In connexion with the base operations, the name of sergeant Thomas Sim of the corps, is noticed with credit. Carrying the measurement across the river Roe, about 450 feet broad, was, through his ingenuity, found a more simple matter than had been expected. After giving a good deal of consideration to the subject, the sergeant proposed a plan, which enabled the measurement to be completed in one day and verified the next. This was accomplished, by driving, with the assistance of a small pile engine, stout pickets to the depth of about six feet into the sand and clay, in the exact line of the base, then placing on the heads of the pickets, by means of a mortice, a stretcher perfectly horizontal, and finally, laying upon the upper surfaces of the stretchers, a simple rectangular frame, with two cross pieces to support the feet of the camels or tripods.[255] ----- Footnote 255: Ibid., p. 28. ----- By the month of August, the force of the sappers in Ireland amounted to 26 non-commissioned officers, 227 privates, 6 buglers and 11 boys, total 270. In September, the survey companies were inspected by Major-General Sir James Carmichael Smyth, royal engineers, and in his report he stated, “when the detached nature of the duty is considered, and how the soldier is necessarily left to himself, the appearance of the men under arms, as well as the zeal and goodwill they evince in the performance of a duty so new and so laborious, are very much to their credit.” In March previously, Sir Henry Hardinge, in his evidence before the Select Committee on Public Income and Expenditure, spoke of the services of the corps on the survey, as being cheap and successful. To put the question fairly at issue, certain districts of the same nature were conducted, some by engineers with sappers and miners; others, with engineer officers and civil persons and it was satisfactorily proved, that the progress made by the sappers under military authority, was greater than that made by the civil surveyors, and the cheapness commensurate.[256] ----- Footnote 256: ‘Second Report Ordnance Estimates,’ 1828, printed 12th June, 1828, p. 71, 72. ----- On the 24th of January, sergeant-major Thomas Townsend was removed from the corps as second lieutenant and adjutant to the second battalion, 60th royal rifles, through the intercession of Lieutenant-Colonel Fitzgerald who commanded that regiment, and in the lapse of years became a captain. In 1844, he retired from the regiment by the sale of his commission, and obtained a barrack-mastership under the Ordnance.