Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections (Volume 30) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1887. Excerpt: ... ourselves ready to admit the application of other principles, or to modify our conception of those we have adopted when new facts are discovered which warrant such changes. But we require positive evidence, and cannot adopt any conclusions which we think are not based upon a logical correlation of facts. The investigations described in the following account--though simple in their conception, have been difficult and laborious in their execution. To be of the greatest practical value they were required to be made on the ocean, under the conditions in which the results are to be applied to the use of the mariner, and therefore they could only be conducted by means of steam-vessels of sufficient power to withstand the force of rough seas, and at times when these vessels could be spared from other duty. They also required a number of intelligent assistants skilled in observation and faithful in recording results. Observations in August, 1875, at Block Island. The party engaged in these investigations consisted of the chairman of the Light-House Board; General I. C. Woodruff, U. S. A., engineer third light-house district; Dr. James C. Welling, president of the Columbian University, Washington, D. C.; Mr. T. Brown, of New York, patentee of the siren; Mr. Edward Woodruff, assistant superintendent of construction; and Captain Keeney, commander of the lighthouse steamer Mistletoe. We arrived at Block Island on the afternoon of the 4th of August, 1875. This place was chosen as the site of the experiments, --first, on account of its insular position, being as it were in the prolongation of the axis of Long Island) distant fifteen miles from the most easterly part of the latter, and entirely exposed to the winds and waves of the Atlantic Ocean; and secondly, because t..