of the first cost.

The expense of keeping them in commission is enormously great.

"Their engines," says the Secretary of the Navy, in his annual report in 1842, "consume so much fuel as to add enormously to their expenses; and the necessity that they should return to port, after short intervals of time, for fresh supplies, renders it impossible to send them on any distant service.

They cannot be relied on as cruisers, and are altogether too expensive for service in time of peace.

I have therefore determined to take them out of commission, and substitute for them other and less expensive vessels." The average cost of permanent fortifications is but _little more than three thousand dollars per gun_.