226 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 195 7 



Having graduated with high honors from West Point, he was quali- 

 fied in military science. He found time to design the military defenses 

 of Philadelphia, while directing the Coast Survey participation in 

 the campaigns of the Civil War. He was one of the founders and the 

 first president of the National Academy of Sciences. 



Bache fell heir to the entire Atlantic and Gulf coasts, soon to be 

 augmented by the admission of Texas in 1848, and California soon 

 after. He divided the area into districts, speeding the work at once 

 in all parts and presenting a picture of progress favorable for political 

 appraisal. This required the development of a strong corps of 

 assistants. 



Lt. Cdr. W. P. McArthur began hydrographic surveys in Cali- 

 fornia with the USS Ewing even before the gold rush. In 1849 he 

 started work at San Francisco to meet the influx of traffic, only to be 

 interrupted by a mutiny of the gold-crazed crew — the only mutiny in 

 Survey history. 2 



McArthur was responsible for the selection of the Mare Island 

 site for the famous naval base. His pioneering work in the West, 

 continued by a line of outstanding descendants, has left his name 

 permanently known in the Pacific Northwest. 



Assistant George Davidson, veritably the father of science in 

 California, went west in 1850 to start geodetic and topographic work 

 related to the hydrography of McArthur and others, and he spent 

 most of the next 50 years in that new land. A tireless worker in 

 various fields, he surveyed much of the western coast, investigated 

 tidal and hydraulic problems, operated an astronomic observatory, 

 wrote geographical notes and compendiums, organized the California 

 Academy of Sciences, and taught in the university. Pie induced an 

 eccentric millionaire, James Lick, to endow one of the world's great 

 astronomical observatories. Davidson, and later Assistant W. H. 

 Dall, made reconnaissance surveys and wrote coast pilot notes neces- 

 sary to the opening to navigation of the dangerous waters of the 

 Northwest and Alaska. Davidson's first pilot notes of the west coast 

 appeared in California newspapers as early as 1848 — far ahead of 

 the first official Coast Pilots of the Bureau, which began in 1875 

 with a book on the Gulf of Maine. 



Bache had the responsibility of guiding the Civil War operations 

 of the Bureau. These were of many kinds, confirming earlier ideas 

 regarding the potential military value of the work, particularly in 

 coast defense problems. Almost countless campaigns found their 

 progress dependent on technical services rendered by Coast Sur- 

 vey men. They worked at New Orleans and Vicksburg, at Lookout 



3 See The Ewing mutiny, by Thornton Emmons and Homer C. Votaw in U. S. 

 Naval Institute Proceedings, January 1956. 



