Sergeant Robert Gardiner, the senior non-commissioned officer of the party, by great assiduity and application so improved his attainments, that he was recommended for the appointment of clerk of works in the royal engineer department. His drawings of the Supreme Court of Adelaide gained him much credit, and his services were marked by skill, zeal, and usefulness up to the period of his discharge, in February, 1854. Military men, particularly in the distant south, have every means of improving their condition; and if they possess a commercial bias, may, with tact, accumulate wealth. Gardiner has not been unmindful of his interests in this respect, and he is in a fair way of making his fortune. Offered for his good services to the public the situation of foreman of works to the department at Hobart Town, he declined it, and he now fills an advantageous appointment in the survey department of the colony of South Australia. Footnote 44: ‘Cape Town Mail,’ November 17, 1849. Footnote 45: General Mudge measured the line in 1794. Footnote 46: While on Salisbury Plain he was visited by Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Pasley, frequently by Colonel Hall and Captain Yolland, and by about fifty other officers of the royal engineers; also by Professors Airy, Sheepshanks, and Cape. The last gentleman was very free in his inquiries. The mode of aligning the instrument did not, at first, satisfy him, but eventually the process having been minutely explained by the sergeant, he went away convinced and gratified. Captain Gosset was present at the laying of the first bar and Captain Hawkins at the last. Footnote 47: In the reign of Tarquin I., 606 B.C., a force of Roman soldiers, ordered to construct common sewers, considered the employment an indignity and destroyed themselves. The self-esteem of the Roman soldier which led to so fatal a result, had a different effect on the modern; for the pride of the latter, tempered by a consideration of duty, urged him into the midst of danger and for the sake of humanity to seek it. Reflecting too, that the service, though paramount, was too objectionable for even convicts to perform, the warm eulogy of the Marquis may not be regarded as undeserved by those on whom it was conferred. 1850. Sir Robert Gardiner’s opinion of the corps—Party to the penal settlement at Swan River—Detachment to New Zealand—Draft to Hong-Kong—Mining operations at Seaford Bay—Determinations of the latitudes of various trigonometrical stations—Sergeant James Steel—Professor Airy—The leisure of the sergeant—New method of acquiring a knowledge of chess—Hardships of a party landed at Rona.