Asiatic Pilot (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER I. GENERAL REMARKS. Plan.?This book comprises the Cocos or Keeling Islands and Christmas Island; the southeast coast of Sumatra, the west coast of Java as far as Batavia; also the Straits of Sunda, Banka, Gaspar, and Carimata, with the islands therein; the west, north, and northeast coasts of Borneo, together with the off-lying islands; and the area known as the Dangerous Ground lying westward of the island of Palawan. Many parts of the area herein dealt with, especially the northeast coast of Borneo and the Dangerous Ground, have been but partially explored, and much information is still from reports of early navigators. Reliable soundings are also greatly needed and the sparseness and irregular character of the depths given on the charts, with the existence of so many reefs ascertained and reported, show that further dangers may be looked for and points to the need of extreme care and vigilance. Standard time.?In Java the mean time of the meridian of 109 48' 37.5" east longitude, or 7 hours 19 minutes 14.5 seconds fast on Greenwich mean time, has been adopted as standard (central Java) time. The colony of the Straits Settlements and the Federated Malay States in the Malay Peninsula have adopted the mean time of the 105th meridian, or 7 hours east of Greenwich mean time. The time kept in the Philippine Islands and in British North Borneo and Labuan is that of the meridian of longitude 120 east, or 8 hours fast on mean time at Greenwich. Communications.?Christmas Island is in communication with Singapore, the phosphate company's steamer making regular trips. Batavia is in communication with Europe weekly by two Dutch steamship companies and by the Ocean Line from Liverpool; also via Singapore by other lines, as well as to Australia by the British In...