REPORT OF THE TOPOGRAPHER OF THE POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT. POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT, TOPOGRAPHER'S OFFICE, Washington, D. C., October 21, 1885. SIR: During the past year (ending September 30, 1885) the work of keeping up the exhibit of the postal service on the maps and diagrams used by the officers and clerks in the several Bureaus, as well as rendering the special aid of this office to the different branches of the Department, has been carried on to the full capacity of the force employed. For the daily use of the officers and "corresponding clerks" of the Contract Office and of the Appointment Office, for the PostmasterGeneral, for the General Superintendent of the Railway Mail Service, and for the Topographer's Office, 13 sets of diagrams, comprising 325 maps, are kept up (continuously added to by hand), showing the actual state of the service throughout the entire country at the beginning of each month. In addition to these, but not so closely brought up, there are furnished 7 sets of diagrams (175 maps) for reference in the following offices of the Department; namely, Finance, Money-Order, Chief Post Office Inspector, Dead-Letter, and the Auditor of the Treasury for the Post Office Department. In procuring data for additions to the post-route maps, 107 letters of inquiry have been addressed to engineers and other officers of railroads, in most cases with inclosure of a special tracing of the immediately surrounding country, made in this office, to facilitate the return of the exact lines of their roads for transference to our maps. For this same purpose, 3,293 circular queries have been sent to postmasters to get the precise location of their post-offices in cases where the description in the data furnished through the Appointment Office is found to be inadequate, or where definition of site and adjacent topography better than that on file is required-particularly in cases where the post-office has been moved from its original site. The miscellaneous correspondence of the Topographer, exclusive of the above-mentioned circulars, included 4,373 letters sent out. The number of letters received, exclusive of circular queries returned, was 4,255. The distribution of the post-route maps during the past year amounted to 13,494 sheets. Besides the copies required at headquarters of the Department, the greater part of the distribution was to agents of the Department, including postmasters, officers, and clerks of the railwaymail service, and post-office inspectors; the remainder being furnished on request, where copies were available, to bureaus of other governmental Departments, members of both Houses of Congress (specially for their personal reference), State authorities, educational and scientific institutions, libraries, &c. Of these maps, 30 per cent. were backed with muslin, mounted on rollers, or bound for portable use. In addition to this distribution, several copies of each edition of the maps are used in the Topographer's office as samples for keeping up the corrections, others for correction-sheets furnished to the printer, and a set is reserved for the files. The sales of the maps, as authorized by law, amounted during the past fiscal year to $1,219.15. Maps have been furnished, in compliance with requisitions, to the following bureaus of the public service: Treasury Department: Office of the Secretary; Treasurer of the United States; First Comptroller; Director of the Mint; Bureau of Statistics; United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. War Department: Office of the Secretary; Chief of Engineers, U. S. A. ; Chief Signal Officer, U. S. A. Navy Department: Nautical Almanac Office. Department of the Interior: General Land Office, Pension Office, Indian Affairs, United States Geological Survey. Department of Justice. United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries. There is appended hereto a tabular statement of the distribution of the post-route maps during the past year, with a side comparison with the distribution for the preceding two years. The calls for certificates of distances by post-routes, required in the settlement of mileage accounts by officers of the public service, and in the adjustment of telegraph rates and pay for governmental messages, have been, as usual, attended to with promptitude and with the necessary care and precision. During the past year 456 letters (including telegrams) requesting these certificates have been answered, covering 715 queries. In regard to the compilation of a new table of distances for reference in the settlement of such mileage accounts, which has occasionally been made a subject of inquiry, I beg leave to submit that, although in my last year's report to the Postmaster-General I proposed for consideration the employment of a computer specially to compile such a table, I now deem it proper to state that further experience of the character of the calls in question during the past year induces me now to doubt the expediency of undertaking such a compilation-a very laborious workthis doubt being based upon the fact that the greater number of the queries more recently received are found to include distances traveled, by post-routes, from twenty to twenty-five years ago, between points which being unforeseen would probably not appear in such a table, unless it were of almost impracticable extent. As it is, these calls are taken up immediately and disposed of by answers prepared by one of my assistants familiar with that subject-a work, however, which requires much labor and special attention to attain accuracy. These calls have been gradually increasing in number, more particularly owing to fresh classes of claims connected with Army service coming up for settlement in the Second Auditor's Office of the Treasury Department. The production of successive revised editions of the sheets of the post-route maps (now 60 in number) by means of prints from lithographic stones has been continued during the past year. These prints are furnished, under contract, in bi-monthly editious-the stones, during the intervals between each edition, being brought up to the latest pos |
