Eastern times. [volume] (Bath, Me.) 1846-1857, 1854-11-09
The Citv of Sebastono1.

The following description of the place will
read with much interest. 1t is given by Mr..
Scott, and English traveller. and late soinur-
ner there, and was no doubt correct at the time
he left. II must be borne in mind, however,
that The Russian commander, Menschikuff
made immediate additions to the defences since
Mr.. Scott must have been compelled TO leave
The port consists Of bay, running in a
south easterly direction, miles in depth, a
mile wide at the entrance, and narrowing to a
quarter of a mile at the end where a small
river enters it. 1t has an average depth of wa
ter Of about 8 fathoms, the bottom being OF
mud in the centre, and Of gravel at the sides
The military harbor, where largest ships may
lie with all their stores on board, close to the
quays, is mile and half long, and quarter
of mile wide. 1t is land locked on every
side. On the east side, near the entrance, are
sides the commercial and the careenng har-
bors, and outside the entrance is the quaran-
tine harbor. The port is defended on the
south side by six principal batteries and for
tresses, mounting from so to 100 guns each,
and on the north by 4 with Is to l2O guns
each, and are many small batteries in addition.
The fortresses are built on the casemate princi-
pie. Three Of them baVe tiers Of guns, and
fourth tiers. The largest, Fort Nicholas,
mounts about 100 guns. II is built like all
the other forts, of white lime stone,-a fine,
sound stone, which hardens by exposure to the
air, and is very durable. Between every two
casemates are furnaces for heating shot red hot
Mr.. Scott measured the calbre of the guns and
found it 8 inches, capable Of throwing shells,
or 68 h. solid shot He conld not say wheth-
er all the guns in the fortress were Of the same
size, but il was his belief that most Of the
Notifications were heavily armed.
At the Time Of his visit there were not more
that $50 pieces Of artillery defending the fort
towards The sea, and Of these about $50 could be
concentrated on ship entering the Say. The
position is admirably adapted by nature for
strength towards the sea, and it has been fully
taken advantage Of, TO make it one Of the stron-
est that can well be imagined. The work
however, Of the casemated fortresses, he saws.
is badly constructed, although il has an mpo-
sing exterior-lhs work being carried on un-
der Russian engineers, whose object was 10
make as much money as possible, the walls
are filled in with rubbish This is said to have
been the case with the principal fortress al
Bomarsaund, yet il is difficult to imagine that
so costly works as those at SebastOpol can have
been in general constructed in such a manner,
lhongh we doubt not the Russian, as well as
most other governments, has been defraOded
TO a great extent IN this manner. Mr.. Scott
remarks also that the fortresses were found de-
fective in ventilation, TO remedy which some
alterations were subsequently made; but admit
ting all these defects, he adds, they are still
strung enough 10 infiict some amount of injury
on an attacking feet before their guns could be
senced, and in addition TO those pieces, which
now may number $50, there are 500 guns Of
large calibre In strong open batteries half Of
them throwing shell and red hot shot. Ifthese