Subject. Vol. No. Page. In relation to a liquidated balance due the Creek Indians for losses REPORT FROM THE COMMISSIONER OF PATENTS: In relation to arts and manufactures for the year 1851 (Part 1.).. REPORTS FROM THE COMMISSIONER OF PENSIONS: On the operations of the Pension Office during the year 1851 Transmitting statements of suspended or rejected applications for LETTER FROM THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY, COMMUNICATING The report of the Superintendent of the Coast Survey, showing the progress of that work during the year ending November, 1851. TREASURY DEPARTMENT, SIR: I have the honor to submit, for the information of the Senate, the accompanying report, made to the department by Professor A. D. Bache, Superintendent of the Coast Survey, showing the progress of said work during the year ending November, 1851. All of which is respectfully submitted. Hon. W. R. KING, THO. CORWIN, President of the Senate. REPORT OF THE SUPERINTENDENT OF THE COAST SURVEY. COAST SURVEY STATION, Cape Small Point, Maine, November 5, 1851. SIR: I have the honor to submit the annual report, required by the regulations, of the progress of the survey of the coast of the United States, for the information of the department and of the President and Congress. The appropriation asked for the last fiscal year provided for work on portions of the whole extended coast of the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and Pacific, in the proportions deemed necessary for the wants of commerce and navigation, or desirable from the different stages of progress at the several points, or economical in reference to the distribution of the parties according to the best working seasons. The plan which has for some years been pursued, with the approval of the executive and legislative authorities, has been steadily adhered to. The coast of the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, extending over nearly nineteen and a half degrees of latitude and thirty and a half of longitude, is divided into nine sections of nearly equal extent of shore line, following the minute indentations of the coast; and the survey is begun in each, and advanced each year, as far as the means appropriated permit. A base line measured in each section, and observations made for latitude and azimuth at appropriate points, furnish data for the preliminary maps and charts of the sections, without waiting for the completion of the whole work; while the system provides for the joining of the parts and the verifications, which are necessary in all extended surveys, and without which the accuracy desirable and attainable would by no means be reached. To derive matured fruit from such a plan, it must be steadily prosecuted to its completion. It is most advantageous for reasons which I have, in former reports, dwelt upon in detail. It avoids exclusive attention to one part of the coast and neglect of the rest, permitting a ready adaptation to general or local wants. It accommodates itself to the facilities or difficulties presented by the different natural features of the coast, by which the rate of progress of the whole work in different places, or of different operations in the same region, varies. It facilitates the division of labor, which is an important element of progress and of economy; and permits the execution of each operation at the best season or period, which is equally important. It is not less flexible in lending itself to the scientific, than the practical and economical requirements of different cases. What it is capable of doing when steadily followed out, is illustrated by sections three and four, in which, while the necessary data for maps, charts, and sketches have been furnished from year to year, the triangulations have been advancing-one from Kent Island base, southward, in Maryland and Virginia; the other from the Bodie's Island base, North Carolina-until they are now within less than fifty miles of each other. Two seasons will enable us to join them, and then the results will verify each other. Similar plans are in progress for each of the sections, requiring only careful adjustment to the features of the coast to insure, finally, all the perfection of a geodetic survey. The continuance of the fostering care of the Executive and Congress in the uninterrupted execution of these plans, will bring them certainly to maturity. The time of completion will depend upon the means which a judicious economy may consider available to this portion of the public service. Every increase of the appropriation, up to the point when the work would become unwieldy, and unity of design and execution would be sacrificed to rapidity, is attended with not only a corresponding decrease in time, but with more than a proportionate decrease. I have considered it a duty, while adhering generally to the limits which Congress has determined at a particular time to appropriate, to represent to the Treasury Department the cases in which an increase is demanded for the successful progress of different parts of the survey. The plan for prosecuting the survey of the western coast, so as to meet the wants of a commerce increasing with a rapidity which has no precedent, and the peculiar condition of the country in other respects, was presented in my last report, and is briefly repeated in this. It will require, for a few years, the application of larger means than will after |