418 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. vol. xxix. 



magnum, o/nis, and the one to which his interest was most attached. 

 The planning to prepare a work whicli should be of a unique excellence 

 was done with this special object in mind, and the subsequent publica- 

 tions on insects, spiders, plants, etc., were incidental to the possession 

 of the facilities which had been provided for the conchologist. For 

 his insects Martyn accepted the system of Linnteus, but in his con- 

 chological work he projected a system which should be his own, while 

 preserving a binomial nomenclature. He explains " that his new 

 classification ''will be found to stand on the firm and unalterable basis 

 of truth and nature," his leading idea being to avoid lengthy descrip- 

 tions by substituting for them figures of such perfection as to convey 

 fully the essential characters of the shells. "Accordingly, the synoptic 

 table," which was to display the scheme of classification devised by 

 the author, "will not appear until suflicient progress shall have been 

 made in the work to prepare the mind of the student for a candid 

 decision on its comparative merits." Meanwhile, to render the work 

 useful from the beginning, "an explanator}^ table will be given, show- 

 ing, in difi^'erent columns * * * the English name and family with 

 an initial letter denoting the genus or division of the family to which 

 the shell belongs, according to the system of the author; thirdly, the 

 Latin name; fourthly, where the shell is found; and lastly, in what 

 cabinet it is preserved." 



"The work will commence with the figures of the shells (most of 

 them rare and nondescript) which have been collected by the several 

 oflicers of the ships under the command of Captains Byron, Wallace, 

 Cook, and others in the different voyages made to the South Seas. 

 The whole of which will be contained in two volumes." 



"The author presumes that the method which he has adopted,* of 

 displaying the figure of each shell in two positions, would generally 

 be preferred * * * as it would have been impossible, from so 

 small a number as the South Sea shells afford, to select proper com- 

 panions of the same size and genus to be given in the same plate, and 

 that, too, repeatedly. In future volumes'" it is proposed to give at 

 least two different shells of the same genus in each plate." 



I have already described the organization by which Mart}^ intended 

 to carry out his plan, the outcome of which is described by Maton 

 and Rackett (1804) in the following remarks: 



" In the year 1784 Martyn, a dealer, began one of the most beautiful 

 and costly conchological works this country has ever seen. * * * 

 But before this ingenious artist had completed his two volumes of 



« All the citations not otherwise explained are from the text of the introduction 

 and preface to the Universal Conchologist. 



b In the two volumes above referred to. 



cThat is, in those volumes projected to contain the figures "of every known 

 shell," but of which only two were prepared. 



