the direction of Mr. R. T. Paine, and small portable instruments were employed, namely, the sextant, or reflecting circle,* and a number of chronometers. The precise object for which these astronomical observations were made, it is not easy to understand, as it is not likely that they were ever used in rectifying the triangulation, which was of a higher order of accuracy than the astronomical work. When, however, the chain and compass surveys, made by the selectmen or their agents, came to be fitted into the main triangulation, which should have been supplemented by a secondary series of triangles, so as to largely increase the number of points established, there was much trouble, as might have been expected. It was an attempt to reconcile data of a very uncertain character; indeed it was a most thankless job, and the result was not satisfactory, falling far behind what had been expected, although the work had occupied thirteen or fourteen years, instead of the one year it was expected to take when commenced. The map as finished was on too small a scale - two and a half miles to the inch to be of much use as a town or county map, and of course of no service as marking the lines or divisions between the estates of private parties. It was also very defective in respect to its exhibition of the character and relief of the surface, this being an item in the requisites of a good map not at all appreciated in this country at that time. A new edition was issued some years afterwards, on which an attempt was made to improve the hill-shading, which, however, was still very unsatisfactory.

Maps of several of the counties and towns of Massachusetts and New York, and probably of some other States, have from time to time been prepared and issued by private parties, who appear to have found the business profitable. The surveys for the county work appear to have been made by driving over the roads with an odometer attached to a wheel of the vehicle used, thus determining the distances with some approach to accuracy, while the pocket compass was probably chiefly relied on for direction. The names of the occupants of the houses are

* The name of the instrument is not given in Mr. Paine's report of his operations; it is simply called "a reflecting instrument."

given, and small plans of the principal towns figure on the borders of these maps. Chartographic work of this kind is very defective, especially in the way of hill-shading; but it is better than nothing at all; and the fact that such maps can be made and sold with profit indicates very clearly how strongly the want of good ones is felt by the people. The books of city maps furnished by private enterprise are more satisfactory than the county maps, but still far from being complete, and they especially lack the stamp of "official" upon them, so that they cannot be used where permanency and the law are to be taken into consideration.

From what has been said above, it will be readily gathered that we have very poor local maps of the Eastern States, and no good general one. One would suppose that the grand chain of the Appalachians, situated as it is in the midst of a civilized nation, would be well known to us even in the details of its remarkable and beautiful physical structure. This, however, is not the case; and if it is no longer true, as Guyot said in 1861, that it is "one of the chains of which we have the least amount of positive knowledge," it is chiefly due to the persevering and unremunerated labors of that distinguished geographer, during a decade of years, that we have now even a general idea of the character of this chain. Professor Guyot's investigations have had reference rather to the previously entirely unknown altitudes of different portions of the Appalachian range than to its structure; what we know of the latter is more to be gathered from his published verbal descriptions than from the accompanying map, which is on so very small a scale (1:6,000,000) as to be, in fact, only a sketch.

Professor Lesley, who was the principal topographical assistant on the first geological survey of Pennsylvania, has also interested himself much in regard to the structure of the Appalachians, and even prepared a large map intended to illustrate the peculiar features of different portions of the range; this was, however, never published, although a part of it was photolithographed, as an illustration of a paper in which the typical topographic forms of this remarkable chain were discussed.

The deficiency of our knowledge of Appalachian topography may be, in part, excused, it is true, by the difficulty of survey

ing an intricate region of ridges of nearly uniform elevation, and densely covered with forests, which impede the vision, and thus render it impossible to work with rapidity; but the real trouble is, that the people have not yet been educated up to the point of fully appreciating the scientific interest as well as the practical value of accurate geographical and topographical work.

Mention should be made of the fact, that, during the War of the Rebellion, a considerable amount of topographical material was obtained, through the assistance of the Coast Survey chiefly, in parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and other States which were then the seat of war. The need of the kind of information which only an accurate and detailed survey can give was keenly felt at the time our armies were moving over the terra incognita of the western slopes of the Appalachians, and it was hoped that the impetus given to this kind of work at that time would continue to be felt after the war was ended, and that the result would be, that under the lead of the older and richer States, the work of mapping the Atlantic border of the continent would be seriously taken in hand. Nothing has been done, however, and we remain apparently very much in the same condition as to geographical progress that we were in ten years ago. This is the case, at least, with regard to action on the part of individual States; but the United States has taken several steps in advance, some of them very curious ones, as will be seen further on.

