only by the ultimate strength of the metal. The elasticity of the whole structure would be greater than that of guns without ribs.

125. This gun will undoubtedly cool without serious initial rupturing strains. The whole practice in founding, especially in founding car-wheels, (which a cross-section of the gun resembles,) warrants this conclusion. A plain disk wheel, not annealed, can only be stretched or compressed, and so broken or greatly strained in cooling, and therefore goes to pieces under service. A gun, when so corrugated as to bend in cooling at some thin part intended to be bent, instead of breaking or being severely strained at some part that cannot be bent, endures more hård service than would be ordinarily expected of cast iron.

126. For the foregoing reasons, the strongest iron may be employed. It has already been shown that a pure, high iron, of great tenacity, shrinks too much to make a safe casting by other plans. But car-wheels are cast as sound from the highest and strongest iron as from a weaker iron, because ample provision is made for it to change its figure more or less, as required, without strain.

127. Upon the proper tension and strength of the reinforce as modified by its large diameter, the heat of firing, and the elasticity of the parts within it, depends, after all, the chief strength of the gun.

128. Comparing the reinforce with an equal thickness of metal on the exterior of Captain Rodman's gun, the former is cooled on all sides to prevent, as far as possible, unequal shrinkage, and is carried in two directions to prevent unequal and injurious strain due to what unequal shrinkage there may be. The latter is cooled (in practice) only from the inside, so that its exterior surface is strained and weakened. It appears, then, that the former would be in a better condition to stand the tension, in which case too the tension can be the better regulated.

129. The official report already quoted (376) is evidence that the outer part of the Rodman gun is drawn into compression by the subsequent shrinkage of the intermediate metal. It cannot be put into the desired tension except by cooling the gun exclusively from within; and this can only be done by keeping the mould at a temperature 2700°-a process so difficult that it has not been realized in practice. But there is nothing to draw the corresponding part of the Wiard gun-the reinforce-into compression. All the parts enclosed by it have already cooled and set.

130. In other words, the part that cools last regulates the strain of the rest. The interior and the exterior parts of the walls of the Rodman gun cool independently, and without any great strain; then the intermediate metal cools and puts strains into them which are just opposite to those required. But the reinforce of the Wiard gun cools last, and if it shrinks most, must compress the inner tube, and be itself drawn into tension-the required condition.

1

131. As to the strain due to expansion by the heat of firing, suppose the reinforce and the barrel to be put under such respective initial tension and compression that the force of the powder would strain them equally and as much as they would safely be in service; if the ribs yield under the pressure of the powder, the barrel may be stretched to the breaking point before the reinforce is stretched to the same point. If the ribs do not yield under the pressure of the powder, then they will not yield under an equal pressure from the expansion of the barrel by heat, up to a pressure equal to the pressure of the powder, will act directly to stretch the reinforce, which had already been stretched as much as it will bear. Up to this point the case is similar to that of a solid gun; beyond a pressure equal to that of the powder, the ribs may yield to the pressure by heat without straining the reinforce as much as it would be strained in a solid gun.

132. But the barrel will not be heated as much as the corresponding part of a solid gun, because it is exposed to the air on both sides, and presents a large radiating surface. Besides, the longitudinal expansion of the barrel is the source of the greatest strain, and this, in the Wiard gun, is provided for by the longitudinal corrugation of the ribs.

133. The largest diameter of the reinforce is not a source of comparative weakness.

134. On the whole, it is probable that the barrel and ribs of Mr. Wiard's gun can be cast without serious strains; that the reinforce can be shrunk upon them with some degree of tension; that the strongest iron can be used; and that the guns will not be seriously strained by heat. The failure of the first guns, if they should fail, ought to be attributed to the improper carrying out of the principles; for the present knowledge on the subject of cast iron, however imperfect it may be, define these principles with much clearness.

135. The contract given me for the large guns was made by the honorable the Secretary of the Navy against the wishes of the then chief of ordnance, Admiral Dahlgren, and during his absence from the bureau.

136. The verbal arrangement upon which the contract was founded provided for three trials; for I represented to the department that, although I had confidence in the proportions of my gun, as at that time exhibited by models and drawings, it could scarcely be expected I could succeed in making a gun, on such an entirely new system, correctly at the first effort, and that I might also fail at the second when I would succeed at the third. The written contract, however, provided but for two trials against which I remonstrated; but as the contract (a lengthy one) was already signed by the Secretary when I noticed it, and as I was assured the department intended dealing liberally with me, I accepted the terms.

