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Prn>p.rocI hi IS 87 by 
 
 U. S. COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY. 
 
 HISTORICAL COMPILATION. 
 
 A systematic survey of the coast was first inaugurated by the 
 act of Congress February lo, 1807, which read as follows : 
 
 AN ACT to provide for surveying the coast of the United States. 
 
 Be it enacted, &c. , That the President of the United States shall be, 
 and he is hereby authorized and requested to cause a survey to be 
 taken of the coasts of the United States, in which shall be designated 
 the islands and shoals, with the roads or places of anchorage, within 
 twenty leagues of any part of the shores of the United States ; and 
 also the respective courses and distances between the principal capes, 
 or headlands, together with such other matters as he may deem proper 
 for completing an accurate chart of every part of the coasts within the 
 extent aforesaid. 
 
 The work was assigned to the direction of the Treasury 
 Department where it continued until 18 17, when the act of 
 April 14, 1 81 8, repealed so much of the foregoing statute as 
 authorized the employment of others than persons belonging 
 to the Army and Navy. The work, which, owing to inter- 
 ruptions consequent upon European complications, our war 
 with England, &c., had only just fairly begun, by the com- 
 mencement of field operations in 18 15, was discontinued as a 
 separate organization, and was fitfully and disconnectedly 
 prosecuted under the Navy Department until 1832. 
 
 In 1828, in reply to the Committee on Naval Afiairs of the 
 House of Representatives, the Hon. Samuel L. Southard, 
 Secretary of the Navy, in whom the control of the Coast Sur- 
 vey was then lodged, declared that the maps and charts pro- 
 duced under the operation of the act of 1818 ; 
 
 "Do not furnish a satisfactory survey of the coast for the following 
 reasons i 1. They exhibit detached parts unconnected with each 
 other. 2 . Are generally confined to the shores, and do not extend 
 sujQQiciently far into the ocean. 3. Were many of them made by in- 
 competent men, with incompetent means. 4. They were governed by 
 no fixed and certain principles or guides in ascertaining the latitude and 
 longitude of the principal points and positions. 5. They do not embrace 
 the whole coast. For these and other reasons they are unsafe, and in 
 many instances useless and pernicious, ' * 
 
 Q" 
 
 .-7 
 
 i. 
 
Secretary Southard further recommended a revival of the Act 
 of 1807, and a return to the comprehensive and adequate 
 scientific methods and plan approved at the outset by President 
 Jefferson and Secretary Gallatin. In his annual report for 
 1828, Secretary Southard again declared that the surveys ex- 
 ecuted under the Navy Department — 
 
 " Do not afford materials for an accurate chart of the harbors and 
 the approaches to them, and assist but little toward a perfect knowledge 
 of our coast, which can only be acquired by that scientific survey of 
 the whole, the importance of which I have ventured to urge and would 
 again respectfully suggest." And he added that " these surveys with 
 others, which from time to time have been made under the direction 
 of the department have, to a certain extent, been useful, but they 
 have also been very expensive in proportion to their usefulness." 
 
 After a full consideration of the unsatisfactory results of the 
 Naval supervision, as repeatedly suggested by the Secretary 
 of the Navy and others, Congress revived the law of 1807, 
 with somewhat extended scope, by the Act of July 10, 1832, 
 as follows : 
 
 AN ACT to carry into effect the act to provide for a survey of the 
 
 coast of the United States. 
 
 Section 1. Be it enacted, &c., That for carrying into effect the act 
 entitled "An act to provide for surveying the coasts of the United 
 States," approved on the 10th day of February, 1807, there shall be, 
 and hereby is, appropriated a sum not exceeding twenty thousand dol- 
 lars, to be paid out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise ap- 
 propriated ; and the said act is hereby revived, and shall be deemed 
 to provide for the survey of the coasts of Florida, in the same manner 
 as if the same had been named therein. 
 
 Sec. 2, That the President of the United States be, and he is here- 
 by, authorized, in and about the execution of the said act, to use all 
 maps, charts, books, instruments and apparatus which now, or here- 
 after may, belong to the United States, and employ all persons in the 
 land or naval service of the United States, and such astronomers and 
 other persons as he shall deem proper. 
 
 The work was again placed under the Treasury Department, 
 and Hassler, its original Superintendent and the friend of Jef- 
 ferson and Gallatin, was again placed in charge. 
 
 Operations under the Treasury Department had hardly been 
 fairly resumed before President Jackson, in pursuance of the 
 recommendation of Mr. Taney, Secretary of the Treasury, 
 directed the Survey to be again transferred to the control of 
 the Navy Department. The transfer was ordered March i ith, 
 1834, Mr. Woodbury being Secretary of the Navy. Again 
 the work proceeded so unsatisfactorily that within two years 
 — in March, 1836 — it was re-transferred by President Jackson 
 to the Treasury Department, of which Mr. Woodbury had in 
 
the meantime become the Secretary. The re-transfer of the 
 Survey to the Treasury Department by President Jackson, who 
 had but recently directed its transfer to the Navy Department, 
 and its re-transfer to Secretary of the Treasury Woodbury so 
 soon after its transfer to Secretary of the Navy Woodbury, 
 was specially significant as being the result of an actual, ex- 
 perimental test, by the same eminent officials of the compara- 
 tive merit of the two systems of operating the Survey. 
 
