Alexandria Gazette

Old Point Comfort, &c.
Correspondence of the Richmond Dispatch.

OLD POINT, Aug. 29, 1859.—The Board
appointed by the Secretary of War for the
inspection and trial of the various rifle-cannons
that had been sent to Old Point, have
been inactive for several days, but will re-
sume their labors in three or four days.

Col. Wheat's new breech-loading rifle-cannon,
which weighs several tons, is now being
mounted on a carriage, at the break-water,
near the Light-House, and will be the next
gun to receive attention. One of these guns,
much smaller than this one, however, has
already been tried by the officers, with con-
siderable satisfaction. Col. Wheat himself
undertook to operate with it on one occasion,
in the absence of the Board, and, getting a
ball jammed in it by some means, fired and
bursted it. The one now being mounted,
however, looks as if it would stand any kind
of usage.

The Ordnance Department are engaged in
testing the qualities and strength of three
guns, two of which are from Richmond, and
the other from West Point. One of the Rich-
mond guns is from the Tredegar Works, and
the other from Belona Arsenal. One thou-
sand shots have been fired from one, with a
sixteen-pound charge of powder at each shot.
Thus we see that sixteen thousand pounds of
powder have been used in testing the quality
of iron, of which this gun is composed : the
other gun has had about eight hundred shots;
with the same charge of powder, and has only
two hundred more to pass the test. Balls are
used in each charge, which are fired into a
sand bank, and afterwards dug out and used
over and over again.

It is a gratifying fact, that the guns made
of Virginia iron have stood the severest tests
and stand higher with the Ordnance Board
than any other which have been subjected to
their inspection. This is no doubt owing to
the fact that the quality of the iron is supe-
rior, coupled with the fact that the manufac-
turers in Richmond understand casting guns
better than any one else.

The operations on the Rip-Raps are pro-
gressing slowly, and from present appearan-
ces it will take fully twenty years to complete
Fort Calhoun. There are sixty or seventy
men at work, which is probably as large a
force as could be worked in that limited space
to advantage.

The late contractor for stone, having found
that he had taken the contract too low, has
been released by the Secretary of War, and a
simple engagement now exists with a gentle-
man in the upper part of the State for the
supply of stone. This gentleman has sub-let
a portion of the job, and this fact accounts
for another fact—that a part of the stone
comes from Petersburg, and a part from
Richmond.

The Craney Island light-boat is to be super-
ceded by a screw-pile light-house, similar to
those now in use in James river. The piles
are already down and the frame braced, and
a week or two more will find this light shin-
ing out from the top of a neat substantial
house.

The large building close by the hotel, which
is being built for the Ordnance Department,
is nearly done, and hands are now engaged
in covering the roof. This, we learn, is to be
a workshop, and is to take the place of the
armory which was burned in the garrison
some years ago.