| Show U S coast and geodetic survey charts show how the sea rearranges its bed the seas do not like their living quarters so they build up tear down and rearrange their beds writes elliott roberts in nature magazine all of which adds to the labor of man self appointed record er of the changing movements of the sea and their effect on the con tour of the land the earliest explorers or 01 our shores knew nothing of the deeps and shoals they were blind men groping in a strange house the situation is now remedied by charts of our oceans and coastal waters so that great ships steam confidently where the first comers had to sound their cautious way still we are forever confronted with the sea s restless changes change deepening here shoaling there and the advance or recession of the shoreline on many a mile of coast the chart makers must be forever alert to the latest changes to keep the charts acau rate A surveyor busy on the coast of south carolina stood by his inspru ment on the sandy beach just out of reach of the breaking waves he calculated the location of the station where he stood and was about to put it down on the chart when he blinked what had he founds he checked his work and it was cor according to the old chart his station lay in water many feet deep half a mile from the nearest dry land the united states coast and geodetic survey chart makers for the united states maintains eternal vigilance to keep abreast of all the changes that occur especially on the more unstable and shifting por eions of our coast in many of these thousands of miles of shore line even a few years will see enormous changes the point of rockaway beach opposite new york harbor grows westward some feet year ly a matter of several miles in a 9 lifetime long beach coney island and sandy hook are all ext extending endino themselves toward the channel |
