The record-union., 1896-11-27
Detailed in the Annual Report of Secre-
tary Lamont.
The Expenditures for the Fiscal Year
1896 Aggregated Nearly Fifty
Two rlilliOn Dollars, and an Unex.
pended Balance of Nearly Two
r1ilIiOnS Was Turned Back Into the
Treasury-The Work on Coast De-
fenses Rapidly Assuming Large
Proportions.
Proportions.


Proportions.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 26-Secretary
LamontS report of the operations of
the War Department for 1896 shows
total expenditures aggregating nearly
ffty-two million dollars and an uneX-
pended balance of nearly two millions
turned back into the treasury at the
end of the fiscal year. For the three
years of Colonel Lamont's administra-
ton the surplus has amounted to more
than SJ,000U00. In his report the Sec
retary says in part:
'On the 1st of July, 1893. the begin
ming of our modern defense, but one
1st of July next VIE will have in posi-
ton seventy high power breech-l loading
guns and nnety-five breech-loading
mortars of modern design, and by the
following July, on completion of work
already under way or provided for, rs
guns and 1913 mortars.
The battery of two or three Of these
guns takes the place of the former pre-
tentious fort, and is vastly more exec
utive. An eight-inch gun weighs four
teen and half tons, and is 1914 feet
long, requires powder charge of 12J
pounds, and throws a projectile that
weighs 300 pounds about nine miles. A
ten-inch gun weighs thirty tons, is sol .
feet long, requires a powder charge Of
80 pounds and throws projectile of
$50 pounds about twelve miles. A l.. .
inch gun weighs 81 tons, is 40
feet long, requires a powder charge of
go pounds, and throws a 1,000-poun1
prOjectile thirteen miles. A twelve
inch mortar weighs %, pounds, is
thirteen feet long, requiring as a pow
der charge 105 pounds, and throws a
filled projectile weighing 800 pounds
over five miles.
THE defenses now under considera
ton are distributed among the ports of
Portland, Me, Portsmouth, N. H., Ros
ton, Narragansett Bay, Eastern en-
frances to New York, Philadelphia,
Baltimore. Washington, Hampton
Roads, Wilmington, Charleston. Sa
vannah, Key West, Pensacola, Mobile
New Orleans, Galveston, San Diego,
San Francisco, the mouth of the CO.
lumbia River and Puget Sound. All of
the enplacements have been located
with a view to carrying on the project
of the Endicott Board on Fortications,
organized under the Act of Congress of
March 3, 1885. as revised by the perma-
nent Board of Engineers.
1.-THE total amount appropriated for
sea coast defenses, including cost oe
sites, Notifications and armament, since
the adoption Of the present scheme is
S25, ,451 900, of which more than one
third was carried by the Act passed at
the last session Of Congress. Before the
end of the present year we shall have
eleven 12-inch, forty-two 10-inch,
eight 9-inch, six rapidtire guns and 112
mortar emplacements. By July next
there should be completed fourteen -
inch, forty-six 10-inch, ten S-inch and
twelve rapid fire guns and 112 mortar
emplacements, and by the close of the
coming year those will be increased TO
twenty-one Pinch, sixty-six 10-inch,
twenty-five S-inch and sixteen rapid
fire guns and 156 mortar emplace-
ments.
I'm the belief that the problem of a
satisfactory disappearing gun carriage
had been solved. the Appropriations
Committee was informed at the pre-
vious session of the present Congress
that this department proposed to spend
no more money for gun-lift batteries.
thus saving $20,000,O00 The construc-
tion of the carriages in as large num-
bers as the appropriation would admit
was Immediately undertaken, both at
the Government carriage factories at
Watertown Arsenal and under con-
tract.
"A still more difficult problem was
the designing of a disappearing all
around fire carriage for the 12-inch
rifle. How difficult
problem it is will appear when it is
noted that such a carriage must en-
dure, without breaking or straining
any of it's parts, the tremendous shock
due to the ballistic force necessary to
propel a 1,000-pound projectile at We
locity of 2.100 feet per second, low
ering it's 52-ton gun for a distance Of
nearly eight feet to secure position for
loading, and returning it to its first po-
sition, and that it must do this rapidly,
certainly and easily. and by mechan-
ism not liable to get out of order, and
only to be operated by the average
soldier. The technical difficulties in
volved may perhaps be better appre-
ciated when it is considered that
similar case would be that of 5O-ton
locomotive and tender running at
speed of twenty miles an hour which
is required to be brought to full stop
from this speed within a distance of
sixteen feet, or one third its length, yet
so easily and gently that at the end of
the motion there shall not be the
slightest jar. Both these problems, it
is believed, have been satisfactorily
solved. One 12-inch all-round trav-
erse disappearing carriage is now un-
der construction. and eight or ten such
carriages of similar design are about
to be contracted"
Secretary Lamont says his predeces- /
sors in office at the head of the War
had during many years
the difficult task of arousing the public
mind to a realization of the national
difficulties in the matter of coast de-
fense The interest which has been
awakened has grown deeper each sue
cessive Congress, and more liberal ap-
for the accomplishment of
the adopted scheme have become more
liberal Therefore, in submitting the
u