The different departments of the Royal Arsenal are separated by large open spaces, in which the rougher materials of war are deposited. The roadways, laid with iron trams, which greatly facilitate the transfer of heavy guns, are lined here and there with pyramids of shot and shell, lackered and shining in the sun. These missiles are continually circulating along the shoots from one spot in the Arsenal to another, passing at one time underfoot, at another overhead, the action of gravity being pressed into the service with other labour-saving contrivances, to remove 13-inch shells and 98-pounder solid shot, sometimes to very considerable distances. Vast as are the stores of these warlike implements, and far as the vistas of pyramids stretch (and there are no less than 688,000 in the Arsenal at present), they would speedily be drained by a short return of war, in which artillery now plays so prominent a part. At the siege of Sebastopol alone, which scarcely occupied eighteen months, no less than 253,042 shot and shell of all sizes were fired from our batteries, a number which the enemy surpassed, in one attack alone, if we are to believe the evidence afforded by some of the ravines, in which this iron rain descended so thickly that it paved the ground and prevented the grass from springing up. The French were even more prodigal of these projectiles; for, according to the report made to the Emperor, 1,100,000 of them were sent by our allies into the doomed city. The neighbourhood of each department is generally indicated by the class of war stores to be seen at hand. We may be sure we are near the great-gun foundry, for instance, when we see the long files of iron guns of all sizes and patterns, from the light 32-pounders to the truly formidable 98-pounders of the naval service, flanking the road, compared with which the light brass field-pieces that fringe the wall of the building itself seem the merest toy-guns. Here and there trim grass-plots are seen with a neat edging of three hundred 13-inch mortars, and at the grand entrance of the foundry itself enormous shells, a yard in diameter, prepared for Mallett's mammoth mortar, are planted, as if to show how daring are the ideas of modern war, which proposes to throw such Titanic missiles at the enemy. Here too may be seen veterans which have seen service--avenues of wounded guns from the Crimea. These are the picked specimens of the eighty-eight pieces of ordnance either disabled by the enemy or worn out by their own fire in that ever-memorable siege. One, a 68-pounder, was shattered by a singular accident; just as it was being discharged a shell fired by the enemy exploded in its mouth, and destroyed it after it had fired no less than 2,000 rounds. Another gun, which is split in the muzzle, was hit thirteen times. There appears to have been luck in this mystic number, however, for by the aid of an iron band the mishap was