at Swan River—Detachment to New Zealand—Draft to Hong-Kong—Mining
operations at Seaford Bay—Determinations of the latitudes of various
trigonometrical stations—Sergeant James Steel—Professor Airy—The
leisure of the sergeant—New method of acquiring a knowledge of
chess—Hardships of a party landed at Rona.
Early in the year, Sir Robert Gardiner, the governor at Gibraltar, wrote
a complimentary letter to Sir John Burgoyne, relative to the companies
of the corps under his Excellency’s command. “My opinion of the
sappers,” he says, “is everything that you, in your personal, natural,
and official station would desire; their movements surprise me, and are
proofs of the care and attention of the officers, who must be good
tacticians, as well as good engineers.”
On the 15th February, five rank and file embarked at Deptford in the
‘Scindian’ convict ship, under Captain E. Y. W. Henderson, R.E., for the
Swan River settlement, and landed at Freemantle on the 11th June. The
captain had been appointed comptroller-general of prisons, and obtained
the authority of Earl Grey, then Secretary of State for the colonies, to
take with him this small detachment. The men were experienced as
soldiers and tradesmen: one of their number was a competent draughtsman
and architect, and another was acquainted with surveying, camp-duty, and
the mode of blasting rock. On their arrival in the colony, they were
appointed warders over the convicts, as well to keep them in discipline
as to direct them in the execution of the various works that might be
undertaken for the establishment of a penal settlement and the
development of the colony. The party was also intended to superintend
the submarine operations required in the removal of the bar at the mouth
of the harbour. The rates of working-pay granted to them, ranged between
1_s._ 3_d._ and 2_s._ a-day. A full company has since been added to the
command on the recommendation of Captain Henderson, R.E.
Late in March one sergeant and twenty-six rank and file embarked for New
Zealand, under Lieut. F. R. Chesney, R.E., and landed at Auckland on the
26th August, increasing the detachment there to a half-company of
forty-one strong. The removal of this party from Woolwich was occasioned
by the loss by shipwreck, near the Cape of Good Hope, of the detachment
which sailed for that colony in April, 1849.
Fifteen rank and file embarked on the 15th May for China, and landed at
Victoria on the 18th October. This was the fifth detachment sent to that
country. Two men sent from Woolwich in April, to superintend the laying
of asphalte on the government works, arrived at Hong Kong on the 17th
June.
At Seaford Bay, on the coast of Sussex, the sea had made considerable
encroachment, so as to jeopardise much of the adjacent property, and
also the defences and martello-tower in its vicinity. Large sums of
money had been expended in the construction of wood groins and clay
embankments, with only partial success; and as an effectual remedy, it
was proposed to throw down by mining a portion of the chalk rock itself,
in the direction of the tidal current, and thus cause it to accumulate
the shingle and protect the land and contiguous property. The cliff was
high, bold, and bare, and worn at the base into hollows and long
perpendicular crevices by the lashing of the waves, which, at high
water, rushed up its aged and craggy face. With the view to efficiency
and economy, the Master-General approved of the operations being carried
out by a detachment of sappers and miners; and accordingly two sergeants
and forty-four rank and file of the fourth company left Portsmouth at
the end of July under Lieutenant E. W. Ward, R.E., who, on arriving at
Seaford, lost no time in commencing the interesting undertaking. Late in
August, the party was increased by ten rank and file under Captain
Craigie, to assist in completing the final arrangements, and to take the
military duty consequent upon the anticipated explosion.
The works were conducted under the direction of Colonel G. G. Lewis,
R.E., with Captain E. C. Frome as his executive officer. In the face of
the cliff, about thirty-five feet above high-water mark, a nearly
horizontal gallery was cut a considerable distance into the chalk. The
mouth of this gallery was approached by a ladder and platform, supported
by scaffolding. Inside the opening a cave was formed for spare tools and
materials, and another also was excavated at the end of the gallery for
a similar purpose. At right angles from this gallery, extending
fifty-five feet to the right and sixty-five to the left, were
corresponding galleries, at the extremities of which were two chambers
of about seven feet cube, containing 12,000 lbs. of powder each. Two
wires, respectively in connexion with two of Grove’s batteries,
completed the arrangements for exploding these charges simultaneously.
