COMMITTEES ON BEHALF OF THE GOVERNMENT 21 5 



6 months, bears \\itness to the fact that so far no satisfactory ship's bottom 

 paint has been produced ; those in general use represent the best available, but all 

 leave much to be desired." '" 



The foregoing comments on the subject of ships' paint, which 

 are from an authoritative source, and of very recent date, serve 

 to make it clear why the committee of the Academy was unable 

 to recommend definite compositions, or mixtures, and to justify 

 it in proposing that experiments be made to determine the rel- 

 ative effectiveness of different substances. If the subject of 

 ships' paints is still open to investigation, it is obvious that its 

 condition a half century ago must have been much more unsatis- 

 factory. 



COMMITTEE ON MAGNETIC DEVIATION IN IRON SHIPS. 1863 



The committee known as Committee No. 3, or " the Compass 

 Committee," was appointed on May 20, 1863, at the request of 

 the Navy Department, communicated by Rear-Admiral Davis 

 on May 8, 1863, and had a direct bearing on the operations of the 

 Navy during the Civil War. It grew out of a commission 

 appointed by the Secretary of the Navy in accordance with an 

 Act of Congress " to make experiments for the correction of local 

 attraction in vessels built wholly or partly of iron," approved 

 March 3, 1863, the same day as that on which the Act of Incor- 

 poration of the Academy was approved. When the Academy 

 had been organized, the Secretary of the Navy turned the matter 

 over to it, requesting that it would " investigate and report upon 

 the subject of magnetic deviation in iron ships." The similarity 

 of the personnel of the two bodies — the commission and the com- 

 mittee — is of strong interest in connection with the present his- 

 tory. We learn from Professor Bache that the Commission of 

 the Navy Department consisted of himself as chairman, Joseph 

 Henry," Wolcott Gibbs, Benjamin Peirce, and W. P. Trowbridge. 

 The committee of the Academy was the same, with the addition 

 of Charles H. Davis and Fairman Rogers. This transformation 



^"Engineering A'eius, vol. 66, no. 5, .■\ugiist 3, 1911, p. 136. 



