148 REAR-ADMIRAL F. W. BEECHEY'S ADDRESS. [May 26, 1856. 



In the catalogue published by the Depot de la Marine will be 

 found many new charts of great interest and importance ; amongst 

 others, surveys of the French establishments on the coasts of New 

 Caledonia. 



Spain. — The Spanish Government has caused a survey of that 

 kingdom to be commenced upon an uniform system, and a part of 

 the preliminary triangulation has been completed. A series of 

 triangles, in a meridional direction, has been carried on from Pico, 

 E. of Malaga, on the coast of the Mediterranean, to Santander, on 

 the Bay of Biscay, and on the direction of the parallels from the 

 Portuguese frontier to Aragon, where it has been connected with 

 the operations of MM. Biot and Arago for the measure of the 

 arc of the meridian between Dunkirk and Formeutera. An im- 

 portant addition to Spanish geography has appeared in a work 

 entitled ' Atlas de Espaiia y sus Posesiones Ultramar,' of which 

 25 sheets have already been published, constructed by our much- 

 esteemed Corresponding member, Colonel Coello. These comprise 

 Cuba, Porto Eico, the Philippine, Marian, and Balearic Isles, the 

 Canaries, African possessions, and part of her continental provinces. 

 In addition to these separate maps of the departments of Spain 

 and of her foreign possessions, the Atlas contains enlarged plans 

 of the principal cities and towns, and notices of the statistics, 

 administration, and history of each division, contributed by an- 

 other of our distinguished Corresponding members, occupying an 

 eminent position as both statesman and geographer, Don Pascual 

 de Madoz. 



M. de Vemeuil, the eminent French geologist, whose name has 

 often been alluded to by my predecessors, has continued, during 

 the past year, his geological survey of Spain and his barometric 

 levellings. His late researches have extended over the desolate 

 province of La Mancha, where he has fixed the height above the sea 

 of several hundred points. 



Italy. — The Piedmontese Government has continued, the publica- 

 tion of the map of its continental possessions, on a scale of y^-Lo^j, 

 and it is expected that the whole will be completed next year. 



The Abbe Poncet has published the number of 360 measured 

 heights in Northern Savoy — an interesting addition to those already 

 given by De Candolle and Professors Chaix and Favre. Mr. Borson 

 has contributed an extract of the geometrical measurements of the 

 Sardinian Staff, which adds the positions and heights of sixty more 

 places to the above. 