 By the act of March lo, 1843, prompted by suggestions of 
 the expediency of a re-transfer of the Survey to the Navy 
 Department, Congress provided for an intelligent and efhcient 
 inquiry for the development of a permanent plan of organiza- 
 tion of the Survey, as follows : 
 
 AN ACT making appropriations for year ending June 30, 1844. 
 
 For survey of the coast of the United States, including compensa- 
 tion of Superintendent and assistants, one hundred thousand dollars: 
 Provided, That this and all other appropriations hereafter to be made 
 for this work, shall, until otherwise provided by law, be expended in 
 accordance with a plan of reorganizing the mode of executing the 
 survey, to be submitted to the President of the United States by a 
 board of officers, which shall be organized by him, to consist of the 
 present Superintendent, his two principal assistants, and the two naval 
 officers now in charge of the hydrographical parties, and four from 
 among the principal officers of the corps of topographical engineers ; 
 none of whom shall receive any additional compensation whatever 
 for this service, and who shall sit as soon as organized. And the 
 President of the United States shall adopt and carry into effect the 
 plan of said board, as agreed upon by a majority of its members. 
 And the plan of said board shall cause to be employed as many officers 
 of the army and navy of the United States as will be compatible with 
 the successful prosecution of the work ; the officers of the navy to be 
 employed on the hydrographical parts, and the officers of the army on 
 the topographical parts of the work ; and no officer of the army or 
 navy shall hereafter receive any extra pay out of this or any future 
 appropriations for surveys. 
 
 The board selected by the President consisted of three civil- 
 ians, tiuo naval officers experienced in hydrography, and four 
 topographical engineers of the army. Those officers, practi- 
 cally experienced in the work of the Survey, united in a plan 
 not only fulfilling the requirements of the law as to the com- 
 position of the organization, but providing with sufficient de- 
 tail for — 
 
 "The mode of executing the Survey " * * * "in accordance with 
 the most approved means which modern science affords," " using al- 
 ways the most approved instruments and principles" * * * "the 
 topography to be carried as far inland as may be necessary for a proper 
 delineation of the shore and for purposes either of commerce or of 
 defense," and with soundings " as far inland as the ports and har- 
 bors for commerce." 
 
Although the board consisted of six commissioned officers 
 of the Army and Navy and only three civilians, there was no 
 dissent from the elaborate plan of a work of the highest scien- 
 tific and accurate — and therefore practical and trustworthy — 
 character, as outlined in "The Plan for the reorganization of 
 the Coast Survey," adopted by them on the 30th of March, 
 1843; nor did the military and naval members of the board 
 hesitate to unite in a resolution, submitted to the President, 
 expressive of an opinion derived from their experience in and 
 and acquaintance with the work, to the following effect : 
 
 Besolved, That inasmucli as the object and purpose of the survey of 
 the coast refer principally to the commercial interests of the country, 
 and as all the laws of Congress in relation lo the same contemplate 
 the employment of civilians and officers of the Army and Navy upon 
 said work, it is the opinion of this board, and they do hereby respect- 
 fully recommend, that it should be under the control, and considered 
 a part of, the Treasury Department. 
 
 In compliance with that recommendation the President, in 
 his formal approval, April 29th, 1843, of the plan submitted by 
 the board, declared that '' the charge of the survey of the coast 
 is continued in the Treasury Department, and is to be under its 
 control." 
 
 An attempt, in 1848, to secure the transfer of the Survey to 
 the Navy Department, was defeated in the House of Repre- 
 sentatives by a vote of 90 to 36. In 1849 a similar effort in the 
 Senate led to a debate, in which the scope and plan of the Sur- 
 vey and its methods were so ably presented by Senators Pearce, 
 of Maryland, and Davis, of Miss., that the project received but 
 two votes. (See Cong. Globe and Appendix, Vol. 20, 2d 
 Session 30th Congress, pp. 553 Globe and 196 Appendix.) 
 
 The attempt in 1849 to re-transfer the Coast Survey to the 
 Navy, evoked not only from scientific bodies like the American 
 Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical 
 Society of Philadelphia, the Franklin Institute of Pennsylvania, 
 and from Colleges and Universities, but also from the officers 
 of nearly every Marine Insurance Company, Chamber of Com- 
 merce and Board of Trade, the most earnest protests against 
 a remission of the Survey to the control of the Army or Navy 
 or the abandonment of the existing wise, effective and practi- 
 cal plan of organization, whose results in the production of 
 •charts, accurate in latitude and longitude and replete with 
 every form of safeguard to navigators, had so rapidly reduced 
 the risks of navigation, disarmed of its terrors the mysterious 
 sea and given safety to commerce along many a fatal reach 
 and reef where pilots had been useless. (Appendix to speech 
 of Senator Davis, Miss., Feb'y 19, 1849.) 
 
