Chart of Currents in Bering Sea and Adjacent Waters

Washington: Government Printing Office, 1881. unbound. Map. Uncolored lithograph. Sheet measures 29" x 21". This is a lovely 1881 U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey map of the currents in the Bering Sea. The map depicts Eastern Siberia, the Kamchatka Peninsula and parts of Japan in the west and the Alaska to the east and includes the North Pacific and Bering Sea. Several notations of currents are noted throughout along with the millets on ice in 1871 and 1877. The map is in good condition with some wear along the original folds and minor tears along the borders. The U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey was first established in 1807 and is the oldest scientific (truncated) organization in the U.S Government. After the Civil War, the bureau took responsibility for mapping and conducting geodetic surveys of the the interior of the expanding country. This map was compiled by various sources under the supervision of Carlile Pollock Patterson, who was the superintendent from 1874 to 1881. It was under Pattersons superintendence in 1878 that the U. S. Coast Survey was reorganized as the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey to include topographic as well as nautical surveys. (Inventory #: 321845)