the bay the rise is 55 feet above sealevel. At spring tides the water in the Bay of Fundy is 19 feet higher than in the Bay of Verte, only 15 miles distant.

The mechanical division of the Survey is a wonderful place to visit, as may be inferred from the fact that it can make theodolites so accurate that in the triangulation between the Maryland and Georgia base-lines the discrepancy was less than half an inch in 30 miles, and that it can make precise levels so accurate that the maximum error is an inch to 500 miles. In addition to the marvelous tide-predicting machine, it has a circular dividing engine with which it constructs the scales on the graduated circles. This engine has a spindle 4 inches in diameter, tapering three-quarters of an inch to the foot. This spindle must fit into its bearing so nicely that it has less than 1/10.000 of an inch play. Before the dividing engine can be set to

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work the room must have been subjected to a uniform heat for several days, in order that every part of the walls may be uniformly warm, so as to prevent aircurrents from interfering with the accuracy of the work. The room is kept at blood heat, so that the presence of the supervisors of the engine's operations do not interfere with its accuracy.

The Coast and Geodetic Survey was founded in 1807 under President Jefferson, and was then known as the Coast Survey. Its greatest work dates from 1878, when it was broadened to its present scope. Today it employs 700 men, and has become one of the Federal government's most important bureaus, serving well the practical needs of every-day life, and at the same time pioneering in paths of science in a way that has added and is adding to the fund of human knowledge on the subjects with which its investigations deal.

T

HE ninth annual banquet of the National Geographic Society was held at the New Willard Hotel, Washington, D. C., on the evening of March 3, 1914, and was made the occasion of the Society's formal recognition of the eminent services of Col. George W. Goethals, U. S. A., to geography and to the world as the builder of the Panama Canal.

Among the members of the Society and guests present, numbering more than 800, were the President of the United States, with a majority of the members of his Cabinet-Secretary of State Bryan, Secretary of the Interior Lane, Secretary of the Treasury McAdoo, Secretary of Agriculture Houston, Secretary of the Navy Daniels, Secretary of War Garrison, Secretary of Labor Wilson; members of the Supreme Court, Senators and Representatives from nearly every State, diplomatic

representatives of every great foreign nation, officers of the Army and Navy, and men and women prominent in the world of science and letters.

The tables were arranged in the form of a huge gridiron and the banquet hall beautifully decorated with flowers and flags. Behind the speakers' table, high overhead, there was a great blaze of electric lights spelling the union of the oceans and the completion of the canal in the words

ATLANTIC GOETHALS-PACIFIC

The tributes which were paid to the guest of honor by the speakers of the evening were enthusiastically received. by the vast audience. Colonel Goethals was accorded an honor which has been achieved by few men-the distinction of receiving at the hands of the President of the United States a gold medal in

recognition of his services to his country and the world.

President Wilson's presentation speech conveyed to the great engineer the thanks of the nation, and when he said that the name of Goethals was now written where only the wiping out of our present civilization could cause it to be forgotten, and called upon him to rise and receive the highest honor in the gift of the National Geographic Society, the outburst of applause which swept over the vast audience almost drowned the voice of Colonel Goethals as he tried to find words in which to voice his appreciation of the honor done him.

It was plain that he felt more at home "dividing the land and uniting the world" at Panama than he did in receiving a meda! in recognition of his work.

Every speaker of the evening lauded

the work of the Americans at Panama and praised the men to whom the world. owes the canal.

Before presenting the French Ambassador, Mr. J. J. Jusserand, the Toastmaster, Secretary Bryan, announced his election as an Honorary Member of the National Geographic Society, "for the double reason that his nation deserves a part in this great undertaking, and because of the personal interest that he has always manifested in the work of this. Society."

At the end of the speaking Secretary Bryan, the Toastmaster, proposed a toast to the wife who had stood by her husband so loyally during the long and trying siege of work that had been his lot at Panama.

The special medal of the Society is made of heavy Roman gold and bears the following inscription:

"This special medal of the National Geographic Society is awarded to George Washington Goethals, to whose ability and patriotism the world owes the construction of the Panama Canal, March 3, 1914."

A special medal of the National Geographic Society has been awarded only twice before-to Robert E. Peary, December 15, 1909, "for the discovery of the North Pole, April 6, 1909," and to Roald Amundsen, January 11, 1913, "for

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his Antarctic achievements, resulting in the attainment of the South Pole, December 14, 1911."

