40 



Desire of the Taking - , as I do, the greatest interest in the advancement 



make° the P office of this Office, so necessary to our marine, both commercial 



fordgifoffices. ° and naval, and feelingthat itougiitto be a matterof national 



pride that our Government should be wholly independent 



in every matter relating to the furnishing of the charts and 



books required in navigation, 1 thank you. 



Six years ago this Office was but a depot of foreign 

 charts, with a few plates from the expeditions of Wilkes 

 and John Rodgers, together with plates then recently pur- 

 chased from George Blunt. Since that time all these old 

 plates have been corrected and kept so. New charts have 

 been added, books of sailing directions have been written 

 and issued, and this with a very meager appropriation, with 

 a small but hard-working force, and the assistance of offi- 

 cers of the Navy of proved ability. 

 Pacificist / *ed ^ surve .y °f tne Pacific Ocean, peremptorily demanded by 

 for want of ap- the interests of commerce, was, on a fortunate appropriation 



propnations. 7 7 j. j. i 



of one year, commenced, and the coast of Lower California 

 and the Gulf surveyed ; but there it stopped. No further ap- 

 propriation could be obtained, not even to add to our force 

 to get the work of the survey out promptly, and engrave 

 the plates, and I have had the mortification to see that, 

 while we are delving along with our inadequate force and 

 means, " robbing Peter to pay Paul," to get our own work 

 in condition to engrave, and to find some way in which it 

 can be done, the British Admiralty Hydrographic Office, 

 always alive to the requirements of commerce, has engraved 

 our work. 



This survey, instead of being continued until every ob- 

 struction to navigation, until every danger in the Pacific 

 was located, and every doubtful danger examined, had to 

 be dropped for want of a few thousand dollars to continueit ; 

 at least I asked for the engraving of work done, and for the 

 continuance of the survey, but $25,000 per year, with such 

 assistance as the Navy Department was able to afford, but 

 this also fell through. 



Memorials made to Congress by the merchants, &c, of 

 New York and other commercial cities, have been passed 

 over without even a glance, and the interests of our com- 

 merce appear to have been but a zero with our legislators. 

 Unsuitabieness For five years I have pointed out the insufficiency of this 



of the building , , ' .. . , „ , , . ,. ,„ 



occupied by the rented building, now occupied as an Hydrographic Office, 

 not only from the want of space, but, most seriously, as not 



