61 



parties, as to their duties, are well calculated to promote activity and 

 increase the efficiency of the work, an end which will also be greatly 

 assisted by the honourable and friendly rivalry which evidently ex- 

 ists between the civilians and the officers of the army and navy en- 

 gaged on the work. 



In fact, so much and such excellent work could not have been ac- 

 complished within so short a period, except by extraordinary energy 

 on the part of the Superintendent, seconded by the cordial and zealous 

 co-operation of all those under his charge; and the Annual Reports 

 of the Survey indicate an amount of scientific talent and knowledge, 

 as well as of energy and enterprise among the numerous assistants, 

 which is highly honourable to our country. 



The expense of conducting such a survey as this, must necessarily 

 be great, though by no means so in reference to the advantages ob* 

 tained from it. From the year 1844 to 1848, (the period during 

 which it has been in the charge of the present Superintendent,) the 

 appropriations to the Survey have amounted, in the aggregate, to 

 $622,000 ; and, if we add to this ihe estimate for 1849, we shall have 

 a gross amount of $808,000, as the cost of the Survey for six years. 

 It is true, that the expenditure has been every year increasing, but it 

 is equally so, that such increase has expedited the operations of the 

 Survey in a still higher ratio, and has thus actually diminished its 

 final cost. Thus, while in 1844, the cost of fifteen parties, (with 

 less field-work in all the departments,) was $100,000, in 1848, thirty 

 effective parties had been kept in action for $130,000; that is, an ad- 

 ditional expense of 30 per cent., has doubled the efficiency of the 

 Survey. In fact, so economical has been its management, that not- 

 withstanding the far more elaborate work, and the much greater pre- 

 cision, the expense of the Survey is shown scarcely to exceed that of 

 the Surveys of the public lands executed for the government. For 

 the reasons before stated, and for others which will easily suggest 

 themselves, it can scarcely be deemed fair to attempt a comparison of 

 the cost of the Coast Survey with that of the Topographical Map of 

 Great Britain ; yet such a comparison may, perhaps, serve to defend 

 our work from a charge of extravagance. The cost of the Ordnance 

 Survey of Great Britain, from 1812 to 1848, is stated, by a writer in 

 the London, Edinburg and Dublin Philosophical Magazine for April, 

 1848, at £1,500,000, or about $7,500,000. A survey of the city 

 of Dublin, for municipal purposes, was stated in Parliament to have 

 cost £200,000, or $1,000,000; and it was, at the same time, stated 

 that the surveys of the City of London, under the parochial assess- 



