In favorable tides a draught of 10 feet can be carried over this bar, but in the prevailing northers of winter scarcely 7 feet. In order to give a channel 300 feet wide and 12 feet deep throughout this distance of seven miles, it will be necessary to remove by dredging 868,929 cubic yards of mud. This can be accoplished in two years, by two dredges, each raising 20,000 cubic yards per month. The average depth to be dredged will be about 2 feet, and the cost will be as follows: Two dredges, at $30,000 each.... Eight scows, at $2,000 each...... Dredging 868,929 cubic yards, at 20 cents.... Making a total cost of....... $60,000 00 16,000 00 173,785 80 10,214 20 260,000 00 for the improvement proposed, and for this sum the work can be done. The prosecution of this improvement is urgently demanded by the interests of the State and of the general government. As before remarked, it is not proposed to open a channel deeper than is absolutely required in the coastwise and lumber trade. The State requires it for the accommodation of her import trade, which is mostly brought here coastwise, and for her exports in lumber, naval stores, &c., which are carried in vessels of the same class. She requires it for the development of excellent coal mines, which have hitherto laid untouched, because, among other reasons, coal cannot be lightered and transhipped like cotton. She demands it as due to the magnitude of the exports of Mobile, which amounted for the last year to $33,000,000. The return imports, it is true, are mostly entered at the port of New York, but they are brought hither in vessels of 12 feet draught, and the State of Alabama asks for such improvement of the channel in question as will give those imports free access to the port of Mobile. Even the sea-going steamer which runs regularly from this city to New York is compelled to lie below the bar, at great expense and inconvenience. The improvement of the channel will give life to the commerce of the port, develop the resources of the whole dependent interior country, and repay the general government tenfold in money and material resources. As a harbor for heavy ships-of-war and armed steamers the bay is unsurpassed, and under the guns of its forts in time of war these ships will look with certainty for protection, for fuel, and for all other supplies. The railroads now under construction, connecting Mobile with the interior and the great north west, will make the resources of that region available at Mobile for either peace or war. I conclude that it would be wise and just to perfect the channel of the bay to the moderate extent proposed and begun, wise on the part of the general government, and just to the States of Alabama and Mississippi. Respectfully submitted. General JOSEPH G. TOTTEN, D. LEADBETTER, Captain of Engineers. Chief Engineer, Washington. Annual report of the operations upon the Washington aqueduct during the year ending 30th September, 1857. At the date of the last annual report, 30th September, 1856, the works of the aqueduct had been suspended for want of funds. The appropriation of the previous session had been confined by Congress to paying off existing liabilities, and to the preservation of the work before done from injury. This suspension of operations continued until Congress, on the 3d March last, by an appropriation of one million of dollars, provided the means for carrying on the work. Most of the engineers who had been employed in the construction of the work before the suspension of operations had been retained, attending to the preservation from injury, of the work already executed, and engaged in perfecting the plans and details of the various structures upon the line, and in arranging and condensing from the records information in answer to questions of Congress or of its committees. Very full information, in regard to the work and the estimates will be found in the last annual report, printed with the President's message and documents, 1856-'57, vol. 2, page 346, in Ex. Doc. 82, H. of Reps., 34th Congress, first session; and in Senate Ex. Doc. 48, 32d Congress, second session, which contains the original report and estimates upon which the work was ordered by Congress. Reterring to these documents for a more particular information as to the plan and construction of the work, I proceed to give an account of the operations of the past year, and of its present condition. Immediately upon the passage of the appropriation, advertisements were extensively published, calling for proposals for contracts for graduation, for reservoirs, for masonry, and materials of conduit and bridges, for cast iron pipes, &c. The law of contracts, requiring for all contracts in the District advertisement of at least sixty days, deferred the times at which the bids received could be opened, according to law, to the 7th of May. In order not entirely to lose the spring, which is the best season for work in the unhealthy valley in which the aqueduct is built, a force was collected, under direction of the engineers, and set to work upon some of the more difficult parts of the line with the least possible delay. Work was commenced upon the government quarry at Seneca, from which most of the cut stone for the culvert and bridges, abutments, and end walls, is procured. Sections one and two, which embrace some very difficult and expensive loose rock and earth work, and which had already been partly constructed by the government, were commenced. The unfinished culverts, abandoned by contractor Duffin, and partly built late in the fall of 1855, were completed; and work upon section thirteen, abandoned for want of funds, was resumed. Contractors Decker and Gallaher were notified, on the 5th March, to resume work upon their contracts, and to push it with all possible vigor. Vol. ii-15 There was great competition for the contracts under the advertisement of the 5th March. About seventy bids were received in all. They were opened in pressence of the bidders on the 7th May. The analysis and comparison of the bids occupied some days, and it was not not until the 26th May that the Secretary of War awarded the contracts to the lowest bidders, as follows, viz: Contract for graduation on sections fourteen and fifteen, to Myers, Jones & Pratt. Contract for conduit on sections three to thirteen, inclusive, to Henry Cady. Contract for graduation on sections fourteen and fifteen, to Carman, Dobbins & Co. Contract for receiving reservoir, to Daniel Stone. Contract for distributing reservoir, to Reilly & Cochran. Contract for cast iron pipes, branches and bends, to C. B. Cluskey & Co. Contract for cut stone, to Myers, Jones & Pratt. Contract for sand, to G. W. Jackson, in part; to R. F. Jackson, for the remainder. Myers, Jones & Pratt signed the contract awarded them for graduation, but declined to sign that for cut stone; and, on the 24th August, a contract was entered into with Messrs. Frederick & Field, the next lowest bidders, for cut stone. Messrs. C. B. Cluskey & Co. having failed to sign their contract for cast iron pipes within the time prescribed in their bid, a contract was entered into, on the 6th August, with Messrs. J. W. & J. F. Starr, the