for keeping the light-stations in proper repair; and for keeping up the buoyage of the coasts. The estimates made for these purposes are based on the actual present needs of the Service, as set forth in itemized requisitions made by the light-house district officers, and the appropriations asked for will make it possible to keep the Service up to a high standard. The Light-House Board has during the past year kept fully up with the advance of science in its line in the other countries of the world, as will be seen from the appendices submitted with its annual report, showing the condition of the unique electric-lighted buoys in New York Bay; the descriptions of the peculiar foundation built for Wolf Trap light-house in Chesapeake Bay; the curious conduits in which lights are hauled out to pierheads on the lakes; the account of the exhibit of the Light-House Establishment at the World's Columbian Exhibition, and the able and complete account of the kind, force, and use of fog signals, involving much practical discussion of mooted points in the laws of sound. LIFE-SAVING SERVICE. The past year was remarkable for the number and violence of the tempests that swept both the sea and lake coasts, some of those on the lakes surpassing in fury any previously recorded in the annals of the Weather Bureau, while several on the Atlantic have not been exceeded in ferocity during the past twenty years. The disasters occurring within the province of the Life-Saving Service were more numerous, and involved the total destruction of a greater number of vessels than in any former year since the organization of the Establishment. The skill and heroism of the men and the efficiency and adequacy of the appliances of the stations were subjected to extreme tests, and, it is gratifying to say, with results which reflect credit alike upon the organization and the country. At the close of the year the Service embraced 247 stations, of which 182 were located on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, 51 on the Lakes, 1 at the Falls of the Ohio, Louisville, Ky., and 13 on the Pacific. The following are the statistics of casualties occurring during the year within the field of their operations: The number of documented vessels involved in disaster was 380, on board of which there were 4,054 persons, of whom 3,993 were saved and 61 lost. The estimated value of the property involved was $9,890,610, of which $7,688,170 was saved and $2,202,440 lost. The number of vessels totally lost was 91. There were also 214 casualties to undocumented small craft, such as sailboats, rowboats, etc., on which were 467 persons, 460 of whom were saved and 7 lost. The property involved in the latter disasters amounted to $109,810, of which $75,045 was saved and $34,765 lost. The following is the aggregate: Total number of disasters......... Total value of property involved... Total value of property saved Total number of persons lost...... Total number of shipwrecked persons succored at stations....... 594 $10,000, 420 $7,763, 215 $2, 237, 205 4,521 68 658 1,501 91 Besides those saved from vessels, 83 others were rescued, under a variety of circumstances, from the peril of drowning. The crews also rendered very valuable service in saving property, 439 vessels having been aided by them in getting afloat when stranded, repaired when damaged, piloted out of dangerous places, etc. There were 244 instances in which vessels in danger of stranding were warned off by the signals of the patrolmen and escaped disaster. The cost of the maintenance of the Service during the year was $1,258,221.24. The stations mentioned in the last report as being in process of construction, one at Ashtabula, Ohio, and one between Point Lobos and Point San Pedro, California, have been completed and put in operation. Two others, one at Duluth, Minn., and one at Portsmouth, N. C., have also been completed, and are now receiving their equipments. The former will be ready for occupancy at the opening of navigation next spring, and the latter probably before the 1st of January. A station, authorized to be established on Seven-Mile Beach, New Jersey, is under construction and approaching completion. Two stations have been rebuilt during the year, one at Cahoons Hollow, on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to replace the one destroyed by fire February 25, 1893, and one at Spermaceti Cove, near Sandy Hook, New Jersey, to take the place of an old station built many years ago, which stood within the range of the heavy guns on the proving grounds of the Ordnance Department, U. S. Army, and was not worth removing. The Government improvements to the approaches of Charleston Harbor having diverted the main ship channel from the vicinity of Morris Island on the south side to that of Sullivans Island on the north, thus leaving the Morris Island Life-Saving Station too remote to render prompt assistance to vessels meeting with accident in entering or leaving the harbor, Congress, by act of March 14, 1894, authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to transfer the life-saving station to Sullivans Island, with permission to cause the present station buildings to be removed to the new locality or new buildings to be erected, as should appear for the best interests of the Government. Examination showing that the transfer of the buildings and their proper establishment on the new` of a new station upon a site donated by the town of Moultrieville was authorized, and the station is nearly ready for occupancy. The coast telephone service has been somewhat further extended and improved. By means of this ready method of communication between stations, and with neighboring seaports, several life-saving crews are easily assembled on critical occasions, and tugs and other aids to the shipwrecked promptly advised when their services are needed. During the past year the lines have, in many important instances, demonstrated their almost incalculable value as an aid to expeditious and efficient lifesaving operations. This feature of the Service has attracted much attention in foreign countries, especially in Great Britain, finally resulting in a visit by the agent of a royal commission, who personally examined the working of the system at our stations, and in his report highly commended it, and recommended its adoption in his own country. The report of the General Superintendent calls attention to the discrimination made in the pay of the surfmen by the act of August 3, 1894, extending the period during which the stations are to be manned upon the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, the result of which is that the difference of a single day in the period of the employment of two men produces a difference of $38 in favor of the man who serves the shorter period, although they perform precisely the same duties and are subject to the same perils and discipline. He also points out some difficulties that attend the execution of the law. The establishment of a fair and uniform rate of compensation