which is, at least, moderately level. This is shown by the fact that the townships and sections, in the few cases where the work has been carried into the mountains, have proved, on examination, to be extremely irregular in shape; and it is a fact, that the surveys have been mainly confined to the level strips of land between the ranges, throughout the whole of the mountainous western portion of the country. The system which answered tolerably for the flat or gently undulating plains of the Mississippi Valley, has been found quite unavailable for the Cordilleras. And, as no topography or hill-shading is given on the plotted sheets of these surveys, no idea of the physical structure of the regions they embrace can be obtained from them, or any map constructed by putting them together, except where the country is destitute of mountain ranges. Of course, as the lines are only run so as to divide the surface into squares of one mile each, all within those squares is a blank, except in so far as it may be deemed reasonable to fill them up by arbitrarily connecting the objects intersected on their borders. In point of fact, the system of the Land Office Surveys is not only unsatisfactory in itself, but the work has been, much of it, very badly executed. We do not allude here to the defective and even fraudulent character of portions of the less important details, but to those prominent features, the principal meridians, by which the rest of the work is co-ordinated, and which have first to be laid down on the map, whenever Land Office material is to be used for geographical purposes. And it will, we think, excite some surprise after reading in a report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, the head of this department of the government business, that the guide meridians and standard parallels are "run, as nearly as human skill ""* to can effect it, upon true meridians and parallels of latitude,' learn that, in truth, portions of these lines are miles away from where they ought to be, in order that the above statement in regard to the accuracy of the work should be true.† In order * See Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office for 1866, Part I. page 8. †Those who desire to investigate this matter will find it discussed in a chapter of Foster and Whitney's Lake Superior Report, Part II., written by Charles Whittlesey, and also in Warren's Memoir, referred to above. that the Land Office work may be utilized at all on any map of the United States which can lay claim to be accurate, the longitudes of all the principal meridians will have to be carefully determined at various points along their course by means of the telegraph. This could be easily done, for the meridians in the valley of the Mississippi, which pass, in good part at least, through a thickly inhabited region, intersected by railroads and telegraphs, and of all the geographical work needed at the present time in the country this is the most important. And should the Coast Survey succeed in extending its triangulation across the country, its officers ought to be required to connect their work with the Land Office Surveys, and to establish permanent monuments at suitable points, which should be most carefully protected by legislation, if it be possible in this country to bring about so desirable a result.* When we come to inquire on what besides the Coast Survey we have depended for the chartography of the eastern Atlantic border, that is, what material has been used in the construction of the maps in common use of the various States from Maine to Georgia, the question is a difficult one to answer; and it becomes a still more perplexing task when we seek to learn what is the relative or absolute value of the material thus used. Chain and compass surveys, either of the towns, the counties, or the States, made for the purpose of fixing their respective boundaries, constitute the principal body of this material; and it has been so long accumulating, that it would be a most tedious and unsatisfactory matter to search out the history of these fragmentary undertakings. Indeed, this could only be done under the authority of the various States, and with diligent investigation of their archives. Discrepancies of several miles are believed, with good reason, to exist in the boundaries of some of the States; and the recent re-examination of the line between two of them *There is something truly alarming in the thought that the lines of the United States Land Office Surveys can never be run over again, or their location be reestablished, after the marks by which the work is indicated on the surface have been obliterated. And these marks are only small wooden posts, mounds of earth, or "blazes on trees, none of which can survive many years, while most of them disappear very quickly, unless some one has a special motive for their preservation. " - New York and New Jersey has shown very clearly how full of errors the old compass surveys were, even when best done. The only States which have undertaken any systematic surveys, for the purpose of securing correct maps of their territory, are New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, and in no one of these instances has the result been satisfactory. New Jersey made a very creditable beginning, having an excellent basis in the Coast Survey triangulation, which, from the peculiar form of this State, extends over no small portion of its area. The work, begun in 1854, was carried on for two or three years and then suspended, although a good deal of valuable material was collected which was afterwards utilized in the State geological map. A large amount of topographical work was done in Pennsylvania, in connection with the State Geological Survey, in the way of improving the map of that State; but there was no accurate triangulation made, neither was the topographical map which was constructed ever laid before the public, although it was used to some extent in the geological atlas accompanying the final report by H. D. Rogers. Massachusetts was, however, the first to institute what was intended as a topographical survey, but which really turned out to be only a triangulation, bearing the same relation to a finished survey that a skeleton does to the living body. It will be worth while to look a little more closely into this matter, and to set forth the errors into which the Legislature fell from entire ignorance of the subject. This ignorance was, perhaps, not so blameworthy forty-five years ago, but it would be inexcusable for the State to enter on another work of this kind, without more knowledge of what is needed, and of how such a survey should be executed, than existed in this community when the former survey was instituted.* In 1829 a committee was appointed by the Legislature of Massachusetts to take into consideration the subject of" procuring such a map or such maps of the Commonwealth as the public good requires"; and in the following year this com *Yet at the very time the Massachusetts Survey was going on, Bessel and Baeyer were doing the most exquisitely accurate geodetic work in Prussia, not to speak of the Ordnance Surveys of England, France, and other European countries. mittee reported that "a good map, projected on a large scale, from actual surveys," was much needed. The old map of the State, made in 1801, "from authentic sources," and the surveys for which had been ordered by the Legislature in 1794, was no longer sufficient. The idea of a topographical survey and map seems to have been rather mixed up in the minds of this committee with that of a census and gazetteer; for in their report they state that, as a new census of the United States has to be made in 1830, as well as a new valuation of the States, "a great mass of appropriate information could be obtained free of expense." The committee did, however, see the necessity of a survey" on trigonometrical principles," and they thought that the work could be done " by some scientific gentleman," in one season, with such assistance as would be derived from information already on hand. If such a survey could be made, another one would never be needed; but it is modestly added that "a small appropriation for this purpose would be required." The idea was, that each town should make its own chain and compass survey. "Such a survey could be made by the selectmen," as the report has it, and the material thus acquired was to be put together on trigonometrical principles by the "scientific gentleman" employed to superintend the work. The engraving and printing, it was thought, could be paid for from the proceeds of the sale of the map. The action of the Legislature was in accordance with the above-cited recommendations of the committee; an appropriation of $2,000 was made to carry on the work, and the towns and cities of the Commonwealth were required, under a penalty for non-compliance of $100, to have minute and accurate surveys of their respective territories made within a year, and the State surveyor was to "project an accurate skeleton plan of the State," which should "exhibit the external lines thereof, and the most prominent objects within those lines, and their locations." The triangulation was mainly executed by Mr. Simeon Borden and completed in 1839, with a higher degree of accuracy than was to have been expected under the circumstances, and in a manner very creditable to Mr. Borden's ability and perseverance. The astronomical portion of the survey was under 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." |