10 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 239 



why his health declined and why his last entry in the Journal is dated 

 October 1839, Pago Pago, Samoa Islands. 



The collectors and collections. — Although the officers made 

 private collections, Couthouy was aided in his efforts by the other 

 members of the scientific staff, who also continued to collect shells 

 after he left the expedition. 



These scientists often made extensive excursions into the interior 

 of the countries visited when time permitted. In North America, 

 they explored the northwest coastal area, which is now the states of 

 Washington and Oregon ; Joseph Drayton, one of the artists, travelled 

 along the Columbia River to the Blue Mountains; a group journeyed 

 overland from Fort Vancouver to San Francisco; and another party 

 went to Fort Nesqually (now Tacoma, Washington), to Fort Colville, 

 and thence to the Kooskooska River (Clearwater River, Idaho). In 

 South America some of the naturalists crossed the Cordilleras of the 

 Andes from the Pacific to the sources of the Amazon River. Dr. 

 Pickering made numerous excursions into Brazil. And in the Poly- 

 nesian Islands explorations were made by other members of the staff. 



Among the most important members of the party who helped 

 Couthouy collect shells were Dr. Charles Pickering, anthropologist, 

 Joseph Drayton, artist, and William D. Brackenridge, botanist. 

 The names of these gentlemen, as well as the name of a Mrs. Mitchell 

 of New South Wales, Australia, are often affixed as collectors of the 

 new species described from the material sent home by the expedition. 



Disposition of the shell collection. — The collections were sent 

 to Peale's Museum in Philadelphia as circumstances permitted. Per- 

 haps this was done because one of Peale's sons, Titian R., was a 

 member of the expedition's staff. It would have been a more logical 

 course to have sent the collections to the Academy of Natural Sci- 

 ences of Philadelphia, which had been flourishing since 1812, rather 

 than to Peale's establishment, which was hardly a natural history 

 museum. In any event, there was no place to send them in Wash- 

 ington until, prior to the expedition's return in 1840, several members 

 of Congress and others interested in a national museum, organized 

 the National Institute, later known as the National Institution. At 

 this time the collections were removed from Peale's in Philadelphia 

 and placed in the custody of the Institution in Washington, where 

 they remained in the Great Hall of the Patent Office until 1856, 

 when they were turned over to the newly founded Smithsonian 

 Institution. 



The collections suffered from a series of incredible vicissitudes. 

 Peale says, "I am ashamed to record the fact, that when the boxes 

 and packages were placed in charge of the National Institution, the 

 seals were broken and a general scramble for curiosities took place by 



