The remains of all were interred with unusual respectability, and the spots where they lie have been marked by neat tomb-stones—a graceful tribute from the survivors to the memory of the departed. ----- 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] ----- Footnote 247: Smith, afterwards a sergeant, was a first-rate mason and foreman, and during his service of thirty two years, twenty-five of which were abroad, his abilities, experience, and precision were found of great benefit to the department. At Corfu, Vido, and Zante, he was entrusted with very important duties. Subsequently to his discharge in 1842 on a pension of 2_s._ 3½_d._ a-day, he superintended, on the part of the Admiralty, the building of the royal marine barracks at Woolwich by contract, and his vigilance prevented the employment of any of those artifices so commonly resorted to by contractors. He afterwards superintended for the Duke of Buckingham the building of a circular redoubt, partly of stone, for six guns, at his Grace’s ducal residence at Stowe: and in the inscription on one of the piers, his name is thus associated with the work:— Richard Plantagenet Duke of Buckingham & Chandos. Robert Wilcox, Captain Royal Navy. John Smith, Sergeant R^l Sappers and Miners.