REPORT OF ASSISTANT DIRECTOR. 39 



namely : apparatus for experiments on sound, beat and light, and elec- 

 tricity. A list of the instruments in this collection (which is of inter- 

 est as having been used by Professor Henry) is in course of prepara- 

 tion. In connection with it may be mentioned the relics of electrical 

 and chemical apparatus of Dr. Joseph Priestley, which is on exhibition 

 in the same place. 



The collection of historical relics has received but little attention dur- 

 ing the six months, and no effort is at present being made to increase 

 its extent. Perhaps no part of the Museum is more attractive to visit- 

 ors than that in which the relics of Washington are displayed, and it is 

 believed that the section of Historical Eelics will receive from year to 

 year a constant increment of valuable memorials of the past. The heirs 

 of General Robert E. Lee have presented a claim for the recovery of 

 articles of furniture removed from Arlington in 1862, and since then on 

 exhibition with the Washington relics at the Patent Office and in the 

 Museum. Most of these appear never to have been the property of 

 General Washington. They will, however, be held in the Museum until 

 official instruction for their delivery has been received. 



There has been little activity in connection with the section of Fish- 

 eries, the section of Naval Architecture, and the collection of Musical 

 Instruments, all of which are, however, in excellent order and have been 

 considerably extended, though without direct effort. An accession to 

 the section of Naval Architecture of very great popular interest is the 

 corrugated metallic life-car invented by Joseph Francis.* 



*Josepk Frauds was born in Massachusetts, March 12, 1805. When only eleven 

 years old he manufactured a boat to which he applied cork, confined in wood, in the 

 bo w and stern, as a buoyant power. This boat, when filled with water, supported four 

 ruen. This determination to devote his life to the invention of life-saving apparatus 

 was fixed by the occurrence of many terrible shipwrecks along the coasts of New Jer- 

 sey and Long Island iu 1812, and between this year and 1821 he made a series of ex- 

 periments with the view of obtaining more buoyant power in boats. In 1819 he in- 

 vented and built a light, fast row-boat, possessing all the life-saving qualities he had 

 perfected up to that time, and for this he was awarded an "honorable recognition" 

 at the first fair of the Massachusetts Mechanics' Institute. 



Among the special boats constructed under the direction of Mr. Francis may be men- 

 tioned the Brazilian barge; the barge ordered for the Emperor of Russia; a section 

 metallic bateau for the Russian Government; the first Venetian gondola made in the 

 United States; portable screw-boats which were easily adjusted, being built in sec- 

 tions and fastened together with screws ; the life and anchor launch; the double or 

 reversed bottom life-boat, &c. 



The crowning success in Mr. Fraucis's life, as an inventor, was the discovery of the 

 fact that corrugated metal could be used as a substitute for wood in the construction 

 of life-cars or life-boatp. He found very great difficulty in corrugating metal on 

 curved and irregular surfaces. After repeated experiments two perfect sides of a boat 

 were produced with deep and full corrugations and with a surface free from wrinkles ; 

 the two sides were riveted together, and the " first corrugated metal boat was made," 

 being the first practical result of his invention of the covered life-car, invented in 

 1838. His experiments in connection with the corrugating of metal continued dur- 

 ing 1840 and 1841. It was not, however, until 1847 that Mr. Francis manufactured a 

 life-car which he considered absolutely perfect. The original Ayrshire life-car con- 



