APPENDIX No. 1. REPORT OF THE HYDROGRAPHIC OFFICE. To: Bureau of Navigation. HYDROGRAPHIC OFFICE, Washington, D. C., August 27, 1914. Subject: Report of the Hydrographer for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1914. 1. I respectfully submit the following report of the Hydrographer for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1914. 2. From the beginning of the fiscal year until April Capt. G. F. Cooper, United States Navy, was Hydrographer, and on April 22, 1914, I assumed charge of the office. 3. Under the law it is the duty of the Hydrographic Office to prepare, publish, and furnish nautical charts, sailing directions, and navigators for the safe navigation of the vessels of the Navy and mercantile marine. This duty is considered in this report under the following heads: (a) The collection of the necessary data. (b) The consideration, compilation, and publication of this data. (c) The distribution (furnishing) of the resultant charts, sailing directions, and other navigational publications. COLLECTION OF NAUTICAL DATA. 4. Nautical charts and sailing directions are based upon original surveys and reports, or upon the reproduction of similar publications issued by foreign hydrographic offices. 5. Under the direction and supervision of the Hydrographic Office the following surveys were carried on during the fiscal year: In the island of Haiti the U. S. S. Eagle, continuing the work of previous years, completed the surveys of Petit Goave, Baradaires, Cayemites, and Gonaives Bays, and determined the geographic position of Port au Prince by astronomical observations. On the south coast of the island of Cuba the U. S. S. Paducah, continuing the work of previous years, carried the "Cape Cruz-Casilda survey" from Jucaro to Tunas, including the inland waters as far south as Burgas and Paloma Cays. The unfortunate conditions existing in Mexico caused the department to withdraw, in April, the Eagle and Paducah from the above surveys, and assign them to temporary duty with the fleet in Mexican waters. Advantage, however, was taken of their presence at Vera Cruz, and a new survey of that port and approaches was made. The new chart of Vera Cruz will be issued this year and will fill a much needed want for the safe navigation of that port and vicinity. The U. S. S. Hannibal was engaged in continuing the survey of the east coast of Nicaragua until April, when work in that locality was temporarily discontinued and the vessel transferred to the north coast of Panama to complete the survey of the approaches to the Panama Canal. In April the U. S. S. Leonidas was assigned to assist the Hannibal and the result of their work will be issued this fall as a new chart of the Caribbean approaches to the Panama Canal, a chart much needed for the safe navigation of the large amount of shipping which will traverse those waters, due to the opening of the canal to commerce. The topographic survey of the district about the naval station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was continued during the year, and will probably require three more seasons for completion. The Samoan survey expedition commenced the survey of the island of Tutuila, Samoa, in January and notwithstanding the severe difficulties encountered, has made good progress. This survey party has completed the survey of Pago Pago Harbor and of a considerable extent of the coast line, as well as of much of the triangulation of the island. Surveys of a number of foreign ports, in more or less detail, have been made and sent to the office from cruising ships temporarily in such localities. 6. The Hydrographic Office not only collects data from which to make the original publication of charts and sailing directions, but also collects the data necessary to keep such charts and sailing directions corrected and accurate to date. In order to carry out this duty it receives, scans, and utilizes charts, sailing directions, notices to mariners, and such other hydrographic reports as may be issued by foreign hydrographic offices, marine reports from thousands of seafaring people the world over, as well as from the Navy, RevenueCutter Service, Army Transport Service, Army Engineers, Bureau of Lighthouses, Coast and Geodetic Survey, and Bureau of Fisheries. 7. The 16 branch hydrographic offices furnish to and receive from the maritime world and those interested in nautical matters information, which is transmitted to the main office and issued to all shipping affected. The useful and beneficial service rendered to mariners through and by these branch offices more than fully justifies the small annual expense of maintaining them. 8. To volunteer contributors of nautical information the Hydrographic Office issues directly, or through its branch offices, the Hydrographic Bulletin, the Pilot Charts, and the Weekly Notice to Mariners. They are the rewards given these volunteer observers for furnishing the office with nautical information. It is all important that this source of information should not only be maintained but its scope further enlarged by obtaining additional volunteer observThat efforts in this latter line may not fail, it is also important that each branch office should be in charge of a naval officer of experience whom the mercantile marine will look to for information and to whom it would naturally give information in return. ers. CONSIDERATION, COMPILATION, AND PUBLICATION OF NAUTICAL DATA. 9. The Hydrographic Office furnishes to the Navy and the maritime world nautical information, gathered as above outlined, in its weekly publications known as the Notice to Mariners and Hydrographic Bulletin, which relate to the charts and sailing directions of all of the oceans, seas, and Great Lakes, and the preparation of which is assisted by maintaining in the Hydrographic Office complete archive sets of our own and of foreign navigational charts. The Navy and the maritime world are thus furnished with the latest navigational news, and are afforded a complete guide for the correction of charts and sailing directions, whether the same be printed by the Hydrographic Office, the Coast and Geodetic Survey, the British Admiralty, or other authority. This makes these two publications indispensable mediums of information for our navigators, and renders them among if not the most important publications of the seafaring world. 