To make a hurried survey of the ground one sergeant and eighteen rank and file were detached from Southampton between the 27th of April and the first of May, who, as the service permitted, returned in sections to the ordnance survey. A small party detained at Windlesham for special purposes, in connexion with the military survey, did not quit the district till late in July. Lieutenant Stotherd, R.E., directed the detachment. Colour-sergeant Henry Brown and twenty rank and file from Chatham, reached the encamping ground on the 9th of May. On the 13th following, this detachment was increased to a company (numbered the 2nd) of three sergeants and eighty-seven rank and file from the royal engineer establishment, under the command of Captain Lovell, R.E. Lieutenant and Adjutant Somerset from Woolwich, joined the company on the 14th of June. The whole were under the orders of Lieutenant-Colonel Vicars, R.E. To diversify the operations, a pontoon train was ordered to be attached to the division; and on the 20th of June, the sappers appointed for this duty commenced to move in detachments. The force consisted of drafts from the first, fifth, and eleventh companies detached from Chatham, and reached a total of 1 quartermaster—George Allan, 1 sergeant-major—William Read, 12 sergeants, 16 corporals, 3 buglers, and 156 privates. —- 189 Total === under the command of Colonel Harry D. Jones, assisted by Captains H. St. George Ord, G. Ross, and W. M. Inglis, and ten subalterns of the royal engineers. The great bulk of the men arrived at Wellington camp on the 22nd of June, on which date the totals of the combined force of sappers counted 297 of all ranks. A day or two after the pontoon operations at Virginia Water were concluded, the first company, with a detachment of the eleventh, quitted Wellington camp, and returned to Chatham the same day. The second company at Chobham camp was relieved on the 22nd of July by the fifth company, with the greater part of the eleventh from the Wellington camp, and repaired that day to Chatham. The company was played from the ground by the band of the 79th Highlanders, who, from good feeling, volunteered to confer the honour; and as it passed the tents of the 79th three cheers from the assembled regiment testified its esteem and friendship for the departing company.[119] The total force then left for the field duties of the camp, exclusive of the surveyors, numbered 100 men of all ranks. As some further pontoon operations were ordered to be executed, and the force at the camp was considered to be numerically inadequate for the duty, sixty-five non-commissioned officers and men were sent to the field from Chatham on the 25th of July, and after the completion of the work, they returned on the 28th to their destination.