146 EARL DE GREY'S ADDRESS. [May 28, 1860. 



to be beneficial ; the piers, too, at Tynemouth have made some 

 progress. In the Thames the Conservators of the river have done 

 great good by deepening the «hoals in Blackwall and Barking 

 Reaches, thereby removing the ^ obstacles that prevented vessels 

 coming up into the Pool at all times of tide. Dover Bay has been 

 carefully re-sounded by Mr. E. K. Calver, r.n., for the first time 

 since the erection of the pier, which has now reached a length of 

 1200 feet from the shore, having its outer end in 7 fathoms at low 

 water. The result of the sounding is that a slight scour of the 

 bottom has taken place on the inshore portion of the bay and the 

 soil deposited farther out, — a natural result of the eddy, caused hj 

 extending a pier nearly at right angles to the direction of the tide- 

 stream. In other respects the change is inappreciable. 



On the south coast, in the neighbourhood of Portsmouth, 

 Southampton Water, and the Isle of Wight, Mr. J. Scott Taylor, 

 R.N., has inserted in the charts the changes that have occurred 

 during the last twelve years, or since Captain Sheringham's 

 elaborate survey of that region in 1848. 



In the Channel Islands Commander Sidney and Messrs. Eichards 

 and Taylor have corrected portions of Alderney and Guernsey and 

 the outlying banks and dangers ; they have also sounded the 

 remarkable dyke in the bed of the Channel, about half-way between 

 Portland and Alderney, known by the name of Kurd's Deep, and 

 found it to extend considerably farther to the south-west than was 

 before supposed. Its length within the 50-fathoms edge is 40 miles, 

 its breadth Ij- miles, and its greatest depth 72 fathoms. 



On the coast of Devon Commander Cox with Messrs. Usborne 

 and Davis have completed 12 miles of open sea-coast, 32 miles of 

 harbour coast-line, and sounded over an area of 60 square miles. 

 Off the Land's End and in the Scilly Islands Captain Williams and 

 Mr. Wells, r.n., have filled in the soundings over a space of 650 

 square miles, in the course of which they discovered some rocky 

 ground, the spot of least depth 8 fathoms, lying 12 miles n. by e. 

 i E. of Cape Cornwall, not before noticed. A chart of the Channel, 

 in 3 sheets, on the scale of 0'15 of an inch to a mile, has been 

 published at the Admiralty during the past year. 



In the Bristol Channel Commander Alldridge, Messrs. Hall and 

 William Quin have completed the surveys of the eastern half of 

 Swansea Bay, including the Neath river and Port Talbot, in the 

 course of which work they sounded over an area of 67 square 



