12 INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 



Major-General J. T. Walker, K.E., Surveyor- General of India, the 

 other members being Mr. D. M. Barbour, officiating Accountant- 

 General of Bengal, Mr. H. F. Blanford, F.R.S., Meteorological 

 Eeporter to the Government of India, Commander A. D. Taylor, 

 late I.N., Superintendent of Indian Marine Surveys, Commander 

 A. D. Street, R.N., Assistant Secretary to the Government of India 

 in the Military (Marine) Department, and Mr. C. B. Palmer, R.N., 

 Examiner of Marine Accounts as Secretary. The chief proposals 

 of this Committee were that the Survey Department should be 

 amalgamated with the Indian Marine and that a rather smaller 

 surveying establishment than the original one should be sanctioned. 

 The head of the department was to be styled Superintendent of 

 Coast Surveys in lieu of Superintendent of Marine Surveys, the 

 employment of Royal Naval officers was to be continued, and 

 arrangements were to be made for marine zoological observations and 

 trawling to be carried on in the new surveying steamer, under the 

 supervision of a Naturalist. The pose of superintendent was 

 recommended to be conferred on Commander T. A. Hull, R.N., an 

 officer who had had great experience in coast surveying in various 

 parts of the world, and in the projection and compilation of charts 

 in the Hydrographic Office of the Admiralty.* The Admiralty, 

 however, objected to the Superintendentship being given to an officer 

 retired from the Royal Navy, and this proposal had to be abandoned. 

 The general re-organization of the Department too, on the lines laid 

 down by the Committee, did not commend itself to the Admiralty 

 and the Secretary of State, and at the suggestion of the former, 

 advantage was taken of Commander Taylor's prospective retire- 

 ment to depute Captain H. W. Brent, R.N., the recently nominated 

 Director of Indian Marine, to take up the question on his arrival in 

 India, so as to advise the Government as to the best way of dealing 

 with the Marine Survey Department. 



An elaborate report on the Marine Survey Department was 

 compiled by Captain Brent, and its entire work since its origin in 

 1S74 was severely criticised. A series of statements and charges 

 was brought against the Department, but it is enough to state here 



* Captain Hull was author of a remarkable paper read in 1874 before the Royal 

 United Service Institution called "The Unsurveyed World, 1874," which enumerated 

 ami specified all the more pressing enast surveys then needed throughout the world. 

 The paper attracted much attention. 



