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| | United States Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842 |
 | | Estimates are that the collections amassed between April 1838 and June 1842 by the United States Exploring Expedition, under the command of Charles Wilkes, weighed nearly 40 tons. |
 | | The naval officers, crew, and nine civilian scientists, who sailed on six small ships for four years, gathered specimens of natural history at nearly every stop, including several thousand zoological specimens, 50,000 plant specimens, thousands of shells, corals, fossils, and geological specimens, even jars of sea water from different localities (Viola 1985:22). |
 | | The handwritten catalogue from the Patent Office, entitled “Collections of the United States South Sea Surveying and Exploring Expedition, 1838, 9, 40, 41, and 42” is now in the Department of Anthropology’s National Anthropological Archives. |
| www.sil.si.edu /DigitalCollections/usexex/learn/Walsh-01.htm (5122 words) |
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