142 REAR-ADMIRAL F, W. BEECHErS ADDRESS. [May 26, 1856. 



site of the new hospital at Aren-kieui, in Asia Minor, a few miles 

 from the Plain of Troy. 



On the coast of Egypt, Commander Mansell, in the ' Tartarus,' has 

 commenced the examination of the north shore, from the Damietta 

 mouth of the Nile eastwards, with a view to ascertain whether it 

 affords a suitable site, for the entrance of a ship-canal, which has 

 been proposed to connect the Mediterranean and Red Sea by the 

 Isthmus of Suez. 



South Africa. — The survey of the shores of the Cape Colony 

 advances slowly ; yet, notwithstanding the scanty means placed at 

 the disposal of Lieutenants Dayman and Simpson, the officers em- 

 ployed in the survey, they have been enabled to map the coast from 

 Hangklip to Cape Agulhas and the intermediate dangers, on the 

 scale of one inch to a mile, which will be immediately published for 

 the benefit of the mariner. They have also surveyed Algoa Bay and 

 Port Natal. Whatever has been done has been carefully done, and 

 is based on the triangulation carried on by Mr. Maclear, Astronomer 

 at the Cape, from the Observatory as far as Cape Agulhas. Much, 

 however, remains to be effected. Both the land survey of the colony 

 and that of the coasts ought to be pressed forward ; every year that 

 they are delayed bars the progress of the settlers, hinders the de- 

 velopment of the resources of the district, and is attended with loss 

 to the colonial exchequer. 



The Cape Colony has the advantage of possessing a number of 

 accurately fixed points, extending over a surface of more than 400 

 miles on its western seaboard, and comprising the whole country 

 between Cape Agulhas and the mouth of the Orange River; these 

 were obtained, at the expense of the Home Treasury, in the mea- 

 surement of an arc of the meridian by Mr. Maclear, her Majesty's 

 astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope ; and the only use to which 

 they have yet been put in improving the defective geographic and 

 hydrographic knowledge of this part of the world, has been in the 

 construction of the chart before noticed, of about 70 miles of coast- 

 line between Capes Hangklip and Agulhas, by Lieutenant Dayman 

 of the Royal Navy. 



We owe this small contribution to hydrography to a catastrophe 

 which will not soon be forgotten — the loss of H. M. troopship 

 * Birkenhead ' and 656 lives, near Point Danger. 



Algoa Bay has been lately surveyed by the same officer on a large 

 scale, but the existing chart of the intermediate line of coast westward 

 to Cape Agulhas is most unsatisfactory. This may be quickly re- 



