86 
ter months, during which all construction on Fort Adams 
was suspended. In the execution of his designs he was 
usually assisted by young officers of the corps, who found 
therein a practical application of the theoretical knowledge 
acquired at West Point instructive and useful. 
The works of harbor improvement on the seaboard and 
on the lakes were likewise under the control and direction of 
the Engineer Bureau; and Colonel Totten, though not directly 
engaged therein, was not infrequently called on to inspect 
and advise concerning them. Most of these, and especially 
those of the Lake shores, afforded curious and_interesting 
problems in this branch of civil engineering, and his re- 
ports and notes on these subjects, yet extant, are additional 
proofs of the wide range of his professional knowledge and 
of his powers of accurate observation and of skilful deduc- 
tion from the phenomena of nature. 
Colonel Totten was appointed Colonel of the Corps of 
Engineers and Chief Engineer, Dec. 7, 1838. At this time 
the construction of Fort Adams was so far advanced towards 
completion as to need no longer his personal supervision, and 
_ the city of Washington became thenceforth his home and 
the seat of his official duties. Identified as we have see? 
with the origin and growth of the great system of sea-coast 
defence of the United States, it was eminently proper that 
he should become the head of that bureau of the War De- 
partment to which its execution was committed, and no one 
could be more eminently fitted for that important station. 
At the date of his appointment the system of coast de- 
fence had been for about twenty years in progress of ¢o0- 
struction, and during that pete’! sist of those ports and 
and Georgia, as well as from nearer points, and added not a little to 
‘the charm of the professional and social life of the young engineer 
Officers at Newport. 
