racter or position of lights and buoys, are as soon as practicable
inserted on the charts and due notice given of such insertions in the
admiralty "Notices to Mariners."

The charts are supplemented by the _Admiralty Pilots_, or books of
sailing directions, with tide tables, and lists of lighthouses, light
vessels, &c., for the coasts to which a ship may be bound. The
physical charts are the continuation of the work so ably begun by
Maury of the United States and FitzRoy of the British navy, and give
the sailor a good general idea of the world's ocean winds and currents
at the different periods of the year; the probable tracks and seasons
of the tropical revolving or cyclonic storms; the coastal winds; the
extent or months of the rainy seasons; localities and times where ice
may be fallen in with; and, lastly, the direction and force of the
stream and drift currents of the oceans. (T. A. H.)

CHARTER (Lat. _charta, carta_, from Gr. [Greek: chartes], originally for
_papyrus_, material for writing, thence transferred to paper and from
this material to the document, in O. Eng. _boc_, book), a written
instrument, contract or convention by which cessions of sales of
property or of rights and privileges are confirmed and held, and which
may be produced by the grantees in proof of lawful possession. The use
of the word for any written document is obsolete in England, but is
preserved in France, e.g. the Ecole des Chartes at Paris. In feudal
times charters of privileges were granted, not only by the crown, but by
mesne lords both lay and ecclesiastical, as well to communities, such as
boroughs, gilds and religious foundations, as to individuals. In modern
usage grants by charter have become all but obsolete, though in England
this form is still used in the incorporation by the crown of such
societies as the British Academy.

The grant of the Great Charter by King John in 1215 (see MAGNA CARTA),
which guaranteed the preservation of English liberties, led to a special
association of the word with constitutional privileges, and so in modern
times it has been applied to constitutions granted by sovereigns to
their subjects, in contradistinction to those based on "the will of the
people." Such was the Charter (_Charte_) granted by Louis XVIII. to
France in 1814. In Portugal the constitution granted by Dom Pedro in
1826 was called by the French party the "Charter," while that devised by
the Cortes in