Beginning in 1848, the Revenue Cutter Service (by then the U.S. 

 Marine Bureau) established Houses of Refuge for distressed seamen 

 along the New Jersey shore. In 1878 this effort was separated from 

 the parent Service and became the independent U.S. Lifesaving 

 Service. By 1900 the Lifesaving Service operated 269 stations in 12 

 districts along the eastern seaboard. 



In the meantime America had acquired a new frontier, the Terri- 

 tory of Alaska, purchased from Russia in 1867. Revenue Cutters 

 were sent to patrol these waters, and in isolated areas the Cutter 

 captain was the only representative of lawful government. The 

 Service became very active, first in law enforcement and aid to 

 mariners, then charting, exploring, sounding and locating fishing 

 areas, ice-breaking, and finally in administration of the Territory. 



Since Robert Fulton invented the steamboat in 1807, units o-f this 

 glamorous new means of transportation had been blowing up with 

 terrifying regularity, killing passengers and destroying cargo. In 

 1852 the Marine Inspection Service was established in the Treasury 

 Department (separately from the Revenue Cutter Service), with 

 authority to license engineers and pilots, and to inspect hulls, boilers, 

 lifeboats, signal lights, and firefighting equipment. 



This was followed some years later by creation of the Bureau of 

 Navigation, also in Treasury, to administer the Nation's marine laws. 



This, like the Marine Inspection, Service, was also a separate Bureau. 

 Both were to be transferred later to Commerce, where they would 

 be merged as the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation, and 

 eventually transferred to the Coast Guard. 



Technologies changed. The Revenue Cutter Service converted from 

 sail to steam-powered iron hulls. The Lifesaving Service established 

 an efficient telephone netw^ork for relaying weather information to the 



