442 CHARLES PICKERING. 



Oakes in botanical exploration ; and it is believed that the two first 

 explored the White Mountains together, following in the steps of the 

 first botanist to ascend Mount Washington, Dr. Manasseh Cutler of 

 Essex County, and of Francis Boott and the still surviving Dr. Bige- 

 low. His taste for natural history showed itself in boyhood, both for 

 botany and zoology, and probably decided his choice of a profession. 

 He may have intended to practise medicine for a livelihood when, 

 about the year 1829, he took up his residence at Philadelphia ; but 

 it is probable that he was attracted thither more by the facilities that 

 city offered for the pursuit of natural history than by its renown as a 

 centre of medical education. We soon find him acting as one of the 

 curators of the Academy of Natural Sciences, and also as librarian, 

 and with reputation established as the most erudite and sharp-sighted 

 of all the young naturalists of that region. His knowledge then, as 

 in mature years, was encyclopiedic and minute ; and his bent was toward 

 a certain subtlety and exhaustiveness of investigation, which is charac- 

 teristic of his later writings. Still, in those days in which he was looked 

 up to as an oracle, and consulted as a dictionary by his co-workers, he 

 had published nothing which can now be recaUed, except a brief essay 

 on the geographical distribution and leading characteristics of the 

 United States flora, which very few of our day have ever seen. 



When the United States surveying and exploring expedition to the 

 South Seas, which sailed under the command of then Lieutenant Charles 

 Wilkes in the autumn of 1838, was first organized under Commodore 

 T. Ap-Catesby Jones, about two years before, Dr. Pickering's reputa- 

 tion was such that he was at once selected as the principal zoologist. 

 Subsequently, as the plan expanded, others were added. Yet the 

 scientific fame of that expedition most largely rests upon the collections 

 and the work of Dr. Pickering and his surviving associate Professor 

 Dana, the latter taking, in addition to the geology, the Corals and the 

 Crustacea, and other special departments of zoology being otherwise 

 provided for by the accession of INIr. Couthouy and Mr. Peale. Dr. 

 Pickering, although retaining the ichthyology, particularly turned his 

 attention during the three and a half years' voyage of circumnavigation 

 to anthropology, and to the study of the geographical distribution of 

 animals and plants ; to the latter especially as aiFected by or as evi- 

 dence of the operations, movements, and diflfusion of the races of man. 

 To these the subjects of his predilection, and to investigations bearing 

 upon them, all his remaining life was assiduously devoted. The South 

 Pacific exploring expedition visited very various parts of the world ; 

 but it necessarily left out regions of the highest interest to the anthro- 



