OPENING OF HATTERAS INLET. 39 



was situated, and if it could or could not be identified with 

 the present inlet. The writer in the meanwhile had sent 

 a letter to the Secretary of War, asking for, and had re- 

 ceived (through the Engineer Department) , "Appendix G 

 of the Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers for 1876, 

 containing the Annual Report upon the Improvement of 



Rivers and Harbors in North Carolina." In this, 



the report of S. T. Abert, U. S. Civil Eng. to Brig. Gen. 

 A. A. Humphreys, Chief of Eng. U. S. A., has a "Table 

 showing comparative conditions of the Inlets on the coast 

 of North Carolina at different dates," giving with others 

 the condition of Hatteras Inlet as shown by maps of Hariot 

 1585, Lawson 1708, Wimble 1738, Mouzin 1775, Atlantic 

 Neptune 1780, Lewis 1795, and U. S. Coast Survey 1875. 

 In each and every one of these charts or maps, Hatteras 

 Inlet is indicated as being open, and the table shows that 

 the Engineer that compiled it, understood, and intended 

 to convey the impression, that the same inlet was there 

 in 1875 that existed in 1585 and that it was at the same 

 place on the coast. 



A search by the writer among the old charts in possession 

 of the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass., was the means of 

 discovering a "Chart of the Coast of America from Cape 

 Hateras to Cape Roman from the actual Surveys of Daniel 

 Duubibin, Esq." This chart is bound with others in " The 

 American Pilot" published at Boston by William Norman, 

 Book and Chart seller, an edition of 1794. This chart 

 has no inlet between Cape Hatteras and Ocracoke, and 

 gives 4 fathom of water on bar at Ocracoke, and 9 ft. 6 

 in. shoalest water on bar inside. A careful perusal of the 

 available histories of North Carolina in the Boston Public 

 Library was made, and in Vol. 2 of Martin's History of 

 North Carolina, page 184, this paragraph occurs : 



