the seaboard or in the interior; for gun carriages and other vehicles; for 

 portable bridges, and for every species of camp equipage, are among the objects of 

 attention in this connection. Nor must the influence of heat, moisture, and other 

 causes in destroying the various materials employed in the military service or the 

 means of preventing their injurious effects be omitted. 



The interests of the Army then require many series of experimental inquiries. 

 And though for the purposes of educating youth to the profession of arms it is 

 admitted that we have an institution which has received many high encomiums for 

 excellence, yet it is certain that original investigations of physical truth are not the 

 objects contemplated or mainly pursued in that establishment. Consequently its 

 existence in full activity and usefulness does not diminish the necessity of a national 

 institution for the purposes now proposed. 



3. To the naval service of the country the subject offers a great variety of impor- 

 tant considerations. The whole business of navigation, whether for commercial or 

 for warlike purposes, ought to be founded on the most accurate scientific principles; 

 and every motive which should impel the mechanic or engineer to guide his practice 

 by the lights of science is equally or more urgent on the mariner. In the prosecution 

 of his adventurous enterprise the latter must encounter every element of nature. 

 Taking, as we now do, steam navigation into the account, we find him engaged at 

 the same moment in a conflict between fire, air, earth, water, light, heat, electricity, 

 galvanism, magnetism, chemical action, and the gravitating forces of the earth, the 

 ocean, and the atmosphere. 



To enable him to contend successfully against these various forces, he must, in 

 addition to the principles of the art of navigation, with no mean modicum of astron- 

 omy, bring to his aid an extensive range of physical sciences. Not that a staunch, 

 well-equipped vessel must necessarily require in him who directs her course all these 

 qualifications; the above remarks are intended to apply to nautical science and prac- 

 tice as a whole, embracing whatever belongs to the naval profession. This requires 

 investigations to be made into the good qualities and the defects of different species 

 of timber, the influence of the season of cutting on the durability of its various 

 kinds, and the most effective and economical methods of preventing decay. 



Among other materials for naval use requiring attention are those of cordage, in 

 all their varieties, from the rigid hempen ropes of our own manufactories to the 

 rude coir cable of the east, buoyant and elastic, floating clear of a rocky bottom, 

 where the heavier hempen line would be chafed and destroyed; and from the deli- 

 cate production of Manila to the stouter staple of the sisal hemp of Yucatan. 



Far from being distinctly known and their several qualities clearly discriminated, 



