It is thought that this method of mortar practice, since it would enable a very large number of shots to be fired in a single day, as well as in a season's practice, would be a useful addition to the limited practice now allowed with service projectiles, and the cost of a whole season's firing would be a very trifling amount. The drill and practice in locating the fall of the projectile would, as before stated, be just as valuable as when firing service projectiles. V. A few tests of building materials were made and the results are shown in the report of Lieutenant D'Armit, U. S. Engineers, appended hereto, marked E. VI. In order to test certain parts of the torpedo mechanism under something like service conditions, application was made through proper channels to the Navy Department for the use of a war vessel for that purpose, but in reply it was stated that there was none available. On a further application the U. S. S. Quinnebaug, from which the engines and part of the shaft had been taken, was procured, and a powerful steam tug was employed to tow her over the mines. Reports of these experiments in detail have been made through the Board of Engineers under whose direction the experiments were made. VII. Other experiments and tests have been made from time to time for special objects, among which were tests of cut-off boxes, to ascertain the effect of heavy charges of fulminate in causing leakage through the metal and glands, tests of cables to ascertain their fitness for service, measurements in the magnetic field of dynamos with a view to ascertaining the effect of neighboring electrical instruments, tests of various forms of circuit-closer to ascertain their behavior under impact, tests of mooring shackles and methods of loading torpedoes. Some of these experiments have been reported on already and the others will be when the necessary data have been obtained. VIII. A number of recent inventions were received from England and placed in the torpedo laboratory. Among these is a complete English service torpedo, two circuit closers, a soluble circuit break for a selfacting mine, and some electromagnetic disconnectors, all of which are different from anything we have had heretofore and are claimed to possess certain advantages. STATEMENT OF FUNDS. 1. Engineer depot at Willets Point, New York.-Congress appropriated for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1891: 1. For incidental expenses of depot (incidentals). 2. For instruction of battalion (materials).. 3. For purchase and repair of instruments (instruments). 4. For purchase and binding of professional works of recent date on military and civil engineering (library)... $5,000.00 1,500.00 2,500.00 500.00 5. For a new building to contain engineer models (building for models). Congress appropriated for this purpose under act approved March 2, 1889, $8,000, and under act approved June 13, 1890, this appropriation was extended to June 30, 1891. July 1, 1890, balance unexpended... 3,029.63 Total Of this there has been expended and pledged: 1. For incidental expenses of depot (incidentals).. 2. For instruction of battalion (materials) 3. For purchase and repair of instruments (instruments).. 4. For purchase and binding of professional works of recent date, on military and civil engineering (library) 5. For new building for engineer models (building for models). Total II. Torpedoes for harbor defense (act September 22, 1888.-1. Congress appropriated under act approved September 22, 1888, the sum of $200,000, from which the amount of $98,000 has been assigned to me for disbursement and is available until expended. July 1, 1890, balance unexpended...... June 30, 1891, amount expended and pledged during fiscal year.. July 1, 1891, balance unexpended and available $50, 140.33 32,823.58 17, 316. 75 III. Torpedoes for harbor defense (act March 2, 1889).-1. The act of Congress making appropriations for fortifications, etc., approved March 2, 1889, appropriated, under the general title "Torpedoes for harbor defense," the sum of $250,000 for purchase of submarine mines and necessary appliances and $30,000 for instruction of engineer troops in submarine mining. These amounts were assigned to me for disbursement and are available until expended. July 1, 1890, balence unexpended.... June 30, 1891, amount expended and pledged during fiscal year $258, 567.23 162, 078.30 96, 488.93 3. From the appropriation for purchase of movable submarine torpedoes the sum of $25,225 was assigned to me for disbursement and is available until expended. July 1, 1890, balance unexpended.... June 30, 1891, amount expended and pledged during fiscal year. $25,225.00 25, 225.00 NEW APPROPRIATIONS. IV. Torpedoes for harbor defense (act August 18, 1890).-Until the above act the following appropriation was assigned to me for disbursement and is available until expended, viz: 1. For submarine mines and necessary appliances for storage at Hampton Roads and Portland, Me., and charge bags for Boston, New York, and San Francisco, amount assigned.. June 30, 1891, amount expended and pledged to end of fiscal year..... July 1, 1891, balance unexpended and available...... 2. For continuing torpedo experiments, etc.. July 1, 1891, balance unexpended and available. $100,000.00 76, 243. 