UNITED STATES EXPLORING EXPEDITION 



festations of public opinion were sent to Washington. 

 At length the urgency of ten years bore fruit, and on 

 March 21, 1836, the Naval Committee of the Senate re- 

 ported a bill to provide for an exploring expedition, 

 which was discussed and amended and finally passed by 

 both branches of Congress. It soon received the Presi- 

 dent's approval. Orders were given to have the proper 

 vessels fitted out with the least possible delay. 



The history is thus briefly told in a report to the United 

 States Senate of the Joint Committee on the Library, 

 presented in June, 1846, by Hon. James A. Pearce of 

 Maryland : 



" As early as the year 1827, memorials were addressed 

 to Congress by the inhabitants of various States in the 

 Union, praying that an expedition might be fitted out 

 for the purpose of exploration and discovery in the 

 southern polar regions, and the islands and coasts of the 

 Pacific seas. Similar memorials were presented from 

 time to time; favorable reports were made, and bills 

 were passed in one or the other house of Congress; but 

 no law on the subject was enacted till the year 1836. 

 Congress was then satisfied that, in the seas which it was 

 proposed to explore, the whale fishery alone gave em- 

 ployment to more than one-tenth of all our tonnage, 

 manned by twelve thousand men, and requiring capital 

 then estimated at twelve millions of dollars ; and that the 

 annual loss of property, upon the islands and reefs not 

 laid down upon any chart, was equal to the expense of 

 the expedition and surveys requested." 



Then came, in the summer of 1836, a series of excel- 

 lent suggestions from some of the foremost men of the 

 country. Commodore Ap-Catesby Jones spoke in strong 

 terms of Reynolds's fitness for the voyage. Professor 

 Charles Anthon congratulated him on being appointed 

 " Corresponding Secretary of the Expedition." Caleb 

 Cushing and James K. Paulding gave their approbation 

 to the project; Benjamin Silliman, James E. De Kay, 



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