ical administration, in view of the increasing volume of work and the constant growing demand for the results of the Survey. Increases made in the compensation of the computers, engravers, and mechanicians, and in the lower grades of clerks, and of certain other employees, have been of considerable benefit to the efficiency of the personnel in enabling the Survey to retain employees who would otherwise have sought advancement by transfer to other departments or in private employment. A large amount of time and labor were devoted to answering calls for information from the President's Commission on Efficiency and Economy and the preparation of data called for by Congress. Improvements in methods and processes have been made in many branches of the work, tending to increased output and improved quality of results. The appropriation for the Coast and Geodetic Survey for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1911, was $1,005,120, divided as follows: The exacting demands of modern navigation, due to increased traffic, larger size and draft of vessels, and the improvement of channels and harbors, require a corresponding extension of the surveys required to keep the charts up to date. A new chart may require extensive corrections soon after it is issued, and when the number of corrections becomes very great, a new edition becomes necessary. Surveys must be made at frequent intervals to keep pace with changes due to natural causes, to artificial improvements, changes in lights and buoys, and newly discovered rocks and shoals. Many waterways formerly but little frequented and now extensively used, and the great development of motor boating, has caused an extensive demand for accurate charts of the inland waterways and shallower waters along the coast. Data concerning tides and currents and the deflection of the compass needle are necessary for the use of the navigator and are embodied for his use on the charts and in the Coast Pilots and Tide Tables and in other publications. The positions of lighthouses and other aids to navigation must be accurately determined, and finally important channels and harbors must be carefully gone over with the wire drag to make certain that no hidden dangers have been overlooked by the ordinary methods of surveying. While the whole of the Atlantic coast and the greater part of the Pacific coast of the main portion of the United States have been covered by detailed surveys, resurveys are constantly needed and will always be needed to furnish information required by changed conditions. Demands are constantly made for new surveys of harbors on the coast of Alaska, as the development of that Territory is largely dependent on accurate surveys of the coast and waterways. To meet this need all the vessels of the Survey on the Pacific coast have been employed on that coast during the season available for work. Attention is again called to the importance of providing means for carrying a scheme of triangulation down the valley of the Yukon River, from the international boundary to the mouth of the river, as a basis for economic surveys in Alaska. To Hon. CHARLES NAGEL, O. H. TITTMANN, Secretary of Commerce and Labor. REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF NAVIGATION. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND LABOR, BUREAU OF NAVIGATION, Washington, November 18, 1911. SIR: I have the honor to submit herewith my annual report. The statistical information required by law may be found in the appendixes and statistical tables.1 It is the province and duty of the Department of Commerce and Labor, under the statute creating it, to foster, promote, and develop the foreign and domestic commerce, the shipping and fishery industries, and the transportation facilities of the United States. Congress has directed the Commissioner of Navigation to investigate the operation of the laws relative to navigation and to report annually to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor such particulars as may, in his judgment, admit of improvement or may require amendment. Under this mandate these reports present annually statements of facts with suggestions concerning legislation of more or less scope and deemed to be more or less useful. Some such amendments are considered in the later pages of this report. PANAMA CANAL TOLLS. At the coming session of Congress doubtless the policy of the United States with reference to Panama Canal tolls will be settled. The date when the canal will be opened to trade is drawing so near and the time required to prepare for the full use of the canal is growing so short that action can not well be delayed without detriment to all concerned to the people of the United States who are investing nearly $400,000,000 in the enterprise, as well as to those who are to furnish the ships and the cargoes to pass through the canal. The interest charge alone on the capital invested in the canal will be about $30,000 a day-to state one fixed and certain item in the costand to provide for the use of the canal to the fullest practicable extent from the day it will be open to trade is the duty of all those charged with the obligations of trustees. The policy with reference to canal tolls which Congress may adopt at the coming session is more important to American navigation than any change in the navigation laws which has been seriously considered in a generation. Of late years subsidies to shipping, free ships for foreign trade, and even discriminating duties have had more or less consideration in the Senate and the House of Representatives. All of these propositions look to the extension of American shipping and Appendixes and statistical tables not printed in this volume. See note on p. 699. |