APPENDIX. 27 



first commencement of proceedings against me, I think now 

 I need entertain no scruples on the score of delicacy to the 

 feelings of my opponent. But in thus going farther than I 

 originally proposed, I must again remind the readers of this 

 Appendix, that the placing this history before them involves no 

 act of aggression on my part. The measure throughout is solely 

 one of self protection. I find myself in a position, which 

 no exercise of prudence or fore-sight could possibly have 

 guarded me against ; one into which I have been forced by the 

 treachery of parties, who stand the foremost in the ranks of 

 those who are at work in the field of philosophical research. If 

 this position bring with it the necessity for my explaining the 

 relation in which I have been placed to the President of the 

 Geological Society, and that explanation be injurious 

 either to him or to Mr. Hawkins, 1 have this to urge in its 

 justification. — 



That an assumed case of unfair dealing, in a purchase made 

 by the British Museum of some objects in Natural History, 

 having been investigated by a Committee of the House of 

 Commons, and the evidence relating thereunto published in 

 the usual manner, the opinions expressed in relation to that' 

 investigation, must either be favourable or unfavourable to- 

 wards the party suspected of the fraud. — That having been 

 led, in private conversation, to state my own opinion to be 

 on the unfavourable side, the commencing an action against 

 me under the idea that I would retract that opinion, rather 

 than subject myself to a harassing and expensive prosecution, 

 was an act of tyranny, which, if legally^ was not morally, 

 justifiable, and which T believe to be without precedent, in 

 the history of even the law of libel. 



Imagine for a moment the question divested of the fearful 

 array of technicalities and legal quibbles, which, like a swann 

 of evil sprites, hover round the head of the victim entangled 

 in the meshes of the code of libel, and nothing can be more 

 simple than the data required to set at rest the matter in 

 dispute. 



Mr. Hawkins sells to the Trustees of the British Museum 

 the fossil skeleton of a reptile, for 200 guineas ; the Trustees 

 having resolved upon its purchase, in consequence of the 

 strong recommendation of many naturalists of eminence, and 

 after they (the Trustees) have had a lithographic drawing of 

 the specimen in question put before them. Subsequently to 

 the purchase being effected, and the fossil deposited in the 

 national collection, certain portions represented as genuine 

 in the lithograph, are found to be fictitious. Now it is unre- 

 servedly admitted, that no intimation of the real condition 



