The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-05-09 00:00:00

THE SUPPLEMENTAL ESTIMATES.

Supplemental estimates were laid before parliament on
Wednesday for the navy, army, and ordnance.
The sum required for the naval expenditure of the year
which has just commenced, beyond the amount already
voted, is no less than £4,553,731; but two-thirds of this
amount (£3,096,700) are for the expense of transporting
troops and horses, an item of expenditure which it is the
practise to charge to the navy, and not to the army de-
partment. Of the remaining portion of this estimate,
£1,457,031, which is for the effective naval service, one of
the first items is £220,000, required for a year's wages for
an additional 5,000 seamen ; and it is proposed also to take
a vote of £llO,OOO, for pay for six months additional, for
5,000 seamen (of the 41,000 already voted), for whom six
months' wages only were voted in the original navy esti-
mates. Corresponding charges follow for victuals and
medicines, and one of £47,000 for additional expense in
in wages to artificers at home. There are also items of
£160,000 for fuel for steam-vessels, £252,674 for the pm,
chase and repair of steam machinery, and £214,657 for the
purchase of steam-vessels, gunboats, &c. The supple-
mental estimate also includes £BO,OOO to provide for the
balance of pay due to the representatives of the officers
and crews of the Erebus and Terror up to the 31st March
last.
The supplemental army estimate is for a further addi-
tion of 14,799 (of all ranks) to the land forces, raising
their numbers to 142,766, or 40,493 more than were voted
at this time last year. The additional charge to be now
voted is only £300,000 ; but the total additional charge,
as compared with the army estimate voted at this time
last year, will thereby be raised to £1,132,470.
The supplemental ordnance estimate is for. £742,132.
The larger portion of the amount is required for stores
and barrack supplies—S44,62l for great coats, £22,113 for
boots and shoes for troops in the field, 430,00 for horses.

The estimates for the three services, as originally
framed and voted, amounted to £17,621,312, being an
increase of £2,257,236 upon the votes of last year. A
supplemental army estimate of £570,000 has since been
voted. The supplemental estimates to be now voted are
Navy—Effective service ... £1,457,041
Transport of troops and
horses .. 3,096,700

Army
Ordnance

£4,553,731
... 300,000
... 742,132

Total .. £5,595,863

REVEL AND CRONSTADT.

THE following description of the Russian ports in the
Baltic, which may probably soon form the scene of
encounters with the allied fleets, will, no doubt, be read
with much interest. We are indebted for it to our
able London contemporary, The Press :
At the entrance to the Gulf of Finland, after the navi-
gator has doubled the isle and lighthouse of Odensholm,
the first points of interest are the fort of Rogervich and
the great harbour called Port Baltic. Before Russia pos-
sessed the splendid harbours of Finland vast works were
began by Peter the Great, and continued by the Empresses
Elizabeth and Catherine, for the purpose of shutting in the
port of Rogervich by a dyke and rendering it fit for a naval
station. But the operations required were not less formi-
dable than those of Cherbourg, and the government ulti-
mately abandoned them. Revel, which lies eight leagues
from Rogervich, has thus become the first or westernmost
military harbour on the gulf. The city of that name is
the capital of Esthonia, contains some 25,000 inhabitants,
and is situated about 130 leagues from St. Petersburg.
The harbour of Revel is extensive, with a great depth
of water. Around it are building-docks, a naval arsenal,
a cannon foundry, and all other works requisite for a mili-
tary port. The town stands on an elevation, and is
strongly fortified, especially on the side towards the sea.
The guns of the citadel command the harbour, although
from some distance. The channel leading into the port
winds.amongst islands and sandbanks, which render the
navigation extremely difficult, especially when, as at pre-
sent, the buoys and landmarks are removed. But, in spite
of these difficulties, the Russians themselves have never
considered Revel impregnable, as they do Cronstadt or
Sveaborg. The government has, however, taken vigorous
measures to strengthen its defences. New batteries have
been constructed ; its suburbs razed within the radius of
a cannon shot ; the women, children, and infirm sent out
of the town ; and the civic and judicial authorities trans-
ferred to Veissenstein, a little town ten leagues inland.
Finally, a corps of 30,000 men has been despatched to
protect the city and its environs.
Penetrating deeper into the Gulf of Finland, we arrive
at Cronstadt, which may be considered at once the out-
work, the arsenal, and the commercial entrepot of St.
Petersburg. Eight leagues of water separate the two
localities ; but that water is seldom more than eight feet
deep, so that all large vessels, and even the packet steam-
ers, are obliged to stop and unload at Cronstadt. Ships-
of-war are indeed built at St. Petersburg, where there are
excellent building and graving docks, but they are always
sent to Cronstadt to be rigged and armed ; and even the
bare hulls of the larger vessels are transported down the
shallow waters of the Neva on "camels." Some years
since the Emperor Nicholas ordered a gigantic ship-of-the-
line, intended to carry 140 guns, to be built in his capital;
but the proportions were so badly calculated that, when
finished, it was found impossible to convey it to the sea,
and the marine colossus was perforce taken to pieces
without ever being launched. Cronstadt itself contains
three ports—one used for commercial purposes, another
for the repair and outfit of ships-of-war, the third as a
station for the Russian navy. _ _

