Catalog Archive
Auction 143, Lot 261

"Boston Harbor Massachusetts", U.S. Coast Survey

Subject: Boston, Massachusetts

Period: 1857 (dated)

Publication:

Color: Black & White

Size:
35.5 x 28.6 inches
90.2 x 72.6 cm
Download High Resolution Image
(or just click on image to launch the Zoom viewer)

The Office of Coast Survey is the oldest U.S. scientific organization, dating from 1807 when Congress directed that a "survey of the coast" be carried out. By 1836, it was called the U.S. Coast Survey and in 1878, the name was changed to the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. Today the Office of Coast Survey is a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NOAA.

The survey teams, composed of civilians as well as Army and Naval officers, charted the nation's waterways and produced a wide array of reports, survey charts, hydrographic studies of tides and currents, astronomical studies and observations, and coastal pilots. These charts are an important record of the changing nature of the nation's coastlines. In additional to coastal charts, the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey produced land sketches, Civil War battle maps, and the early aeronautical charts.

A very attractive chart produced by the Coast Survey. Fully and beautifully engraved with as much detail on land as along the coastline. Filled with hundreds of soundings, plus anchorages, hazards, bottom type, and tables of buoys, light houses, and tides. Thorough notes provide sailing directions and seven sea view elevations show the land from various approaches.

References:

Condition: B

Issued folding with a number of fold separations, some of which have been repaired on verso with archival material. Light toning along the folds, with a narrow left margin trimmed close to the neatline, with a tiny loss of neatline at bottom.

Estimate: $300 - $350

Sold for: $75

Closed on 2/13/2013

Archived