Maine Geological Surveys: 1836
Appointed state geologist, C. T. Jackson pursued the work for three years, with James T. Hodge as assistant. In 1861, the legislature authorized a more detailed survey, to include natural history, under Charles H. Hitchcock and Ezekiel Hohnes, who had as assistants George L. Goodale, John C. Houghton (**ANSP), Alpheus Packard, Jr., and in a minor capacity George L. Vose. In addition, Paul A. Chadbourne, Addison E. Verrill, and J.W. Dawson reported to Hitchcock on various zoological aspects of the survey.
Charles T. Jackson (1805-1880) DAB
Dr. Jackson, trained at Harvard, Paris, and Vienna, was the au-round scientist. A geologist, mineralogist, and chemist of distinction, he discovered the anesthetic properties of ether, for which he was much decorated by foreign governments, and the telegraphic possibilities of electricity. Neither discovery went unchallenged but Jackson defended himself vehemently and persuasively. A correspondent of ineffable courtesy, he could nonetheless ascend to remarkable heights of vituperation when crossed. He would head four surveys and contribute to a fifth.
HSP: The Simon Gratz Collection contains a few letters written during Jackson's tenure on the Maine survey, in two of which he declined invitations to serve on the New York Survey on the ground that his work in Maine fully occupied his time.
**APS, HSP, ANSP
James T. Hodge (1816-1871; APS 1864, ANSP 1848)
A native of Plymouth and an 1836 graduate of Harvard, Hodge became an able geologist and mineralogist, served on the surveys of Maine and Pennsylvania, and at times on those of New Hampshire and Ohio. He afterward devoted himself to exploration of mining regions in the territories.
**APS
Charles Henry Hitchcock (1836-1919; APS 1870) DAB
Son of Edward Hitchcock of the Massachusetts survey, Hitchcock entered survey work as assistant geologist with the Vermont survey in 1857. He became state geologist of New Hampshire in 1868, devoted ten years to the survey, and published the results in four handsome volumes and an atlas. He was a prolific writer of scientific papers.
**HSP, ANSP
Ezekiel Holmes (1801-1865; ANSP 1826) DAB
Born in Kingston, Massachusetts, Holmes took a B.A. at Brown and an M.D. at Bowdoin, and practiced medicine, but his main interests were natural history and agriculture. He edited agricultural journals and an antislavery paper, helped found the Maine State Agricultural Society and the University of Maine and served in the state legislature.
**APS
George Lincoln Goodale (1815-1897; APS 1893, ANSP 1877) DAB
Born in Saco, Maine, Goodale graduated at Amherst, where he came under the influence of Edward Tuckerman and developed an interest in lichenology. He participated in the survey while a student at Harvard Medical School and afterward practiced medicine in Portland and taught at Bowdoin. Asa Gray brought him to Harvard in 1872, where he succeeded Gray as Fisher Professor of Natural History. Goodale was a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He served as botanist and chemist on the survey.
**APS
Alphaeus Spring Packard (1839-1905; APS 1878, ANSP 1876) DAB
Packard graduated from Bowdoin College and promptly joined the survey as a volunteer entomologist at the age of twenty-two. He afterward studied with Agassiz at the Lawrence Scientific School and was professor of zoology and geology at Brown University. A prolific writer, he gained prominence as entomologist, paleontologist, and neo-Lamarckian. Packard was a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
APS: Packard's letters in the J.L. LeConte Papers may possibly repay search.
**APS, ANSP
George L. Vose (1831-1910; APS 1870) DAB
Born in Augusta and privately educated, Vose was primarily a civil engineer, occupied with projects on various railroads. But he taught geology at both Bowdoin College and MIT, and his reflections on mountain origin (
Orograpbic Geology, 1866) are still accorded respect.[
14]
**HSP
Paul Ansel Chadbourne (1823-1883) DAB
Primarily an educator, Chadbourne was professor of chemistry and botany at Williams and Bowdoin and later president of Williams and of the University of Wisconsin.
**HSP
Addison E. Venill (1839-1927; ANSP 1887) DAB
Professor of zoology at Yale and an authority on marine animals, Verrill created the zoological collection at the Peabody Museum. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
**HSP, ANSP
John William Dawson (1820-1899; ANSP 1846) DNB
Born in Pictou, Nova Scotia, Dawson studied briefly at the University of Edinburgh, accompanied Sir Charles Lyell on his tour of Nova Scotia in 1842, and after investigating the Carboniferous rocks of the province, contributed two papers to the Geological Society of London. He interested himself in higher education in the Maritime Provinces and in 1851 became professor of natural history at McGill College. Dawson made important discoveries in paleontology but displayed strong religious opposition to Darwinism. He was a member of the Royal Society of London. Dawson reported on the survey's fossils.
**ANSP
The Natural History Survey of New York: 1836
When New York Secretary of State John A. Dix presented plans for "a complete geological survey of the state, which would furnish a perfect and scientific account of rocks and soils and their localities, and a list of all its mineralogical, botanical and zoological productions, and for procuring and preserving of the same," the legislators unanimously appropriated $104,000. The influence of the enterprise extended far beyond its accomplishments in geology and natural history. The most ambitious of the early state surveys, it set the standard (never fully emulated) for all that followed. More than any other of the surveys and explorations, with the exception of the United States Exploring Expedition, it launched notable careers in science. And it shaped the future organization of science in America, for out of the meetings of its geologists at the end of each field season (May to October) emerged in 1840 the American Association of Geologists and Naturalists, parent organization in 1848 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
After futile attempts to acquire the services of C. T. Jackson of the Maine Geological Survey, Governor William L. Marcy assigned the zoological department to James E. DeKay, the botanical to John Torrey, the mineralogical and chemical to Lewis C. Beck, and the geological to W. W. Mather, Ebenezer Emmons, T. A. Conrad, and Lardner Vanuxem. When later a paleontological department was introduced and placed in Conrad's charge, James Hall took his place as geologist. Dividing the state into geological districts, Marcy assigned the first to Mather, the second to Emmons, the third to Conrad, and the fourth to Vanuxem, and provided each with assistants. The collections became the New York State Cabinet of Natural History (1843) and were placed in Emmons's charge.
Rounding out the survey was a Division of Agriculture under the direction of Emmons, who was assisted by J.H. Salisbury, G.H. Smith (**ANSP), L.F. Allen, David Thomas, H.S. Randall, and Asa Fitch. With this division of labor, Mather observed proudly, "each head of a department ... has been enabled to devote his whole time and attention to his own specific duties, without having the entire range of natural science to distract his attention. . ."[15]
Edward Hitchcock worked with the survey initially but resigned in the "bilious summer" of 1836. (Gratz and Dreer Collections, HSP.) The highly regarded English geologist Richard C. Taylor (1789-1851), recently arrived at Philadelphia, declined a four-year appointment to the survey. (Gratz Collection, HSP.)
HSP: A number of relevant items of 1836 may be found in the Simon Gratz Collection. Urging Emmons to apply for a position, Chester Dewey assured him that the proposed survey would be enacted, "as such surveys are popular, as well as useful." Constantine Rafinesque eloquently recommended himself to Marcy, without avail. The distinguished anatomist and geologist Samuel George Morton, one of Marcy's original choices, elected to remain in Philadelphia (Amos Eaton to Marcy, 2 April 1836), and in letters to Marcy and Dix, the New York engineer James Renwick, the transplanted English mining engineer Richard C. Taylor, Chester Dewey, and C.T. Jackson declined positions, the last because of the low pay proffered. There is one letter by William E.A. Aikin, later of the Virginia survey, who was denied appointment. And see Edward Hitchcock's letter to Silliman and Richard Harlan's observations on the survey's organization.
For Chester Dewey's unenthusiastic observations on the survey's accomplishments, see his letter to Benjamin Silliman of 22 May 1841 in the same collection.
ANSP: When consulted in 1849, Samuel S. Haldeman advised on the best manner of completing the survey. Samuel S. Haldeman Correspondence.
James Ellswortb DeKay (1792-1851; ANSP 1821) DAB
Born in Lisbon, the son of a British army captain, DeKay studied medicine at Edinburgh but, repelled by practice, turned to natural history. One of the founders of the New York Lyceum of Natural History (now the New York Academy of Sciences), he was appointed to the original scientific corps of the United States Exploring Expedition (1838), but by the time that juggernaut of science was ready for sea, DeKay had cast his lot with the New York Survey.
