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D'Urville was greatly surprised to find that a good many inaccuracies had crept into the work of the great English navigator, and in that part of the account of his voyage which relates to hydrography, he quotes instances of errors of a fourth, or even third of a degree. The commander then resolved to make a survey of the eastern side of the northern island Ika-Na-Mawi.
We find, too, that all anomalies, all the exceptions to the laws of hydrography, which the interior of America displays, are merely apparent; that the course of running waters furnishes phenomena equally extraordinary in the old world, but that these phenomena, from their littleness, have less struck the imagination of travellers.
The junctions of the Guarico, the Apure, the Cabullare, and the Arauca with the Orinoco, form, at a hundred and sixty leagues from the coast of Guiana, a kind of interior Delta, of which hydrography furnishes few examples in the Old World. According to the height of the mercury in the barometer, the waters of the Apure have only a fall of thirty-four toises from San Fernando to the sea.
But though this piece of hydrography has its importance the chief meaning of Cricklade in history lay in the fact that it was the spot where this Ermine Street on its way from the south country to the Severn Valley got over the Thames, and the village connected with it was entrenched certainly in Roman and probably in pre-Roman times. This entrenchment may still be traced.
Hatchette had been professor of hydrography at Collioure; his friends from Roussillon recommended me to him. He received me with great kindness, and even gave me a room in his lodgings. It was there that I had the pleasure of making Poisson's acquaintance, who lived next to us.
He quotes, also, another authority which “can not be suspected,” namely, M. Charles Martins, who said, in the Revue des Deux Mondes for March 1, 1867, “Now, hydrography, geology, and botany agree in teaching us that the Azores, the Canaries, and Madeira are the remains of a great continent which formerly united Europe to North America.” He could have added other quotations in the same strain.
The Halbrane seemed to be reduced to the dimensions of a small boat lost in this boundless space the contrary of that limitless sea of which Edgar Poe speaks, where, like a living body, the ship grows larger. When we have charts, or even sailing directions instruct us concerning the hydrography of the coasts, the nature of the landfalls, the bays and the creeks, we may sail along boldly.
For the general materials from which the map is constructed I am chiefly indebted to the kindness of my friend, the late Mr. Alexander Dalrymple, whose indefatigable labours during a long life have contributed more than those of any other person to the improvement of Indian Hydrography.
It was the first voyage which had not hydrography alone for its object. Its chief aim was to survey the shape of the land in the southern hemisphere, and to make observations in terrestrial magnetism, without, at the same time, omitting to give attention to all natural phenomena, and to the manners, customs, and languages of indigenous races.
Accompanying it was a letter from the Secretary of the Navy directing me to report to the Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography, in Washington, for such duty as it might assign me. I arrived on October 6, and immediately called on Professor J. S. Hubbard, who was the leading astronomer of the observatory.
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