582 REPORT—1863. 
of the coloured portion of our race *, the malacologists have been unusually 
zealous in advancing their before somewhat slumbering study; and that 
while the U. 8. Government has suspended the publication of the Reports in 
progress, preferring to spend the money on war, the Smiths. Inst. has dis- 
played unexpected liberality in preparing and issuing from the press works 
of a far more comprehensive character, for the peaceful “increase and diffusion 
of” what will hereafter be regarded as an important branch of “knowledge 
among men.” 
94. North Pacific Exploring Expedition——In the year 1853, Dr. W. 
Stimpson, well known in very early life for his dredging-researches and ob- 
servations on the marine animals of the Atlantic coast, accompanied Captain 
Ringold as naturalist to the U.S. “ North Pacific Exploring Expedition.” Its 
principal object was to obtain more correct information with regard to the 
Japan seas and the extreme north of the Pacific, and it was only incidentally 
that it visited the Californian province. However, Dr. Stimpson’s extensive 
dredgings in the fiords of Japan developed the interesting fact, that while the 
southern shores presented a fauna essentially Indo-Pacific in its character, 
and abounding in the usual Cones, Cowries, Olives, &c., the northern slopes 
of the same islands presented an assemblage of forms far more analogous to 
the fauna of the Sitka and Vancouver region, and containing many species 
common to the American coast. During the course of the voyage dredging- 
collections + were made by Dr. Stimpson at Madeira, Cape of Good Hope, Sydney 
Harbour, Coral Seas, Port Jackson, Hong Kong (also by Mr. Wright; New Ire- 
land, Lieut. Van Wycke; Gasper Straits, Squires ; vicinity of Canton, presented 
by Mr. Bowring ; interior of Hong Kong, Wright); China Sea; Whampoa ; 
Bonin Island; Loo Choo Island; Ousima; Katonasima Straits; Kikaia ; 
Kikaisima ; Kagosima [alas!]; Hakodadi; Taniogesima (also Wright, Kent, 
Kern, Boggs, Carter); Simoda; Niphon (also Brook); Arvatska Bay, Kamt- 
schatka; Amincheche Island, Avikamcheche Island, Behring Straits; Senia- 
vine Straits, Arctic Ocean (also Captain Rogers); San Francisco; (Puget Sound 
and Shoalwater Bay, Dr. Cooper, Cat. no. 1849-1856); Tahiti (also Captain 
Stephens, Kern), Hawaii (also Garrett; Sea of Ochotsk, Captain Stevens), All 
these were duly catalogued, with stations, depths, and other particulars, and 
living animals preserved in spirits after being drawn. The expedition appears 
to have returned in 1856. Although Dr. Stimpson devoted his chief attention 
to articulate animals, and molluscs occupied but a subordinate share of his 
attention, it is safe to say that in this short period he collected more trust- 
worthy species of shells, with localities, than were received at the Smiths. 
Inst. from the united labours of the naturalists of Captain Wilkes’s celebrated 
expedition. Through some unaccountable cause, certain of the most valuable 
boxes were ‘ lost” between New York and Washington ; the remainder were 
placed in the hands of Dr. Gould for description, with the MS. catalogue, a 
copy of which forms the ‘“ Mollusca, Vol. I.,” nos. 1-2003, of the Smiths. 
Mus. Fortunately, Dr. Gould embraced the opportunity to bring the un- 
certain shells to London, and compare them with the Cumingian Collection t. 
* See Prof. Huxley’s remarks on the publications of the Anthropological Society, in 
his Lectures on Mammalia at the Royal College of Surgeons. 
+ A fuller account of this expedition is here given than is justified from its contributions 
to the W. American fauna, because no other information respecting it is as yet available 
to the malacological student. 
t When he sought similar permission to identify the shells of Captain Wilkes’s Expe- 
dition, the answer of the celebrated Judge who then had the custody of the collection was 
(with an oath), “ We are a nation of twenty millions, and can do without Europe.” Very 
rapidly has science taught her a better lesson since those days. 