APS: Letters of Scientists has DeKay's letter of 22 May 1837 concerning his reports for the survey. DeKay's letters about specimens in the Charles L. Bonaparte Correspondence may repay informed scrutiny.
HSP: In the Simon Gratz Collection, see his letters to Governors Marcy and William H. Seward accepting appointment and describing his work; Asa Gray's 1836 letter to John Torrey; the latter's letter to Marcy expressing satisfaction with DeKay's appointment, and John Locke's letter of 16 May 1841. In the same collection, see A. A. Gould's 1842 expression of concern over DeKay's habitually neglecting the field for the laboratory.
**APS, HSP
John Torrey (1796-1873; APS 1835, ANSP 1822) DAB
By the time of his appointment to the survey, this native New Yorker had become the country's premier botanist. Having put aside the practice of medicine, he was presently professor of chemistry and botany at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York and of chemistry at Princeton. He had examined the plants collected by David Douglass about the headwaters of the Mississippi and reported on those collected by Edwin James of the Long Expedition. As a matter of course, collectors now sent their plants to Torrey for description and classification. Though he accompanied none, he reported on plants returned by sixteen official expeditions and surveys. He was a founder of the New York Lyceum of Natural History, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and an original member of the National Academy of Sciences. Torrey was an enthusiastic correspondent and his letters convey much "botanical gossip," as his friend Charles Pickering put it, and many sharp judgments. But plants play as large a role as personalities. Careful research might succeed in attaching them to a specific exploration or survey.
APS: The John Torrey Papers (1819-1864) contains letters and papers on the survey. Rafinesque Letters to John Torrey has Torrey's eccentric friend's 1836 expression of interest in, and animadversions on, the survey. The Aaron Young, Jr., Papers has four Torrey letters concerning the survey. See also Misc. Mss. Collection.
HSP: In the Simon Gratz and Dreer Collections, see Torrey's letters to Governors Marcy and Seward about his work in the field and about Agnes Mitchill's plant drawings; see also Abraham Halsey's 1836 letter to John A. Dix.
ANSP: John Torrey Letters (Coll. 364; copy at APS, Film no.628). This collection of autographs includes letters from several of Torrey's colleagues on the survey, with some of whom he had long been corresponding.
**APS, HSP, LCP, ANSP
Lewis Caleb Beck (1798-1853; ANSP 1833) DAB
One of three physician brothers of Schenectady, Beck, like Torrey, deserted medicine for botany and chemistry. At the time of his appointment he was professor of chemistry and natural history at Rutgers College. Beck served as mineralogist.
HSP: The Simon Gratz Collection has Beck's 1836 letter to Governor Marcy regarding the appointment.
**APS, HSP, ANSP
W. W. Mather
APS: A Mather letter in the J.P. Lesley Papers refers to his publication for the survey.
HSP: The Simon Gratz Collection has three letters (1836, 1838) from Mather to Governor Marcy concerning the survey, two of them warmly recommending the appointment of Conrad and Hall; the Ferdinand J. Dreer Collection has another.
Ebenezer Emmons
See North Carolina Geological Survey: 1823.
APS: See Emmon's letters in the J.P. Lesley Papers and, in Misc. Mss. Collection, Hitchcock's 1836 letter testifying to Emmons's ability to conduct a survey "of any part of the United States."
HSP: The Simon Gratz Collection has letters from Emmons to Governor Marcy, Amos Eaton, Torrey, and A. Maclntyre about the survey. See also Emmons's letters in the Dreer Collection.
ANSP: Two Emmons letters of 1837 and 1847 in John Torrey Letters (Coll. 364; copy at APS, Film no. 628) bear on the survey, the former on his troubles with James Hall. And see Emmons's entomological letters of 1846-1847 in the Samuel S. Haldeman Papers.
**APS, HSP, ANSP
Timothy Abbot Conrad (1803-1877; APS 1865, ANSP 1831)
Son of a Philadelphia printer and amateur botanist, Conrad was educated in Quaker schools. Thereafter he taught himself. Slight, shy, hypochondriacal, and nagged by doubts of his ability to do work of the quality the survey -- and American science -- required, he resigned without writing his final report. A leading invertebrate paleontologist and one of the pioneers in using organic remains to date strata, Conrad participated in five of the explorations and surveys, published widely (appropriately anonymous verse as well as scientific reports), and, no doubt to his surprise, lived to a ripe age.
APS: Several of Conrad's many letters in the Samuel George Morton Papers concern the survey; that of 3 December 1836 is about the meeting of the survey scientists.
HSP: In the Simon Gratz Collection, see Samuel G. Morton's 1836 recommendation of Conrad as geologist to the survey, Conrad's letter to Marcy of the same year, and his 1839 letter to Governor Seward.
ANSP: John F. Frazer assured Samuel S. Haldeman that Conrad "damned himself forever" by resigning from the survey. Samuel S. Haldeman Correspondence.
Lardner Vanuxem (1792-1848; APS 1822) DAB
A native Philadelphian, Vanuxem graduated from the École des Mines at Paris and on his return occupied the chair of chemistry and mineralogy at South Carolina College. He resigned in 1827, spent four years in Mexico as a mining engineer, then settled on a farm near Bristol, Pennsylvania, to devote himself to geology. He continued on active work with the survey until 1841, when he arranged the state geological cabinet. Vanuxem published voluminously in geology, mineralogy, and chemistry, but his great work was his
Geology of New York, Third District (1842). There he seemed (for he wrote clumsily) to offer a development hypothesis in place of the Mosaic account of creation, on the strength of which he was later advanced as one of Darwin's precursors.
In the hope of devising a standard nomenclature, Vanuxem invited those engaged on the other state surveys to join the New Yorkers at their annual meeting in 1840, at which was organized the American Association of Geologists and Naturalists.
APS: Roderick Impey Murchison, American Correspondence, has Vanuxem's letter of 1 May 1840, which touches on the survey and on the matter of nomenclature.
HSP: The Simon Gratz Collection has several Vanuxem letters: to Governors Marcy and Seward regarding his own appointment and in support of the appointments of Eights and Conrad; and to James Hall about the printing of the reports.
ANSP: In Isaac Lea Correspondence (Coll. 452), Vanuxem informed his friend of his appointment to the survey. Other letters in the collection may repay examination.
**HSP
James Hall (1811-1896; APS 1854, ANSP 1843) DAB
Hall's was the most notable of the careers the survey launched. Born in Hingham, Massachusetts, he graduated from the Rensselaer school in 1832, where he became professor of chemistry and the natural sciences. Initially appointed assistant geologist of the Second District, in 1837 he was given charge of the Fourth. After completion of the survey, Hall retained his title of state geologist and devoted himself to paleontology, publishing a
Palaeontology of New York (1847-1894) which ran to eight volumes. He contributed to the paleontological surveys of Canada and to the geological surveys of Vermont (1844) and Minnesota (1859). He was appointed state geologist of Iowa in 1855 and of Wisconsin in 1857; and he prepared the paleontological reports on
Frémont's Expedition to Oregon and California (1843),
U.S. and Mexican Boundary Survey (1848),
Stansbury's Exploration of the Salt Lake Valley (1849), the
Pacific Railroad Surveys (1853), and the U.S. Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel (1877). Hall played an active role in the formation of the American Association of Geologists and Naturalists and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was an original member of the National Academy of Sciences. In 1858 the Geological Society of London awarded him its Wollaston Medal. Hall carried on an immense correspondence, hurried, hyponchronical, irascible, irate, and nearly all of it dealing with one survey or another.
APS: The J.L. Leconte, J.P. Lesley, John F. Frazer Papers, and Letters of Scientists have many letters from Hall relating to the survey and its publications. Misc. Mss. Collection has a revealing (and amusing) exchange between Hall and his friend Charles B. Trego, then working under the secretive H. D. Rogers of the Pennsylvania Survey.
HSP: The Simon Gratz Collection has relevant Hall letters and also C. T. Jackson's letter to Secretary of State John A. Dix introducing Hall and recommending him for a position on the survey; both the Dreer Collection and the Society Collection have Hall letters.
LCP: The Samuel George Morton Papers has a number of Hall letters relating to paleontology.
