Eight or more distinct works had been erected, mounting above sixty guns, including Lancasters, which, during the siege, were increased or diminished according to circumstances. They were connected with a line of excavations exceeding a mile in length on the right, and 1,200 yards on the left, including deviations offered for acceptance by the undulations of the hills. The chief batteries—named after the officers of engineers who superintended their construction, held a position on the heights at a distance exceeding 1,350 yards from the Russian lines, while the French, working in easy soil, pushed up much nearer to the fortress by the usual process of sapping and mining. On the part of the English the plan of attack was necessarily a departure from recognized rules, owing to the rocky character of the ground and the deep glens which separated the works. On the morning of the 17th, there were, including the sick, 351 non-commissioned officers and men in camp and in the trenches. As many as could possibly be collected were sent to the batteries to share in the first day’s bombardment. Under cover of the darkness, the embrasures of the batteries, blinded with gabions, were quickly unmasked by the sappers, and before the dawn had fairly opened, sixty-three guns belched their fire upon the fortress. By a preconcerted signal the French, hurling destruction from fifty-six pieces of ordnance, commenced the siege simultaneously with the English, and the allied navies took part in the contest. This was the first day’s firing on the part of the besiegers; and although the garrison kept up a warm cannonade upon the allies from the moment that any show was made in the construction of the trenches, the Anglo-French never once attempted, by the discharge of a single piece of ordnance, to lessen the interference of the enemy, or to interrupt the progress of their defences.