[Ironclad Ships:] Report of the National Academy of Sciences for the Year 1863.

Possibly the first American engineering text on ironclad ship technologies; with fold-out plates

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This illustrated report contains much on ironclad ships, first used in battle the year before, and on the ironclad monitor U.S.S. Roanoke, the first ship in history with more than one gun turret.

The report is possibly the first American engineering text on an ironclad ship technology, here specifically on compasses for turreted iron clad vessels.

The bulk of the annual report (pp23–96 + the seven fold-out plates) was presented by Alexander D. Bache (1806–1867), chairman of the compass committee to the National Academy of Sciences. Bache was a founder of and the first president of the National Academy of Sciences.

Among the fold-out plates are diagrams for “Ritchie’s Liquid Monitor Compass,” compass deviation trials of the U.S.S. Roanoke in the James River in Virginia, and a “Plan for mounting of [a] compass on board turreted iron vessels…”

Other contents in the report concern the protection of the bottoms of iron clad boats from salt water corrosion and printings of “An Act to incorporate the National Academy of Sciences” and its constitution and by-laws.

The first annual report of the National Academy of Sciences, chartered by Congress in 1863 during the American Civil War. A handsome copy.

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