122 Memorial of George Brown Goode. 



In the meantime, in February, 1842, Doctor J. P. Couthouy, one of 

 the naturahsts of the expedition, having been detached from duty by 

 Captain Wilkes, was employed by the committee of the Institution to 

 aid in the work upon their collections, and in September Mr. W. D, 

 Brackenridge, horticulturist of the expedition, was also taken upon the 

 Museum staff and given charge of the plants,' and a little later Professor 

 James D. Dana seems to have been given charge of the arrangement of 

 the geological and mineralogical collections, not only of the exploring 

 expedition, but of the Institution cabinet, including the Smithson, Owen, 

 Ivocke, and Totten collections, and Horatio Hale was performing a simi- 

 lar work upon the ethnographical collections of the Institution, which he 

 reported upon as ' ' chiefly from the exploring expedition. ' ' 



The force at this time engaged upon the national collections, under 

 the direction of the National Institution, consisted of Doctor Charles 

 Pickering, principal curator; J. P. Couthouy, J. D. Dana, Horatio Hale, 

 and W. D. Brackenridge, curators and assistants, and J. K. Townsend 

 and John Varden, assistants. Thomas Nuttall, the well-known botanist, 

 had in 1841 been engaged upon the herbarium, but had now gone away. 



Here, then, in 1842, we find a strong Museum force at work on the 

 collections, a force fully as effective thirty years later, in 1873, when the 

 writer first became acquainted with the operations of the Smithsonian 

 Institution. 



The report prepared by them at the end of the year 1842 was essen- 

 tially the second official report upon the national collections, and since it 

 has never been published, it is printed in Note B, at the end of this 

 memoir. 



At the meeting of September 12 a resolution was passed in these words: 



Resolved, That a committee be appointed to wait upon the Secretary of the Navy, 

 and upon the joint committee of the Library of Congress, and to proffer to them the 

 cooperation of the Institute in carrying into effect the intentions of the law lately 

 passed by Congress, for the arrangement and preservation of the collections made by 

 the Exploring Squadron, and for the publication of the results of that Expedition ; 

 and that this committee be authorized to act in the name and behalf of the Institute 

 in all matters relating to this subject. 



In reply to the letter transmitting this resolution, the following letter 

 was received: 



Navy Department, September //, 1842. 



Sir: I have received your letter of the istli instant, transmitting a copy of the 

 resolutions of the National Institute passed on the 12th instant, in relation to the 

 arrangement and preservation of the collections made by the exploring squadron, 

 and informing me that Doctor C. Pickering had been unanimously elected cm^ator of 

 the Institute. 



' Mr. Brackenridge, on the return of the expedition in 1842, brought the live plants 

 and seeds to Washington, and there being no place for their reception hired a green- 

 house and cared for them, apparently on his own responsibility, for several months. 

 Eventually they were provided for at the Botanic Garden about 1859, after having 

 been for many years kept in greenhouses in the rear of the Patent Office. 