Cronstadt lies upon the island of Katline, three leagues
in length by half a league in breadth. Its western point
is, however, much narrower., Sandbanks surround it on
every side except at the south-east extremity, where the
Own and harbour are situated. Opposite to the island
0.1 the south lies Oranienbaum, on the coast of Ingria.
Along this shore another sandbank stretches, and extends
so far into the sea as to leave but a narrow and winding
channel by way of entrance to Cronstadt harbour. Within
the port, moreover, the water is from six to seven fathoms
deep, but the channel in places is barely four—a depth by
no means sufficient for huge 131 gun ships like the Duke
of Wellington, for whose passage even the Sound was not
considered safe. Beyond this channel and the harbour,
on the side towards St. Petersburg, there is a roadstead,
but too shallow for ships-of-war, and only imperfectly
sheltered by the island of Cronstadt and the heights of
Oranienbaum. Farther on, as we have mentioned, the
water shoals to eight feet. All this part of the gulf is
brackish, the proportion of salt in the water diminishing
as we approach the eastern extremity, where it degenerates
into a series of lagoons leading up to Lake Ladoga.
In its double character of fortress and trading town,
Cronstadt boasts a fluctuating. population amounting
sometimes to 50,000 souls, if we include some 20,000 gar-
rison, and the commercial and maritime residents. The
town is built of wood. Except the Admiralty, the great
hospital, and the military works of all sorts, there are. no
edifices either of strength or importance in the place. The
batteries, the forts, and the vast moles which surround its
three harbours, are indeed of the most imposing magnifi-
cence. Russia has always been addicted to a kind of thea-
trical display in her public performances of all kinds.
There is much of this developed in the fortifications at
Cronstadt, although they also possess the reality of strength
to a serious degree.
Approaching Cronstadt from the west, we have on the
left the western angle of the island forming a Shari)
point, extended into the sea by a line of rocks, of which
the last is crowned by the lighthouse of Talboukin. After-
wards we pass the south coast of the isle, lined with batte-
ries, and in front a series of five forts, placed chequerwise,
on rocks or banks, between which winds the deep water
channel leading into the harbour. On the right, about
two leagues off, are the heights of Oranienbaum, with its
imperial park and chateau. In the distance, when the fogs
permit, may be traced the outlines of St. Petersburg, whose
lofty edifices, and the gilded dome of the Church of St.
Isaac, stand out in bold relief against the sky.
The most formidable defences which Cronstadt possesses
are those that guard the entrance to its tri7l', harbour.
There are five forts in the sea and seven on tha shore or
the moles. These forts are furnished with casemated bat-
teries, each of two or three stages, and the greater part of
them built of huge squared blocks of granite, whereon it
is said shot can make no impression. The position of
these batteries has been carefully adjusted so as to enfilade
the different sinuosities of the channel, so that every ship
approaching Cronitadt must be exposed to a series of
raking fires in front, without having a chance of bringing
her broadside to bear until she has arrived actually be-
tween the forts. A single vessel also sunk in mid-channel
would effectually choke up the passage.
A technical description of this mass of fortifications
would be very uninteresting and altogether unintelligible
without a plan. We must, therefore, content ourselves
with a brief enumeration of the series of cannon-crowded
piles of masonry which, an intruding fleet will have suc-
cessively -to •eonfront. On the coast of the island, and
lying to the west of the channel, there are—l. The Peteri
fort, presenting to the sea a rounded curtain, flanked by
two casemated bastions. These bastions have a double
tier of guns, of which the upper is au "en barbette,"
uncovered from above. The fort mounts altogether
seventy-six pieces of large calibre. 11. The Kesel battery,
mounting eight cannon on the water level. 111. A bat-
tery commanding the landing place, situated outside
the walls of the town, on a projecting cape, comprising
ten guns. IV. The great mole, covering the commercial
harbour on the west, and presenting an immense battery
of seventy cannon and twelve mortars right in front of all
entering vessels. V. Fort Menschikoff, constructed op-
posite the mole on the other side of the harbour. This
fort constitutes a parallelogram, pierced with forty-four
embrasures, and mounted with cannon of ten and twelve
inches calibre. VI. A battery, which commands the

