Geographical and Geological Surveys from the North American Review for July and October 1875

by Josiah Dwight Whitney

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1875. Excerpt: ... engraved, but nothing published. Bache at once recommended the adoption of a more comprehensive system, and succeeded in obtaining the approval of Congress and the necessary funds. According to this system, the coast was divided into several distinct sections, as nearly of the same extent as convenient, and work was commenced and carried on simultaneously in each of them independently of the others. There are eleven such sections in all, each, as a rule, with its own base line. Of the accuracy with which these bases have been measured, we have already spoken in the preceding pages. By the aid of the triangulation carried along the coast, in accordance with the principles already indicated, the shore line has been laid down with accuracy, and the minute details of the topography given for a distance of from one to three miles inland, according to the nature of the locality. This fixing of the exact position of the line of the coast forms the basis of the hydrographical work, which is the part of the survey of the most importance to the mariner and to commerce, but with which we have not to occupy ourselves in this connection. It is with the work of the Coast Survey, as forming the basis of-the chartography of the interior of the Atlantic States, that we have to do at present. As the net-work of primary triangles extends, owing to the great length of their sides, far back from the coast, a considerable number of interior points are thus fixed accurately in position, and the work of the Coast Survey thus affords a basis for a convenient extension. Favored by the remarkably indented character of parts of our shore line, some States, like New Jersey and Maryland, have really had no inconsiderable portion of their topography thus accurately given them at the ex...

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