INTRODUCTION. vil 
Some explanation is called for, to account for the long delay in the progress and 
final publication of this work. For, although commenced in 1849, the First Fasciculus 
was not published before the spring of 1851: and in the Advertisement to the Second 
Fasciculus (dated July 16, 1852,) I stated that the Third Fasciculus was in the Press, 
and would, as I at that time hoped, be published before the end of the year. The 
following statement of facts will be my best explanation and apology. 
In the latter part of 1846 I had the good fortune to secure the assistance of Professor 
M°Coy in the arrangement of the whole series of British and Foreign Fossils in the Wood- 
wardian Museum; and before long he fixed his residence in Cambridge, and immediately 
commenced his task, which was carried on uninterruptedly and with unflinching zeal for 
several years*. 
In the evidence laid before the Cambridge University Commission is the following 
passage :—“Some notion may be formed of the greatness of his task when it is stated, 
that Count Miinster’s duplicates amount to more in number than 20,000, and that they 
form but a minute fraction of the great Paleontological series Professor M°Coy has now 
arranged stratigraphically in the Museumf.” This quotation is in itself a good apology 
for some delay in the publication of the present work, which was subordinate to the general 
arrangement of the Collection: and I may here remark, that “a detailed systematic description 
of the British Paleozoic Fossils in the Cambridge Museum,” was not so much as thought 
of at the time of my friend’s engagement to the University in 1847{. The work now 
published arose out of an arrangement in which the University was no party; and was 
undertaken, at my own request, in 1849. Before the end of that year, the plates of the 
Radiata, described in the First Fasciculus, were, I believe, all struck off; and we both of 
us expected that the whole work would be completed and published within two years from 
the date of its commencement. 
Some time afterwards Mr M°Coy was elected to a Professorship in the Queen’s 
College of Belfast; and it then became impossible for him to give us more than a divided 
service, during the spring and summer months of each year, after his collegiate labours 
in Belfast were over. This involved a necessary delay. With the exception of one 
Plate, all the lithographic drawings for the First Fasciculus had been made by our 
Artist in a room contiguous to the Museum, and under the constant check and super- 
intendence of Professor M’Coy; and we were unwilling to commit the original outline 
sketches, and the typical specimens to be figured in the remaining portions of the work, to 
* This laborious task was first undertaken by my friend Mr Salter; but not long after its commencement he was, to 
my great sorrow, called away from it by a permanent engagement under the Government Survey. 
+ “Blue Book” of the Commission, 1852, Report, p. 122, and Bvidence, p. 118. 
{ By a Grace of the Senate (Feb. 10th, 1847,) the University contributed one hundred pounds to assist me in the cost 
of the arrangements made in the Museum during the first year of Professor M°Coy’s residence in Cambridge. The Grace 
did not, however, pass without opposition, though the sum voted was, I believe, taken from the Woodwardian surplus; and 
I made no attempt, during the seyen subsequent years, to draw any help from the University funds in support of the 
work done in the Museum. 
