Page:The National geographic magazine, volume 1.djvu/101



At the inception of the Coast and Geodetic Survey in the early years of the century, so little was known of the dangers attending navigation along our extensive seaboard, that those who engaged in commercial enterprises were constrained to rely upon local knowledge and the reports of the hardy navigators who might carry their ventures to success. The charts available were by no means a sure reliance, and it has since been shown, contained many serious errors. The great headlands and outlying shoals that present the greatest obstacles to the safety of coast-wise navigation, had not been carefully surveyed, and their relative positions to one another were only approximately determined.

The capacities of the harbors had not been ascertained, many were unknown; and even at the great port of New York, the Gedney or Main channel, was not developed until after the permanent establishment of the Survey in 1832, and the thorough exploration of the entrance was undertaken. A list of the sunken dangers and new channels that have been discovered during the progress of the work would fill pages. It is true such developments were to be expected in making a precise survey of the comparatively uncharted coast; but they, nevertheless, clearly point to the necessity of the work. We may also assume that the men who were controlling the destinies of the republic, realized that a knowledge of the coast was essential if they would succeed in building up a commerce, without which it was believed the prosperity of the people could not be assured. The deep draught vessels of the present day could not have traded along our shores on any margin of safety with the little that was known, and it is largely due to the perfect charting of the coast, that commercial enterprise has found it practicable to build the larger vessels of modern type to meet the increasing demands of trade.

The survey proposed was also required in providing for the public defence; as it is a self-evident proposition, that if we would protect a harbor from a hostile fleet, we must know not