950 SUPPLEMENT 
larity, were remorselessly excluded from the cabinets of col- 
lectors. ‘The methodical zoologists would at last have ended 
by totally annihilating this art or study, or by degrading it 
into a mere pastime, if geology, from the lofty flight which 
she has taken in these latter days, had not found the necessity 
of characters extremely minute for the purposes of compa- 
rison, either between fossil shells, or of the latter with living . 
species. Itis really to this cause that conchology, properly 
so called, owes both the continuance of its existence, and the 
daily increasing efforts of enlightened naturalists, who endea- 
vour to give it sure principles and rules, by means of which 
geologists may be guided in their minute researches and the 
very difficult problems which they propose to resolve. Con- 
chology then, or perhaps a better word would be ostracology, 
forms among the natural sciences a branch altogether se- 
parate, which may have its proper and particular rules, and 
to which there would be nothing analogous, unless we should 
think proper, for example, to examine in detail the hairs of 
mammiferous animals, the feathers of birds, or the scales of 
fishes. It appears, however, that if we could, while we 
studied conchology in a manner perfectly independent, so 
manage that it might be contained altogether in malacology, 
equal utility would result both to the science of animals and 
to geology, or palzeozoology. 'To this object our researches 
should unquestionably be directed, though at the same time 
we must confess the predominant weight of geology in this 
question. 
Every art, be it what it may, has necessarily a greater or 
less number of terms which are proper to itself, or common 
terms, whose acceptations are peculiar. These we name 
technical, which it is of the utmost importance properly to 
define, so that they may be well understood, and which are 
conveniently employed to avoid the long circumlocutions to 
which we should be forced to recur by the-usage of ordinary 