The chambers of powder were about seventy feet from the face of the
cliff, and were intended to drive out its under portions and roll them
towards the sea. Upon the surface of the rock, eighty-four feet from its
edge, were sunk five vertical shafts, at the bottom of which other
chambers were excavated, containing, in three of them, each 600 lbs. of
powder, to be fired simultaneously with the two great charges. The two
other chambers were not loaded, from the non-arrival of a sufficient
quantity of powder. The shaft chambers were connected by wires to a
Smee’s battery, placed in a wooden shed erected about 180 feet from the
edge of the cliff. The wires to convey the electric fluid to each
chamber were covered with tape and varnished or tarred over. The
galleries were tamped with sand and chalk, in bags, to within fifty feet
of the mouth, both branches being tamped up, and twenty feet down the
large gallery. “The men worked in reliefs for the whole twenty-four
hours. For the gallery three reliefs of four men each, were appointed;
and subsequently for the branches three reliefs of six men for the
two.... The relieving hours were 6 A.M., 6 P.M., and midnight, except at
periods when the high spring tides prevented the relief passing a
projecting part of the cliff at the proper hours, when arrangements were
made to equalize the extra time the men were so employed.... The work
was hardly ever interrupted in its progress, for by compelling each
relief to be in barracks six hours before their turn came for work, the
men were invariably fresh at the commencement of their time; and as the
working pay was good and the best miners were always employed, the
average amount of work performed by night equalled that accomplished by
day.”
All the necessary operations being completed, the great explosion, on a
signal from the galvanic battery by sergeant Edward Wright took place on
the 19th September, under the immediate orders of Colonel Lewis. The
effect of firing the two great chambers was to throw out the under
portions of the rock, which, from the downward pressure of the
superincumbent masses, rolled with a convulsive heaving towards the sea,
carrying with them the three smaller chambers unexploded, and causing
deep fissures in the chalk as far back as the very foundation of the
battery shed. The undertaking, so far as dislocating an immense mass of
chalk from the cliff was concerned, was thus perfectly successful; but
subsequent experience has thrown doubts upon its utility as a
breakwater, for the chalk is gradually being washed away, and if some
natural intervention does not take place to conglomerate the mass into a
compact resisting body, time will remove the headland altogether, and
expose as before the land and its defences to the gradual invasion of
the sea.
The explosion was one of the largest that had ever occurred, and passed
off without accident, delay, confusion, or inconvenience to any one of
the detachment engaged, or to the thousands of spectators who witnessed
the operation.[48] The quantity of chalk displaced was about 200,000
cubic yards, or about 292,000 tons. The distance the debris was hurled
in front of the original line of cliff was more than 300 feet. The
average breadth of the mound formed was about 360 feet, and its mean
height about 50 feet.
Much of the expense of the service was paid by Mr. Catt, jun., a miller,
to whom the surrounding property belonged, and who, as well for his own
interest as for the welfare of Newhaven and its harbour, undertook a
large share in the liability. The total cost of the work was 907_l._
12_s._ 11½_d._ Of this sum only 92_l._ 3_s._ 1_d._ was spent on sapper
labour, which included their services for levelling the ground, and
other preliminary duties, excavating the galleries, shafts, and
chambers, digging a trench above the cliff, loading and tamping the
mines, making surveys and sections of the cliff and the works, preparing
and laying wires, clearing away the debris, and various other
miscellaneous duties, which the extensive and peculiar character of the
operations rendered essential.
Lieutenant-General Sir John Burgoyne, the inspector-general of
fortifications, Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Pasley, and a number of
officers of royal engineers, were present to witness the explosion.
Later in the day the non-commissioned officers and privates commemorated
the success of their exertions with an excellent dinner. “Night and
day,” wrote Colonel Lewis, “the detachment worked with great zeal and
alacrity, exposed to colds from draughts and alternations of
temperature, and to injury from falling masses. Nevertheless, no
material accident occurred to any one, and all gained the praise of
their officers, and the respect of the inhabitants of Seaford for their
courteous behaviour and good conduct.”[49]
The observations made with Airy’s zenith sector for the determination of
the latitudes of various trigonometrical stations used in the ordnance
survey of the British Isles, which commenced in 1842, terminated in
December 1850, and the results have become the subject of an important
volume from the pen of Captain Yolland, R.E. The instrument at first was
in charge of officers of the corps, but in course of time, from a
paucity in their number, it devolved upon corporal, afterwards sergeant,
James Steel. The first man of the sappers honoured with the use of the
instrument was private Benjamin Keen Spencer,[50] who was employed with
the earliest parties in carrying on the observations; and it is not a
little curious to add, that General Colby directed his own personal
observations, the work of his most able days to be tested by sergeant
Steel. This is a striking proof both of the greatness of his mind, and
his freedom from those petty jealousies which sometimes mar the
superiority of distinguished characters.[51]
The following table (p. 48), taken from Captain Yolland’s Sector Volume,
“shows in a condensed form the stations observed from, the period during
which the observations were in progress, the officer of royal engineers,
or non-commissioned officer of royal sappers and miners in charge of the
instrument, and the strength of the party; also the number of nights on
which observations were made, and the number of observations registered
at each station.”[52]
────────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────
│ │ │ Officer or Number of Number
│Observations in progress. │non-commissioned Nights on of
Stations │——————- │——————- │ Officer Strength which Ob- Single
│ │ │ in charge of of the servations Obser-
│From │To │the Instrument. Sappers. were made. vations.
