Bryozoa
Bryozoa are a phylum of aquatic invertebrate animals. About 0.5 millimetres long, they are filter feeders that sieve food particles out of the water using a retractable lophophore, a "crown" of tentacles lined with cilia. Most marine species live in tropical waters, but a few occur in oceanic trenches, others are found in polar waters. One class lives only in a variety of freshwater environments, a few members of a marine class prefer brackish water. Over 4,000 living species are known. One genus is solitary and the rest are colonial; the phylum was called "Polyzoa", but this term was superseded by "Bryozoa" in 1831. Another group of animals discovered subsequently, whose filtering mechanism looked similar, was included in "Bryozoa" until 1869, when the two groups were noted to be different internally; the more discovered group was given the name Entoprocta, while the original "Bryozoa" were called "Ectoprocta". However, "Bryozoa" has remained the more used term for the latter group. Individuals in bryozoan colonies are called zooids, since they are not independent animals.
All colonies contain autozooids, which are responsible for excretion. Colonies of some classes have various types of non-feeding specialist zooids, some of which are hatcheries for fertilized eggs, some classes have special zooids for defense of the colony; the class Cheilostomata have the largest number of species because they have the widest range of specialist zooids. A few species can creep slowly by using spiny defensive zooids as legs. Autozooids supply nutrients to non-feeding zooids by channels. All zooids, including those of the solitary species, consist of a cystid that provides the body wall and produces the exoskeleton and a polypide that contains the internal organs and the lophophore or other specialist extensions. Zooids have no special excretory organs, the polypides of autozooids are scrapped when the polypides become overloaded by waste products. In autozooids the gut is U-shaped, with the mouth inside the "crown" of tentacles and the anus outside it. Colonies take a variety of forms, including fans and sheets.
The Cheilostomata produce mineralized exoskeletons and form single-layered sheets which encrust over surfaces. Zooids of all the freshwater species are simultaneous hermaphrodites. Although those of many marine species function first as males and as females, their colonies always contain a combination of zooids that are in their male and female stages. All species emit sperm into the water; some release ova into the water, while others capture sperm via their tentacles to fertilize their ova internally. In some species the larvae have large yolks, go to feed, settle on a surface. Others feed for a few days before settling. After settling, all larvae undergo a radical metamorphosis that destroys and rebuilds all the internal tissues. Freshwater species produce statoblasts that lie dormant until conditions are favorable, which enables a colony's lineage to survive if severe conditions kill the mother colony. Predators of marine bryozoans include nudibranchs, sea urchins, crustaceans and starfish.
Freshwater bryozoans are preyed on by snails and fish. In Thailand, many populations of one freshwater species have been wiped out by an introduced species of snail. A fast-growing invasive bryozoan off the northeast and northwest coasts of the US has reduced kelp forests so much that it has affected local fish and invertebrate populations. Bryozoans have spread diseases to fish fishermen. Chemicals extracted from a marine bryozoan species have been investigated for treatment of cancer and Alzheimer's disease, but analyses have not been encouraging. Mineralized skeletons of bryozoans first appear in rocks from the Early Ordovician period, making it the last major phylum to appear in the fossil record; this has led researchers to suspect that bryozoans arose earlier but were unmineralized, may have differed from fossilized and modern forms. Early fossils are of erect forms, but encrusting forms became dominant, it is uncertain. Bryozoans' evolutionary relationships to other phyla are unclear because scientists' view of the family tree of animals is influenced by better-known phyla.
Both morphological and molecular phylogeny analyses disagree over bryozoans' relationships with entoprocts, about whether bryozoans should be grouped with brachiopods and phoronids in Lophophorata, whether bryozoans should be considered protostomes or deuterostomes. Bryozoans and brachiopods strain food out of the water by means of a lophophore, a "crown" of hollow tentacles. Bryozoans form colonies consisting of clones called zooids that are about 0.5 millimetres long. Phoronids resemble bryozoan zooids but are 2 to 20 centimetres long and, although they grow in clumps, do not form colonies consisting of clones. Brachiopods thought to be related to bryozoans and phoronids, are distinguished by having shells rather like those of bivalves. All three of these phyla have a coelom, an internal cavity lined by mesothelium; some encrusting bryozoan colonies with mineralized exoskeletons look like small corals. However, bryozoan colonies are founded by an ancestrula, round rather than shaped like a normal zooid of that species.
