PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 109 



Couthouy came on in person and applied to President Andrew 

 Jackson for a position on the scientific corps. The President 

 said he could not seriously entertain the application as the list of 

 officers was already complete. To which the irrepressible young 

 sailor replied, "Well, General, I'll be hanged if I don't go, if I 

 have to go before the mast! "* This pleased " Old Hickory," 

 who told him, " Go back to Boston and I will see if anything can 

 be done for you." There, a few days after his return, his commis 

 sion as Conchologist of the Scientific Corps was received. He 

 sailed with the expedition August 18, 1838. After leaving 

 Samoa his health suffered. Wilkes, who was preparing a narra 

 tive of the expedition, demanded that Couthouy should turn all 

 his notes and drawings over to his commander. Couthouy re 

 fused, as he considered that his subsequent work would be 

 crippled by the absence of notes and drawings already made, and 

 that as a member of the scientific corps he was entitled to retain 

 his papers until the end of the voyage. He was thereupon sus 

 pended by Wilkes and ordered home from Honolulu in 1840, 

 11 for disobedience of orders." 



He had made many valuable drawings and notes, many of 

 which are preserved in the report on the Mollusca and Shells of 

 the expedition. He had numbered his notes with a serial num 

 ber, and a tin tag, similarly numbered, was attached to the 

 specimen, which was preserved in spirits for future anatomical 

 study and identification. The authorities in Washington had 

 appointed a reverend gentleman who knew nothing of science, 

 with a fat salary, to unpack and take care of the specimens sent 

 home by the expedition. This gentleman, finding that the pres 

 ence of some lead in the tinfoil tags was whitening the alcohol, 

 carefully removed all the tags and put them in a bottle by them 

 selves without replacing them by any other means of identifi 

 cation. Twenty years ago 1 saw this bottle of tags on a shelf at 



* /'. e., as a common sailor. 



