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 scarce composite atlas features some of the earliest and most desirable Coast Survey charts published up to 1856 under the direction of A.D. Bache. It was intended as a gift to Senator Solomon Foot (Vermont), who in turned gifted it to the Bar Library for the U.S. District of Vermont. The volume consists of a title page, list of charts, and 71 Coast Survey charts. Many desirable charts are featured in the volume including New York Bay and Harbor, Long Island Sound (3 sheets), Nantucket, Edgartown, Delaware Bay (3 sheets), Annapolis, Charleston, Key West, Galveston, San Francisco, and the West Coast (3 sheets). All have printed labels in the upper margins on verso, and a few appear to be engraved (including Edgartown, New Bedford and Cedar Keys). The Boston chart includes a manuscript notation above the title that it is an "unfinished proof." This atlas is not to be confused with the Coast Survey's annual reports, which had a much wider circulation and printed on inferior paper. Hardbound in quarter leather with tips over marbled boards.

References: cf. Phillips #1269; cf. Rumsey #2470.

Condition: B

The charts are good to very good with light toning and offsetting. There is also some occasional creasing, minor foxing, and short binding tears. Covers are moderately scuffed and worn.