APPENDIX. 



No. 1. 



Sir: March 19, 1831. 



Accompanying this letter, I have the honour to transmit to you, 

 for their Lordships' information, six charts and sixteen plans of 

 harbours and portions of the coast of Tierra del Fuego, the results of 

 Commander Fitz-Roy's surveys in H.M.'s sloop Beagle, between 

 April 1829 and June 1830. 



Their Lordships will, I trust, permit me, as the senior officer 

 of that expedition, to state the peculiar nature and extent of this 

 service, as well as the complete manner in which it has been 

 effected. 



On the melancholy occasion of Commander Stokes's death, I was 

 fortunate, through the Commander-in-chief Sir Robert Otway's just 

 discrimination of Commander Fitz-Roy's qualifications, on account of 

 which alone he was selected, to receive him as my colleague, in the 

 command of the Beagle. 



In April I detached the Beagle, and Adventure's tender, to complete 

 portions of the Strait of Magalhaens that were then imperfect ; and by 

 him, and under his superintendence and able direction, the Mag- 

 dalen and Barbara Channels through the Tierra del Fuego were 

 surveyed ; a considerable portion of the interior sounds on the 

 western coast was examined; and the discovery of the Otway and 

 Skyring Waters was made, by Commander Fitz-Roy himself, in the 

 depth of the severe winter of that climate, and on which he was 

 absent from the ship thirty -three days in an open whale-boat. 



In August the Beagle joined me at Chiloe, and sailed again early 

 in November following, with a view to examine the outward or sea- 



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