24 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



inherent difficulty of pursuing enquiries in anodier and distant 

 land, it was soon realised that many months must elapse. 



Tiie necessary delay has heen of special and great advantage, 

 in that it has afforded the opportunity for settling, as I believe 

 finally, the date of certain type used in printing the booklet — a 

 problem which last year appeared to be insoluble. 



I do not think that the Fellows of the Linnean Society will 

 criticise too severely the devotion of two Anniversary Addresses 

 to this interesting subject. Had I not seen, in the documentary 

 evidence and the lines of enquiry suggested by it, the probability 

 of a final decisive solution, I should not have hesitated to express 

 my own conclusions as to the authenticity or otherwise of the 

 booklet ; althougli it is not to be expected that the opinion would 

 have received universal or even general approval. On tiie evidence 

 available a year ago, many thinkers held that the booklet was the 

 outcome of remarkable genius, many that it was the product of 

 remarkable fraud. Whether genius or fraud, it is certainly 

 remarkable, as I fully realised when the title of the address 

 was deliberately chosen :—" A remarkable American Work upon 

 Evolution and the Germ Theory of Disease." 



The evidence now brought forward will probably lead the 

 scientific and literary world to an undisputed conclusion — that 

 the work is a fraud ; but, wlien the story is told, I do not doubt 

 that the word " remarkable " will, by general agreement, be 

 allowed to stand. 



Much kind help has been received in the course of the investi- 

 gation, which, indeed, could not otherwise have been carried to a 

 successful issue. All such help is acknowledged in the course of 

 the Address, but I must at the outset specially record my grateful 

 thanks to Mr. Horace Hart, Controller of the Oxford University 

 Press; Mr. J. W. Phinney, Manager of the American Type- 

 founders' Company, Boston, Massachusetts ; Sir George Warner, 

 late Keeper of the Manuscripts of the British Museum ; Mi's. 

 Prederic Pndicott, of Canton, Massachusetts, a daughter of the 

 late Mr. AV. Bense : Dr. H. Putnam, Librarian of Congress, 

 AVashington ; Mr. H. G. Wadlin, Librarian of the Public Library, 

 Boston. 



I also desii'e to thank Mr. F. Madan, Bodley's Librarian, 

 Oxford University, for his great kindness in correcting the proofs 

 of the reproduction in the Appendix, comparing them line for 

 line and word for word with the original booklet. Fellows of 

 the Linnean Society owe to his kindness, and to the skill of the 

 experts of the Oxford University Press, that they will possess an 

 exact reproduction m all essentials of the work stated to be 

 written by G. W. Slee])er and dated 1849. 



Mr. J. F. Sleeper has been most kind in supplying dociunents 

 and answering qi.estions, and I fear that the long correspondence 

 has absorbed much of his time. I regret that 1 have not been 

 able to accept his conclusions. On p. 44 I have ventured to 



