functions of the Coast Survey, this division being known as the Office of Standard Weights and Measures. By an act approved March 3, 1901 (31 Stat. L., 1449), this office became a part of the National Bureau of Standards, which began operations on July 1, 1901.

Further Transfers. Scarcely had the operations of the survey been fairly resumed under the Treasury Department, when President Jackson, upon the recommendation of the Secretary of the Treasury, on March 11, 1834, directed that the Survey be retransferred to the control of the Navy Department. Again the work proceeded so unsatisfactorily in that department that within about two years, that is, on March 27, 1836, the survey was returned by order of President Jackson to the Treasury Department.

Up to this time the service had been designated the "Survey of the Coast," but in 1836 the title was changed to "Coast Survey.” Development Under Early Organization. From 1836 to 1843 the Coast Survey was permitted to carry on its work in the Treasury Department without disturbance or interruption by Congress or by the President. During the incumbency of Hassler the Coast Survey grew from a small beginning until, in 1843, its work comprehended various operations of a geodetic survey on the land and the hydrography of the adjacent waters. The first years of its existence were necessarily spent in organization and instruction. The work had to be planned and systematized. Assistants had to be trained. When the results of the field operations accumulated, provision had to be made for compilations and reductions and for the preparation of maps and charts.

In 1843 a base line had been measured on the south side of Long Island in the vicinity of New York. The triangulation had extended eastward to Rhode Island, and southward to the head of Chesapeake Bay, the primary triangulation crossing the neck of New Jersey and Delaware, while the secondary triangulation skirted the coast of New Jersey, meeting with another series which extended down Delaware Bay. The topographical work had kept pace with the triangulation, and the hydrography of New York Bay and harbor, of Long Island Sound, of Delaware Bay and river, and the off-shore work from Montauk Point to the capes of the Delaware were nearly completed. The triangulation had

covered an area of 9000 square miles, furnishing determinations of nearly 1200 stations for the delineation of 1600 miles of shore line; 168 topographical sheets had been surveyed, and 142 hydrographic charts prepared.

Congressional Investigation of the Survey, 1842. Notwithstanding this extraordinary accomplishment under the difficulties that had been placed in the way of the Coast Survey, clamors arose in Congress against the administration of that bureau. Dissatisfaction was expressed with the progress made. The alleged slow progress was ascribed to an unnecessary refinement in the process employed. The results were claimed to be inadequate to the expenditures. The old agitation for a transfer to the Navy Department was revived.

As a result of this clamor, an investigation of the Coast Survey was instituted in 1842 by a congressional committee, which after a severe and unfriendly scrutiny by the members, resulted in a complete endorsement of the principles on which the survey had been conducted by Hassler.

Adoption of Permanent Plan of Organization. The following year Congress, by an act approved March 3, 1843 (5 Stat. L., 640), called for a permanent plan of organization of the Coast Survey, to be made by a board consisting of the superintendent, his two principal assistants, the two naval officers then in charge of the hydrographic parties, and four members chosen from among the principal officers of the corps of topographical engineers.

A plan was adopted by this board on March 30, 1843. It outlined the character and methods of work to be pursued by the Coast Survey, and defined the form of organization and the duties of its officers and employees. In proposing this plan the board laid the foundation for the extensive system of geodetic work which the Survey has at the present time. The plan also included a provision for making "all such magnetic observations as circumstances and the state of the annual appropriations may allow," and, as a result, magnetic surveys were begun soon afterwards.

The board opposed the transfer of the survey to the Navy Department, recommending that it remain in the Treasury Department" inasmuch as the object and purpose of the survey of the coast refers principally to the commercial interests of the coun

try, and as all the laws of Congress in relation to the same, contemplate the employment of civilians and officers of the army and navy upon said work."

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In accordance with this recommendation the President, in his formal approval of the plan of 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."

Progress Under Permanent Plan. Up to 1843 the Survey had been confined to a limited portion of the Atlantic Coast. In 1844 a recommendation made by the superintendent, and adopted, resulted in a more comprehensive system according to which work was commenced and carried on independently in many places at once, each section employing its own base and making its own geographical determinations, but all designed to form, when completed, a single continuous and unbroken chain of triangulation extending from one end of the coast to the other. At that time Texas had not been annexed, and the Pacific Coast was not in the possession of the United States.

