THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 97 



tribes of the United States. Parts V and VI. The sixth and last part 

 is to contain an abstract or synopsis of the whole work. 



CONCLUDING REMARKS. 



The record of explorations for the year will be incomplete without 

 brief reference to the numerous researches and collections made at dif- 

 ferent points in North America, the results of which have come to the 

 knowledge of the Institution. Few have any conception of the amount 

 of quiet investigation in natural history now going on in this country, 

 principally by persons laboriously engaged in other duties and using 

 only scattered intervals of leisure. The records of the Institution 

 almost daily receive entries of contributions of facts and specimens of 

 natural history from such sources. 



Some general remarks and notices on this subject will be found de- 

 tailed in the report on additions to the museum in 1854. I would, how- 

 ever, make a particular reference to the labors of Lieutenant W. P. 

 Trowbridge, United States army, who, while successfully prosecuting 

 his dut}^ as tidal observer on the Pacific coast, in connexion with the 

 United States Coast Survey, has employed his leisure moments in form- 

 ing one of the largest collections of natural history ever made in this 

 country. In this he has been zealously aided by Messrs. Cassidy, Szabo, 

 and others, members of his parties. 



Mr. R. D. Cults, likewise connected with the Coast Survey, has also 

 made some interesting collections on the coast of California and trans- 

 mitted them to the Institution; and a gentleman of the same branch of 

 the public service, Mr. Gustavus Wurdemann, has supplied one of the 

 fullest series of the animals of the Louisiana gulf coast ever received by 

 the Institution. It is a subject of profound congratulation that while 

 exhausting every department of physical research in connexion with 

 the survey of our coast, the distinguished superintendent encourages 

 his assistants to pay all possible attention to the various branches of 

 natural science, recognising fully their connexion with those more 

 immediately belonging to the survey. One effect has been the gath- 

 ering together of vast materials illustrating the marine infusoria and 

 microscopic shells of our coast, which have already been examined with 

 important hydrographical results. 



Mis, Doc. 24 7 