6.

The United States Engineer Bureau has received from Congress large sums of money for many years back, nominally for surveys for military defences." A considerable portion of this has been used for the topographical reconnoissances referred to on previous pages, and for many other similar and less important ones. The total amount thus expended it would be quite impossible for one outside of the bureau to state; but it must have been very large, probably not less than $100,000 a year, on the average. Previous to 1867 no system of surveys had been inaugurated, and but little if any work done of a permanently valuable character. The determinations of distances were almost exclusively dependent on estimates of the pace of the horse or mule ridden, and the

astronomical observations by which the work was checked were extremely unreliable. This is well illustrated by reference to Lieutenant Simpson's work in the Great Basin. His longitude of Genoa, one of his three principal astronomical stations, where a series of observations of lunar culminations was made, appears now from the telegraphic determination of the position of the 120th meridian by the Coast Survey, to have been over eight miles out of the way. And in further illustration of this, it may be stated, that on comparison and reduction to one scale of all the work done in the Great Basin by the United States Engineer officers, previous to 1867, by the writer of this article, it was found that no portion of it could be used for a general map of Nevada even on a small scale; indeed, the discrepancies of longitude and vagueness of the topography were so great on all the published maps of the War Department and Engineer Bureau, that no one chain of mountains, between the Sierra Nevada and the Wahsatch, could be identified as being the same with any range on the carefully surveyed map of Butler Ives, spoken of above, and which proved, on repetition of the work by the Fortieth Parallel Survey, to be remarkably accurate in its general delineations of the mountain masses, although in part deficient in detail.

In 1867 the Fortieth Parallel Survey was instituted by Congress, and the work placed nominally under the direction of the Bureau of Engineers, but in reality given to a civilian, Mr. Clarence King, who had as his principal topographical assistant Mr. J. T. Gardner, both of these gentlemen having been previously connected with the Geological Survey of California. Under Mr. King's direction, a belt of country over a hundred miles wide and extending from the western borders of Nevada to the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains was topographically and geologically surveyed with a much higher degree of precision than had ever before been attained in that region. The whole area was carefully triangulated, and the work checked by accurate telegraphic determinations of longitude at suitable points, as well as frequent observations for latitude with the zenith telescope. For the geographical map, which is comprised in ten sheets, on a scale of four miles to an inch, the hill-shading has been carefully and beautifully ex

ecuted with the brush, and copied in crayon-work on stone. The geological work will be exhibited on contoured sheets, the curves being drawn at vertical distances of four hundred feet. Thus picturesque effect is combined with accurate delineation of the vertical element, so far as is practicable on the small scale necessarily adopted in the survey of so vast a region. This work is nearly ready for publication.

The success of the Fortieth Parallel Survey and the generally recognized value of the work led the Department of the Interior to inquire whether they also could not do something in the way of more accurate topography on the western side of the continent. A geological survey had been going on for some time, in the Territories of the United States, and under control of the Secretary of the Interior, but having no connection with the General Land Office, which is another branch of that department. This geological work, having no geographical basis, was of little value, except as a rough preliminary reconnoissance. To remedy this difficulty, it was proposed, in 1870, that a topographical corps be added to the geological, and, the sanction of Congress having been obtained, this was done. The remodelled survey was then known as the "United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories," and the topographical portion of the work was placed in charge of Mr. Gardner, the principal triangulation of the Fortieth Parallel Survey having at that time just been completed. For the continuation of this work Congress has made liberal appropriations at the two last sessions, $ 95,000 having been granted for the present year. The work thus far has been mainly confined to Colorado, and a map of that recently admitted State, in six sheets, is said to be in preparation. It is in the area which lies between the meridians of 104° and 110° and is included between the parallels of 36° and 39°, that the survey is to be prosecuted during the season of 1875. This embraces Southern and Southwestern Colorado and the northern part of New Mexico. Of the scale or style adopted for publication in this work no information has been received. A preliminary sketch showing the progress of the triangulation in Central Colorado, on a scale of eight miles to the inch, is appended to the report of progress for 1873; and a description of the