ANSP: In John Torrey Letters (Coll. 364; copy at APS, Film no. 628), see Hall's 1846 letter to H.S. Randall and his 1841 letter to Torrey concerning Sir Charles Lyell's visit to New York. See also his letters on the survey in Joseph Leidy Correspondence (Coll. 1).
**APS, HSP, LCP, ANSP
The two assistants in the First District were Dr. Leonard D. Gale (1800-1883; **APS, **HSP, **ANSP), chemist, geologist, and patent attorney; and
Frederick Merrick (1810-1894) DAB
A Methodist clergyman, Merrick was a native of Wilbraham, Massachusetts. He was professor of natural history at Ohio University at Athens, 1838-1845, then at Ohio Wesleyan University, which he helped found and served as president.
**HSP
Albert Hopkins (1807-1872, **HSP), founder-director of the Williams College Observatory, assisted in the Second District.
Assistants, Third District
James Eights (1798-1882; ANSP 1837)
A lifelong citizen of Albany, Eights remains an obscure figure in the history of American science. James Hall thought him "the best informed man in natural science" of his acquaintance. The first to make geological observations in the Antarctic (1829), Eights was originally appointed to the
United States Exploring Expedition (1838) but was maneuvered out of a place by its commander. He published widely until 1852, then fell silent.[
16]
HSP: In the Simon Gratz Collection, see Vanuxem's letter to Governor Marcy supporting Eights for a position on the survey.
**APS, HSP
Robert Parr Whitfield (1829-1910; APS 1898, ANSP 1887) DAB
Whitfield was born in New Hartford, New York. Mostly self-educated, he was an instrument maker in Utica when in 1856, on the strength of his enthusiasm for geology, James Hall brought him to the survey as assistant. He was its chief illustrator for twenty years. Whitfield was afterward with the U.S. Geological Survey, professor of geology at Rensselaer Polytechnic, and curator of the geological department at the American Museum of Natural History. After the Civil War he reported on the paleontology of several state surveys.
**APS, ANSP
Assistants, Fourth District
George W Boyd, Jr
HSP: The Simon Gratz Collection has Boyd's letter to Governor Marcy concerning the survey.
Eben Norton Horsford (1818 -1893; APS 1849) DAB
Twenty years old and a civil engineering graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic when he joined the survey to work under James Hall, Horsford distinguished himself in chemistry. After two years at Liebig's laboratory at Giessen, he was elected to the Rumford Professorship at Harvard, where he helped form the Lawrence Scientific School. Horsford also participated in the Pacific Railroad Surveys (1853).
**APS, HSP, LCP (where listed as E.W. Horsford), **ANSP
Assigned to the Division of Agriculture were the canal engineer and enthusiastic agriculturist David Thomas (1776-1859, **APS, HSP), J.H. Salisbury, L. F. Allen, H.S. Randall, and Asa Fitch.
James Henry Salisbury (1823-1905) DAB
Born in Scott, New York, Salisbury joined the survey as assistant chemist in 1846, but thereafter devoted himself to the practice of medicine with a sideline in botany.
**ANSP
Lewis Falley Allen (1800-1890) DAB
A native of Westfield, Massachusetts, Allen was a famous stock breeder, with a bias for the Shorthorn, who maintained a model farm of 600 acres on the Niagara River.
**HSP
Henry Stephens Randall (1811-1876) DAB
Born in New York State and a graduate of Union College, Randall was a lawyer who never practiced. He served as New York secretary of state, and wrote a biography of Jefferson and articles and books on sheep husbandry.
HSP: Randall's letter of 25 March 1849 in the Dreer Collection is informative.
**APS, HSP, ANSP
Asa Fitch (1809-1879) DAB
A native of Fitch's Point, New York, Fitch studied under Amos Eaton at Rensselaer Polytechnic, took a medical degree, then in 1838 deserted medicine for entomology, in which he gained an international reputation. In 1854 he became state entomologist, the first professional entomologist to be appointed by a state.
HSP: The Simon Gratz Collection has his letter to Governor Marcy of 16 April 1836 requesting appointment as zoologist to the survey.
**APS, HSP, ANSP
Nicollet's Explorations of the Upper Mississippi River: 1836
In the years 1836-1840, first at his own, then at public expense, Nicollet led an exploring party through the southern Allegheny range, ascended the Red, Arkansas, and Missouri Rivers, then tackled the Mississippi. Lts. J.C. Frémont and Eliakim P. Scammon (1816-1894; **APS, HSP) of the Topographical Engineers accompanied him at various times.
Jean Nicolas Nicollet (1786-1843; APS 1842, ANSP 1842) DAB
A native of Savoy and student of Laplace, Nicollet was professor of mathematics in the Collège Louis-le-Grand when he came to the United States in 1832 for the purpose, as he put it, "of making a scientific tour and with the view of contributing to the progressive increase of knowledge in the physical geography of North America." Both his tour and his contribution were extensive. Nicollet brought the latest science to the west, pioneering in the use of fossils to correlate strata and in the use of the barometer to determine elevation. He engaged Charles Geyer to collect plants, which were then described by John Torrey. Taken on the government payroll in 1838, he explored Minnesota, and in 1843 turned in his report and map of the upper Mississippi.[
17]
APS: The Samuel George Morton Papers has several Nicollet letters, 1840-42, concerning skulls and fossils, perhaps collected on this expedition.
HSP: See Nicollet's letters in the Joel Poinsett Papers and Frémont's letter to Nicollet in the Simon Gratz Collection. In the H. D. Gilpin Collection, Col. J. J. Abert refers in 1843 to the printing of Nicohet's map.
**ANSP
John Charles Frémont (1813-1890; ANSP 1848) DAB
Born in Savannah, Frémont grew up in Charleston, South Carolina. Expelled from Charleston College, he taught mathematics to midshipmen aboard the Natchez and assisted on a railroad survey. While serving with Nicollet, who trained him in exploration, he was commissioned second lieutenant with the Topographical Engineers. With this background, coupled with command of a fine literary style and marriage in 1842 to the daughter of Senator Thomas H. Benton, Frémont's career was assured. Lewis and Clark aside, he became the most celebrated western explorer of the century.
HSP: See Frémont's letter to Nicollet of 27 November 1847 in the Simon Gratz Collection.
**APS, HSP, ANSP
Charles Andreas Geyer (1809-1853)
Born in Dresden, the son of a market gardener, Geyer studied botany while assisting at the Dresden Botanic Garden. He came to the United States in 1834, where he collected odd jobs in winter and curious plants in summer. In 1835 Geyer journeyed to the plains of Missouri and joined Nicollet. Selling dried plants to finance his travels, he collected in the west in 1840, made a friend of George Engelmann in St. Louis, and traveled with Frémont to Iowa in 1841, everywhere finding new plants. In 1843-1844 he botanized from Missouri to Vancouver, then sailed to England to study his collections at Kew. In 1845 he returned to Saxony.[
18]
APS: George Engelmann's letters to Sir William Hooker in the Royal Botanical Garden Papers are informative on this rogue collector, who also accompanied the celebrated Scot William Drummond Stewart on his western excursions.
John Torrey
Pennsylvania Geological Survey: 1836
The survey was the brain child of the Geological Society of Pennsylvania, got up for the purpose in 1832 by Philadelphia naturalists and friends of science, including, among others, Stephen H. Long, Richard Harlan, George W. Featherstonhaugh, and Jacob Green. It was even proposed that the Society superintend the survey. (Richard C. Taylor, 10 December 1835; Misc. Mss. Collection, APS.) The legislature finally acted in 1836, authorizing an annual appropriation of $6,400 for five years and appointing Henry D. Rogers state geologist. In addition to those listed below, Rogers was assisted by Horace Moses (**APS), Henry W. Poole (**APS), and J.T. Hodge (
Maine Geological Survey, 1836). Appropriations were discontinued in 1842, though Rogers continued to prepare reports. Finally in 1851 the legislature appropriated fimds for the field work necessary to bring the reports up to date, and the survey came to an end with Rogers's final report in 1858. In addition to the collections listed under individual headings below, the following are useful for contemporary appraisal of the conduct of the survey.
