1890.] Address. 87 



about 1^ mile to the eastward, and that the Table Island Light was 

 quite correctly placed on the chai'ts. 



A course was then laid for False Point, in Orissa, and deep-sea 

 soundings made. A map attached to the report, shews that the Bay of 

 Bengal has a regular decline towards its mouth : the Andaman and 

 Nicobar Range form its eastern boundary (the sea east of the Andamans 

 being a separate basin) ; the water nearer the coasts is slightly deeper 

 than in the centre ; the depth falls off very suddenly from the 100 fathom 

 line off the Sunderbands to the 900 fathom line. The most rapid fall 

 is really from 100 fathoms to 650 fathoms, where the slope is 1 in 13. 



A light-house is reported to be much required at the mouth of 

 the Devi E/iver. 



It was found that several of the river mouths, viz., False Point, the 

 Jotador River, the Devi River, and the Chilka Lake entrance have all 

 shifted their positions about 3 miles to the north-east, in the last 40 

 years by the extension of their sandy sj^its. 



A comparison of the soundings in Coconada Bay, with those taken 

 in 1882 shows a similar noi'therly movement of the estuary, amounting 

 to half a mile in 7 years, or three miles in 42 years. In another 40 years 

 Coconada will be unapproachable by water. The erosion or transfer 

 of sand, by the continuous southerly swell and the predominant 

 southerly wind, are working vast changes along the immediate seaboard, 

 which certain preventive measures may guide and modify, though they 

 will be powerless to arrest them. 



In Appendix XII of the same report, Dr. Alcock has given a full 

 and highly interesting account of the zoological operations of the survey 

 from November 1888 to March 1889, at the Andamans and Cocos and 

 on the Orissa coast, with a list of Fishes found off the latter, and also 

 notes on the newly-hatched larval forms of Thenus orientalis and Hippa 

 asiatica ; on the gestation of some Elasmo branch Fishes, and on those 

 Fishes taken off the Orissa coast which are believed to be new. 



Dr. Alcock regrets that nothing has hitherto been done by the 

 Survey in the way of botanical collection, but now that the necessaries 

 have been furnished, he proposes to begin. 



In another Appendix (XIII) Commander Carpenter gives a memo- 

 randum on the unsurveyed condition of portions of the coast line of 

 India and Burma, showing what has been done, what remains to be 

 done and when it might probably be undertaken by the present staff. 



Geology. 



The work of the Geological Survey of India, under the direction 

 of Dr. William King, has during thclast year been mainly devoted to 