On the other hand, the founding
Jeffersonville, Indiana
Jeffersonville is a city in Clark County, along the Ohio River. Locally, the city is referred to by the abbreviated name Jeff, it is directly across the Ohio River to the north of Louisville, along I-65. The population was 44,953 at the 2010 census; the city is the county seat of Clark County. Jeffersonville started life as a settlement around Fort Finney some time after 1786, was named for Thomas Jefferson in 1801, the year he took office. In 1786 Fort Finney was situated where the Kennedy Bridge is today to protect the area from Native Americans, a settlement grew around the fort; the fort was renamed in 1791 to Fort Steuben in honor of Baron von Steuben. In 1793 the fort was abandoned; when the settlement became known as Jeffersonville is unclear, but it was around 1801, the year in which President Thomas Jefferson took office. In 1802 local residents used a grid pattern designed by Thomas Jefferson for the formation of a city. On September 13, 1803, a post office was established in the city. In 1808 Indiana's second federal land sale office was established in Jeffersonville, which initiated a growth in settling in Indiana, further spurred by the end of the War of 1812.
Shortly after formation, Jeffersonville was named to be the county seat of Clark County in 1802, replacing Springville. In 1812 Charlestown was named the county seat, but the county seat returned to Jeffersonville in 1878, where it remains. In 1813 and 1814 Jeffersonville was the de facto capital of the Indiana Territory, as then-governor Thomas Posey disliked then-capital Corydon, wanting to be closer to his personal physician in Louisville, decided to live in Jeffersonville. However, it is debated by some that Dennis Pennington had some involvement to his location to Jeffersonville; the territorial legislature communicated with Posey by messenger. The Civil War increased the importance of Jeffersonville, as the city was one of the principal gateways to the South during the war, due to its location directly opposite Louisville, it had the waterway of the Ohio River. This factor influenced its selection as one of the principal bases for supplies and troops for the Union Army. Operating in the South, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad furnished the connecting link between Louisville and the rest of the South.
Camp Joe Holt was instrumental in keeping Kentucky within the Union. The third largest Civil War hospital, Jefferson General Hospital was located in nearby Port Fulton from 1864 to 1866, as it was close to the river and Louisville; the original land was seized by the federal government from the Honorable Jesse D. Bright, United States Senator, a sympathizer of the Confederate cause. During the war it housed 16,120 patients in its 5,200 beds and was under the command of Dr. Middleton Goldsmith. A cemetery was built for fallen soldiers down the hill, but the wooden grave markers had decayed by 1927, causing the Jeffersonville city council to build a ball field over the cemetery, not bothering to move the graves, located on Crestview Avenue; the Jeffersonville Quartermaster Intermediate Depot had its first beginning in the early days of the Civil War, near its present location. By 1870, 17% of Jeffersonville residents were foreign-born from Germany. During the 1920s, Jeffersonville was a popular gathering place for the Ku Klux Klan, as Louisville and New Albany had strong anti-Klan laws and Jeffersonville did not.
Gambling in the 1930s and 1940s was instrumental in Jeffersonville's recovery from the Great Depression and the Flood of 1937. Casinos, betting parlors, night clubs, a dog track were present, giving the town the nickname "Little Las Vegas". After Clarence Amster, a New Albany businessman was gunned down on July 2, 1937, public sentiment turned against gambling. On January 2, 1948, Indiana State Police raided every casino in the city before the operators could warn each other, the judge who had devoted the past nine years to eliminating gambling from Jeffersonville, James L. Bottorff, ensured that the equipment was confiscated and the money at the casinos given to charity; this may have played a factor in keeping Jeffersonville residents from voting to approve riverboat gambling in the 1990s. In 2006, riverboat gambling was approved, but for the return of gambling to occur the Indiana State legislature would either have to approve an additional riverboat, or one of the existing riverboats in Indiana would have to relocate to Jeffersonville.
