11 



no small degree indebted to him for the excellence of the charts of 

 these coasts, which have been in constant use to the present time. 



In these two important expeditions Mr. Evans gained for himself 

 the reputation of a scientific surveying officer, second to none in his 

 profession. His great forte had always been extreme accuracy of 

 observation and fidelity in execution, two qualities perhaps in no pro- 

 fession of more vital importance than in the calling of the nautical 

 surveyor. Always painstaking and patient, sometimes thought to be 

 over-fastidious, yet he was never outstripped in the race by his more 

 ardent contemporaries, and the accuracy of his work was never 

 questioned ; during these two voyages he had paid considerable atten- 

 tion to the science of terrestrial magnetism, and had made frequent 

 observations on the three elements, thus in a measure preparing him- 

 self for the important duties which were destined to devolve on him 

 at a later period of his career. 



After his return to England, at the end of 1851, he was for a con- 

 siderable time employed at the Hydrographical Department of the 

 Admiralty, in preparing the charts of New Zealand for publication, 

 and on other nautical duties connected with that survey. 



His abilities as a surveying officer had long been noticed by 

 the then chief of the department, Sir Francis Beaufort, who 

 was never slow to recognise and reward real merit ; and it was on 

 his nomination that, at the commencement of the Russian war, 

 Mr. Evans was employed on reconnoitring service with the Baltic 

 Fleet ; for a year he was vigorously engaged on inshore service on 

 the Russian coasts, and was present at the operations against Bomar- 

 sund and among the Aland islands, for which his name was mentioned 

 in Gazetted Despatches ; with this service his active career afloat 

 ceased, after twenty-six years of constant employment, both in the 

 regular and surveying branches of the Navy, and surely no man was 

 more entitled than himself to look back with pride and satisfaction 

 on a career of unremitting labour and enduring usefulness for so long 

 a period. 



A new era was now about to commence in the construction of the 

 ships of the Royal Navy, and Captain Evans was destined for the next 

 thirty years to take a leading part in the development of a science 

 upon which the safety of their navigation was mainly to depend. 



In 1855 he was appointed Chief of the Compass Department of the 

 Admiralty ; at this time our extensive Fleet was wholly of wood, 

 partly composed of steam and partly of sailing ships. Our experience 

 of the effects of magnetism in the iron vessels which had been con- 

 structed in the Mercantile Marine was extremely limited ; the science 

 of the subject, so far as it extended, was alone known to two or three 

 individuals in Europe, and even that science was extremely mistrusted 

 by all practical men, and further, numerous, and especially one 



