The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-02-21

NN'N- tSAN"NNNA AtA e'At OpSCt NtAAo 1SNN'SAA within the Notifications. These mine l fields have been and are to be so ar | ranged that it will be practically an | impossibility for any hostile vessel at l tempting to pass over them to escape being blown out of the water.
 These defensive works have been planned With the greatest deliberation, party after party of the most expert engineers in the British service having been sent out to examine and report upon the local situation for many years before construction was actually enter ed upon. The cost is defrayed jointly and equally by the imperial and the Canadian governments, and to date has come to close upon $1,000,000, while the works are far from completion. The construction has been carried out under the expert supervision of Maj. Muir head, royal engineers one of the clev- | crest officers in that highly skilled branch of the British service, and one of his assistants has been Lieut.. Cor don, nephew of the famous Chinese | Gordon. There is maintained at Nlc- toria an imperial force of 50 men of the royal marine artillery and 40 of the en- gineers, at the joint expense of the two | governments. These regulars have been engaged in directing the work ot | construction, but the laborers' work, or | course, has not fallen to their lot, men being engaged on the spot for this. When it becomes necessary to operate the forts in time of war, these British artillerymen and engineers Will form the nucleus of the defensive force, which in the main will consist or the British Columbia regiment of artillery, the fifth on the Canadian register There are two battalions of this regi- | ment, one stationed at the city of N1c- tora, and the other at Vancouver, on the mainland, so miles away, the ter minus of the Canadian Pacific railway. There are three companies in each pat talion and the authorized strength or each company is 100 of all ranks. These are citizen soldiers, following without Interruption in time of peace their va rious civil occupations and putting Tn their military training in the evenings and on general holidays. In the com prehensive plan of defense already ar ranged every officer and man of the garrison has his allotted place, and at the last Easter maneuvers the Victoria battalion were told off as they would be in time of war and several detach- ments stationed at their posts within the Notifications.
 The six-inch guns now in position at Macaulay Point and Red Hill are not the permanent armament, but are ex- pected to give place in the near future to much heavier type, the nine-inch of 23 tons weight. These artillery mon l ,LDf Of weight with such force as to penetrate from 15 to 20 inches of armor at dis tance of 1000 yards
 The Imperieuse, the flag ship of the British squadron now. on this station, carries guns of this type. There are now eight war vessels making this their headquarters, these being the fol- lowing:
 Imperieuse, twin-screw armored cruiser of the first-class, S,400.
 Amphion, Leander and Phaeton, twin screw cruisers of the second class, each 4,S00 tons.
 Icarus, screw-sloop, 970 tons.
 Pheasant. screw gun boat of the first-class, 750 tons.
 Sparrowhawk, twin-screw torpedo boat destroyer Gender to the Imperle- use).
 Virago, twin-screw torpedo boat des- troyer.
 The little torpedo boat destroyers are novelty on this station, the Virago and Sparrowhawk being the first of this class to be seen here. They are simply a mass of machinery, their horsepower giving them speed up ward of 30 miles an hour, being under forced draught 6,200 while the power of !, the great second-class cruisers, beside which the destroyers are but pygmies, is but 5000, though this is under nat ural draught The sending of craft of this class to Esquimalt is in connection with the scheme of defense of which the Notifications already described are but the beginning. The crews of the , ships now at this station total about 2500 men, and a considerable number , are employed also at skilled labor in the naval yard and in connection with the immense grading dock adjoining, built by the two governments, and cap- able of accommodating the largest vessel afioat in the Pacific The dock is available for the use of the mercantile marine, though ships of her majesty s navy at all times have the first right to it.
 Though Esquimalt is connected by < the Esquimalt and Nanaimo railway with the famous coal mines of Van- couver island, reliance is not placed on , these to supply this coaling station :, but the coal is sent direct from Wales in sailing ships. This is the plan of the British navy all over the world, the fu-
 el coming from one central spot, and the furnaces of all the vessels being , best adapted to that particular variety They can, however, and often do, use the local coal There is a great quan- ,, tity of naval stores laid away in the
 navy yard at Esquimalt, and included
 in these is the equipment for the Elm press steamers of the Canadian Pacific
 line to Japan and China. These vessels , are granted a large annual subsidy SC :, as to be available at any time for duty as transports or as armed cruisers , and, as the fittings for their guns have
 all been arranged for in the ships, ii would take but "A hours after their ar ! rival at either Esquimalt or Hong Kong ' to place their guns in position and , have these fleet auxiliaries ready fol , any service to which they are adapted l, Just as the British are developing , their marvelously rich territories or , this side of the Pacific, so are the Rus , Sians opening up Siberia. As the Brit