3 
Third. All my rough material for microscopic 
research, as contained in small boxes, paper, vials, 
and larger boxes, containing large masses marked 
with chalk, Richmond, Petersburg, Georgia, Florida, 
etc. 
Upon receipt of these materials the Society appointed a committee 
consisting of Augustus A. Gould, John Bacon and Silas Durkee to 
report on the bequest. On the basis of their reports (Proc. Boston 
Soc. nat. Hist. 6:19^-200. 1857.) samples of diatoms were contained 
in the materials described in the first, second and thirds parts of 
the bequest. Bacon’s report on the "Microscopical Collection" 
indicated that it contained 2k octavo slide boxes (Table l), and 
it generally described the contents of 19 of them and specified^ that 
550 slides were contained in 21 boxes. A description of the three 
octavo boxes unaccounted for in Bacon’s report was misplaced into 
Durkee’s report on the algae; these boxes contained 69 slides but 
apparently no diatoms. The only disagreement between the original 
descriptions of these 2k boxes and the 2k octavo volumes found in 
the Farlow Herbarium in 1976 is that Bacon reported that two of the 
boxes contained "Test Objects and miscellaneous Organic Bodies," 
whereas I have found the collection to contain only a single box 
with this title. In that none of the 2k numbered volumes is missing 
I believe Bacon’s report was in error. In addition to the formally 
boxed slides. Bacon indicated that the collection contained more than 
800 "specimens mounted on glass slides" and 200 other specimens 
"mounted as opaque objects." Assuming these 800+ and 200 specimens 
represented an equal number of slides, the total number of slides 
contained in the original bequest was minimally 1,619. 
