'The Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society. From December 1854 to March 1856. (New Issue.) Edited by the Secretary. Volume XII.' [‎88] (105/258)

Ixxxviii
PROCEEDINGS OP THE SOCIETY.
afterwards laid by the Officers of the Great Trigonometrical Survey, who*
have at length got a gauge at work at Kurrachee, being apparently considered
immaterial in an enquiry on the depths of the bay, the exactitude of which
must in a great measure depend on the minuteness of our acquaintance with
the rise and fall of the tides ! Lieutenant Rennie’s survey extended from
Vaux’s Tomb to Danoo, a distance of sixty-one miles : it has not as yet
been engraven—it stands in the list (pagelxxi.) as copied or lithographed A lithograph is an image reproduced from a printing plate whose image areas attract ink and non-image areas repel it. , it is
not stated which, at the Draughtsman’s Office, in three large sheets. Lieutenant
Ethersey had in 1836 resumed his survey at Danoo, and continued it to Arnol
Island, a further distance of thirty miles to the southward, terminating at the
northern shore of the Island of Bassein, thirty-four miles north from Bombay
Lighthouse. Here Lieutenant Rennie once more resumed his observations,
continuing the enquiry down to Bombay.
On the north-western shore, along the Coast of Kattiawar, the survey was
conducted by Lieutenant Constable from Vornani Point to below Pore-
bunder ; drawn or lithographed A lithograph is an image reproduced from a printing plate whose image areas attract ink and non-image areas repel it. in two sheets (Ixx.) with separate charts
of Porebunder and Verawul Roads : a previous survey had been executed
by Lieutenant Grieve from Porebunder to Diu Head, and from this to
Vornani Point. Lieutenant Ethersey, who, as already stated, had commen
ced operations on the western shore of the Bay in 1834, had finished a
separate chart of the Island of Diu, not hitherto engraven. Lieutenant
Whitelock had in 1833 surveyed from this point westerly round as far as
Dwarka—this chart was published in 1835. The entrance to the Gulf of
Cutch was surveyed by Mr. Jones midshipman—now a commander, and
for many years distinguished for his papers on Mesopotamia, published from
time to time in our Transactions. The exertions of our Surveyors were now
to be transferred to the northward, and will be found chronicled under the
heads Sind and Mekran; and for the next seventeen years the information
collected in reference to the shores of Kattiawar and -Cutch was deemed
sufficient.
In 1850 Lieutenant Taylor was appointed to survey the Gulf of Cutch, and
a portion of the sea coast of Kattiawar. It had been before surveyed by
Lieutenant Middleton in 1821, but the chart, which had been published the
following year, was not considered sufficiently copious or precise for the
requirements of navigation, considering the vast increase of our intercourse
with these shores within the past thirty years. The work occupied a couple of
years, and was completed in April 1852. The contour of the coast formed in
this case an insignificant portion of the toil of surveying—the whole chart is
one mass of soundings—the figures being dotted nearly as thick as they can
stand. One of the main objects of the minuteness ofthis inquiry was to discover
a harbour of refuge where vessels might find shelter in a storm; and in waters
so shallow and channels so intricate it was of the utmost importance to lay
down tracks for their guidance so unmistakeable that the most ordinary
care should enable them to be found. In this Lieutenant Taylor was perfectly
successful, Bate furnishing a place of refuge no storm could assail. Lieute
nant Taylor’s chart was accompanied by a memoir which it would have been
desirable to have placed before the world as speedily as possible, irrespective of
the inquiry to which it was meant to furnish a companion—neither copperplate
nor letterpress has as yet seen the light. The currents off these shores have
of late assumed peculiar interest, from the powerful indraft from the west
of twenty-three miles a day, from a distance of at all events of 300 miles
out. Two fine steamears have been stranded on the Kattiawar coast, proba
bly from this cause, and now that so many of the marvels of the sea begin to be