342 REPORT—18638. 
But there remain very important facts to be determined, which can be ob- 
tained by direct experiment only, and which only the Admiralty can pro- 
cure. These facts are wanted as data for the scientific construction of future 
ships. At present each shipbuilder, or designer of ships, is obliged to con- 
struct them from the limited number of elements he may have been able to 
obtain from his personal experience. What is wanted is that these data 
should be obtained from experiments made publicly and on a national scale, 
so as to give general and entire confidence in the results, and so that they 
might be accepted as data for naval construction in all time to come. 
The experiments required for this purpose are of the following nature :— 
I.—Experiments on actual stability in still water; or exact measures of 
angles of keel at various degrees of immersion. It would be well that these 
should be made under the following four conditions :— 
1. When the ship is launched. 
2, When she is completed with her machinery, but empty. 
3. When she is armed and equipped. 
4, With her seagoing complement of stores. 
II.—Experiments on the time and angles of oscillation of a ship in still 
water, under the same four conditions. 
TII.—Experiments on the measure of resistance of one ship towed by 
another, under the same four conditions. 
IV.—Experiments on the same ship when propelled under the last three 
of the four conditions, by her own machinery, at the same speed as when 
towed. 
V.—Experiments relating chiefly to the machinery and the propeller. 
1. The exact measures of steam power developed in the engine. 
2. Exact measures of the power expended by the engines. 
3. Exact measures of the direct propelling force of the screw. 
4, Exact measures of the power applied to turning the screw. 
VI.—Experiments 
1. On a vessel with her bottom foul from her voyage. 
2. The same vessel with that foulness removed. 
3. The same vessel polished as finely as possible. 
VII.—A careful series of records of the same vessel at sea, her inclination 
under sail, her times of oscillation on the waves, the speed and nature of the 
waves, the force of the wind, and the performance of the engines and boilers. 
Tf all this could be done on one of the largest ships of the newest class, 
more valuable information could be obtained than has ever yet been ascer- 
tained in the history of the world. 
His Grace the Duke of Sutherland, the Chairman, having submitted the 
preceding suggestions to His Grace the Duke of Somerset, First Lord of the 
Admiralty, the following reply was received :— 
« Admiralty, 7th July, 1863. 
«‘ GenttrmEn,—My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty having had 
under their consideration the memorandum of the Committee on Steamship Per- 
formance, drawn up at the meeting held at Stafford House on the 5th of last 
month, I am commanded to acquaint you that their lordships are of opinion 
that experiments could only be satisfactorily made to ascertain the stability, 
oscillations, and resistance of large ships under the various conditions specified 
under clauses 1, 2, 3, and 4, by appropriating a ship expressly for the pur- 
pose; and their lordships regret to say that they could not undertake the 
