56 



surveys as this to its citizens; and since they inure in the highest 

 degree to the benefit of all ; and since the means of accomplishing 

 them are possessed by the government only, it is one of its most im- 

 portant duties to have such surveys executed in the most complete 

 manner possible. 



In our system of finance, the greater part of the revenue of the 

 government is derived from the duties paid by our commerce; and 

 the demand that a small portion of the immense wealth, which is thus 

 annually poured into the treasury, should, for a {hw years, be ex- 

 pended in protecting the lives and property of those contributing, is 

 so plainly just as to need no argument in its support. The actual 

 receipts from customs, in the Treasury, for the fiscal year, ending on 

 June 30, 1848, was 831,757,070.95, and the estimated receipts for 

 the next year, 32,000,000. The appropriation asked by the Super- 

 intendent for the Coast Survey, for the same year, is 8186,000 ; yi^ 

 of the receipts, or 58 cents in the one hundred dollars. Nor is the 

 policy, in a financial point of view, less evident. The Committee has 

 found it impossible to get any definite information as to the average 

 amount of dutiable goods yearly wrecked upon our coast ; but the 

 actual duties paid, in 1848, by five packet ships, in the port of Phila- 

 delphia, was 8243,942.15, or an average of 848,788 each. A loss 

 of duties, equivalent to those paid by four such ships, upon our coast, 

 would amount to more than the estimates for the expenses of the sur- 

 vey for 1849. The value of one such ship and cargo would probably 

 have defrayed all the expenses of the work for the two years, 1847 

 and 1848. The loss of time by ships compelled, for want of accu- 

 rate charts, to await, far from the shore, the arrival of pilots, in place 

 of running close into land, where they may be at all times found, 

 and the higher rates of insurance against dangers, of which just 

 enough is known to render them formidable, but not enough to permit 

 them to be avoided, must also be added in the calculations of the 

 pecuniary advantages of such a survey; while the continually recur- 

 ring loss of life by shipwreck, and the immense amount of human 

 suffering caused by the detention of crowded passenger-ships off our 

 coast, especially in the winter season, form an item of which no esti- 

 mate can be made in such a calculation. 



If, then, our coast be peculiarly liable to such dangers as these, if 

 it be dangerous in its character, and comparatively unknown, the 

 duty of the government to make and pubhsh such charts as shall give 

 every possible facility and safety to our commerce cannot be denied. 

 That this is the character of our coast is almost too well known to 



