INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 15 



There was to be an office at Bombay under the Director of Marine 

 with, two draughtsmen and a clerk, and these officials were charged 

 with the custody and care of the charts. 



Local governments and administrations and the several port officers 

 were to promptly communicate all information regarding wrecks, 

 lights, navigation, buoys, beacons, shoals, or other matters affecting 

 the safe navigation of the seas, to the Director of Marine for the 

 information of the surveyor in charge. The surveyor in charge 

 was to be the adviser to the Government of India upon all matters 

 connected with the navigation of Indian seas, the lighting and 

 marking of the sea approaches to all great Indian ports and rivers, 

 conservancy of harbours, and cognate subjects. 



This general scheme was approved by the Government of 

 India.* The proposed staff as agreed to by them was to consist of 

 one surveyor in charge and seven officers, all of the Royal Navy, 

 and nine assistant surveyors of the Indian Marine. The total cost 

 of the scheme was to be Rs. 1,93,000, which was estimated to be a 

 saving of Rs. 7,000 a year on the cost of the then existing establish- 

 ment (Rs. 2,00,000 per annum), but as the actual expenditure of the 

 latter was about half a lakh less than its sanctioned limit, the new 

 scheme was in reality the more costly of the two. 



The Secretary of State duly accorded his sanction to these pro- 

 posals, and the retirement of Commander Taylor on the 1st July 

 1882, binder the 55-year rule, enabled the re-organization to be 

 completed. He was succeeded in the charge of the Marine Surveys 

 by Commander L. S. Dawson, R.N. 



Commander Alfred Dundas Taylor, whose active Indian career thus 

 practically came to an end, is an officer whose public service here 

 merits some notice. 



His earliest eastern services were rendered in the Persian Gulf when 

 he was a midshipman on board the Honourable East India Company's 

 ship " Elphinstone. " On leaving that vessel in June 1843 he was 

 granted a certificate as " a first-rate navigator who promised to be as 

 " good an officer." His surveying career commenced in the following- 

 year under Commander Montriou (succeeded later on by Lieutenant 

 Selby) in the brig " Taptee," along the Concan coast below Bombay, 

 and this work was carried on for four years. Promoted to the rank 

 of lieutenant in 1847 the next two years found him on board the 



* Military (Marine) Letter, No. 29 of 1882, dated 1st September 1882. 



