The Office of Coast Survey is the oldest U.S. scientific organization, dating from 1807 when Congress directed that a "survey of the coast" be carried out. By 1836, it was called the U.S. Coast Survey and in 1878, the name was changed to the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. Today the Office of Coast Survey is a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NOAA.

The survey teams, composed of civilians as well as Army and Naval officers, charted the nation's waterways and produced a wide array of reports, survey charts, hydrographic studies of tides and currents, astronomical studies and observations, and coastal pilots. These charts are an important record of the changing nature of the nation's coastlines. In additional to coastal charts, the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey produced land sketches, Civil War battle maps, and the early aeronautical charts.

This large and terrific plan illustrates early San Francisco. This very detailed map is similar in title to the 1853 edition, but is a completely different map. On a scale of 6" per mile, the street and building detail is amazing with hundreds of individual houses and buildings located. Topographical detail is shown with 20-ft. contour lines throughout the map. A Table of Reference locates over 70 public buildings and at least seventeen wharves and piers are named. Map extends west to show the Union and Pioneers Race Courses, the Mission de Dolores and Rancho de San Miguel. A large and early plan of San Francisco drawn by A. F. Rodgers with the hydrography by Lieut. R. M. Cuyler.

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Condition: B

There is light offsetting, toning along the folds, and a few tiny fold separations that have been reinforced and repaired on verso with paper. Binding trim at lower left replaced with old paper with the border reinstated in facsimile.