APPENDIXES

TO THE

REPORT OF THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS,

UNITED STATES ARMY.

FORTIFICATIONS, ETC.

APPENDIX No. 1.

POST OF WILLETS POINT, NEW YORK-ENGINEER SCHOOL OF APPLICATION-BATTALION OF ENGINEERS-ENGINEER DEPOT.

ANNUAL REPORT OF MAJOR WILLIAM R. KING, CORPS OF ENGINEERS, OFFICER IN COMMAND, FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1887.

ENGINEER SCHOOL OF APPLICATION, U. S. A., Post of Willets Point, Whitestone, N. Y., August 11, 1887. GENERAL: I have the honor to submit the following annual report on the post of Willets Point, N. Y., the Engineer School of Application, the Battalion of Engineers, and the Engineer Depot.

On the 5th of April last, in compliance with Special Order No. 74, Adjutant-General's Office, March 31, 1887, I relieved Lieut. Col. C. B. Comstock, U. S. Corps of Engineers, of the command of this post and school.

At the close of the fiscal year the garrison consisted of 15 commissioned officers and 342 enlisted men (for roster and changes during the year see report of the battalion commander herewith), and the following general staff and artillery officers:

Maj. J. C. G. Happersett, surgeon, U. S. A.

Capt. Charles Richard, assistant surgeon, U. S. Army, on leave of absence.

Acting Asst. Surg. Eugene L. Swift.

First Lieut. Victor H. Bridgman, Second U. S. Artillery.

First Lieut. Wilbur Loveridge, Third U. S. Artillery.

Second Lieut. G. W. S..Stevens, Fifth U. S. Artillery.

The three officers last mentioned were assigned to duty at the post in November, 1886, and relieved on the 1st of July, 1887, for special instruction in torpedo service.

Several much needed improvements referred to in last annual report have been begun by the Quartermaster's Department, and will doubtless go on to completion without further delay. Chief among these is the introduction of an adequate water supply, which has been arranged for by contract with the village of Flushing, N. Y., and which secures the laying of mains to the line of the post reservation and the daily supply of 60,000 gallons of water, which has been tested and found to be of excellent quality, and has a sufficient pressure to extinguish fires without the use of an engine. For more than twenty years all the cook. ing and drinking water has been hauled in barrels from wells, while cisterns had to be depended on for washing and for steam and fire engines. The double set of quarters for officers, referred to in last report, has also been placed under contract and actually begun, as well as the new hospital; and the necessary pipe for distributing the water supply and providing an adequate sewerage system has been bought, for all of which we are indebted to the liberal and progressive agency of the Quartermaster's Department.

The introduction of the necessary plumbing for sanitary purposes in the barracks and quarters will doubtless be soon commenced under existing appropriations in the same way.

A submarine cable has been laid across the bay to Whitestone Landing and connected with the Western Union telegraph at that point. The company voluntarily furnished the battery and instruments, and the cable, one of our old torpedo cables, was laid by our own men under direction of Lieutenant Sibert. The advantage has already been quite apparent and the cost practically nothing, as the cable is fully as well off in its present position as it would have been if left exposed to the air.

A small steam-tug has been fitted up and provided with coal by the Quartermaster's Department and will be run between this post, Fort Schuyler, and the Whitestone Landing, to carry mails, freight, and passengers, thus avoiding a much longer trip over land to reach railroad facilities.

For the proper and economical administration of affairs at the post, several additional improvements are greatly needed, viz:

1. The new barracks recommended in last report, and by a special board of officers, are much needed. The old barracks were built out of a combination of old and new materials, and their location, which was determined by certain unfortunate limitations, can be greatly improved. They were built when the companies were about half their present size and are now overcrowded, although the number of men is still below the limit provided by law. The estimate for this purpose comes within the province of the Quartermaster's Department, as do the provisions for improving several of the buildings occupied as officers' quarters and for which estimates have been sent in.

2. The quartermaster and commissary store-houses, coal-yard, etc., are located at the extreme end of the post, and as far as possible from the wharf on which all stores and supplies must be landed. The extra cost of hauling coal, every ton of which has to be hauled nearly a mile further than is necessary, would alone be a sufficient reason for chang ing the location, and such a change can readily be made gradually and without any great expense.

3. The Government lands are bounded on the west by a salt-marsh, with a sluggish lagoon in the middle, and at low tide there is nothing to prevent unauthorized persons from entering and leaving the post without passing the guard house, especially at night or in case of heavy

fogs which often prevail. I believe it was a part of the original design for the land defense of this place to clean out and deepen this lagoon and extend a broad ditch as far as the main road leading past the guard-house. This could be done without any very great expense if a small dredging-machine could be borrowed from some of the Government works in the vicinity when not needed for other purposes. A ditch of this kind would probably greatly improve the sanitary condition of the post, and the excavated materials would reclaim considerable land, which is much needed for post gardens and for a target range, as the present range is too low and can not be used for skirmish firing.

4. The soldiers' laboratory, referred to as completed in the last annual report, was unfortunately burned down in November last and should be rebuilt as soon as possible. The origin of the fire could not be ascertained, though it evidently occurred in a room that had been locked up for several hours previous to the discovery of the fire; and the most probable theory is that some of the chemicals stored in the room ignited spontaneously. The foundations and basement story, which were of granite, were very little injured, and it is estimated that $6,500 will replace the building in as good condition as ever.