137. The contract provided that I was to be paid one half the price of the trial gun before it was fired. This condition was not fulfilled by the Navy Department. The first gun failed; when shortly after the Navy Ordnance bureau annulled the contract, although I had a second gun nearly ready for trial, which now lies at my works at Trenton, and has never been fired.

138. The experience I have attained in the efforts to produce these large guns gives me confidence now to state that I can make cast-iron guns that will not enlarge in the bore except as they are worn out by long continued use, and that cannot be burst either by heavy charges or rapid firing. And I can make or remake such guns from old guns or from the fragments of old ones, thus reducing the cost materially, while the efficiency is much increased.

139. The Dahlgren gun of eight tons weight requires sixteen tons, or more, of iron to produce it, because more than one-half of the iron is wasted by being cut away into chips of little value.

140. It is proved by the preceding argument that Rodman or Dahlgren cast

iron guns cannot be made of the strongest iron, consequently such guns cannot be made from fragments of bursted or rejected guns, (for iron is improved by remelting.) Upon my system the strongest iron will make the strongest and best

gun.

141. Upon my system the walls may be made equally strong with any other by thickness; I can have the proper initial tension upon it to restrain the pressure of the powder, and no other detrimental strain, which is not possible in any other gun ever proposed; while I provide the necessary elasticity both longitudinally and radially to prevent the unequal expansion from the heat of firing. In fact, I am confident I have discovered the true and only system upon which guns can be made to endure the strains of actual service, and I charge the Ordnance department with having practiced a studied system of oppression to prevent me succeeding in getting my guns introduced, resulting in incalculable loss of money, life and prestige to the government under which they occupy sinecure positions.

142. I append hereto a letter from Ed. N. Dickenson, esq., of New York, and take the liberty to state that I can procure such or stronger letters corroborative of the theories and statements affecting the endurance of guns and the effect of heat upon metals from seven-eighths of the eminent practical mechanics of the country.

143. I believe your views to be entirely correct on the subject of bursting of

guns.

144. I was much struck by the coincidence of the result at Fort Fisher with your prophecy to me that the 15-inch guns would burst whenever fired rapidly. Of course I knew the Parrott guns would, and I always have given them a wide berth when fired in my presence. They are liable to burst at short notice.

145. In ordinary machinery we have illustrations of your theory on guns, by the spontaneous bursting of wheels and other castings.

146. I believe your large skeleton gun will be successful in preventing these accidents.

NORMAN WIARD.

Sworn to before the Committee on the Conduct of the War.

B. F. WADE,

Chairman of Committee on Conduct of the War.

WASHINGTON, February 27, 1865.

To the Hon. the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: The memorial of Norman Wiard respectfully represents: That he has been long engaged as an ordnance founder, and is and has been a practical worker of metals for twenty-five years last past; that he has observed, with the alarm naturally excited in the minds of all earnestly loyal citizens of the United States, that, notwithstanding the large amount of money of the government, and the time and effort of ordnance officers of the United States, expended in the attempt to produce safe and effective guns of large sizes, either rifled or smoothbore, the failure to attain even comparative success has been most disastrous and unquestionable. The officers of the government having in charge the designing as well as the fabrication of ordnance being rather theorists than practical men, and being surrounded with and incited by pride of position and prestige, (for it is an honor to be charged exclusively with so particular a branch of science as ordnance and artillery for a government so renowned as is ours for military achievements,) has resulted in their becoming banded together into a "close corporation,” so jealous of outside interference or innovation that no suggestion or improvement can be entertained from outside parties, principally because it is not in accordance with the time-honored practice of past ages, or because it would so dangerously interfere with patented plans of officers or parties in intimate relations with the heads of departments, or actually occupying the highest positions therein themselves.

This may seem to be the unfounded statement of an ill-natured or disappointed individual, anxious to either rule or ruin; your memorialist therefore cites the following facts to substantiate the statement:

1. It is well known that all the heavy guns for the United States service are made upon one of three patented plans, viz: Dahlgren guns, made upon plans patented by Rear-Admiral Dahlgren; Rodman guns, under the patented plans of Colonel Rodman, upon which all the heavy smooth-bore guns of the War Department and some of the navy are made; and Parrott guns, made upon the patented plans of Captain R. P. Parrott, now and long the proprietor of the old regular army and navy ordnance foundry, and whose projectiles for rifled guns of large sizes are almost exclusively used, although notoriously inefficient and useless.

