Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/539

Rh  issuing from her Department des Cartes et Plans, is hardly behind Great Britain; from the time of the father of French hydrography, M. Beautemps Beaupré, to that of its present distinguished director. Vice-Admiral Jurien de la Gravière, this office has not ceased to assert its prominence and usefulness, France, however, though constantly and systematically prosecuting foreign hydrographic surveys, has not carried this work to the same extent as England. Spain, of late years, has rested on her laurels of the past, and with other maritime nations, with exception of casual foreign surveys, has restricted herself to the shores of her own possessions, and to issuing from time to time valuable publications and information for the benefit of navigation. The United States Hydrographic Office, though yet in its infancy, has made rapid progress, and now issues a respectable number of publications; no permanent system, however, of hydrographic surveys has ever been successfully instituted under the Navy Department. On its own coast, in its waters and harbors, the work of the United States Coast Survey is extensive, scientific, and thorough, and many years will yet be required for its completion.

All attempts to inaugurate a system of foreign surveys have failed, though, with intervals of many years, spasmodic efforts have been made and expeditions sent from her shores, which have done good service to hydrography and geographical science, though many and powerful attempts have been made by those interested in commerce and navigation to induce legislators to appropriate the small amounts requisite for this service; yet, even when such have been organized, and the hydrographic work was beginning to yield its fruit, the want of interest and legislation has crushed it out, and necessitated the withdrawal of the work, leaving only the hope that in time to come the United States may assist the other great maritime nations in making more smooth the course of the mariner through the paths of the great deep. Millions of property have been lost, with thousands of valuable lives, from the lamentable neglect of continued hydrographic surveys.



O think of lace merely as a symbol of vanity is quite to miss its deeper significance. If the feeling that prompts to personal decoration be a proper one—and it is certainly a natural and universal sentiment—then lace has its defense, and we may agree with old 