62 Rhodora [APRIL 
XVII. Botany (author’s name not on title), 1862-1874, with 
Atlas, no title page. 
XVIII. Botany, never published. 
XIX. Geographical Distribution of Animals and Plants, Charles 
Pickering. In signatures, Boston, 1854. 
XX. Herpetology, Charles Girard, 1858, with Atlas, same date. 
XXI & XXII, Ichthyology, never published. * 
XXIII. Hydrography, Charles Wilkes, 1861, with two Atlas 
volumes, both 1858. 
XXIV. Physics, never published. 
This is the list of what we may call the official set, the 100 copies 
authorized by Congress; the volumes are sumptuously bound in full 
morocco, with elaborate ornaments stamped in gilt, eagles, sunbursts 
etc. The Massachusetts set can be seen in the State Library in the 
State House in Boston; it has all the volumes issued with the excep- 
tion of Vols. XVII & XIX. The printed catalogs of the State Li- 
braries of Ohio and California show very nearly the same, and the 
Rhode Island set, deposited with the Rhode Island Historical Society, 
is similar. I have not looked up other state sets, but it may fairly 
be assumed that they are nearly the same. 
Soon after the work was authorized by Congress, protests came in 
from scientific and other societies against the limitation of the edition, 
providing no copies whatever for institutions or the public.! These 
were referred to the Joint Committee on the Library of Congress, 
which reported? recommending 400 additional copies, 285 to be 
distributed to institutions in the country, the remainder to be sold 
to the public. Congress ‘ordered 5000 copies of this report to be 
printed, and then paid no further attention to it. Somewhat grudg- 
ingly, authors were permitted to have additional copies printed at 
their own expense, and this was taken advantage of to a varying 
extent by different authors; copies so issued are what one finds in 
various public and scientific libraries. When not rebound, they are 
in the ordinary black cloth of government publications of the period. 
Of Vol. VI there appear to have been printed 150 such copies, the 
responsibility being taken by the firm of Lea & Blanchard of Phila- 
delphia. I do not think that over 100 copies were printed in this way 
of any other volume, and of some the number was less; in one or two 
1 See Cong. Doc., Vol. 476, No. 327; Vol. 533, No. 57 etc. 
? Cong. Doc., Vol. 477, No. 405. 
