468 



TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



points with the steamboat and six launches, and an assault by boarding 

 from the crews of six launches, each with a rifled twelve-pounder gun, and 

 with small arms, including pikes, could scarcely be resisted by any ship, 

 if it was conducted in the night and with proper vigor. 



These boats would not alone be useful for the purposes above described; 

 they are powerful tugs and good transports for men and stores, shipping 

 and transhipping; where there are no wharves or docks running up to the 

 beach or river bank to take on or put off their load, whether of stores, 

 men, horses or cattle, and could not be excelled, under many circumstances 

 that could be described, for use as lighters for transhipping from heavier 

 transports; and I have offered them, completely equipped. 



LAUNCHES. 



The launches are eight feet wide, thirty feet long, and three feet deep; 

 have three pivot sockets at bow and stern, at the points of a triangle, that 

 the sliding carriage may be fixed in any two of the points with the pivot 



bolts; two tracks placed fore and aft, the proper width apart, for the 

 wheels of the field carriage; two skids, with hooks at the ends to fix in 

 eyes at bow and stern, continue the track to the beach, for the support of 

 the field carriage on landing. Sixteen oars are becketed to thole pins for 

 use. The pins have a piece of India rubber tube slipped over them, and 

 the oar rests on a piece of rubber let into the gunwale to muffle their sound. 

 Each launch has four water-beakers, and a band is placed near the ends 

 with an eye, by which the beaker with water can be suspended under the 

 limber when the gun's crew make a raid into the country, away from the 

 boats. Each launch has twelve passing boxes, in which each of the gun's 

 crew can carry one round of ammunition on landing; and two copper maga- 

 zine tanks are furnished, made water tight, to which a line can be attached. 

 When a launch is under fire the magazines should be overboard, and towed 

 five or ten fathoms behind. Each magazine will float with one hundred 

 pounds of powder. Two grapnels with thirty fathoms of line are to be 

 thrown overboard, outside the surf, in landing, to haul off the boat as soon 

 as the gun and gun's crew are landed. This would be indispensable in 

 landing on a beach in a heavy sea, and often in a marsh at the side of a 

 river. If a grapnel line has to be cast away, a buoy should be found on 

 board and attached to the inboard end of the line, that it may be recovered 

 afterwards. 



THE GUNS 



are steel, rifled, and smooth-bore. The weight of each is 183 pounds. 



The rifled howitzer is three inches caliber, and the smooth-bore 4^^?^ 

 inches caliber, both of the same exterior form, and they will interchange 

 on the sliding or field carriage. 



