Four of these run dry at low water and the other two are encumbered with mud and oyster banks. At this season of the year, however, the rice crops having been carried to market, there is but little intercourse with the Santee district by water. Taking these liabilities into account, it is thought that 4,000 men well intrenched would hold the island, though without an exact knowledge of its topography it is impossible to speak with certainty. The island affords good water, and timber for constructing wharves for coaling, or for other uses, if needed. In these respects, and as harbor of refuge, there is no point north of Charleston that can be made so useful. It is so easy of access and so perfectly healthy in the hot season that the authorities of Charleston have recommended it for the seat of a quarantine during their strangers' (or yellow) fever months.

Tpation of Bull's Bay secures the easy command of the four inlets (Price's, Capers', Dewees', and Breach Inlets) lying intermediate between it and Charleston Harbor. Neither of these enjoy any trade now, but Dewees' Inlet has seven feet at low water or twelve feet at mean high water, and an excellent anchorage in four fathoms on the inside. It might prove a useful harbor to vessels of light draft. A deep creek, navigable for boats at low water even to Station Fuller (see chart), enters Dewees' Inlet. From Fuller to Mount Pleasant is nine, miles, and it is connected with Hobcaw Point, in rear of Fort Moultrie and Castle Pinckney, for the greater part of the distance, by a welltraveled road in a pine forest. The night road from Charleston to Georgetown, through Christ's Church Parish, passes at an average distance of four miles from the shore. It is well conditioned, the resort of a regular travel, and preserves a communication with the banks of the two Pedees that would suffer no interruption from our occupation of Bull's Island.

Saint Helena Sound, situated nearly midway between Charleston and Savannah, is particularly well adapted to promote the efficiency of the blockading squadron. There are two anchorages, which are healthy throughout the year-one near Otter Island, on the north, and one near Hunting Island, on the south; and the bay is so wide that these two roadsteads may be considered wholly independent of each other. There are three channels of approach-the east, the southeast, and the south channels. The first has only eight feet on the bar at mean low water and fourteen at high; the second, which is a little less direct, has ten and sixteen feet, and the third has seventeen feet at mean low and twenty-three feet at mean high water.

It should be remarked that the mouth of the South Edisto River is embraced within the northern limits of this sound. The South Edisto is the Edisto proper, the North Edisto being the outlet of the Wadmalaw Sound and the Dawho, while the Edisto itself is a long river, from which large quantities of lumber are sent annually to Charleston. It is navigable for vessels drawing nine feet of water up to Governor Aiken's rice plantation, at Jehosse, where it communications with North Edisto River though the Dawho. The Dawho is navigable for steamers drawing not more than six feet at all times of tide, under the direction of a pilot. Thirteen feet of water at mean low and nineteen at mean high water can be carried into South Edisto, and there is good anchorage inside, west of Big Bay Island, in five fathoms; but the anchorage on the north side of the bay, which we first mentioned, that under Otter Island, is the better and healthier one of the two.

The continuous ranges of sand shoals, which compose the bar at the several entrances of Saint Helana Sound, extend, unfortunately, six miles to seaward, and the land is low and difficult to distinguish; the