SOME AMERICAN CONCHOLOGISTS.* 

 By William H. Dall. 



I had selected another theme as the subject of my address on 

 this occasion. But the press of engagements which had to be 

 met prevented the completion of the work required by my first 

 choice, and in looking about for a substitute which would require 

 less original research I remembered that we have not anywhere 

 an epitome of the biography of those naturalists who began in 

 this country the study of the mollusca and who may be truly said 

 to be the pioneers of American conchology. 



There was the more propriety in the selection of this topic at 

 the present time since in the year 1SS7 came the seventieth 

 anniversary of the publication in the United States of the first 

 paper on the American shells, bv an American, which ever 

 appeared. We can regard it as forming the extreme limit which 

 might have been attained by a single life, mature enough in 18 17 

 to have appreciated in some measure the dawn of conchological 

 investigation in America. The only naturalist ^vhose life nearly 

 coincided with this period, the late Dr. Isaac Lea, passed over to 

 the majority about a year ago, and, as it happens, his attention 

 was not called to what the French call •' the beautiful Science" 

 until 1835. 



The contributions of American investigators to the sum of our 

 knowledge of the mollusca have been numerous and important. 

 Many American publications are among the classics of this branch 

 of science. f 



*Annual presidential address, delivered at the Eighth Anniversary 

 Meeting of the Biological Society, January 2S, 18SS, in the lecture-room 

 of Columbian University. 



t Consult BiNXEY (W. G.): Bibliography of North-American Conchol- 

 ogy, previous to the year i860, prepared for the Smithsonian Institution, 



95 



