14 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 9 



Haskell does not share my view, but he thinks that Gould must 

 have held one opinion of Couthouy's contribution and then changed 

 it since the Boston Society of Natural History in 1942 possessed a 

 copy (subsequently sold to the Allan Hancock Foundation, Los 

 Angeles, California) of Gould's text of the Exploring Expedition 

 Mollusks which bore the inscription "To Joseph P. Couthouy — this 

 elaboration of the collections and observations, made in so great a 

 part by him, is presented by Augustus A. Gould." As I said above, 

 I believe the letter quoted was a subterfuge and that Gould's praise 

 therein was sincere. 



Senator Tappan wrote to Gould in January of 1845 that he wanted 

 the work completed by December of that year. Gould said this was 

 impossible and, though both Wilkes and Drayton were sorely vexed, 

 the text did not appear until December of 1852. The atlas of plates 

 is dated 1856, but it was not actually finished and distributed until 

 1860 — and Tappan wanted it done by December 1845! The other 

 volumes of the series were just as slow in appearing as was Gould's 

 volume. 



The government printed only 100 copies of the text and the same 

 number of the atlas. Of the text, 21 copies were destroyed by fire 

 and not replaced. Fifty-eight copies of the text and plates were sent 

 to the State Department from the printer in Philadelphia on December 

 15, 1852, and again the same amount on December 15, 1860. The 

 distribution of the copies sent to the Department of State was deter- 

 mined by Congress: one copy to each of the United States; two each to 

 Great Britain, France, and Russia; one each to 25 other countries; two 

 to the Library of Congress; one each to Wilkes, Hudson, and Ringgold, 

 commanders of the major expedition vessels; one to the Naval Lyceum 

 at Brooklyn, New York. The remaining volumes were to be kept for 

 distribution to each new state as it entered the union and, later, other 

 foreign countries were included. 



Each author was permitted to have printed some copies for his own 

 distribution. The number ranged from 100 to 150 copies. According 

 to a letter from Drayton, "Gould has determined to print one hundred 

 copies on government paper." The distinguishing points between the 

 two editions are minor. The official edition carries no publisher's 

 imprint, merely that of the printer C. Sherman. The unofficial issue 

 of the text reads: Boston-Gould & Lincoln. The official edition has 

 a half-title with the phrase "By authority of Congress." This is 

 lacking in the unofficial edition. The atlas has, in addition, a few 

 other minor differences which are discussed in the bibliography of 

 Gould's works in this paper. 



Congress expressly desired that these reports rival those being 

 published at the same time from the French expedition on the Astro- 