On Dec. 31, 1850, a resolution of the Senate called upon tlie Secre- 
 tary of the Navy to report what advantages would be derived by a 
 transfer of the Coast Survey to the Navy Department, and upon the 
 Secretary of the Treasury to state why, in his opinion, such transfer 
 should not be made. Their replies are printed as Senate Ex. Doc. 
 Nos. 35 and 36, 31st Congress, 3d Session. (15 Feb., 1851.) 
 
 The reply of the Hon. Thomas Convin, Secretary of the 
 Treasury (Ex. Doc., Senate No. 36, 31st Congress, 2d Session), 
 is a very full, fair and convincing statement of reasons — -his- 
 torical, experimental and statistical — for adhering to the orig- 
 inal Jefferson-Gallatin plan of 1807, elaborated by the plan of 
 1843, providing for civilian instead of either military or naval 
 control : and his views were sustained by the abandonment, 
 in Congress, of the scheme of transfer. 
 
 The then recent withdrawal of all but three of the fourteen 
 army officers, and the threatened withdrawal of all the naval 
 officers, from employment on the Survey, as the result of our 
 brief conflict with Mexico, appears to have admonished Con- 
 gress of the importance of maintaining the civilian organiza- 
 tion ready and equipped for the continuance of its indispensa- 
 bly important work whenever the call to arms should summon 
 its army or navy contingent to the field and monopolize all the 
 attention and energies of the War and Navy Departments. 
 The same admonition was soon afterward still more impres- 
 sively conveyed by the abrupt withdrawal from the Survey of 
 every representative of both the army and navy at or soon after 
 the commencement of hostilities in the late civil war. But for its 
 civilian organization under a civil department, whose functions 
 are liable to be neither interrupted nor monopolized by the 
 operations incident to war, the Coast Survey w^ould have been 
 incontinently dismantled and its functions paralyzed at the out- 
 break of the rebellion. But with|its permanent civilian corps, 
 familiar with every feature of work in field or in office, the 
 Survey was enabled not only to measurably continue some of 
 the more important of its ordinary work, but to continuously 
 render to the military operations of the Union, service of in- 
 estimable value. Besides numberless reconnaisances and rapid 
 topographical surveys for immediate military purposes about 
 Washington, in the vicinity of Baltimore and Philadelphia, in 
 the Virginia peninsula, at Vicksburg, Chattanooga, with 
 Sherman's march to the sea, and in connection with nearly 
 every important operation of the army or navy, and a multi- 
 tude of hydrographic sheets and war maps rapidly supplied to 
 blockading squadrons and commanders of expeditions, which 
 service elicited at various times the highest commendation 
 from Generals Sherman, McClellan, Banks, Butler, Totten, 
 Barnard, Wright, W. F. Smith, <&c., and Admirals Porter, 
 
6 
 
 Dupont, Davis and others — on two occasions the Survey was 
 able, through its continuing power of organizing efif'ective sur- 
 veying parties, to do work amply worth to the Government 
 more than all the cost of the Survey since its organization. 
 
 With a bar so far to seaward as to deprive an approaching 
 fleet of the benefit of any land-marks for reliable bearings, and 
 with every buoy, spar, beacon or other aid to navigation re- 
 moved by the Confederates, Port Royal lay in fancied security 
 against successful attack from the expedition under Dupont 
 and Sherman in November 1861. But within twenty-four 
 hours after the arrival of the fleet off" the bar the channel was 
 buoyed under direction of a Coast Survey civilian, Forts 
 Beauregard and Walker were speedily taken, and possession 
 of the best seaport of the South was secured to the Union as 
 a base of supplies and operations until the close of the war. 
 
 In April, 1862, a Coast Survey party, under fire of shot and 
 shell and sharp-shooters and in advance of Farragut's fleet, 
 determined the positions of each of Porter's mortar-boats and 
 by triangulation their exact distances from Forts Jackson and 
 St. Philip — renewing the triangulation with each change of a 
 boat's position — so that the shot and shells from the Union 
 fleet, invisible from the Confederate batteries, were dropped 
 with unerring accuracy and irresistible effect withm the 
 doomed forts, compelling their speedy surrender. The Coast 
 Survey's share in that operation which opened the lower Mis- 
 sissippi and gave to the Union New Orleans and a substantial 
 foothold in the Southwest is glowingly described in the fol- 
 lowing : 
 
 EXTKACTS FROM COMMODORE D D. PoRTER's LETTER TO PROFES- 
 SOR A. D. BaCHE, DATED "HARRIET LaNE, FoRTS JaCKSON 
 
 AND St. Philip, April 29, 1862." 
 
