This is the third competent board which has tested and approved the disappearing carriage, and the third time that the Board of Ordnance and Fortification, with widely differing membership on each occasion, has approved it as a type.

When the general plan of coast-defense fortification was adopted by the Endicott board in 1886, the only means then invented for protecting the high-power coast-defense gun and its crew was the steel or chilled cast-iron turret, which would have cost between $1,000,000 and $1,100,000 for each pair of 12-inch guns mounted. The first attempt to escape from this enormous expense by a mechanical device which would protect the gun and gunners during the period of loading and expose the gun only at the time of firing was the gun lift, upon which we now have two 12-inch guns mounted at Sandy Hook. It cost about $525,000, exclusive of the guns, and each of the guns mounted upon it can be fired once in eight minutes and a half. Within a few rods of this gun lift at Sandy Hook we have two 12-inch guns mounted on modern disappearing carriages, at a cost of $150,000 for the carriages, emplacements and protection of both guns, and each of these guns can be fired ten times in eight minutes and a half.

Satisfactory progress has been made in the installation of searchlights, in developing systems of fire control and direction, and in the application of electricity to the handling of heavy guns and projectiles and ammunition.

The nitrocellulose smokeless powder developed by the Ordnance Department continues to prove satisfactory. Four private firms are engaged in its manufacture, and a considerable reserve has been accumulated.

The test of the Gathmann torpedo gun under the requirement of the fortifications act of March 1, 1901, resulted in an unfavorable report, in which the Board of Ordnance and Fortification has concurred. The statute required the Gathmann gun to be fired in competition with an army 12-inch service rifle, and the firing of the latter weapon exhibited extraordinary progress made by the Ordnance Department toward the perfection of high explosives for the bursting charge of armor-piercing shells, and in the development of fuses for such shells. The ordnance shells from the 12-inch service rifle. passed entirely through a 12-inch harveyized steel plate and exploded

on the farther side of the plate. The ability thus demonstrated to send a shell through a ship's armor 12 inches in thickness and detonate the shell within the ship is of course of great defensive. value.

It has been the fashion of late to decry mortars as weapons of coast defense, and Congress has recently refrained from appropriations for their further construction. Extensive and thorough tests of mortar firing made last spring at Fort Preble, Portland Harbor, have, however, demonstrated the great accuracy of mortars, and have also shown that their accuracy can be relied upon through a much wider range, both far and near, than was formerly supposed. I think confidence in them should be resumed, and appropriations for their construction and emplacement continued in accordance with the original plan of defense.

This

Most valuable experience and suggestion and great practical benefit have been received by all branches of the service concerned in coast defense, from a series of joint maneuvers participated in by the Army and the Navy on the New England coast during September. movement was undertaken on the suggestion of the Chief of Artillery, and took the form of simulated attacks by the Navy upon the defenses at the eastern end of Long Island Sound, at New London, at the entrance of Narragansett Bay, and at New Bedford. They were carried out with the most admirable spirit and efficiency by both branches of the service. The Army was much gratified by the effective participation with them of the First Massachusetts Heavy Artillery and two companies of Connecticut Heavy Artillery; and with the Navy the naval reserves of New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts took part. The Thirteenth New York Heavy Artillery was most desirous to take part, but was prevented by a lack of State appropriations. An actual attempt to use tools is the best way to learn whether they are in good order and are complete, and it is also the best way to learn how to use them. The advantage gained in this way by the Engineer, Ordnance, Signal, and Artillery Corps of the Army, and I doubt not also by the officers of the Navy, more than justifies the undertaking and indicates the wisdom of annual repetitions of the exercise at different points upon the coast.

I append hereto a memorandum by the Chief of Artillery, marked "Appendix D," and a memorandum by General MacArthur, marked

"Appendix E," especially devoted to the general effect of the work upon the efficiency of the Army.

Observers of our coast-defense work sometimes speak of it as defective because it is incomplete. It is indeed incomplete. It is only about half finished. It is a work which requires time and has been begun but recently. Before the war with Spain it proceeded in a very leisurely way. Since the beginning of that war it has been pressed forward with great activity. The work was commenced in 1888; but for the eight years which followed prior to 1896 the total appropriations for the construction of fortifications amounted to but $3,521,000, or an average of $440,000 a year, while for the last seven years, beginning with 1896, the appropriations have amounted to $22,236,000, or an average of $3,176,000 a year, an annual increase of more than sevenfold. The appropriations for the construction of guns and carriages for seacoast defense for the eight years prior to 1896 were but $8,100,000 (not including the unsuccessful dynamite gun), an average annual rate of $1,012,000, while the appropriations for the same purposes for the last seven years were $24,193,000, or an annual average of $3,456,000, an annual increase of more than threefold. Out of the $58,000,000 expended for both classes of work, over $46,000,000 have been appropriated in the last seven years.

