Second-corporal John Smith was sent from Quebec in the summer to examine the freestone quarries of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and to report upon their capabilities and facilities for furnishing stones of certain dimensions for the service of the department. He started on his mission in a merchant schooner on the 7th August, and, with Captain Melville Glenie, of the 60th rifles, was nearly wrecked on the Beaumont shoals. The flag of distress and the shouts of the passengers being unheeded, corporal Smith procured an old musket and some powder, and having with some difficulty fired a few rounds from it, the situation of the vessel was observed by some pilots, who rescued the passengers. Next day the corporal re-embarked on board another vessel, and landing at Miramichi, visited the quarries there, and also at Remsheg, Pictou, Mergomish, and Nipisiguit. Upwards of two months were spent in completing his researches; and, returning to Quebec on the 16th October with specimens of the building stones and slates taken by him from the various quarries he had examined, he made a lucid report of their capabilities, &c, and detailed the terms upon which the owners of the properties were prepared to deal with the department. Colonel Durnford, the commanding royal engineer, expressed his entire satisfaction of the manner in which the duty was performed, and of the intelligence evinced by the corporal in his descriptive report.[[247]]

In September and October trials of the pontoons, invented respectively by Sir James Colleton and Lieutenant-Colonel Pasley, were made in the open part of the Medway near the Gunwharf, and at Rochester Bridge—on the 9th and 10th September, in the presence of a committee of seven officers of the royal artillery and royal engineers, Lieut.-General Cuppage, R.A., being the president; and on the 1st October in the presence of his Royal Highness the Duke of York. One or other of the rival systems was to supersede the use of the old English tin pontoons. To work the buoy pontoons of Sir James Colleton, seamen were lent from H.M.S. ‘Prince Regent.’ The third and sixth companies were employed with Colonel Pasley’s decked canoes. The manœuvres were exceedingly laborious, and the men were exposed a greater part of each day to very heavy rains. They not only, however, did everything to the satisfaction of his Royal Highness and of the officers composing the committee, but several distinguished naval officers declared it was impossible that any operations with boats could have been better or more quickly performed.[[248]]

From early in November to the 21st January, 1825, a party of ten privates with second-corporal Robert Shorter, was employed at Sheerness under the command of Lieutenant E. W. Durnford, R.E., in boring to ascertain the nature of the strata with a view to determine its practicability for building some permanent works of defence. The borings were carried on at all the salient points of the contemplated fortifications, ranging in depth from thirty to sixty feet. Borings were also made on the Isle of Grain, and the men of the party were occasionally employed at their trades in the engineer department. Corporal Shorter registered the daily progress and results of the operation;[[249]] but, although the intended works were never undertaken, the borings were not without interest in adding their quota of information to the cumulative discoveries of geological research.

The leather forage cap introduced in 1813, was this year superseded by a dark blue cap, called the Kilmarnock bonnet, with a yellow band manufactured in the web, and a peak and chin-strap. The crown was of immense circumference. See Plate XIII. The corporals wore the chevrons of their rank above the peak. The superior ranks had blue cloth caps, with peaks, chin-straps, and gold lace bands. The Kilmarnock bonnets were purchased by the men; the leather caps had been supplied by the public.

About this period the army pattern sword for staff-sergeants and sergeants was adopted in the corps; but the swords introduced for the buglers were of the artillery pattern.

Royal Sappers & Miners

Plate XIII.

UNIFORM & WORKING DRESS, 1825