Sergeant John Berry and one private, both surveyors, were employed under Captain Vetch, late R.E., from June to August, in conducting a series of tidal observations in the River Dee at Chester, for the harbour department of the Admiralty, and to carry out also the provisions of the “Dee Standard Restoration Act.” The observations were to extend over a period of twelve months, but the service was concluded in a fourth of the time. The duty was very carefully attended to, and the registrations were always accurately made by the sergeant and his assistant. One sergeant and fourteen rank and file embarked for Van Diemen’s Land on the 19th July on board the ‘Lady Montagu,’ as a guard over convicts, in conjunction with a detachment of the line under the command of Captain J. S. Hawkins, R.E., and landed at Hobart Town on the 11th December. The Lieutenant-Governor of the colony applied for the assistance of the sappers to constitute, in the first instance, the nucleus of an efficient survey body, and to carry on, both in the city and the distant bush, the trigonometrical and detail survey of the settlement. The men, eleven of whom were married and had families, were selected from the survey companies, and were all competent for the duty both as surveyors and draughtsmen. A change in the designation of the settlement caused the party to be denominated the “Tasmanian Detachment.” Very early after its arrival, the legislative council of the colony showed much hostility to the employment of the sappers, and at last gained the point for which it had pertinaciously worked. After a service of nearly four years in the triangulation and survey of Tasmania, the detachment quitted Hobart Town on the 9th February, 1856, and landed at Sydney, for similar duty, on the 13th following. A party of six men from Chatham was employed under Captain G. Bent, R.E., from 24th September to 13th December, in surveying and levelling the ground in the neighbourhood of St. Helier’s, Jersey, to the extent of about ten square miles; and afterwards the same party was removed to Alderney, where, under Lieutenant Martin and Captain Jervois, it completed for military purposes a special survey of the island, in May, 1853. Hostilities at the Cape were this year continued in the same desultory and unsatisfactory manner as in the previous year. The attempts for a fair open fight were quite unsuccessful, and the patrols undertaken to drive the enemy into action were equally as harassing and arduous as in any former war. In these operations the sappers participated to the extent of their numerical means, not without, in one particular instance, suffering greatly both in loss of life and property. The following detail embraces the active services of the corps on the Cape frontier this year.