a ladle. I allowed it to become perfectly solid in the teak. I laid the teak in a sloping direction so that it should contain it all. I brought the teak and the iron, which had become solidified in the hole, to the Institute of Naval Architects, and put it on the table. In no case could I burn or even keep the wood alight more than twenty minutes, or make the hole three-eighths of an inch larger than it was at starting.

Admiral Sir GEORGE SARTORIUS.I have taken great interest in questions of this kind, and we have not touched upon the principal material point connected with the form of ships, as to whether the French are pursuing the right principles, or whether we are; but the time is too short to enter upon the subject now, and I hope in the course of a few days to publish a little work upon it.

The CHAIRMAN.-I am sure we are all very much obliged to Captain Halsted for his research. We cannot all be expected to concur in his views. I had thought of making some remarks upon what he has said; but it would not be proper at this hour to do so, particularly as I am occupying the chair. Perhaps at some future time I may have an opportunity of reading a paper on the subject; I think he has rather over estimated many things, and underrated others. I think more highly of wooden ships and less of iron ships than he does. I do not at all sympathize with the feeling that there is any danger to the country because we have not so many iron ships as our neighbour has. Let us have our men, and I will make him a present of as many iron ships as he likes. Nor do I think this country is in any danger of his effecting a landing. However, we are very much obliged to Captain Halsted. It is important that this subject should be raised and discussed, and I do not know any man who would have undertaken the amount of labour, research, and care, that he has. If I think he has taken a one-sided view, even that is necessary to bring the subject before the public. He must come as an advocate, and not as an umpire; and that he has done, and done thoroughly. I may take this opportunity of saying, that I think he is a little wrong in not giving more credit to Mr. Drake, who was the first to propose the 4-inch plate some twenty years ago.

NAMES of MEMBERS who joined the INSTITUTION between 4th March and 10th June, 1861.

LIFE.

Burslem, N. Capt. 60th Rifles. 91.
Gassiot, Sebastian, Mid. R.N. 91.
Grosvenor, Earl, Lt.-Col. Queen's West-
minster Rifle Volrs. 91.
Harding, Edward, Comr. R.N. 91.

Murray, Freeman, Col. Gov. Commanderin-Chief, Bermuda. 91.

Powis, Earl of, Lt.-Col. Salop Yeo. Cav. 97.

ANNUAL.

17.

Aldridge, John, Major 21st R.N.B. Fus. 17.
Airey, T. W. P., Ens. 21st R.N.B. Fus. 17.
Abercromby, R. W. D., Lieut. R.N.
Atcherley, W. A., Cornet 14th Light
Dragoons. 11.

Baldwin, Cha., Lieut. H.M. Bom. Eng. 11.
Battiscombe, W. B., Major 91st Regt.

Baynes, R. S., Lt.-Col. D. A. A. Gen. 17.
Bigge, T. P., Capt. 1st Batt. 5th Northd.
Fus. 17.

Booth, Robert, Assist. Com. Gen. Cape of
Good Hope.

Boyle, G. E., Ens. Rifle Brigade. 11.

17.

Bridgman, J.W.,Capt. W. Midx.R. Vols. 11.
Burnaby, F. G. Cornet R. H. Gds.
Butler, Hon. J. F. Clifford, Major 2nd
Batt. Monmth. Rifle Volrs. 17.

Byham, W. R. Esq., Admiralty. 11.
Campbell, F. A., Col. Comt. Royal Marine
Light Inf. 11.

Channer, A. W., Lieut. 21st R.N.B. Fus. 17.
Coles, H. P., Lieut. Roy. Engrs.
Coventry, H. A., Lieut. Gren. Gds.
Craven, J. A., Lieut. Roy. H. Gds.

Lieutenant-General W. F. KNOLLYS, Vice-President of the Council of Education, in the Chair.

THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN OF 1859.
By Major MILLER, R.A., V.C. Topographical Staff.

PART I. GENERAL ACCOUNT.

Their oaths are said,

Their prayers are prayed,

Their lances in the rest are laid,

They meet in mortal shock.-MARMION.

THE Italian Campaign of 1859 presents two or three points of such peculiar interest that I am surprised at our not having any good work upon it in our own language-such a work as would describe minutely the incidents in its history, and set clearly before us the effects of certain mechanical agencies which were then for the first time brought into serious military use.

In this campaign, railways assisted the ordinary means of locomotion hitherto employed by armies. By them, thousands of men were carried daily through France to Toulon, Marseilles, or the foot of Mont Cenis; by them, troops were hastened up to the very fields of battle; and by them, injured men were brought swiftly back to the hospitals, still groaning in the first agony of their wounds.

Moreover, the railway cuttings, embankments, and bridges presented features of importance equal, or superior, to the ordinary accidents of ground; and the possession of such features was hotly contested. If you go to Magenta, you will see, close to the railway platform on which you alight, an excavation full of rough mounds and simple black crosses, erected to mark the resting-places of many hundred men who fell in the

great fight. This first employment of railways in close connection with vast military operations would alone be enough to give a distinction to this campaign in military history-but the incident does not stand alone.

Rifled cannon also made their essay in serious warfare, and all the world looked with curiosity to see what effect would be produced on the hostile ranks by the French field-guns, which were reported to hit with certainty a man on horseback more than a mile off.

