e material have been made to perform new and appropriate
parts in the general work. The result of all this unexampled activity
and ingenuity has not yet been fully eliminated. It would require years
of experience in war in order to bring American genius, as at present
developed, to bear with all its extraordinary force on the mechanical
details of the military art. Beyond doubt, numberless devices, among
those presented, will prove to be utterly worthless; but many of them
will certainly stand the test of experience, will be ultimately approved
and adopted, and will remain as monuments of the enterprise and
ingenuity aroused by the necessities of the country in this hour of its
sad calamity.

It would be a curious and interesting employment to estimate the number
and character of these inventions, due wholly to the existing civil
strife. Only then should we be able to form some adequate conception of
the immense stimulus which has been applied to the national intellect,
and which has caused it to embrace within the boundless range of its
investigations, the highest moral and political problems, alike with the
minutest questions of mechanical and economical convenience. But we
should be greatly disappointed in not finding this phenomenon even
partially comprehended by the powers that be. It is truly a melancholy
thing to meet in the highest quarters so little sympathy with the
noblest efforts of the popular mind, and to witness the cold neglect and
even disdainful suspicion with which the most useful and valuable
devices are often received, or rather, we should say, haughtily
disregarded and rejected. Seldom or never do we find these inventions
appreciated according to their merits. The Government is proverbially
slow to adopt improvements of any kind; and the army and navy, like all
similar professional bodies, are averse to every important change, and
wedded to the instruments and processes in the use of which they have
been educated and trained. This peculiar indisposition to progressive
movements, in all the established institutions and organizations of
society, has frequently been the subject of remark and of regret. It is,
however, only an exaggeration of the conservative principle, which, when
confined within proper limits, is wise and beneficial. Indeed, the
actual progress of society in any period, is neither more nor less than
the result of the conflict between the opposite tendencies, of
retrogradation and adv