COLONEL HAMILTON'S MODEL OF SEBASTOPOL.
Perhaps a more admirable topographic and military model has never been constructed than that which forms the last addition to the Museum of the United Service Institution. It is the production of Colonel Hamilton, C.B., of the Grenadier Guards, and is described as a "Model of the Siege of Sebastopol, and the Surrounding Country ; comprising the site of the flank-march of the Allies, 25th September 1854, and of the fields of the Battle of Balaklava, 25th October, 1854, Inkerman, 5th No- vember, 1854, and the Tractir Bridge, 16th August, 1855." Colonel Hamilton has worked indefatigably upon the model for more than a year, availing himself of the very best authorities; the trigonometrical survey of the Royal Engineers, embodied in a series of large maps, but not yet finally published; studies made in the Quartermaster-General's Depart- ment; a survey by officers of the Sardinian army ; and his own personal observation. The model is on a scale of 11 inches to the mile, measur- ing about 13 feet by 15; and includes the country north and south 14 miles from the River Belbec to Balaklava, and east and west 161 miles from the Chersonese light-house to the Mackenzie Farm and Varnutka Valley. Besides the important sites already mentioned, which are made doubly valuable by an accurate representation of the military positions on the days which have respectively made the spots famous in the history of the war, we have all the natural and strategic features of the ground generally, and the attitude of the fleet' at the time of the Russian retreat, and also at the great bombardment of a preceding day. We understand that the model had its origin in the de- fects—probably unavoidable at the time—of a previous one. The Prince Consort had presented to the United Service Institution the model of Sebastopol originally exhibited at Wyld's Great Globe. The Council proposed to have it completed according to the wider sources of infor- mation then at their command ; but, the obstacles to such an attempt proving unmanageable, the idea was abandoned, and Colonel Hamilton undertook the construction of an entirely new work.
The vast model, at first moulded in clay, stands cast in plaster of Paris: the town of Sebastopol itself being cut out of the actual Sebas- topol atone. Apart from its value in point of accuracy, it is of quite un- usual artistic excellence. The modelling is extremely careful ; the geo- logical features of the country and coast are scrupulously rendered, (with the approval of no less an authority than Sir Roderick Murchison,) and the painting, conducted by Mr. M`Callum, the landscape-painter, reaches a high point of skill and effective truth. Even the pictorial effect of dis- tance has not been overlooked. Availing themselves of the special op- portunities which the painting of solid form allows, the artificers have taken care that the model, from whatever point of view it may be looked at, shall present strong warm tints in the foreground, and grey distances. It is a most valuable and laborious work, and altogether creditable to Colonel Hamilton and his assistants.
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