210 AMERICAN JOURNAL 



is all the more creditable to the author, because the same 

 amount of work in another direction would have produced 

 more showj results in the description of new species. 



While bestowing this deserved praise upon Mr. Binney's 

 undertaking, — a work that will be consulted by conchologists 

 more than any other ever published in America, — we feel that 

 we would be doing an injustice to him and to the liberal In- 

 stitution, at whose expense it is published, if we omitted to 

 point out what appears to us to be a few errors in the plan of 

 the work. 



The Date of Beading of the various papers has been omit- 

 ted. This is a small matter; but its insertion could do no 

 harm, as naturalists are not a?Z agreed in regard to what con- 

 stitutes publication. A book of this nature should afford 

 every possible information to those who have occasion to 

 consult it, whether they adhere to the Rules of the British 

 Association or to those of the French Academy. 



We think, that, in many cases, a more accurate date of pub- 

 lication should be given, than that affixed on the title-page of 

 the entire volume in which the paper is contained. 



We refer more particularly to the American Journal of 

 Science, and to the Transactions of the American Philosophical 

 Society. The volumes of both these publications are issued 

 in Parts, and the date of the general title-page is, therefore, 

 inaccurate as regards the publication of a portion of the pages 

 following. 



We are not aware that this omission, in the case of Silli- , 

 man's Journal, will affect the synonymy of any of our species, but 

 it is attended with rather grave consequences in that of the 

 American Philosophical Transactions. The Parts comprised 

 in the earlier volumes of this publication were issued sepa- 

 rately at long intervals, without date. It curiously happened 

 that two American authors, working at the same time in the 

 same particular direction, in a number of cases described the 

 same species, each being ignorant of the labors of the other 

 till after their respective publication. Subsequently. Mr. 

 Conrad, in his admirable "Synopsis of Naiades," claimed pre- 

 cedence for his own specific names, naturally taking the date 

 of title-page of the volume of the American Philosophical 

 Transactions as the date of publication of Mr. Lea's descrip- 

 tions. Mr. Lea,* however, immediately proved the time of 

 publication of some of these Parts of the volumes of Transac- 

 tions, and, consequently, the prior date of certain of his spe- 

 cies by evidence which has never been questioned. Yet Mr. 

 Binney has not deemed it advisable even to mention the dates 



* Proc. Acad. Nat. Sciences, Philada., vol. vii., p. 236. 1854. 



