b INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 



The natural history investigations of the season 1877-78 were 

 necessarily confined to examining, collecting, and preserving speci- 

 mens of the fauna of the shores near Ratnagiri and Viziadrug. 

 The area examined included the tract from the sea to the Western 

 Ghats. It is only on the slopes of the hills that the various fauna 

 begin to be at all abundant, or to assume any individuality of their 

 own. All the intervening tract of country is parched and barren, 

 and composed of a thin soil overlying a substratum of trap rock or 

 laterite, the latter being apparently detrimental to the development 

 of auimal organisms. The want of an efficient surveying vessel 

 hampered Dr. Armstrong's operations, but a list of about 60 

 ornithological specimens collected by him finds place in his report 

 for 1877-78. Among miscellaneous papers submitted to Govern- 

 ment by officers of the Department and printed in the Appendix to 

 the Report for the year were the following : — 



Remarks on some ports of the Madras Presidency, after inspection 



in April and May 1877. By Commander Taylor, late I.N. 

 Report on some harbours, &c. of the Bombay Presidency, after 

 an inspection tour in May 1877. By Commander Taylor, late I.N. 

 Remarks upon the supposed silting up of the upper portion of 



Bombay harbour. By Commander Taylor. 

 On the history of some of the oldest races now settled in Bombay. 

 With reasons for supposing that the present island of Bombay 

 consisted in the 14th century of two or more distinct islands. 

 By P. X. Murphy, Esq. 

 Extract from report by Mr. Morris Chapman, late I.N., on 



Paumben channel and Rameswaram island. 

 In addition to various useful pieces of work performed by 

 Mr. Carrington in the compilation of new charts and of hydro- 

 graphic publications may lie mentioned the result of a visit of 

 inspection to Bombay paid by him, on which occasion he examined 

 the Avhole collection of charts (11,787 in number) stored in the 

 dockyard there. Of these, the vast majority (10,045) proved to be 

 quite obsolete, and had consequently to be cancelled; the remainder 

 (1,742) were corrected by hand up to the latest date by Mr. Carrington, 

 and retained for issue to masters of vessels. 



One of the first matters to be settled in 1878 was the selection of 

 localities where tide-gauges should be erected, with a view to the 

 determination of the mean sea-level along the Indian coasts. This 

 was settled by Commander Taylor in concert with Captain 



