U.S. National Geodetic Survey

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Closeup of a geodetic survey marker

The National Geodetic Survey (NGS), formerly the United Coast Survey (1807-1878) and the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (USC&GS) (1878-1970), is a United States federal agency that defines and manages a national coordinate system, providing the foundation for transportation and communication; mapping and charting; and a large number of applications of science and engineering. Since its foundation in its present form in 1970, it has been part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), of the United States Department of Commerce.

Purpose and function

The National Geodetic Survey maintains the National Spatial Reference System (NSRS), "a consistent coordinate system that defines latitude, longitude, height, scale, gravity, and orientation throughout the United States."[1] NGS is responsible for defining the NSRS and its relationship with the International Terrestrial Reference Frame. NGS is a program office of the National Ocean Service, a line office of NOAA.

Current projects

History

Earliest years

Logo celebrating the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey

The original predecessor agency of the NGS was the United States Coast Survey, created by Congress in 1807 to conduct a "Survey of the Coast".[2] This organization represented the Jefferson administration's interest in science and stimulation of international trade. The Jackson administration expanded and extended the coast surveys scope and organization.[3]: 468  Progress was slow and fitful during the first 25 years. Not until August 29, 1811, did F. R. Hassler sail for Europe to purchase the proper instruments. He remained in Europe during the War of 1812, and then he returned to the United States, arriving on August 16, 1815.

Hassler's plan was to employ triangulation to establish his system. Work began in the vicinity of New York City in 1816. The first baseline was measured and verified in 1817. A further Act of Congress in 1818 interfered with Hassler's work. The U.S. Army and U.S. Navy were placed in charge of the survey work. This generated a lull in activity which lasted from 1818 to 1832. The Coast survey existed without a superintendent during the 14 years from 1818 to 1832.

Little work was carried out until another Federal law was enacted on July 10, 1832. It renewed the original law of 1807. Hassler was reappointed as the agency's superintendent, and field work was resumed in April 1833.

Association with United States Navy

The U.S. Department of the Navy was given the control of the Coast Survey from 1834 to 1836, but the U.S. Department of the Treasury resumed the administration of the Survey on March 26, 1836.

Sigsbee Sounding Machine - invented by Charles Dwight Sigsbee and modified from Thomson Sounding Machine. Basic design of ocean sounding instruments stayed the same for the next 50 years. Here the sounding machine is used to set a Pillsbury current meter at a known depth. In: The Gulf Stream, by John Elliott Pillsbury, 1891. Note caption on photo: "Sounding Machine And Current Meter In Place, Steamer Blake"

The Navy retained close connection with the hydrographic efforts of Coast Survey under law requiring Survey ships to be commanded and crewed by naval officers and men when the Navy could provide such support.[4] Under this system many of the most famous names in hydrography for both the Survey and Navy of the period are linked. It was while attached to Coast Survey that Lieutenant Commander Charles Dwight Sigsbee, USN, Assistant in the Coast Survey,[Note 1] surveyed, developed his sounding machine and commanded the ship Blake during the first true bathymetric surveys in the Gulf of Mexico. Survey civilians were also assigned to the ships, along with famous scientist of the day, such as Alexander Agassiz, for technical operations.[5]

That system remained effective until changed under appropriation law approved June 6, 1900 to the effect that beginning July 1, 1900 "all necessary employees to man and equip the vessels" were funded as opposed to the previous scheme using naval personnel. By prearrangement all naval personnel would remain with the ships until the first call at the home port where the transfer would be made with the Survey reimbursing Navy for pay after July 1 for those personnel.[6]

Growth years

Professor Alexander Dallas Bache became superintendent of the U.S. Coast Survey in 1843. Earlier in his life, he had established the first magnetic observatory. During his years as superintendent, he expanded Coast Survey's work southward along the Atlantic coast into the Florida Keys and along the Pacific Coast. He instituted regular and systematic observations of the tides and the Gulf Stream, and investigated magnetic forces and directions.

