KARA
(Copy.)
H. 1916.
SIR,
(4)
Enclosure 1.
(The Board of Trade to the Colonial Office.)
BOARD OF TRADE, HARBOUR DEPARTMENT.
LONDON, S.W. 21st March, 1888.
With reference to your letter of the 25th ultimo, in which you enclose copies of correspondence between the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Governor of Hongkong upon the subject of the proposed erection of a Light-house upon the Gap Rock at the entrance to Hongkong, I am directed by the Board of Trade to transmit to you a copy of a letter which has been received from the Corporation of Trinity House, to whom the correspondence was referred for their opinion, as to the character of the light that should be exhibited.
I am to request that, in laying this document before Lord KNUTSFORD, you will state that the Board concur in the opinion of the Corporation of Trinity House.
I have, &c.,
(Signed),
The Under Secretary of State,
COLONIAL OFfice.
(Copy.) H. 916.
C. CECIL TREVOR.
Enclosure 2.
(Trinity House to the Board of Trade.)
TRINITY HOUSE,
LONDON, E.C., 16th March, 1888.
SIR,
In reply to your letter dated 7th instant enclosing correspondence on the sub- ject of the proposed erection of a Light-house on the Gap Rock entrance to Hong- kong, and requesting the opinion of this Board as to the character of the light that should be exhibited, I am directed to acquaint you that The Elder Brethren would suggest that the light be 1st Order Dioptric, giving one white flash of about five seconds duration every half minute.
I am, &c.,
(Signed),
J. INGLIS.
BOARD OF TRADE.
The Assistant Secretary, Harbour Department,
(3.)
Minute by the Surveyor General.
HONOURABLE COLONIAL SECRETARY.
The character of light proposed by me and, now, independently by the Board of Trade is the same. As the Cape D'Aguilar light is a fixed one, the Gap Rock light would have to be a flashing one. The two could not be of the same category.
The undoubted difficulties of construction on the Gap Rock make it very desirable to minimize and simplify the work to be done on that almost inaccessible place as much as possible; and the question arises whether to obtain this it would not be wiser to make a fixed light of the Gap Rock and a flashing light of Cape D'Aguilar. There is a vast difference between the difficulties of construction of