112 
Without entering into a detailed account of the labors of 
this Board of Inquiry it is sufficient to state that the mass 
of evidence collected by it was so irresistible in proof of ex- 
isting errors, that Congress, under date of August 31, 1852, 
passed an act which created a permanent Lighthouse 
Board, to which was confided all the duties of the establish- 
ment. General Totten was appointed to this board, and 
served as a valued and honored member, with but a short 
interruption, until his decease. Its early labors were ardu- 
ous and onerous. A new system was to be founded where 
before had been none;— order should come from chaos, 
€rror was to vanish before science, economy to succeed to 
wastefulness, darkness to give place to light. The task, 
great as it was, fell upon no shrinking hearts or feeble 
brains. The work avas accomplished ; and long before his 
lamented death General Totten had the satisfaction of wit- 
nessing the labors of himself and his associates crowned 
with full success. The board in its deliberations derived ; 
great benefit from his presence and participation, and relied 
with entire assurance upon the correctness of his judgment 
upon all subjects concerning which he would express a0 
opinion.’ He served almost continuously as chairman of 
the Committee of Finance, and the decisions of that com- 
mittee owe not a little of their sound wisdom to the search- 
ing scrutiny joined to the generous and liberal views of its 
chairman. He was also a member of the Committee oD 
Engineering, in which department his peculiar merit was 
most conspicuous. The principal works with which his 
name is associated and which claim our attention, are the 
lighthouses on Seven-Foot Knoll, near Baltimore, Md., and 
on Minot’s Ledge, off Cohasset, Mass 
The former is an iron pile structure standing in some te? 
‘feet of water. It was erected at a time when the science 