 Dear Sir : Amid the exciting scenes here, and the many duties 
 that are imposed on me, I must steal a few moments to tell you some- 
 thing of the share the Coast Survey has had in our doings, and to 
 thank you for the valuable assistance rendered me by the party you 
 sent out here. * * * The results of our mortar practice here have 
 exceeded anything I ever dreamed of ; and for my success I am 
 mainly indebted to the accuracy of positions marked down, under Mr. 
 Gerdes's direction, by Mr, Harris and Mr. Oltmanns. They made a 
 minute and complete survey from the "jump" to the forts, most of 
 the time exposed to fire from shot and shell, and from sharpshooters 
 from the bushes. * * * The position that every vessel was to oc- 
 cupy was marked by a white flag, and we knew to a yard the exact 
 distance of the hole in the mortar from the forts, and you will hear 
 in the end how straight the shells went to their mark. Mr. Oltmanns 
 and Mr. Harris remained constantly on board to put the vessels in 
 position again when they had to haul ofi' for repairs, or on account of 
 the severity of the enemy's fire. * * * I cannot speak too highly 
 of these gentlemen. I assure you that I shall never undertake a bom- 
 bardment unless I have them at my side. Mr. Gerdes has been inde- 
 
fatigable in superintending the work, laboring late at night in mak- 
 ing charts and providing the officers in command of ships with them, 
 marking the positions of obstructions in the channel, and making all 
 familiar with the main way. No accident happened to any ship go- 
 ing through, notwithstanding the gentlemen in the forts thought the 
 obstructions impassible. * •* * You must excuse my hurried let- 
 ter, but I could not omit writing to thank your good fellows for what 
 
 they have done for me, and to thank you for sending them . 
 ■H- ^ * * * * 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 David D. Pouter. 
 Professor A. D. Bache, 
 
 Superintendent U. ^, Coast Survey. 
 
 On May i6, Porter again wrote to the Superintendent : 
 
 " I forward to you by the Baltic a plan of Fort Jackson (or the re- 
 mains of it) faithfully drawn under the direction of Mr. Gerdes, by 
 3Iess. Harris and Oltmanns, assistants of the Coast Survey. It is a 
 striking specimen of the effects of mortar-practice, showing what can 
 be done when distances are accurately determined, as they were in 
 this case, by the gentlemen belonging to the Coast Survey." 
 
 The plan referred to, precisely depicting- the mark of every 
 shot and shell, and also the original field-sheet of Gerdes's tri- 
 angulation and marking of positions for the Union mortar- 
 boats remain among the archives of the Survey. 
 
 A mere resume of the great service which, by reason of its 
 independent organization, the Survey was able to render in 
 that crisis of the nation's history, would require more than a 
 score of these pages. It is enough to say, as the records show, 
 that those services elicited warm expressions of the highest ap- 
 preciation from the Union commanders under whose eyes the 
 varied and skillful work was performed on land and sea and 
 rivers. 
 
 In 1858, in response to a resolution of the American Associa- 
 tion for the advancement of Science, a committee of twenty of 
 the most distinguished scholars and scientists of America, to 
 whom the matter had been referred, joined in a report on the 
 History and Progress of the American Coast Survey, which is 
 still extant in an octavo pamphlet of 125 pages, presenting an 
 exhaustive and intelligent review of its objects, history, meth- 
 ods and results, its relations to various other departments and 
 bureaux, commending the nature of its work on scientific and 
 practical grounds, asserting its equality with the best work ever 
 done, and its superiority, in rapidity and economy, to any 
 similar work abroad, urging adherence to the existing general 
 plan of organization, and quoting, in support of its own high 
 estimate of the Survey, not only the unanimous opinion of the 
 scientific, educational, and commercial individuals and organi- 
 zations of America, but the almost enthusiastic encomiums of 
 
8 
 
 such judges as Humboldt, Arago, Schumacher, and Murchi- 
 son, extorted from those austere intelHgences at a time when 
 European comphments for American science or literature were 
 rare indeed. 
 
 In 1 87 1 (Act of March 3d), the field operations of the 
 Coast Survey were extended so as to include the execution of 
 a primary triangulation across the continent to form a geodetic 
 connection between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and the 
 organization has since been known as the U. S. Coast and Geo- 
 detic Survey. 
 