────────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────
South Barule, │11 Oct., 1842│12 Oct., 1842│ Lieuts. Hornby 6 2 113
Isle of Man. │ │ │ and Gosset
│ │ │
Blackdown, │26 Nov. ” │1 Jan., 1843 │ Ditto 7 20 1087[53]
Dorset │ │ │
│ │ │
Precelly │11 Apr., 1843│10 May ” │ Lieuts. Hornby 5 17 674[53]
Mountain, │ │ │ and Luyken
Wales │ │ │
│ │ │
Forth Mountain, │29 May ” │17 June ”│ Lieut. Hornby 7 12 659
Wexford │ │ │
│ │ │
Hungry Hill, Co.│30 June ” │31 July ” │ Ditto 7 9 295[53]
Cork │ │ │
│ │ │
Feaghmann, Co. │14 Aug. ” │26 Aug. ” │ Ditto 7 9 395[53]
Kerry │ │ │
│ │ │
Tawnymore, Co. │ 2 Oct. ” │14 Oct. ” │ Ditto 2 7 294
Mayo │ │ │
│ │ │
S. End of L. │ 8 Nov. ” │15 Nov. ” │ Ditto 2 6 335
Foyle Base │ │ │
│ │ │
Monach, │16 June, 1844│3 July, 1844 │ Lieut. Gosset 5 10 180
Stornoway │ │ │
│ │ │
Ben Hutich, │ 5 Nov. ” │24 Nov. ” │ Ditto 6 10 480
Sutherlandshire│ │ │
│ │ │
Hensbarrow, │ 9 June, 1845│14 June, 1845│ Corporal Steel 4 6 290
Cornwall │ │ │
│ │ │
South Barule, │21 July ” │5 Aug. ” │ Ditto 3 2 114
Isle of Man │ │ │
│ │ │
Ben Lomond │ 2 Sept. ” │4 Oct. ” │ Ditto 4 11 635
│ │ │
Ben Heynish, │11 Nov. ” │28 Dec. ” │ Ditto 4 10 267
Isle of Tiree │ │ │
│ │ │
Week Down, Isle │26 Apr., 1846│17 May, 1846 │ Ditto 4 11 556
of Wight │ │ │
│ │ │
Dunnose, ditto │24 May ” │6 June ” │ Ditto 4 13 643
│ │ │
Boniface Down, │13 June ” │21 June ” │ Ditto 4 7 356
ditto │ │ │
│ │ │
Port Valley, │28 June ” │14 July ” │ Ditto 4 10 411
ditto │ │ │
Saxavord, Unst, │ 3 Oct. ” │26 Jan., 1847│ Ditto 4 20 566
Shetland │ │ │
│ │ │
Gerth of Scaw, │16 Feb., 1847│10 Apr. ” │ Ditto 4 21 581
ditto │ │ │
│ │ │
Balta, in │30 Apr. ” │13 July ” │ Ditto 4 20 732[54]
Shetland Isles│ │ │
│ │ │
Cowhythe, │ 7 Aug. ” │27 Sept. ” │ Ditto 4 18 641
Banffshire │ │ │
│ │ │
Southampton │21 Oct. ” │4 Sept., 1848│Sergt. Steel and 2 180 8730
│ │ │Corp. W. Jenkins
│ │ │
St. Agnes, │13 May, 1850 │1 June, 1850 │ Sergeant Steel 4 11 418
Scilly │ │ │
│ │ │
Goonhilly Down │25 June ” │28 July ” │ Ditto 4 9 442
Cornwall │ │ │
│ │ │
North Rona, │11 Sept. ”│16 Sept ” │ Ditto 4 5 428
Co. of Ross │ │ │
│ │ │
Great Stirling, │14 Nov. ”│6 Dec. ” │ Ditto 4 9 439
Aberdeenshire │ │ │
────────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────────
“The list of stars,” says Captain Yolland, “selected for observation
fell within the parallels of declination of 37° 38´ and 69° 54´. About
two-thirds of this number were originally chosen, so as to admit of a
continuous series of observations being made when the weather proved
favourable throughout the night, and two observers were for some time
employed with the instrument, who relieved each other after an interval
of several hours’ work. The observations were frequently carried on
continuously for upwards of eight hours, but six hours’ constant
observing was reckoned a good night’s work for one person, in
consequence of the fatigue caused by his having to ascend twice to the
table to make each complete or double observation.”[55] In the course of
the service additional stars, not originally selected for observation,
were occasionally observed, some of which were not found in the works of
the best authorities.[56] Two men, ready penmen, were also employed in
booking, and afterwards copying, the observations on the skeleton forms,
for transmission to the map office at Southampton, where the necessary
computations in connection with the observations, were carried out and
completed under the direction of Captain Yolland, R.E.
