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XL Some Remarks on an Error respecting the Site and Origin of Graham 
Island. By Captain W. H. Smyth, R.N. F.R.S. F.S.A. 
Read February 9, 1832. 
In consequence of accounts recently published concerning- the rise and pro¬ 
gress of this island, which I conceive to have been stated materially in error, 
and in order that physical inquiry may receive as exact data as can be afforded, 
I beg leave to offer the following remarks to the Royal Society. 
It was stated, in the first letters which arrived from Malta, that an officer 
on the Mediterranean station was in possession of an old chart, whereon was 
K a shoal with only four fathoms on it, and called Larmour’s Breakers —-and 
this being asserted to be “ within a mile of the latitude and longitude” of the 
new island, was consequently announced as its nucleus. On reading some of 
these letters I saw at once that the chart was mistaken for a valuable docu¬ 
ment ; but being aware that its particulars were well known to navigators, I 
should not have deemed it to require notice, had not the erroneous inference 
been repeated, both in the Journal of the Geographical Society, and in the 
Quarterly Review. 
The danger alluded to as existing, upon the “ old chart”, was never ascer¬ 
tained or verified ; it was only thought to have been seen, by Captain Larmour, 
when in command of the Wassanaer, a troop-ship, on the Egyptian expedition. 
But the same impression did not strike all the officers and passengers; and on 
the commander-in-chief dispatching two or three vessels to examine it for a 
more detailed report, no shoal-water could be found. The present Captain 
Richard Spencer, C.B., then a lieutenant on board the Wassanaer, was one of 
the officers sent to assist in the search ; and from him I had these particulars. 
Yet the minute which had been forwarded to me from the Admiralty, being 
written in these decided terms— 
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