256 POPULAR LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 



communicated to me, the following statement re- 

 ferring to the loss of the iron steamer Eastern 

 Province r , lost on the south coast of Africa near 

 Cape Agulhas, on the 26th of June, 1865 : " The 

 captain attributed the loss to a change of the devia- 

 tion of the compass, and that change to an attrac- 

 tion of the coast, a cause to which sailors often 

 attribute supposed irregularities of the compass on 

 rounding a headland, irregularities which have 

 never yet been shown to exist, and which I entirely 

 disbelieve. It does not seem to have occurred to the 

 captain or officers, or any one else, that a change 

 of course is necessarily accompanied with a change 

 of the deviation produced by the ship's iron." 



In the case of the Eastern Province it appeared 

 from the captain's evidence laid before the com- 

 mittee of inquiry held at Cape Town on the I4th of 

 July, to investigate and report on the loss, that the 

 ship had been steered on a compass course of N.W 

 by N. till off Cape Agulhas, and then on N.N.W. 

 which the captain supposed to be a change of 

 course of one point, which would have carried her 

 on a course parallel to the coast. Astronomical 



