A couple of men of the 18th Regiment were killed, a Sapper was wounded a few days ago, not very severely, and I think there have been one or two other men hurt. Of accidents occurring from the explosions I have heard of none, except the one on Satmxlay last, referred to above, and which was of a peculiar nature. The explosion by the dock -gate had taken place, and some Sappers were busy at the bottom of a shaft forty or fifty feet off, when a noxious gas, generated by the explosion, entered the gallery, filtering through the intervening earth. The effect was gradual — one after another the men became giddy, and some of them insensible. With infinite alacrity and courage non-commissioned officers and soldiers descended the shaft, braving a danger which seemed the greater because its extent and natm-e were unknown, to succour their comrades, and as they got down they in turn were overpowered by the ofiensive gas.
Major Nicholson and Lieutenant Graham also went down, and suiFered in consequence. The former was insensible, when, supported by his men, he reached the top of the shaft, and it was some time before he recovered. To sum up the accident; one man perished, and seven or eight were seriously aifected, but have since recovered. A man went down into the mine, after the accident, holding in his mouth the extremity of a tube down which air was pumped to him, and he walked about with perfect impunity and collected the men's caps and things they had left behind. The man who died was a soldier of the 48th Regiment. Two surgeons were on the spot, and tried every means to recover him, but in vain.
The destruction of the far-famed docks of Sebastopol, which has been for some weeks in progress, and is now on the point of termination, is an event in the annals of military engineering. A regular diary of the operations has been kept by the officers engaged, and this, should it ever be published, cannot fail to be most interesting. War has stern necessities, but there is something lamentable in seeing such great and magnificent works as these docks were, thus pitilessly destroyed. All that yesterday afternoon remained (worthy of mention) was the walls of the western dock, and their fragments; before the week is out these will be added to the mass of rubbish. It may give some idea of the labour necessary to reconstruct these docks, to say that after clearing away the ponderous ruins it would be necessary to dig down some twenty feet below the original bottom — so much has the earth been disturbed by the successive explosions ^to drive piles and use concrete, and form an entu'ely new foundation.
The French explosion I mentioned in a recent letter, as having been eifected by sinking in the water a huge iron vessel full of powder, was intended to destroy the bottom at one of the entrances, and appears to have succeeded better than was supposed, a chasm eight feet deep having been ascertained by sounding. The works of our Engineers have been very successful and creditable to their skill and foresight. Few mines, out of the large number that have been fired, failed to explode. The strong report of immediate peace that prevailed the other day caused the works to be accelerated by every possible means, and I understand that there was then a failure or two. The operations must have been replete with valuable experience to the officers engaged in them.
February 8. The quantity of powder used the other day in the explosion of Fort Nicholas was 50,000 Idlogrammcs, or 100,000 French pounds Double that quantity was found under the fort when the engineers commenced their operations. This is not the onlyconcealed store of powder the French have discovered in their part of Sehastopol. The firing which the Russians kept up for a short time previously to the explosion was di'awn on by a French fatigue party getting wood from the houses in Sehastopol. Some of the soldiers imprudently showed themselves upon the roofs, and the Russian batteries opened. At the moment of the explosion an officer of rank in a green uniform, supposed to be the general commanding on the north side, came out of the Star Fort, and apparently ordered his men oti' the parapet.