172 



INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS OF OCEANOGRAPHY 



tributions for special purposes are received from 

 time to time; these are, in general, for small 

 amounts. 

 Provisions for publication of resiilts: The Carnegie 

 Institution of Washington through its Division 

 of Publications publishes a series entitled "Re- 

 searches of the Department of Terrestrial Mag- 

 netism," of which six quarto volumes have been 

 issued. Material for an additional volume has 

 been made ready for publication, and manuscripts 

 for the first volume of oceanographic data — 

 physical, chemical, and biological — obtained on 

 Cruise VII of the Carnegie are ready. The 

 members of the staff publish papers in various 

 American and foreign scientific periodicals; the 

 total number of such papers since 1904 is nearly 

 1,500. The Department publishes each year 

 lists of all its publications, and all publications 

 are supplied free of charge so far as the limited 

 editions permit. 



United States Coast and Geodetic Survey ('37) 



History or origin: (a) In 1807, during the adminis- 

 tration of President Thomas Jefferson, Congress 

 authorized the establishment of a national Coast 

 Survey as a bureau under the Secretary of the 

 Treasury. The plan adopted for its execution 

 was that submitted by Ferdinand R. Hassler. 

 Because of the external relations of the country 

 it was impracticable to take any steps toward 

 putting the plan into operation until 1811, when 

 Hassler was directed to proceed to Europe to 

 arrange for the construction of the necessary 

 instruments and standards, some of the most 

 important of these being made after his own 

 design. The outbreak of the War of 1812 seri- 

 ously interfered with his commissions, their 

 completion being thereby delayed until the close 

 of 1815, and in consequence actual field work 

 was not possible until 1816. The work was 

 suspended in 1818 and resumed in 1832. 



For the purpose of furnishing geographic posi- 

 tions and other data to State surveys the scope 

 of the bureau was enlarged in 1871, and in 1878 

 its designation became the Coast and Geodetic 

 Survey. 



On the organization of the Department of 

 Commerce and Labor in 1903 the bureau was 

 transferred to it from the Treasury Department 

 and in 1913 to the Department of Commerce. 

 The plan upon which it is at present organized 

 is based on the broad scientific foundation pro- 



posed by Hassler and approved by Jefferson; 

 and its present methods are the perfected results 

 of experience gained in the field and office during 

 more than a century of its existence. 



Under the direction of a director there are two 

 main divisions of its work — the field and the office. 

 In accordance with the plan of reorganization of 

 1843, the work on shore was divided between 

 civilian assistants and officers of the Army, and 

 the hydrographic work was placed almost entirely 

 in charge of officers of the Navy. 



In 1861 the officers of the Army and Navy 

 were detached, and since that date no officers of 

 the Army have been assigned to duty on the 

 survey. After the Civil War the assignments of 

 officers of the Navy gradually increased in num- 

 ber, so that the hydrographic work was about 

 equally divided between them and the civil 

 a.ssistants during the period which extended to 

 1898, when the officers of the Navy, becau.se of 

 conditions created by the outbreak of the war 

 with Spain, were finally relieved, and in 1900 

 Congress authorized the establishment of the 

 survey on a purely civil basis. 



(b) Of the oceanographic accomplishments of 

 the Coast and Geodetic Survey, these may be 

 mentioned : 



1. Study and investigation of the Gulf 

 Stream, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean 

 Sea. The work of the Survey ship Blake, 

 under the command of Sigsbee and Bartlett, is 

 particularly well known through the two volumes 

 of Agassiz i.ssued under the title "Three Crui.ses 

 of the Blake," and by Pill.sbury's classical in- 

 vestigation of the Gulf Stream. 



2. The development and use of acoustic meth- 

 ods of determining both depth and position 

 of soundings. Equipped with these methods, 

 the Bureau is now able to delineate accurately 

 the ocean bottom over any section of the conti- 

 nental shelves. The work that has been accom- 

 plished as a result of this development reveals the 

 inadequacy of the data on which oceanographers 

 in the past have based studies depending on a 

 knowledge of the configuration of the bottom in 

 areas out of sight of land. Inasmuch as the use 

 of the new methods requires a thorough knowl- 

 edge of the temperature and salinity of the 

 water, a large amount of information of this 

 nature is being accumulated. Excellent examples 

 of the contributions to oceanography resulting 

 from the new methods are the results obtained 



