enced by the act of
Congress of 30th of April, 1824.

The report exhibits in one table the funds appropriated at the last and
preceding sessions of Congress for all these fortifications, surveys,
and works of public improvement, the manner in which these funds have
been applied, the amount expended upon the several works under
construction, and the further sums which may be necessary to complete
them; in a second, the works projected by the Board of Engineers which
have not been commenced, and the estimate of their cost; in a third, the
report of the annual Board of Visitors at the Military Academy at West
Point.

For thirteen fortifications erecting on various points of our Atlantic
coast, from Rhode Island to Louisiana, the aggregate expenditure of the
year has fallen little short of $1,000,000. For the preparation of five
additional reports of reconnaissances and surveys since the last session
of Congress, for the civil constructions upon thirty-seven different
public works commenced, eight others for which specific appropriations
have been made by acts of Congress, and twenty other incipient surveys
under the authority given by the act of 30th April, 1824, about one
million more of dollars has been drawn from the Treasury.

To these $2,000,000 is to be added the appropriation of $250,000 to
commence the erection of a breakwater near the mouth of the Delaware
River, the subscriptions to the Delaware and Chesapeake, the Louisville
and Portland, the Dismal Swamp, and the Chesapeake and Ohio canals, the
large donations of lands to the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and
Alabama for objects of improvements within those States, and the sums
appropriated for light-houses, buoys, and piers on the coast; and a full
view will be taken of the munificence of the nation in the application
of its resources to the improvement of its own condition.

Of these great national undertakings the Academy at West Point is among
the most important in itself and the most comprehensive in its
consequences. In that institution a part of the revenue of the nation is
applied to defray the expense of educating a competent portion of her
youth chiefly to the knowledge and the duties of military life. It is
the living armory of the nation. While the other works of improvement
enumerated in the reports now presented to the attention of Congress are
destined to ameliorate the face of nature, to multiply the facilities of
communication between