PREFACE. 13 



nomenclature of shells (which for his benefit I have care- 

 fully translated) may be somewhat dry reading, there is a 

 large amount of information throughout which cannot fail 

 to be instructive. Apart, however, from the scientific 

 portion of his " British Conchology," Jeffreys shows 

 literary abilities of so high an order that one cannot but 

 regret that his leisure moments were not spent in the 

 composition of Essays, in which (great as his name is and 

 will assuredly remain, for time to come, in Conchological 

 Annals,) the bright star of his fame would have shone with 

 equal, if not with more resplendency. But we must be 

 thankful for what he has done. He has sojourned 

 amongst us, and he has departed to another and a better 

 world ; and, in his Apprenticeship to Nature toiling 

 through a peaceful and happy lifetime as the MAN- 

 APPOINTED REVEALER and EXPOUNDER of some of her 

 wonderful mysteries he proved himself one of the greatest 

 Conchologists, if not the greatest that ever lived ; and I 

 need hardly add that the world of science the Naturalist's 

 world the world in general, and far Posterity itself, will 

 not willingly let his name sink in oblivion. 



If, then, an apology be looked for from me, for 

 lengthy quotation from the above-named standard author, 

 let me make it in the words of Ruskin : "I have always 

 thought that more true force of persuasion might be 

 obtained by rightly choosing and arranging what others 

 have said, than by painfully saying it again in one's own 

 way." Fors Clavigera, 21, 14. 



