Land Office Surveys of which more presently — had made some progress in California and Oregon; but hardly a beginning elsewhere to the west of the Rocky Mountains. These two were, indeed, the only organized States west of the 104th meridian, and they together hardly contained half a million of inhabitants; but little was therefore to be expected from this quarter, unless done by the central government. At this time there was a good general knowledge of the geographical outlines of a large part of the region west of the Mississippi; only the southern and western portions of what is now the State of Nevada and a part of Utah were still marked on our maps "unknown." No detailed work, however, had been done in all this vast region, and the structure - both geographical and geological — of the mountain ranges was something which had not received the slightest attention. Even the elevations of the prominent mountains were unknown; not a single high peak, in all that vast complex of ranges which we call the Cordilleras, had ever been measured. There was also the chronic difficulty with regard to longitudes. Not a single point between the Mississippi and the Pacific coast had been accurately enough determined to justify its being used with confidence for subordinating other work to it. Salt Lake itself, which ought to have had the best established position in the region, since it had been made the special object of a costly expedition, was found by the telegraphic observations of the United States Coast Survey, in 1869, to be six miles east of the position which had been assigned to it by Warren.

In 1860, the State of California made a beginning in the direction of accurate work, by the establishment of a geological survey. Among the provisions of the Act, by which the work was authorized, was one requiring the preparation of "suitable maps," and this was construed by the State Geologist to mean maps as accurate as could be made with the means at his command. In the ten years during which this work was carried on, considerable progress was made in developing the detailed structure of both the Coast Ranges and the Sierra Nevada, and several maps were published, on scales of two and six miles; and also a general one of both California and Nevada, on the scale of eighteen miles to the inch. An

important work in four sheets, giving the topography of the whole Sierra Nevada, on the scale of 1: 380,160, was nearly completed, and three sheets had been engraved in a style worthy of high praise, when the work was suddenly stopped by the Legislature in 1874, although the entire expenses of the survey in all departments, including geological and natural-history work as well as the costs of publication, had been considerably less than $20,000 per year from the beginning.

nees.

The explorations of the Central Pacific Railroad, for establishing their line, gave the first clear idea of the topography of the region between Salt Lake and the Sierra Nevada, along the thirty-ninth and fortieth parallels, — a region traversed by more than twenty nearly parallel ranges of mountains, many of which are little inferior in height and elevation to the PyreSeveral lines were surveyed through Nevada, in the hope that a feasible route might be found across these ranges, and that thus the road might be run direct to Salt Lake City, without the long detour to the north, by way of the valley of the Humboldt, by following which they would be obliged to leave what were then the most important mining districts of the Great Basin far to the south. By combining these surveys, which were executed by Butler Ives, a skilful topographer, a quite accurate map of the northern portion of the Great Basin was obtained; which, however, was never published. This map covered almost precisely the same ground as the western half of the Fortieth Parallel Survey, of which more presently. The Union Pacific Railroad made no surveys having any topographical value; but those of the South Pacific added some few items of importance to what was previously known of the region at the base of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and New Mexico. The Northern Pacific, on the other hand, contented itself with compiling, from Warren's map and other authorities, a large and geographically worthless diagram, which was widely circulated, with the proposed route of the road indicated on it, and the sterile deserts of the Northwest as far north as latitude 52° marked in large capitals, "The Continental Wheat Garden!"

The United States Fortieth Parallel Survey" and the

"United States Geographical and Geological Survey of the Territories" will be noticed further on, when we come to speak of work now in progress. At present, we have to turn our attention to what has been done in the States east of the Mississippi, and in the inhabited portions of the great valley of that river, towards working up the geography of the eastern half of our territory. And it may, in the first place, be stated, that for the valley of the Mississippi we have to depend chiefly on the United States Land Surveys, while for the Atlantic States the basis of our geographical knowledge is the United States Coast Survey, supplemented by a large amount of material of a very mixed nature, and not at all thorough in execution or trustworthy in detail. To appreciate the chartographic condition of this portion of the country, it will be necessary, first, to give some idea of the operations of our Coast Survey.

