In December of that year, on the death of Superintendent Patterson, he was himself appointed to the office and continued in the same until, in July, 1885, he was obliged to resign. Among the special work done by him during that period was the construction of a relief model of the basin of the Gulf of Mexico (for which he suggested the name of the "Bay of North America"), and the publication of a memoir on the same, published in the American Journal of Science.