I often talk about how walking through the stacks of the
library I find gems based on unusual titles or interesting bindings. Today’s gem has neither of these. The binding is standard blue library binding
and the title, U.S. Coast Survey Report is about as thrilling as a cotton ball.
However, I walk past these volumes (it’s a continuing resource which is fancy
library talk for “they publish it in volumes” [or maybe that’s fancy librarian
talk for continuing resource…which is more fancy?!]) and a few months ago I
stopped to take some off the shelf and see exactly what they were and what
information they contained. U.S. Coast
Survey Reports are yearly reports from the Superintendent of the Coast Survey
to Congress. For the most part, they have coastal maps, charts, tide tables,
lists of maps completed or in progress and reports from various field offices
which include shore line measurements, soundings, tidal observations, etc.
There are also many appendices which give information such as who are the
people doing the surveys in each area and a heaping dose of math Math MATH! So much
math!
These reports are
incredible resources for people who want to do in depth coastal research. As I was flipping through the pages of the
1858 volume, however, I came across an appendix which popped out at me – it
wasn’t the more dry scientific measurements, rather it’s statistics about
shipping in and out of San Francisco.
The appendix (no.44) entitled “Directory for the Pacific
Coast of the United States” is chock full of information which crosses all
sorts of information needs. The appendix
is actually an extended report 8 years in the making on San Francisco Bay and
port activity. It has such bits of
information such as in the year 1857, 1,328 vessels entered San Francisco from
other American ports, 130 that entered were American vessels from foreign ports
and 125 were foreign vessels from foreign ports making a total of 1,583 vessels
that came to San Francisco that year (349).
Also according to the appendix, “At the end of the fiscal year , June
30, 1855, there were registered, enrolled, and licensed, at the custom-house of
San Francisco, owned wholly or in part by citizens of California, 702 steam and
sailing vessels engaged in trade upon the Pacific” (348). The breakdown of that number is as follows:
There’s more information in this wonderful resource
including the average amount of gold shipped out of the state (351), value of
exports of California for a three year period (350) and clipper passages times from
1850-1857 (346).
If any of these tidbits excite you, then stop on by the
library and check out our U.S. Coast Survey Reports.
Source:
U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. Report of the Superintendent of the Coast Survey, Showing the Progress
of the Survey During the year 1858. Washington: William A. Harris,
Printer, 1859.
