A Matter Of perfection chapter 6

Hassler asked him to return to the survey of the coast. This job continued the rest of his life.

Work began about 1832. Known in the middle of the century as the Coast Survey, the organization finally became the Coast and Geodetic Survey. Engineers and map makers knew that without the Survey their work could not be done. In its long history the Survey has established methods regarded as standard in all parts of the world. But it has remained small, and few people know about it except those whom it directly serves. This is doubtless as Hassler would have wished.

The later years of his life were stormy. One of his bad habits was to hold back charts needed by seamen until he himself could examine them for correctness. He quarreled with people who interrupted his work and he never failed to show his low opinion of them. He believed that only scientists could judge the work of scientists. When a committee from Congress came to see what he was doing, he sent them away angrily. He shouted that they had no right to come to him. His conduct made many Congressmen smile, but it did not help him get the money he needed. His honesty, however, finally won him public support.
By 1835 a land survey was completed which permitted the beginning of the survey of the waters along the coast. The Experiment and the Washington were the first of a long series of Survey ships.¬ The work done by these sailing ships was difficult and slow. But to Hassler and all American seamen it represented the first results of the survey ordered twenty eight years before.

A Matter Of perfection chapter 5

Hassler prepared a long paper in self-defense. In it he made a clever plan’ to show the curved earth on flat maps. This was a very difficult prob­lem the answer to it had not been found until then. His method was so valuable that it is still used today by the Survey.

For ten years Hassler had to support himself as ­well as he could. He wrote school books which earned him nothing, but contained clever new ideas about mathematics. His money was gone so he unsuccessfully, tried farming. He finally lost both his farm and his wife, who could not endure the lonely farm life. Unhappy and in great need, he sold more of his books. Then he began looking for laboring jobs. But he never lost faith that someday he would return to the great dream of his life the survey of the coast.

Finally, in 1830, Hassler received a -job which brought him back to public life and led to his sec­ond great accomplishment for America. This was a standard of measurements. His great passion for exact measurement whether for a piece of ribbon or a coastline, was well known by this time. Con­gress believed that trade between countries was suffering because each country had its own idea about the size of various measures. Congress ordered a system of standard measurements to be made. Hassler was put in charge of examining the measures used to determine the value of articles shipped into the country. He did more than that, however. He announced what standards would be used, and he made and sent out instructions. Without any au­thority, he made himself Chief of Weights and Measures. He extended his authority to all the government departments, and even to the states them­selves. Congress, however, was not angry when it learned what he was doing. It must have been glad to have someone take the authority for all this, be­cause it urged Hassler to proceed as quickly as pos­sible. In 1836 the Treasury was told to do what Hassler had already done, and to use the weights and measures he had already established. This set­tled a matter that centuries of effort had not been able to accomplish.

A Matter of Perfection chapter 4

Hassler built a strange-looking carriage, to carry his great “theodolite.” This surveying instrument measures all kinds of angles. The useful but strange carriage was noticed by everyone and added to the growing belief that Hassler was a queer person. Because of all the delays, Congress was beginning to lose patience. Hassler was asked when the work would be finished and how much it would cost.

This was beyond belief-he had hardly begun! Hassler tried to explain that much work had to be done to get ready. Measurement of the land and observation of the stars must come before the work at sea. The chart would have to show all the details of the shore lines. All of this required difficult surveys along every bit of the coast. Hassler had a difficult time trying to make Congress understand. He told of the long hours he had worked: “I stayed at the work from summer until the end of December, when no one thought it possible to endure the cold any longer I have been up at the observation before sunrise studying the results occupied me usually until about eleven o’clock at night.”

In spite of his efforts, he could not satisfy Congress. Hassler wanted to do an enduring job and bring honor to American science. Congress wanted to satisfy the needs of the moment without spending much money. In April of 1818 Hassler was asked to leave the job and Congress tried to have it done without him. This was a time when almost nothing was done. As a result, ships along the coast continued to be destroyed.

A Matter Of Perfection chapter 3

He became an American citizen as soon as pos­sible and met many scientists. These men were pleased with his serious mind, his education, his great library, and his gifts of unusual objects to an organization of scientists. President Thomas Jeffer­son was also interested in science and quickly made a friend of the young man. This association led to Jefferson’s recommendation that Congress give $50,000 for the survey of the coast.

While Hassler waited for the work to begin he taught mathematics at the United States military school and later at Union College. He was greatly admired, and made many friends among his students. He spent much time preparing detailed plans, working on instruments and methods, and writing letters urging the President to permit the work to begin on the survey. His salaries were not high, but the fact that he was poor during these years was not important to Hassler. He sold the books in his library, one by one, living for the day when his great work would begin. But his wife loved social life and good living, and it was an unhappy period for her.

The area around New York was the first to be surveyed. As soon as it started, the work was inter­rupted by the first of a long series of quarrels with private property owners who did not want him on their land.

A Matter of Perfection chapter 2

When Congress decided to survey- the coast, in 1807, Ferdinand Hassler was the only man in America who had the special ability to do the work. Thus I he became the Survey’s first chief.

Hassler was born in 1770 in Switzerland. His early interests in science and mathematics brought him to Johann Tralles, a leading geodesist, with whom he studied and worked. They were making maps of Switzerland and it was necessary to develop exact instruments and measurement standards. From this grew his great passion for exactness and orderly methods.

He traveled widely and met well-known scien­tists, philosophers, and writers of history. Later, troubles in the nation’s politics preventing him from continuing his work in science. He entered public affairs and became a successful government leader. But he did not like this kind of life, and went to America with his family in 1805. Among the things he took with him was a huge library of books on science.

A MATTER OF PERFECTION Chapter1

Ferdinand Hassler was one of America’s early scientists. He had two outstanding qualities a deep understanding of surveying and mathematics and a desire to do things correctly and honestly. But in spite of these excellent qualities he always insisted on doing things the way he wanted them done. This resulted in many quarrels which caused him much trouble in doing his life’s work.

He came to America when men of his ability were greatly needed. And he was eager to do something fine and enduring for the new country. At the beginning of the 19th century almost all commerce in the new republic was bi shipping along the coast. But the 60,000 merchant ships suffered great losses because they had no charts of the Coast. America’s growth was threatened.