MT. 42.] TO A. DE CANDOLLE. 397 



filled is a limited one. But we here prize the name 

 of De Candolle so highly that we count it a privilege 

 to have it on our foreign list. . . . 



I should state that this academy, the oldest but 

 one in America, was in a state of inactivity and hebe- 

 tude since the death of its former president, Bow- 

 ditch, till 1843, the year after I came to Cambridge, 

 when it was determined, chiefly by some of my col- 

 leagues in Cambridge, to restore it to life and vigor. 

 It is now full of life. The number of its foreign 

 members is now limited to seventy-five, and they are 

 chosen by a very formal process and a very rigid 

 scrutiny, so as to have only the very best names in the 

 several departments of knowledge. Formerly they 

 were chosen without such care ; so that there are 

 names on the list that could not be placed there now. 

 Hereafter the list will be a most select one. . . . 



Hereafter we will send our parcels through the 

 Smithsonian Institution and through its agent, Mr. 

 Hector Bossange, Paris. You justly praise the publi- 

 cations of this institution. It is on the point of 

 issuing another splendid volume ; and at least one a 

 year will continue to be issued. 1 



Liberal in its distribution, the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion looks to its exchanges as a means of building up 

 a library valuable for scientific researches in this 

 country. You may remember that, when at Geneva, 

 I ventured to ask you to recommend to the Socie*te de 

 Physique et d'Histoire Naturelle de Geneve, to vote 

 its series of memoirs to the Smithsonian Institution. 



1 It also often has the distribution of a certain number of public 

 documents of scientific value. I am about to ask its secretary to pro- 

 cure for you, if possible, a copy of Fremont's two reports, which you 

 desire, if too late to procure it gratis, as I fear, to purchase the vol- 

 ume at my expense. A. G. 