The United States Coast Survey is a work of such magnitude, so important to the geography of the country, and, withal, so creditable to American science, that it will be proper to take some pains to make ourselves acquainted, in a general way, with its methods and progress. It is the only great scientific work in this country which has been uninterruptedly carried on for any considerable time; and one of the few things done under the authority of the national government in which every American citizen can take pride. The importance of an accurate knowledge of the coast line of a commercial country like our own was something that the dullest and least scientific mind could hardly fail to perceive, and it is not surprising that such a survey was ordered; but it is, indeed, something to be wondered at, that a work, requiring such an amount of time and so large an expenditure of money, in order that it might be executed in a creditable manner, should have got itself fairly established as a national institution. Having been started, it was rather to be expected that it would be put in charge of some one who would contract to have it done within the shortest possible limit of time, and who would have had but one idea, that of pocketing the largest amount of profit at the end of the operation. Indeed, it is rather a matter of luck than anything else that the Coast

Survey became what it is, and, being what it is, has continued to exist. Such a work needed, as its head, a man, not only of extensive scientific acquirements, but at the same time of extraordinary executive capacity. Such a man might, perhaps, be found without great difficulty; but he must, in addition to the necessary scientific and executive ability, possess the art of managing politicians, and the personal, magnetic influence needed to carry, every year, a bill through Congress, sanctioning the expenditure of a large sum of money. Bache had all this, and, besides, a tenacity of purpose which no amount of opposition could overcome.

The Coast Survey, as first started, was placed, in 1807, under the direction of Hassler, a Swiss by birth, who had emigrated to this country in 1801. He was a man of high ability, and his ideas of scientific accuracy were far beyond the comprehension of the men of his day in his adopted country. He was, however, a very eccentric individual, quite wanting in tact and executive ability. He had the fixed idea that he was the only person in the country who knew anything about geodetic work; and he was probably very nearly right, at the time the work commenced, although great progress, in that respect, had been made before his death, which took place in 1843. But for sixteen years of the time since the survey was commenced, the work had been suspended, owing to the financial troubles following our second war with England.

In 1844, Bache was appointed superintendent of the Coast Survey, and he continued actively engaged in the duties of that position until 1864, when, overwhelmed by the load of care and responsibility which this survey, and many other scientific labors incident to the War of the Rebellion, laid upon him, his health gave way, and he was obliged to leave the country, in the hope that repose and freedom from care would restore the powers of the disorganized brain. But the relief came too late; he lingered on, retaining the nominal superintendency until 1867, when his troubled spirit found eternal rest.

At the time of Hassler's death, the Coast Survey was in progress between Rhode Island and Chesapeake Bay, a single base from which to start the work having been measured on the south shore of Long Island. Five large charts had been

engraved, but nothing published. Bache at once recommended the adoption of a more comprehensive system, and succeeded in obtaining the approval of Congress and the necessary funds. According to this system, the coast was divided into several distinct sections, as nearly of the same extent as convenient, and work was commenced and carried on simultaneously in each of them independently of the others. There are eleven such sections in all, each, as a rule, with its own base line. Of the accuracy with which these bases have been measured, we have already spoken in the preceding pages. By the aid of the triangulation carried along the coast, in accordance with the principles already indicated, the shore line has been laid down with accuracy, and the minute details of the topography given for a distance of from one to three miles inland, according to the nature of the locality. This fixing of the exact position of the line of the coast forms the basis of the hydrographical work, which is the part of the survey of the most importance to the mariner and to commerce, but with which we have not to occupy ourselves in this connection. It is with the work of the Coast Survey, as forming the basis of the chartography of the interior of the Atlantic States, that we have to do at present.

As the net-work of primary triangles extends, owing to the great length of their sides, far back from the coast, a considerable number of interior points are thus fixed accurately in position, and the work of the Coast Survey thus affords a basis for a convenient extension. Favored by the remarkably indented character of parts of our shore line, some States, like New Jersey and Maryland, have really had no inconsiderable portion of their topography thus accurately given them at the expense of the United States.'

A few years ago a beginning was made towards extending the triangulation of the Coast Survey farther into the interior than was needed for strictly coast work, with the idea of thus preparing the way for making the survey a national one, and doing away with its limitation to the shore line. The first reference to anything of this kind we find in the Report for 1870, in which the superintendent states that a new item is introduced into the estimates, "small in amount, but of