REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 37 



■brought home. The botanists of the expedition were Mr. William Eich, 

 Dr. Charles Pickering, and Mr. W. I. D. Brackenridge. To the last- 

 named gentleman was assigned the description of the ferns, his report 

 on which was printed by order of Congress in a handsome quarto volume, 

 with a folio atlas, containing beautifully engraved figures of the new or 

 little-known species. After a very few copies of this work were dis- 

 tributed, the remaiuderof the edition was destroyed by fire while in the 

 hands of the binder. The copper-plates, however, are still in the custody 

 of the Library Committee of Congress, and it would cost hut little to 

 print a new edition of a work so much desired by a large number of 

 botanists. The flowering plants, with the exception of those collected 

 in California and Oregou, were referred to Dr. Torrey ; others were 

 partially studied by Mr. Rich, and then committed to Professor Asa 

 Gray for a more thorough investigation. Of this portion of the collec- 

 tion only one quarto volume of text, and a large folio volume of illustra- 

 tions, have thus far been published by Congress. For a number of years 

 the publication of the works relating to the exploring expedition was in 

 charge of the Joint Library Committee of Congress and Admiral Wilkes, 

 but it was impossible to procure appropriations to defray the large 

 expense of the undertaking. At length all the materials were trans- 

 ferred to the Smithsonian Institution, provided it would publish for 

 distribution an edition of the whole. The limited income of the Smith- 

 sonian fund did not permit the Institution to embark in so formidable 

 an undertaking, and plates, manuscripts, and printed matter are still in 

 possession of the Committee on the Library of Congress. 



Professor Gray is ready to go on with his work as soon as provision 

 is made for its publication. Dr. Torrey's i-eport has been long since 

 completed, and the illustrations drawn, engraved, and even printed. 

 At this late day, however, the report would require revision ; indeed, so 

 many new and rare species described in it have since been found and 

 described by other botanists, that it may be sufficient to publish a very 

 brief report, accomjianied by the plates alluded to above. The Mosses 

 were described and beautifully illustrated by W. S. Sullivant, esq., of 

 Columbus, Ohio. The text in quarto of his valuable report is also 

 printed, but not published. He has, however, at his own expense, 

 printed for private distribution a beautiful edition of It in folio. The Algce 

 were committed to Professor J. W. Bailey, of West Point, and Professor 

 W. H. Harvey, of Trinity College, Dublin, whose report on these plants, 

 with elaborate illustrations, is printed, and has been, for years, stored 

 away in sheets awaiting to be bound up and published with Dr. Torrey's 

 report. The same may be said of Professor Tuckerman's account of the 

 Lichens, and of the reports by Rev. M. A. Curtis, of North Carolina, and 

 Rev. Dr. Berkely, of England, on the Fungi. 



2. The next most extensive and valuable portion of the herbarium is 

 the collection of plants made during the North Pacific exploring expedi- 

 tion, under command of Commanders Ringgold and Rodgers, from 1853 