next lowest bidders, for iron pipes. Messrs. Reilly & Cochran declined signing the contract for the distributing reservoir awarded to them; and as difficulty in regard to the titles to the lands upon which it it is located prevented the work being commenced, and the next lowest bidder also declined signing a contract according to the terms of his bid, holding himself freed by the award having been first made to another, no contract has been made for this reservoir. Messrs. McDonald & Piper failed to offer satisfactory security for the contract awarded them for bridge No. 3, and no contract has been made for this work. The contracts which were signed and executed, therefore, under the advertisement of 5th March, 1857, are: For graduation, with Myers, Jones & Pratt. For conduit, with Henry Cady, and with Carman, Dobbins & Co. For receiving reservoir, with Daniel Stone. For cast iron pipes, branches and bends, with J. W. & J. F. Starr. For cut stone, with Frederick & Field. For bricks, with William Douglas. For sand, with G. W. Jackson and with R. F. Jackson. Copies of these contracts accompany this report. All the old contracts will be found in Doc. 82, 34th Congress, first session. The delay occasioned by the sixty days' advertisement required by law, and by the time consumed in making and executing the contracts, caused the commencement of the work by the contractors to be deferred until the advent of the hot months and the beginning of the sickly season on the line. The consequence has been a very unsatisfactory progress with the work. Men were scarce, hesitating to go upon the line, where they suffered from malarious diseases; and, as the public works of the country were generally in a prosperous condition, they found ample employment elsewhere. The work carried on by the government was prosecuted with activity until July, when it, too, began to feel the effects of the bad reputation of the work for health. The financial revulsion of October, stopping most of the railways in course of construction, set free a large number of hands just as the healthy season upon the aqueduct commenced. Efforts have been made to compel the contractors to take advantage of this supply of labor; and finding that they were deficient in means or energy to make proper provision for an increase of force before the setting in of frost should put a stop to all works of masonry, shanties or boarding houses have been constructed at various points of the line by the government, and the work commenced, with a view of doing a part of it by day's work, and turning it over to the contractors whenever they come forward provided with the force and the means to carry it on without delay. All this has thrown additional labor upon the engineers, who have been thus compelled to make the preparations for beginning work which ought to have been begun by the contractors Contractor Decker having failed to collect such a force as would insure the completion of his contracts within a reasonable time, though notified early in March and repeatedly urged during the spring to push his work forward as required by his contract, he was notified, in the beginning of August, that his contract for culverts and for graduation were forfeited. A force was collected with the least possible delay, but with great difficulty, in the midst of the sickly season, and, by great exertions, the work upon culverts and graduation under his contract has been so far advanced as to give assurance that it will be entirely completed before the setting in of winter. Work on the tunnels was almost entirely suspended during the summer, owing to the difficulty of inducing miners to work on the line during the hot and unhealthy season. There is now, however, a large force employed, and all the tunnel headings but one are fully manned. The present condition of the work is as follows: A strong force is employed at the Seneca quarry, quarrying and cutting stone for the masonry of the culverts, bridges, waste weirs, dams, &c. At the Great Falls a small force is employed in moving stone to the dam; and therein excavating at the head of the conduit, and preparing for building the masonry abutments of the dam. A third gang is employed in excavating the deep pit of the gate-house, which is in solid rock. The portion of the conduit which leads from the entrance on the river, under the Chesapeake and Ohio canal, to the gate-house is completed. Upon section No. 1 tunnel No. 1 is about one-third finished. Tunnel No. 2 is about one-half excavated. Below tunnel No. 2, on section No. 1, there are about 1,806, and on section No. 2 about 800 feet of masonry conduit completed. The culverts from the Great Falls to the District line, twenty-two in number, are all so far completed that the embankments over them have been carried nearly up to grade, except No. 18, which has just been commenced, having been delayed on account of difficulties in obtaining title to the land on which it is built. This title has only lately been perfected, and the culvert which has been begun will be completed this fall. One culvert in the District of Columbia has been begun, and is nearly completed. Its arch is closed, and the embankment over it is being made. The other culverts in the District, three in number, are yet untouched, owing to difficulties in obtaining good titles to their sites. Nearly all the heavy embankments outside of the District of Columhia have been raised within a foot or two of grade; and if Congress will pass a law, much needed, by which lands for the aqueduct can be taken on appraisement within the District, as they were for the Chesapeake and Ohio canal, and have been for the aqueduct itself within the limits and under the law of Maryland, all the embankments can be finished in the course of the spring, and water introduced into the city from the stream which flows into the receiving reservoir in the course of next season. Without such a law I see no prospect of obtaining title to some tracts of land in which minor heirs are interested, and to certain others where the owners refuse all reasonable prices which have been offered, or where the titles are imperfect on the records. A law of Congress prohibits the expenditure of money upon any site before the opinion of the Attorney General has been given that the title is good. Upon the receiving reservoir the contractor, Daniel Stone, is now at work with a considerable force; but he has not made as much progress as was desirable, having suffered from the scarcity of hands during the sickly season. It is expected, however, that he will be able before winter to get in the masonry of the sluice which drains the reservoir; and when this is done, the work of the earthen dam can be carried on in any moderate weather during the winter. The iron gates for the gate-house at the falls, and for the sluice through the dam of receiving reservoir, and that for the auxiliary pipe vault of the distributing reservoir, have been built and are in store. A considerable quantity of iron pipes have been delivered under the contract of Messrs. F. W. and F. S. Starr. The first contractors for bricks have availed themselves of the joint |
