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propelled by sails and Erickson’s propeller, and used exclusively in carrying freight, shall from and after the passage of this act be exempt from liability or fine for failing to provide, as a part of the necessary furniture of such vessel, a suction hose and fire engine and hose suitable to be worked on such vessel in case of fire, or more than one long boat or yawl.

. And be it further enacted, That it shall be lawful for the court before which any suit, information or indictment is or shall be pending for the violation, before the passage of this act, of so much of the ninth section of the act aforesaid as required “that iron rods or chains shall be employed and used in the navigation of all steamboats, instead of wheel and tiller ropes,” to order such suit, information or indictment to be discontinued on such terms as to costs as the court shall judge to be just and reasonable: Provided, That the defendant or defendants in such prosecution shall cause it to appear, by affidavit or otherwise, to the satisfaction of the court, that he or they had failed to use iron rods or chains in the navigation of his or their boat or boats, from a well-grounded apprehension that such rods or chains could not be employed for the purpose aforesaid with safety.

. And be it further enacted, That in execution of the authority vested in him by the second section of the joint resolution “authorizing experiments to be made for the purpose of testing Samuel Colt’s submarine battery and for other purposes,” approved August thirty-first one thousand eight hundred and forty-two, the Secretary of the Navy shall appoint a board of examiners, consisting of three persons, of thorough knowledge as to the structure and use of the steam-engine, whose duty it shall be to make experimental trials of such inventions and plans designed to prevent the explosion of steam boilers and collapsing of flues as they may deem worthy of examination, and report the result of their experiments, with an expression of their opinion as to the relative merits and efficacy of such inventions and plans, which report the Secretary shall cause to be laid before Congress, at its next session. It shall also be the duty of said examiners to examine and report the relative strength of copper and iron boilers of equal thickness, and what amount of steam to the square inch each, when sound, is capable of working with safety; and whether hydrostatic pressure, or what other plan is best for testing the strength of boilers under the inspection laws; and what limitations as to the force or pressure of steam to the square inch, in proportion to the ascertained capacity of a boiler to resist, it would be proper to establish by law for the more certain prevention of explosions.

. And be it further enacted, That so much of the act aforesaid as is inconsistent with the provisions of this act shall be, and the same is hereby, repealed.

, March 3, 1843.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That literal exemplifications of any such records which have been or may be granted in virtue of the provisions of the seventh section of the act, approved on the fourth day of July, eighteen hundred and thirty-six, entitled “,” shall be deemed and held to be of the same validity in all proceedings whatever at law, or in equity, wherein such exemplifications are adduced in evidence, as if the names of the officers signing and countersigning the same, had been fully inserted in such record.