Coast and Geodetic Survey

What is/was a "Coast and Geodetic Survey"?

This is certainly something we should find out about. It was important enough to merit a stamp, and, after all, it went on for at least 150 years (a Sesquicentennial!). The ocean was somehow involved ("Coast" and a long line of ships), but what are we mere laymen to make of "Geodetic?"

Dictionary.com gives us some useful information about "Geodetic." The first definition it returns is this, from the American Heritage Dictionary:

ge·o·det·ic also ge·o·det·i·cal
adj.
Geodesic.

Umm, thanks.

Next, from Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (hooray for Webster's!):

geodetic
\Ge`o*det"ic\, Geodetical \Ge`o*det"ic*al\, a.
Of or pertaining to geodesy; obtained or determined by the operations of geodesy; engaged in geodesy; geodesic; as, geodetic surveying; geodetic observers.

Great. 22 words to accomplish what the American Heritage got done in one. All is not lost, however; Webster's continues:

Geodetic line or curve, the shortest line that can be drawn between two points on the elipsoidal surface of the earth; a curve drawn on any given surface so that the osculating plane of the curve at every point shall contain the normal to the surface; the minimum line that can be drawn on any surface between any two points.

Oh, OK. If we ignore the big words like "elipsoidal" and "osculating" and avoid the technical phrases such as "normal to the surface", we're left with something along the lines of "how far from Point A to Point B, as the crow flies". Is that it? I suppose so.

And now, apparently, the Coast and Geodetic Survey is part of the NOAA:

The National Geodetic Survey, our Nation's first civilian scientific agency, was established by President Thomas Jefferson in 1807 as the Survey of the Coast. Its mission soon included surveys of the interior as the nation grew westward. In 1878 the agency was reorganized and given a new name, the Coast and Geodetic Survey (C&GS), which it maintained until 1970.

In 1970 a reorganization created the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Ocean Service (NOS) was created as a line office of NOAA. To acknowledge the geodetic portion of NOAA mission, the part of NOS responsible for geodetic functions was named the National Geodetic Survey.

So. There you have it.

(And if you follow the link to the NOAA site, be sure to see the Poetry Corner. It's not to be missed.)