PROCEEDIXGS OF THE POLYTECHNIC ASSOCIATION. 679 



thick, a distance of a mile and a half, point blank, at the rate of 

 seventy-four a minute. The gun and whole apparatus weighed 

 nine hundred pounds. 



Mr. Minthorne said that Thomas J. Mayall, of Roxbury, Mass., 

 had constructed a battery of six cannon, self-loading and self- 

 firing, capable of firing one shot a second. 



VESSELS OF WAR, &C. 



Mr. Stetson remarked that this government had now about 

 eight ships of the line, seven brigs, and twenty sloops of war of 

 various sizes ; also about six first class steamers, five second 

 class, and fifteen third class. A large portion of the vessels were 

 good for nothing. He would move the appointment of a com- 

 mittee to report with regard to what can be done or should be 

 done in the way of developing our resources of defence and 

 ofience. We are in the midst of a war, and at the outset we are 

 in a position at once humiliating and embarrassing. 



Mr. Stuart considered our present wooden ships no better than 

 floating grave yards. They ought to be changed. This club 

 should appoint a committee and rout old fogyism, official sham, 

 and red-tapeism. 



Mr. Stetson said the value of our vessels depended upon the 

 character of the enemy Ave had to meet. Our present wooden 

 vessels were good enough for the purpose of waging war with the 

 cannibal Islands, Paraguay or Mexico, but not with any great 

 European power. The knell of wooden ships was rung when it 

 was discovered that bombs, filled with combustible material that 

 would burn ten minutes in spite of everything that could be 

 done, could be shot from a cannon. But for our present enemy 

 we had ships enough, perhaps. If not, the resources of the mer- 

 cantile marine could be brought out. There were one hundred 

 and ninety steamers in New York — twenty of them propellers, 

 and twenty side-wheel steamships. They could be made as effi- 

 cient in a short time, as they were in the Mexican war. A month 

 or six weeks probably would be sufficient for that purpose. 



Mr. Fisher thought that a report of a committee of this body 

 at the present time would be inexpedient. It would only convey 

 information to the enemy. The business of the government now 

 was to fight as well as it could with the present means. At all 

 events, the committee should avail itself of the advice of the 

 most talented engineer, and he would suggest that as an amend- 

 ment. 



