JET. 42.] TO A. DE CANDOLLE. 397 



filled is a limited one. But we here prize the name 

 of De Candolle so highly that we count it a privilege 

 to have it on our foreign list. . . . 



I should state that this academy, the oldest but 

 one in America, was in a state of inactivity and hebe- 

 tude since the death of its former president, Bow- 

 ditch, till 1843, the year after I came to Cambridge, 

 when it was determined, chiefly by some of my col- 

 leagues in Cambridge, to restore it to life and vigor. 

 It is now full of life. The number of its foreign 

 members is now limited to seventy-five, and they are 

 chosen by a very formal process and a very rigid 

 scrutiny, so as to have only the very best names in the 

 several departments of knowledge. Formerly they 

 were chosen without such care ; so that there are 

 names 011 the list that could not be placed there now. 

 Hereafter the list will be a most select one. . . . 



Hereafter we will send our parcels through the 

 Smithsonian Institution and through its agent, Mr. 

 Hector Bossange, Paris. You justly praise the publi- 

 cations of this institution. It is on the point of 

 issuing another splendid volume ; and at least one a 

 year will continue to be issued. 1 



Liberal in its distribution, the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion looks to its exchanges as a means of building up 

 a library valuable for scientific researches in this 

 country. You may remember that, when at Geneva, 

 I ventured to ask you to recommend to the Societe de 

 Physique et d'Histoire Naturelle de Geneve, to vote 

 its series of memoirs to the Smithsonian Institution. 



It also often has the distribution of a certain number of public 

 documents of scientific value. I am about to ask its secretary to pro- 

 cure for you, if possible, a copv of Fremont's two reports, which you 

 desire, if too late to procure it gratis, as I fear, to purchase the vol- 

 ume at my expense. A. G. 



