It must be admitted, however, that the charts in common use on board merchant ships are very faulty, both with respect to the position and character of lights, buoys, and beacons, and to the variation of the compass, which is not unfrequently half a point wrong,--an error which may be fatal in shaping a course up Channel or in a narrow sea. From this great evil the seaman has, at present, no protection. The remedy lies in the hands of the legislature, who have only to compel all chart-sellers to warrant their charts corrected up to the latest date, at least with respect to lights and buoys. There are but three or four publishers of private charts, as far as we are aware, in the United Kingdom; their stock of plates cannot be very large, and, once examined and set right, the corrections and additions could be easily inserted. Either the Board of Trade or the Admiralty should be entrusted with this duty. The latter are obliged to correct their own charts, and we understand it is the practice of the hydrographer to cause every new light, or change of light, or buoy, or beacon, to be inserted in the plate within twenty-four hours of the time of the intelligence reaching the Admiralty. A large number of notices to mariners--upwards, we believe, of a thousand a-week--are printed and published, both by the Trinity House and the Admiralty, and distributed among those connected with shipping; and every chart-seller should be bound under a penalty to give proof to the Board of Trade or to the Admiralty that he had inserted the corrections in his copper-plate within forty-eight hours of the appearance of the notice.