Excerpt from Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers to the Secretary of War for the Year 1874, Vol. 1 of 2 Under the Chief of Engineers the works for the defense of the coast have been prosecuted with vigor and as rapidly as the appropriations in hand would permit, and in several of our important harbors some of the larger works are approaching completion. Generally, the works are modifications of existing defenses, constructed for less powerful arma ments than those now used. The rapid advances that have been made in power of modern ordnance, render it essential that these works should be pushed forward to completion and properly armed. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.