10. The reproduction of British Admiralty and other foreign charts by the process of zincography is now well started, and it is hoped that we may soon be independent of foreign chart makers for the safe navigation of our ships in times of peace or war. The production of these charts by the Hydrographic Office will be a material yearly saving to the Government in stopping the necessity of purchasing them abroad. This saving of funds alone fully justifies the reproduction of foreign charts by zincography, if there were not even the more pressing and important feature of having the plates as our own property. 11. At the end of the fiscal year the Hydrographic Office had on issue the following charts and plans: Hydrographic Office charts.... Coast and Geodetic Survey charts.. British Admiralty charts.. Total...... 2, 068 654 1, 752 4, 474 It will thus be seen that the Hydrographic Office, until the British Admiralty charts are reproduced in this office, must purchase abroad approximately 40 per cent of the different charts needed for the navigation of the waters of the world. The 1,752 charts which it is necessary to purchase abroad embrace such waters as to stop practically any strategic move of the fleet (unless supplied with such purchased charts) to waters other than those about the American continent. That this weakness and possible menace to the mobility of the fleet may be overcome the Hydrographic Office should be afforded the additional facilities (civil force and adequate appropriations) to enable it to reproduce these charts on zinc plates. Estimates therefor have been heretofore submitted. THE DISTRIBUTION OF CHARTS, SAILING DIRECTIONS, AND OTHER NAUTICAL PUBLICATIONS. 12. That the Hydrographic Office may be at all times ready to issue, when called upon, charts, sailing directions, navigators, etc., it should maintain on hand, corrected and ready for issue, an ample supply thereof; but the appropriations for the Hydrographic Office and the force of employees therein have not been increased to keep pace with these growing demands upon it, in spite of the fact that the Navy and the appropriations therefor have both enormously increased since the Spanish War. As a consequence, it has been impracticable to increase the number of charts kept on hand and ready for issue with the rapidity desired. 13. The distribution of charts for ships of the Navy has been carried on by means of station catalogues. These catalogues are based upon an abandoned arrangement of naval stations, the waters of the world being now divided into three naval stations instead of five as formerly. New catalogues for each of the three naval stations will be compiled, edited, and published. This will be done in a modern, systematic manner. There will also be compiled lists of charts for possible strategic moves of the fleet. STEAMSHIP LANES. 14. The lanes now in use were adopted by the various principal steamship companies on April 15, 1913, and only once during this fiscal year, on account of floating icebergs, from May 27 to the first week of July, were these lanes shifted. It is a matter for careful consideration by all concerned as to whether these lanes should not be made obligatory upon all vessels crossing in or along them. Certainly safety at sea would be enhanced if such were the case, and this question is recommended for favorable action. ICE PATROL. 15. The revenue cutters Seneca and Miami alternately conducted the patrol of the southern edge of the ice region from the middle of February to the first of July. These vessels kept in constant communication by radio with vessels passing in their vicinity and with the branch hydrographic office in New York, sending reports of all ice discovered and of its location and drift. This information was given immediate publication upon receipt and also sent out broadcast to all shipping at sea by the radio station at Arlington, Va. All ice reported was also cabled to the Deutsche Seewarte, Hamburg, at their request. The information from the ice patrol and other vessels was also published in the Daily Memorandum and in the Weekly Hydrographic Bulletin from this office and given the widest circulation. The ice patrol has proved a most valuable aid to navigation, and the Hydrographic Office expresses its appreciation of the willing and hearty cooperation of the revenue-cutter patrol vessels and the various merchant steamers in promptly transmitting reports for the timely warning of mariners navigating in the ice localities. PUBLICATIONS. 16. The publications issued by the Hydrographic Office are numerous and necessary to the maritime public, and to keep them up to date requires constant attention to the thousands of reports coming in from all parts of the world and therefore involve much painstaking and careful work. The edition of the Weekly Notice to Mariners is constantly increasing in size, and the demand for it |