1851 U.S. Coast Survey Map of the Mississippi River Delta, Separate Issue

Nautical chart of the Mississippi River Delta.

This is a rare, separately-issued 1851 nautical map or chart of the Mississippi River Delta. It is among the earliest detailed surveys of this portion of the notoriously tricky and vitally important waterway. This example is notable for being separately-issued on thicker paper and engraved rather than lithographed.

A Closer Look

The map depicts the Louisiana coast from Passe à l'Outre to the Southeast Pass, at the southeastern tip of the Mississippi River Delta. Numerous depth soundings are indicated, along with the locations of lights, shoals, drift trees, anchorages, buoys, and stakes. Notes on tides, sailing instructions, and commentary on the chart are situated in the upper right corner. Due to the quick and dramatic changes in the Delta area caused by sudden storms and hurricanes, charting the Mississippi Delta was one of the U.S. Coast Survey's most daunting tasks; as the text at top-right begins - 'No sure sailing directions for the bars can be given.'

This chart updates an earlier 1839 survey of the same area, with notable changes to the shoreline indicated as explained at top-right. In the following years, Benjamin F. Sands would lead additional surveys that drastically improved maritime safety for commercial shipping and later proved strategically invaluable to the Union Navy during its Civil War blockade operations along the Gulf Coast.

Publication History and Census

This chart was prepared by a Coast Survey party under the command of Benjamin Frnaklin Sands and compiled under the direction of A. D. Bache, Superintendent of the Survey of the Coast of the United States, and one of the most influential American cartographers of the 19th century. This example is notable for being separately-issued on thicker paper and engraved rather than lithographed. Such separate issues are much rarer than the charts issued in the Coast Survey's annual Report of the Superintendent (for comparison, see our DeltaMississippi-uscs-1851-4). The OCLC independently catalogs this map at three institutions - the Denver Public Library, Princeton University, and the State Library of Louisiana - but from the catalog record it is impossible to tell if these examples are the separate issue seen here or, more likely, from the Annual Report.

Cartographers

The Office of the Coast Survey (1807 - present) founded in 1807 by President Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of Commerce Albert Gallatin, is the oldest scientific organization in the U.S. Federal Government. Jefferson created the "Survey of the Coast," as it was then called, in response to a need for accurate navigational charts of the new nation's coasts and harbors. The spirit of the Coast Survey was defined by its first two superintendents. The first superintendent of the Coast Survey was Swiss immigrant and West Point mathematics professor Ferdinand Hassler. Under the direction of Hassler, from 1816 to 1843, the ideological and scientific foundations for the Coast Survey were established. These included using the most advanced techniques and most sophisticated equipment, as well as an unstinting attention to detail. Hassler devised a labor-intensive triangulation system whereby the entire coast was divided into a series of enormous triangles. These were, in turn, subdivided into smaller triangulation units, which were then individually surveyed. Employing this exacting technique on such a massive scale had never been attempted before. Consequently, Hassler and the Coast Survey under his leadership developed a reputation for uncompromising dedication to accuracy and excellence. Unfortunately, despite being a masterful surveyor, Hassler was abrasive and politically unpopular, losing congressional funding for the Coast Survey twice. Nonetheless, Hassler led the Coast Survey until his death in 1843, when Alexander Dallas Bache, a great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin, took the helm. Bache was fully dedicated to the principles established by Hassler, but proved more politically astute and successfully lobbied Congress to fund the endeavor generously. Under the leadership of A. D. Bache, the Coast Survey completed its most important work. Moreover, during his long tenure with the Coast Survey, from 1843 to 1865, Bache was a steadfast advocate of American science and navigation and, in fact, founded the American Academy of Sciences. Bache was succeeded by Benjamin Pierce, who ran the Survey from 1867 to 1874. Pierce was, in turn, succeeded by Carlile Pollock Patterson, who was Superintendent from 1874 to 1881. In 1878, under Patterson's superintendence, the U.S. Coast Survey was reorganized as the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (USCGS) to accommodate both topographic and nautical surveys. Today, the Coast Survey is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as the National Geodetic Survey.   Further Details...

Benjamin Franklin Sands (February 11, 1811 - June 30, 1883) was a distinguished United States Navy officer in both the Mexican-American War and the U.S. Civil War. After entering the Navy as a midshipman in 1828, Sands spent a formative period from 1834 to 1841 engaged in foundational coastal charting and topographical mapping with the U.S. Coast Survey. His most significant impact on the Survey occurred in the 1850s, when he spent six years commanding the side-wheel Coast Survey steamship Robert J. Walker in the Gulf of Mexico. Tasked with securing safe navigation for an expanding nation, Sands meticulously charted the Florida Keys, the western coast of Florida (including Tampa Bay and Pensacola Harbor), and the complex channels of the Mississippi River Delta. A natural innovator, he also advanced the field of hydrography by inventing a specialized deep-sea sounding apparatus and several other mapping instruments to measure ocean depths more accurately. Sands' expertise in hydrography continued right up to the brink of the American Civil War, during which he commanded the survey vessel Active along the Pacific Coast in 1861. This decades-long immersion in coastal mapping proved strategically invaluable during the war; his intimate, firsthand knowledge of the shallow, treacherous shorelines of the Gulf of Mexico directly enabled his success as a Union blockade commander, culminating in his formal acceptance of Galveston's surrender in June 1865. Following the war, Sands brought his technical acumen to Washington, D.C., where he served as the Superintendent of the U.S. Naval Observatory from 1867 until his retirement as a Rear Admiral in 1874.   Further Details...

Alexander Dallas Bache (July 19, 1806 - February 17, 1867) was an American physicist, scientist, and surveyor. Bache is best known in cartographic circles as the Superintendent of the U.S. Coast Survey from 1843 to 1865. Born in Philadelphia, Bache, a great-grandson of the statesman and inventor Benjamin Franklin, had a varied career primarily focused on education. He toured Europe on behalf of Girard College and composed an important treatise on European Education. Later he served as president of Philadelphia's Central High School and was a professor of natural history and chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania. On the death of Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler (1770 - 1843), Bache was appointed Superintendent of the United States Coast Survey. Picking up where Hassler left off, Bache presided over the Survey during its most prolific period and oversaw the mapping of most of the United States coastline. To this day his name appears on countless marine pilot books and U.S. Coast Survey nautical charts. For his work, he was elected Associate Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society. Following the Civil War, Bache was elected a 3rd Class Companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. He died in Newport, Rhode Island, and was buried in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, DC, where he is commemorated by a monument designed by American architect Henry Hobson Richardson.   Further Details...

Condition

Very good. Some toning, else excellent with generous margins.

References

OCLC 36296120.