During the nineteenth century, the remit of the Survey was rather loosely drawn and it had no competitors in federally funded scientific research. Various Superintendents developed its work in fields as diverse as astronomy, cartography, meteorology, geodesy, geology, geophysics, hydrography, navigation, oceanography, exploration, pilotage, tides and topography. The Survey published important articles by Charles Sanders Peirce on the design of experiments and on a criterion for the statistical treatment of outliers.[7] [8] For example, from 1836 until the establishment of the National Bureau of Standards in 1901, the Survey was responsible for weights and measures throughout the United States.

The Coast Pilot[Note 2] had long been lacking in current information. The Coast Survey had recognized that deficit but been hindered by lack of funding and risks associated with mooring vessels in deep waters or along dangerous coasts in order to collect the information. Congress specifically appropriated funding for such work in the 1875-1876 budget under which the 76 foot schooner Drift was constructed and sent out under Acting Master Robert Platt, USN, Assistant Coast Survey, to the Gulf of Maine to anchor in depths of up to 140 fathoms (840 feet/256 meters) to measure currents.[9] The Survey's requirement led to early development of current measurement technology, particularly the Pillsbury current meter invented by John E. Pillsbury, USN while on duty with the survey. It was in connection with intensive studies of the Gulf Stream that the ship George S. Blake became such a pioneer in oceanography that she is one of only two U.S. ships with her name inscribed in the façade of the Oceanographic Museum (Musée Océanographique), Monaco due to its being "the most innovative oceanographic vessel of the Nineteenth Century" with development of deep ocean exploration through introduction of steel cable for sounding, dredging and deep anchoring and data collection for the "first truly modern bathymetric map of a deep sea area."[10]

American Civil War

Survey of the Mississippi River below Forts Jackson and St. Philip to prepare for the bombardment of the forts by Porters mortar fleet. Plan done by the U.S. Coast Survey.[11]

The outbreak of the American Civil War in April 1861 caused a dramatic shift in direction for the Coast Survey. All U.S. Army officers were withdrawn from the Survey, as were all but two U.S. Navy officers, and the Coast Survey operated during the war as an almost entirely civilian service. Since most men of the Survey had Union sympathies, most stayed on with the Survey rather than resigning to serve the Confederate States of America, and their work shifted in emphasis to support of the U.S. Navy. Civilian officers of the Survey were called upon to serve in the field and provide mapping, hydrographic, and engineering expertise for Union forces. One of the individuals who excelled at this work was Joseph Smith Harris, who supported Rear Admiral David G. Farragut and his Western Gulf Blockading Squadron in the Battle of Forts Jackson and St. Philip in 1862; this survey work was particularly valuable to Commander David Dixon Porter and his mortar bombardment fleet. Coast Survey civilians served in virtually all theaters of the war and were often in the front lines or in advance of the front lines carrying out mapping duties, and Coast Survey officers produced many of the coastal charts and interior maps used by Union forces throughout the war. As civilians, Coast Survey personnel ran the risk of being executed as spies if captured by the Confederates while working in support of Union military or naval forces.[12]

Later 19th century

The seal of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey

Army officers never returned to the Coast Survey, but after the war Navy officers did, and the Coast Survey resumed its peacetime duties. The acquisition of the Territory of Alaska in 1867 expanded its responsibilities, as did the progressive exploration, settlement, and enclosure of the continental United States. In 1871, Congress officially expanded the Coast Survey's responsibilities to include geodetic surveys in the interior of the country, and in 1878 the U.S. Coast Survey was renamed the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey (USC&GS).[2][12]

With the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898, the Navy again withdrew its officers from Coast and Geodetic Survey duty, and it never assigned them to duty with the Survey again. As a result of the war, the United States took control of the Philippine Islands and Puerto Rico, and surveying their waters became part of the Coast and Geodetic Survey's duties.[12]

World War I

Although some personnel aboard Coast and Geodetic Survey ship wore uniforms virtually identical to those of the U.S. Navy, the Survey operated as a completely civilian organization until after the United States entered World War I in April 1917. To avoid the dangerous situation Coast Survey personnel had faced during the American Civil War, when they could have been executed as spires if captured by the enemy, a new Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps was created on 22 May 1917, giving the Survey's officers a commissioned status that protected them from treatment as spies if captured, as well as providing the United States armed forces with a ready source of officers skilled in surveying that could be rapidly assimilated for wartime support of the armed forces.[12]