ADDRESS BY DIRECTOR GROSVENOR

Mr. President, Members of the National Geographic Society:

Owing to the sudden, but not serious, illness of our learned and loved President, Dr. Henry Gannett, and also to the illness of our Vice-President, Dr. Tittmann, the duty of welcoming you here this evening has unexpectedly come to me at the last moment.

On behalf of the Society, I express our very deep appreciation of the fact that the President of the United States, Hon. Woodrow Wilson, whom we all most devotedly serve, has by his presence honored the tribute which we are

giving to the man whose genius built the

Panama Canal.

Before introducing the Toastmaster of the evening. I ask your indulgence for a few moments while I read a few statistics about the work of the National Geo

graphic Society. The 12 months since

we last met in this hall have made the most successful year in the history of the National Geographic Society. Seventyfour thousand new members have been added to the enrollment, making the total present membership of the society two hundred and sixty-one thousand.*

These are distributed in sixteen thousand towns, villages, and hamlets in the United States and in two thousand cities in foreign countries. California in proportion to its population is our banner State, with a membership of twenty-five thousand. New York City leads our cities, with an enrollment of nineteen thousand. There is not a community of one hundred white people in the United States where a member of our Society cannot be found.

The explorations and educational work of the Society during the past year have kept pace with the increase in membership. We have been continuing our researches in Alaska, in Peru, and elsewhere.

Our Magazine has become perhaps the greatest educational journal in the world. *The membership on June 15, 1914, is 289,000.

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It reaches thousands of schools and libraries and is inducing more than one million people each month to read of geographic matters. One month's edition, if the copies were placed one above another, would make fifteen piles as high as the Washington Monument, or, if placed on a book-shelf, would reach from the White House to the Capitol and back again. The Magazine yields the funds to pay for our exploration; for, unlike other scientific societies, our Magazine supports the Society instead of being a drain upon the organization.

These figures are given that all here may appreciate that the ambition of the Society to increase and diffuse geographic knowledge and help the cause of international good-will is being realized.

Through our Magazine we are bringing our citizens nearer to other peoples and also bringing other peoples nearer

to us.

It is now my privilege to present one of the most distinguished members of our Society, Hon. William Jennings Bryan, the Secretary of State, who will direct the proceedings of the evening.

THE TOASTMASTER, WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN, SECRETARY OF STATE

The task of a Toastmaster is always the easiest on the program and easier tonight than it usually is, because those who are to speak to you do not require to be presented with an elaborate explanation. Especially is that true of those who appear as the first and second.

A medal given by this Society will be presented to the guest of the evening, and when the greatest Geographic Society of the world is to honor the most illustrious member of his professon on the globe, because of the successful completion of the most gigantic engineering feat in history, there is but one person to present the medal, the President of the United States.

ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON

I am now so unaccustomed to public speaking that it was with genuine hesitation on my own account that I accepted the invitation of this evening. But I accepted it as a matter of course when the great compliment was paid me of ex

tending it to me, because it seemed to me that it was not only a personal privilege which was offered, but a duty encumbent upon me as a representative of the government of the United States. It seemed to me that, speaking for that government, as well as for the distinguished Society in whose name I am now presenting this medal, it was my duty as it was my privilege to be here.

I am here to do what I suppose is an unusual thing for a Society of this sort. It generally confers its honors upon those who have disclosed geography rather than upon those who have altered it. It is a sort of advertiser and custodian of the globe, and it is now about to honor a gentleman who has had the audacity to change the globe.

The engineering profession is one of the few creative professions. Those of us who have attempted to be literary men conceive that we have created conceptions of the mind, but we never can produce them in court. They are never visibly upon exhibition. But the magic

of the engineer is that he can change the face of nature and show the work of his hands, and that it is in some deep sense creative in character. The life of mankind on the globe is altered, for example, by the cutting and the use of the Panama Canal.

It fails the imagination to think what this work will accomplish. It will create new neighbors. It will generate new friendships; it will make a new atmosphere of rivalry and of generous association. The whole tendency of the routes of trade will be changed, and the routes of trade are the routes of enlightenment. Only when nations touch one another do they cease to be provincial and look out upon the great tasks of humanity, instead of confining themselves to the relatively selfish tasks of their own domestic development, and it is only as we export and import ideas that civilization becomes thoroughly established.

We have, therefore, to honor tonight the greatest living representative of this extraordinary profession.

It seems to me natural, if I may say so with apologies to some of our friends present, that the greatest engineer living should come from the United States.