 In pursuance of the original plan of 1807 and of the com- 
 pleter plan of 1843, and to avoid disgraceful inferiority and 
 imperfection in its results, the operations of the Survey were 
 always — except when withdrawn from civiHan control — con- 
 ducted in conformity with the requirements of geodesy — it 
 was in fact a Geodetic Survey. The transcontinental opera- 
 tions were not only strictly related to the survey of the coasts, 
 (as essential to the harmony of the measurements along the 
 Eastern and Western shores, and as affording a most valuable 
 contribution to that knowledge of the form of the earth and 
 its local variations which is essential to the accuracy of the sur- 
 veys of the coast), but incidentally they supply to the traversed 
 states accurately located points — otherwise practically unat- 
 tainable by them — upon which to base their own topographical 
 or geological surveys, for the construction of accurate County 
 or State maps. It will also provide part of that framework 
 without which no accurate map of the United States is pos- 
 sible. Upon that arc has already been achieved some of the 
 best work ever done in accuracy of base-measurement, ac- 
 curacy and range of observations and area of geometrical fig- 
 ures, and at much less than the cost of similar, but less nota- 
 ble, work abroad. That the enterprise is either premature or 
 extravagant will hardly be urged in face of the fact that 
 Europe presents not a single transcontinental arc of triangula- 
 tion, but a complete net-work covering every country except 
 Turkey and a portion of Russia, and that even in remote and 
 mainly uncivilized India, a superb work of triangulation ten 
 times as extensive as our transcontinental arc has already been 
 been completed. 
 
 In 1878, a clause of the Sundry Civil Bill (June 30,) read as 
 follows : 
 
 " And the National Academy of Sciences is hereby required, at their 
 next meeting, to take into consideration the methods and expenses of 
 conducting all surveys of a scientific character under the War or In- 
 terior Department, and the surveys of the Land Office, and to report 
 to Congress, as soon thereafter as may be practicable, a plan for sur- 
 veying and mapping the Territories of the United States on such 
 
9 
 
 general system as will, in their judgment, secure the best results at the 
 least possible cost ; and also to recommend to Congress a suitable plan 
 for the publication and distribution of reports, maps, documents, and 
 other results of the said surveys." 
 
 The report (H. R. Mis. Doc. No. 5, 45th Congress, 3d 
 Session, Dec. 3, 1878) recommends the consolidation of all 
 surveys of vicnsiiration under one head ; has carefully con- 
 sidered the various questions, and believes that the Coast and 
 Geodetic Survey is practically best prepared to execute the 
 entire mensuration system required ; and suggests such con- 
 solidation under the Coast and Geodetic Survey, its name to 
 be changed to the Coast and Interior Survey. 
 
 At the same time it recommended the establishment of an 
 independent organization, to be known as the U. S. Geologi- 
 cal Survey, to be charged with the duty of examining into the 
 geological structure, natural resources and production of the 
 public domain, but that no surveys of mensuration be made 
 by it other than local topographical surveys for developrnent 
 of special mineral deposits. ^^WHX ami? i 
 
 The recommendations of the Academy were so far adopted 
 as to leave the Coast and Geodetic Survey in charge of the 
 survey of the coast, and of the State surveys and interior 
 geodetic work, to discontinue the various " geological and 
 geographical " surveys, and to organize the U.S. Geological 
 Survey, charging it with the duties specified by the Academy. 
 Its functions were to be confined to geolpgy, and not to em- 
 brace geodesy. (Sundry Civil Bill, March 3, 1879.) 
 
 Among the members of the Academy, as well as in the 
 opinions submitted for its consideration, there seemed to be a 
 general recognition of the propriety of remitting the surveys 
 of mensuration to the care and accurate methods of the Coast 
 and Geodetic Survey ; and the director of the present Geo- 
 logical Survey, referring to the Coast Survey transcontinental 
 triangulation and to its corps of trained experts, urged that 
 its system of triangulation, then in progress, " should be made 
 the basis of all future geographical work in the United States." 
 
 In his annual message to Congress, presented in December, 
 1882, the Secretary of the Navy recommended the transfer to 
 his department of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, the Reve- 
 nue Marine, the Life Saving Service, the Light House Board, 
 and other Bureaus of the Treasury Department. The heads 
 of the various bureaus named were invited by the^Secretary of 
 the Treasury to make such statements in regard, to the pro- 
 posal as should seem advisable. Their replies published as 
 Treasury Doc. No. 395 (January, 1883,) and the arguments 
 presented in opposition to the transfer of any of the bureaus, 
 were such that no action was taken. 
 
10 
 
 The Sundry Civil Act of July 7^ 1884 contained a clause 
 providing for the appointment of a joint Commission of three 
 Senators and three Members of the House to " consider the 
 present organization of the *' Signal Service, Geological Sur- 
 vey, Coast and Geodetic Survey and the Hydrographic Office 
 of the Navy Department, with the view to secure greater effi- 
 ciency and economy of administration of the public service in 
 said Bureaus," &c. 
 
 The inquiry by the Joint Commission occupied nearly two 
 years, including frequent sessions during several months. A 
 large number of witnesses were examined and the organization 
 and methods of each of the bureaus thoroughly investigated. 
 The reports were accompanied by nearly eleven hundred pages 
 of testimony. That portion relating to the Coast and Geodetic 
 Survey, at least, was thorough and exhaustive, including written 
 or oral statements from the National Academy of Sciences, 
 eminent scientific experts, distinguished and experienced Naval 
 Officers and hydrographers uniformly commendatory of its plan 
 of organization and general methods and results. 
 
