466 PASSAGES OVEE THE ATLANTIC. 



Current, which I do not consider to be a definite current, but only at times, 

 occasioned by a combination of circumstances driving a great excess of 

 water into the Bay of Biscay, and the excess of tide to the Northward 

 does not require so great an allowance. 



2nd. That parallel is the centre of the dangerous group of Guernsey, 

 Jersey, the Caskets, &c., which, I believe, have caused more wrecks to 

 ships bound up the English Channel than getting to the "Northward oj 

 Scilly " has done, and the Channel course trends to the Northward ; the 

 difference of longitude between Scilly and the Caskets may appear great, 

 but great errors occur in dead reckoning, and a ship goes far in a winter 

 night with a Westerly gale. 



3rd. That parallel has led to or encouraged the imprudent and dan- 

 gerous practice of galloping up in mid-channel, with neither anchor nor 

 cable clear, and trusting to celestial observations and chronometers, as 

 though it were in the middle of the Atlantic ; and here we have the 

 Conqueror, Beliance &c., sad examples of the effects of not making and 

 keeping hold of the English coast, hghts, &c. A great deal was said and 

 written about those cases, but I consider that the amount of error in the 

 course and distance from a position off Scilly or the Lizard, to place a 

 ship on shore between Boulogne and Calais, instead of being in a position 

 off Dungeness, to be an every-day occurrence in navigating such a distance 

 in tideways and blowing weather, without any check to correct the 

 account, and neither "storm-waves" nor "storm-currents" were required 

 to cause them. 



4th. Foreign-goiog masters generally keep at too great a distance from 

 the land, by which they not only frequently miss a sight of lights, &c., 

 which it is important that they should see, but they lose the benefit of some 

 degree of familiarity with the land, objects, &c., which a nearer approach 

 would give them, and which, in the event of having to go into roadsteads, 

 &c., would be found of very great service. 



5th. It is not by keeping near the land that ships get embayed and lost. 

 If It were, colliers would never be safe ; they are as much afraid of getting 

 off the land as foreign-going masters generally are of coming near it. The 

 general rule in coasting is to see every guide as you pass it (unless thick 

 weather should prevent it, and in that case strict attention to the lead 

 until you find the next) ; this rule and attention to the set and duration 

 of the tides are the grand points in coasting. — B. L. 



In 1889 and 1890, the officers of H.M.S. Research re-sounded the 

 approaches to the English, Bristol, and St. George's Channels, Westward 

 of Scilly, and found considerable variations from what was shown on the 

 chart. It was found that, Westward of Scilly, the bottom consists of a 

 series of ridges, of no great breadth, lying in a N.E. and S.W. direc- 

 tion. The bottom is sand, broken shell, patches of pebbles, gravel, and 

 occasionally mud. Southward of the parallel of 49° 30', much yellow sand 

 was found, and Northward of that line mixed with black specks ; this 

 peculiarity was especially remarked between the meridians of 9° 40' 

 and T 30' W. 



During March, April, and May, sailing vessels are often delayed in the 

 Ent^lish Channel by persistent Easterly winds, accompanying an area of 