The original recommendation, reduced to a specific form, was to divide the entire coast of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico into eight distinct sections, each embracing, as nearly as could be estimated, the same length of shore-line, the work to be commenced simultaneously in as many sections as Congress would make provision for. Extensive operations in accordance with this plan were actually begun the following year. Upon the annexation of Texas and the west coast, three more sections were added, and these coasts were included in the plan of operation. When Alaska was acquired in 1867, an exploration and survey of that territory was begun.

Further Attempts to Transfer Survey to the Navy Department. In the spring of 1848 another attempt was made in Congress to transfer the Coast Survey to the Navy Department, but it was defeated in the House of Representatives. A year later a motion was made in the Senate to amend an appropriation bill by inserting the words "the said survey shall be carried on exclusively by the Navy Department, under the direction of the President." This amendment was defeated.

These attempts to re-transfer the Coast Survey to the Navy Department evoked protests from scientific societies, colleges, universities, marine insurance companies, and commercial organizations throughout the country, the protestants expressing appreciation of the work done by the survey as a civilian organization.

The efforts to transfer the Coast Survey to the Navy Department persisted nevertheless. On December 31, 1850, a resolution of the Senate called upon the Secretary of the Navy to report what advantage would be derived by a transfer of the Coast Survey to the Navy Department. It also called upon the Secretary of the Treasury to state why, in his opinion, such a transfer should not be made. The views expressed by the Secretary of the Treasury in favor of adhering to the original Jefferson-Gallatin plan were sustained by Congress.

The withdrawal of nearly all the army officers and the threatened withdrawal of the naval officers from coast survey work during the War with Mexico, and the abrupt withdrawal of all army and naval officers at the outbreak of the Civil War, appear to have strengthened the position of those in favor of a civilian bureau, and no further attempts were made for many years to transfer the Coast Survey from the Treasury Department.

Investigation by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1858, in accordance with a resolution of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a committee of twenty leading scientists made an investigation of the work of the Coast Survey. The report of this committee' gave a review of the survey's history, objects, methods, and results, and of its relations to other governmental departments and bureaus. The committee commended the Survey's work on scientific and practical grounds, asserted its equality with the best work ever done and its superiority in rapidity and economy to any similar work abroad, and recommended adherence to the general plan of organization.

Civil War Activities. During the Civil War the Coast Survey suspended many of the larger operations, continuing however, some of the more important branches of its ordinary work.

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1 Report on the history and progress of the American Coast Survey.

Although it remained a civilian bureau, it rendered much service to the military operations of the Union. It made numerous reconnaissances and rapid topographical surveys for immediate military purposes about Washington, in the vicinity of Baltimore and Philadelphia, on the Virginia peninsula, at Vicksburg and Chattanooga, with Sherman's route on his march to the sea, and in connection with nearly every important operation of the army and navy. It prepared many hydrographic sheets and war maps which were supplied to blockading squadrons and commanders of expeditions. On at least two occasions the operations of the Coast Survey were largely instrumental in bringing about important victories. Authorization of an Extensive Geodetic Survey. By an act approved March 3, 1871 (16 Stat. L., 508), the field operations of the Coast Survey were extended by the authorization of a geodetic connection between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States. The result was a great transcontinental arc of triangulation along the thirty-ninth parallel of latitude, one of the most famous arcs in the history of geodesy. This transcontinental triangulation joined the many separate parts of the Survey's work and made them into one continuous system dependent upon the same geodetic and astronomical data. The nature of the country traversed by the arc developed new ideas in reconnaissance, signal building, triangulation, and methods of computing, which have had an important bearing on all the subsequent work of the Survey.

In the execution of Hassler's plans, an arc of triangulation had previously been executed, extending from the Bay of Fundy to the Gulf of Mexico at New Orleans.

In addition to these two arcs, the Coast and Geodetic Survey has executed triangulation systems extending along the ninetyeighth meridian and along the Pacific coast from Canada to Mexico; from the ninety-eighth meridian in Texas across New Mexico, Arizona, and California, connecting with the Pacific coast triangulation; from the triangulation along the thirty-ninth parallel in Colorado northward to the Canadian boundary; and from the triangulation along the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River at Memphis.

2 Coast and Geodetic Survey, Special Publication, No. 37.