 The majority of the Joint Commission, in whose views both 
 Houses concurred, declared that they — 
 
 "Do not feel justified in proposing a change in tlie organization 
 and method of the Survey unless the most urgent reasons therefor can 
 be given, especially in view of the fact that those best qualified to 
 judge who have testified before the Commission, including some 
 eminent officers of the Navy uniformly agree that, at least until the 
 Survey of the Coast shall be completed, the work should be continued 
 under the present organization." 
 
 They concluded, after thorough discussion, that — 
 
 "There is nothing in the testimony to indicate that the work now 
 performed by the Survey can be more efficiently performed if transfer 
 is made, nor is it shown that the Navy can more economically exe- 
 cute the work, so there is no reason either on the score of efficiency or 
 economy for making the change." (Senate Keport No. 1385, 49th 
 Congress 1st Session.) 
 
 Such a conclusion must inevitably follow from a considera- 
 tion of the facts : 
 
 1. On both occasions 1818,-1832 and 1834,-1836, when the 
 Survey was under Naval control its performance was unsatis- 
 factory. This involves no reflection on the Navy, but simply 
 implies better co-ordination of various scientific and technical 
 operations when under civilian control. 
 
 2. The Survey has been under civilian control for an un- 
 broken period of 52 years with results which, whether in e:?c- 
 
11 
 
 cellence of quality or economy of cost, challenge comparison 
 with similar work anywhere. 
 
 3. Not one of the Naval Officers who has under the Super- 
 intendent had official supervision of the hydrography of the 
 Survey, since the functions of a Hydrographic Inspector were 
 suggested in 1861, has favored the transfer of the Survey to 
 the Navy. With possibly one exception every one of them 
 has been opposed to such transfer — an attitude to which re- 
 sponsible connection and intimacy with the Survey will almost 
 inevitably lead any one. 
 
 4. If temporary maladministration is to justify a transfer or 
 dismantling of the institution in which it occurs, then quite 
 recent history demonstrates that none of the executive de- 
 partments — certainly not the Navy Department — should es- 
 cape that drastic remedy. There are few Government bu- 
 reaus of equal magnitude in which has not been disclosed neg- 
 ligence or malfeasance more gross or longer continued than 
 any known to Coast Survey management, and that, too, with- 
 out suggesting dismemberment or transfer of organization as 
 a remedy for the delinquencies or derelictions of individuals. 
 
 5. While no statement, however detailed or extended, can 
 even remotely supply the place of actual experimental ac- 
 
 . quaintance with the blending and inter-relation of the varied 
 work, the following terse synopsis, which was submitted to the 
 joint commission, may give some slight idea of how little of 
 the indispensable work falls within the scope of nautical func- 
 tions, and how incapable even that little is of being separated 
 from its various auxilliary operations : 
 
 The field work of the Geodetic Survey is in eight different lines, all 
 but one (the fifth) of which are necessary to the production of a per- 
 fect map. These divisions are: 
 
 First. Triangulation, including base measurements, by means of 
 which distances between prominent points are made known. 
 
 Second. Astronomical observations, by means of which directions of 
 all measured lines are made known, and also the locations of points 
 on the earth are made known by astronomically measuring their dis- 
 tance from the equator (latitude), and their distance from a prime me- 
 ridian (longitude). 
 
 Third. Leveling, by means of which the heights of objects above 
 mean level of the sea are made known. 
 
 Fourth. Tidal observations, for determining the mean level of the 
 sea, from which heights are reckoned ; also for predicting the rise and 
 fall of tides for the use of navigators and others, and also for the re- 
 duction of soundings taken at any time to what they would have been 
 if made at low water. 
 
 Fifth. Gravity observations, for determining the density of the 
 earth. 
 
12 
 
 Sixth. Topography, or the picturing by conventional signs of all the 
 surface features of the land, its elevations and depressions, its streams, 
 roads, canals, its forests, plains, and mountains, its towns, fields, &c. 
 
 Seventh. Hydrography, by means of which the configuration of the 
 bottom of the sea, lakes, and rivers becomes known ; also physical 
 hydrography which makes known the character of rivers, tidal, and 
 and ocean currents, their effects in producing progressive or periodic 
 changes in the configuration of the bottom. 
 
 Eighth. Magnetic ohserDations, from which we learn the direction in 
 which the compass needle points, the changes in this direction, the 
 intensity of the magnetic force which directs the needle and the 
 variations of this force, and thus get material to foretell the changes 
 of direction to which the compass needle is subject, and variations of 
 the force directing it. 
 
 The order in which these operations are carried on is not an arbitrary 
 but a logical ©ne, and in this logical order the hydrography comes 
 last. 
 
 2. The first need of the hydrographer in making his survey is a 
 projection or skeleton outline map, showing the parallels of latitude 
 and meridians of longitude, together with the shore line and all the 
 land features visible from the water, prominent objects, church spires, 
 houses, artificial signals, capes, headlands, and outlying rocks and 
 islands visible from the shore. If, "off-shore" or deep-sea hydro- 
 graphy is to be executed, the variation of the compass and the lati- 
 tude and longitude of all prominent objects must be first made known 
 and shown on the projection, to furnish points of departure and to 
 correct the tracks after returning. 
 
