Collection of Shells, Minerals, &c. 23 
of fine fruits, and in person attends to the various operations ne- 
cessary to the successful growth of all the good fruits that can be 
raised in this climate. His selection of plums, pears, cherries, 
peaches and apples, is equal in variety and excellence to any in the 
western country. The cultivation and study of one branch of nat- 
ural history, often creates a taste for the rest. Accordingly, my 
friend has turned his attention to botany, conchology, and min- 
eralogy. His collection of fresh water and land shells is very valu- 
able, embracing nearly all the described species found in the west. 
They are neatly arranged in cases, and each shell deposited in 
a movable plaster cell, so that they can be examined separately 
without soiling or displacing the specimen. His collection of ma- 
rine shells, minerals, and fossil organic remains, is also very in- 
teresting. The value of the fresh water collection is much enhan- 
ced, from having been made principally with his own hands, 
from the rivers and ponds in the northern part of Ohio. This 
has given him an opportunity to discover the hidden retreats and 
haunts of the molluscous races, while searching for specimens, and 
thus he has been enabled to learn a great deal of their natural 
history and habits. He was the first to discover the distinction of 
the sexes in these animals, from the difference in the outlines of 
their shelly coverings, as noticed in the 26th volume of this Jour- 
nal. Since that time he has continued his observations, by dissec- 
tions at different periods of gestation, developing the ova in their 
various stages, and observing the females of various species, in the 
act of throwing them off per saltum, while lying on their sides, in 
shoal water. By the aid of a lens, they are found to be viviparous, 
and not oviparous, as was generally believed’by naturalists. After 
exposing the roe, or oviducts, to the rays of the sun, the valves of 
the young shell separate, and can be distinctly seen with the naked 
eye. It is thought by Dr. K. that all our Uniones and other bivalve 
shells are distinguished by sexes, and that he will be enabled ina 
short time, by dissections of the living animal, and the contour of 
the shell, to point them out. This discovery will be very impor- 
tant, not only in elucidating many hidden things in the economy 
of molluscous animals, but also in correcting the nomenclature of 
American conchology ; several shells of the same species being now 
classed as distinct shells, when ia fact they are only the different 
sexes of the same shell. It is only by patient investigation, con- 
ducted by men of leisure and genius, that such discoveries are made 5 
