May 20, 1856.] ADMIRALTY SURVEYS. 141 



hfive been expected. A fleet rmmbering occasionally 1 00 sail could 

 not be cruising for two summers in a narrow sea without taking 

 soundings ; and it is highly to the credit of the masters of that fleet 

 generally that they availed themselves of every occasion of adding 

 to the charts all the information they obtained. Our special sur- 

 veyors, Captains Sulivan and Otter, and their assistants, Com- 

 manders Cudlip, Creyke, and Burstal, and Lieutenant Ward, E.N., 

 were enabled to make plans of Led Sound in the Aland Isles, and 

 the approaches to Bomarsund ; of Baro and Hiist Sounds, with the 

 southern access to Sweaborg ; of Wormso Sound on the south side of 

 the Gulf of Finland, with various tracks ais far as Tornea and Hapa- 

 landa, at the head of the Gulf of Bothnia. 



It is worthy of special remark that the magnetic variation 

 throughout these seas was found to be sensibly decreasing ; indeed 

 such proves to be the case all over the Xorth Sea, the Iiish Sea, 

 and the Channel, and probably extends throughout the greater part 

 of Europe ; and the mariner cannot be too much on his guard 

 against the amount of variation he finds marked on charts professing 

 to be corrected up to the present year. The westerly variation in 

 the British Isles appears to have reached its maximum in the year 

 183G, since which time it has been decreasing at an average rate of 

 about six minutes yearty. 



Black Sea. — As in the Baltic, so in the Black Sea, our cruisers 

 have added materially to the charts. To Manganari's atlas of that 

 sea, completed in 1836, several details have been added by Captain 

 Spratt, E.N., C.B., and the surveying staff under his directions. 

 Lieutenants Mansell, Wilkinson, and Brooker, who have discovered 

 several rocks, especially near the Strait of Kertch, and off Anapa 

 on the Circassian coast, which had escaped former examinations. 

 They have also sounded around Kinburn Spit and the estuary of 

 the Dnieper and Bug, leading up to the towns of Kherson and 

 Kicolaief, charts of which rivers, on a large scale, have been pub- 

 lished. An elaborate and beautiful plan of the Khersonese penin- 

 sula, including Kazach and Kamiesh Bays, and showing-the position 

 of the Allied camps and batteries, has been completed by Lieutenant 

 W^ilkinson, and is a work that does him the highest credit. 



Captain Spratt's reconnaissance of the country between Kustenji 

 and the Danube at Chernavoda, a sketch of much interest in the 

 discussion of the various projects, either of a railway or a canal, to 

 unite the Danube and the Black Sea, has just been published, as also 

 his chart of the Narrows of the Dardanelles, which includes the 



