wards be needed. Until we can place that coast at least on a footing in respect to surveys with that which resulted from efforts in colonial times, in respect to the Atlantic coast, I am convinced that duty requires me to urge the supply of more than ordinary means to meet an extraordinary case. On what coast before has commerce been developed, from the outset, by the aid of steam?-altering all the usual relations of time, draught, and course, and I may add, of value from a single loss. When has it before occurred that a locality, marked on charts four years since as a mere trading establishment for skins, should have grown into a city, the fourth-in such a country as the United States— in the amount of revenue collected for the general treasury? We have assuredly not yet come up to the requirements of such a commerce.

I have before remarked that the plan of the survey furnished data for immediate use. In fact, between one-fourth and one-third of the annual appropriation is devoted to what is classed as office work, consisting in computation, reduction, drawing, engraving, electrotyping, printing, and publishing. Usually, the publication of the results of a work is estimated for separately; but here it goes to swell the total amount. It is advantageous not to separate the two sets of estimates, as it permits the adaptation of the field and water work and of the publication to each other in due relation, notwithstanding the varying circumstances which cannot be anticipated, and which are sometimes beyond control, in changing the amount of one or the other. When a work, from its magnitude, necessarily occupies a number of years, to postpone the publication of its results until its completion is to deprive the public of all advantage from it until the highest is attainable. We have proceeded upon the opposite plan-that of endeavoring to give results as fast as they can be obtained. Not to give those as final which are really only approximate, but stating the degree of approximation; to give them in such a shape as will make them immediately useful, increasing the refinements in the form in which they are presented as the increased accuracy of the determinations permits. The sketches intended to give information to nautical men and others, which accompanied my report in 1849, were fifteen in number, while in the present report they are thirty-three; and eight notices to mariners, some of them very extended, have been published in the course of the year. This not only diffuses the information derived from the survey while it is fresh, but it reacts powerfully on the work itself, giving a strong but healthful stimulus to those who are engaged in it by enabling them at once to realize a portion of the credit of their labors. It improves the details, too, by presenting them in such a shape that their merits or defects can be fairly weighed. It fixes responsibility, and gives immediate credit for well-executed work. I would even go further than this, by publishing the data derived from observation, and, when they admit of it, the observations themselves. I am satisfied that the additional expenditure which would thus be required would repay itself many times in the efficiency of the work, the security from loss, the diffusion of information as to methods and results of observation, and in the great facility for such publication while the persons by whom the observations are made are still actually occupied in the same work, and all the minute particulars are fresh in their minds. This plan is much to

be preferred to that of deferring the publication until the close of the

survey.

With the present report will be presented a list of geographical positions, 3,240 in number, derived from the preliminary calculations of the work. The degree of accuracy which has been reached in the different sections will be explained when considering the details. It will be found that improved methods of determining the latitudes by observation have been employed; that the various methods which astronomy and geodesy furnish for determining longitudes have been applied; and that, in addition to the usual ones, we have introduced for the first time, as part of a geodetic work, the determination of difference of longitude by the telegraph. This list will receive revision from time to time; but its publication now will afford very useful data to geographers, surveyors, and even to astronomers. It will be followed by others relating to magnetism and the tides. This is a new feature in the annual report, and, with the extension of the number of sketches, will add materially to the interest which it would have as a report of progress.

For the development of the plans of office work as facilities have been afforded by the additional appropriations, the urging to completion this list of geographical positions, and the increased rapidity of publication, the coast survey is indebted mainly to the zeal and industry, guided by knowledge and intelligence, of Brevet Major I. I. Stevens, of the corps of engineers, in acknowledging which, in connexion with the remarks on the speedy publication of the results of the survey, I feel that I am doing simply an act of justice.

