390 SIR RODERICK I. MURCHISON'S ADDRESS. [May 25, 1857. 



for some mark of public approbation ; bnt althongb the Sultan 

 and the King of Greece specially thanked Captain Graves for 

 services important to humanity, this meritorious officer never 

 received any honour from his own country. Yet who can place in 

 comparison with the anxious, untiring energy and science displayed 

 during life by such nautical surveys as those of Thomas Graves, 

 the lucky accident of a few months' war service in the Baltic or 

 the Black Sea, in which perchance the individual decorated may 

 not have accomplished any one feat of arms ? Honour then to 

 the Governor of Malta, Sir W. Eeid, whose warm sympathy was 

 offered to the neglected and really eminent scientific sailor. The 

 offer of the post of Superintendent of the ports of Malta was willingly 

 accepted, and the gallant Graves had zealously performed the duties 

 of it during three years, when he received a mortal stab from a 

 revengeful boatman, that deprived our coiintry of his services. 

 His kind, open-hearted and friendly disposition had long endeared 

 him to every one who knew him ; and from a personal intercourse 

 of many years' date, I can well realize to my mind's eye the gloom, 

 as attested by the public journals, which spread over the inha- 

 bitants of Malta on the occasion of his sad fate. Captain Graves 

 was an old Fellow of the Royal Society, having been elected in 

 1826, and he was also one of the original members of the Eoyal 

 Geographical Society. 



Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Best Jervis, of the Engineers, in the 

 East India Company's Service, who died recently in London, at the 

 age of 60, was formerly well known for his numerous important 

 works in the Bombay Presidency, including Indian Metrology, 

 and an elaborate treatise on the primitive universal Standard of 

 Weights and Measures, &c. When a lieutenant, he served as the 

 engineer in 1821 of the field force under Sir L. Smith sent to the 

 Persian Gulf. On that occasion the Arab pirates were subdued, 

 and the Fort of Beni-bu-Ali was taken after a vigorous resistance ; 

 operations in which he was distinguished. After repairing and 

 putting in order many forts he was employed as a captain for ten 

 years in making the trigonometrical survey of the Southern Konkan, 

 a fertile country at the foot of the Ghauts. This Survey, when 

 adjusted by the Grand Trigonometrical Survey, was incorporated 

 into the Atlas of India, of which it formed several sheets. Fertile 

 in resources, he devoted his residuary leisure to various useful pur- 

 poses, such as building a suspension-bridge or opening out slate 

 quarries in his Eastern abode. In 1838 he was provisionally 



