LETTERS OF A CITIZEN. 17 



with the same kind of fervid pleasure the weary traveller may be 

 supposed to feel when gazing upon some green spot and gushing 

 fountain in the midst of the desert, while all around is barren and 

 unproductive — a hungry soil, that swallows up the fattening 

 showers, poured by bounteous Heaven upon its steril bosom, but 

 in return gives forth nor fruit, nor flower, nor herb to gladden 

 the eye and cheer the interminable waste. 



But to ,my task. Do you, sir, remember, that on the 23d of 

 January, 1835, a call, in the form of a resolution, was made on 

 you by Congress for an original report of J. N. Reynolds, Esq., 

 on the " Islands, reefs, and shoals of the Pacific, &c., &c. ;" and 

 that, on the ensuing day, you transmitted said report, with this 

 note — " When no longer required, it is respectfully requested it 

 may be returned ? 



Mahlon Dickerson. " 

 Allow me, sir, to ask you, in the most respectful manner, what 

 that paper contained. You cannot plead forgetfulness of its con- 

 tents, because it passed through your hands in manuscript form, 

 and soon after was returned to your department a prmted docu- 

 ment of some forty or more pages. You know, sir, that docu- 

 ment embraces a list of islands, reefs, and shoals discovered by, 

 and noted in, the logbooks of our whalemen during the last thirty 

 years, as they gradually, in the pursuit of their vocation, followed 

 the great monsters of the deep into unfrequented seas and remote 

 parts of the globe. 



You further know, sir, that that document contains irresistible 

 evidence of the necessity and importance of the labours to be per- 

 formed by the expedition among the thousand islands erroneously 

 laid down in our charts ; and among others — to the extent of more 

 than half that number — not laid down, nor to be found on any 

 chart, however recent or improved its construction. This was 

 the light in which the document was viewed and commented on 

 by committees who made reports, and by members who alluded to 

 it in their speeches on the floor of Congress. And yet, sir, in the 

 face of all this, and of all else I have stated and have to state, 

 you, in your ofl&cial capacity as secretary of the uavy, have told 

 the board to look mainly to the means of getting to the South 

 Pole or near it^ and then, forsooth, to see if the present force he 

 not too large for that single object I 



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