APS: The William Parker Foulke Papers has Rogers's 1851 appeal (accompanied by a detailed description of the survey's accomplishments) to Philadelphia scientists to urge an appropriation for preparation of the final report; W.P. Foulke's rehearsal of arguments for and against completion of the report, and enthusiastic responses from Richard C. Taylor, Samuel George Morton, John F. Frazer, and James C. Booth. In the same collection, see P.W. Sheafer's letters from the field. The J.P. Lesley Papers has letters from William B. Rogers and from Lesley. Misc. Mss. Collection has letters of interest from Samuel Webb, and the John F. Frazer Papers has James Hall's of 15 December 1845.
Henry D. Rogers
APS: The A.D. Bache Papers has Bache's letter recommending Rogers to head the survey, and Miscellaneous Manuscripts has Rogers's 1835 letter suggesting how the legislative bill should be framed and the survey executed. Many pertinent Rogers letters appear in the John F. Frazer, William P. Foulke, and J. P. Lesley Papers, the last particularly rich on the controversy between Rogers and Lesley. The C.M. Wheatley Papers has Rogers's announcement of his completion of the final report.
HSP: The Simon Gratz Collection has four Rogers letters, dealing mostly with anthracite deposits and survey accounts.
ANSP: Rogers's 1848 letter in the Haldeman Correspondence addresses the final report of the survey. Vanuxem, who had hoped to join the survey, later speculated on the quality of Henry D. Rogers's work: Isaac Lea Correspondence.
**APS, HSP, LCP
James C. Booth (1810-1888; APS 1839, ANSP 1837) DAB
A native Philadelphian, Booth studied with William H. Keating at the University of Pennsylvania and with Amos Eaton at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, then studied chemistry for three years in Germany and Austria before returning to establish a laboratory in Philadelphia for instruction in chemical analysis and application of chemistry to the arts. It was the first of its kind in the country, and John F. Frazer and Robert E. Rogers were among his students. Booth would head the
Delaware Geological Survey (1837) and participate in the
Pacific Railroad Surveys (1853). He was later appointed melter and refiner at the Philadelphia mint. Booth assisted in the field in the 1836-1837 season.
APS: See Booth's letters in the W.P. Foulke Papers.
**APS, HSP, ANSP
John F. Frazer (1812-1872; APS 1842, ANSP 1835) DAB
A Philadelphian and graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied under Alexander Dallas Bache, Frazer remained with the survey only for the 1836-1837 season. When Bache joined the Coast Survey in 1844, Frazer took his place as professor of chemistry and natural philosophy at the university. For many years he edited the Journal of the Franklin Institute and was an original member of the National Academy of Sciences.
APS: The John F. Frazer Papers has several relevant letters.
**APS, HSP, ANSP
Robert E. Rogers
See
Virginia Geological Survey: 1835. Rogers assisted in the field in the 1836-1837 season, thereafter serving as chemist to the survey.
Samuel S. Haldeman (1812-1880; APS 1844, ANSP 1837) DAB
A native of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Haldeman joined the survey at the age of twenty-four at the request of Henry D. Rogers, who had been his teacher at Dickinson College, and remained with it until 1842. In 1851 he became professor of natural history at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also lectured on geology and chemistry, then moved to the chair of comparative philology. Haldeman investigated American Indian dialects and Pennsylvania Dutch, advocated spelling reform, carried out archaeological researches, and wrote on zoology, Latin pronunciation, and chess, all of which interests are reflected in his correspondence. In his study of molluscs, on which he was a recognized authority, he arrived at a development hypothesis, though he confined it to varieties within the species. Of the many Haldeman letters in these collections, few date from his early career. Haldeman was a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He assisted in the field in the 1837-1838 season.
APS: See Haldeman's letters (1839-1851) in the John F. Frazer and J.P. Lesley Papers.
ANSP: Search of the large collection of Haldeman Correspondence, 18301880, including his letterbooks, 1843-1846, might well prove fruitful.
**APS, HSP, LCP, ANSP
Charles B. Trego (1794-1874; APS 1843)
Born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Trego moved to Philadelphia about 1821, where he studied geology and taught school. Elected to the legislature in 1835, he was instrumental in securing the legislation authorizing the survey. Having himself, it was said, declined the position of state geologist, he assisted H. D. Rogers from 1837 to 1841, when he was again elected to the legislature. An enthusiastic member and benefactor of the APS, he served it either as treasurer or secretary from 1851 until his death.[
19]
APS: See his letters in the John F. Frazer Papers and in Miscellaneous Manuscripts. Those in the J.P. Lesley Papers and in the Archives may also prove relevant.
**HSP, LCP, ANSP
James Davenport Whelpley (1817-1872; ANSP 1838)
A New Yorker and graduate of Yale, Whelpley joined the survey as assistant at age twenty and remained with it two years before returning to Yale for an M.D. He afterward edited the American Whig Review. While in Honduras on a business enterprise, he was captured by William Walker and forced to perform as surgeon to Walker's band of filibusters. Whelpley wrote on large subjects: the idea of the atom, philosophical induction, philosophical analogy.
APS: See his letters to H. D. Rogers and to Lesley in the J.P. Lesley Papers.
**HSP, ANSP
Peter Wenrich Sheafer (1819-1891; APS 1863, ANSP 1853)
A Pennsylvanian, Sheafer joined the survey at age eighteen and assisted in the field in the 1837-1838 and 1851 seasons. He afterward devoted himself to mining engineering. In 1873 he helped secure the appointment of J.P. Lesley as head of the second survey of the state. Lesley lived to write his friend's obituary, and the survey's as well. "He was six months my senior in age; and now I remain the last one of that old set of the first geological survey of our State. They are all gone ... not one lives to tell the adventures of those early days of our science, when the very foundation principles of it had to be laid. . . without experience and without instruction." Of the many Sheafer letters in these collections, few derive from his early career.[
20]
APS: See Sheafer's letters to Lesley in the J.P. Lesley Papers and, as noted above, his reports from the field in the W.P. Foulke Papers.
**APS, HSP, LCP, ANSP
Robert Montgomery Smith Jackson (ca. 1820-1865; APS 1863)
A native of Blairsville, Pennsylvania, Jackson relished botany, geology, and mountaineering and maintained a wide literary correspondence. A physician, he later operated a secluded health resort in the mountains and served as postmaster at Cresson, Pennsylvania, to which "the Martyr Senator" Charles Sumner repaired after being caned on and to the floor of the Senate. Jackson earned his place in history by pronouncing Sumner an invalid, whereupon President Pierce relieved him of the postmastership. Jackson assisted on the survey, 1838-1841.[
21]
**APS, HSP
Townsend Ward (1817?-1885)
Later an officer of the HSP, whose Society Collection has upward of 100 pieces of his correspondence, Ward assisted in 1838-1841.
APS: The William Parker Foulke Papers has Ward's 1851 letter regarding publication of the final report.
**APS, HSP, ANSP
Martin Hans Boyé (1812-1909; APS 1840, ANSP 1842) DAB
An analytical chemist, philologist, physician, and professor of chemistry and natural philosophy at Philadelphia's Central High School, Boyé assisted in the field in 1839 and remained with the survey four years.
APS: The W.P. Foulke Papers contains two letters from Boyé concerning the survey and its final report.
**APS, ANSP
J. Peter Lesley (1819-1903; APS 1856, ANSP 1853) DAB
Born in Philadelphia and an 1838 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Lesley served on the survey during the next three years, after which he studied at Princeton Theological Seminary and in Germany. After two years with the American Tract Society in Pennsylvania, he preached for a time at a Congregational church in Milton, Massachusetts, and studied geology, which came to surpass theology as his chief interest, yielding place only to abolitionism of the Garrisonian stripe. He later became professor of geology and mining at the University of Pennsylvania and an authority on the coal fields of North America. Lesley was secretary and librarian of the APS, 1858-1885, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and an original member of the National Academy of Sciences. He was an inveterate traveler and correspondent.
APS: The J. P. Lesley Papers is an extraordinarily rich collection of letters from participants in this and other state surveys. Particularly useful on this one is the exchange, which runs the gamut from genial to hostile, between Lesley and H. D. Rogers, punctuated by the occasional offering from the latter's brother William and climaxed with Lesley's decision to resign from the survey and make money instead. Lesquereux's letters reveal him as Lesley's understanding confidante. Other members of the survey represented are Desor, Trego, Sheafer, Whelpley, Haldeman, Hodge, Jackson, Booth, Poole, and Henderson. Useful also are the many letters from James Hall, especially for their acerb comments on the geological capabilities of various contemporaries. In the lifelong fraternal correspondence between Lesley and his younger brother Joseph, several letters concern the survey.