The Endicott board plan of coast defense contemplated the expenditure of over $100,000,000. Before 1896 we were progressing at a rate which would have required seventy years to complete the defenses according to the plan. Since 1896 we have been progressing at a rate which will finish the defenses according to the plan in fifteen years. With a half-finished work so recent and so rapidly pressed it follows necessarily that a formative process is constantly going on, mistakes are being made and corrected, new experiments are being made, new things are being learned, and many difficult problems remain still

unsolved.

It follows also that neither the officers nor the men of the artillery have as yet had much opportunity to become proficient in the use of the new weapons, and there is great need for practical instruction and training in their use.

Another reason why there is special urgency for the training of the artillery is the great preponderance of new and inexperienced officers and men. Before the Spanish-American war we had but five regiments of artillery. We now have a corps which is equivalent to

thirteen regiments, two regiments being added in 1899 and the equivalent of six regiments in 1901. Of course the majority of the officers and the great majority of the men are new. Every lieutenant in the Artillery Corps has come in since the act of February 2, 1901. The facts which I have now stated make the kind of exercise furnished by the joint Army and Navy maneuvers of last September of the utmost importance. I urge that appropriations to be made by Congress shall be such as to provide for a continuance of the same practice, and to provide for the most liberal allowances of ammunition and projectiles for general target practice with full service charges in which the entire coast artillery can take part. It is a gratifying fact that the Chief of Engineers, Chief of Ordnance, Chief Signal Officer, and Chief of Artillery are working together in hearty cooperation and sympathy to accomplish the desired results, and that their corps are generally working with them, inspired by the same spirit. The time of mutual fault-finding appears happily to have been succeeded by a time of mutual helpfulness.

The progress of events and changes in ordnance and ship construction, since the Endicott Board of 1886 determined upon the plan of coast defense along the lines of which we are now working, have made it necessary to consider the defense of many points not considered by that board. Porto Rico, Culebra, naval and coaling stations in Cuba, and possibly the Danish Islands-all in a region made specially important by the probable construction of the Isthmian Canal-Hawaii, Guam, and the Philippines, and possibly the Lake ports and the St. Lawrence River, should be considered with reference to the construction of defensive works in the same way that the Endicott Board considered our Atlantic and Pacific coasts. I concur in the recommendation of the Chief of Engineers that a similar board should be created for that purpose by Congress, constituted, like the Endicott Board, of the Secretary of War, the Chiefs of Engineers, Ordnance, and Artillery, one high ranking officer of each of those branches of the service, two naval officers of high rank, and two civilians expert in the subject of our foreign commercial relations.

FIELD ARTILLERY.

The series of tests and competitive trials which have been conducted for two years past under the direction of the Board of Ordnance and Fortification for the selection of new models of field

gun and carriage have been concluded, and arrangements have been made for the construction of new guns and carriages to the extent of the appropriations now available. The new gun will have a caliber of 3 inches, and will fire a projectile weighing 15 pounds, with an initial velocity of 1,700 feet per second. It will be of the long recoil type, and will use fixed ammunition. It is capable of firing about six times as rapidly as the field guns which we now use, so that one of the new guns will be able to throw as many shells at an enemy as a whole 6-gun battery of the present type. This great increase in the effectiveness of field artillery is of special value to the United States, because we are always weak in artillery in proportion to our infantry. A well-organized army calls for a due proportion between artillery and infantry. When we go to war we can raise a volunteer infantry with great rapidity, but we can not increase our artillery proportionately. An increase in the relative effectiveness of field artillery tends to do away with the resulting disproportion, and makes it possible for us to raise a much larger well-balanced army than we could otherwise.

SMALL ARMS.

The Ordnance Department has produced a rifle which it considers an improvement upon the present service rifle. It is clearly superior to the present rifle in some respects. It is a bolt gun, caliber .30, having a clip magazine under the chamber instead of at the side, and therefore better balanced than the present gun. It continues the 220-grain bullet, but increases the charge of powder from 37.6 grains to 43.3 grains. It gives an initial velocity of 2,300 feet per second as against 2,000 of the present rifle, a striking energy at 1,000 yards of 447.9 foot-pounds as against 396.2 for the present rifle. It has a flatter trajectory and weighs about a pound less. I have authorized the construction of 5,000 for issue and practical trial in the service. The enlargement of the capacity of the Springfield Armory for the manufacture of rifles and the addition at the Rock Island Arsenal of a plant for that purpose are approaching completion. The total producing capacity of the two establishments will then be 650 arms per day of eight hours, and in an emergency they would be capable of producing 1,500 per day.