circumference of this line is about twelve miles. The towers are between five hundred and six hundred yards apart, and will be connected, in case of war, by a palisaded covered way. They are of masonry, of three tiers of guns, with a barbette battery which is the principal defense, mounting eleven twenty-four pounders. Two howitzers are placed in the upper tier. Those towers are placed in a wide and deep ditch, the déblais of which forms a high glacis which protects the tower from direct shot; but I should think it would be difficult to protect the artillery from direct fire.
Some say that this has cost about three-fourths of what a complete bastioned enceinte, necessary to make Linz a fortress of the first rank, would have cost; others maintain that it has not cost more than a quarter as much as a bastioned work, and that it subserves, besides, an entirely different object. If these works are to resist a regular siege, they are certainly very defective; but, regarded as an intrenched camp to give refuge and an outlet upon both banks of the Danube for a large army, they are appropriate, and would be of great importance in a war like that of 1809, and, if existing then, would probably have saved the capital.
To complete a grand system, it would perhaps have been better to encircle Linz with a regular bastioned line, and then to have built seven or eight towers between the eastern salient and the mouth of the Traun, within a direct distance of about two and a half miles, so as to have included for the camp only the curved space between Linz, the Traun, and the Danube. Then the double advantage of a fortress of the first rank and a camp under its guns would have been united, and, even if not quite so large, would have answered for a large army, particularly if the eight towers on the left bank and the fort of Perlingsberg had been preserved.
TÊTES DE PONTS.
Têtes de ponts are the most important of all field-works. The difficulties of crossing a river, particularly a large one, in the face of the enemy,