It is proper here that due reference should be made to the claims in behalf of Mr. Theodore R. Timby as an inventor of the turret and of the monitor idea as expressed thereby. These claims and the main facts in the case have long been known, and there should certainly be no attempt to take from any one his due share in the developments which gave to our nation a "Monitor" in her hour of need. It is well known that Mr. Timby between 1840 and 1850 conceived the idea of a revolving fort of iron mounted with numerous guns and intended to take the place of the masonry or earth-structures in common use for such purposes. He seems also to have conceived of a similar structure for use on a ship of low freeboard, and a model showing such a design was constructed. In 1843 he filed a caveat for the invention of the revolving turret. Here the matter apparently rested until 1862, and after the battle between the "Monitor" and "Merrimac," when he took out a patent which was dated July 8, 1862, covering "a revolving tower for defensive and offensive warfare, whether on land or water." Ericsson's associates in the business of building monitors for the Government acquired these patents of Timby, presumably as shrewd business men, in order to quiet any claim on his part, and to have the plan available for land forts, should the opportunity arise to push the business in this direction. There is no question but that Ericsson was antedated by Timby in the suggestion of a revolving turret, at least in so far as public notice is concerned. Ericsson frankly admitted this, and stated that he made no claim to absolute originality in this respect. He further stated what is undoubtedly true, that the main idea in the turret, that of a circular revolving fort, antedates the Nineteenth Century as a whole, and its origin is lost in the uncertainties of early tradition. It is simply one of those early ideas which naturally must have been known in essence since time immemorial, and as such it was the common property of the engineering practice of the century. It belongs neither to Timby nor to Ericsson, and no claims regarding priority in this respect are worthy of serious consideration. The question is not who first conceived the idea of a revolving fort, but who designed and built the "Monitor" as she was, and as she met the "Merrimac" on the 9th of March, 1862. The answer to the latter is too well known a part of the history of the times to admit of question or to call for further notice. Ericsson's claim for recognition in this respect rests not on any priority of idea regarding the use of a circular fort, but rather upon the actual "Monitor" as she was built and as she crushed at one blow the sea-power of the South, and representing as it did a completely and carefully designed whole, dating back to the earlier dealings with Napoleon III. in 1854. This is an age which judges men by what they do, and judged by this standard Ericsson's