233 



the deep interest felt abroad in the researches of the late Ant- 

 arctic expedition. 



The writer had understood, that the gentlemen who composed the 

 corps of scientific explorers had ceased to be in the service of the 

 United States; and he referred in strong language to the wrong which 

 would be done to science, as well as to the parties immediately con- 

 cerned, if the task of arranging and describing the specimens they 

 had collected, should be assigned to any but themselves. He spoke of 

 the practice of other governments who had directed similar explora- 

 tions in modern times — of the impossibility of securing exact fidelity 

 and consistency of narrative, where one was appointed 'to digest the 

 brief and hurried memoranda of another — and of the want of confi- 

 dence which must always and every where be felt in a scientific ac- 

 count of the labours of naturalists, to which they had not individually 

 contributed their personal recollections, and on their individual respon- 

 sibility. 



Mr. Ord concurred fully in the views of his correspondent. He 

 reminded the Society of the agency which it had exerted, at the in- 

 stance of a former Secretary of the Navy, in defining the positions 

 and duties of the members of the scientific corps, in preparing the in- 

 structions under which they acted, and in digesting the requisitions 

 for their use. He adverted to the fact, that, at the interview of con- 

 sultation, which took place in the Society's Hall, between the gentle- 

 men of the corps and the Secretary, aided by a commission which he 

 had chosen from among the members of the Society, it was under- 

 stood on all hands, that the department assigned to each scientific 

 gentleman in the expedition, would be subjected to no other interfe- 

 rence or control than what the service might require ; and that each 

 would have secured to him, on his return, all the honours which 

 might be earned by his personal toil. Mr. Ord expressed a belief, 

 founded on his recollections of that interview, that these assurances, 

 by satisfying the minds of the members of the corps, had the effect 

 of disembarrassing the action of the Secretary from the questions of 

 rank and precedence which had arisen among them; and he regret- 

 ted that the informal character of the interview had, perhaps, left the 

 circumstances which he mentioned, without a record among the files 

 of the Navy Department. 



