LETTERS OF A CITIZEN. 41 



months which intervened between the passage of the bill and de- 

 parture of the agent occupied in consulting the naturalists of this 

 country ? Had such a course been pursued, the labours of your 

 envoy might have been performed much more usefully, as well as 

 more creditably for the department and the nation. But, as this 

 was not done, he might have advised with some of the most cele- 

 brated naturalists of Great Britain, France, and Germany, partic- 

 ularly with those who had accompanied former expeditions into 

 the very seas our squadron is intended to explore. Had this plan 

 been followed, think you they would have agreed with him in his 

 statement, even with the high authority of your own official en- 

 dorsement upon its back, that the books and instruments, as ex- 

 hibited per list, comprised all that would in any way be useful 

 in the different divisions of science ? 



I am not a little puzzled with this heterogeneous melange of sci- 

 entific works which have been brought hither. So far as respects 

 the few which relate to natural history, the recent French voyages 

 excepted, I scarcely know how an equal number of more useless 

 volumes could have been selected. I should be glad to see you 

 or the agent point out more than ten works, throwing aside the 

 voyages, that any competent naturalist would have ordered. I 

 can only name seven : Richardson's Fauna, Bennister's Entomol- 

 ogy, Cuvier's Fishes, Landon's Encyclopedia of Plants, Genera 

 of Recent and Fossil Shells, Yarrel's British Fishes, and Turner's 

 Fuci. Magazines of Natural History, like the Geological and 

 Linnaean Transactions, are not needed ; though containing many 

 important papers, the proper place for such ponderous tomes is the 

 shelves of a library. The naturalists will require luorking hooks, 

 manuals, and models ; and these, sir, have not been provided. 



The list of voyages, I am happy to find, is far more complete, 

 although three which may be termed scientific par excellence are 

 not included in it : viz., Pallas, Saussure, and the complete works 

 of Humboldt. In a word, the catalogue is in itself sufficient evi- 

 dence that no naturalist had any share in its adoption. Indeed, I 

 am only in doubt whether the assortment was made by the agent, 

 or whether he merely gave a carte blanche to a bookseller, and re- 

 quested him to furnish as many cubic feet of works on natural 

 history as he thought might be necessary for " any scientific ex- 

 pedition." 



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