LIFE OF JAMES DWIGHT DANA 



against the narrow limitation of the number of copies to 

 be printed, but against an arbitrary and highly objection- 

 able supervision of their reports by men who were not 

 qualified to say what kind of treatment the subjects re- 

 quired. Much correspondence upon this subject has 

 come under my eye, but I see no reason for its full pub- 

 lication. The questions were settled long ago and are 

 not of interest to the present generation. It seems 

 necessary, however, to indicate explicitly the grievances 

 which caused such loud complaint. 



The government, which was then represented for this 

 purpose by the Library Committee of Congress through 

 their agent, Hon. Benjamin Tappan of Ohio, prescribed 

 certain regulations as to what the scientific reports should 

 include. They were to be restricted to the " dis- 

 coveries " of the expedition. To these instructions 

 Captain Wilkes gave a narrow interpretation. For ex- 

 ample, he objected to the recognition of European names 

 for the zoophytes, and to Dana's thorough recasting, in 

 the light of his own researches, of the classification of 

 genera and species. Dana appealed to Tappan, who 

 reluctantly yielded the point in dispute, and gave free 

 scope to the author; but he was not brought to this con- 

 clusion until he received Dana's downright refusal to go 

 on with his duties unless the stringency was relaxed. 



The other restriction as to the number of copies to 

 be printed was not due (as it appears) to economy, but 

 to a vague and unfounded belief that the set of reports 

 would be valued more by those to whom the copies 

 might be sent if it were known that only certain digni- 

 taries and institutions were to be thus favored. Of the 

 Zoophytes, for example, the government proposed to 

 publish one hundred copies, and to allow Lee & Blan- 

 chard, the publishers, to put out seventy-five copies more. 

 They strongly objected to Dana's printing twenty-five 

 copies at his own expense and for his own use. " It is 



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