COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY CENTENNIAL 263 



Brigadier General W. M. Black, Chief of Engineers, United States 

 Army: The United States Corps of Engineers and its relation to the 

 United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. The speaker said that the asso- 

 ciation in work of the Corps of Engineers and the United States Coast 

 and Geodetic Survey began with the organization of the Survey. In 

 1802 the Corps of Engineers was organized as a separate body, of which 

 the U. S. Military Academy formed a part. The first Superintendent 

 of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, Ferdinand R. Hassler, was appointed 

 from the Corps of Instructors of the Academy, having served there as 

 Acting Professor of Mathematics from 1807 until 1810. From 1843 

 through a period of many years officers of both the Army and Navy 

 served by detail with the Coast Survey Bureau. When a harbor is 

 to be improved the first recourse of the Army Engineer is to the charts 

 of the Coast and Geodetic Survey. The triangulation points estab- 

 lished by the Survey are used, when available, as a basis for the work 

 of the Engineers. Free interchange of information is made between the 

 two organizations, and the work of one supplements that of the other. 

 In yet another way the work of the Coast and Geodetic Survey is useful 

 to and is utilized by the Corps of Engineers, namely, in the preparation 

 of projects for national defense; for this purpose the charts of the 

 Survey are at once available. The work of the Survey and that of 

 the U. S. Engineers touch at many points, but their respective spheres 

 of duty are well defined and separate. The great work done by the 

 Coast and Geodetic Survey in its hundred years of existence and the 

 traditions of faithful labor well performed will always be an inspiration 

 for further effort. 



Hon. George R. Putnam, Commissioner of Lighthouses: The Light- 

 house Service and its relation to the United States Coast and Geodetic 

 Survey. The speaker said that all progressive countries recognize their 

 obligations to survey, light, and mark their coasts, and that when a 

 country builds a lighthouse or publishes a chart, it aids the whole family 

 of nations. An accurate survey of the coast is a necessary preliminary 

 to the location of aids to navigation; without an accurate chart an aid 

 may be so stationed as to lead a vessel on to some hidden danger. The 

 two bureaus under discussion have the important common object of 

 protecting the mariner and keeping him out of danger. One gives him 

 the chart showing where the course is safe; the other gives him aids to 

 guide him over the course. The Coast and Geodetic Survey has made 

 special surveys for choosing sites of lighthouses, and accurately deter- 

 mines their positions. The Lighthouse Service marks new dangers 

 located by surveys, and moves aids as new surveys show the need. 

 Much work is required in keeping charts corrected for changes in aids, 

 and in this work there must be close cooperation. On a single chart, 

 that of New York Harbor, there are shown 299 aids. As both nature 

 and the works of man are ever changing the coast line, channels, and 

 harbors, and as the needs of commerce are continually varying, both 

 charts and beacons must ever be corrected and modified; therefore, the 

 cooperation in these two important works must always be continued. 



