manufacture of arms and ordnance for the use of the Confederacy. We inclose a map* showing the situation and plan of the works, and of the buildings connected with the establishment, and also a statement in detail of the machinery, forges, furnaces, engines, and other appurtenances of the works, marked A, to which we refer you for particulars. These works are now in complete order, and could at once be converted into the manufacture of cannon. They have been put up at a cost of near $75,000, but the undersigned are willing to dispose of them to the Confederacy for the sum of $40,000, reserving a part of the ground not essential to the works. The peculiar advantages of Selma for the location of an armory are well known to all acquainted with its geographical position. It is now connected by railroad and river with the great arteries of travel from South to North, and looking to the early completion of the Alabama and Tennessee River Railroad, and the Alabama and Mississippi River Railroad, it will soon be the center from which will diverge, in all directions, railroad connections with the Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western States of our Confederacy. Selma is also most fortunately situated with regard to the manes of manufacturing in iron. The coal beds of Bibb and Shelby are only fifty-four miles distant, and are immediately upon the Alabama and Tennessee River Railroad, from whence inexhaustible supplies of fuel can be obtained more conveniently and cheaper than at any other point in the Confederacy, while iron ore of the best quality, equaling that of Russia of Shelby and Bibb Counties, distant about sixty miles. We trust that it is not necessary to enumerate in detail the many and varied advantages in favor of Selma as the proper point for the establishment of a public armory. Many additional reasons will readily present themselves to your minds, and we only beg in this communication to call your attention, and through you the attention of Congress, to some of the more prominent advantages of our petition. It will give us much pleasure further to aid any committee that may be placed in charge of the subject, and to respond to any inquiries that may be deemed necessary to bring the subject properly to their minds.

Yours, very respectfully,

EDWARD T. WATTS.

R. N. PHILPOT.

JOS. M. LAPSLEY.

[Inclosure.]

A.

Size of lot, four acres, lying on two streets and Alabama and Tennessee River Railroad 100 yards from the Alabama River. Building as set forth in the drawing, brick and iron, nearly all fireproof. The molding building is the largest and best in the State; has a pit and cupola ready to cast cannon, shot, or shell at once; 140 feet of shafting running through the works; four large lathes, two planers, two bolt cutters, and two forges, all in perfect order, run by engine about eighty horsepower, connecting all the machinery or not, as may be required. Water supplied by artesian well on the premises 500 feet deep. Coal beds fifty-four miles from Selma on the Alabama and Tennessee Railroad; iron beds sixty to seventy miles on and near same road; some of it the best in America and equal to Russia iron. Two railroads already in operation and third progressing, connecting with the Great Northern, Mobile, and Pensacola Railroads.

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*Not found.

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