On the Geographical Survey of New York. 87 
for science which belongs to the country of Linnzus and Ber- 
zelius. 
In Russia, the government trigonometrical survey, under the 
eminently able guidance of the world-known Struve, assumes a 
character of gigantic magnitude, proportionate to the territorial 
expansion of that over-shadowing empire. Embracing twenty- 
one latge provinces between the Baltic and Black Seas, only 
about one-fourth of European Russia is yet surveyed. me- 
ridional are of over 20° between Ismail, near the Black Sea, and 
Torneo on the Gulf of Bothnia, with an extension of 44° in 
Sweden, links hyperborean and sunny climes by a triangulation 
chain the most stupendous on the earth. There is something 
almost appalling in an undertaking so nearly impossible to any 
but the great Autocrat. 
Turning from this rapid view of foreign surveys to our own 
country, an oppressive sense of the littleness of our geodetic and 
topographical achievement fills the mind. The amplitude of 
our domain, its highly varied and beautiful features, the grand 
Sweeps of our rivers, our fair lakes, strewn in tasteful profusion, 
are well nigh all unrecorded in that pictorial language of to- 
ography common to civilized nations. Engrossed in the great 
labors, incident to founding a nation, our people have scarcely 
4 
leisure is now slowly dawning on us which will permit us to enter 
on the duties and privileges of national maturity. The first great 
8eographical fruit of this our maturity is the U. S. Coast Survey. 
Our Atlantic Gulf and Pacific coasts are divided into eleven dis- 
net sections, within which independent operations are going on, 
and furnishing sound bases for topography and hydrography, 
Limited as this is to a narrow belt along the shore line, the inte- 
nor of our country cannot look to this organization for a topo- 
gtaphical survey, but the states, as such, must either survey and 
map their own territories, or remain in the same category as Tur- 
y and Egypt, unsurveyed except by invaders. _ 
In the work of interior surveys, Massachusetts, with her won- 
ted enterprise and liberality, has been the first state to act. 
result of 
below the European standard of topographical accuracy and mi- 
Penditure of about $71,000, the Bay State has conferred on her 
citizens and neighbors a great benefit, and on herself a new title 
torenown., The convenience of this map has been and will be 
4 Meeel 
ways; in her intercommunication, 