for the surfmen throughout the Service would obviate the difficulties and dispel the discontent among the crews which the present condition engenders, and I would respectfully recommend appropriate legislation to this end. STEAMBOAT INSPECTION SERVICE. The Supervising Inspector-General reports the inspection, during the year, of 7,762 domestic steam vessels, with a net tonnage of 1,595,785.27. The officers licensed numbered 38,680. The number of foreign passen. ger steamers inspected was 283; net tonnage, 500,807.08. It is estimated that between 600,000,000 and 700,000,000 passengers were carried during the year. The number of lives lost was 225, being an increase of 27 over that of the previous year. Of the number of lives lost 96 were passengers and 159 were officers or persons employed on the steamers. The personnel of the Service at the end of the fiscal year consisted of 161 officers, clerks, and messengers, exclusive of two vacancies existing at close of year by reason of the decease of two local inspectors. The expenses of the foreign inspection service were only $361.08, out of an authorized expenditure of $46,000, showing a saving of $45,638.92, which was accomplished by an order transferring to the officers of the domestic service, under appointments designating them as "acting special inspectors of foreign steam vessels," the work formerly done by the officers previously appointed specially for that purpose, whose duties as such were scarcely more than nominal, and the positions held by them being virtually sinecures. Attention is called to the recommendations of the Supervising Inspector General, relating to amendments to the steamboat inspection laws, which are commended to Congress for its consideration. COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY. The Superintendent of the Coast and Geodetic Survey presents in his annual report statements exhibiting the general scope of the operations of that service, followed by summaries of what has been accomplished in the several branches of field and office work during the fiscal year. In the maps of general progress, which are to accompany the report at the date of its transmission to Congress, the advance made is shown. graphically. The work of the Survey has included the measurement of base lines; reconnoissance, and triangulation; determination of time, latitude, longitude, and azimuth; observations for the force of gravity; determination of the variations of latitude; geodetic leveling; observations for magnetic declination, dip, and intensity; topographical surveys; hydrographic work, involving inshore and offshore soundings and observations of tides and currents. Among operations of importance begun, continued, or completed during the year, the following may be here mentioned: Action taken by the Superintendent as Commissioner on the part of the United States, conjointly with the Commissioner of the Dominion of Canada, to determine upon a method of defining with greater accuracy the boundary line between the two countries in the waters of Passamaquoddy Bay; completion of the hydrographic survey of the Northeastern Boundary Lakes; approach towards completion of the resurvey of Boston Bay and Harbor, and completion of the topographical resurvey of the Connecticut River; surveys made in compliance with a request from the State of Virginia for defining the limits of the natural oyster beds in the waters of that State; survey of the Outer Diamond Shoal off Cape Hatteras for the use of the Light-House Board; advance toward completion of the resurveys of Pensacola Bay and its tributaries; limiting lines of the natural oyster beds in Mobile Bay, determined for the U. S. Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries; reconnoissance and triangulation along the Rio Grande, continued towards the Gulf of Mexico with a view ultimately to the location of that part of the United States and Mexican boundary line; cooperation with the Navy Department in the speed trial of the new cruiser Olympia over the trial course laid out by the Survey in the Santa Barbara Channel ; progress made in the resurvey and remarking, as provided for in act of Congress, of that part of the boundary line between the States of California and Nevada, extending from a point in Lake Tahoe to the Colo entrance; advance towards completion of the survey of the Strait of San Juan de Fuca, and surveys in southeastern Alaska, carried on in cooperation with officers of the Dominion of Canada for the location of the boundary line between Alaska and British Columbia, as provided for in the treaty of 1892, between the Governments of the United States and Great Britain. The assignments of two of the officers of the Survey to special duty by appointment of the President are still in force; one is serving as a member of the Mississippi River Commission and the other as a member of the International Boundary Commission, organized for the location of that part of the United States and Mexican boundary line extending from the Rio Grande to the Pacific. More than 51,000 copies of charts were issued during the fiscal year, and the demand for them and for Coast Pilots and Tide Tables has been steadily maintained. The exhibit of the Survey at the World's Columbian Exposition, reference to which was made in my last annual report, received the following awards, announcements of which were communicated to the Superintendent after the close of the Exposition by the chairman of the Executive Committee on Awards: 1. For the collective exhibit of charts, maps, models, instruments, and publications. 2. For the charts of the Survey, which are probably the most perfect ever produced. 3. For a number of improvements in the construction of theodolites, levels, and other instruments of precision. For a large collection of geodetic instruments of the highest degree of excellence, many of which were improved by members of the corps, and made in the shops of the Survey. 4. For important improvements in pendulums for gravity work, namely: the transfer of the knife edges to the supports, whereby they can be polished or sharpened without affecting the pendulum; for the means of determining the period by the principle of coincidences, for the consequent reduction of size and weight, facilitating transportation and manipulation. 5. For the instructive object lesson presented in the model of the United States, including Alaska, by which the true curvature of the earth is clearly shown, and the relation of heights and distances by the employment of but one scale. It exhibits in an ingenious manner the direction of the magnetic meridians, and also the principal triangulation of the United States, and the positions of the base lines. 6. For various ingenious devices for securing the greatest possible accuracy in the measurement of bases, and for determining the errors incidental thereto. For carefully engraved charts, a collection of the annual reports of great interest and importance, and complete sets of Tide Tables and Coast Pilots. |