74 Some Views Connected with the Question of Coast Defence. 



Second. Security of the sea coast cities against sudden, unannounced 



To show what a scientific society, in an inland town, can accomplish 

 by the consideration of such questions, I beg to call your attention to 

 one of the oldest publications of the Albany Institute. 



John Ericsson, in his account of the origin of the revolving turreted 

 monitor, expressly disclaims having originated the revolving turret 

 battery, which, on the iron clads of his design, gave such strength to 

 our navy in the last war. Ericsson, after mentioning several early 

 designs for floating batteries, gives to Abraham Bloodgood, of Albany, 

 the credit of having laid before " The Society for the Promotion of 

 the Useful Arts" — the first department of the Albany Institute — an 

 illustration and description of a "floating, revolving, circular tower" 

 battery, for naval warfare and harbor defence. This was in 1807. A 

 Scotchman, Mr. Gillespie, in 1805, modeled a movable castle or bat- 

 tery, but we are not able to say, in default of any drawing accessible 

 now, that his device represented in any way the modern monitor turret. 



To a member of the Albany Institute, therefore, is to be attributed 

 the first idealization of the monitor iron-clad turret; which, perfected 

 by Ericsson, formed the invulnerable defence of our coast during the 

 rebellion. 



The Albany Institute has, therefore, a right to interest itself in the 

 question of coast defence, which is, indeed, one of the most important 

 questions of these times. Our great cities of the sea coast are the depots 

 of the nation's merchandise. Upon the welfare of New York's me- 

 tropolis depends, vastly more than is generally imagined, the suc- 

 cess of business enterprise throughout the country. The failure of 

 the banks of "New York would convulse the nation; how much more 

 would the bombardment, assault, capture and sack of the city by 

 foreign foe, hurl destruction upon all our industries! Yet there are 

 those among us whose ears still tingle with the hoarse reverberation of 

 the British bombardment of Alexandria; and the Egyptian sands are 

 still reddened with the blood of those who dared to resist. American 

 soil has known the work of modern vandals, whose wanton destruction 

 of life and property should be recalled to prevent the forgetful n ess 

 on our part of the terrors and irreparable injury that can be inflicted 

 by even a piratical foe. To remind us of how such scenes appear in 

 America, let me read from an old family letter by a relative who was an 

 eye witness of the destruction of Washington by the British in 1814. 



