Articles not perishable should be purchased at first-hand whenever practicable, and of the best quality, which quality should be determined by inspection.

The sum of twenty dollars per month from each cadet should secure an abundance of food of the best quality, and in sufficient variety for all reasonable wants, and also fully cover all expenses of skillful preparation and of service and attendance, provided the duty of the purveyor is conscientiously performed by an active, energetic, and competent man, and checked and verified by thorough and uniform inspection. This rate is decidedly higher, so far as the board can learn, than at any similar institution in the country; and it is only because of the isolation and exceptional situation of West Point that the board admit so high a charge for this item of expenditure.

Under the present purveyor the board are of opinion that the cadet does not receive what he is entitled to for the amount charged him.

It is a question for consideration by the proper authorities whether the system is not defective, and whether it would not be decidedly better to place the battalion of cadets on a different footing, by assigning to officers detailed from the proper staff corps of the Army the duty now performed by civilians at the expense of the cadets.

It is admitted that the service and attendance on the cadets' messtable is insufficient. One waiter to forty-four cadets is a force inadequate to place the food upon the table with sufficient promptness and rapidity to secure that it shall be in a healthful and eatable condition. Without seeking in any respect to introduce habits approaching luxury in the cadets, the board are of opinion that a suflicient force of waiters should be employed to serve the food from the kitchen to the tables rapidly and without loss of heat, especially in the severe weather of the winter; and that the substitution of a staff-officer for the purveyor would secure the necessary funds for this and other desirable improve. ments.

SANITARY CONDITION.

The cadet hospital is in as good order and condition as is practicable in the present building. This edifice is contracted in space, badly constructed, ill-ventilated, and unfortunately situated.

The administration is entirely satisfactory.

The new hospital building now in construction will be free from all objections, and its rapid completion is urgently demanded, and the board recommend that it be pushed with all possible dispatch.

SEWERAGE.

Until within a few years, no general system of sewerage had been undertaken, and at present it is limited to the buildings on the line of the barracks and south of that line.

The present main sewer discharges into the river by an open conduit running near the line of the road to the ferry-landing. This should be covered and continued below the line of low water in the river at the point of its discharge.

Plans for the extension of the system to include the rest of the buildings and officers' quarters have been prepared, and a partial appropriation made at the last session of Congress. In a matter of such vital importance to the health of the academy, the board recommend that the work be pushed as rapidly as possible, and appropriations made to the full amount that can be wisely used in each year until the whole system shall be complete.

WATER-SUPPLY.

The present supply of water is derived from springs in the hills, col lected in reservoirs, and distributed by pipes.

The water being derived from hills of gneiss and granite, is of good quality; but, in the judgment of the board, the quantity is insufficient for all the uses to which it might be applied. The building of one or more additional reservoirs, the protection of all the reservoirs by sufficient fences against fouling by decaying matter drifted by the wind, and the erection of a filtering-basin appear to the board to be required. The supply should be sufficient, at all seasons and under all circumstances, for all purposes, including the suppression of fire.

SWIMMING SCHOOL.

Both in a sanitary point of view and as an essential part of military education, the board recommend the establishment of a swimming-school and the erection of the proper buildings for that purpose.

The Hudson River at West Point is a dangerous stream for beginners, full of eddies and counter-currents caused by the boldness of its banks and the manner in which the point projects into the stream. The immense travel on its waters renders public bathing in the day-time indecent. There can be no privacy in any of the waters fit for swimming in the vicinity of the academy. Hence instruction and exercise in this necessary art must be within some inclosure.

In closing this part of their report the board desire to call attention to the manner in which the commissary-store has heretofore been conducted.

Until very recently it has been the custom for many years to charge the cadets a profit of 10 per cent. upon the cost of all articles purchased for them and supplied to them from the store. Experience has long since demonstrated that this was far too high a percentage.

The charge was originally intended to cover the cost of superintending and clerk-hire, and the expenses of administration of the store; but the accumulated fund has become large enough to pay for the erection of a fire-proof store, at a cost of eighteen thousand ($18,000) dollars, a steam-laundry, and a stock of goods on hand of about fifteen thousand ($15,000) dollars.

The present superintendent has reduced the rate to 4 per cent., which is a much nearer approach to justice.

If the maintenance of this store should properly be charged against the cadets and deducted from their slender pay, its measure should be limited by the lowest possible percentage consistent with economical administration.

The board, however, suggest to the Secretary the propriety of reliev ing the cadets altogether from these charges, and of assuming them as part of the general administration.

FISCAL AFFAIRS.

A committee of the board, appointed to inquire into the fiscal affairs of the academy, reported that they found the account to be well kept and properly vouched.

MISCELLANEOUS SUGGESTIONS.

The committee recommend an addition to the hotel, so as to furnish adequate accommodations for the Board of Visitors, officers of the Army,

and the parents of cadets. The lack of suitable rooms for the meetings of the board has hitherto impeded the efficient transaction of business. The board are of the opinion that a proper school-house should be built and furnished for the instruction of the children of officers employed in the academy.

In the opinion of the board, the allowance to the superintendent for contingent expenses is too small, and should be moderately increased. In conclusion, the board make this public recognition of the constant courtesy which was extended to them during the progress of their inquiries.

To the superintendent, the commandant, and other administrative officers, and to the professors and other teachers, their grateful acknowledgments are tendered.