During World War II, the Quartermaster Depot, in conjunction with Fort Knox, Kentucky housed German prisoners of war until 1945. Now the Depot is used as a shopping center. In 1819 the first shipbuilding took place in Jeffersonville, steamboats would become key to Jeffersonville's economy. In 1834, James Howard built his first steamboat, named the Hyperion, in Jeffersonville, he established his ship building company in Jeffersonville that year but moved his business to Madison, Indiana in 1836 and remained there until 1844. Howard returned his business to the Jeffersonville area to its final location in Port Fulton in 1849. In 1925 the United States Navy assumed control of the Howard Ship Yards until 1941, after Jeffersonville annexed Port Fulton. During World War II, the shipyards built landing vessels such as the LST, it was established as the Jeffersonville Boat & Machine Company simply known as Jeffboat, which still supports the local economy. The history of shipbuilding in Jeffersonville is the focus of the Howard Steamboat Museum.
There is an annual festival held in September called Steamboat Days that celebrates Jeffersonville's heritage. On February 5, 2008 the c
Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls is the collective name for three waterfalls that straddle the international border between the Canadian province of Ontario and the US state of New York. They form the southern end of the Niagara Gorge. From largest to smallest, the three waterfalls are the Horseshoe Falls, the American Falls and the Bridal Veil Falls; the Horseshoe Falls lie on the border of the United States and Canada while the American Falls lie on the United States' side, separated by Goat Island. The smaller Bridal Veil Falls are on the United States' side, separated from the American Falls by Luna Island. Located on the Niagara River, which drains Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, the combined falls form the highest flow rate of any waterfall in North America that has a vertical drop of more than 50 metres. During peak daytime tourist hours, more than 168,000 m3 of water goes over the crest of the falls every minute. Horseshoe Falls is the most powerful waterfall in North America; the falls are 27 kilometres north-northwest of Buffalo, New York, 121 kilometres south-southeast of Toronto, between the twin cities of Niagara Falls and Niagara Falls, New York.
Niagara Falls was formed when glaciers receded at the end of the Wisconsin glaciation, water from the newly formed Great Lakes carved a path through the Niagara Escarpment en route to the Atlantic Ocean. Niagara Falls is famed both as a valuable source of hydroelectric power. Balancing recreational and industrial uses has been a challenge for the stewards of the falls since the 19th century; the Horseshoe Falls drop about 57 metres, while the height of the American Falls varies between 21 and 30 metres because of the presence of giant boulders at its base. The larger Horseshoe Falls are about 790 metres wide; the distance between the American extremity of the Niagara Falls and the Canadian extremity is 3,409 feet. The peak flow over Horseshoe Falls was recorded at 6,400 cubic metres per second; the average annual flow rate is 2,400 cubic metres per second. Since the flow is a direct function of the Lake Erie water elevation, it peaks in late spring or early summer. During the summer months, at least 2,800 cubic metres per second of water traverses the falls, some 90% of which goes over the Horseshoe Falls, while the balance is diverted to hydroelectric facilities.
This is accomplished by employing a weir – the International Control Dam – with movable gates upstream from the Horseshoe Falls. The falls' flow is further halved at night, during the low tourist season in the winter, remains a minimum of 1,400 cubic metres per second. Water diversion is regulated by the 1950 Niagara Treaty and is administered by the International Niagara Board of Control; the verdant green colour of the water flowing over the Niagara Falls is a byproduct of the estimated 60 tonnes/minute of dissolved salts and "rock flour" generated by the erosive force of the Niagara River itself. The features that became Niagara Falls were created by the Wisconsin glaciation about 10,000 years ago; the same forces created the North American Great Lakes and the Niagara River. All were dug by a continental ice sheet that drove through the area, deepening some river channels to form lakes, damming others with debris. Scientists argue there is an old valley, St David's Buried Gorge, buried by glacial drift, at the approximate location of the present Welland Canal.
