66 Rhodora [APRIL 
that a library had something to do with literature, put the matter in 
charge of the Joint Committee on the Library of Congress, with which 
it remained from 1852 to 1874, the date of the last issue. The com- 
mittee, its membership continually changing, left the whole matter 
practically in the charge of Wilkes, who dealt with authors and printers 
much as he was accustomed to do with sailors and marines. The 
qualities that made him an excellent commander of an exploring 
expedition, accomplishing a work of lasting credit to the navy and 
the nation! were not suited to estimating the value of scientific 
memoirs. We have already seen how Peale’s memoir was treated by 
him. . William Rich, the botanist of the expedition,” prepared a volume 
on botany, which was never printed; Louis Agassiz two volumes on 
ichthyology, Gray a second volume on botany; the manuscripts of 
these are probably somewhere in Washington; but of course the long 
time since they were written would make their publication out of the 
question now. The Library of Congress claims to have a volume, 
without title, of the plates prepared for Agassiz’s memoir. If printed 
at all, no doubt the 100 copies were printed, but the Museum of 
Comparative Zoology, Agassiz’s own Museum, knows nothing of 
them.? 
There is no evidence of anything dishonest on the part of Wilkes 
himself but the report of the Library Committee in 18764 shows that 
the greater part of the money appropriated, about $350,000.00 in all, 
had gone for “superintendents,” the amounts for the work itself 
being in some years absurdly small. The disgust of Congress at these 
1 Dana, who had plenty of reasons to be dissatisfled with him as regards the publi- 
cation, calls him ‘‘An excellent officer"; * Perhaps no better could have been found 
in the navy at that time." For a very good account of the voyage from a scientist's 
point of view, as well as of the curiously annoying restrictions Wilkes attempted to 
impose on the authors of the memoirs, see The Life of James Dwight Dana, Scientific 
Explorer, Mineralogists, Geologist, Zoologist, Professor in Yale University, by 
Daniel C. Gilman, President of Johns Hopkins University. New York & London, 
Harper & Bros., 1899. An indication of the change of conditions in the past 60 years 
is shown by Dana's comment on the one particular restriction that seems to have 
made him lose his temper, the ruling that the work should be done at Washington. 
* The absurdity of writing a scientific memoir in a city without books!” 
?'The botanist of the expedition was to have been Dr. Gray, who was regularly 
appointed and drew advance pay. For some reason he decided not to go. Interest- 
ing letters in regard to this are included in the volume of letters by Jane Loring Gray, 
Boston, 1893. 
3 The payments to the authors were liberal; according to the report of the Library 
Committee, Cong. Doc., Vol. 994, No. 391, such payments on the rejected or neglected 
volumes were Rich, $4,560.00; Gray, $3,000.00; Agassiz, $5,916.66. 
4 Cong. Doc., Vol. 1667, No. 60. 