16 23, 757.84 30,000.00 30,000.00 V. Torpedoes for harbor defense (act February 24, 1891.)-Under the above act the following allotment was assigned to me for disbursement and is available until expended, viz: 1. For tool boxes, etc., for storage at Willets Point, and for submarine mines, and necessary appliances for storage at Charleston Harbor, S. C., amount assigned June 30, 1891, amount expended and pledged to end of fiscal year. July 1, 1891, balance unexpended and available... $21, 695.00 4,952.92 16,742.08 VI. Engineer depot at Willets Point, New York.-General Orders No. 27, headquarters of the Army, Adjutant-General's Office, Washington, March 9, 1891, publish the act of Congress making appropriations for the support of the Army for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1892, and for other purposes. APPENDIX 5-REPORT OF LIEUT. COL. KING. The following items, from the act approved February 24, 1891, are designated for the engineer depot at Willets Point, N. Y., and assigned to me for disbursement, viz: 1. For incidental expenses of depot (incidentals) 2. For instruction of battalion (materials). 3. For purchase and repair of instruments (instruments) 4. For purchase and binding of professional works of recent date on military and civil engineering (library). 5. For a fireproof building to replace engineer depot storehouse destroyed by fire May 10, 1890 (storehouse)... Total.... $5,000.00 3,500.00 2,000.00 500.00 16,000.00 27,000.00 ESTIMATES. There will be required for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1893, the viz: following for engineer depot at Willets Point, N. Y., 1. For incidental expenses of depot, including fuel, light, chemicals, stationery, hardware, extra-duty pay to soldiers necessarily employed as artificers on work in addition to and not strictly in the line of their military duties, such as carpenters, clerks, draughtsmen, blacksmiths, printers, bookbinders, photographers, lithographers, enginedrivers, teamsters, wheelwrights, masons, machinists, painters, overseers, and laborers, and for materials to repair public buildings, machinery, and unforeseen expenses.. 2. For purchase of materials for the instruction of engineer troops at Willets Point, in their special duties of sappers and miners, for land and submarine mines, and pontoniers, torpedo drill, and signaling.. 3. For purchase and repair of instruments to be issued to officers of the Corps of Engineers and to officers detailed and on duty as acting engineer officers, for use on public works, surveys, and reconnaissances. 4. For library of the engineer school: For purchase and binding of professional works of recent date, treating of military and civil engineering and kindred scientific subjects $5,000.00 3,500.00 3,000.00 500.00 12,000.00 W. R. KING, Lieutenant-Colonel of Engineers. APPENDIX B.-PROGRAMME OF STUDY AND INSTRUCTION FOR WINTER SEASON. [Printed Orders, No. 233.] UNITED STATES ENGINEER SCHOOL, Post of Willets Point, New York Harbor, November 19, 1890.. I. The following programme of study and instructions for the ensuing winter season, commencing Monday, December 1, 1890, and ending April 25, 1891 (a period of 21 weeks), having been recommended by the academic staff and approved by the Chief of Engineers, will be carried into effect. COURSE FOR OFFICERS. 1. Examinations by the academic staff will be held at the end of January and April, and intermediate examinations, as nearly monthly as practicable, will be held by committees of the academic staff. Marks at examinations will be on the West Point system, and the committees will report to the commandant of the school the results of the examinations. As the efficiency of the instruction can be much influenced by the instructors, they will keep themselves fully advised of the progress of the students; will give them at any time any needed aid, and when the information on special subjects is difficult to obtain, should supplement the course by lectures. The instructors will meet their classes weekly, and assign the lessons for the following week. FIRST WINTER'S COURSE. 2. The course for engineer officers spending their first winter at the school will . be: Electricity and torpedoes, 19 weeks; surveying, 2 weeks. For officers of other arms of the service detailed for special instruction in the torpedo service: Electricity and torpedoes, 21 weeks. ELECTRICITY. 3. Study of, in its application to torpedo warfare, arc and incandescent lighting, and transmission of power, supplemented by extensive laboratory practice in the solution of the special problems involved. Text-books and books of reference, as follows: Abbot's Notes on Electricity; Ayrton's Practical Electricity; Thompson's Electricity and Magnetism; Maier's Arc and Glow Lamps; Swinburne's Practical Electrical Measurements; Kapp's Electrical Transmission of Energy; Part II of Professional Papers No. 23, Corps of Engineers, U. S. A.; Gray's Absolute Measurements, Volume II; Monroe and Jamieson's Pocket Book of Electrical Rules and Tables. TORPEDOES. 4. Text-book: The Torpedo Manual. Practice will be had in making all the adjustments and tests required in planting and operating torpedoes, the operations on the water being simulated as far as practicable by special indoor appliances. Book of reference: Bucknill's Submarine Mines and Torpedoes as applied to harbor defense; Scheidnagel's Treatise upon Defensive Submarine Mining. 