727719-1854-GOVERNMENT-NOTIFICATION — Page 1

No. 39.

THE

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Hongkong

GOVERNMENT GAZETTE.

Published by Authority.

VICTORIA, HONGKONG; SATURDAY, June 17, 1854.

GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION.

THE Contract hitherto in force for the publication of GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATIONS having ceased on the 21st instant. --Notice is hereby given, that the HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, this day established, will be hereafter the only Official Organ of Proclamations, Notifications, and all Public Papers of this Government.

By Order,

Victoria, Hongkong, 24th September, 1853.

GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION.

W. CAINE, Colonial Secretary.

It is hereby notified, that the Government Rents due for the current half year will be payable on the 24th instant, and for twenty one days following.

Colonial Treasury, Victoria,

Hongkong, 17th June, 1854.

NOTICE.

R. RIENAECKER,

Colonial Treasurer.

The following Extract from the Fort St. George Gazette of the 9th May last is published for the information of Ship-Masters.

By Order,

C. B. HILLIER, Officiating Colonial Secretary.

Colonial Secretary's Office, Victoria, Hongkong, 15th June, 1854.

NOTICE TO MARINERS TOUCHING NAVIGATION IN THE VICINITY OF THE LACCADIVE, AND MALDIVA ARCHIPELAGO.

In consequence of the wreck of the Ships Wuzeer and Hamoody on the Cherbaniani and Byramgore

Extract from the deposition made by Captain A. C. Barnes of the Barque" Hamoody" before C. F. Chamier, Esq. Head Assistant Collector of Canara on the 27th March 1854. "From observations taken on the wreck we made the Lon- gitude 71°-26" (the Chronometer being afterwards found perfectly correct in Tellicherry) while the wreck of the Byram- gore is laid down in Horsburgh's Chart in Longitude 71° 51'. "It is my opinion therefore that the Byramgore is considerably 'more to the West than it is laid down, or that the shoal on

which the "Hamoody" lies is a new formation.

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Extract from a letter from C. F. Chamier, Esq. dated Mangalore

28th March, 1854.

"I am only desirous of adding my conviction that the Cher- "baniani and Byramgore reefs are either not correctly laid down "in the Nautical Charts, or that there are peculiarities in the "current, which are not generally known: and of advocating "the necessity of the results of the latest survey being published for general information. As the Commanders of the "Wuzeer' "and" Hamoody" were both men experienced in the navigation "of these seas, it is difficult, on any other supposition, to account "for their losing their Ships on shoals, with the danger of which they were well acquainted and of which they both believed that "their course would have made them clear."

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The Ship" Wuzeer" 525 tons from Liverpool to Bombay was totally wrecked on the Cherbaniani reef about 3 A.M. on the 27th of March 1853-her Longitude by Chronometer at noon on the 26th placed her nearly ninety miles to the Westward of that shoal. The "Hamoody," 438 tons from Bombay and bound to the Mauritius was wrecked on the Byramgore shoal at 7 P.M. on the 16th of March, 1854.

Reefs, situated on the Western extrem- ity of the Laccadive group of islets and shoals, it will be seen, by notes quoted in the margin, that an erroneous idea is entertained that the respective position of those dangerous shoals is not correct- It ly laid down in Horsburgh's Chart. is, therefore, essentially necessary to warn Commanders of Ships against so fallacious an impression by a statement of such facts as will prove that those shoals have been most ably surveyed, and are delineated with the utmost care and precision.

As, however, some Commanders of Ships may not be provided with the latest edition of either Horsburgh's Sail- ing Directory or Charts, their attention, is, in the first place, directed to the fol- lowing important communication which was repeatedly published in the Govern- ment Gazette and public Journals at the three Presidencies.