1871-1900 Yaquina Head Lighthouse Letter books

(3)

1868. I obtained from Col. Williamson a map of the survey with all of the 20 feet curves from the Yaquina Bay to Yaquina Point. The sketch forwarded with my report on Cape Foulweather of July 18th is copied from this map and gives the curves on the "Point". From this survey I found that the site was only 70 feet above the sea. I enclose herewith a section on a line near East and West made from the same map as the sketch with my report of July 18th. The ground is quite level for at least 500 feet from the point, after which it begins to rise to the height of 360 feet. Finding such a discrepancy in the levels given by Col. Williamson and by the tracing from the Coast Survey I thought it possible that there might be a mistake in the tracing made by Mr. Chase of the U.S.C.S. but opposite page 132 of the Coast Pilot of Oregon is a sketch of Yaquina Point which agrees exactly with my own recollections which the tracing referred to. If the aneroid barometer was correct the height of the hill above the end of the Point was only 240 feet - or twice as great as the height of the Point above the sea; whereas the sketch shows it is four times as great, which agrees with the levels given on the drawings.

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(4)

In conclusion then I would state, as in my report of July 18th, that Col. Williamson and I have agreed upon the site recommended in that report and upon the erection of a tower higher than fifty feet. The discrepancy in the measurements of the height of the point was not noticed by either and consequently not referred to. The Coast Survey made in 1868, a survey including Yaquina Point (formerly Cape Foulweather) giving the twenty feet curves from this point to Yaquina Bay, which I have taken as more accurate than any survey I could get made and as rendering unnecessary the expense of any survey - especially as while it being made Col. Williamson was in correspondence with Mr. Chase, who was in charge, in order to have him obtain all information useful for the Light House Department.

Very respectfully,

Your obedient servant,

Henry M. Robert

Maj. of Eng'rs & L.H. Eng'r, Thirteenth District

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