CHARLES PICKERING. 407 
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 cen- 
tre 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 encyclopedic 
and minute; and his bent was toward a certain subtlety and 
exhaustiveness of investigation, which is characteristic 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-work- 
ers, he had published nothing which can now be recalled, 
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 expedi- 
tion to the South Seas, which sailed under command of then 
Lieutenant Charles Wilkes in the autumn of 1838, was first 
organized under Commodore T. Aj)-Catesby Jones, about two 
years before, Dr. Pickering’s reputation 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, other special departments of 
zodlogy being otherwise provided for by the accession of Mr. 
Couthouy and Mr. Peale. Dr. Pickering, although retain- 
ing 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 distribu- 
tion of animals and plants; to the latter especially affected by 
or as evidence of the operations, movements, and diffusion of 
the races of man. To these, the subjects of his predilections 
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 
