On the 11th November was commenced the second parallel on the left attack, 360 yards in advance of Chapman’s battery. The ground presented a surface of interminable rock, which caused the soil, as before, to be brought from a distance to form the parapets. The labours of the sappers were confined chiefly to mining the hill and blasting the rock, and also placing the gabions in position. Some 350 yards in front of the new parallel a row of Russian riflemen was established, who picked off the guard of the trenches with fatal rapidity. A dash was made for the pits on the 20th, which, after a smart little combat, were captured and occupied by our light troops. The holes were afterwards connected by boyaux to the second parallel. On the right attack a place of arms was formed to shelter the troops when drawn up for assault. A long boyau was run out half way to the intended spot, and the centre portion of the parallel was thrown up by flying sap. Communications being also effected with the rear by means of a double set of approaches, guns and cohorns were mounted in the batteries to defend the stormers and play on the works. This new formation afterwards took its place in the series of trenches for the second parallel. For two or three weeks the weather had been unpropitious. Snow was upon the ground, and sometimes rain, sleet, and hail varied the inclemency, while frost intervening, nipped the men with its cold grasp, and added to their sufferings. The prevailing aspect of the clouds was gloomy and lowering, but there was nothing to indicate the approach of that memorable storm, which on the 14th November, swept over the Black Sea and the Crimea. Early in the morning the hurricane began its portentous howling, and it was not long before it committed terrific havoc at sea. Ingenuity and precaution did much to save the ships from disaster, but many of the transports, too soon becoming unmanageable, were engulfed as by a spell in the raging surf, or broken to pieces on the shore. Among these was the ‘Prince,’ a magnificent steamer of heavy tonnage, freighted with winter clothing for the army and the diving machinery. For two hours she stood bravely against the storm, but at length driven against the rocks at Balaklava, her timbers were rent in every direction, and she went down. The four sapper divers on board of her, sergeant William Carne, and privates Samuel Lewis, Thomas Price, and Thomas Toohey, sank in the wreck, as also Captain W. M. Inglis, who had been observed on a spar struggling to gain the shore, when a wave of foam broke over him, and he was seen no more. A like fate attended the ‘Rip Van Winkle;’ and the two sapper photographers—corporal John Pendered, and lance-corporal John Hammond—well educated and trained at great expense in the art, perished in the foundered vessel. The knapsacks and kits of the eighth company were also lost.