1873.] 



SENATE^No. 252. 



7 



is dependent upon a special appropriation for the purpose ; 

 but I trust that the means will not be wanting, and that at 

 my next annual report I shall be able to state with precision 

 the scientific value and importance of the collections from the 

 Hassler Expedition. My impression is, and I believe I am 

 rather understating than overstating the truth, that if I am 

 allowed to make these collections available by the proper 

 means of preservation, we have now the greatest working 

 Museum in the world ; the one, that is, which supplies the 

 most extensive and varied material for special and compre- 

 hensive zoological research. I do not exclude the oldest and 

 largest Museums of Europe from this statement, believing as 

 I do that the time has passed when the value of a Museum is 

 to be measured by the number of its stuffed birds and empty 

 shells. 



I should say a few words of the Expedition which has been 

 so beneficial to our Museum, of the circumstances under 

 which it was organized, and of what I have been able person- 

 ally to do for the institution during the year of my absence. 

 About two years ago Professor Peirce, Superintendent of the 

 United States Coast Survey found it necessary to build a 

 vessel especially for the work of the survey on the Pacific 

 Coast. When she was nearly ready for sea it occurred to the 

 Superintendent that it was a pity to send her empty around 

 the continent, the more so since a great part of her track 

 would be especially interesting for scientific research. He 

 proposed to me to join the vessel with some assistants and to 

 make such explorations as might not interfere with the prog- 

 ress of the voyage and with the regular work of the survey. 

 At the same time he appointed Count de Pourtales, whose 

 dredgings in the Gulf of Mexico have had such valuable 

 results for science to take charge of the dredging operations 

 for the whole voyage. The opportunity thus offered to me 

 and my younger friends, while it gave us the means of making 

 the voyage from Boston to San Francisco, did not provide in 

 any way for the expenses incident upon the making of collec- 

 tions, their preservation or their transportation to Cambridge. 

 For these objects I made an appeal to the liberality of the 

 citizens of Boston, whose generous good- will toward the 

 Museum I had so often before experienced in the hour of 



