6. The superintendent must be a physician. There is a farm attached to the asylum, which is under the direction of the superintendent, who receives patients upon the order of the Secretary of the War, or the Navy, and upon the order of the Secretary of the Interior. He may receive indigent insane persons residing in the District of Columbia. If other than indigent persons are admitted, they must pay for the privilege a sum not less than the cost of their support. 7. The military hospitals in time of war are for temporary purposes, and are established wherever the army happens to be, and especially near where the great battles have been fought, that immediate relief may be given to the sick and wounded. These are established by the commanders of the army, and are under their control. And here let it be recorded to their praise, that since military hospitals were known, never have any been seen which for order, cleanliness and efficiency in administering to the comfort and care of the sick and wounded soldiers, surpassed those of the United States during the late civil war. CHAPTER XXII. NAVY DEPARTMENT. The position of the United States naturally gives it great prominence as a naval power. Situated between the two great oceans, with thousands of miles of coast on each, and a profusion of good harbors, bays, and great rivers, accessible to large ocean vessels for long distances into the interior; with a soil of great fertility, and numerous and inexhaustible sources of mineral wealth, besides all the conditions favorable to the establishment and success of manufactures—it requires large foreign markets for its various products, and an extensive commerce is essential to its development. It should be, and perhaps it is, the strongest naval power in the world. The War of Independence was much increased in length and difficulty by the want of a navy, the maritime resources of England giving her a great superiority in striking suddenly, and in force, at distant points. It was natural, then, that so important an arm, for both attack and defense, should be prepared to act with energy, and this was one of the first cares of the new government; and so efficient did this branch of national strength become in the thirty years of peace, to the war of 1812 with England, that the easiest and some of the most important successes of the Americans, in that conflict, were on the sea. The care of Naval affairs was, at first, committed to the Secretary of War. In 1798 it was erected into a separate Department, and a Secretary placed at its head. He was entitled to a seat in the Cabinet, as one of the advisers of the President, and received his appointment by nomination of the President and concurrence of the Senate, in the same manner as the Heads of other Departments.