AUTHOR’S PREFACE. 
In offermg this Work to the Public, I must state that it was com- 
menced, and most of the materials were collected for it some years 
ago, under the expectation that it would have been completed long 
before the present time. To those who have been cognizant of its 
progress, and may have expected its earlier appearance, I trust that 
the plea of professional duties, a residence in the country, and un- 
expected delays attendant on the engraving of many of the specimens, 
may be received as an excuse. If it should seem that I have been 
guided by the Horatian precept “nonum prematur in annum,” it has 
been through compulsion of these concurrent circumstances of delay, 
which, however, I do not regret, since it has enabled me to add from 
time to time descriptions and figures of many new and important 
fossils, and to have had the advantage of comparing my own results 
with those given in some excellent recent English and foreign pub- 
lications. 
An apology may, perhaps, be expected for blending antiquarian 
notices with the description of a geological work. A few years ago 
there were no Archeological associations or journals; but a local 
geologist, whose immediate researches were into the antiquities of 
b 