Further, the forces engaged were those of a magnificent military nation, allied with a very perfectly organised though not large army, arrayed against an empire apparently quite able to defend itself against both together; and finally, to add dignity to the struggle, the armies were commanded by their own sovereigns, and two emperors and a king shared with their troops the dangers and difficulties of the campaign.

I think then that such a campaign ought to be carefully studied, and deserves to be skilfully and closely described; but no such description, in English, have we got. Articles and translations have, indeed, appeared in reviews, magazines, and journals; but of histories, properly so called, none. Only the absence (so far as I know) of any such work would have induced me to make my first essay in public speaking by addressing so cultivated, so critical, and consequently so formidable, an audience as that which assembles at the Royal United Service Institution.

As the subject is unavoidably divided into two parts, I shall confine myself to-day to describing the events of the campaign as they occurred, and shall reserve all criticism, and all inquiry into the causes which produced those results, for the lecture which I am to give here on this day fortnight. Each lecture will then be complete in itself, and I hope that the two together will convey a clear idea of this interesting campaign.

I have no doubt you all recollect how the first hint of a war was given by Louis Napoleon, at the Tuileries, on New Year's Day; how negotiations went on till the 26th April; how the Austrians presented an ultimatum which was rejected; and how, on the 29th, they began to cross the Ticino, that river being then their frontier line; but you are not perhaps aware that this irruption into Piedmontese territory was preceded by one on the French part, which was equally, I suppose, an infringement of existing treaties. The Austrians crossed into Piedmont on the 29th April, the French advanced into Savoy on the 25th, and on the following day there were 4,000 or 5,000 men in the neighbourhood of St. Jean de Maurienne, ready to begin the passage of Mont Cenis. The fact was, that Louis Napoleon well knew that war must come before this movement was generally known; equally well knew that all the celerity in his power would not throw his army into Italy before the Sardinians were in the grasp of their enemies; and he judged it desirable to gain time in any possible manner,

The army with which Louis Napoleon proposed to free Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic (as he expressed it) was composed of six corps-d'armée, and contained about 160,000 infantry, 20,000 cavalry, and 354 field-guns: we may estimate the whole as 190,000 combatant men. General d'Angely commanded the Imperial Guard, which formed a corps complete in itself; Count Baraguay d'Hilliers, who was made a marshal for the capture of Bomarsund in 1854, commanded the first corps; Count M'Mahon, the second; Marshal Canrobert, formerly commander-in-chief in the Crimea,

the third; General Niel, the fourth; and Prince Napoleon, the fifth. I may as well mention at once, that the last corps, the fifth, had little or no share in the operations of the war. The greater part was sent into Tuscany, partly for military, but principally for political, purposes. Some of its regiments were present at Montebello; and one of them, the third Zouaves, highly distinguished itself at Palestro; but the corps in its complete state did not join the main body till after the battle of Solferino.

The first, second, and fifth corps and Imperial Guard were conveyed to Italy by sea, and landed at Genoa; some of the regiments were conveyed from Paris by that route in the short space of five days. The two remaining corps crossed the Mont Cenis. By this route, a line of railway carried them to St. Jean de Maurienne; and another line took them to Susa, on the Italian side of the pass, 87 miles from Turin. Between these two places, about 40 miles apart, the march had to be performed on foot over a mountain pass not yet clear of the winter snow. As a specimen of the vigour with which it was carried out, I may mention that the cavalry, artillery, and even some of the infantry, are said to have done it in one day's march, although the diligence takes fourteen hours for the journey.

The Sardinian army (it is more often called the Piedmontese army by continental writers), a combatant force of 63,000 infantry, 5,000 cavalry, and 120 guns, amounting to about 70,000 men, and divided into five divisions, occupied, when the war began, a line of 70 miles' extent, stretching from Ivrea to Alessandria. They were thus placed to oppose any attack upon their capital, Turin. Their small force, small in comparison with that of the Austrians, who had already invaded the country, was supported by permanent fortifications at Alessandria and Casale, field-works at every important point, and the naturally strong features of their line of defence.

Of these features the river Po is by far the most important. At Valenza it is 550 yards across (as wide as the Thames at Woolwich) with only two regular bridges (of masonry) in the neighbourhood, one at Valenza, the other at Casale; of boat-bridges there were several, but these had of course been removed. Preparations were made for blowing up the stone bridges, if necessary, but it was not desirable to do so until the last extremity, because the Allies might, after a while, require them for the passage of their own troops.

On the further side of the Casale bridge, which, until the introduction of railways a few years since, was the only masonry bridge below Turin, there was a strong tête-de-pont, and this fortification had an important effect on the ulterior movements, for it secured to the Allies the means of safely crossing the river. The Valenza bridge, having no such defence, was blown up by the Austrians when they had given up the idea of using

it themselves.

The Sardinians, I said, took up a line from Ivrea to Alessandria, following the course of the Dora Baltea and the Po. As the Dora Baltea river was insufficient to secure that part of the line from being attacked, and only 25,000 men could be spared to watch a front of 20 miles, the French generals advised that its defence should be given up, and that the whole force should be concentrated about Alessandria and Casale. This was done, and only a few squadrons of cavalry remained between the defenceless capital and the invading Austrians. Imagine a foreign army safely landed