second or outfitting harbour. VII. Another battery, on
the mole of the military harbour at the south-east of the
island and the town. The moles which we have men-
tioned are not mere jetties thrown forward into the sea,
but continuous works surrounding and dividing the three
harbours. They are formed of double ranges of piles,
whose surface is broad enough both for the passage of
vehicles and the manoeuvring of the guns. The three
ports have two entrances apiece, each of the six openings
being masked by a large demi-lune formed of piles, which
are crowned with cannon, and flank the curtains of the
moles.

These land batteries mount about 250 large guns. In
addition, there are a series of forts built in the sea, and
containing about 400 more. The first of these, reckoning
from seawards, consists of a pair of forts called Alexander
and Risbank, between which all vessels must pass at a dis-
tance from each of about eight hundred yards, for the
channel, which narrows afterwards, is nearly a mile wide
at its entrance. Fort Alexander is, in its ground plan, of
an elliptical shape—an enormous granite pate, it has been
called—consisting of a front with four tiers of cannon, two
flanks with three tiers, and a rear wall mounted with guns
en barbette. It is built of granite, on piles driven througl,
eighteen feet of water. Ships rounding this fort are com-
manded by 116 eight and ten inch guns. Risbank, which
lies to the right, is also built of granite, on a foundation of
piles in sixteen feet water. It contains sixty-two heavy
guns in two tiers, the lowest of which is on the water level.
Then comes Fort Constantine, nearly facing the Petersfor,
already mentioned, and containing twenty-five guns in
single tier ; and afterwards we approach the Fort St.
Peter, facing the battery on the landing-place, and armed
with fifty cannon, twenty-eight of which are in casemates.
Last is the grand fort of Cronslott, at once the most an-
cient and th nearest to the harbour. Its form is that 01
an irregular pentagon, flanked by five small bastions at it:
angles. The armament consists of fifty-six guns in case.
mated embrasures, and thirty-two inopen batteries. Crons-
lott forms the Menschikoff fort, the former to the right,
the latter to the left, of the deep water channel, which al
that point is barely two hundred yards in width. Passin!,
ships must, therefore, approach within one hundreds yards
of one or other of these formidable batteries. The tota'
number of guns, mortars, &c., mounted upon all the fort
we have enumerated is nearly six hundred, and their fin
crosses at almost every point. Their combined strengtl,
doubtless prompted the Emperor Nicholas when recently
saying, with a smile of irony, " I am curious to learn b,
which end they will lay hold of Cronstadt."
Many of the forts above described are assailable frog
the rear • but their rear never could be assailed unt
Cronstadt itself had fallen. There is, no doubt, a norther
shore to the island. But the channel on this side is.com
partitively shallow, and has been carefully obstructed b;
the Russians, who have driven in a double row of piles si
miles in length, and filled up with massive blocks of stout
It is, however, in this quarter that an 'attacking fore
would, it is stated, find its best chance of :.access.
powerful fleet to keep the command at sea, a flotilla of
gun-boats for the shallow waters, and a strong body of
land forces, comprising 25, or 30,000 men, well supplied
with engineering tools and materials, might, it is believed,
overcome all obstacles and effect a lodgment on the north
west point of the island. There they might cover their
position with intrenchments in the course of a couple of
nights, and thence besiege the town and fortifications from
the rear, or shell them from a distance. None of the sea
forts, except perhaps Forts Costantine and St. Peter, are
near enough to do any damage to the invaders on that
side. And though the higher guns of the great forts on
the channel command the surface of the ground, the
enemy may speedily place themselves in the shelter of en-