HT. 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 sania, 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 tice 
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.! 
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 Société de 
Physique et d’Histoire Naturelle de Geneve, to vote 
its series of memoirs to the Smithsonian Institution. 
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 Frémont’s two reports, which you 
desire, — if (i late to procure it gratis, as I fear, to purchase the vol- 
ume at my expense. — 
