ork _De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium_,
fol. 2, appeals to the discovery of America as completing the
demonstration of the sphericity of the earth. Much of our knowledge of
the figure, size, density, and position of the earth, as a member of the
solar system, is derived from this science; and it furnishes us the
means of performing the most important operations of practical
geography. Latitude and longitude, which lie at the basis of all
descriptive geography, are determined by observation. No map deserves
the name, on which the position of important points has not been
astronomically determined. Some even of our most important political and
administrative arrangements depend upon the cooperation of this science.
Among these I may mention the land system of the United States, and the
determination of the boundaries of the country. I believe that till it
was done by the Federal Government, a uniform system of mathematical
survey had never in any country been applied to an extensive territory.
Large grants and sales of public land took place before the Revolution,
and in the interval between the peace and the adoption of the
Constitution; but the limits of these grants and sales were ascertained
by sensible objects, by trees, streams, rocks, hills, and by reference
to adjacent portions of territory, previously surveyed. The uncertainty
of boundaries thus defined, was a never-failing source of litigation.
Large tracts of land in the Western country, granted by Virginia under
this old system of special and local survey, were covered with
conflicting claims; and the controversies to which they gave rise formed
no small part of the business of the Federal Court after its
organization. But the adoption of the present land-system brought order
out of chaos. The entire public domain is now scientifically surveyed
before it is offered for sale; it is laid off into ranges, townships,
sections, and smaller divisions, with unerring accuracy, resting on the
foundation of base and meridian lines; and I have been informed that
under this system, scarce a case of contested location and boundary has
ever presented itself in court. The General Land Office contains maps
and plans, in which every quarter-section of the public land is laid
down with mathematical precision. The superficies of half a continent is
thus transferred in miniature to the bureaus of Washington; while the
local Land Offices contain transcripts of these plans, copies