APPENDIX. 43 



power to take measures to prevent "any one being deluded," 

 upon Dr. Buckland's own inductive reasoning, must both be 

 placed in one and the same category. Now, the Doctor 

 himself puts forward the proposition that Mr. Hawkins may 

 justly be called to account by the purchasers of his plates, 

 a proposition which he must either admit to embody a fal- 

 lacy, or he must come round to my view of the matter, that 

 the buyers of the prints have cause to cry out a little, but the 

 buyers of the originals cause to cry out much more, the 

 difference between them being represented by the difference 

 between one pound and one thousand. 



We are told by Mr. Hawkins in one part of his folio vo- 

 lume entitled "Memoirs oi Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri'* 

 that there are some mysteries so profound as to require a 

 period of a thousand years for their solution ; and I am 

 strongly disposed to acquiesce in the philosophy of this 

 observation, when I find by the Parliamentary Report, the 

 Trustees of the British Museum coming to a resolution, that 

 the " clear and decided statement of Dr. Buckland," that is, 

 the statement I have just been analysing — rendered it unne- 

 cessary for them to institute any farther enquiry into the 

 circumstances attending the purchase of Mr. Hawkins's fos- 

 sils. 



Such of my readers as may have followed me thus far in 

 this Appendix, will now understand why Dr. Buckland took 

 upon himself to give out that the Editor of the ' Magazine of 

 Natural History' was on the brink of ruin; and why Mr. 

 Lyell found him so ready to offer me his services, and so 

 willing on Mr. Hawkins's behalf to compromise the action 

 upon my giving " some sort of verbal apology." 



I appeal to the preceding pages in justification of the 

 opinion I entertain, and I appeal to the supposed confidence 

 with which a person replies to a question at his friend's din- 

 ner-table, in justification of my not having kept my lips 

 sealed, when the interrogation was put to me. 1 still think 

 the Trustees of the British Museum were not fairly treated 

 in the purchase of Mr. Hawkins's fossils, and if Dr. Buck- 

 land deems it advisable to prosecute me for thinking so, he 

 can make a cat's paw of his friend, and guarantee him his 

 expenses to carry on the action. I may be put to a great 

 deal of vexatious annoyance and expense, but if a verdict 

 even should, under the law of libel, be entered against me, 

 will the farthing damages which Dr. Buckland and Mr. Haw- 

 kins are looking forward to dividing, — will that farthing, 

 I ask, recompense the President of the Geological Society for 

 the ordeal he must pass through to obtain it ? He cannot get 

 into the witness-box with clean hands, after one day volun- 

 teering to mediate for me, and the next to change places with 



