540 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



a few GO-pounder Parrott's, untried in battle, and some experimental 50- 

 pounders which have been made, but never put in service. 



2. As field rifle guns were successfully used before the rebellion, it ap- 

 pears that no improvements have been made in large guns during the war, 

 whilst every other branch of inventive genius has been successfully keep- 

 ing pace with the march of the revolution in science and mechanics. 



3. We can, and we should have guns to answer the purpose of their 

 creation equally witli agricultural instruments. 



4. What farmer would continue to use a plough, if it were liable to burst 

 and blow him and his team to atoms? Private enterprise overcomes these 

 diflficulties, why does not the government likewise? 



ACCIDENTS WILL HATPEN. 



5. At Fort Sumter, in the beginning of the rebellion, the only casualty 

 was b}^ the bursting of a gun. In the attack on Fort Fisher all the casu- 

 alties in the fleet resulted from the same cause. At the bursting of every 

 gun more or less life is lost, beside the sacrifice of property, and owing to 

 the reticence of the departments but a small percentage of the numbers 

 that burst, and the losses sustained by the government, are published. 

 Those we hoar of in the newspapers generally come from some literary, 

 but unscientific reporter. 



, FORT FISHER AND THE NAVAL BOARD. 



6. Eighteen large rifles were disabled on Admiral Porter's fleet at Fort 

 Fisher, yet the Secretary of the Navy reported to Congress but five had 

 burst; and recently a board convened b}' the Ordnance bureau of the navy 

 to investigate the cause of the disastrous failures of guns off Fort Fisher, 

 reported twenty-one burst altogether, out of 703 in service, while their own 

 tables, accompanying the report, show thirty-four had burst, and the last 

 report of the chief of the bureau exhibits 1,005 at that time available. ThQ 

 board likewise suppressed the truth, in not reporting that of the 103, 483 

 were twenty and thirty pounders, which were not of the classes under con- 

 templation or liable to burst. 



1. I have had twenty-five years' experience in manipulating iron, and 

 all the talent or inventive faculty I have, resulting from that large expe- 

 rience, has been for three years entirely devoted to this subject. The chief 

 of the Ordnance bureau has said that I have great experience, much inven- 

 tive talent, and am a great mechanic; yet I was not allowed to give any 

 information to the board. Mr. Horatio Ames was also present in Washing- 

 ton at the time, who has the reputation of being one of the most extensive 

 iron manufacturers, with experience in the manufacture of guns, in the 

 country, and who had made a 50-pounde); wrought iron gun that could not 

 be burst, yet he was not allowed to testify, nor Mr. Hotchkiss, another 

 very efficient ordnance mechanic. Only Mr. Parrott was heard. Hence it 

 can be seen why no improvements are made in guns. The departments 

 persist in shutting out the light. 



THE REASON WHY THERE IS NO IMPROVEMENT. 



8. In the navy, some years since, a young lieutenant, of considerable 

 talent, mucb ambition, with a remarkably fine address, exhibited great 



