6 INTRODUCTION. 
Writers have not been wanting to decry this study as frivolous 
or inessential ; most unjustly assailing the science itself, on ac- 
count of the gross abuses which have now and then arisen from 
its exclusive and extravagant pursuit. ‘They have reasoned much 
after this fashion :—that Conchology isa folly, because Rumphius 
was a fool. The Conus Cedo Nulli has been sold for three 
hundred guineas; and the naturalist just mentioned gave a thou- 
sand pounds sterling for one of the first discovered specimens of 
the Venus Dione (of Linneus). But there have been men in 
all ages who have carried to an absurd, and even pernicious ex- 
treme, pursuits the most ennobling and praiseworthy. 
To an upright and well regulated mind, there is no portion of 
the works of the Creator, coming within its cognizance, which 
will not afford material for attentive and pleasurable investigation ; 
and, so far from admitting the venerable error even now partially 
existing to the discredit of Conchology, we should not hesitate to 
acknowledge, that while few branches of Natural History are of 
more direct, very few are of more adventitious importance. 
Testaceous animals form the principal subsistence of an im- 
mense number of savage nations, inhabitants of the sea-board. 
On the coast of Western Africa, of Chili, of New Holland, and 
in the clustered and populous islands of the Southern seas, how 
vast an item is the apparently unimportant shell-fish in the wealth 
and happiness of man! In more civilized countries it often sup- 
plies the table with a delicate luxury. Nor must we forget the 
services of the pinna with its web, nor of the purpura with its 
brilliant and once valuable dye, nor omit to speak of the pearl- 
oyster, with the radiant nacre, and the gem which it produces, 
and the world of industry which it sets in action as minister to 
the luxury which it stimulates. 
Shells, too, being composed of particles already in natural com- 