The organization under which the survey is conducted has been so repeatedly explained and approved, that it needs merely a passing notice. In 1843, a board was convened, under authority and by direction of Congress, embodying in its constitution all the experience which could be furnished by the history of the survey, by consisting of civilians and officers of the navy who had served in it, and officers of the army who had served in it, or were professionally conversant with its details. This board provided for the continuation of the organization which both reasoning and experience found to be the most effective, combining the scientific and practical acquirements of civilians, officers of the army, and officers of the navy, in the work. The survey was recognised as primarily for the benefit of commerce, but having important connexions with defence;-providing for a permanent nucleus of civilians, and for the detail of officers of the army and navy, necessarily varying from time to time in numbers and persons as the exigencies of the military or naval service prevailed over the wants of the survey;recognising on the one hand that this branch of applied science was a profession requiring long and careful study, and on the other that the practical skill of the naval officer, or the West Point education of the army officer, might most usefully contribute to the progress of the survey;-not excluding the man of science from one of the highest works of applied science which his country has engaged in, nor the army or navy officer from an appropriate sphere of usefulness;-not exposing the work to the contingencies of being arrested by even an alarm of war, nor of excluding the officer of the army or navy from a position in it while his services could be spared from other duty;-not organ

izing a permanent corps to execute a temporary work, nor yet making the survey a mere school by which all its operations would bear upon them the stamp of the beginner;-combining, as is appropriate to our institutions and our time, the knowledge and experience, wherever to be found, necessary to render its execution creditable to the character of the country. Such an organization could not exist under either the Navy or War Department, and, as most appropriate to a work of commerce, was placed under the direction of the Treasury Department. Circumstances have forced the closest scrutiny of the organization, progress, results, economy-in short, of every particular relating to the coast survey; and it must be gratifying to the Executive and legislature, who have done so much for its advancement, to find the uniform approval from the highest authorities, both scientific and practical, at home and abroad, which this scrutiny has developed. In this result is to be found the best guaranty, that, if this fostering care is continued, the survey of the coast will be properly completed in a reasonable time, and with a reasonable outlay of means. Within the year, the Geographical Societies of London, Paris, and Berlin, have given the most unequivocal evidence of their interest in, and approval of, the character of the coast survey.

In former reports I have compared the results of the survey on different scales of appropriation with each other. At first, on presenting the plan for its enlargement, it was difficult to convince those upon whom the increase depended that economy would be produced. Each step rendered this less difficult by furnishing positive data in figures. The present scale presents for the Atlantic coast a result of three and a half to one, with an expenditure of less than two to one. (See report of 1850.) So, also, it turns out that the operations which conduce to the essential scientific accuracy of the work are not those which tell most in the sum total of the expenditures; and that while, without those, the character of the work on land would be unworthy of the country, and the hydrography mere reconnaissance, they do not double the cost of the land parties. I have gone into these computations in the report of 1848, and have shown that the cost of measurement of base lines, the astronomical work, and the triangulation, was less than the cost of the topography which was essential to the delineation of the coast; while, in reference to the accuracy of the work, their importance cannot be over-estimated. An examination of the geodetic method, as compared with the mode in use in the Land Office of the United States, showed an aggregate cost per lineal mile for all operations, without the cost of drawing, less than the maximum allowed for the land surveys; and with the finished drawings, a cost but little exceeding it-($11 25 per lineal mile. See report of 1848.) As compared with the cost of foreign surveys, the Secretary of the Treasury has shown (see repor, Senate Doc., Ex. No. 26, 1849) that this work has largely the advantage in point of economy-an advantage which I apprehend woudl have been lost to it, if, as in some of the organizations abroad, a permanent corps, deriving its emolument from other service, and only incidentally employed in this, had been organized to execute it; or if intrusted to a body composed entirely of changing elements, not devoted professionally to scientific pursuits.

The lowest estimate which I can make of the progress of the work on the coast of the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, is, that at the commencement of this fiscal year more than three-eighths had been completed. This estimate is made from a careful examination of the progress in the different sections. The shore-line to be surveyed has been estimated from the best data which could be obtained; and it is easy in every section, except those where the work has been introduced very recently, to estimate with considerable accuracy its rate of advance. A general reconnaissance has been begun which will much facilitate this calculation, and enable us to introduce the elements of facility or difficulty of survey into the estimates for the time of completion of the different sections. The greater expenditure necessary for the maintenance of each party in the southern sections must enter also into such an estimate, if the total amount to be expended is considered as final. In some portions of the operations, as for example the topography, the smaller number of details necessary in the southern sections diminishes the time required for the survey of a given extent of shore-line, or a given area; but the expenditure in the whole is considerably greater than in the others. The present rate of annual progress is certainly between four and six per cent. of the remaining shoreline.

