/ 



1 864-1 865.] COLLECTIONS. 277 



the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. ; and accepted 

 on the same conditions." In a note he complains of the 

 misleading way in which some of his duplicate sets had been 

 treated by a dealer, with whom he had exchanged : — " In these 

 times it appears that naturalists must be content to resemble 

 the dealers in patent medicines, and guard the accuracy of 

 their works ! " No collections were to be trusted as his with- 

 out his unbroken seal. 



In the autumn he received overtures from the Liverpool 

 Domestic Mission. This was one of the first that was founded 

 in England after Dr. Tuckerman's visit. Although its sup- 

 porters were Unitarians, they had been always anxious to main- 

 tain its unsectarian character. The salary offered was a liberal 

 one: and he had many valued friends in Liverpool. "Ten 

 years ago," he wrote to me, " I might have jumped at it ; but I 

 have now got a wife, and a boy growing up. As the Mission 

 work is necessarily full of evening meetings, I do not like to 

 engage in any work in which I feel unable to take my boy with 

 me. . . . With the present disposition of Liverpool magistrates 

 [free licensing of the sale of intoxicating drinks], it does look 

 to me almost hopeless ; the mere walk from the Brunswick 

 Station to J, Robberds's, on Saturday night, was enough for 

 Minna." It was a gratifying proof that his old friends still 

 desired his services, though his doctrines had changed; but 

 we accorded in his feelings respecting it. 



During his last year of residence in England, he wrote 

 several papers that were printed in the Proceedings of the 

 Zoological Society, and the Annals of Natural History ; and 

 an article in French for the Journal de Conchy liologie. 



In February, 1865, he heard of a great fire at the Smith- 

 sonian, in which he believed that the sets of large shells which he 

 made out at Washington, stored up in the tower, were destroyed; 

 and Professor Henry's private office, with " all his magnificent 

 and very expensive apparatus, including Priestley's originals, 

 with which he made his discoveries. ... I tried hard to get all 

 the shells distributed. They were useless for Europe ; trade- 