 3. Before the hydrography is begun, therefore, we, in general, re- 
 quire the astronomical work, the magnetic work, the topography; and 
 furthermore, tidal observations must accompany the hydrography. Of 
 all the data required by the hydrographer the scale of the proposed 
 work and the projection come first in importance. On this projection 
 must be shown in proper relative position all conspicuous points and 
 marks useful for determining the position of the sounding boat. In 
 short, all topographical features and complete shore-line are necessary, 
 and before these can be had the triangulation upon which this topog- 
 graphy rests must be executed. 
 
 Thus the hydrography requires for its execution, first, if in-shore, 
 the triangulation and topography together with tidal observations ; 
 second, if off-shore, it requires the same data, together with the astro- 
 nomical and magnetic observations. 
 
 4. After the execution of the hydrographic field work the rough 
 original sheets are to be carefully verified by re-plotting the soundings, 
 drawing the contours, making the finished drawing, engraving, and 
 printing. This work is done by trained experts, who, by natural 
 ability, education, and long experience, attained the best possible re- 
 sults. 
 
 5. The hydrographic surveys are made in part by naval and in part 
 by civil parties. Civil parties are usually engaged upon hydrography 
 in regions where it is expedient for economy's sake to execute the 
 secondary triangulation, topography, and hydrography simultane- 
 ously. This is usually in interior waters, sloughs, lagoons, bayous, 
 &c., where parties are organized to work advantageously on land or 
 water, as need arises. 
 
 6. It is, therefore, obvious that to separate the hydrography from 
 
13 
 
 the topography and triangulation would be idle, since it would require 
 two distinct organizations to do the shore-work. Besides, since very- 
 considerable portions of our sea and river shores are alluvial, much of 
 the future work will be the repetition of surveys in districts where the 
 sea by undermining the land has acquired material for shoal building, 
 or where the caving of river banks has caused channels to be ob- 
 structed. In such instances the topographical and hydrographical 
 parties must be intimately associated, because their operations must 
 lurnish reciprocal results. 
 
 7. To put all those indispensable o'perations into the hands 
 , of naval officers is to entrust them, without preparation or pre- 
 vious technical education for it, with scientific works of the 
 utmost accuracy and refinement, the proper accomplishment 
 of which has required, from the corps of civilian experts now 
 employed, many years of diligent study and hard work. The 
 character of all but the hydrographic work is foreign to the re- 
 quirements of the naval profession. Due proficiency in such 
 extrinsic accomplishments cannot be acquired during such 
 brief detail to such special service as is permitted by naval 
 routine. That such proficiency does " not come by nature," 
 nor as a part of the naval education and experience, is con- 
 fessed by the repetition of the effort to secure legislation which 
 shall relieve the Hydrographer of the Navy from active naval 
 duty and give him permanent shore duty. 
 
 On the other hand, detachment from naval duties long 
 enough to acquire such proficiency, must be seriously detri- 
 mental if not destructive to proficiency in naval affiairs, to 
 which, indeed, it is as foreign as would be proficiency in the 
 work of the geologist, the biologist or the Fish Commissioner. 
 
 8. If the naval officers are not to perform those extrinsic op- 
 erations, they must continue to be performed, as they are now, 
 by trained civilian experts and specialists, which, of course, 
 precludes the employment of any larger number of naval offi- 
 cers on Coast Survey work than are now employed. 
 
 9. As a matter of fact, for two years past, all the officers who 
 could be spared by the Navy Department for Coast Survey 
 work have been employed by the Coast and Geodetic Survey. 
 Sometimes, indeed, the supply has been temporarily short. 
 
 10. The naval vessels are not adapted to Coast Survey pur- 
 poses, except in a few localities, and in those localities their 
 employment would involve greatly increased expense because 
 of the superfluous size, &c., of the naval vessels. 
 
 1 1 . It would be impracticable to substitute naval officers for 
 the civilian office force which is, and in any event must be, 
 employed in computing, drawing, engraving, electrotyping, 
 
14 
 
 photographing, printing, compiling, and publishing the rec- 
 ords and results and performing the clerical work. 
 
 12. There being no duplication of work done by the Coast 
 and Geodetic Survey its transfer would in nowise simplify the 
 work of the Government 
 
 13. If only the hydrography were transferred to the navy, 
 all the auxilliary operations indispensable to, and frequently 
 performed side by side with hydrography, must needs be per- 
 formed by a separate bureau. Thus two bureaus would be 
 required to accomplish what is now done by one and that too 
 without the possibility of efficient and economical co-operation 
 and co-ordination. 
 
