CHARLES PICKERING. 407 



up his residence at Philadelphia ; but it is probable that he 

 was attracted thither more by the facilities that city offered 

 for the pursuit of natural history than by its renown as a cen- 

 tre of medical education. We soon find him acting as one of 

 the curators of the Academy of Natural Sciences, and also as 

 librarian, and with reputation established as the most erudite 

 and sharp-sighted of all the young naturalists of that region. 

 His knowledge then, as in mature years, was encyclopaedic 

 and minute ; and his bent was toward a certain subtlety and 

 exhaustiveness of investigation, which is characteristic of his 

 later writings. Still, in those days in which he was looked up 

 to as an oracle, and consulted as a dictionary by his co-work- 

 ers, he had published nothing which can now be recalled, 

 except a brief essay on the geographical distribution and 

 leading characteristics of the United States flora, which very 

 few of our day have ever seen. 



When the United States surveying and exploring expedi- 

 tion to the South Seas, which sailed under command of then 

 Lieutenant Charles Wilkes in the autumn of 1838, was first 

 organized under Commodore T. Ap-Catesby Jones, about two 

 years before, Dr. Pickering's reputation was such that he was 

 at once selected as the principal zoologist. Subsequently, as 

 the plan expanded, others were added. Yet the scientific 

 fame of that expedition most largely rests upon the collections 

 and the work of Dr. Pickering and his surviving associate, 

 Professor Dana, the latter taking, in addition to the geology, 

 the Corals and the Crustacea, other special departments of 

 zoology being otherwise provided for by the accession of Mr. 

 Couthouy and Mr. Peale. Dr. Pickering, although retain- 

 ing the ichthyology, particularly turned his attention during 

 the three and a half years' voyage of circumnavigation to 

 anthropology, and to the study of the geographical distribu- 

 tion of animals and plants ; to the latter especially affected by 

 or as evidence of the operations, movements, and diffusion of 

 the races of man. To these, the subjects of his predilections 

 and to investigations bearing upon them, all his remaining 

 life was assiduously devoted. The South Pacific exploring 

 expedition visited very various parts of the world ; but it 



