22 INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 



The next year (1884-85) saw Commander Alfred Carpenter, R.N., 

 assume the direction of the operations, in place of Commander 

 Dawson, the Department during the interval between the two 

 commands being placed in charge of Lieutenant Channer, E.N". 

 The " Investigator's " first course was to Sandoway Eoads, where 

 work was immediately commenced in continuation of the Cheduba 

 and Ramree harbour surveys of the previous season. 



The Cheduba straits were completed in December 1884 

 after a year's work, during which 83 linear miles of coast arid 

 905 square miles of soundings were charted, new shoals were 

 discovered, and the so-called Port Childers, formerly described as an 

 excellent harbour, was proved to be full of dangerous pinnacle 

 rocks. 



An examination was made of the Orissa coast from Dhunrra river 

 to Balasor, but no detailed marine survey of the shore was 

 carried out. Soft mud flats dry at low water extended two or 

 three miles off its entire face, while dense jungle and mangrove 

 swamps formed the actual coast. Many of the stations along 

 the shores made by the great trigonometrical surveyors some years 

 previously, had become submerged: the two-fathom line extended 

 from three to four miles off shore, and at six miles no portion of the 

 coast could be seen from a ship's deck. 



A camping party, landed on Shortt island, proceeded to delineate 

 ili.' Palmyras shoals, 88 square miles of which were charted, while 

 the " Investigator" re-sounded the whole of the bank of soundings 

 (or Pilot's Ridge) between False Point, Palmyras Point, and the 

 Eastern channel light-vessel, carrying the soundings out to 30 

 fathoms. The positions of the various soundings were found 

 astronomically, and every observation carefully checked by four or 

 •servers, each with his own sextant, as attention had been 

 repeatedly called by captains of vessels bound for the Hugli river 

 to the erroneous nature of the soundings on published charts of this 

 part of the Bay of Bengal. 



The result of the survey showed an almost identical bottom 

 contour to that on the Admiralty chart (False Point to Mutlah) 

 as delineated by Mr. B. C. Carrington. The amount of square 

 miles sounded over by the Pilot's Bidge survey was 2,400. On its 

 completion the "Investigator's" boats assisted in sounding the 

 extreme seaward face of the Palmyras shoals, which had apparently 

 projected eastward half a mile from their former position. 