 14. Naval officers on duty in the Coast Survey are at all 
 times subject to the control and call of the Navy Department, 
 and they enjoy every advantage of practice in navigation, study 
 of the coasts and approaches, &c., &c., which they would have 
 if the survey were a part of the Navy Department. 
 
 15. Twice already, since the work was begun, it would have 
 been interrupted by war,, but for its independent organization 
 which enabled it, on two occasions at least, to render most 
 vital service to the Union arms. 
 
 16. The surveys made on foreign coasts by the Navy are of 
 the description usually known as reconnoisances not approxi- 
 mating to the standard of those made by the Coast and Geo- 
 detic Survey along all of our own coasts, except in Alaska and 
 along the more desolate portions of Oregon and Washington, 
 for temporary purposes; — a standard which has commanded 
 the highest admiration from the most eminent authorities at 
 home and abroad, and which must be maintained, unless we 
 desire to sacrifice many elements of utility (to works of civil, 
 municipal, constructive and military engineering), and to invite 
 invidious and humiliating comparisons with the similar work 
 being done by even the weaker of the nations of Europe. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Since, therefore, the experiment of naval control repeatedly 
 tried, has repeatedly produced unsatisfactory results, and the 
 covetous demand of the navy for such control has, at every 
 examination of the subject during a period of more than fifty 
 years been refused ; since no institution of learning or of 
 science has ever recommended such control, but all — from the 
 unofficial associations and universities to the legally accredited 
 
15 
 
 organ of the Government, the National Academy of Sciences 
 — have repeatedly urged its inexpediency ; since no commer- 
 cial or marine insurance organization, after intelligent consfd- 
 eration, has ever recommended such control, but, on the con- 
 trary, all have invariably, after such consideration, opposed it ; 
 since such distinguished naval authorities as Captain Smyth, 
 R. N. , formerly President of the Geographical Society, Lon- 
 don, and Admiral Beaufort, R. N., long ago conceded that un- 
 der the existing organization of the Coast Survey, though the 
 "Americans were the last in the field, they have, /^r saltum, 
 leaped into the very front of the rank," and that "the progress 
 and character of the hydrography of Qreat Britain have sev- 
 erely suffered from want of co-operation with the Ordnance 
 or land survey," which co-operation has been ensured by 
 their co-ordination in theU. S. Coast Survey; since the ex- 
 pressed opinion of the most eminent scientists of the world, 
 like Humboldt and Arago, accords with the assertion of Sir 
 Roderick Murchison in effect that the existing organization of 
 the Coast Survey " could not fail to make this one of the most 
 perfect exemplifications of applied science of modern times," of 
 the work of which he subsequently declared " all unprejudiced 
 persons must agree that the Trigonometrical survey of the 
 United States stands without a superior " ; since the present 
 form of organization of the Coast Survey, co-ordinating its 
 work under civilian control and as a part of the Treasury De- 
 partment was unanimously reported by a board, experienced 
 in Coast Survey work, six of whose nine members were offi- 
 cers of the Army and Navy and it was reported after two ex- 
 periences with Naval control ; since no one of the Naval 
 officers charged with the immediate official supervision of 
 the hydrography of the Coast Survey has ever favored the 
 transfer of the Survey to the Navy, but with one excep- 
 tion every one has earnestly opposed it ; since the Survey 
 now utilizes every Naval officer who can be spared by the 
 Navy Department for Coast Survey work — the demand occa- 
 sionally even exceeding the available supply of such officers — 
 so that in the event of transfer no employment would be af- 
 forded for ^additional naval officers nor additional naval ves- 
 sels, without diverting officers from professional duties and 
 employment and devoting vessels to a work which their size, 
 cost, &c., must render extravagantly expensive ; since it would 
 be impracticable to utilize naval officers in the multifarious 
 technical office-work of the Survey, even if it were the duty of 
 the Government to supplement its generosity, in educating a 
 redundance of such officers, by crowding them into positions 
 and vocations foreign to their profession and which should be 
 the just reward and encouragement of the private citizen who 
 
16 
 
 has educated himself; since a transfer would extend to naval 
 officers no facilities, which they do not already enjoy, of prac- 
 tice in navigation, study of coasts, harbors, approaches, &c., 
 and that too without the slightest interference with the discip- 
 line or authority of the Navy Department ; since the reason 
 assigned by the board for placing the Survey under the control 
 of the Treasury Department in 1843 — that "the object and 
 purpose of the survey of the coast refer principally to the 
 commercial interests of the country" — is confirmed by the fact 
 that of the 34,016 of the charts issued by it last year only 
 about 4,000 — less than one-eighth — went to the Navy Depart- 
 ment, and since the wisdom of maintaining a civil organization 
 of the survey under a civil bureau where it may be exempt 
 from the interruption of any of its functions and operations by 
 the emergencies of war, has been twice signally vindicated, 
 every consideration of experience, expediency, economy and 
 prudence seems to unite in deprecation of a dismemberment 
 of the Coast and Geodetic Survey or the transfer of any por- 
 tion of it to the Navy Department. 
 

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