OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 127 



topography or hydrography, and also the office work, are distinguished 

 for the same scrupulous regard to accuracy and despatch. The 

 observations, indeed, which are made in the field by one set of officers, 

 are reduced and plotted by others in the office, so that there can be no 

 danger of any deception, and every thing must be as good as it appears. 

 The observations of the Superintendent himself are not excepted from 

 this ordeal. 



" The committee cannot pass from this head of their inquiry with- 

 out expressing their commendation of the beautiful execution of the 

 charts, and of the wise liberality with which they are furnished to 

 navigators at a trifling cost. 



" 2. The survey has already embraced a very extensive portion of 

 the coast, and numerous discoveries have been made of the highest im- 

 portance to navigation. ' The field or office work of the survey has 

 been carried into every State on the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, 

 except one.' Every year results have been obtained of a mercantile 

 value incomparably superior to their cost, and which would be sufficient 

 to pay, again and again, for the whole year's work. To say nothing 

 of the many important discoveries of useful channels, or of hidden and 

 unknown dangers, in Long Island Sound, in Buzzard's, Massachusetts, 

 Chesapeake, and Mobile Bays, who can estimate the value of Gedney's 

 Channel* to New York harbour? of the determination of the chances 

 in the main ship-channel, which have been so gratefully acknowledged 

 by the Chamber of Commerce of New York .' or of Blake's new 

 channel in Delaware Bay ? or of Davis's discoveries of the shoals in 

 the vicinity of Nantucket, for which the insurance-offices of Boston 

 and New York have acknowledged their obligation ? Is not each of 

 them separately worth the whole amount which has been expended 

 upon the work ? But leaving these remarkable discoveries to the 

 merchants and sailors who are most competent to appreciate them, 

 your committee would draw the attention of the Academy to some 

 other results, of a less practical, but no less scientific, interest. 



" 3. From the variety of his scientific attainments, the attention of the 

 Superintendent has been readily drawn to all classes of observations 

 which would conduce to the progress of science, and which could be 

 made by himself or any of his parties without obstructing their other 

 duties. Thus the abstruse problem of the figure of the earth will 

 undoubtedly receive its due consideration when the primary triangula- 



* Gedney's and Blake's Channels were discovered during the administration of 

 Mr. Hassler. 



