Marine Hydrographic Surveys 



6 7 



tude of rocks and shoals which encum- 

 ber this region, are now well known. 

 Much, however, yet remains to be done 

 on the eastern and southern confines of 

 this sea. Only the most important har- 

 bors and sections of coast in the Philip- 

 pines and the Dutch East Indies have 

 been well charted. Parts of Tonquin 

 and the southern, and especially the 

 eastern, passages into the China Sea need 

 much additional examination in detail. 

 Australia and New Zealand are envel- 

 oped with good nautical charts, which 

 are constantly being amended as new 

 developments give rise to increased 

 needs for more detailed surveys, and 

 most of the important harbors and the 

 thickly inhabited maritime sections have 

 been quite completely done. The Coral 

 Sea, or what is termed the outer pas- 

 sage between Australia and the Indian 

 Ocean, is now much improved beyond 

 its former state, owing to the necessity 

 of providing more direct routes than 

 those which were formerly followed, 

 and most of its dangerous reefs are now 

 set down in the charts. British India 

 is better surveyed than many other parts 

 of the best-known coasts of the world, 

 and the shores of the Red Sea and the 

 Mediterranean have been minutely sur- 

 veyed excepting in a few parts where 

 minor details are not now important. 



Of the coast of Africa, aside from 

 that portion which fronts on the Red 

 Sea and the Mediterranean, the most 

 vaguely charted portion is that of So- 

 maliland, and the most completely 

 charted parts are embraced in that 

 well-surveyed section, including Mada- 

 gascar, which extends southward from 

 Zanzibar around the Cape of Good 

 Hope to the regions of Table Bay. The 

 whole of the west coast can now be laid 

 down with closeness to its true position 

 on the face of the globe, and while some 

 parts of it have been merely explored 

 by the nautical surveyor, many other 

 parts are better known, and some of the 



harbors and off-lying islands have been 

 surveyed with considerable approach to 

 completeness. 



The coasts of Europe, excepting the 

 Spanish peninsula and those parts bor- 

 dering on the Arctic Ocean, are com- 

 pletely surveyed, and an important cen- 

 ter of activity in marine hydrography 

 has for many years existed in Great 

 Britain, resulting not only in elaborate 

 surveys of the waters of Great Britain 

 and Ireland, but in meeting the demand 

 for reliable nautical charts in every part 

 of the British Empire and in whatever 

 other parts of the world British trade 

 has been active or springing up. 



Nearly a century has now elapsed 

 since the close of the era of discoveries 

 among the vast groups of islands and 

 coral reefs with which the immense 

 area of the Pacific Ocean is studded, 

 and the chaotic state of geography at 

 that time, in which it was sometimes 

 impossible for discoverers to return to 

 the islands discovered, has given place 

 to a state of order at the present day. 

 The ships of all the great maritime na- 

 tions have contributed in a greater or 

 less degree to this advance by fixing 

 the correct geographical positions of 

 individual islands, by surveying har- 

 bors and anchorages in the various 

 groups, and by disproving the existence 

 of many supposed rocks and dangers 

 which were set down in the older charts 

 from reports of former navigators, often 

 doubtless based upon misleading ap- 

 pearances of the sea. 



But important as is the surveying 

 work that has already been accom- 

 plished in the Pacific, it is only the 

 beginning of that which is to come. 

 There is scarcely an island group in the 

 whole of Oceania that is completely 

 charted. The great work that remains 

 to be done here ought to progress more 

 rapidly in the future, since all these 

 lands have at length been parceled out 

 among leading nations of the world. 



