146 



THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



in any way to recognize the fact that I have 

 taken them with me, and am giving the col- 

 lections to the Museum, then there is no 

 other recognition that I would value in any 

 way so much as the granting of the permis- 

 sion to Cherrie and Miller to write this book 

 themselves. They will put in careful notes 

 on the life histories of the mammals and birds. 

 They have many such notes now. They 

 already have most of the technical knowledge, 

 and they can gain what they lack by six 

 months study at home. The only objection 

 that I can see will be that some little time 

 will elapse, some months, possibly a year, 

 before the volume could be put out. But 

 they could submit (and I also, if you desire it) 

 a preliminary report, very brief, for publica- 

 tion in the Bulletin of the Museum, which 

 would give you immediately the results of 

 the expedition. Then if this volume were 

 published, it would remain as a permanent 

 contribution to scientific knowledge made 

 under the auspices of the Museum, and of 

 value similar to the work done by Agassiz and 

 his companions in the trip to the Amazon 

 fifty years ago. No other two field mammal- 

 ogists and ornithologists have had the oppor- 

 tunity that this trip will give to Cherrie and 

 Miller, and I want to see their work preserved 

 in a volume and not in a collection of pam- 

 phlets. Pamphlets, even scientific pam- 

 phlets, are almost as ephemeral as newspapers. 

 For example, Allen lent us his copy of Slater 

 and Hudson's volume on Argentine ornithol- 

 ogy to take down with us. It has been of the 

 utmost value to us, to all of us and to me 

 personally, whereas none of us know of the 

 very existence of the multitude of little pam- 

 phlets on Argentine ornithology that were 

 published about the time this work was pub- 

 lished. Really the only use that pamphlets 

 serve are as bricks out of which some perma- 

 nent structure can be made by a writer who 

 will devote himself to serious work on the 

 subject, and one good big work is worth at 

 least a hundred good small works on portions 

 of the same subjects. 



So far we have been favored by the weather, 

 but it looks now as if the rainy season had 

 begun, and we shall probably have a good 

 deal of discomfort during the next four 



months. Probably we shall not collect as 

 many specimens during these next four 

 months as we have already collected in the 

 last six weeks. All the specimens that have 

 not been shipped from Corumba will be 

 shipped from San Luiz de Caceres, from which 

 point on, our facilities for transportation will 

 be greatly diminished. Cherrie and Miller 

 have already had some rough experiences with 

 mosquitoes and other insects on their collect- 

 ing tours, but where I have been so far there 

 has been no hardship whatever. I shall 

 make up for it however later on, especially 

 if we are able to do as I hope and go down 

 the unknown river of which Colonel Rondon 

 has come across the head. In that ca-se one 

 of the naturalists, probably Cherrie, will go 

 down the river with me, and Miller will go 

 down by the Gy Parand and Madeira, so that 

 the collections will be covering two territories. 



When I get back I am anxious to help you 

 send Miller to complete his work around 

 Mount Duida, to ascend the mountain to the 

 top, and thoroughly to work the neighborhood 

 from the standpoint of the mammalogist and 

 ornithologist. He ought to have about five 

 thousand dollars for the trip. I will sub- 

 scribe one thousand and do my best to help 

 raise the remainder. . . . Miller has begun this 

 work around Mount Duida, and if he is 

 given the time and the moderate amount of 

 money necessary, he can thoroughly finish the 

 work and do something emphatically credita- 

 ble to the Museum. As I shall probably 

 take Cherrie down the river de Duvida, I 

 wish to give this as a kind of consolation 

 prize to Miller! I shall also help, with a 

 thousand dollars in sending Cherrie back, for 

 the Museum to work thoroughly these upper 

 Paraguay marshc3. They offer a wonderful 

 field. 



I very earnestly hope that Chapman has 



been favorably struck by my proposal, that 



you will be favorably struck by it, and that 



my request will be granted. . . . 



Faithfully yours, 



(Signed) Theodore Roosevelt 



President Henry Fairfield shorn, 



American Museum of Natural History, 

 New York City. 



