demand for them shall continue the more will those resources be developed and enlarged. For example, notwithstanding the great number of bronze cannon which have been procured by this department during the last eighteen months, requiring for their fabrication 586,476 pounds of copper, the supplies of that material from within our own mineral regions have been about 11,590,000 pounds, exceeding all demands on that account twenty fold. The stock of lead now on hand in our arsenals amounts to about 14,100 tons, sufficient to make 451,092,240 bullets, and this stock is exclusive of that in private hands and of what the mines of our own country are daily furnishing. The supplies of iron, timber, leather, and other miscellaneous articles which enter into the production of cannon, gun carriages, implements, and accouterments for the military service are unbounded and exhaustless within ourselves. The only article of ordnance supplies for which we depend in a great measure on importation from abroad is saltpeter. Long previous to the breaking out of the rebellion, and simply as a prudent precaution, the Ordnance Department had been collecting a stock of that article, and had it its arsenals on the 4th of March, 1861, a supply of 3,822,704 pounge quantities of gunpowder which have since been obtained, and which we are still obtaining without difficulty, it has not been found necessary to draw upon that reserve stock; but on the contrary it has been increased, and now amounts to over 9,000,000 pounds, sufficient to make 12,000,000 pounds of gunpowder. It may therefore be confidently asserted that we have made ourselves independent of important for the essential supplies of arms and ordnance stores, and either have or can produce an abundance of them to carry on wars of any magnitude that can possibly be anticipated. At the same time the increased productive capacity of the Government arsenals, which has been attained in the last year, and which is now in progress of greater augmentation, the additional means and facilities and the better knowledge of the manufacture of munitions of war, and the vigilance which has been exercised in confining contracts to regular manufacturers of or dealers in the articles to be furnished, and enforcing fair charges and faithful fulfillments of their obligations, have put us beyond the reach of speculations and exorbitant prices.

I would be failing in justice to the officers of this department were I to omit calling attention to the fact that the satisfactory and highly useful results of its operations since the commencement of the rebellion are due to their fidelity, capacity, and zeal for the public interest, and to their increased labor and exertions, which have known no respite or relaxation. With a number but nine greater in the aggregate than were in commission during the Mexican war, and amounting to but forty-five in all, the vast increase of duties imposed on the department, both at the arsenals and armories, and in the field, has by them been met and cheerfully and faithfully performed. The character of those duties also, although they are such as are essential to any success of military operations, is not of that brilliant and striking description which brings with it the rewards of renown and promotion attendant on duties no more arduous or faithful or useful in the march, the siege, or the battle.

The ordnance officer, whose duties are thus arduous and useful, and whose professional acquirements, if reputable, demand liberal education and severe studies, has but little opportunity of public distinction, and none for promotion but such as comes in the regular course