RECENT MOLLUSCA OF AUGUSTUS ADDISON GOULD 29 



can be determined, only the manuscript and not the molluscan types 

 were sent. 



On the 8th of October, 1871, a small fire broke out in South Chicago 

 and quickly flared out of control. In 48 hours, most of the city was 

 in ashes and the "fireproof" building of the Chicago Academy, a total 

 loss. The blow apparently was too much for Stimpson. His health 

 declined rapidly and he died the following year, only forty years old. 

 No journal of the North Pacific Expedition ever appeared. In the 

 files of the National Museum in Washington is a letter from Herbert 

 B. Stimpson, dated January 1930, which states: "I am preparing his 

 letters and diary written during the North Pacific Exploring Expedi- 

 tion, 1853-1855, for publication. Fortunately these documents were 

 at Father's house in Cambridge [Massachusetts] and were not de- 

 stroyed by the Chicago fire. They were the only documents saved." 

 Nothing has come of this project and contact with the Stimpson 

 relatives has since been lost. 



Summary of the types. — We are left, then, with only Gould's 

 preliminary descriptions of some 375 species presumed to be new; of 

 this number I have been able to locate 223 in the U.S. National 

 Museum. In this institution are two original catalogs, one of which 

 probably was written by Stimpson from April 13 to May 4, 1860. 

 Thirty-six additional species other than those found are enumerated 

 in one or both of these catalogs, and most of the 36 appear to have 

 been missing before the whole collection was recataloged at a later 

 time. While some of these may have been lost, others appear to have 

 been borrowed by P. P. Carpenter and never returned since several 

 types have been found in the Redpath Museum with the original 

 U.S. National Museum numbers written on slips in the vials. 



It is impossible to ascertain why many of the types from this expe- 

 dition were burdened with two USNM numbers; however, in those 

 lots which contained more than one specimen, the holotype or lecto- 

 type was assigned the original number; the paratypes, the subsequent 

 one. Some holotypes still have the double number but, since some of 

 these have already appeared in print, it has been thought best to leave 

 them as they are. Twenty-three species not found in the U.S. Na- 

 tional Museum have been discovered in the so-called " Gould Type 

 Collection" now on permanent loan at the Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology in Boston or in the general MCZ collection. There are some 

 87 species of which I have found no trace. It is possible that a few of 

 these may be in the British Museum (Natural History) since Gould 

 left examples of some of the new species with H. Cuming. In all proba- 

 bility, however, the number of missing types will not be greatly re- 

 duced. Almost all of the types of new species collected by the North 

 Pacific Exploring Expedition not previously illustrated are figured in 



