The Press.
London, England, 1856-01-19 00:00:00

FURTHER DESTRUCTION OF DOCKS AT
SEBASTOPOL.

It had been the intention of our engineers to blow in a
portion of the English half of the docks last Saturday, but
owing to the prevalence of water all could not be got ready
for that purpose before yesterday afternoon. At head
quarters at ten o'clock in the mornin.g ^^'
known whether -bre to Ilre more than the
three in the left side of the basin ; and, although
thelrench had arranged to blow up their east dock, the
entrance pier of their west dock, and their half of the left
side of the basin which joined us, still I know that the
quartermaster-general of the army was not aware of the
French intention, nor was he of ours till late in the after-
noon. For this extreme secrecy I can see no reason. To
show how few officers were present actually to see the
docks, I will just give you their names. At the first ex-
plosion ( French and English), besides several French
engineers, I noticed Sir W. Codrington and his two aides-
de-camp ; Lieut.-Colonel Hon. L. Curzon and Captain
Ponsonby ; Sir Hugh Rose, our commissioner at French
head quarters; Lieut.-Colonel Turner, commandant of
the Karabelnaia; the two Town Majors ; Captain Cooch,
62nd; and Major Dewar, 49th ; Mr. Deen, R.N. ; two
surgeons 62nd Regiment; the officers of the White-build-
ings guard ; and of our engineers there were present :
Colonel Gordon, Major Cooke, Captain Schaw, Major
Ewart, Lieuts. Brine and Donnelly, and Lieut.-Colonels
Lloyd and Bourchier, together with the four engineers
who have been employed on the demolitions, viz., Major
Nicholson and Lieuts. Cumberland, Gordon, and Graham.
At the second explosion, four hours later, which the French
engineers appeared to take great interest in, there were
present, in addition to the foregoing, General Froissard,
of the French engineers; the French commandant of the
Karabelnaia, Colonel Percy Herbert, and Lieut.-Colonel
Lefroy, R.A. It was at six minutes to one that the drum
was beaten by the French sapper for the thirty-nine
French and four English engineers to light their port-fires.
At five and a quarter minutes, the drum beat two taps for
all to be ready, and at four and three quarter minutes to
one the drum beat one more tap to fire ; in six and a
half minutes afterwards the charges in the side and
bottom of the French east dock exploded almost simul-
taneously. Shortly afterwards the large charges in the
piers of the entrance and behind the steps leading down
to the dock blew up. These three charges shook the
ground all round terribly, and projected large stones per-
pendicularly up in the air to the height of at least nine
hundred feet. In nine and a half minutes the English
charges exploded, causing a very neat demolition of half
the side wall of the basin ; but the powder was, I think,
run a little too fine. After the smoke had cleared away, it
was evident that four of the French charges and one of the
English had not gone off, the four French charges being
two in the entrance pier to their west dock, which was not
blown in by them on the 21st, and two in the side wall of
the basin, adjoining our charges. The demolition of the
French east dock—or " Steamer Dock," as it is called, for
it contains the remains of the paddle steamer which was
brought from Sinope and set fire to by the Russians on
the 9th September—was complete. They appear to have
used too much powder, and the right floodgate being
blown in against the left floodgate has the effect of making
the destruction of the left entrance pier look less complete
than that of the rest of the dock. The quantity of powder
expended in blowing up this dock alone was 10,0001b5.,
with thirty-three charges In all. The twelve side charges
were each 5001bs. Behind the steps leading down to the
bottom of the dock there were one charge of I,ooolbs. and
two of 5001bs. of powder each. The remaining charges,
I mean those under the docks and the floodgate, averaged
about 1101bs. each. After the Russians had fired a few
badly-aimed shells, and the French and English engineers
had examined the debris, the former again fired the four
charges that had not gone off. After the lapse of a few
minutes these exploded, and thus the west and east docks
of the French half, together with the left side of the
large basin, even to the gates, were completely de-
stroyed. Sir William Codrington now asked Col. Lloyd
how long he thought it would be before our engineers
would be ready to blow up the bottom of their east dock.
The answer was, " As soon as Mr. Deen, who has charge
of the voltaic batteries, is ready." Mr. Deen, on being
asked, stated that he could not be ready for two hours;
aqd at this time it was about two. Our three docks, on
account of being about four feet lower than the two French
docks and entrance, have about half a foot of water in
each of them. As a result of this, great difficulties have
had to be contended with; and, owing to the severity of
the weather, the sappers have suffered terribly, both by
night and by day. At about five the wires and cables ap-
peared to be getting fixed. The bunk where Mr. Deen
had his ten voltaic batteries, and from which he fired the
mines, was on the other side of the dockyard high white
wall, and up a steep hill. In the bottom of the dock were
ten charges, each of 1621b5. These were connected by
electric wires to the two cables, making five wires for each
cattle, and these two cables, with an electric wire inside,
ran up the hill through holes in the wall to Mr. Deen's
bunk. Just before the explosion, the force of the electricity
war tested at the end of the cables, which were about 100
yards long. At twenty minutes past five o'clock, just
before dark, Private Sulley, tinsmith by trade, of the 10th
company of Sappers, was ordered by Major Nioholson to
connect the ten wires to the two cables. In another two
minutes all had cleared away. The moment the word
" all right " was passed up to Mr. Dean eight of the ten
charges blew up, which were quite sufficient completely to
destroy the bottom of this dock. The latter was 191 feet
long on the stone skids at bottom, 40 feet wide, and 29 feet
deep. At top it is 238 feet long and 9.5 feet 4 inches wide.
The revetment at top was 6 feet 8 inches broad. Our
centre dock, which in all probability will have its bottom