civil and military maps and the measurement of arcs of the meridian in
Europe, America, and Africa. All these operations were and are based
on the Paris meridian. Nearly all the astronomical tables used at the
present time by the astronomers and the navies of the whole world are
French, and calculated for the Paris meridian. As to what most
particularly concerns shipping, the accurate methods now used by all
nations for hydrographic surveys are of French origin, and our charts,
all reckoned from the meridian of Paris, bear such names as those of
Bougainville, La Pérouse, Fleurieu, Borda, d'Entrecasteaux, Beautemps,
Beaupré, Duperrey, Dumont d'Urville, Daussy, to quote only a few among
those who are not living.

"Our actual hydrographic collections amount to more than 4,000 charts.
By striking off those which the progress of explorations have rendered
useless, there still remain about 2,600 charts in use. Of this number
more than half represent original French surveys, a large part of
which foreign nations have reproduced. Amongst the remainder, the
general charts are the result of discussions undertaken in the Bureau
of the Marine, by utilizing all known documents, French as well as
foreign, and there are relatively few which are mere translations of
foreign works. Our surveys are not confined to the coasts of France
and of its colonies; there is scarcely a region of the globe for which
we do not possess original work--Newfoundland, the coasts of Guiana,
of Brazil, and of La Plata, Madagascar, numerous points of Japan and
of China, 187 original charts relative to the Pacific. We must not
omit the excellent work of our hydrographic engineers on the west
coast of Italy, which was honored by the international jury with the
great medal of honor at the Universal Exhibition of 1867. The
exclusive use of the Paris meridian by our sailors is justified by
reference to a past of two centuries, which we have thus briefly