ADMIRALTV SUOURVEVS FOR THE PAST VEAR. 229 
sideration, but has only now been matured. It is intended to make a temporary 
station for Arctic observation and discovery in the latitude of 81° 4o‘ on or near 
the shore of Lady Franklin Bay. The expedition will consist of twenty-five peo- 
ple, who are to go up there in the Gulnare, a steamer of two hundred tons. The 
proposal is that they should endeavor to push on to the North Pole by slow de- 
grees during several seasons. The Board of Admiralty have placed at the dis- 
posal of this expedition the depots of provisions left by Sir George Nares in Smith 
Sound in the years 1875 and 1876, and we shall feel an interest in seeing what our 
cousins on the other side of the Atlantic may succeed in doing in this matter. 
ADMIRALDLY SURVEYS FOR DHE PAST VEAR: 
BY THE HYDROGRAPHER, CAPT. F. J. O. EVANS, R. N., C. B., F. R. S. 
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On the seaboard of China, Captain Napier and his staff in the Magpie, visit- 
ing the Gulf of Tong King and Hainan Island, have surveyed the Treaty-ports of 
Pak-hoi and Hoi-how; determined the position of Gmi Chan Island and Cape 
Cami, including a partial examination of the shoal ground off this headland. Pro- 
ceeding northward, an extended search for the Actzon shoal was instituted; this 
reported danger in the neighborhood of the Shantung promontory, and lying in the 
highway of navigation for ships proceeding to the Gulf of Pechili, having long per- 
plexed seamen ; the search, however, was not successful. A comprehensive sur- 
vey of the entrance of the Yang-tsze kiang, extending from Shaweishan Island and 
the Tungsha banks as a seaward boundary upward to Buch Island above the 
Wusung River, including enlarged plans of the outer and inner bars of this river, 
is also nearly completed. 
In Japan, Commander Aldrich and Staff in the Sylvia have completed the 
Goto Islands; also the west coast of Kinsin from Da Sima to Odimari Bay, in- 
cluding the Kosiki group and the off-lying islands from the western part of Van 
Diemen Strait. A preparatory triangulation of the coast from Odimari Bay to 
Cape Cochrane on the east coast of Kinsin has also been made. The charts of 
the seaward approaches to Western Japan from the ports of China are thus ap- 
proaching a satisfactory completion. 
After six years service on the coasts of Japan, the Sylvia will return to Eng- 
land in the autumn of this year. H. M. S. Flying Fish, an armed sloop, of mo- 
dern type, will take her place. under command of Lieutenant R. F. Hoskyn, this 
officer having taken an active part in the surveying duties on which the Sylvia 
was engaged during the whole of her foreign service. 
On the western coast of South America, H. M. S. Alert, with an efficient 
staff of surveyors, in the early part of the year under Sir George Nares, and sub- 
