Mr. FOSTER. The honorable Senator made it cost about 900,000 dollars, or, as he said to speak in round numbers, $1,000,000, which he said was a less amount than was used in coaling and running the steamer Wanderbilt during the war, and he seems to think this is a small sum. I know that during the war we got into a habit of speaking of millions of dollars so flippantly that when we come to talk of a million now the honorable Senfrom Indiana, as economical as most of us here, hardly seems to think that $900,000 is worth talking about, and therefore he spoke of $1,000,000 as being easier. It not being the ordinary way of speaking here to talk of $900,000, he speaks of $1,000,000, it being about as small a coin, if I may say so, as any currency used among us I mean in current speech, for I do not think the current coin is quite as abundant as the currency of words. The honorable Senator, however, seems to think that it might cost $1,000,000, but I think I can show from evidence that that is an estimate greatly below what will be the actual cost of putting that island in any proper comdition to be made a naval station and navy yard. There is, in the 1st place, quite a difference in the evidence with regard to the amount of territory which makes up this island. I think in this pamphlet “by a NewEngland man” it is claimed that there are some 600 acres in this island. Other pamphlets, and among them one which I believe the honorable Senfrom NewJersey thinks was written by Mr. Bolles, makes out only some 300 acres in the island. There is a difference of nearly 1/2 as regards the area of the island; and I suppose from the character of the soil there and the location it is impos.sibleto get nearer than within one or two00 acres of the actual area. It depends entirely upon the condition of the tide and the state of freshets in the Delaware whether there are 600 acres or 300, and, indeed, whether there is an island there at all if the wall gives way. While the wall is kept up, the wall being a number of feet higher than the surface of the ground, it keeps the river off, and makes, if you please to call it so, an island; but if the should give way in freshets or in very high tides there would be no island there. That island would be almost certain to escape under those circumstances, be submerged, go into solution, get washed down to Cape May. It might be heard of there, but not above. If, however, we take it to be 600 acres, and if we consider the fact that that island of 600 acres is from 3 to 4 feet below low water mark, the idea of filling it up so that it can be useful for any o: as a naval depot or naval station and navy yard, with an expenditure of anything like $1,000,000, is perfectly prepos terous. In the letter which the gentleman read the estimate was 2 feet and a fraction of filling. It is greatly below the amount of filling that the engineers report. They report all the way from 3 to ten feet; some say it would take from 3 to 4 feet; others say from 9 to ten feet. And when the additional question of drainage comes into view it is perfectly apparent that 9 or ten feet of filling on that island will be as little as will make it available for any useful purposes.