5. Attendance at the electrical laboratory will be regulated by the instructor. Theoretical study will be done as far as practical in quarters. All laboratory work will be done without the use of text-books, or text-book diagrams. Officers may, however, use manuscript notes or diagrams prepared before going to the laboratory. Laboratory practice will be had from 8 a. m., to 12 m., and from 1 to 5 p.m. During the last two weeks of the course each officer will prepare a plan (map and memoir) for the defense of such harbor as may be designated by the instructor, special attention being given to the torpedo defense and the batteries protecting the torpedo lines. SURVEYING. 6. (Last two weeks of course, and preparatory to actual field work.) Subjects: (1) Adjustment, use and care of instruments; (2) Topographical surveying with transit and stadia; (3) Hydrographic surveying and gauging of rivers; (4) Geodetic surveying. Text-book: Such parts as may be designated by the academic staff, of Johnson's Theory and Practice of Surveying. SECOND WINTER'S COURSE. 7. Civil engineering, 5 weeks; military engineering, 7 weeks; photography, 5 weeks; torpedoes, 4 weeks. CIVIL ENGINEERING. 8. (Five weeks.) Subjects: (1) Improvement of non-tidal rivers; (2) improvement of tidal rivers; (3) canals. 9. Text-books: Vernon Harcourt's Rivers and Canals; Schlichting's Improvement of Non-Tidal Rivers. Books of reference: (see third winter's course.) MILITARY ENGINEERING. 10. (Seven weeks.) Subjects: (1) Modern guns, carriages, and projectiles; (2) steel, compound, wrought and cast-iron armor; (3) modern ships of war and seacoast defenses; (4) modern fortifications, and their attack and defense. 11. Text-books: Such parts of the following books as may be designated by the academic staff: Woolwich Text Book of Fortifications; Maguire's Attack and Defense of Coast Fortifications; Fortifications of To-day; Inglis' paper in Professional Papers Royal Engineers, 1884, and a lecture on armored defense in Ordnance Notes No. 151; Very's Development of Armor; Naval Intelligence Papers, June, 1886; Adams's Spezia Experiments, 1886; Baylay's Types of Modern Guns; The Protection of Heavy Guns for Coast Defense, Sir A. Clark; Abbot's Lectures on Seacoast Defense 12. Books of reference: Articles on Fortification and Gunnery, Encyclopædia Britannica; Ordnance Notes, No. 135, and Appendix; Volume 9, Professional Papers Royal Engineers; Report Board on Fortifications; Text Books on Gunnery, McKinlay; Naval Annual, 1887, Brassy. MILITARY PHOTOGRAPHY. 13. (Five weeks.) Practice will be had in the following methods: Negatives by wet and dry processes; developers and intensifiers; silver printing, and finishing and mounting of prints; map printing; photolithography, including the negative and transfer to stone and printing. Each officer to submit 12 printed copies of his map. Text-books: Griffin's Notes on Photography; von Sothen's The Development of the Latent Image on Gelatino-Bromide of Silver. TORPEDOES. 14. (Four weeks.) One or more officers of the second and third winter's course will be detailed weekly to report to the instructor in torpedoes, as assistant for testing core joints and instructing enlisted men on the torpedo detail. THIRD WINTER'S COURSE. 15. Civil engineering, 10 weeks; military engineering, 6 weeks; torpedoes, 5 weeks. CIVIL ENGINEERING. 16. (Ten weeks.) Subjects: (1) Wave and current action, and improvement of harbors; (2) steam engines and pumps; (3) building superintendence; (4) preparation of project for, or the history of, the improvement of some designated river or harbor. 17. Text-books: Such parts of the following books as may be designated by the academic staff: Vernon Harcourt's Harbors and Docks; Edward's Steam Engineers' Guide; Clark's Building Superintendence. 18. Books of reference: Rankine's Civil Engineering and Steam-Engine, Bixby's Point de Grave; articles on hydromechanics and steam-engine, in Encyclopædia Britannica; Cotterill's Applied Mechanics; Jameison on Steam-Engine; Steam Boilers, Wilson; Modern Steam-Engine, Rose; Canal and River Engineering, D. Stevenson; Construction of Harbors, T. Stevenson; Hydraulics of Great Rivers, Revy; Trautwine's Engineers' Pocket Book; Berg's Safe Building; Bullock's Architecture and Building; Billing's Ventilation and Heating. MILITARY ENGINEERING. 19. (Six weeks.) Hanley's Operations of War, and preparation of project for the defense of such place as may be designated by the instructor. TORPEDOES. 20. (Five weeks.) See paragraph on torpedoes in second winter's course. COURSE FOR ENLISTED MEN. INSTRUCTION OF ENLISTED MEN IN TORPEDOES. 21. Instruction will comprise telegraphing with the dial instrument, including the code for action and practice in the Morse system of telegraphy; the duties of the loading room, and, so far as practicable, of the boat service as prescribed in the Torpedo Manual, comprising preparing the plugs of the buoyant and ground torpedoes; charging the mines; charging the cut-off boxes, three methods; jointing the cores; making turk's heads in the electrical cable; using the junction boxes; attaching a cable stop; splicing and knotting hemp rope; inserting thimble in wire mooring |