6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



This has fortunately been done in the case of the 

 South Pacific Exploring Expedition under Commodore 

 Wilkes. For, although the volume containing the 

 Mosses has not even yet [May, 1873] been issued by 

 government, Mr. SuUivant's portion of it was published 

 in a separate edition in the year 1859. It forms a sump- 

 tuous imperial folio, the letter-press having been made 

 up into large pages, and printed on paper which matches 

 the plates, twenty-six in number. 



One volume of the Pacific Railroad Reports, i. e. the 

 fourth, contains a paper by Mr. Sullivant, being his 

 account of the Mosses collected in Whipple's Exploration. 

 It consists of only a dozen pages of letter-press, but is 

 illustrated by ten admirable plates of new species. 



The " Icones Muscorum," however, is Mr. SuUivant's 

 crowning work. It consists, as the title indicates, of 

 " Figures and Descriptions of most of those Mosses pecul- 

 iar to Eastern North America which have not been here- 

 tofore figured," and forms an imperial octavo volume, 

 with one hundred and twenty-nine copperplates, pub- 

 lished in 18G4. The letter-press and the plates (upon 

 wdiich last alone several thousand dollars and immense 

 pains were expended) are simply exquisite and wholly 

 unrivalled; and the scientific character is acknowledged 

 to be worthy of the setting. Within the last few years, 

 most of the tim.e which Mr. Sullivant could devote to 

 science has -been given to the preparation of a second 

 or supplementary volume of the " Icones." The plates, 

 it is understood, are completed, the descriptions partly 

 written out, and the vernal months in which his mortal 

 life closed were to have been devoted to the printing. 

 The Manual of North American Mosses was speedily to 

 follow. 



He was remarkably young for his years, so that the 

 hopes and expectations in which we were indulging 

 seemed reasonable. But in January, not far from his 



