THE MEDITERRANEAN A MEMOIR PHYSICAL HISTORICAL AND NAUTICAL BY REAR-ADMIRAL WILLIAM HENRY SMYTH, K.S.F., D.C.L., ONE OF THE BOARD OF VISITORS OF THE ROYAL OBSERVATORY; SOME TIME FOREIGN SECRETARY AND VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY, PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY, AND VICE-PRESIDENT AND CHAIRMAN OF THE UNITED SERVICE INSTITUTION CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE; HONORARY MEMBER OF THE ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY; AND OF THE SCIENTIFIC ACADEMIES LONDON JOHN W. PARKER AND SON MDCCC LIV I KNOW not to whom I could in any case have addressed my hydrographical treatise so appropriately as to you, who have so long and ably presided over the surveying department of the navy. But nearly half a century of professional acquaintance, including thirty years of intimate friendship, with the knowledge of you which they have given as a man, a seaman, and an officer, leave me wholly unable to say whether I ought rather to inscribe this work to you as a public compliment, or as a mark of private regard. Το you, then, I submit the present exposition of the state of our knowledge of the Mediterranean Sea at the time of my return to England in the close of the year 1824; only regretting, on various counts connected therewith, that you were not holding office at that period. This work, as you are aware, has long been meditated, but has 'hung fire' for the completion of the surveys in the Archipelago, so that it might only just precede a complete Sailing-Directory for the whole Inner Sea. The unexpected breaking off of Captain Graves, however, towards the very close of those operations, and b |