It would be out of place here to make any copious detail of the
employment of the sappers on this special duty, belonging as it properly
does to the history of the operation, and being so amply recorded in
Captain Yolland’s Sector Volume; but exception may fairly be taken to a
few particulars in the personal services of the sergeant, which may
prove interesting to the reader, and induce other non-commissioned
officers in the corps to render themselves not only useful to their
officers, but to deserve, in executing any important duty for which they
may be selected, their confidence and approbation.
Sergeant Steel’s first station was at Hensbarrow,[57] from which he was
removed to South Barule, and after completing his observations there, he
was stationed for a time on the wild and romantic hill of Ben Lomond.
There he witnessed a phenomenon which, perhaps, had never before been
seen by any one. He had frequently been _above_ the clouds, and at
Hensbarrow, of a low altitude compared with Ben Lomond, he had observed
the stars a whole night when the clouds _beneath him_ were saturating
with their vapour the little village of Roach below; but on Ben Lomond
he saw extensive masses of cloud settle down into a level wide-spread
stratum, the upper surface of which was at least 500 feet beneath the
camp. This was after sunset, on the 10th September, 1845, with a
beautiful moon and a clear blue sky above, altogether presenting an
impressive _coup d’œil_. Such was the depth and density of the mass,
that it required the powerful influence of the sun’s rays for the two
following days to dispel it. The whiteness of snow was grey, contrasted
with the silver hoar of the heavy cloud when the sun rose on the 11th,
and it offered, said Steel, in his forcible language, “a strong
temptation to a lover of nature’s wildest grandeur, to treat himself to
a celestial walk on its upper surface to the peak on the neighbouring
hill.” Some tourists ascended the mountain on the 11th and 12th of
September in the true spirit of enthusiastic enterprise, wishing to
connect their names in history with this startling, yet truly
magnificent phenomenon, but their amazement was indeed great, when,
after penetrating the cloud, they saw above them an encampment of
soldiers carrying on the official services of the station, with all the
activity and fearlessness of men accustomed to such extraordinary
appearances.
At Ben Heynish, in Tiree, one of the westerly isles of Scotland, the
sergeant had to struggle in watching and taking a few observations
between the almost incessant storms. Next he was employed in the
remeasurement of the latitude of Dunnose, the southern extremity of a
British arc of meridian, to verify its result as determined with
Ramsden’s zenith sector in 1802, and also to test the value of Professor
Airy’s sector. The observations for this purpose were carried on both at
Week Down and Dunnose. “The near agreement in the results of the
comparison proved very satisfactory as regards the work performed with
both instruments; but to endeavour to trace the extent and amount of the
disturbance that evidently affected the inclination of the plumbline at
Dunnose,” the sergeant afterwards made observations both at Boniface
Down and Port Valley, in the Isle of Wight, by which “the difference in
the geodetic and astronomical amplitudes between Greenwich and Port
Valley were found to be almost insensible, and the comparison with
Boniface Down and Week Down tolerably good.” The discovery, however, of
singular disagreements in the observations at “one of the stations in
the Isle of Wight, which had hitherto been looked on as the southern
extremity of the longest of the British arcs of meridian, and where no
sensible deviation could _à priori_ have been anticipated, led to the
re-examination of the northern extremity of the same arc, situated in
Balta Island, by revisiting it, and by observing also from two other
stations in the Shetland Islands contiguous to it, viz., Gerth of Scaw
and Saxavord.”[58] The disturbance alluded to—the effect of local
attraction—caused the plumbline and level to be deflected or acted upon,
as a loadstone would influence the needle of a mariner’s compass, and
thus, when the levels indicated that the instrument was pointed at
zenith, it was in fact directed to a point nearly four seconds to the
north of it.
