Sect. III.] 



HYDROGRAPHY. 



85 



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1 

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regards coasts, and islands which are bnt little 



known, T hw.e given in the Appendix a list of such as are 



most deserving of attention, extracted from a retmn made 

 by the able and indefatigable officer at the head of the 

 Hydrograpliic department to an order of the House of 

 Commons, 1848, and all general directions for acquiring 

 information which may have been already given must be 

 considered to apply with double force to these countries. 

 The limits of this paper do not permit of our cnterin 

 into particulars as to the probable position of places wliich 

 may be imperfectly determined, nor of the reported posi- 

 tion of islands wliich are considered doubtful. In the 

 Atlantic alone, for instance, there are islands reported 

 continually where none could possibly exist ; and the 

 islands of the Pacific have been multiplied by the errors 

 of the longitudes of persons visiting them; but wherever 

 the charts place any islands as doubtful, which you wish 

 +^> seek (as it is always more probable that the latitude is 

 correct than the longitude), the parallel of the supposed 

 latitude should be gained, at a meridian sufficiently dis- 



tant from that given to exceed the probable limit of error 

 in longitude, and a due east or v/est course pursued until a 

 similarly distant meridian is gained on the other side ; and 

 if there should be any change in the colour of the water, 

 sounding ought by all means to be tried ; and especially 



the 



we call attention to soundings upon the site near 

 equator marked as the seat of volcanic action from about 

 Si S. and irf to 24^ W., and also to the vicinity of the 

 great bank S. and S.E. from the Falkland Islands, called 

 Burdwood Bank, on which there has been found recently 



as little as 24 fathoms ; the A^ulhas Bank, and the 



