1912]  Collins,— Papers on Wilkes Exploring Expedition 67 
revelations led to an immediate stoppage of the work, without regard 
to the memoirs ready and waiting. The money sufficient to publish 
them bad been appropriated over and over again but had been squan- 
dered. 
My interest in the matter began with some references to Vol. 
XVII, and this volume deserves still further notice. Its fate was 
in some ways the most peculiar of all. This volume was intended to 
include the cellular cryptogams, as well as the phanerogams of the 
Pacific coast of the United States, the latter part having been assigned 
to Dr. John Torrey. His report was ready in 1861, but had not been 
published at the time of his death. Dr. Asa Gray added some notes, 
and in a short preface dated Washington, April 15, 1873, explained 
his relation to Dr. Torrey’s work, and to some extent the circumstances 
of the twelve years delay since it was written. The lichens by Tucker- 
man, pp. 113-152, Algae by Bailey & Harvey, pp. 153-191, Fungi 
by M. A. Curtis & M. J. Berkeley, pp. 193-203, and the Torrey-Gray 
section, pp. 305-514, were issued in 1874, the title page bearing the 
double date 1862-1874. A note states that pp. 113-203 with the 
plates belonging to them and also the 17 plates of the Torrey-Gray 
section, were printed in 1862, and a small number of copies distributed. 
I have never seen one of these copies, nor has any of my botanical 
friends, and I have not found them mentioned in any catalog. Pp. 1- 
112 were assigned to the Musci, by W. S. Sullivant, but he apparently 
became tired of waiting for their publication by the government, and 
in 1859 issued an imperial folio atlas of 26 plates with 32 pages of text, 
corresponding to the missing pp. 1-112 of Vol. XVII. "There is a 
copy of this at the Gray Herbarium. All the copies I have seen of 
Vol. XVII appear to be of the public or author's edition, the Gray 
Herbarium had the supply of these and of the Sullivant folio, but I 
believe they are now all sold. Some copies have the plates in a 
separate atlas volume, the same as the plates of the other memoirs 
in the series; more commonly the plates are folded, mounted on 
guards and bound with the text. No complete copy of the volume, 
with pp. 1-514, has been seen by me, but Dr. H. H. Bartlett was so 
kind as to look up at my request the copy in the Library of Congress; 
he reports it as complete, with a title page dated 1874, giving full 
statement of the contents; it has the full morocco binding of the 
official set. It is evident then that the whole volume was officially 
printed, but it was never distributed to the states, nor presumably 
