UNITED STATES CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 639 



The origin and mission of the Hydroyraphic Office.* 



[Extract] 

 FOUNDING A DEPOT OF CHARTS AND INSTRUMENTS. 



It is a notable circumstance that in the United States there grew 

 out of the necessity for an institution to provide the Navy and mer- 

 cantile marine with charts and sailing directions the national astro- 

 nomical observatory and the national meteorological service, besides 

 the Hydrographic Office itself. 



In order to prevent the difficulties and dangers to which our na- 

 tional vessels had previously been exposed from the want of an or- 

 derly and sufficient supply of information respecting the navigation 

 of those parts of the world to which their services might be directed, 

 it was ordered by the Navy Department, in December, 1830, upon a 

 previous recommendation of the Board of Navy Commissioners, that 

 a depot should be established at the seat of Government for the pur- 

 pose of taking charge of such nautical charts and instruments as had 

 collected in the various navy yards, and of assuming the care and 

 issue of the charts and instruments furnished to United States vessels. 

 It was also made a part of the work of the depot to ascertain the errors 

 and rates of all chronometers sent to United States vessels on fitting 

 out for sea. This was first accomplished by means of sextant and 

 circle observations ; but, according to the official memoir of the found- 

 ing of the United States Naval Observatory, a 30-inch transit instru- 

 ment was soon obtained for that purpose and mounted in a small cir- 

 cular building near the rented house on which the depot had been 

 installed, between Seventeenth and Eighteenth streets, on what is now 

 G street northwest, in Washington City. 



The difficulties that were experienced in obtaining and maintaining 

 an adequate supply of the latest charts early led to a recommenda- 

 tion from the Board of Navy Commissioners proposing to the Secre- 

 tary of the Navy that the means for producing charts should be 

 installed at the depot, and the introduction of a lithographic press, 

 in May, 1835, constituted the initial attempt at chart production. In 

 the meantime the depot had been moved early in 1834 to the " Wilkes 

 House," on Capitol Hill, where there was erected, about 1,000 feet 

 north of the Dome of the Capitol, a small observatory, in which was 

 mounted a 5-foot transit instrument. Although the depot thus gained 

 somewhat of the character of an observatory, no regular series of 

 astronomical observations were made, except for the purpose of rating 

 chronometers, and the work of the depot continued to relate almost 

 solely to the purchase, care, and issue of charts and instruments. It 

 is significant of the tendency that was then already growing up to 

 have the depot of charts become an agency for emphasizing and fos- 

 tering the contributions of America to the geographical sciences, that 

 the head of the depot should have been selected, in 1836, to proceed 

 to Europe to purchase scientific instruments for the United States 



[a Reprint of hydrographic information. From the Pilot Charts and Hydro- 

 graphic Bulletin published by the United States Hydrographic Office under 

 authority of the SECBETABY or THE NAVY. No. 9, Washington, D. C., January 

 1, 1910.] 



