ON THE TRANSLATION OF MINERAL CONCHOLOGY. 5 



Nothing would l)c more riclily merited than the strictures which are tlierc 

 passed upon me, were it not that the assertions and insinuations which the 

 article contains are altogether malicious and without foundation. As you 

 liave brought forward this accusation in your journal, I expect from your 

 sense of honour that you will give publicity to my justification in your 

 forthcoming number. 



Notwithstanding the great importance of Mr. Sowerby's work on the 

 Fossils of England, this publication has met with but few purchasers on 

 the continent ; and the knowledge which I possess of the most important 

 European Scientific Institutions, has assured me that a French or German 

 edition of the work, published at a lower price, would be rendering a real 

 service to Science, without in any way proving injurious to the original 

 edition, for which the principal demand is in England. Woiild it then 

 not be unfair to represent such a publication as a systematic piracy ; as 

 though translations of scientific works were not being made every day with 

 the consent of authors, and with still greater reason after their death ; and 

 as if in doing that, which you, as the conductor of a scientific journal, 

 ought to know I am justified in, I am likely to injure the family of Mr. 

 Sowerby in depriving them of the benefit of a publication of which they 

 have had the disposal for more than fifteen years, and which has been com- 

 pleted ten years, after the addition of two posthumous volumes ? But in 

 addition to this, when I agreed with a lithographer, M. Nicolet, to bring 

 out a cheap Sowerby, I gratuitously furnished him with a translation of 

 the text, enriched with numerous additions and corrections. It is then 

 altogether untrue to say that the edition in question is but a sorry imitation 

 of the plates of the English work accompanied by a mere translation of 

 the text. I should never have lent my name to such a machination. It 

 appears to me therefore, very strange conduct in the Editor of a scientific 

 journal to give, without examination, publicity to such calumnies ; and 

 I aflSrm that the insinuation of my having entered upon this undertaking 

 with a view to pecuniary emolument, to be altogether unfounded. On the 

 contrary, only 300 copies have been struck off, and I agreed with the Edi- 

 tor as the price of my participation in it, that the work should not be sold 

 at a sum above that necessary to cover the expense of its publication. I 

 protest also, that I had not the leastintention of injuring the Editor of the 

 original edition : if I have dispatched some copies to England it has been 

 with the view of letting my scientific friends see the number of additions and 

 corrections which I have incorporated in my translation. All this proves that 

 in the present instance, as always, I have only acted from a regard to the 

 interests of science. An illustrious English geologist can, if required, re- 

 late what I said to him on this subject before I occupied myself with 

 the translation. 



This leads me to make one other remark to you. I understand, that by 

 way of reprisal, as though I had committed hostilities, there is in prepa- 

 ration a subscription to bring out a reprint of my Fossil Fishes, with an 

 English translation of the text, at 10s. a livraison instead of 30s. Permit 

 me to tell you my notions upon this subject. If the fact be true, and I am 

 to regard this act in the light of a reprisal, I must deem it most perfidious 

 and disreputable ; but if the thing be only undertaken as a matter of uti- 

 lity, I declare with the same frankness, that I shall be gratified, hoping 

 thus to see my work pass into the hands of some hundreds of persons who 

 would not perhaps be able to obtain it at the original subscription price. 

 As I have now pretty well ascertained the amount of my subscribers, I have 

 only had a few copies struck off beyond that number, and my edition will 

 consequently be disposed of before a reprint can be completed ; and as I 

 have effaced the drawings from the stones, at no future time shall I be de- 