The time when the work is to be completed, I am aware, is of less consequence than the manner in which it is done. If executed by any but the best methods, it will undoubtedly be done over at some future day. We have not yet found a portion of the coast to which the geodetic method is inapplicable. There may be such, and then we shall not be without resource, but at present we are not compelled at any point to abandon the most exact methods. The mountains of Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, and the hills from Maine to Maryland, afford every facility for triangulation; the wide expanse of Chesapeake bay in Maryland and Virginia, and of Albemarle and Pamplico sounds in North Carolina; the sea-islands and passages of South Carolina and Georgia; the keys and main of Florida, Mobile bay, and the islands off the coast of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana; the bays and prairies of Texas; the bare hills of California; the hills and sounds of Oregon,-are all characteristic features of the several parts of the coast, requiring only to be recalled to the mind to indicate the easy application of the geodetic method to a survey of the coast. The points being well determined and marked on the land, and the shore-line traced, the hydrography is readily executed with the requisite nicety.

Every part of these operations must go on according to a system, or the result fails in completeness, or in economy. This is secured by a general plan of operations, the details of which are submitted by the Superintendent to the Treasury Department, annually; and which, when approved, are executed according to instructions given as to the scientific details by the Superintendent. The modes employed are thus as uniform as can be obtained from the operations of different individuals. The plan of distribution given in Appendix No. 1, is in execution of the "Directions" thus approved by the Secretary of the Treasury in March, 1850, and 1851. At the close of each season,

the assistants report the results of their work, which are embodied in the notices of the several operations in the annual report of the Superintendent.

The resolution of Congress, under which the plan of organization of 1842 was drawn up, required that as many officers of the army and navy as practicable should be employed: the army officers on the land part, and the navy officers on the water part, of the work. The number of army officers was gradually increased from 1844 to 1848, when it had reached fourteen, namely, five staff and nine line officers. These were necessarily removed, with but few exceptions, on the breaking out of the Mexican war; and but for the connexion of civilians with the survey, trained to its operations, the land work would have ceased. Informal notice was given at one time that there might be a necessity for withdrawing also the officers of the navy; but, as the war was not a maritime one, we did not suffer that loss. Soon after the war closed, application was made for the detail, again, of officers of the army, which was met by a request that formal action might be postponed until the regiments were at the posts assigned them. This was in 1848. In 1849 the application was again made and declined, and in 1850 was renewed; and from time to time officers have been detailed until the number now attached to the survey is eleven-namely, four from the engineers and topographical engineers, and seven from the line; and two applications remain not finally disposed of. The names and rank of these officers, and dates of their detail, are given in the Appendix No. 2. Their services have already told in the execution of the operations of the past season, and will be of still further value. in those of the next, as they all obtain the necessary experience in the practical operations of the survey now possessed by some.

The number of hydrographic parties has been increased under the injunction of the law, as their services could be rendered available. It now consists of ten parties, of which four are occupied in sections where the seven months which include the summer are most profitable for work afloat; one where the work is done in the autumn and spring; four where the seven months including the winter constitute the best working season; and one is employed during the greater part of the year. This past summer, two of the parties have been transferred from southern sections, at the termination of their working season, to do duty for a time in a more northern one. The average number of officers in each party during the season, afloat, is five. On closing their work afloat, three of each party are allowed by the Navy Department to repair to the office for reducing their hydrography; which, from its nature, cannot be so well done in any other way as under the immediate inspection of those who have executed it. During a brief period in the spring or summer, and during the autumn, the seasons of active employment overlap; but the interval is not considerable between the closing of operations in one set of sections and the beginning of those in the others. The whole number of navy officers on coast survey duty was fifty-two on the 1st of March, 1851; and on the 1st of September, 1851, was sixty-six. There are on duty afloat, now, when the parties are full, fifty-five officers, and on office duty eleven. The names of the officers detailed are given in Appendix No. 3 and No. 3