FORCE ACCOUNTS.

Paris, about 60 men, 26 days, equals 1,560; Camp Nelson, average 281 men, 26 days, 7,358 actual number of days' work.

The engineer property at Paris is now in Camp Nelson, and is included in the accompanying return.

The principal drawback to the progress of the work has been that the negroes employed were only temporarily in our service, and from time to time our best men have been sent off to the railroad. The topographical party has been obliged to teach new chainmen several times. Twice the parties making fascines have been broken up entirely, and in every possible manner we have been delayed by the present system.

I have visited the fortifications at Paris and Camp Nelson from time to time, and it gives me pleasure to speak of the efficiency of Mr. Gillis, under whose immediate charge these works-since the departure of Captain Poe with the Twenty-third Army Corps into East Tennessee-have been prosecuted. Mr. Gillis deserves well of the department and Government, and I trust his merits will ever be appreciated by those who have control of the operations in which he has been engaged.

BOWLING GREEN, KY.

There have been some operations going on here in the erection of a redoubt on Bald Bluff and on College Hill, but the report of the acting engineer, Lieutenant N. S. Andrews, does not give their extent.

SURVEYS OF DEFENSES OF LOUISVILLE AND NASHVILLE RAILROAD.

Since the latter part of August, Mr. A. B. Miller, civil engineer, has been engaged in making topographical sketches of the defenses on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, to wit, at Salt Creek, Rolling Fork, and Muldraugh's Hill.

On finishing at the latter place he is to proceed to Glasgow and sketch the defenses and environs of that place. I have also ordered topographical sketches of Bowling Green and its defenses, and also of Munfordville, the latter of which are finished (though the maps have not yet been received) and the former must be nearly completed.

MILITARY RAILROAD IN KENTUCKY.

Mr. Gunn, chief civil engineer, reports, October 1:

The parties on the first and second division of the U. S. military railroad from Nicholasville, Ky., into East Tennessee have been mostly engaged during the past month in staking out work and completing the revision of their lines. The location of the line across Kentucky River is improved beyond my expectations at date of last report, by reducing the grade on the south side to 105.6 feet, but the curvature is somewhat increased thereby-not, however, to anything objectionable. This grade extends about 2 miles up the line, and a grade of 90 feet for the remainder of the distance brings us into the line previously located from the Suspension Bridge at the head of the 50-foot grade. The increase in length is nearly 1 1/4 miles, while the cost will not exceed that of the former line and the temporary suspension bridge proposed by Mr. Roebling.

The party on the second division returned to Milledgeville and made a permanent location of the line to Flint's Mill, on the Little South Fork of Green River.

The fourth party spent the month in surveying lines to find the best route out from Flint's Mill to the head of Green River, and also ran a trial line down to the right of Waynesburg to meet the fifth party. The latter began at Somerset, and have explored about 10 miles of the country north of that place. The two parties will meet by the end of this week.