Over half of all Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps officers served in the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Marine Corps during World War I, and Coast and Geodetic Survey personnel were active as artillery orienteering officers, as minelaying officers in the North Sea (where they supprted the laying of the North Sea Mine Barrage), as troop transport navigators, as intelligence officers, and on the staff of General John "Black Jack" Pershing.[12]

World War II

During the period between the world wars, the Coast and Geodetic Survey returned to its peaceful scientific and surveying pursuits, including land surveying, sea floor and airways charting, coastline mapping, geophysics, and oceanography. When the United States entered World War II in December 1941, all of this work was suspended as the Survey dedicated its activities entirely to support of the war effort. Over half of the Coast and Geodetic Corps commissioned officers were transferred to either the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, or United States Army Air Forces, while those who remained in the Coast and Geodetic Survey also operated in support of military and naval requirements. About half of the Survey's civilian work force, slightly over 1,000 people, joined the armed services.[12]

Officers and civilians of the Survey saw service in North Africa, Europe, the Pacific, and in the defense of North America and its waters, serving as artillery surveyors, hydrographers, amphibious engineers, beachmasters, instructors at service schools, and in a wide range of technical positions. Coast and Geodetic Survey personnel also worked as reconnaissance surveyors for a worldwide aeronautical charting effort, and a Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps officer was the first commanding officer of the Army Air Forces Aeronautical Chart Plant at St. Louis, Missouri. Three Coast and Geodetic Survey officers and eleven members of the agency who had joined other services were killed during the war.[12]

Post-World War

Following World War II, the Coast and Geodetic Survey resumed its peacetime scientific and surveying efforts, although the onset of the Cold War meant that it also made a siginficant effort in support of defense requirements, such as conducting surveys for the Distant Early Warning Line, for rocket ranges, in oceanographic work for the U.S. Navy, and it monitoring nuclear tests. In 1959, the Coast and Geodetic Survey's charter was extended to give it the responsibility for U.S. Government oceanographic studies worldwide.[12]

ESSA / NOAA years

On 13 July 1965, the Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA), was established and became the Coast and Geodetic Survey's new parent organization.[2] At the same time, the Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps was replaced by a new Environmental Science Services Administration Corp (ESSA Corps). On 3 October 1970, ESSA was expanded and reorganized to form the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The Coast and Geodetic Survey ceased to exist as it merged with other gobvernment scientific agencies to form NOAA, but its constituent parts lived on, with its geodetic responsibilities assigned to the new National Geodetic Survey and its ships to the new NOAA fleet, while the ESSA Corps became the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps, or "NOAA Corps". The National Geodetic Survey and the NOAA fleet both fell under control of NOAA's National Ocean Service.[2][12]

Frank Manly Thorn served as 6th Superintendent of the USC&GS.
Rear Admiral Henry Arnold Karo served as the 4th head of USC&GS.
The USC&GS oceanographic research ship Pathfinder was re-commissioned as a US Navy vessel during World War II.

Leadership

Superintendents (1816–1919)

  1. Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler, (1816–1818 and 1832–1843)
  2. Alexander Dallas Bache, (1843–1865)
  3. Benjamin Peirce, (1867–1874)
  4. Carlile Pollock Patterson, (1874–1881)
  5. Julius Erasmus Hilgard, (1881–1885)
  6. Frank Manly Thorn, was the first non-scientist to head USC&GS (1885–1889)
  7. Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, (1889–1894)
  8. William Ward Duffield, (1894–1897)
  9. Henry Smith Pritchett, (1897–1900)
  10. Otto Hilgard Tittmann, (1900–1915)
  11. Ernest Lester Jones, (1915–1919)

Directors (1919–1968)

  1. Ernest Lester Jones, (1919–1929)
  2. Raymond Stanton Patton, (1929–1937)
  3. Robert Francis Anthony Studds, (1938–1955)
  4. Henry Arnold Karo, (1955–1965)
  5. James C. Tison, Jr., (1965–1968)

Superintendents of Weights and Measures

Ships

See also: Category:Ships of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey

A partial list of the Survey's ships:

The USC&GS ship Explorer in the Aleutian Islands in 1944.

