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Vice-Admiral Piobert FitzRoy, bom at Ampton Hall, Suffolk, Juily 

 5, 1805, was youngest son of General Lord Charles FitzRoy by his second 

 wife, Frances Anne, eldest daughter of the first Marquis of Londonderry. 

 He entered the Royal Naval College at Portsmouth in 1818 ; and from 

 1819 to 1828 served on board the Owen Glendower, Hind, Thetis, and 

 Ganges in the Mediterranean and on the coasts of South ilmerica, and 

 became flag-lieutenant at Rio Janeiro. 



In the year last mentioned, on the decease of Captain Stokes, who, under 

 Captain King, had been employed in surveying the shores of Patagonia and 

 Tierra del Fuego, Lieutenant FitzRoy was selected by the commander-in- 

 chief on the station, for the command of the Beagle, one of the two ves- 

 sels engaged in the survey. He entered on his new duties with the zeal 

 and conscientiousness which through life characterized his professional and 

 official services. Of the importance of the task even a non-professional 

 reader may judge by a comparison of the charts of the South American 

 coasts published since 1826, with those previously existing. Of the greater 

 portion of the shores, from the La Plata on the east to the north of Peru 

 on the west, especially the broken and intricate outlines of the lower lati- 

 tudes, little was known, and that was imperfectly laid down on early charts 

 in a way which has been aptly described as "confused." The Chonos 

 Archipelago was completely omitted, and the Spanish charts of Chiloe 

 were twenty-five miles in error. 



In the winter of 1829, while surveying the tortuous channels which 

 ramify so bewilderingly in the rugged region to the rear of the Land of 

 Desolation, Lieutenant FitzRoy discovered two large inland seas (Otway 

 Water and Skyring Water) connected by a channel twelve miles in length, 

 to which Captain King gave the name of FitzRoy Passage. During this 

 exploration. Lieutenant FitzRoy with two boats was av»^ay from the ship 

 thirty-two days, exposed to the rigours of a severe and stormy climate, 

 yet no opportunity was lost of making observations and taking notes of 

 remarkable objects. At the end of 1830 the two vessels returned to Eng- 

 land, having added charts of the south-western and southern shores of 

 Tierra del Fuego, besides those of a multitude of interior sounds and pas- 

 sages," to the results of the first two years of the survey. Among his 

 specimens of natural history. Lieutenant FitzRoy brought four native Fue- 

 gians, and expended largely from his private resources in endeavouring to 

 improve their condition. 



At the end of 1831, the Beagle having been thoroughly re-equipped, 

 was again commissioned with Lieutenant FitzRoy as commander to renew 

 the survey. On the voyage out a partial examination was made of the 

 Abrolhos Bank, of which a brief account was read before the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society and pubHshed in their Journal. Other papers from his 

 pen are printed in the same periodical, in one of which he sums up in few 

 words the results of the additional survey, accomplished with not less spirit 

 and intelligence than the former. "Beginning," he remarks, " with the 



