text: "[14] After the close of the examination and the distribution of prizes to the successful candidates [15] the company repaired to the grounds where the Khan was astonished by the quickness and precision with which the cadets took to pieces and reconstructed the pontoons and went through other operations of military engineering; and still more by a subaqueous explosion of powder by the means of the voltaic battery--"a method by which Colonel Pasley was engaged near Portsmouth in raising a vessel which had sunk there