**APS, HSP, LCP, ANSP
Andrew A. Henderson (1816-1875; APS 1862, ANSP 1848)
Two years out of Jefferson Medical College when he assisted in the field in 1840, Henderson entered the navy in 1841 as assistant surgeon and became its medical director in 1871. He was an all-round naturalist.[
22]
APS: See his letters in the J.P. Lesley Papers.
**ANSP
Pierre Jean Edouard Desor (1811-1882; APS 1862, ANSP 1877)
Born at Friedrichsdorf, Germany, and orphaned at an early age, Desor studied at the universities of Giessen and Heidelberg until the revolutionary excitements of 1830 drove him to France. Private secretary there to Dr. S.C.F. Hahneman of homeopathic fame, he studied geology under Elie de Beaumont. The turning point of his career came in 1837 on his meeting Louis Agassiz at Neufchâtel, where Agassiz, Arnold Guyot, Leo Lesquereux, and Karl Vogt were studying glaciation. With Guyot and Lesquereux, he followed Agassiz to the United States. After his spectacular falling out with Agassiz in 1848, Desor assisted in
Jackson's U.S. Survey of the Mineral Lands of Michigan (1847) and in
Foster and Whitney's U.S. Survey of the Lake Superior Land District (1849). In 1852 he returned to Switzerland, where he lived handsomely and enjoyed a famous reputation for hospitality. For his researches there on prehistoric lake dwellings, his good friend Lesley hailed Desor as "the chief of modern geological archaeologists."[
23]
APS: J. P. Lesley Papers has many letters from Desor relating to the survey.
**ANSP
Charles Leo Lesquereux (1806-1889; APS 1861, ANSP 1865) DAB
Born in Switzerland, Lesquereux was principal of a college when loss of hearing turned him to engraving and making watch springs. In 1848, his early interest in natural history having developed into a passion for mosses, he joined the twenty-odd other Europeans who followed Agassiz to Boston. Soon afterward he moved to Columbus, Ohio, where he collaborated with William Starling Sullivant in bryological researches. Lesquereux's speciality was fossil botany, and on this survey he focused on coal flora. Despite deaffiess and his initial shaky command of written English, never fully remedied, he participated in nine of these explorations and surveys, as well as later ones, and was the first elected member of the National Academy of Sciences. Lesquereux assisted in 1851.
APS: Lesquereux's many full and often amusing letters in the J. P. Lesley Papers are informative on this as on the other surveys. See also those in Jacob Stauffer Correspondence and his 1865 letter in Letters of Scientists.
**APS, HSP, ANSP
Thomas Rupert Jones (1819-1911; ANSP 1864)
A paleontologist and professor of geology and mineralogy at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, Jones reported on fossils. He was a fellow of the Geological Society of London.
**ANSP
Ohio Geological Survey: 1837
Though a liberal legislature ventured to appropriate $12,000 annually for an extensive geological survey, including "analyses of soils, ores, marls and waters," the effort came to an abrupt end in 1839, perhaps owing to the Panic of 1837. W.W. Mather (Featherstonhaugh Reconnaissance, 1835) was principal geologist and S.P. Hildreth, John Locke, Jared P. Kirtland, J.W. Foster, and later Charles Whittlesey, his assistants. I. A. Lapham contributed to the report three pages of miscellaneous observations on the geology of the state.
Samuel Prescott Hildretb (1783-1863; ANSP 1832) DAB
A Massachusetts-born physician but longtime citizen of Marietta, Ohio, Hildreth wrote on the history of Ohio and contributed articles to the American Journal of Science on meteorology, geology, and paleontology.
APS: In the Samuel George Morton Papers, see his letters of 1837.
LCP: See his letters in the Samuel George Morton Papers.
**APS, HSP, LCP, ANSP
John Locke (1792-1856; APS 1844, ANSP 1841) DAB
Born in Fryeburg, Maine, Locke received an M.D. from Yale, served briefly as assistant surgeon in the navy, lectured on botany at Dartmouth, and then moved to Cincinnati, where he taught chemistry at the Ohio College of Medicine and published articles on natural history, astronomy, physics, and chemistry. Locke was an accomplished engraver and the inventor of a number of scientific instruments, including the electro-chronograph, which the Naval Observatory purchased. He participated in three other of the surveys and explorations.
HSP: See Locke's letters in the Simon Gratz Collection. He attributed termination of the survey, not to hard times, but rather "a general belief that Mr. Mather and Mr. Whittlesey ... had speculated in the public lands . . . " and vigorously objected to Mather's simultaneous employment on the Ohio and New York surveys. (To Gov. Seward, 16 May 1841.)
LCP: See his letters in the Samuel George Morton Papers.
**APS, HSP, LCP, ANSP
Jared P. Kirtland (1793-1877; APS 1875) DAB
Born in Wallingford, Connecticut, Kirtland took a medical degree from Yale and opened a practice in Ohio, where he served three terms in the legislature. At the time of his appointment to the survey he was professor at the Medical College of Ohio at Cincinnati. An all-round naturalist with a preference for conchology, Kirtland became an early member of the National Academy of Sciences.
HSP: The Simon Gratz Collection has a Kirtland letter on the fishes collected.
**APS, HSP, ANSP
John Wells Foster (1815-1873)
A native of Massachusetts, Foster completed the scientific course at Wesleyan College, moved to Ohio, and was admitted to the bar at the age of twenty. He remained with the survey until 1844, when he returned to Massachusetts and took up civil engineering. He was one of the founders first of the Native American Party and then of the Republican Party. He published widely on the natural history and paleontology of the Mississippi Valley and in 1869 was president of the AAAS. Foster participated in
Jackson's Survey of the Mineral Lands of Michigan (1847) and in
Foster and Whitney's U.S. Survey of the Lake Superior Land District (1849).
**APS, ANSP
Charles Whittlesey (1808-1886)
Born in Southington, Connecticut, and educated at West Point (1831), Whittlesey resigned from the army at the end of the Black Hawk War and opened a law office in Cleveland, where he also edited a newspaper. He served Mather as topographer, geographer, and structural geologist. Intractable and cantankerous and with a judicious talent for sarcasm, he engaged in many controversies, including an especially bitter one with J.S. Newberry, who nonetheless named a coal plant for him. In his later years he developed an interest in archaeology and the writing of history. He was associated with four other surveys.[
25]
**APS, ANSP
Increase Allen Lapham (1811-1875; APS 1874) DAB
An all-round naturalist, Lapham was born in Oconomewoc, Wisconsin, began his career as a stone cutter for canal locks, and then moved on to surveying and engineering. He published widely on the geology, botany, meteorology, and archaeology of Wisconsin. Long a resident of Milwaukee, he assisted with the reports on two other surveys.
APS: Letters of Scientists has Lapham's 1837 request that Torrey identify plants.
ANSP: John Torrey Letters (Coll. 364; copy at APS, Film no.628), contains a similar request.
**LCP, ANSP
The United States Exploring Expedition: 1838
Launched as the great hurrah of American science (six naval vessels sailed with some five hundred officers, crews, scientists, and artists) and designed to give the lie to all disparagements of American culture, the expedition made a good showing. In its four-year circumnavigation, it charted some two hundred islands, most in the Pacific, discovered the Antarctic continent, and returned natural history collections of unprecedented proportions. From out of its collections of data and specimens emerged the first great federal institutions of science-the U.S. Botanic Garden, the National Herbarium, the Naval Observatory, and the National Museum. It set the precedent for American exploration overseas.
Genuflecting to the ethic of utility, the secretary of the navy instructed its commander that the "primary object of the Expedition is the promotion of the great interests of commerce and navigation, yet you will take all occasions, not incompatible with the great purposes of your undertaking, to extend the bounds of science, and promote the acquisition of knowledge." For the better extending and securing, the secretary, after consultation with the leading scientific societies, appointed a corps of scientists and artists to accompany the expedition: Charles Pickering and T.R. Peale, naturalists; J.P. Couthouy, conchologist; J.D. Dana, mineralogist; William Rich, botanist; Joseph Drayton, artist; and W.D. Brackenridge, horticulturist -- Lt. Charles Wilkes to command. Only two of the corps, the philologist Horatio Hale and the artist Alfred Agate, are unrepresented in these collections.
