The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-07-17

HTGld writes an interesting letter from the
French naval port of Brest, from which we
take the following
THE HARBoR AND RoADsTEAD.
An ordinary map gives very little idea of
the natural strength of the port of Brest.
The northern point is marked by the light
house of st. Mathieux, whence the shore runs
in an irregular line, marked by slaty rocks of
no great height but of very great ruggedness,
to Point de Minou, from which the cable
starts, and the lighthouse on which is due
east of the Phare st. Mathieux. The southern
point is the lighthouse of Toulinguet, on the
peninsula of Camaret; and hence to the bat
terry called Quelern des Capucnes the coast
line is very irregular, and the precipices are
somewhat higher than on the opposite coast.
Inside the Menou and Quelern gullet the
water expands into one of the most magnif-
cent roadsteads in the world, which runs in
two arms, one due east, about thirteen miles
in length by perhaps three in width, and the
other seven and half miles long and two
and a half wide. There is deep water for the
largest men-of-war almost anywhere in this
road, which affords, or rather used to afford,
shelter from the fury alike of the elements
and of man. On the north side of the road
lies the town of Brest with a creek about one
hundred and twenty yards in width, running
north northwest and dividing the place into
devoted almost exclusively to military works;
some of which also lie on the bank on the
east of the creek, known as the Penfeld,
wherein fifty three-deckers could find plenty
of room, for it is more than two miles in
length, with ten or twelve fathoms of water
throughout. The commercial port lies to the
east of the entrance to the Penfeld, and
affords every facility for shipping at most
stages of the tide, and for loading and un-
L. - Ill 1lNa
built; the warehouses would be more hume
rous if there were more goods to be put in
them and branch of the railway runs along
side the vessels.
FoRTIFICATIoNs.
The Notifications are all, judged by the
present state of military science, very poor.
There is not a fort about Brest that would
stand as much battering from modern guns
as an ordinary martello tower. The masonry
is chiefly rubble work faced with cut stone,
and the mortar in many cases appears hardly
strong enough to hold the stones together.
The batteries might have been very great
things in the time of Louis XIV, who built
the arsenal, or even of the first Napoleon;
but half dozen gunboats with six ton guns
would give a very speedy account of them
now. The guns, too, except in one place,
are only old thirty-twos and eighteens, or
| the corresponding French sizes, and L should
| Like to be in shelter of a casemate even if the
bulk of them were only to fire a salute.
In another point Brest is at present very
weak. The magazine, said to contain fifty
| thousand tons of powder, is absolutely within
| range of the shells of gunboat, which need
not even expose itself to danger in attacking
the store house that, if fired, would clear half
Finisterre of everything living. 1t is situated
] on the lie des Morts, lying in the road about
| four hundred yards from the shore of the
peninsula of Camaret which is here only
| about fifteen hundred metres across. BY
taking the bearings on a chart, then gun
| boat possessing the means of throwing shell
| a distance of two thousand yards over the not
very high peninsula would ruin the most
western department of France. This danger
will now be avoided by the construction of a
| bomb-proof magazine nearly ten miles up the
southern arm of Brest roads, in small shell
| tered bay, where the ground is admirably fit
ted for the purpose.
| TRAINING SHIPS.
In the road lie two on three training vessels,
! which it is a rare treat TO visit. The chief OF
Them is named the Infexible, ship for boys
who are neither guilty Of crime nor OF pau
perism. nor of anything but that they are the
sons of men who have served their country
To have a claim to place his son on board thI'
ship is one of the prizes offered for good con
duct to a French sailor. The father IS relieved
of the expense of maintaining his child whet
the latter is as little as two or three years old
Then he is sent TO an establishment on Shof'
until he attains the age Of eight or ten, wheI
he is shifted aaQat. A great proportion Of w