The Dahlgren gun, although a good shell-gun, well adapted for an old order of things when wooden walls were in vogue, is now rendered inefficient by the introduction of iron-clads; and it should be recollected that the army of the Potomac was once prevented from passing up the James river by the presence of the terrible Merrimac, which iron-clad was encountered by another iron-clad, the little Monitor, armed with Dahlgren 11-inch shell-guns, the projectiles from which crumbled against her sides, and she returned uninjured to her picket duty, and long continued to hold possession of Norfolk harbor and the mouth of the James river, or' so long as until our army had passed too far to return toward a disastrous campaign, to get to her rear at Harrison's Landing. If we had been provided with more effective guns on the Monitor at that critical time, or if the Congress and Cumberland had borne broadsides of effective guns, capable of being fired rapidly with heavy charges, giving high velocity to sold projectiles, their great preponderance in numbers and weight of guns would have destroyed the Merrimac; and Richmond, (then unprotected,) approached suddenly by the easy route of the James, would have fallen before the hundreds of thousands of lives and millions of treasure since expended had been sacrificed a holocaust to "exclusive privileges," "pretentious ignorance," and "imbecility of invention." It must not be forgotten that Admiral Dahlgren himself forbid, in the most positive terms, the use of solid wrought-iron projectiles, prepared especially for this great occasion, in his shell-guns in the Monitor turret, although it was afterward discovered, as the admiral complacently

informs us in his last report as Chief of Ordnance, that nearly a double charge of powder and a solid shot might have been used. We have never heard, however, that these guns have penetrated plating in actual battle, or otherwise than at the experimental battery where slow firing is the practice. What the result would have been if every shot that struck the casements of the Merrimac had smashed through is obvious.

One of Colonel Rodman's 15-inch guns burst in the pit in which it was cast ;* unlike the "frog in the fable, that swelled and burst itself," it shrunk and burst itself, from unequal cooling. The process in making it was the same as in all others made upon Colonel Rodman's patented plan, in which the inner metal is cooled first, and the outside shrinks upon it, like the tire upon a wagon wheel. Most of these guns do not so break or burst before they are finished, but all of them are strained nearly to the point of breaking. No gun is fired without having some heat communicated to the interior, enlarging the dimensions and distorting and straining it severely, both longitudinally and transversely, thus dangerously increasing the forces within the gun to assist the pressure of the powder to burst it. This disastrous result is avoided, usually, by firing the guns slowly and with small charges of powder. In the excitement of battle, however, gunners are liable to forget their caution, and by firing rapidly and continuously the gun fails at the very emergency it was produced to provide for. No fort or works on which these guns are mounted has yet been attacked; consequently they have never been tested, although hundreds are being made and mounted. When they are so tried, the fate of the nation may be the issue; how terrible will be the disaster if we only learn then that they are not reliable. The Rodman guns in the Monitor turrets do not afford a test; even although they have been in battle, they are so mounted that they cannot be fired rapidly. Yet two of them failed off Fort Fisher under the quickest firing they have yet been subjected to. Metals expand, when heated, with force that cannot be resisted. Thus it will be seen, that it would not add to the endurance of these guns to further strengthen them with bands.

The Parrott guns have been purchased in large numbers by both branches of the service. Twenty-three of them burst on Morris island during one campaign under General Gilmore; and undoubtedly the failure of the United States forces to capture or destroy Charleston is to be attributed principally to the disastrous failure of these guns. Again, when the most formidable fleet of modern times make their attack on Fort Fisher, the whole country is astonished and confounded by the reports that follow each other of the failure of Parrott guns, and finally the Admiral concludes with the statement, "All the rifled guns in the fleet have failed." Immediately a board of naval officers was convened, who made a specious report, in which it was stated that they were unable to decide what was the cause of their failure; and to distract attention from the particular failures they have been considering, they make public the other surprising fact, that Parrott shells have heretofore proved utterly unreliable, thirty-three out of one hundred and twelve having been reported as failing in target practice. In addition, the board find that nearly all classes of guns, whether made embodying "initial tension" or without, whether made of steel, wrought iron, or cast iron, whether "homogeneous" or "built up," have shown unreliable endurance, What else does this show so clearly, as that ignorance on the subject of ordnance does now and has heretofore pervaded the whole service?

Your memorialist has been long of the opinion that the failure to produce more effective heavy ordnance and projectiles is due, principally, to the fact that the invention and fabrication of ordnance has been heretofore confined to one class of persons, all educated in the same school or manner, jealous of the interference of all other persons; and that your honorable bodies may, by

* Since the above was written, another of the 15-inch guns has burst spontaneously at the foundry.