Among those who wrote the scientific reports, a new kind of natural history man emerged, one who confined his investigations to the laboratory and but rarely went into the field. Cassin, Gray, Girard, and Bailey are representative.
APS: United States Exploring Expedition Records of 27 reels (Film no.377: "Records Relating to the United States Exploring Expedition Under the Command of Lt. Charles Wilkes, 1836-1842," Microcopy 75 of originals in the National Archives) is the most important single source on the organization of the expedition. The APS Archives has Secretary of the Navy Mahlon Dickerson's request of 31 August 1836 for the Society's advice; Dickerson's acknowledgment of its receipt ("It will form the basis of the Instructions to the scientific corps. . ."); committee reports outlining fields of observation and research; a rough draft of a letter to the secretary embodying reports by R.M. Patterson, J. P. Espy, T.R. Peale, Charles Pickering, H.D. Rogers, P.S. DuPonceau, and Nathaniel Chapman; and a list of books for the scientific corps. The Peale Sketchbooks have sketches by, among others, Wilkes, Lt. Thomas T. Craven, and the artist Drayton. The Samuel George Morton Papers has Morton's observations on preparations for the expedition, and Letters of Scientists has James Eights's list of instruments and books. On the expedition's use of the Philadelphia merchant Charles N. Bancker's library, see Reynell Coates's letter in Bancker Family Papers. For George Ord's firm views on the enterprise, see his Letters to Charles Waterton. In the J.L. LeConte Papers, see Spencer F. Baird's letter of 19 January 1852. And for various expressions of scientific opinion on this as on other surveys and expeditions, see the J.P. Lesley Papers.
HSP: The Henry D. Gilpin Collection has an exchange of letters (1841-1845) among Col. J. J. Abert, Joel Poinsett, Gouverneur Kemble, Francis Bowen, and David K. Whitaker concerning the natural history collections, the National Institute, and the Smithsonian bequest. Another, of 1842, from Charles Wilkes seeks to determine whether he has been slandered.
ANSP: U.S. Exploring Expedition Letters contains photocopies (from originals in the National Archives) of letters written in 1836 by some who would be appointed to the expedition and by other scientists and various public figures, most responding to requests for advice about organization, apparatus, personnel, instruments, books, materials for collecting, subjects for scientific inquiry, and the like.
ANSP Correspondence (Coll. 567) has Secretary of the Navy Mahlon Dickerson's request of 31 August 1836 for advice. The appointment of committees and their responses are noted in the Minutes of ANSP meetings (Coll. 502) for 13 and 27 September, and the Record Book of the Corresponding Secretary (Coll. 80) has transcripts of letters (27 September, 25 October 1836) transmitting the committee reports. The Samuel S. Haldeman Correspondence has John F. Frazer's harsh observations on the National Institute for the Promotion of Science, which briefly controlled the expedition collections.
In John Torrey Letters (Coll. 364; copy at APS, Film no. 628), see Admiral A.D. von Kruzenstern's letter of 22 December 1836, accompanying a packet of Pacific charts for use by the expedition; Thomas Say's advice of 28 December 1828 for the exploring scientists; and Torrey's observations of 8 August 1838 on the organization of the expedition. In Samuel S. Haldeman Correspondence, see Baird's response in 1842 to the display of the collections in the Patent Office Building, in which he found "ample material ... for the study of years."
Charles Wilkes (1798-1877; APS 1843) DAB
Born into a well-connected New York family, Wilkes entered the navy in 1818. For a time detailed to the Coast Survey under Ferdinand Hassler, in 1830 he was appointed to the depot of charts and instruments, where he set up fixed astronomical instruments and so gained a reputation-unenviable in the navy of the time-as a scientist. With unalloyed confidence he got himself appointed cartographer, oceanographer, meteorologist, and physicist to the expedition and after a few days' sail quietly promoted himself captain as well. As Wilkes saw it, the expedition was to be insofar as possible a navy enterprise. When that vision faded and he found himself obliged to convey civilian "scientifics" around the world, he sought to confine to those who had sailed with the expedition the entire task of preparing, classifying, describing, and displaying the natural history collections. But the collections were too lar ge, too varied for the competence of the scientific corps, as its members freely admitted. Forced to call upon scientists who had not sailed with the expedition, he insisted that they nonetheless be native Americans. But he was foiled again, for the nation lacked the requisite specialists in botany, as American botanists freely admitted. Still, as Wilkes's five-volume narrative and the successive volumes of scientific reports appeared, the "great national work" proved to be very nearly "entirely American." Wilkes spent the rest of his career in the attempt to secure publication of all the volumes originally projected.
APS: See the tetchy correspondence of 1847 among Wilkes, LeConte, Drayton, and Torrey in the J. L. LeConte Papers.
The Peale-Sellers Papers has Titian Peale's request of 11 July 1838 on behalf of the Philadelphia Museum that Wilkes sit for his portrait. In Letters to T.R. Peale, see George Ord's observations of 20 May 1845 on Wilkes. The Royal Society of London Letters and Communications from Americans (H.S. Film no. 1; originals at the Royal Society) has Wilkes's letters of 1836 requesting advice on the purchase of scientific apparatus for the expedition. Also worth consulting is Letters of Scientists. The Charles Robert Darwin Letters has Darwin's undated note to Wilkes suggesting a meeting for the purpose of discussing "your long & most interesting voyage."
Misc. Mss. Collection has Wilkes's letter to Senator Fessenden concerning expedition publications, Secretary of Navy Paulding's to Wilkes on the eve of the expedition's departure, and conchologist John C. Jay's offer (and Frederick Prime's recommendation on his behalf) to examine the collection of shells.
The Silliman Papers has Silliman's request to Wilkes for a sample of sea water.
HSP: The Simon Gratz Collection has a number of pertinent items, among them Wilkes's inquiry to William H. Aspinwall about instruments, to W.C ' Bond regarding astronomical observations, and to publishers and others about book publication. A letter from Commodore Lewis Warrington instructs about receiving the president on board the Vincennes just before the squadron's departure; another from Midshipman Henry J. Hartstene reports the captain of his ship for misconduct.
The Joel Poinsett Papers has an informative exchange of letters (1838-1842) between Wilkes and Secretary of War Poinsett regarding the expedition.
LCP: The Samuel George Morton Papers has Wilkes's bemused response of 1846 to the manuscript for Pickering's controversial book, The Races of Man.
ANSP: Wilkes's letters, including one of 1850 concerning Brackenridge's manuscript report on ferns, may be found in John Torrey Letters (Con. 364; copy at APS, Film no.628). Samuel S. Haldeman Correspondence has Wilkes's 1848 request that Haldeman report on the Lepidoptera. Joseph Leidy Correspondence has J.L. LeConte in Washington in 1847 to name "the insects of the Ex. Ex."
**APS, HSP, LCP, ANSP
Charles Pickering (1805-1878; APS 1828) DAB
Accounted (by all but Titian Peale) the most learned member of the scientific corps, Pickering was brought up in the home of his grandfather, Colonel Timothy Pickering of Salem, Massachusetts. He took a medical degree at Harvard in 1826, developed an interest in botany, and moved to Philadelphia to become librarian of the Academy of Natural Sciences. On the expedition's return he acted for a time as curator of the collections; traveled in the Near East, India, and Africa; prepared his report on the races of man, in which he presented unorthodox views on the origin of race; and labored on his monumental Chronological History of plants. Man's Record of his own Existence illustrated through their Names, Uses, and Companionship, published posthumously in 1879.
APS: Pickering material in the Archives deals almost wholly with business of the Library, but see his dismayed letter (12 September 1837) of resignation from the Society. The Samuel George Morton Papers, one portion of which (Film no. 1413) is a film of originals owned by Dr. Hugh Montgomery, contains several letters from Pickering about preparations for the expedition; others written in the course of the cruise report his ethnological observations, and describe his adventures and his subsequent curatorship of the collections. Writing on arrival at Sandy Hook, he coolly invites the craniologist Morton to come and examine the skull of the Fiji prisoner Vendovi, then dying on board. In Royal Botanic Gardens Correspondence (H.S. Film no. 7), see his 1843 letter to W.J. Hooker on the botanical publications of the expedition.
