INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 13 



that the general purport of this part of the report was to allege 

 that the Calcutta Office or shore establishment had been unduly 

 magnified at the cost of the survey proper, that India required her 

 coasts surveyed, but no Hydrographic Office, and that the most 

 useful and profitable course in the interests of the State was 

 " to break up the Indian Marine Survey Department." 



Captain Brent's detailed recommendations regarding the 'personnel 

 and records were as follows :— 



Commander A. D. Taylor, late I.N., Superintendent of Marine 

 Surveys, was to be pensioned. The post of Superintendent of the 

 Drawing Branch was to be abolished, and 10 clerks and draughts- 

 men were to be either transferred to other Government posts or 

 dismissed. All tlie Admiralty charts purchased by and presented 

 to India, were to be sent back to the Hydrographer, while Indian 

 survey charts were to be sent to Bombay dockyard, together with 

 chart boxes, instruments, drawing materials, tin cases, &c. 

 Surveyors' original charts were to be sent to the Admiralty 

 Hydrographer. 



The "Wreck Register and the clerk employed thereon were to be 

 transferred after the 1st July to the Port Office, Calcutta, instructions 

 being sent to the Indian ports to send all information in future to 

 that official instead of to the Marine Survey Department. The Port 

 Officer has since carried on this duty in addition to his own work. 

 The Annual Return of Lighthouses and Light- vessels was to be 

 handed over to the Home Department, and the Notices to Mariners 

 abolished, on the ground that they could always be procured from 

 London. Captain A. W. Stifle, the Port Officer, was directed in 

 1887 to prepare a new corrected edition of the former Return, and 

 to the same officer was also entrusted the duty of issuing all Notices 

 to Mariners relating to India. 



With respect to the future conduct of surveys, Captain Brent laid 

 down at the outset that it was only from the active list of the Royal 

 Navy that efficient marine surveyors could be obtained, and that the 

 Indian surveyors should be therefore nominated by the Admiralty, 

 the posts of assistants being filled by officers of the Indian Marine. 

 But the two classes were to be kept distinct, there being no promo- 

 tion from the lower to the higher grade. Their work was to be 

 sent home directly to the Hydrographer, such charts as might be 



