366 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi* 



state when he received it, perhaps, becanse he did not wish to 

 interfere in the matter. It was probably sent to him after Prof. 

 Hall had seen my paper. The general opinion is that it was not 

 circulated in the United States at all. There is some evidence, 

 of a circumstantial character, to show that the two copies sent to 

 England in September were printed after the month of July 

 with important alterations. The principal objects of requiring a 

 Naturalist to publish, are that others may obtain notice of what 

 species or genera have been named and described; and, also, to 

 afford the public a means of deciding questions of priority with- 

 out depending upon the word of the author, who is always an 

 interested party. Private distribution is not sufl&cient for either 

 of these purposes. In this instance all of the six genera, noticed 

 in Prof. Hall's pamphlet, might have been described and pub- 

 lished, by as many different authors in the United States in 

 perfect good faith, and without the least suspicion that they had 

 been previously named by any one* Indeed, as he was aware 

 that several were working at the same group, he seems to have 

 concealed his pamphlet from them in order to give them annoy- 

 ance. How othertvise can we account for the fact^ that no copies 

 were sent either to the Smithsonian Institution or to the Cana- 

 dian Survey ? • 



I am informed that Prof Hall's genera jlre to be sustained by 

 %wo distino'uished authors in Endand. One of them bavins: 



on o 



received a copy of the paper in October, 1871, and knowing that 

 Another copy had been sent to the Geological Society of London, 

 '■aWut the same time, neither can realize that it was not 

 "published. But let us place them in Prof. Hall's position. 

 Suppose that the paper on which they are now engaged relates to 

 a peculiar group of Wenlock fossils. They borrow specimens 

 from the Geological Survey, and are notified by the Director that 

 the palasontologist of the Survey is at work on the same group* 

 Instead of publishing their paper in the Journal of the Geologi- 

 cal Society, or in any other scientific journal, they resort to the 

 following extraordinary proceeding. They prepare an abstract 

 of five pages. They send no copies to the Survey, to the Geologi* 

 cal Society, to the Royal Society or to any other learned institu- 

 tion in England. They conceal it from the English scientific pub- 

 lic altogether. About six months afterwards they send one copy 

 privately to a friend in Russia, and one to the Mineralogical 

 Society there. In consequence of this course, for ten months 



