July 14, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



47 



fully to follow in his footsteps, imitate his 

 example and develop his plans." 



During the later years of Baehe 's admin- 

 istration Professor Peirce had directed the 

 longitude operations of the Survey, acting 

 also as a sort of general scientific adviser 

 and naturally his policy after becoming 

 superintendent was essentially that of his 

 predecessor. Many of the larger opera- 

 tions of the Coast Survey had been sus- 

 pended during the Civil "War, in which 

 both the superintendent and his assistants 

 had played an important part. The execu- 

 tion of the primary triangulation on both 

 the east and west coasts was resumed by 

 Peirce and an exploration and survey of the 

 newly acquired territory of Alaska was be- 

 gun. The most important act of his ad- 

 ministration was the development of a plan 

 for two gigantic chains of triangles extend- 

 ing across the continent, thus covering the 

 whole country by a trigonometrical survey 

 and joining the systems of the Atlantic 

 and Pacific coasts. This scheme received 

 the approval of Congress and was in many 

 respects the most remarkable work of its 

 kind ever undertaken by any government. 



Peirce had continued to hold his pro- 

 fessorship in Harvard University and also 

 his many other activities, as a writer of 

 text-books, a frequent contributor to scien- 

 tific journals, etc., and at the age of sixty- 

 five years, doubtless finding his burden too 

 heavy, resigned the superintendence of the 

 Survey in 1874, after a service of seven 

 years, but he continued to act for a time as 

 "consulting geometer." As a genius in 

 mathematics and astronomy he is easily the 

 star of first magnitude in the Coast Sur- 

 vey galaxy. 



Peirce 's successor was Carlile Pollock 

 Patterson, naval officer and son of a naval 

 officer. 



Previous to his appointment as superin- 

 tendent he had served for more than a 

 dozen years as hydrographic inspector, an 



appointment usually held by a naval officer, 

 active or retired. 



The general plans of the Survey as per- 

 fected by his predecessors were adhered to 

 by Patterson, whose term as superintendent 

 covered a period of seven years, ending with 

 his death in 1881. 



His successor, Julius Erasmus Hilgard, 

 was brought at the age of ten years from 

 his birthplace in Germany by his father, a 

 highly educated and successful lawyer and 

 jurist in his own country, who settled on 

 a farm in Illinois near the city of St. Louis. 

 Educated by his father, young Hilgard at 

 the age of eighteen years went to Philadel- 

 phia to study to be a civil engineer. There 

 he soon attracted the attention of Professor 

 Bache, who invited him to become one of 

 his assistants in the Coast Survey. In 

 1845 he joined the corps, his connection 

 with it terminating on his resignation in 

 1885 after forty years of service. His in- 

 dustry and rare talents brought rapid pro- 

 motion and in 1862 he became assistant in 

 charge of the office in "Washington, a posi- 

 tion next in importance and responsibility 

 to that of superintendent. In this capacity 

 he served for nineteen years until his ap- 

 pointment as superintendent in 1881. In 

 the meantime his reputation had become in- 

 ternational. He was one of the most in- 

 fluential members of the International 

 Metric Commission that met in Paris in 

 1872; was made a member of its perma- 

 nent committee and on the organization of 

 the International Bureau of "Weights and 

 Measures, with headquarters at Paris, he 

 was offered the directorship. This honor 

 he declined. By training, ability and ex- 

 perience Hilgard was more completely 

 fitted for the headship of the Coast Survey 

 than any other person who has ever served 

 in that capacity and it was unquestionably 

 the goal which he had hoped to reach. 



Eecommended for the appointment as 

 Bache had been forty years earlier, by 