When the ice melted, the upper Great Lakes emptied into the Niagara River, which followed the rearranged topography across the Niagara Escarpment. In time, the river cut a gorge through cuesta; because of the interactions of three major rock formations, the rocky bed did not erode evenly. The top rock formation was composed of erosion-resistant Lockport dolostone; that hard layer of stone eroded more than the underlying materials. The aerial photo on the right shows the hard caprock, the Lockport Formation, which underlies the rapids above the falls, the upper third of the high gorge wall. Below the hard-rock formation, comprising about two-thirds of the cliff, lay the weaker, sloping Rochester Formation; this formation was composed of shale, though it has some thin limestone layers. It contains ancient fossils. In time, the river eroded the soft layer that supported the hard layers, undercutting the hard caprock, which gave way in great chunks; this process repeated countless times carving out the falls.
Submerged in the river in the lower valley, hidden from view, is the Queenston Formation, composed of shales and fine sandstones. All three formations were laid down in an ancient sea, their differences of character deriving from changing conditions within that sea. About 10,900 years ago, the Niagara Falls was between present-day Queenston and Lewiston, New York, but erosion of their crest has caused the waterfalls to retreat 6.8 miles southward. The Horseshoe Falls, which are about 2,600 feet wide, have changed their shape through the process of erosion. Just upstream from the falls' current location, Goat Island splits the course of the Niagara River, resulting in the separation of the Canadian Horseshoe Falls to the west from the American and Bridal Veil Falls to the east. Engineering has slowed recession; the current rate of erosion is appr
Interpretation centre
An interpretation centre, interpretive centre, or visitor interpretive centre is an institution for dissemination of knowledge of natural or cultural heritage. Interpretation centres are a kind of new-style museum associated with visitor centres or ecomuseums, located in connection to cultural, historic or natural sites. Interpretation centres use different means of communication to enhance the understanding of heritage. To aid and stimulate the discovery process and the visitor's intellectual and emotional connection to heritage, the main presentation strategy tends to be user-friendly and interactive, use scenographic exhibitions and multimedia programs. Many interpretation centres have temporary exhibitions related to a specific aspect of the site. An interpretation centre can be a viable solution for effective communication of heritage information in municipalities and rural areas where resources may not exist to establish a traditional, full-scale museum, where heritage can be an important factor for tourism development.
Unlike traditional museums, interpretation centres do not aim to collect and study objects. They work to raise awareness. Non-core jobs as conservation and research are services done by specialized, external entities. Nature centre Heritage interpretation Science centre Interpretive planning
New Albany, Indiana
New Albany is a city in Floyd County, United States, situated along the Ohio River opposite Louisville, Kentucky. The population was 36,372 at the 2010 census; the city is the county seat of Floyd County. It is bounded by I-265 to the north and the Ohio River to the south, is considered part of the Louisville, Kentucky Metropolitan Statistical Area; the mayor of New Albany is a Democrat. The land of New Albany was granted to the United States after the American Revolutionary War; the territory had been captured by George Rogers Clark in 1779. For his services Clark was awarded large tracts of land in Southern Indiana including most of Floyd County. After the war Clark distributed some of his land to his fellow soldiers; the area of New Albany ended up in the possession of Col. John Paul. New Albany was founded in July 1813 when three brothers from New York —Joel and Nathaniel Scribner—arrived at the Falls of the Ohio and named the site after the city of Albany, New York, they purchased the land from Col. John Paul.
New Albany was platted by John Graham on the land owned by the Scribner brothers. In 1814 Joel and Mary Scribner built their home in New Albany. New Albany was incorporated as a town in 1817 as part of Clark County. In 1819, three years after Indiana was admitted as a state, New Albany became the seat of government for newly established Floyd County. A courthouse was built in 1824. New Albany grew and was the largest city in Indiana from 1816 until 1860 when overtaken by Indianapolis. Before the Civil War, over half of Hoosiers worth over $100,000 lived in New Albany, making it by far the wealthiest part of the state; the steamboat industry was the engine of the city's economy during the mid-19th century. Fueled by abundant forests for lumber, at least a half-dozen shipbuilders were in operation and turned out a multitude of steamboats and packet boats, including the Robert E. Lee, Eliza Battle, the Eclipse, the A. A. Shotwell. Shipbuilding was accompanied by a wide range of ancillary business including machine shops, foundries and furniture factories, silversmith shops.
