The Sun.
London, England, 1862-03-25 00:00:00

THE ARMY.

His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge in•
spected yesterday, on the parade in front of the
Horse Guards, the 2d and 3d battalions of the

Grenadier Guards, for the first time since his ap-
pointment as Colonel of the regiment in the place
of the late Prince Consort. The two battalions
formed in contiguous columns
battalion,
E. G. Wynyard was in
columnasnadttl: o3'dclowckas.
com-
manded Lambertmancommandd e dby C
of
otcommanded,
Serene
he 2d
Col.
his Highness Prince Edward
of Saxe-Weimar, C.B. The Duke of Cambridge,
attended
after
dbeyr
th
Co Clifton, arrived on the parade
shortly el.
line
Was formed, attended by
Major-General Sir J. Yorke Scarlett, the Adjutant-
General; Major-General Sir Richard Airey, the
Quartermaster-General ; Major-General James R.
Craufurd, attached to the Poet Guards; Captain P.
Smith, acting Brigade-Major; Lieut. the Hon. C.
G.Eliot, &c. The assembled troops having presented
arms on the arrival of his Royal Highness on the
three sides of a square.
the front and up the rear,
h
the inspection. Both bat-
tThe ebDukea ground,n d
playing
thendeployed
rode
d into
urd i
down
w line n
n e in
bat-
talions next marched past in slow time by compa-
nies, and then in grand divisions in quick time.
After advancing in line of contiguous column, the
officers , and were addressed by
his Royal were
lHeexpressed his satisfaction
icgahl lneede
ei
wf rhoen t
at the appearance of the regiment and the precision
with which the evolutions had been gone through.
The troops, after saluting the Duke before his de-
parture, were marched back to their respective bar-
racks. The short notice in an evening contemporary
of the inspection abounds in mistakes, officers bang
named as being present who aro absent abroad, and
others who have retired from the service.

The spring half-yearly change of quarters of the
Division of Foot Guards will take place on Tuesday
next, the Ist proximo. The 2d battalion of the
Grenadier Guards remove from the St. George's,
Wellington, and Magazine Barracks, to Windsor.
'1 he 3d battalion remove from Portman-street Bar-
racks to the Wellington Barracks (old wing) and
Buckingham Palace. The 2d battalion of the
Coldstream Guards remove from Wellington Bar-
racks and Buckingham Palace to Portman-street
and St, John's-wood Barracks; the Ist battalion of
Scots Fusileer Guards from Windsor to St. George's,
Wellington, and Magazine Barracks. No orders
have been issued for the removal of the Ist battalion
of the Coldstream Guards, quartered in Dublin.
A detachment of the Grenadier Guards, c,nsist-
ing of 150 men and eight officers, under the com-
mand of Captain the Hon. F. Stanley, have arrived
at Eastbourne to undergo a course of rifle practice
at the range, which is said to be the best in Great
Britain. Detachments will continue to be sent dur-
ing the summer.
The existing fortifications which command the
main entrance of the Channel of the Medway have
just been considerably strengthened by the substi-
tution of the new 110-pounder Armstrong guns, 10-
inch, 8-inch, and 68-pounder smooth bore ordnance
for the guns formerly mounted on those defences.
The whole of the guns are mounted on dwarf tra-
versing platforms, fitted with the improvements in-
troduced by Col. Coiquhoun, R.A., consisting of
hollow soled trucks and raised racers, by means of
which additional facilities are obtained for working
the guns. The excellent position in which the new
guns are mounted, combined with their enormous
calibre, as compared with the former armament of
our coasts, would make it impossible for any hos-
tile vessel to force the naturally intricate estuary of
the Medway. In addition, however, to the existing
lines of fortifications, several powerful forts and
batteries are gradually being raised along both sides
of the entrance to the Medway, forming, as it were,
a double chain of fortifications, rendering a success-
ful attack on either Chatham or Sheerness dock-
yard impossible. The largest of these batteriesis that
which is now in course of erection on the command-
ing projection known as Garrison Point. Already
the foundations of this massive casemated fort have
been completed. The foundations consist entirely
of brickwork, resting on a broad substantial con-
crete bottom carried to a great depth, in order to
support the enormous weight to be thrown on them.
The fort will occupy nearly the same site as the
Halfmoon and Cavalier Batteries erected upwards
of 200 centuries since, both of which have recently
been demolished. In the prosecution of the work
the bricks which composed the foundation of the
two demolished batteries were found to be in such
excellent preservation that most of them were again
used for the foundation of the new fort. This saved
a considerable expense, no less than 2,000,000
bricks being required for this part of the under-
taking alone. As soon as the foundations are con-
sidered
to sustain the weight to
b eplaced sufficiently
ork of raising the pla settled tt
on led
them,
e m the
work
super-
structure will be proceeded with, in order that the
fort may be completed and mounted with its ar-
mament before the close of the present financial
has been, will be triflingthis fort, great as it
year. The cost of erecting
compared with that in-
curred in building the two large forts higher up the
Medway, on each side the river, at Darnetness and
Folly-point, close to the entrance of Chatham har-
bour. The position for the two forts at the stops
named is certainly the very best which could have
the most formidable obstacles have to be eneoun-
theereend
t h e
locality, however, it
would now appear that the necessary precautions
had not been adopted to ascertain the nature of the
soil on which it was intended to place two enormous
forts, the result of which is
that on a soft, spongy
soil, scarcely firm enough to sustain a hut, it was
decided to place a powerful
brick fort. The ex-
penses already incurred have
been something enor-
mous. From the rate at which the works proceed,
and are then destroyed, we may infer that years
will lapse before the battery now attempted to be