OPENING OF HATTERAS INLET. 



COMMUNICATED BY WILLIAM L. WELCH. 



HATTERAS INLET is on the coast of North Carolina, be- 

 tween Cape Hatteras and Ocracoke Inlet, about twelve 

 miles from the Cape, southwest ; and fourteen miles north- 

 east of Ocracoke. 



It is mentioned in Blunt's Coast Pilot, but not in the 

 Gazetteers, or Encyclopaedias : it is surprising that no ac- 

 count of this Inlet and harbor so remarkable in itself, and 

 of so much interest in the late war, by reason of the Burn- 

 side Expedition passing through it, can be found in any 

 of these books of reference. 



The writer was stationed at Hatteras Inlet in the summer 

 of 1864, for about a month, and was then told by one of 

 the native pilots (Reuben Quidley) that the place where the 

 inlet is, and the water three or four fathoms deep, used to 

 be dry, solid land, and that he (Quidley) had often walked 

 over it. 



When in Jan., 1884, the writer undertook to determine 

 the date of the opening or cutting through of this Inlet, he 

 consulted everything attainable, without success, and as a 

 last resort, wrote (Jan. 12th) to the U. S. Coast Survey at 

 Washington, D. C., for such particulars as they could and 

 would communicate. In the answer to this "(dated Jan. 

 21st) the information was received, that the first survey of 

 the place in question, was made in 1850, and the results were 

 published in the Coast Survey Reports for 1851 and fur- 

 ther 



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