HSP: In the J. R. Poinsett Papers see John Pickering's response of 10 July 1840 to the news that the expedition had discovered "an Antarctic Continent"; his remarks of 17 April 1841 on the expedition's natural history collections now arriving; Poinsett's letters of 4 July 1842 and 3 January 1843 on the political animosity displayed toward the expedition and of 24 May 1843 on relations between the American Association of Geologists and Naturalists and the National Institute.
LCP: The Samuel George Morton Papers has Pickering's reports on his tribulations with Wilkes over publication of his manuscript and Oliver Wendell Holmes's entertaining appraisal of the book.
ANSP: Pickering's Journal of some 1000 pages covers the portion of the cruise from Madeira to the Hawaiian Islands and addresses scientific matters in considerable detail. John Torrey Letters (Coll. 364; copy at APS, Film no.628), has Pickering letters of 1828 and 1851 concerning the expedition and its plant collections. See his letter to Morton of 12 June 1848, mounted in the end papers of the Library's copy of Pickering's book.
**APS, HSP, LCP, ANSP
Titian R. Peale
APS: In the Peale-Sellers Papers, see Peale's letters of 1840-1842 to his daughter Mary Florida and brother Franklin Peale. In the Peale Sketchbooks of 480 items are many in pencil, watercolor, ink, and wash that Peale made while on the expedition. The John F. Frazer Papers has Peale letters alluding to the National Institute's mistreatment of expedition specimens-"my two birds (male & female) made into one -- the legs of one put on another's body. . ." -- and to his tribulations with Wilkes. Misc. Mss. Collections includes his letters of 1838 to Robert M. Patterson describing life on board the
Peacock, and one of 1840 to E.K. Kane, written from New Zealand, describes the adventures of the expedition, including the discovery of Antarctica. The Library has a film copy of the Peale Family material of originals in HSP.
HSP: The Peale Papers has Peale's revealing correspondence, 1827-1854, with George Ord, among other things detailing his tribulations with the collections and with his report on zoology. (Photocopies of some of these may be found in APS Misc. Mss. Collection.) There is also a catalogue of birds collected, birds lost with the Peacock, and birds mounted in the Patent Office.
LCP: The J.J. Smith Family Papers has a Peale letter regarding the troublesome botanical section. In the Samuel George Morton Papers, see Peale's letter of 14 July 1846 observing that "the mode of conducting the publication is not what it ought to be" and announcing, mistakenly, that Congress has approved the printing of a larger edition of reports "on the discoveries of the late Exploring expedn."
Joseph Pitty Couthouy (1808-1864; ANSP 1837)
A Boston merchant and ship captain and member of the Boston Society of Natural History, Couthouy proved himself an able conchologist and an energetic and industrious collector until Wilkes dismissed him from the corps.
APS: The Samuel George Morton Papers has a single letter (27 May 1837) from Couthouy to Morton.
**ANSP
James Dwight Dana (1813-1895; APS 1854, ANSP 1836) DAB
Dana's was one of the most distinguished of the scientific careers launched by these enterprises. Born in Utica, New York, he studied with Benjamin Silliman at Yale, then served briefly as mathematics instructor in the navy. His System of Mineralogy, published when he was twenty-four, brought him to the attention of the scientific community. On the expedition's return Dana brought out three volumes of the reports, in which he presented some new and fruitful interpretations of volcanism and of the origin of coral islands. He was appointed professor of natural history and geology at Yale in 1850 and became editor of the American Journal of Science. He also became the nation's, perhaps the world's, foremost geologist. Dana was an original member of the National Academy of Sciences.
APS: Of the many Dana letters in various collections, see especially those in the J. L. LeConte Papers and in the John E. Gray Letters. The Asa Gray Papers (H.S. Film no. 35 of originals at Yale) has Dana's report from Valparaiso in 1839 and from Fiji in 1840 on life with the expedition. In the same collection, see his and Gray's later correspondence regarding the collections and publications of the expedition. Dana's letters of 1843-1844 in the S.G. Morton Papers deal with expedition fossils, corals, and publications.
HSP: The Simon Gratz Collection and the Society Collection have relevant Dana letters.
LCP: See Dana's few letters in the Samuel George Morton Papers.
ANSP: In 1852 Dana hoped that Leidy would contribute "some of your admirable work" to the expedition reports: Joseph Leidy Correspondence (Coll. 1). In Samuel S. Haldeman Correspondence, see Dana's expression of sympathy over Wilkes's mistreatment of his friend Haldeman, whom Dana kept posted on his own progress in completing the reports; and his expression of distaste for "Old Tappan" (Senator Benjamin Tappan), the "crooked stick," who, as chairman of the Senate Library Committee, for a time supervised publication of the expedition reports. ANSP Correspondence (Coll. 567) has Dana's letter of 26 January 1849 asking that the Academy petition for a larger edition of the expedition reports.
**APS, HSP, ANSP
William Rich (1800-1864; ANSP 1845)
Rich was a Washingtonian, clerk in the army paymaster's office, and Sunday botanizer and organizer of local garden shows. In the outbreak of war with Mexico he found escape from having to report on the expedition's botanical collections. Afterward Rich collected privately with the
Mexican Boundary Survey (1848) and the
Pacific Railroad Survey (1853), then served briefly as secretary to the American legation in Mexico.[
26]
**ANSP
Joseph Drayton (d. 1857)
A Philadelphia draughtsman and lithographer, Drayton "served the cruise" and afterward was the mainstay of the publication effort.
APS: See Drayton's letters about entomological drawings in the J. L. LeConte Papers. At least ten of the sketches in the Peale Sketchbooks are Drayton's.
HSP: Letters in the Edward C. Gardiner Collection deal with the lithography of the expedition reports.
LCP: A Drayton letter in the Samuel George Morton Papers invites the craniologist to see the expedition's skull collection displayed in the Patent Office.
ANSP: U.S. Exploring Expedition Letters (Coll. 39) has Drayton's sketches of dredging apparatus.
William Dunlop Brackenridge (1810-1893) DAB
A Scot, Brackenridge had been head gardener at the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens before coming to Philadelphia in 1837. As horticulturist he was to care for the expedition's live plants but proved to be an able collector in his own right, and on the expedition's return he converted the plant collection into the U.S. Botanic Garden ("the government green house"). Brackenridge wrote the report on the expedition's ferns and another on the plants and seeds from
Gilliss's U.S. Naval Astronomical Expedition (1849). Afterward he set up as nurseryman and landscape gardener near Baltimore and edited the horticultural department of
The American Farmer.
APS: Three of Brackenridge's letters to W.J. Hooker are in the Royal Botanic Garden Correspondence (H.S. Film no. 7 of originals at Royal Botanic Garden, Kew).
ANSP: John Torrey Letters (Coll. 364; copy at APS, Film no.628), has Brackenridge's letter to Torrey about Brackenridge's book on ferns.
**HSP, ANSP
John Cassin (1813-1869; APS 1852, ANSP 1842) DAB
Born near Chester, Pennsylvania, Cassin moved to Philadelphia in 1834, engaged in business for a time, and thereafter devoted himself to ornithology. His publications, in which he reported on the bird collections of nine expeditions and described many new species, are mostly in government reports.
ANSP: Studying the fishes, evidently of this expedition, Cassin sought Haldeman's assistance: Samuel S. Haldeman Correspondence.
**APS, LCP, ANSP
A. A. Gould
ANSP: Gould's informative letters in Samuel S. Haldeman Correspondence and Tryon-Pilsbry Correspondence comment on the delay in publishing the expedition reports and on shells, possibly those of this expedition.
Asa Gray (1810-1888; APS 1848, ANSP 1836) DAB
Born the son of a tanner in Sauquoit, New York, Gray took a medical degree in 1831 but, like his mentor John Torrey, soon deserted pills for plants. Originally appointed to the corps of scientists, but dismayed at the seemingly interminable delays in the expedition's sailing, he resigned when offered the professorship of botany, the first in the nation, at the new University of Michigan. Fisher Professor of Natural History at Harvard from 1842 to 1873, Gray would become an original member of the National Academy of Sciences, Darwin's foremost American champion, and the world's foremost botanist. He reported on the Phanerogamia of this expedition and on the plants of eleven others.
