NO. 1425. THOMAS MARTYN— BALL. 419 



South Sea shells he discovered the impossibilit}^ of procuring pur- 

 chasers sufficient to compensate him for his labour and expense — a mis- 

 fortune generally experienced by private individuals who embark in 

 such extensive and sumptuous undertakings. He therefore did not 

 proceed beyond 160 plates; which, however, as they include all the 

 species then known to the Southern navigators, may be regarded as 

 constituting a complete work, so far as it goes, and it was all that Mr. 

 Martyn had absolutel}^ engaged himself to execute. There is only 

 one species on a plate, but each is exhibited in different aspects, with 

 incomparable elegance, and with great correctness of drawing and 

 coloring." 



The reader will perceive from Martyn's account of the manner in 

 which his plates were prepared — and from an intimation in his intro- 

 duction that the plates were intended to be arranged when the work 

 was completed, according to his new system of classification— that it 

 was practicable for the author to prepare copies to meet the demand, 

 be the same slow or rapid; also, that mere prudence would lead the 

 author to prepare no great number of sets of plates beyond those for 

 which he had received or expected orders. 



This probabl}^ accounts for the rarit}' of the work, and it will be 

 recalled that the first " edition,'' if it may be so termed, the one which 

 was rejected on account of the want of uniformity in its execution, 

 consisted of only seventy copies of the first eight}^ plates. 



By the citations which follow the reader will see that the bibliogra- 

 phers have been unfortunate or careless in their references to this work, 

 and that the dates of publication, the meaning of the word " volume" 

 when used in connection with these plates, and some other statementg 

 in regard to them, are ambiguous or involved in more or less doubt. 

 The citations are given in the order of their dates: 



Portland Catalogue, 1786 {circa April 1). 



The Universal Conchologist, exhibiting the Figure of every known 

 shell, accurately drawn and painted after Nature, with a new system- 

 atical arrangement, by Thomas Martyn, 1784. 



Note. — The compiler of the Portland Catalogue, who is unknown, makes copious 

 references to the figures in Martyn up to plate 80, or by Martyn's estimate volumes 

 I and II, but he assigns to that work the date of 1784, the date of the Catalogue 

 being early in 1786. Dr. Solander, whose manuscript names are thus illustrated by 

 Martyn's figures, without acceptance of Martyn's previously puljlished names, must 

 have obtained the shells and labeled them between the arrival of the expedition 

 late in 1780 and the date of his own death, in May, 1782. The Catalogue is largely 

 based on Solander's manuscript description of the Portland Cabinet, which must 

 have been chiefly prepared before the appointment of Solander as keeper of the 

 printed books in the British Museum, in 1773. The references to Martyn appear to 

 have been added by the anonymous compiler. In looking over the entries in this 

 Catalogue one often finds references to Martini's Conchylien Cabinet, with the name 

 misprinted Martyn. These can, however, be at once discriminated from the ref- 