5. The collection of engineering models referred to in last report should have a suitable building provided for them where they will be convenient for study and instruction. The present building is an old, leaky, frame structure, built during the war, and it is not worth repairing, especially as it is located at a very inconvenient distance from the library and laboratory. A suitable fire-proof building can be built for about $8,000.

In this connection it may be proper to state as an illustration of the economy that has been enforced at this post (which is one of the largest in the United States) that an appropriation as large as is often made for a single public building in a town of 10,000 inhabitants would rebuild every building in the post.

It would seem, then, that the present time would not be too early to begin the work of erecting more permanent buildings, suitable to the purposes for which they are needed and creditable to the nation for whose service the post was established.

Although there was some little sickness during the heated term, at the close of the fiscal year there has been no serious epidemic, and the sanitary condition of the post during the past year has been quite satisfactory.

When the improvements in the sewerage and water supply are completed there will be little to complain of in that respect.

Only four deaths occurred on the post during the year, including three soldiers, two from consumption and one from accidental drowning, which is a remarkably small death-rate; in fact, as the population of the post, including women and children, is over 600, this rate would be only 6.7 to the thousand, or less than one-third the average rate for the United States.

SCHOOL OF APPLICATION.

The scope and object of the Engineer School of Application are fully set forth in the order establishing it on its present basis, and by the orders issued in pursuance thereof for arranging details of the season's work. (Appendixes A, B, C, and D.)

*Appendix A "Organization of Engineer School of Application."-omitted; printed in last Annual Report, Part I, page 474.

During the past year a class of six Engineer officers completed the full course of three years, and a class of three Artillery officers completed the seven-months' course in torpedo instruction and were relieved on the 1st of July.

The following extracts from proceedings of the academic staff give the results of the last examinations of these classes:

April 29, 1887, 2 p. m.-The staff met, pursuant to Orders No. 77, post of Willets Point, and proceeded to the examination of the second and first winter classes and Artillery officers in submarine mining.

*

The examination being concluded, the following marks were made:

and

April 30, 1887, 2.05 p. m.-The staff met, pursuant to last adjournment, proceeded to hear the essays of the second and first winter classes and Artillery offcers upon foreign systems of torpedoes as compared with our own system. The essays being read, the following marks were awarded:

May 3, 1887.-The staff met at 9 a. m., pursuant to the call of the commandant, for the purpose of examining the papers submitted by officers at the written examinations, viz: In civil engineering, operations of war, and surveying. The officers were marked as follows:

Lieutenants Gillette, Gaillard, and Taylor had been previously relieved from duty at this post.

The library of the School of Application is under the immediate charge of the post adjutant, and has received several valuable accessions during the year in the way of standard scientific books and periodicals.

The appropriation asked for to keep the library up to the proper standard during the next fiscal year is $1,000, which is respectfully recommended.

Some difficulty has been met with in selecting text-books suitable in all respects for the purposes of instruction here, and in some departments it has been found necessary to refer to a number of works on the same subject, taking such extracts from each as appeared best suited for the purpose.

This difficulty will, it is hoped, be gradually overcome as the wants of the school are more fully developed and the list of books available increases.

In view of the fact that all the officers coming here from West Point have already had at least four consecutive years of study and recitation from text-books, it seems especially desirable that the course here should be made practical in every branch where text-books can be replaced by actual physical observations and experiments.

While it may not be practicable to go as far in this direction as Professor Agassiz did at his Penikese Island school, and abolish text-books altogether, it may be possible to learn many facts from the things themselves better than from a text book description of them.

For example, the weight and dimensions of the torpedo case, anchor, mooring-rope, cable, etc., might be obtained and recorded by each offi cer for himself, just as he would obtain corresponding data if he were traveling in a foreign country, and chemical data could be obtained by the same method in the chemical laboratory. A small testing machine, which may possibly be procured from some other Department of the Government where it is no longer needed, would enable officers to gain valuable practical information relative to the strength of the more common building materials, such as wood, iron, cement, stone, rope, chain, etc., as well as carry on certain investigations that might lead to useful results or discoveries.

In a letter of the post commander to the Chief of Engineers, relating to the detail of the last class of Artillery officers, it was suggested that the quarters for officers were so badly crowded as to make it inconvenient to accommodate more than four Artillery officers. This difficulty is fortunately likely to be removed by the 1st of November, as the double set of quarters are under contract to be completed by that time and the new class of Engineer officers numbers only two members, against six in the class just relieved. It will therefore be practicable to provide quarters for eight or ten Artillery officers if that number is available for detail.

It has been suggested that young officers in other arms of the serv ice might also be detailed for this course of instruction in case there are not enough Artillery officers available, and this might be worthy of trial, especially if such officers take an interest in the subject and desire such a detail.

EXPERIMENTS.

As there has been no appropriation for the last two years for continuing experiments with torpedoes, but little has been attempted in that line during the past year.

1. Several small charges of dynamite were exploded during the year, so that every officer on duty could see at least one submarine explosion

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