LIFE OF JAMES DWIGHT DANA 



Respecting Couthouy and Rich, very little information 

 has come under my eye. Rich was the senior botanist, 

 and prepared a report, the title-page of which appears in 

 some of the expedition bibliographies, but the volume, 

 for some reason, appears to have been suppressed. J. 

 P. Couthouy is mentioned by Wilkes (November, 1840) 

 as having been absent from the squadron on account of 

 ill-health for a period of eleven months. During the 

 civil war he entered the service of the United States 

 Navy, was appointed Acting Lieutenant, commanded in 

 succession three vessels, and was shot on the deck of his 

 vessel, April 3, 1864.* 



William D. Brackenridge, botanist, was born near Ayr, 

 in Scotland, in 1810, and died February 3, 1893, at 

 Govanstown, in the neighborhood of Baltimore. After 

 having been the head gardener to Dr. Neill of Edin- 

 burgh, he was attached, for a time, to the Botanical 

 Garden in Berlin, and came to the United States in 

 1837, establishing himself in Philadelphia, where his 

 merits attracted the attention of Mr. Poinsett and se- 

 cured for him an appointment on the expedition. 



The plants and seeds which he brought home from the 

 South Seas formed the nucleus of the Botanical Gardens 

 in Washington. He succeeded Charles Downing as 

 superintendent of the public grounds of the Capitol, and 

 laid out the Smithsonian grounds. During the latter 

 part of his life he was highly esteemed as a florist and 

 landscape-gardener in the place of his residence. In a 

 special report he described the ferns and mosses collected 

 by the expedition. Many of his notes are now in the 

 possession of his family. 



The story is told of him, that on his way from Mount 

 Shasta to San Francisco, an alarm from the Indians 

 caused the party of explorers to run. Brackenridge saw 



*Note from Prof. W. H. DalL 

 62 



