THE 17Til 01 OCTOBER. 345 level of the sea of the guns aniiiiifr all these great chap. ■" . XIII sea-forts was, for the casemated tiers, about 26 1_ feet, and for the open-air batteries on the top, from 30 to 40 feet.* The fronting stone walls of these two forts were from 5 J to 6 feet thick ; and the vault-roofs which protected the storeys below from the effects of vertical fire had a thickness, including all their fillings and the layer of earth on the top, of from 6 to 12 feet.f Fort Coustantine had an armament of 97 pieces, Fortcon- disposed in the manner which will be indicated in a later page. Fort Alexander mounted, in all, 56 guns, of F..it Aiex- which 27 were in casemates. J Of these 56 guns there were 51 which, in the course of the engagement (though only at long range), could be brought to bear upon the French or the Eng- lish ships. § Through that haze of imperfect design which The one If 'ta enshrouded other parts of the plan, there stood purr.oseof out one naval object to be sought with a well- piau: defined aim. That object was the destruction of the Quarantine Sea- fort; and the task was to be tiieQuaran- imdertaken by the French fleet. The work stood lirt. detached at some distance west of Sebastopol. It had been constructed so early as the year 1818. "Whilst the great casemate fastnesses of Constantino and Alexander were the chief of the forts, north and south, which lay crouching to
- Todleben, p. 334. f Ibid. j.. 93.
J Ibid. p. 96. § Ibid. p. 333.