Its second largest business was the American Plate Glass Works. In 1847 the city was connected to the port at Michigan City, Indiana on Lake Michigan via the Monon railroad. In 1853 the New Albany High School opened, the first public high school in the state; the original school was built at the corner of West First Spring Street. New Albany would be the first in the state to create a consolidated school district several years later. Ashbel P. Willard, governor of the state of Indiana and a native of New Albany, dedicated the Floyd County Fairgrounds in 1859; that year, the Indiana State Fair was held in New Albany. During the Civil War, the fairgrounds were converted to become Camp Noble and used as a muster point for the area's regiments. During the Civil War New Albany served as both a supply center for Union troops and as a medical care center for wounded soldiers. Up to 1,500 wounded soldiers were treated in New Albany during the war, many non medical buildings were converted into makeshift hospitals.
In 1862, Abraham Lincoln established one of the first seven national cemeteries in New Albany for burying the many war dead. Despite the ongoing war, a new courthouse was built in 1865, used until the 1960s when the current City-County courthouse was constructed the first in Indiana; the Town Clock Church, now the Second Baptist Church, was used as the New Albany stop in the Underground Railroad. The original steeple was destroyed by a lightning strike in 1915 and a new replica steeple wasn't completed until 101 years in 2016. During the American Civil War the trade with the South dwindled, as New Albany was boycotted by both sides, by Confederates because it was in a Union state and by the North because it was considered as too friendly to the South. Indianapolis overtook New Albany as Indiana's largest city in 1860 and across the river Louisville's population grew much faster, New Albany never regained its original stature; the once robust steamboat industry ended by 1870, with the last steamboat built in New Albany named, the Robert E. Lee.
During the second half of the 19th century New Albany experienced an industrial boom despite the collapse of the steamboat industry. The advent of the railroad created economic opportunity for the city as a pork packing and locomotive repair center. A bridge was built across the Ohio River in 1886 providing a road connection with Kentucky. American Plate Glass Works opened in 1865; when the factory relocated in 1893 New Albany lost a large part of its population and went into economic decline. In the early 20th century, New Albany became a center of plywood and veneer, its largest employer was the New Albany Veneering Company. By 1920, New Albany was the largest producer of plywood and veneer in the world with other producers including Indiana Veneer Panel Company and Hoosier Panel Company. On March 23, 1917, a tornado struck the north side of New Albany. Interstate 64 was built through New Albany in 1961 and led to the construction of the Sherman Minton Bridge; the project cost $14.8 million. The bridge was named for US Senator and Supreme Court Justice Sherman Minton, a native of nearby Georgetown and practiced law in New Albany.
The bridge was named the "most beautiful long-span bridge of 1961" by the American Institute of Steel Construction. Charles A. Prosser lived in New Albany for much of his life. Charles Allen Prosser School of Technology was named in honor of his accomplishments as the "father of vocational education." In the mid and late 20th century, New Albany became an
Louisville, Kentucky, in the American Civil War
Louisville in the American Civil War was a major stronghold of Union forces, which kept Kentucky in the Union. It was the center of planning, supplies and transportation for numerous campaigns in the Western Theater. By the end of the war, Louisville had not been attacked once, although skirmishes and battles, including the battles of Perryville and Corydon, took place nearby. During the 1850s, Louisville became a vibrant and wealthy city, but together with the success, the city harbored racial and ethnic tensions, it attracted numerous immigrants, had a large slave market from which enslaved African Americans were sold to the Deep South, had both slaveholders and abolitionists as residents. In 1850 Louisville became the tenth largest city in the United States. Louisville's population rose from 10,000 in 1830 to 43,000 in 1850, it became an important tobacco pork packing center. By 1850, Louisville's wholesale trade totaled $20 million in sales; the Louisville–New Orleans river route held top rank in freight and passenger traffic on the entire Western river system.
