vill INTRODUCTION. 
any Artist who was absent from Cambridge, and had not the same assistance to ensure the 
scientifie accuracy of his lithographic drawings. Nor was this the only cause of delay; 
for a dangerous attack of fever so greatly interrupted my friend’s work, during one 
summer, that his First Fasciculus did not appear before the spring of 1851. 
At that time, both the letter-press and drawings for the Second Fasciculus were 
in good progress; but by no effort could they be made ready for publication before my 
friend was again called away from Cambridge by his duties at Belfast. The Second 
Fasciculus could not, therefore, be published before his return to Cambridge in the 
following year. 
The statement in the Advertisement to the Second Fasciculus, to which I have 
alluded in the first paragraph of the preceding page, was made in perfectly good faith. 
At the time of its publication, I did expect that the Third Fasciculus would be ready for 
the press, and perhaps published, before the end of the year 1852. The task was, however, 
far more laborious than we had anticipated; and when my friend was again compelled to 
leave Cambridge, many specimens still remained unfigured, and many descriptions were still 
to be written before the work could pass out of his hands. But to prevent delay, all 
the remaining specimens which required figures in the lithographic plates, were, at my 
request, conveyed by him to Belfast, in the hope of his being able to secure the help 
of an Irish lithographer; so that the Third Fasciculus might appear, if possible, during 
the approaching winter, or at latest in the early part of the spring of 1853. In these 
hopes we were disappointed, and the work again stood still for more than half a year. 
After my friend’s next return to Cambridge in 18538, his work was unfortunately 
retarded by the absence of Mr West, our artist, who for several weeks was prevented 
by engagements in London from meeting us at the time appointed, and proceeding 
with his drawings of the Cambridge Fossils. Much, however, of the remaining letter-press 
was struck off; and immediately on Mr West’s return, the whole work was urged on 
with such well-directed labour, that it would, I believe, have been finished before the 
expiration of the summer, but for a very vexatious accident, by which about a hundred 
drawings were so damaged in their conveyance to London, that the stones containing them 
were returned as unfit for the lithographic press. The damage admitted, indeed, of repair; 
but the summer months passed away, my friend was called back to Ireland, and the 
Third Fasciculus remained unfinished*. 
On his final return to Cambridge, in the summer of 1854, little remained to be done 
by him; and in a few weeks he set his last hand to his long-continued and well-laboured 
* An Assistant had been engaged by myself for several successive years, whose chief task was to write labels and lay 
down the specimens in the arranged cabinets, during eight hours of each day. But in the summer of 1853 I had to pay him 
an additional sum for extra labour, as he was frequently employed in the Museum more than twelve hours a day: and 
during the same summer I had frequent bills to pay to the Artist for long-continued work done at extra hours. Meanwhile 
Professor M°Coy was employed upon the Collection, not only during long hours of the day, but frequently during late hours 
of the night. 
