THE MOLLUSK FAUNA OF NORTHWEST AMERICA. 245 



Work on this catalogue inspired Dr. Carpenter with the happy idea of col- 

 lecting the scattered data in regard to the shell fauna of the west coast of America 

 into a single volume. With this work was ushered in what we may justly call 

 the Carpenterian period, extending from 1855 to 1877, the year of his lamented 



death. 



Dr. Carpenter made his first report to the British Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science in 1856. The reputation acquired from these two important 

 publications led to an invitation to visit the United States, to deliver a series of 

 lectures on mollusks at the Smithsonian Institution, and to classify and arrange 

 the collections at Washington belonging to the nation. Subsequently Dr. 

 Carpenter moved to Montreal, where his own collection now forms part of the 

 museum of McGill University, and where he continued his studies until death 

 interrupted them. As the chief expert in the knowledge of this special fauna, 

 he was called on by all those interested to assist in identification of their col- 

 lections. 



Through the influence of the Smithsonian the reports on government collec- 

 tions from that region were entrusted to him. The Proceedings of the Academy 

 of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia for 1865 contains the preliminary report on 

 the shells of the commission on the northwest boundary of the United States, 

 collected by Dr. Kennerley. The State Geological Survey of California under 

 the direction of Prof. Josiah D. Whitney, ably assisted by Dr. J. G. Cooper as 

 zoologist, put all its material into Dr. Carpenter's hands and several impor- 

 tant papers containing part of the results were published by the California Acad- 

 emy of Sciences. Meanwhile, the supplementary report to the British Associa- 

 tion had been made in 1864, bringing the results of all these activities up to date. 

 This report, with a reprint of many smaller papers relating to the same general 

 subject, was republished in 1872 by the Smithsonian Institution and has formed 

 an indispensable handbook for all students of the fauna. Beside these re- 

 searches, Dr. Carpenter worked for years on a monograph of the Chitonidae, 

 or coat-of-mail shells, in which the region is extraordinarily rich. This he did 

 not live to finish, but his manuscripts were ably edited, supplemented, and brought 

 up to date by Dr. H. A. Pilsbry, and published as a part of Tryon's Manual 

 under the auspices of the Conchological Section of the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences of Philadelphia, in 1892-1894. 



During the period when Carpenter was working on the fauna many collect- 

 ors, through the Smithsonian Institution, contributed to his material for 

 study, among many others the present writer, and Dr. R. E. C. Stearns. Mr. 

 J. G. Swann, a teacher on the Makah Indian reservation at Neeah Bay, and 

 afterward agent there, enlisted the services of his pupils in collecting on the 

 adjacent beaches with great success, and their labors are remembered, in the 

 quaint Latin used in Dr. Carpenter's publications, as those of "Swannii 

 Indianuli. ' ' 



After Dr. Carpenter's death a new epoch in the exploration of the fauna 