Not only did Louisville profit from the river, but in August 1855, its citizens greeted the arrival of the locomotive "Hart County" at Ninth and Broadway and connection to the nation via railroad. The first passengers arrived by train on the Frankfort Railroad. James Guthrie, president of the Louisville & Frankfort, pushed the railroad along the Shelbyville turnpike through Gilman's Point and on to Frankfort; the track ended at Brook Street. The state paid tribute to James Guthrie by naming the small railroad community of Guthrie, Kentucky in Todd County after him. Leven Shreve, a Louisville civic leader, became the first president of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, to prove more important for trade, it linked with Mississippi River traffic. With the railroads, Louisville could manufacture furniture and other goods, export products to Southern cities. Louisville was on her way to becoming an industrial city; the Louisville Rolling Mill built girders and rails, other factories made cotton machinery, sold to Southern customers.
Louisville built steamboats. Louisville emerged with an iron-working industry. Louisville became a meat packing city, becoming the second largest city in the nation to pack pork, butchering an average of 300,000 hogs a year. Louisville led the nation in hemp cotton bagging. Farmington Plantation, owned by John Speed, was one of the larger hemp plantations in Louisville. Hemp was Kentucky's leading agricultural product from 1840 to 1860, the leading commodity crop of the fertile Bluegrass Region. Jefferson County led all other markets in gardening and orchards; the sales of livestock, quality horses and cattle, was important. Attracted by jobs and pushed by political unrest and famine, European immigrants flowed into the city from Germany and Ireland. By 1850, 359,980 immigrants arrived in the United States, by 1854, 427,833 immigrants arrived to seek out a new living. With the increase in new immigrants in the city, native Louisville residents felt threatened by change, began to express anti-foreign, anti-Catholic sentiments.
In 1841, the growth in population prompted the Catholic archdiocese to move the bishop's seat from Bardstown to Louisville. The archdiocese began construction on a new Catholic cathedral, completed in 1852; this asserted Catholic presence in the city. In 1843, a new political party called the American Republican Party. On July 5, 1845, the American Republican party changed their name to the Native American Party and held their first national convention in Philadelphia; the party opposed liberal immigration policies. On June 17, 1854, the Order of the Star Spangled Banner held its second national convention in New York City; the members were anti-Catholic. When the members answered questions about the group, they responded with "I know nothing about it," giving rise to the nickname Know-Nothing for the Native American Party; the new political party gained national support. The Know-Nothing party encouraged and tapped into the nation's prejudice and fears that Catholic immigrants would take control of the United States.
Hostility to Catholics had a long history based on national rivalries in Europe. By 1854, the Know-Nothings gained control of Jefferson County's government. Ethnic tension came during the mayor's office election. On August 6, 1855, "Bloody Monday" erupted, in which Protestant mobs bullied immigrants away from the polls and began rioting in Irish and German neighborhoods. Protestant mobs killed at least twenty-two people; the rioting progressed through the city's East End. After burning houses on Shelby Street, the mob headed for William Ambruster's brewery in the triangle between Baxter Avenue and Liberty Street, they set ten Germans died in the fire. When the mob burned Quinn's Irish Row on the North side of Main between Eleventh and Twelfth Streets, some tenants died in the fire; the Know-Nothing party won the election in many other Kentucky counties. As in other cities, slavery was a consuming topic. Slave traders' revenues, those from feeding and transporting the slaves to the Deep South, all contributed to the city's economy.
