146 [Senate 



fectly dry and tight. The iron steamer Lady Landsdowne, was also 

 run on some rocks in the same river; when she was got off it was not 

 perceptible that she had sustained any injury. 



The iron steamer Garry Owen, at the estuary of the Low^r Shan- 

 non, in the storm of January, 1839, broke from her anchors, and 

 went ashore in the most violent part of the gale, and remained for 

 several hours on a hard beach without sustaining any damage, al- 

 though out of twenty-seven wooden vessels, in the same neighbor- 

 hood, not one escaped without serious injury, and some of them 

 were totally lost. The iron sailing vessel Vulcan, on the same shores 

 struck on a reef of rocks, where there was less than three feet of wa- 

 ter, while the ship drew over six feet, and going at the rate of five and 

 a half miles an hour. She worked over the reef without injury. You 

 will find the following statement in the New York Express, dated 

 Aug. 9, 1843 : 



" The iron steamer John Randolph, after nine year's active service 

 on the Savannah river, was hauled out of the river last week for re- 

 pairs, and on examining her bottom, it was found that the wear of 

 the iron plates of which she was built, was scarcely perceptible in 

 any part ; some indentations occasioned by snags, were found, but 

 they were easily repaired." 



This fact, remarks the Savannah Republican, clearly tests the su- 

 periority of iron for the hull of boats, over that of wood. At a fu- 

 ture time, I will furnish you with some other facts of a more striking 

 character than the foregoing. 



Notwithstanding the many fashionable hypotheses in relation to 

 the wearing out or ultimate non-cohesion of the particles of iron in 

 railroad tracks, by weight of load and linear impingement, still it was 

 clearly shewn that by practical results, stated at these conversations, 

 when the rail was of sufficient width and thickness, the impingement of 

 the wheels did not deteriorate the quality, but did nearly or quite pre- 

 vent the oxydation. 



That although a rail placed by the side of the sleeper, in a state of 

 rest would rust, still those rails upon the sleepers having cars pas- 

 sing over them, did not suffer by oxydation ! 



The different modes of tempering steel, from an axe to a watch 

 spring, were fully explained. The modes of welding, of coating cast 

 iron with steel, and of rendering cast iron malleable, were clearly 

 treated. The different kinds of ore, with the methods of abstracting 

 the metal from them, were fully explained by practical men. 



Modes of preventing oxydation, and the results obtained by experi- 

 menters on this subject, were highly interesting. The experiments 

 of the French and English societies, on the deterioration of quality 

 in the axles of railroad cars by use, were fully entered into and many 

 remedies proposed, some of which it is believed, will prove efficient. 

 The various uses of iron in the construction of houses, bridges, light- 

 houses, &c. &c., were fully investigated, and were well understood by 

 all those present. 



The resources of our country in relation to iron, were clearly shown 



