2-913-620 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Steam-ships of the Allied Fleet searching for Infernal Machines off Cronstadt - from a sketch by W.O. Brierly, 1854. Crimean War: Royal Navy ships at a Russian port city. '...the Driver and Bulldog steamers...proceeded in the direction of the batteries, and lowered boats, which made an examination, and secured a line to a piece of timber apparently having a plug driven into it: this was then hauled up to the Driver, and hoisted out of the water to her bow: this proved to be a spar, about ten feet in length, with a large stone attached to it by a chain. After some further examination by the boats, the two vessels steamed out with a hawser made fast between them, to sweep the passage. In a short time another was met with, which resisted any attempt to move it in this way; and, it being now late in the evening, the hawser was hauled on board, and the vessels returned to anchor'. From "Illustrated London News", 1854.