gineer material can be obtained; the amount of stores issued to each assistant or superintending engineer officer, and the purposes for which they have been used; the amount and condition of the engineer stores at each of the service or branch depots.

Such additional books as are required by paragraph 1373, Revised United States Army Regulations, must be kept.

6. The requisitions of assistant or superintending engineer officers on the depot commander for stores should express definitely the numbers, quantity, dimensions, time and place to be delivered, and use, and are filled on the approval of the chief engineer.

7. The depot commander should expend all the engineer stores used, lost, or destroyed on the works, which are issued from his depot, and make proper returns for the same.

8. A certain amount of transportation, as teams and boats, should be under such control of the depot commander that he can obtain it at any moment, night or day. Ordinarily the transportation of engineer stores issued from the depot will be under the control of its commander.

9. In different parts of the works, branch or service depots should be established, at which the tools and material of a certain portion of the field of active operations are collected when not in use, and inventoried, and where, to a limited extent, repairs and manufacturing may be done. Service depots should be in charge of details from the permanent detachment serving at the depot. The chiefs of these small depots should report daily to the depot commander, and to the engineer officer in charge of the works in which their depots are located, the amount and condition of the stores on hand. At least one cart for gathering and distributing tools and material should be stationed at each branch depot.

Such depots were established during the siege in the second and fifth parallels, and proved exceedingly useful.

10. In the operations before Sebastopol, "nine special applications of steam-power, to facilitate the operations of the siege," were made by the English army. But for the use of this cheap and unlimited power, immense fatigue details must have been made from the ranks to have done the work; in consequence, the English army would have ben proportionately paralyzed, and unable to perform those military operations which can only be done by men.

In the siege operations herein described, steamers were used for transportation from the base of supplies. Steam saw-mills at Hilton Head, 70 miles distant by sea, furnished, after great delay, a part of the lumber used. A steam hoisting apparatus was in use on the wharf at Hilton Head, for unloading vessels, and a steam floating derrick, the Dirrigo, in Light-House Inlet, for the same purpose, both of which proved very useful. It may also be noted here that a steam pile-driver was used in the construction of the wharf at Hilton Head, early in 1862; and steam-condensing machines have been used, to a considerable extent, for making fresh from salt water.

At least one portable steam saw-mill should belong to an engineer depot supplying material for a siege.