Office of Coast Survey

Responsible for updating nautical charts, surveying the seafloor, responding to maritime emergencies, and searching for underwater obstructions that pose a danger to navigation, the Office of Coast Survey provides the United States with navigation products and information for improving commerce and security and for protecting coastal environments.

[5][6][7] While the bill's specific objective was to produce nautical charts, it reflected larger issues of concern to the United States, namely national boundaries, commerce, and defense.

Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler, who was eventually to become the agency's first superintendent, went to England to collect scientific instruments but was unable to return until after the War of 1812 (1812–1815).

After several years of inactivity under the control of the United States Army, the Survey of the Coast was reestablished in 1832, and President Andrew Jackson appointed Hassler as superintendent.

In addition to setting up additional lithographic presses to produce the thousands of charts required by U.S. Navy ships and other vessels, Bache made a critical decision to send Coast Survey parties to work with U.S. Navy blockading squadrons and Union Army formations in the field, producing hundreds of maps and charts.

On April 16, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation declaring the Union blockade of ports from South Carolina to Texas.

In 1861, Coast Survey cartographer Edwin Hergesheimer created a map showing the density of the slave population[13] in the Southern United States.

On October 3, 1970, the Coast and Geodetic Survey was dissolved as it merged with other U.S. government agencies to form the new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which was established at the same time.