In 1838, the United States Exploring Expedition set sail for the Pacific Ocean and the South Seas. Botanist William Dunlop Brackenridge (1810-1893) continues his record of the observations fauna and collected specimens in the next leg of the journey in his "original notebooks" volumes 5 and 6. They cover his time in New South Wales, Australia. Please join your fellow volunteers to transcribe them and so make this handwritten record more accessible for today's researchers.
In 1838, the United States Exploring Expedition set sail for the Pacific Ocean and the South Seas. Botanist William Dunlop Brackenridge (1810-1893) continues his record of the observations fauna and collected specimens in the next leg of the journey in his "original notebooks" volumes 5 and 6. They cover his time in New South Wales, Australia. Please join your fellow volunteers to transcribe them and so make this handwritten record more accessible for today's researchers.
The United States Exploring Expedition was also known as the Wilkes Expedition, after its commander was Lieutenant Charles Wilkes of the United States Navy. It was prompted by a desire to obtain information concerning an area which was rapidly becoming of interest to American traders and whalers. When the expedition returned in 1842, Brackenridge was entrusted with the care of the living plants and also with the report on ferns collected by the expedition. In 1855 he moved to the Baltimore area and spent the rest of his life there as a nurseryman and landscape architect.
Other individuals in the contingent of scientists who accompanied the expedition included Charles Pickering, Titian Ramsay Peale, Joseph P. Couthouy, James Dwight Dana, William Rich, and Horatio Hale. In addition to the scientists, two illustrators, Joseph Drayton and Alfred T. Agate, also accompanied the expedition.