es to deal with the question of changes of direction by the
avoidance of curves and by the substitution of angles, having at the
point of junction of the two sides turntables on which the cradle
and ship will be drawn; these can be moved with perfect ease,
notwithstanding the heavy load, because the turntable will be floating
in water carried in circular tanks.

The question of preserving the level of the turntable, whether
unloaded, partially loaded, or loaded, is happily met by an
arrangement of water ballast and pumping. I cannot pass away from the
mention of Mr. Eads' work without just reminding you of the successful
manner in which he has dealt with the mouth of the Mississippi, by
which he has caused that river to scour and maintain a channel 30 feet
deep at low water, instead of that 8 feet deep which prevailed there
before his skillful treatment. Neither can I refrain from mentioning
the successful labors of our friend Sir Charles Hartley, in improving
the navigation of that great European river, the Danube. I am sure we
are all rejoiced to see that one of the lectures of the forthcoming
series, that on "Inland Navigation," is to be delivered by him, and I
do earnestly trust he will remember it is his duty to the Institution
not to leave important and successful works unreferred to because
those works happen to be his own.

I regret that time does not admit of my noticing the many improved
machines for excavating, to be used either below water or on dry land.
I also regret, for similar reasons, I must omit all mention of ship
construction, whether for the purpose of commerce or of war, a subject
that would naturally follow that of rivers and of ship railways and
canals, and would have enabled me to speak of the great debt this
branch of civil engineering owes to the labors of our late member,
William Froude, and would have enabled me also to deal with the
question of material for ships, and with the question of armor
plating, in which, and in the construction of ordnance, our past
president, Mr. Barlow, and myself, as the two lay members of the
Ordnance Committee, are so specially interested.

MILITARY ENGINEERING APPLIANCES.

The mention of armor plates inevitably brings to our minds the
consideration of ordnance, but I do not intend to say even a few words
on this head of invention and improvement--a topic to which a whole
evening might well be devoted--because only three years ago my
talented predecess