The central magazines, being merely Chinese brick buildings, were in no way shell-proof; but of the numerous section magazines required to store ammunition, spare parts, etc., for the decentralized supply, only four had been built and taken over from the engineers in February, 1904 (two on the sea front, Tiger's Peninsula and Battery 17; two on the land front, Big Hill and C Battery). Table III. The following were the shells in the Fortress on January 14, 1904: Guns. Shells. 10-inch 790 9-inch 2,889 6-inch Canet 4,951 6-inch (68 cwt.) 17,512 6-inch (43 cwt.) 10,459 42-line guns 10,925 Heavy guns 2,409 Light guns 41,227 57-millimetre coast 24,078 57-millimetre caponier 3,210 11-inch howitzer 2,004 9-inch howitzer 7,819 6-inch field howitzer 11,981 Cartridge cases for machine-guns 957,615 Table IV. Taking all cartridges, fuzes, spare parts, and other accessory stores into consideration, the following were the rounds per gun in the Fortress on the outbreak of war: Guns. Rounds per Gun. 10-inch guns 158 9-inch guns and howitzers 243 6-inch Canet guns 247 6-inch guns (68 cwt. and 43 cwt.) 583 42-line and heavy guns 370 57-millimetre coast guns 860 57-millimetre caponier 230 Light field guns 282 11-inch howitzers 200 6-inch field howitzers 500 In the artillery magazine there were for the 3-inch quick-firing field artillery guns: Cartridge cases 6,957 Double action fuzes 8,479 Of small ammunition there were: Cartridges. 3-line rifle 12,621,176 3-line revolver 14,512 4, 2-line revolver 5,357 4, 2-line Berdan 41,635 Chinese 2,122,050 Since the date of our taking over Port Arthur, particularly during the disorders in China in and after 1900, the diplomatic sky had never been really clear, and at times the political barometer alternated between the 'set fair' and 'storm.' In 1903 it was first very unsettled, and then kept steadily falling, which caused us to think seriously of fortifying Port Arthur, not as heretofore, by talk and correspondence, but by deeds.