292 EULOGY ON THE LATE GENERAL JOSEPH G. TOTTEN. 



board, and served as a valued and honored member, with but a short interruption, 

 until his decease. Its early labors were arduous and onerous A new system 

 was to be founded where before had been none; order should come from chaos, 

 error was to vanish before science, economy to succeed to wastefulness, darkness 

 to give place to light. The task, great as it was, fell upon no shrinking hearts 

 or feeble brains. The work was accomplished ; and long before his lamented 

 death General Totten had the satisfaction of witnessing the labors of himself 

 and his associates crowned with full success. The board in its deliberations de- 

 rived great benefit from his presence and participation, and relied with entire as- 

 surance upon the correctness of his judgment upon all subjects concerning which 

 he would express an opinion. He served almost continuously as chairman of 

 the committee of finance, and the decisions of that committee owe not a little of 

 their sound wisdom to the searching scrutiny joined to the generous and liberal 

 views of its chairman. He was also a member of the committee on engineering, 

 in which department his peculiar merit was most conspicuous. The principal 

 works with which his name is associated, and which claim our attention, are the 

 light-houses on Seven-Foot Knoll, near Baltimore, Maryland, and on Minot's 

 Ledge, off Cohassct, Massachusetts. 



The former is an iron pile structure standing in some ten feet of water. It 

 was erected at a time when the science of iron pile construction was in its in- 

 fancy, and was one of the first works of the kind undertaken by the board. 

 Hence it was a matter of deep interest and solicitude. It was successfully com- 



{>leted, and the light-house stands to-day a signal reward for the thought and 

 abor bestowed upon its conception and construction. 



The light-house at Minot's Ledge was a work of far greater difficulty, and to 

 its proper location and plan General Totten lent the resources of his great expe- 

 rience and exhaustless knowledge. As his intimate acquaintance with the 

 whole coast of the United States, acquired while acting as a member of the 

 board of engineers, and during his annual inspections as Chief Engineer, ena- 

 bled him, with the aid of the Coast Survey, to indicate with almost unerring 

 certainty the proper location and character of all new light-houses, so his prac- 

 tical knowledge of construction, in laying the foundation of our sea-coast fortifi- 

 cations and the sea- Avails by which the sites of many of them had to be protect- 

 ed, prepared him to grapple with the difficulties of constructing a masonry 

 tower in this exposed situation, and to bring to their solution all the known and 

 tried resources of engineering. 



Minot's Ledge is situated about twenty miles southeast of Boston. It is the 

 outer rock of a very dangerous group called the " Cohasset Rocks," lying at 

 the very wayside of navigation to the harbor of Boston. A light-house of iron 

 had been erected here a few years previous to the organization of the Light- 

 house Board, but it was carried away in a fearful storm which swept along the 

 coast of New England on the 16th of April, 1851. 



Not only the commercial interests of the country, but humanity demanded 

 that it should be replaced, and Congress promptly made an appropriation for 

 this purpose, stipulating that the tower should be erected on the outer Minot, 

 and confiding its construction to the Topographical Bureau. This bureau, hav- 

 ing publicly advertised, received sixteen distinct proposals to erect the proposed 

 structure, but finally recommended, in view of the difficulties to be overcome, 

 and the fearful fate of its predecessor, that it should be located on one of the 

 inner rocks. In accordance with this recommendation, an act of Congress was 

 passod authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to " select, instead of the outer 

 Minot's Ledge, any more suitable site. " Before further action had been taken, 

 the whole subject fell into the hands of the newly created Light-house Board. 

 A joint resolution of Congress was then passed (1854) giving to this board the 

 decision as to the location and the mode of construction. 



