Totten writes:

“,,, I got yours in due time but have been too busy to answer before and must hurry now. As to Harting [rock quarry at Harting, New York] – I doubt there can be such a thing as system throughout, introduced – except it be to firing. We contrive as far as possible that the blasts shall be fired after the men break off work – retaining two or three faithful men 15 minutes for that purpose. If we must fire in the hours of work, we prepare all that can be got ready and then back off to fire.

Good judgment – but, above all things, experience in superintending quarries are the vital matters. To know how to keep the quarry clear at the least cost, and where to put the blasts, which nothing but long experience can teach – these are the great secrets of management. If you can get a faithful – active – sensible man, who has been brought up in one of the granite quarries near Boston or at Cape Ann, you may well afford him high wages. A smatterer will ruin you – so will an Inventor, a Visionary, a Schemer. As to details we use the short or the churn drill (all steel) according to circumstances – paper tubes, made by pasting coarse cartridge paper round a small wooden rod – and dry, clear and rather fine, sand for loading – as the sand is poured in, a wooden rod is moved up and down to settle the sand – no ramming. The electrical spark may be useful in obtaining very long blocks of stone either to be used in mass, or to be regularly split up for building stones – but will never, I think, be substituted for the present mode in common operation: the greater or less effect of a blast depends on its being less or more out of its true place: more depends on the place of the powder, than the quantity of force generated.

To remove stone, we use wheelbarrows for chips – hand-sling carts, viz. a light tongue and pair of high light wheels – horse sling-carts, viz. shafts and higher and stronger wheels – and double ore sling-carts viz. high wheels, low fore wheels with a high bolster [sketch inserted] When we have not large stones to move with these, we transport smaller stones piled upon a platform, the whole being lifted and carried off, as a large stone would be. The Ox is best for this work; he hurts himself less in the quarry and being kept in good working order will sell, when his feet are worn out with frequent shoeing, or when he is sprained, for almost or quite as much as he cost. You refer I believe to our pointing or plastering mortar. The very best proportions are Coarse sand … If you please you may increase the dose of cement, to make it a little more plastic and you may increase the water also a very little with the same view, but having made the mixture you will be astonished at the effect of mere drops of water in addition, if well worked. If you put more water than is indispensable it will crack more or less on drying – Well done, it rivals granite in durability …”

General Swift, the recipient of this letter, held the position of US Army Chief of Engineers during the War of 1812, apparently later moving on to private ventures like the quarry mining in upstate New York. Joseph Totten, appointed to the same position two decades later, remained at the head of the Corps of Engineers for over 25 years, until his death during the Civil War. In addition to his long military service, he was also a distinguished scientist, a co-founder of the National Academy of Sciences and a Regent of the Smithsonian. This letter was written six years before his promotion to the Corps, while he was overseeing construction of Fort Adams at Newport, Rhode Island – the second largest construction project of the US Army in the 19^th century. In that capacity, he employed the best and brightest recent West Point graduates as assistant engineers – including future Confederate General Pierre Beauregard, and physicist Alexander Bache, who later built the US Coast Survey into “the foremost scientific institution” in the US during the antebellum period. Totten thus played a pivotal role in the foundation of early American science and played a dominant role in pioneering military engineering in the United States. This letter is representative of the breadth of his expertise.

    American National Biography, vol. 21, pp. 764-765

    Dictionary of American Biography, vol. IX, part 2, pp., 598-599