310 , REPORT OF NATIONAL ■MUSEUM, 1891. 



lu tlie meantime, in February, 1842, Dr. J. P. Coiitliouy, one of the nat 

 uralists of tlie expedition, iiaving been detached from duty by Capt. 

 Wilkes, was employed by the committee of the Institution to aid in the 

 work upon their collections and in September Mr. W. D. Brackenridg'e, 

 horticulturist of the expedition, was also taken upon the Museum staff 

 and given charge of the plants.* and a little later Prof, -lames 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, Locke, and 

 Totten collections, and Horatio Hale was performing a similar work 

 upon the ethnographical collections of the Institution, which he re- 

 ported upon as ''chiefly fioin the exploring expedition." 



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

 the direction of the National Institution, consisted of Dr. Charles Pick- 

 ering, 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 Smith- 

 sonian 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 ]>rinted 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 co-operation of the Institute in carrying into 

 effect the intentions of the law lately passed by Congress, for the ar- 

 rangement and preservation of the collections made by the Exi3loring 

 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, Septemher 17, 1842. 



SiE: I have received your letter of the 15th instant, transmitting a 

 copy of the resolutions of the National Institute passed on the 12th 

 instant, in relation to the ariangement and preservation of the collec- 

 tions made by the exploring squadron, and informing me that Dr. C, 

 Pickering had been unanimously elected curator of the institute. 



*Mr. Brackeuridjre, on tbe return of the expedition in 1842, bronglit tlie 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. 



