_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:
I desire to call the attention of Congress to the importance of
providing for the continuance of the board for testing iron, steel,
and other metals, which by the sundry civil appropriation act of last
year was ordered to be discontinued at the end of the present fiscal
year. This board, consisting of engineers and other scientific experts
from the Army, the Navy, and from civil life (all of whom, except
the secretary, give their time and labors to this object without
compensation), was organized by authority of Congress in the
spring of 1875, and immediately drafted a comprehensive plan for
its investigations and contracted for a testing machine of 400 tons
capacity, which would enable it to properly conduct the experiments.
Meanwhile the subcommittees of the board have devoted their time to such
experiments as could be made with the smaller testing machines already
available. This large machine is just now completed and ready for
erection at the Watertown Arsenal, and the real labors of the board are
therefore just about to be commenced. If the board is to be discontinued
at the end of the present fiscal year, the money already appropriated
and the services of the gentlemen who have given so much time to the
subject will be unproductive of any results.
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