British Hydrographic surveys and charting of the African Coast

Abstract

The earliest record of a British hydrographic survey off the coasts of Africa was that by Captain Court of the East India Company in 1804 in the area of the Dahlak Islands, pay and the coast for some distance north of Massawa. In the Red Sea, British surveyors in the Indian Navy surveyed the whole area and examined most of the harbous on the African coast between 1830 and 1834. This surveyors was extend into Gulf of Aden and to Socotra in 1835 and eventually the coast of Somalia to Cape Guardfui was completed in 1847.