of its usefulness, and commerce is to continue to reap the legitimate benefit of the expenditures already incurred. Fortunately the survey has been conducted on such sound principles it meets the increasing requirements for accuracy demanded by the navigation of to-day, as fully as it did the more simple needs of the navigator of forty years ago, and it is fairly believed, whatever may be the necessities of the future, that it will still supply the information desired.
The Surveys are published in four hundred and fifty charts designed to meet the various needs of the Navigator and Civil Engineer, for either general or local purposes; over thirty thousand copies of these are issued annually and there is a steadily increasing demand.
The assistance rendered to the armies and fleets of the Union, in the late Civil War, is a chapter in the history of the Survey that should not be forgotten. The office in Washington was beset with demands for information from all over the country, for descriptions not of the coast alone, but all sections of the interior representing the seat of war. Fortunately the experts were there who, under the direction of able chiefs, could collect and compile such material as was available. The labor of the office in this cause resulted in the publication of a series of "War Maps" of the interior, for which there is frequent demand even at the present day. This was all additional work to a force already overburdened in the preparation of manuscript maps and special information, compiled from the reports of the Field parties; especially of those localities that had only recently been surveyed. And in all the din and excitement of the call to arms, with hosts of stalwart, honest men assembled around him, that might give in their learning the wisdom of the world, the controlling mind of the Survey, that had labored diligently and sought knowledge patiently, was a chosen counsellor of the Chief of the Nation. Declining military honors, the profession in which he had been educated, he devoted himself with renewed energy to assisting the nation's efforts in those special duties he knew so well how to perform. A patriot himself of the purest type, he inspired those around him by his ennobling spirit and zeal in the cause.
An average of twenty parties were maintained with the Army and Navy during all the years of the war, rendering services of acknowledged value to the military forces. An officer of the Coast
