Walden, Cape Cod, and the Duty of the Coast Survey
Walden, Cape Cod, and the Duty of the Coast Survey
The first superintendent of the Coast Survey was Swiss-born mathematician Ferdinand Hassler, who directed the project from its inception in 1816 until his death in 1843. Hassler was one of the most skillful measurers in history and the ingenious method he conceived for implementing the vast survey was his greatest achievement. He devised a plan to measure the Atlantic seaboard by laying out a network of enormous consecutive triangles, the sides of which ranged from ten to sixty miles in length. Admiring descriptions of the Coast Survey appeared frequently in scientific journals and popular literature during the period immediately prior to Henry Thoreau's 1846 survey of Walden Pond.
Keywords: Coast Survey, Ferdinand Hassler, triangles, Walden Pond, Henry Thoreau, Cape Cod
Florida Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
