356 
of dates, and not from any letter of Dr. Hart’s. I have read no letter 
whatever, nor any part of any letter, from Dr. Hart throughout this 
controversy; and I appeal to you, Mr. President, as having occupied the 
Chair on the 11th instant, whether my own first words addressed to you, 
after Captain Blakely sat down, were not these :—‘‘Sir, I have heard 
what Captain Blakely has said in reply, and have nothing to withdraw, 
nothing to alter, in the facts or statements which I have laid before you”’ ? 
Yet, in face of that, Captain Blakely writes, as words uttered by him in my 
presence, but never said, that I withdrew a statement as to a letter and 
a date, both being purely imaginary as matters of fact, and never having 
had any existence outside his own mistake. To those who were present 
on the occasion, this is beyond need of comment; but I could not permit 
it to pass uncontroverted to those who, hereafter and elsewhere, may read 
our Proceedings. 
I shall not follow Captain Blakely through what he has written as 
having been stated by him on the 11th instant, but nothing like which 
he uttered, with reference to Dr. Hart himself, in which he expresses 
his belief that ‘‘ Mr. Mallet is not an independent discoverer of the prin- 
ciple of construction in question, but that he learned it from Dr. Hart,” 
nor comment upon his affecting to take credit for absence of “personal 
motive,” on his own part, in seeking now to make it appear that there is” 
some question at issue between Dr. Hart and myself. I trust I have 
placed the facts and dates so truly and clearly before the Academy in my 
communication of the 11th instant, that no confusion of expressions re- 
ferring to one thing, and made to appear to refer to another—no use of 
words in loose or doubtful senses, will confuse or contravene the following 
plain facts :—That I knew the general principles of increased strength by 
ringed construction, with initial tension, and had practically applied them 
to the design of 36-inch mortars before October, 1854, and brought that 
design publicly forward in December, 1854—several months before I 
knew Dr. Hart personally, or ever had had any communication with him 
. onany subject; and that, as he first communicated to me the mathemati- 
cal theory and laws of ringed construction by letter, dated the 6th of July, 
1855, and never communicated to me anything on the subject but his ma- 
thematical results, it is impossible I could have derived my knowledge, 
anterior in point of date, from him, or derived from him any construc- 
tive details of a design, embracing these principles, made im October, 
1854—months before I first had the advantage and pleasure of his ac- 
quaintance. 
I have endeavoured fully and circumstantially to accord to Dr. Hart, 
in my paper here of the 11th instant, what exactly were niy obligations 
in respect of communication received from him; and I believe Dr. Hart 
himself to be entirely satisfied with the correctness of every statement I 
have made with respect to him in this matter, as I am equally so with the 
substantial correctness of what he has stated in regard to myself. Cap- 
tain Blakely’s ‘‘ belief”’ is therefore a matter of indifference to both of us, 
and equally so that his arguments on this point, as contained in his pro- 
fessed transcript of his reply of the 11th instant, were never, as I believe, 
uttered at all upon that occasion. 