We have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servants, S. C. ROWAN, Chairman of Board.

Hon. W. W. BELKNAP,

Secretary of War, Washington, D. C.

General Jacob Ammen, Maryland; General N. B. Baker, Iowa; William Dowd, New York; H. H. Fay, Rhode Island; Prof. Daniel C. Gilman, California; Prof. J. F. Kellogg, Illinois.

The chairman was authorized by the foregoing members of the board to sign their names to the report; and the following-named Senators and members of the House of Representatives, viz, Hon. W. B. Allison and Hon. M. W. Ransom, United States Senate; Hon. Benjamin F. Butler, Hon. Thomas J. Creamer, and Hon. S. A. Hurlbut, United States House of Representatives, have expressed their concurrence in the views of the board, and have likewise authorized their names to be affixed to the report.

REPORT

OF

THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY.

NAVY DEPARTMENT,

Washington, D. C., November 29, 1875. SIR: The following report of the Navy Department and naval service for the present year is respectfully submitted:

VESSELS OF THE NAVY.

The number of vessels of every class and description now borne on the Navy Register is 147. These carry, all told 1,195 guns, and are of 152,492 tons measurement. Of these, 26, carrying nominally 266 guns, are sailing-vessels without steam-power, of which number four, namely, the Santee, the Dale, the Saratoga, and the Portsmouth, are in use as training and practice ships; two, the Saint Marys and the Jamestown, are assigned to States as school-ships, under the act of Congress providing therefor; three, the Pawnee, the Saint Louis, and the Saint Law rence, in use as hospital-ships or as quarters; six, the Antietam, the Ohio, the Vermont, the Supply, the Onward, and the Guard as coal, store, and supply ships at the various stations and for the several squadrons; six, namely, the Independence, the New Hampshire, the Relief, the Sabine, the Potomac, and the Savannah in commission as receivingships; two, the Macedonian, and the Cyane laid up in ordinary as useless for any present purpose, and one, the old New Orleans, remaining, as has been the case for the last half century, on the stocks at Sackett's Harbor. The Constellation is useful as a practice-ship. These ships, though most of them are useful for the purpose to which they are assigned and to some extent a necessary part of the naval service, are in fact mere representatives of the Navy of the past, still remaining on the Register to be utilized as best may be, but of little or no value as part of an efficient force for either the cruising or fighting purposes of the present day.

The steam-vessels of the Navy, as distinguished from iron-clads and torpedo-ships, number in the whole ninety-five, of which, however, twenty-five are tugs, employed as towing, ferry, or torpedo boats at the various navy-yards or stations, or in use as surveying-vessels, or in the service of the Fish-Commission, in accordance with the law directing the same. Twenty-nine of all classes are in ordinary at the yards on the Atlantic or at Mare Island; three, namely, the Gettysburg, the De

spatch, and the Tallapoosa, are used as freight and dispatch vessels; three more are in commission as training and receiving ships, at all times ready for service, and the remainder are in commission on the several stations or are at the various navy-yards ready for use when required.

Of these wooden ships, 18 are in fact new, the Trenton, Adams, Essex, Enterprise, Alliance, Alert, Huron, and Ranger, being the 8 new sloops built under special appropriation, and 10 others, the Monongahela, Tennessee, Mohican, Swatara, Vandalia, Marion, Quinnebang, Galena, Nipsic, and Tallapoosa being rebuilt with live oak timber and supplied with substantially new machinery during the two or three years last past. Besides such of these new ships as are in commission, 32 others, including the largest and most efficient ships of the Navy, are in actual service as cruisers or training-ships, and 12 of the remainder, though requiring more or less repairs to their boilers and machinery, could, if needed, be put into condition for service as soon as sailors could be enlisted to man them.

IRON-CLADS.-Our iron-clad fleet consists of 26 vessels, classed as follows: 3, the Massachusetts, Oregon, and Colossus, which are of a class and in condition to be of no service whatever, having been designed during the war as large sea-going iron-clads, but never launched, and though their names still appear on the Navy List, they consist only of their wooden frames, with a single exception, much deteriorated by time, and their unfinished armor and machinery stored in the navy-yards. The remaining 23, consisting of 21 vessels of the monitor type, and 2 iron torpedo-ships, are all efficient vessels of their class, and very powerful in both defensive and offensive operations near our shores. Five of them, namely, the double-turreted monitors Amphitrite, Monadnock, Miantonomah, Puritan, and Terror, are in process of complete repair, requiring from four to six months to finish if pushed, while the remaining 18, consisting of the Roanoke, the 2 torpedo-ships, Alarm and Intrepid, and 15 single-turreted monitors, namely, the Ajax, Canonicus, Camanche, Catskill, Dictator, Jason, Lehigh, Mahopac, Manhattan, Montauk, Nahant, Nantucket, Passaic, Sangus, and Wyandotte, are all in good condition, ready for any service at any time. This makes 80 available ships, including 16 iron-clads and 2 torpedo-boats.

CRUISING STATIONS.

Our cruising stations remain the same as last reported in number and designation, being six separate stations, each commanded by a rearadmiral, and designated respectively the European, the Asiatic, the South Pacific, the North Pacific, the South Atlantic, and the North Atlantic stations. These comprise within their limits the whole field of naval operations in every part of the world.

The European station.-There has been, as yet, no change in the force on this station during the past year, which is composed of the Franklin, flag