GEOGRAPHY AND ANTIQUITIES. 355 



carrying coal from Philadelphia to the eastern parts of the Union; 

 buoys having been placed in it, so that it is known. Another one en- 

 ables vessels to pass directly across to the breakwater, when lying in 

 Cape May Roads, the wind comes out at northwest, exposing them to 

 the dangers of a lee-shore. This section of the work (the second), 

 then, I consider as completed, with the exception of a portion of the 

 work of verification. 



" Mr. Hassler did not at once publish his results, and I have aimed to 

 bring up all the back-work, and then to keep the publication abreast 

 of the work itself. This I have nearly been able to effect. The third 

 section extends from the capes of the Delaware to the capes of the 

 Chesapeake, and includes the States of Maryland, Virginia, and a part 

 of Delaware. The primary triangulation has been carried down the 

 Chesapeake into Virginia, and I have very little doubt, from the report 

 of the assistant who had charge of that part of the work, that the 

 triangulations will, this season, reach the James River. The secondary 

 triangulation already extends, both in the Chesapeake Bay and on the 

 ocean shores, into Virginia. The fourth section embraces the State 

 of North Carolina. The primary triangulation has been carried, from 

 the base measured on Bodies Island, up the Albemarle Sound, into 

 Pamlico Sound, and the sheet of water which, under the various names 

 of Roanoke Sound, Curritnck Sound, &c., fills the space between the 

 sandy part of the coast of North Carolina and the swamp which 

 immediately joins it, those sounds constituting the great line of com- 

 munication between the North and South, through the Dismal Swamp 

 Canal from the Chesapeake Bay into Albemarle Sound. 



" It is very remarkable that natural causes should tend to counter- 

 act natural difficulties. Such a change in the direction of the cur- 

 rents has taken place near Cape Hatteras since 1846, that the point 

 of the cape has begun to make out, and thus affords a natural 

 protection, behind which there is a beautiful cove, easy of entrance, 

 with a capital anchorage, and perfectly protected from the sea in 

 a northeast wind. Hatteras Inlet affords a beautiful harbor of 

 refuge to the extensive coasting trade passing from the South to 

 the North, and from the North to the South, in the United States. 

 Now we can only approximately estimate when this section will be 

 done. The reconnoissance was only made in 1843, and the triangu- 

 lation commenced in 1845. But the period of survey, from the be- 

 ginning to the end, cannot exceed twelve years, and three of these have 

 pn-sed. 



" The next section is a very interesting one, along the coast of South 

 Carolina and Georgia. It is a curious, but a uniform fact, that the 

 coast of the United States in general lends itself to this kind of work. 

 Where it is not made up of the bluffs which we have in New Eng- 

 land, with the noble hills in the interior, there is generally a sandy 

 island or a continuous beach of sand, or a hillock, or a piece of mo- 

 rass within which there is very deep water, forming an internal navi- 

 gation, and across which the lines are readily run, affording an oppor- 

 tunity exactly for this work. What could be better than Albemarle 

 and Pamlico Sound on the flat coast of North Carolina? In South 