Flag

The United States Coast and Geodetic Survey flag, in use from 1899 to 1970

The Coast and Geodetic Survey was authorized its own flag on 16 January 1899. The flag, which remained in use until the Survey merged with other agencies to form NOAA on 3 October 1970, was blue, with a central white circle and a red triangle centered within the circle. It was intended to symbolize the triangulation method used in surveying. The flag was flown by ships in commission with the Coast and Geodetic Survey at the highest point on the forwardmost mast, and served as a distinguishing mark of the Survey as a separate seagoing service from the Navy, with which the Survey shared a common ensign.

The NOAA service flag, in use today, was adapted from the Coast and Geodetic Survey flag by adding the NOAA emblem—a circle divided into two parts by the white silhouette of a flying seabird, with the roughly triangular portion above the bird being dark blue and the portion below it a lighter blue—to the center of the old Survey flag. The NOAA symbol lies entirely within the red triangle.[13]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The formal title given these officers in reports is for example: "Lieut. Commander John A. Howell, U.S.N., Assistant in the Coast Survey" with "Assistant" being a title for both high office and topographic survey management positions and ship's commanding officers.
  2. ^ The U.S. Coast Survey published its earliest version of the Coast Pilot as an appendix in the 1858 Coast Survey Report. Later, after the copyright to a private edition was sold to the United States in 1867 the Survey assumed the responsibility for regular publication.

References

  1. ^ ""National Geodetic Survey - What We Do"". National Geodetic Survey Website. Retrieved 27 May 2013.
  2. ^ a b c d NOAA, Coast and Geodetic Survey Heritage
  3. ^ Howe, Daniel W. (2007). What hath God Wrought, The Transformation of America, 1815–1848. Oxford University Press, Inc. ISBN 978-0-19-507894-7.
  4. ^ U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (1877). Report Of The Superintendent of the Coast And Geodetic Survey Showing The Progress Of The Survey During The Year 1874. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 3. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  5. ^ Alexander Agassiz (1888). "Three Cruises of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Steamer "Blake": In the Gulf of Mexico, in the Caribbean Sea, and Along the Atlantic Coast of the United States, from 1877 to 1880". Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston & New York. Retrieved 2 March 2012.
  6. ^ U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (1901). Report Of The Superintendent of the Coast And Geodetic Survey Showing The Progress Of Work From July 1, 1900 To June 30, 1901. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 15, 17, 109. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  7. ^ Peirce, Charles Sanders (1870 [published 1873]). "Appendix No. 21. On the Theory of Errors of Observation". Report of the Superintendent of the United States Coast Survey Showing the Progress of the Survey During the Year 1870: 200–224. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |year= (help). NOAA PDF Eprint (goes to Report p. 200, PDF's p. 215). U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey Annual Reports links for years 1837–1965. Reprinted in Writings of Charles S. Peirce, v. 3, pp. 140–160.
  8. ^ Peirce, C. S. (1876 [published 1879]), "Appendix No. 14. Note on the Theory of the Economy of Research" in Report of the Superintendent of the United States Coast Survey Showing the Progress of the Survey for Fiscal Year Ending with June 1876, pp. 197–201, NOAA PDF Eprint, goes to p. 197, PDF's page 222. Reprinted in Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, v. 7, paragraphs 139–157 and in Operations Research v. 15, n. 4, July–August 1967, pp. 643–648, abstract at JSTOR Peirce, C. S. (1967). "Note on the Theory of the Economy of Research". Operations Research. 15 (4): 643. doi:10.1287/opre.15.4.643.
  9. ^ U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (1877). Report Of The Superintendent of the Coast And Geodetic Survey Showing The Progress Of The Work for the Fiscal Year Ending With June, 1877. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 9. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  10. ^ "George S. Blake". NOAA History: Coast and Geodetic Survey Ships. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NOAA Central Library. 2006. Retrieved 9 February 2012.
  11. ^ Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies, Series I, Volume 18, p.362.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i NOAA History: NOAA Corps and the Coast and Geodetic Survey
  13. ^ Sea Flags: National Oceanic and Atmoshperic Administration at verizon

External links

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