Excerpt from Science, Vol. 7: An Illustrated Journal; January-June, 1886 The time was long ago when any one would think of asking what is the use of having any coast survey at all, one might almost say, long past, when any one would expect that the work of such an organization could ever be brought to an end. As originally constituted, by the act of 1843, the organization was empowered to proceed with the accurate mapping of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States, a work which involved a trigonometric survey of the coast-lands to be conducted with the utmost precision. This formed also the only suitable basis for the hydrog raphy of the coasts. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.