PREFACE BY THE EDITORS. 



The greatest difficulty under which the student of American 

 Conchology labors, is the impossibility of obtaining access to the 

 earlier writings on the subject. To remove this difficulty, a series 

 of Reprints was commenced several years since, by the publication 

 of the Complete Writings of Thomas Say. The present volume offers in 

 an equally accessible form, all the known writings of Constantine 

 Smaltz Rafinesque. It is believed to contain a re-print of all his 

 contributions to Recent and Fossil Conchology, and fac-similes of all 

 his published figures. It is the result of the research of several 

 years, and contains extracts from works whose titles are not given 

 in any of the Bibliographies, not even the exhaustive one recently 

 published by Carus and Engellman. It must, however, be antici- 

 pated, that among the numerous publicatioB.s of so prolific an 

 author, some additional -descriptions of Mollusca may yet come to 

 light. 



All the works quoted, have been placed directly into the hand of 

 the compositor, with directions to follow strictly the orthography 

 of the original, a fact which must account for the greater part of 

 the typographical errors which will be found in the work. 