APS: In the Asa Gray Papers, see Gray's 1838 letter to Commodore Charles G. Ridgeley listing the scientific instruments required for the expedition, and his letters to Torrey. In the Archives, see his letter of 1846 calling for a larger edition of the expedition publications; in Letters of Scientists, his 1848 letter to Wilkes concerning payment due for his work on the plants. See J.L. LeConte Papers and also Royal Botanic Gardens Correspondence (H.S. Film no. 7 of originals in Royal Botanic Gardens) for his letters to Hooker on his decision to work up the plants. Of the approximately 150 Gray letters in this collection, almost all concern exchange of specimens and journals; few deal with expeditions and surveys as such. However, the Asa Gray Papers (H.S. Film no. 35 of originals at Yale) may repay informed search.
HSP: In the Simon Gratz Collection, see his letters to Torrey of 1836, 1857.
LCP: See Gray's letters in the Samuel George Morton Papers.
ANSP: As corresponding secretary of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Gray sought the Academy's support in urging on Congress a larger printing of the expedition reports: Asa Gray Papers.
**APS, HSP, LCP, ANSP
Charles Frédéric Girard (1822-1895; ANSP 1851) DAB
Herpetologist and ichthyologist, Girard was Born in Mulhausen, France, studied under Agassiz at Neufchâtel, and in 1847 followed him to the United States. Girard moved to Washington in 1850 and, naturalized two years later, went to work at the Smithsonian Institution as Spencer Baird's principal assistant. Commissioned to supply medicines to the Confederacy during the Civil War, he moved to Paris, where he practiced medicine for the rest of his life. Like Cassin, he published mostly in government reports, often in collaboration with Baird. He reported on the reptiles, fishes, and insects of eight other expeditions.
APS: Letters to J.L. LeConte contains twelve letters to and about Girard.
ANSP: Several of Girard's letters in the Samuel S. Haldeman Correspondence concern his publications on the expedition collections.
**APS, ANSP
William Starling Sullivant (1803-1873; APS 1862, ANSP 1844) DAB
A native of Ohio and graduate of Yale, Sullivant for most of his life was a surveyor. Taking up botany, he focused on mosses, on which he became America's leading authority. He published widely, in government reports as well as independently, once in collaboration with his friend Lesquereux. Sullivant was a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He contributed reports to seven expeditions.
HSP: In the Simon Gratz Collection, see Sullivant's letter to Torrey about the bryological specimens.
**APS, ANSP
Edward Tuckerman, Jr. (1817-1886; ANSP 1848) DAB
Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, and educated at Union College and Harvard, Tuckerman taught history and botany at Amherst for thirty-two years. In his specialty, lichenology, he had no superior in America. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a prolific writer. Tuckerman reported on the lichens of three expeditions.
ANSP: In John Torrey Letters (Coll. 364; copy at APS, Film no.628), see his letter of 1851 on the expedition's lichens.
**APS, HSP, ANSP
Jacob Whitman Bailey (1811-1857; APS 1852, ANSP 1841) DAB
The son of a minister, Bailey was born at Auburn, Massachusetts, and educated at West Point, where from 1834 to his death he was professor of chemistry, mineralogy, and geology. He was the nation's pioneer microscopist and just as plant collections were dispatched to Torrey and Gray, so microscopical organisms went to Bailey. He published many papers, among them reports for six expeditions.
APS: In the John Torrey Papers, see Torrey's 1840 letter to Bailey.
**APS, HSP, LCP, ANSP
William Henry Harpey (1811-1866) DNB
Born in Ireland, Harvey left school at sixteen and entered his father's mercantile business, botanizing the while. His discovery of a new moss in 1831 attracted the attention of Sir William Hooker. Four years later he journeyed to Cape Town, where he spent the next seven years investigating the botany of South Africa. Shortly after his return he was recognized as Britain's chief authority on algae, and his Lowell Institute Lectures in Boston in 1849 earned high praise from Asa Gray. In 1856 Harvey became professor of botany at Trinity College, Dublin. He reported on the algae of four American expeditions.
APS: The 400-odd Harvey letters in the Royal Botanic Garden Correspondence (H.S. Film no.7) may repay close examination.
LCP: In the Morton Papers, see Gray's expression of esteem for Harvey of 1 January 1850.
**APS, HSP, LCP, ANSP
M.A. Curtis
Miles Joseph Berkeley (1803-1889) DNB
A rural dean with Cambridge B.A. and M.A., Berkeley developed an interest in mosses and seaweeds and in 1836 published a volume on fungi which made his reputation. He reported on the fungi returned by the
Rodgers and Ringgold Expedition (1853) and several British expeditions, including that of the
Beagle.
**APS, ANSP
John Torrey
APS: In the John Torrey Papers see his 1848 letter to Wilkes. A few of Torrey's letters to Hooker in the Royal Botanic Garden Correspondence touch on the troubles in bringing out the botanical publications.
HSP: In the Simon Gratz Collection, see his 1841 letter to Nicollet regarding expedition plants.
ANSP: John Torrey Letters (Coll. 364; copy at APS, Film no.628), has his 1838 letter to Rafinesque on the organization of the expedition and his vigorous expression of opinion on Wilkes.
Vermont Geological Surveys: 1844
Disaster and death dogged these surveys. Charles Baker Adams, the first state geologist, made four annual reports, then died at the age of 39. His successor, Zadock Thompson, died after three years, and his successor, Augustus Young, died within the year. Edward Hitchcock (Massachusetts Geological Survey, 1830) then took charge-just before fire destroyed the corrections.
Charles Baker Adams (1814-1853; ANSP 1846) DAB
Born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and a graduate of Amherst, Adams was professor of chemistry and natural history at Middlebury College at the time of his appointment to the survey and afterward professor of astronomy and zoology at Amherst. Primarily a conchologist, Adams was an inveterate field investigator.
ANSP: Adams letters of 1844 and 1846 in the Samuel S. Haldeman Correspondence touch on the survey.
**APS, HSP, ANSP
Zadock Tbompson (1796-1856) DAB
Born in Bridgewater, Vermont, and a graduate of the University of Vermont, Thompson had a varied career as editor, theologian, and professor of chemistry and natural history at the University of Vermont. He published a guidebook to Vermont and books on its geology and history.
HSP: In the Simon Gratz Collection, see his letters to Silliman and Dana about a fossil skeleton found in Vermont.
Samuel Read Hall (1795-1877) DAB
A New Hampshireman, Hall was a Congregational minister and educator who headed various academies and seminaries in Vermont and New Hampshire and published a book on "school-keeping." In what appears to have been his only venture into geology, Hall assisted in the field and with the geological reports.
**HSP
Edward Hitchcock, Jr. (1828-1901)
The son of Edward Hitchcock, Hitchcock, Jr., graduated at Amherst and the Harvard Medical School and studied comparative anatomy in England before becoming professor of physical education at Amherst. He reported on mineral locations.
**HSP
Charles H. Hitchcock
Tbomas Steny Hunt (1826-1892; APS 1861) DAB
Born in Norwich, Connecticut, Hunt abandoned medicine for chemistry, studying under the Sillimans at Yale before joining the Canadian Geological Survey, on which he served as chemist and mineralogist for many years. In 1872 he succeeded William B. Rogers as professor of geology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A brilliant if somewhat eccentric mind, he developed his own system of organic chemistry, and the permanent green ink he invented in 1859 gave a name to the inflated U.S. currency bills of the 1860s and 70s. A popular lecturer, he was also a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Hunt reported on geology.
**APS, HSP, ANSP
C. L. Lesquereux
APS: See Lesquereux's always informative, frequently gossipy letters in the J. L. LeConte and J.P. Lesley Papers.
HSP: See his letter, 7 November 1857, to Joseph Leidy in the Society Collection.
Daniel Cady Eaton (1834-1895; ANSP 1877) DAB
The grandson of Amos Eaton and born in Michigan, Eaton graduated at Yale, studied botany at Harvard, and became professor of botany at Yale in 1864. He participated in four other expeditions. He reported on the botany of this.
**APS, HSP, ANSP
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