The direct use of slaves as labor in the central Kentucky economy had
United States Army Corps of Engineers
The United States Army Corps of Engineers is a U. S. federal agency under the Department of Defense and a major Army command made up of some 37,000 civilian and military personnel, making it one of the world's largest public engineering and construction management agencies. Although associated with dams and flood protection in the United States, USACE is involved in a wide range of public works throughout the world; the Corps of Engineers provides outdoor recreation opportunities to the public, provides 24% of U. S. hydropower capacity. The corps' mission is to "Deliver vital military engineering services. Other civil engineering projects include flood control, beach nourishment, dredging for waterway navigation. Design and construction of flood protection systems through various federal mandates. Design and construction management of military facilities for the Army, Air Force, Army Reserve and Air Force Reserve and other Defense and Federal agencies. Environmental regulation and ecosystem restoration.
The history of United States Army Corps of Engineers can be traced back to 16 June 1775, when the Continental Congress organized an army with a chief engineer and two assistants. Colonel Richard Gridley became General George Washington's first chief engineer. One of his first tasks was to build fortifications near Boston at Bunker Hill; the Continental Congress recognized the need for engineers trained in military fortifications and asked the government of King Louis XVI of France for assistance. Many of the early engineers in the Continental Army were former French officers. Louis Lebègue Duportail, a lieutenant colonel in the French Royal Corps of Engineers, was secretly sent to America in March 1777 to serve in Washington's Continental Army. In July 1777 he was appointed colonel and commander of all engineers in the Continental Army, in November 17, 1777, he was promoted to brigadier general; when the Continental Congress created a separate Corps of Engineers in May 1779 Duportail was designated as its commander.
In late 1781 he directed the construction of the allied U. S.-French siege works at the Battle of Yorktown. From 1794 to 1802 the engineers were combined with the artillery as the Corps of Artillerists and Engineers; the Corps of Engineers, as it is known today, came into existence on 16 March 1802, when President Thomas Jefferson signed the Military Peace Establishment Act whose aim was to "organize and establish a Corps of Engineers... that the said Corps... shall be stationed at West Point in the State of New York and shall constitute a military academy." Until 1866, the superintendent of the United States Military Academy was always an officer of engineer. The General Survey Act of 1824 authorized the use of Army engineers to survey canal routes; that same year, Congress passed an "Act to Improve the Navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers" and to remove sand bars on the Ohio and "planters, sawyers, or snags" on the Mississippi, for which the Corps of Engineers was the responsible agency.
Separately authorized on 4 July 1838, the U. S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers consisted only of officers and was used for mapping and the design and construction of federal civil works and other coastal fortifications and navigational routes, it was merged with the Corps of Engineers on 31 March 1863, at which point the Corps of Engineers assumed the Lakes Survey District mission for the Great Lakes. In 1841, Congress created the Lake Survey; the survey, based in Detroit, Mich. was charged with conducting a hydrographical survey of the Northern and Northwestern Lakes and preparing and publishing nautical charts and other navigation aids. The Lake Survey published its first charts in 1852. In the mid-19th century, Corps of Engineers' officers ran Lighthouse Districts in tandem with U. S. Naval officers; the Army Corps of Engineers played a significant role in the American Civil War. Many of the men who would serve in the top leadership in this institution were West Point graduates who rose to military fame and power during the Civil War.
Some of these men were Union Generals George McClellan, Henry Halleck, George Meade, Confederate generals Robert E. Lee, Joseph Johnston, P. G. T. Beauregard; the versatility of officers in the Army Corps of Engineers contributed to the success of numerous missions throughout the Civil War. They were responsible for building pontoon and railroad bridges and batteries, the destruction of enemy supply lines, the construction of roads; the Union forces were not the only ones to employ the use of engineers throughout the war, on 6 March 1861, once the South had seceded from the Union, among the different acts passed at the time, a provision was included that called for the creation of a Confederate Corps of Engineers. The progression of the war demonstrated the South's disadvantage in engineering expertise. To overcome this obstacle, the Confederate Congress passed legislation that gave a company of engineers to every division in the field. One of the main projects for the Army Corps of Engineers was constructing railroads and bridges, which Union forces took advantage of because railroads and bridges provided access to resources and industry.
One area where the Confederate engineers were able to outperform the Union Army was in the ability to build fortification
