THE vast importance of hydrographical accuracy to the mariner and his trust, of whatever description, directing his course through hidden dangers over distant seas, warrants the claim of biographical distinction, in all whose genius and industry have enabled them to make the nearest approaches to truth, for that the positive reckoning is rarely found, may be inferred from the varied statements of different observers, and would probably from the observations of the same observer at different times. The inestimable value of that diligence and skill which have ascertained the existence of those secret barriers and impediments to the seaman's progress, theretofore fatal to the lives and properties of the unwary, and traced the path of safety to future adventurers, entitles the man who has so exerted them to a gratitude commensurate with the beneficial effects of such exertion, and which may be termed almost universal, for to whom do not the advantages of foreign commerce reach, or where is the exception, mediately considered, of loss in the wreck of its adventures.

Of those to whom the world is thus eminently indebted, is the much-respected subject of our present memoir, the late Alexander Dalrymple, Esq. a man whose life seems to have been a series of labours for the public good.