To Unst, in Shetland, the northern extremity of the arc just mentioned,
sergeant Steel now repaired, and ascertained the existence of a
disturbance at Saxavord, but in the contrary direction. This was fully
established by taking a similar series of observations at the Gerth of
Scaw, near Lambaness, and on the small uninhabited island of Balta. The
relative position of these stations he fixed astronomically as to
latitude, and geodetically by triangulation and levelling from the mean
level of the sea, which involved observations with regard to the ebb and
flow of the tides. By the series of observations so far made, it was
clearly proved, that the latitude of a place could not be measured with
the degree of certainty formerly supposed, and that though astronomers
may profess to give seconds, tenths, and even hundredths of a second of
their latitude, yet the real truth is, that the record may often be
_several whole seconds in error_. The discovery, now confirmed by
sergeant Steel’s inflexible accuracy, is likely to produce some
interesting discussion in the scientific world, and has already been
made the subject of an article in the ‘Philosophical Journal of Science’
for April, 1853, embraced in a review of Captain Yolland’s Sector
Volume.[59]
After passing a station at Cowhythe Hill, in Banffshire, to verify the
sector operations of 1813, and which object was satisfactorily attained,
the sergeant fixed his observatory at Southampton, where, in carrying on
the duty, he made various experiments to ascertain the cause of apparent
errors. In taking the usual readings of the telescope micrometers, the
value of the zenith point, derived from each double observation of a
star, varied sensibly. To determine this more accurately, by
ascertaining the true value of the divisions of the screw, and
correcting the error involved in the reduction of the whole of the
observation, he adopted the method of making two distinct observations
of the same star without reversal of the revolving frame, in the manner
described in the Sector Volume, page xxvii, and so excellent was this
method considered, that the value of the screw thus obtained, was
finally applied to all the observations.
In prosecuting the work, it was also evident, that the most northerly
stars furnished the greatest, and the most southerly the least resulting
latitudes. To arrive at the cause of this anomaly, sergeant Steel
devoted much of his time to careful investigation, and his efforts and
experiments were both ingenious and interesting. These embraced
comparisons of the arc with Simms’ dividing engine, by which the
non-existence of any sensible error in the divisions of the limb that
would account for the observed errors was proved; but it was at the same
time clearly ascertained, after a patient examination of the micrometer
screws, the levels, the lenses, and the fullest consideration of the law
of expansion by heat or contraction either by cold or pressure, that the
immediate cause of the disparity arose from the compression of the
divided limb by the downward pressure of the upper screw pivot, which,
at each station, varied in proportion to the degree of pressure
supplied. This was, ever after, a special point of attention with the
sergeant, and as, from the construction of the instrument, no absolutely
permanent and uniform pressure could be insured at all times, he
regulated its extent as well by his judgment as his recollection.
It was a rule with him, notwithstanding the apparent errors that might
be the result, to register his observations with the strictest
exactness. Experience had taught him to expect them as well from local
as from indefinable causes. He considered, moreover, that the more
perfectly an instrument was constructed, the more honestly would it
report the discrepancies of both maker and observer, and that although
the conclusions would seem to be a volume of errors, more credit and
merit were due to the observer for ascertaining, instead of concealing
or covering his errors. Influenced by this novel consideration, he threw
an amount of earnestness, care, and faithfulness into his work, that
rendered his observations of the highest class for accuracy, and
deserving of the fullest confidence.
At Southampton he was assisted in the sector service for nearly twelve
months by corporal William Jenkins: the one observed from sunset till
midnight, and the other from midnight till sunrise. His final
observations were at St. Agnes in Scilly, Goonhilly Down near the Lizard
Point, North Rona, and Great Stirling—the north-east peak of Scotland.
By this series of observations, the arc of meridian, which before
terminated at Forth Mountain in the county of Wexford, and Monach in
Lewis, was extended to St. Agnes in the south, and to Rona in the north,
a small, unknown, and stormy island, about 100 miles west of Orkney.