136 BULLETIN OF THE 



entrances to Narragansett Bay, with Bonnet Point, on which the 

 steamer Rhode Island was wrecked in the fall of 1880,, one and one- 

 half miles to the northwest, with Fort Adams three and one-quarter 

 miles to the northeast, and distant one and one-half miles to the 

 southeast. On this chart was indicated the route of a sail boat 

 which had been run to Bonnet Point, thence southerly to near 

 Whale Rock ; thence easterly close to Beaver Tail ; thence north- 

 easterly to Fort Adams, and thence southeasterly to Newport. On 

 the route followed by the boat, he had indicated by half inch circles, 

 the audibility of the fog-signal in full blast at Beaver Tail, as heard 

 in the boat ; the degrees being shown by the various shades ; full 

 audibility being iudicated by darkening the whole surface of the 

 circle, and complete inaudibility being shown by lack of shading 

 in the circle. In this way it was shown that the observer, an officer 

 of the Navy, found the sound of the fog-signal faint at half a mile 

 from the signal, fainter at three-fourths of a mile off, much louder 

 at a mile, less loud at one and one-eighth miles ; he lost the sound 

 entirely at one and one-fourth miles ; at one and three-sixteenths 

 miles he heard it faintly, and right under Bonnet Point, one and 

 one-half miles distant, he heard it stronger than he did at one-half 

 mile from the signal. In the run of about one mile from Bonnet 

 Point toward Whale Rock he did not hear the fog-signal at all, and 

 then he heard it faintly, and as he then ran almost toward the signal 

 he lost its sound entirely ; when about a half a mile west of the 

 signal he heard its sound quite faintly, and then lost it, not hearing 

 it again till within one-fourth of a mile when he suddenly heard it 

 at its full power and continued to do so on his run to Newport 

 until three-fourths of a mile away, when the sound diminished one- 

 half, and continued so at one mile off and one and one-fourth miles 

 off. At one and one-half miles distance the sound had diminished 

 to about one-fourth of its power ; at two miles off he lost it ; he did 

 not hear a trace of it at two and one-fourth, two and a half, or two 

 and three-fourths miles distances ; but he caught it faintly as he 

 rounded Fort Adams at three miles away, and when he had run 

 another one-fourth of a mile into Newport Harbor he heard it at 

 almost its full power and continued to do so for another quarter of 

 a mile, when he lost it all together. 



Mr. Johnson called attention to the fact that in the run of this 

 boat, the sound of the fog-signal had ranged from audibility to 

 to inaudibility, and back again, several times ; and that while it 



