60 Rhodora [APRIL 
remarkably accurate list of works referred to, but the 1862 paper is 
said to be in Vol. XIII, not XVII, of the Wilkes Expedition reports. 
This is probably a misprint, but, as will be seen later, some of the 
memoirs of this series may be found in different copies with different 
title pages, and there may have been an error in the volume number 
in this case. Unfortunately, the question cannot now be settled, as 
the copy used was destroyed in the San Francisco fire. 
Miss Tilden makes no reference to the 1862 paper, and omits 
Bailey as joint author of the 1851 paper, placing it under W. H. 
Harvey only; and the date is vaguely given as 1848-1851. 
With our present recognition of the necessity of accuracy in matters 
of publication and citation, such baffling and misleading work would 
be little short of criminal. Even after making allowance for the looser 
treatment prevailing fifty years ago, it is difficult to understand it. 
The two genera in question have been subjects of considerable study 
and discussion, and the fact that a date of publication later than the 
true one has been assigned to them might have had serious results in 
nomenclature. De Toni’s Sylloge is the index to which one naturally 
first refers when looking up matters of this kind. In Vol. I, p. 439, 
1889, we find “ Chlorodesmis Bail. et Harv. [1858] in Harv. Ner. bor. 
Am. III, p. 29." In Vol. III, p. 224, 1895, “ Notheia Bail. et Harv. 
[1855] in Hook. Fl. of New Zeal. II, p. 215 et Botany of Wilke's 
Expedition (ined.)" These should now read Harvey & Bailey 
[1851] in Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., Vol. III, p. 371 & p. 373. 
It may be of interest to note that specimens of many of the species, 
some of them evidently the individuals from which the plates were 
drawn, are in the herbarium of Brown University, Providence, Rhode 
Island, where Professor W. W. Bailey, son of J. W. Bailey, was for 
many years at the head of the department of botany. 
When we look up the history of the whole work, the element of 
uncertainty and inconsistency that we found as to the paper on algae 
is still noticeable. "The Act of Congress authorizing the work, under 
date of Aug. 26, 1846, provides for a series of volumes similar to those 
of the Voyage of the Astrolabe, to be issued in 100 copies, and dis- 
tributed as follows: — one copy each to Captains Wilkes, Hudson 
and Ringgold, one to the Library of Congress, one to the Naval 
Lyceum at Brooklyn, one to each State of the Union, one to each 
friendly foreign power, and one additional copy each to France and 
Great Britain. The number of states increased during the period 
