Exploration Work of the Institution 463 



though the state of the funds would permit of little being 

 done in this line, yet we have made a beginning. Besides the 

 assistance rendered to the exploration of the botany of New 

 Mexico, by the purchase of sets of plants from Mr. Wright 

 and Mr. Fendler, as mentioned in my last Report, a small sum 

 was appropriated to defray the cost of transportation of the 

 articles which might be collected by Mr. Thaddeus Culbert- 

 son in the region of the Upper Missouri. This gentleman, 

 a graduate of the institutions at Princeton, had purposed to 

 visit the remote regions above mentioned for the benefit of 

 his health, and was provided by Professor Baird with minute 

 directions as to the preservation of specimens and the objects 

 which should particularly engage his attention. 



"Mr. Culbertson first visited an interesting locality called the 

 Mauvaises Terres, or Bad Lands, where his brother had pre- 

 viously found the remains of the fossils sent to the Academy 

 [of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia]. 



"He afterwards ascended the Missouri to a point several 

 hundred miles above Fort Union. . . . Though he had 

 withstood the privations and exposures of the wilderness, he 

 sank under an attack of a prevalent disease, and died after a 

 few weeks' illness. 



"He left a journal of all the important events of his tour, 

 which is thought of sufficient importance to be appended to 

 this report." 1 



While doing what it could to make successful the memor- 

 able journey of Culbertson, the Institution at the same time 

 lent its aid to geological exploration by defraying a portion 

 of the expense of researches of Professor E. Hitchcock, of 

 Amherst College, on the subject of erosion by rivers, and also 

 relative to ancient sea beaches and terraces. The results of 

 this work were published later, at large expense, in the ninth 

 volume of the "Contributions." 



Thus the Institution made a beginning in many lines of 

 exploration. 



1 " Smithsonian Report," 1850, page 19. 



