i6G BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PUnLICATIOXS OF ISAAC I.FA, LL. D. 



1872. Lea, Isaac— Coutiiuied. 



By I Isaac Lea, LL. D. | Pliiladelpliia : | Collius, Printer, 705 Jayne Street. 

 1872.18°. pp.45. Pamphlet. 

 (See numbers 101 .ind 237.) 



The previous edition of my "Rectification" of Mr. Conrad's "Synopsis of the Family of 

 Naiades of North America" being exhausted, I am induced to reprint it complete as origin- 

 ally read before the Academy of Natural Sciences, February 7, 1854. The parts now inserted 

 in brackets [ — ] are those which, on consultation with the committee ;>ppointod on the paper, 

 I consented should bo left out. These were chiefly the arguments regarding 2;n'on<2/ of pub- 

 lication, and the opinions of the priucipal naturalists regarding the claims of M. Eaflnesque. 

 All the matter in brackets is preciselj' as originally read by mc to the Academy. 



In addition there are two foot-notes on pages 7 and 10, written and dated at the present 

 time. They are intended to be explauatory. 



In the " Bibliography of North American Conchology , " by W. G-. Binney , ' ' Smithsonian Mis- 

 cellaneous Collections," Part I, 18C3, the " Synopsis of the Family of North America," by E. A. 

 Conrad, is tabulated in eight pages, double column. It would naturally be .supposed, in pre- 

 tending to give a complete bibliography, that my " Kectification " of this very erroneous 

 "Synopsis " would have been inserted by Mr. Binney as a part of the Bibliography of North 

 American Conchology, and have followed in its proper place, so that the student of Ameri- 

 can Conchology could at least have known the facts. Such, however, was not the case. He 

 simply gave the title, and says, "as regards errors of dates the, following are specified " — 

 and then cites four specific names, with dates, instead of nearly one hundred. Mr. Binney, 

 therefore, evidently used the "Bibliography" for personal purposes, depriving the student 

 of the power of ascertaining the facts,' unless ho referred to my original publication in the 

 Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences. It was very natural that I should apjily 

 to Prof. Henry, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, for a correction of this omis- 

 sion, which he very kindly promised should bo made in Part II, to come out the next year, 

 1864. In an Appendix of this Part, Mr. Binney published a mere useless catalogue of names, 

 without a date and without a single correction of Mr. Conrad's erroneous dates of my species, 

 for which the "Kectification" was expres.sly written In the caption of this Appendix, ilr. 

 Binney says that "Mr. Lea having requested that the whole of his 'Rectification' should 

 be published, I add a list of the species to which he refers in that paper." This is not the 

 fact; I only re(iuested Prof. Henry to have inserted the tables of the corrected dates of 

 species, so that all naturalists interested in the subject might be able to judge for themselves. 

 The tables, as inserted at pages 273 and 274 by Mr. Binney, are utterly useless for any pur- 

 pose, as they do not correct a single error of Mr. Conrad's dates of my species, the very ob- 

 ject of the publication of my " Rectification." 



Subsequently, on my complaining to Prof. Henry of this second act of injustice by Mr. 

 Binney, he requested another copy of the tables of my "Rectification" for the purpose of 

 inserting it in another Api)endix, and ho very kindly has published it in Vol. IX, p. 289, of 

 "Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections," 18G9, under his own name. Unfortunately, it 

 never can be of the same use to science as if it had bee^ it its proper place in Part I, and in 

 the interim six years had elapsed.* 



The unreliability and danger of taking a date of species, on assumptive grounds, and 

 putting asile that of a paper regularly road before an accredited scientific society — placing 

 a fictitious date in its place — are so fully exemplified in the case of Mr. Conrad's paper on 

 Tertiary Fossils, American Journal of Conchology, Vol. 1, 1805, that I am induced to print 

 my correspondence with the editor in regard to it. In this paper, some of my species read 

 before the Academy of N.atural Sciences, .4ugust 27, 1833, and issued ijrinted the last of 

 November following, with illustrations, and the imprint of 1833, Mr. Conrad has placed the 

 date of April, 1834, and made them synonyms to those of his paper issued in 1833. This cor- 

 respondence will fully exemplify the absurdity of taking dates from individual authority, 

 and rejecting those of accredited scientific bodies. 



*In the remarks of the editor of the "American Journal of Conchology," Vol. I, p. 270, he criticises 

 the course taken by Mr. Binney, and says "a book of this nature should afford every possible informa- 

 tion to those who have occasion to consult it," and that I had proved the priority of certain of "his 

 [my] species by evidence which had never been questioned. Yet Mr. Binney has not deemed it ad 

 visable even to mention the dates stated by Mr. Lea except in regard to four species only, and thus 

 those who in future times depend, as they certainly will, on the Bibliography, for the synonymy of 

 these species, will be misled into the perpetuation of a wrong." 



