224 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1957 



submission of the first annual report of progress — thus there began 

 another long period of inactivity while Congress tried to get along 

 without Hassler. 



His personal means gone, and a sufferer of personal privations, 

 Hassler clung nevertheless to his dream. Temporary relief came 

 in 1818 in the form of a commission to mark the New England 

 Boundary with Canada, as required by the Treaty of Ghent. No 

 one else could be found to do the job. A quarrel with the British 

 surveyors developed over certain geodetic problems having to do 

 with the ellipticity of the earth. Hassler carried his point, obtaining 

 a favorable demarcation, and he thus became the first of many Coast 

 Survey engineers to lay down, confirm, or adjust local or national 

 boundaries — sometimes in the heat of controversy, as in the quarrel 

 over "54-40 or fight!" 



In 1830, because of Hassler's interest in measurement standards, 

 he was appointed superintendent of a new office of weights and meas- 

 ures by Congress. There he achieved success in standardizing meas- 

 ures in trade and industry. This related activity remained a specialty 

 of the Survey for many years until the creation, in 1901, of the Na- 

 tional Bureau of Standards. Hassler's standards were painstaking 

 copies of those in England, and it was America's singular privilege, 

 upon the burning of Parliament in 1813, to make England a present 

 of new ones copied from Hassler's copies! 



The survey of the coast was resumed in 1832, after numerous false 

 starts, with Hassler again in charge. He was the only man with the 

 technical genius for the job — otherwise Congress would never have 

 put up with his intolerance and irascibility. When Congressional 

 committees waited upon him for explanations of his work and its 

 delays, he dismissed them with scathing denunciation of their stupid- 

 ity in presuming to question him — rebuffs that created much mirth 

 in Congress and little in the way of financial support. 



Among the points of issue with Congress was an estimated comple- 

 tion date, which he could not provide. Of course he could not ! The 

 original area of a few thousand square miles grew endlessly toward 

 a final total of more than 100,000 miles of shorelines and 2,500,000 

 square miles of coastal lands and waters. Through the years, more- 

 over, the demands of ever-deeper ships, advancing marine technology 

 and increasing speeds have had to be met, as well as vexing problems 

 of instability and change affecting much of the coast. Necessary re- 

 surveys and growing technological requirements have been encoun- 

 tered while opening the dangerous waters of Alaska to sea commerce 

 and giving the 7,000 islands of the Philippines the boon of modern 

 charts. 



By 1835, a substantial foundation of astronomic and geodetic 

 points having been established and the adjacent shores and landmarks 



