Carpenter's shop.-This is a shed which has been closed in and used as a carpenter's shop since the burning of the works in 1863. One part of it has no floor. It has been used for repairing wooden carriages, making patterns, and doing carpenter work for the shops and buildings.

Unfinished stock on hand.-There are a few unfinished guns on hand, but all of models not made by the U. S. Ordnance Department. There are two 12-inch smooth-bore guns cast and the boring nearly completed. Guns of this and other large calibers have not been turned on the exterior surface, except at the trunnions and near the muzzle. The exterior surface and form are left as when cast. There are three small guns, supposed to be light 12-pounders, still in the molds in the pits, and five light 12-pounders cast, and one cast and bored and turned except the trunnions. These last are smooth-bore cast-iron guns, with a wrought-iron re-enforce, and made to fit the 12-pounder field carriage. There are three unfinished rifled field guns, 2.9-inch bore of the Parrott pattern, but much heavier than the old Parrott 10-pounder, weighing each 1,500 pounds. There are two old model sea-coast mortars, one cast, and one cast and bored, and one 8-inch sea-coast mortar, old model, cast and bored, and three 24-pounder iron field howitzers nearly completed. There are also a few finished guns of various models about the works, but none of them of models made by the U. S. Ordnance Department. These will be taken in charge by the officer collecting ordnance. There are among them some Brooke banded and rifled iron navy guns; three of 6.4-inch caliber, one of 8-inch, and one of 7-inch.

Iron used in the manufacture of guns.-None of the guns in an unfinished state are made from the Cloverdale glaze iron formerly used as gun iron at these works. The supply of Cloverdale iron has been cut off for some time by the U. S. troops. The guns were cast from an inferior Liberty iron from furnaces in Shenandoah County, Va. There are no records of its tensile strength, density, or other qualities, and I do not think any have been taken. Aside from the character of the iron, the appearance of the castings which I examined would, I think, cause them to be rejected on inspection. There are no unfinished projectiles on hand.

Materials on hand.-There is very little material of any kind on hand; about twenty-five tons of pig-iron (Liberty), about thirty tons of bituminous coal, the rolled iron reported above, and six 8-inch iron chassis rails. The only coal that can be obtained in this vicinity is that from the Dover pits, which is a bituminous coal. Anthracite would have to be brought from the North. If guns were manufactured here the iron for them at present, and for some time to come, would have to be brought from the furnaces at the North, where it is manufactured under the supervision of the constructor of ordnance.

Cost of manufacture.-The transportation of coal and iron from the North would make the cost of material for guns considerably greater here than at the Northern foundries. Owing to the unsettled state of labor and society here, it is difficult to estimate the cost of manufacture, even approximately. The cost in the Southern States was greater than in the North before the war, and the high prices which must continue here for some time would make the difference still more. The cost of finishing the guns which have been commenced would be very small, but, being of models different from those used by our army, they would be of little use, except as trophies, and owing to the inferior quality of gun-iron from which they are made their endurance is doubtful. There

64 R R-VOL XLVI, PT III