Coast Survey of the United States. 243 
Washington, of which Lieut. Maury was chairman. They need 
not, therefore, be dwelt upon here; neither will any thing be 
said, at present, of the course of investigation to be pursued, 
farther than this, that deep-sea temperatures, and the shelving of 
the coast parallel to the land and water within'the borders of the 
Gulf Stream, will not be overlooked. 
As the operations of the coast survey depend upon the weather, 
the necessity for full and systematic meteorological journals is 
apparent. 
Printed forms have been distributed by the superintendent, in 
which the weather, the state and temperature of the atmosphere, 
and the employments of the day are recorded by each assistant. 
At the new primary stations, the barometer and dew-point are no- 
ted. Besides the strict personal accountability, incidental benefits 
will spring from this mode of journalizing. Among them may be 
enumerated the means of estimating the probable progress of the 
work at the north and at the south, at different seasons of the 
year, the assistance they will afford in tracing the courses and 
studying the nature of storms, and the exceedingly valuable help 
they will supply for laying down, at some future time, a map of 
temperatures and climates throughout the coast region of the 
United States. 
It would oceupy too much space to mention the number of 
new printed forms now in use upon the work,—but their value 
cannot be questioned. Literal instructions may be differently 
construed by different persons, but the order to fill up a printed 
form according to the headings, leaves no room for misconstruc- 
tion or latitude of interpretation. This, however, may be carried 
so far as to trammel individual effort, and control individual intelli- 
gence—but the evil is too apparent to have escaped notice. 
The most serious and painful embarrassment is incurred by the 
present head of the survey, from the deficiency of good instru- 
ments. Just in proportion as the observer is proud and happy in 
the manipulation of good instruments, so is he dispirited and 
anxious with bad ones, which require endless repairs, tedious 
processes for the rectification of errors, and threaten, after all, to 
disgrace him by imperfect results. It seems worse than ridicu- 
lous to expect that a work of such delicacy and magnitude as the 
geodetic survey of the coast, can be conducted without an ample 
supply of the best instruments, yet Dr. Bache has been com- 
