THE 



305 



THE 



ninee. But a singular discovery recently made has thrown 

 an entirely new light upon this interesting question 

 Among a considerable number of freshwater Planorbi 

 (sic) ' all of one species, which were sent to us from 

 Brazil, we picked out two helix-looking shells, so precisely 

 of the same olive-brown colour, and of the same size, ai> 

 the others, that none but a conchologist would have been 

 led to examine them. They appeared in fact like two 

 little land-snails of the subgenus Zonites, that had fallen 

 into the water where the P/anurbi' (sic) ' had been found, 

 their outside being discoloured, and covered with little 

 particles of dirt and sand. On placing them however 

 under the magnifier, a conchologist alone can judge of our 

 astonishment at finding that the whole of the shell was 

 actually composed of little stones and grains of sand only, 

 agglutinated together, yet with so much skill by the ani- 

 mal, that the regular turns of the volutions of the spire, 

 and the form of the umbilicus, were most, accurately pre- 

 served ; they were, in short, freshwater carriers absolute 

 counterparts of their marine brethren, Onustiis. As we 

 can find no notice nor even allusion to such an extraordi- 

 nary genus of shells in any writer, we have considered it 

 and affixed to it the name of Thelidomus. In regard 

 to its affinity, we suspect that it fills the same situation 

 among the KDtellince which Onustus does among the Tro- 

 I'lnnir : this will make it the most aberrant type and con- 

 sequently that which comes nearest to the Helicidce, whose 

 form it actually possesses. The annexed figures are taken 

 from the only two specimens, in our cabinet, which we 

 have either seen or heard of. Thus, there is ground for 

 supposing that the passage from the marine JrocMda to 

 the terrestrial snails is marked by one or more fluviatile 

 types ; just as is the passage, on the other side, of the Heli- 

 cidts marked by the Limnuriiirt 1 . The accidental discovery 

 also of this extraordinary shell will probably induce natu- 

 ralists to a more accurate examination of the fossil tur- 

 binated univalves; for it is clear that although Tkelidomut 

 opens the path to the IMiviiltr, there must be several other 

 forms between the two, either extinct or undiscovered.' 

 (Malacology: Cabinet Cyclopaedia, 1840.) 



This so-called shell, which is twice figured and described 

 as that of a mollusk in the work quoted, is the cast' of an 

 insect. 



\\u notice the error, that a mistake in a useful book 

 bearing the authority of a name so generally known and 

 deservedly respected as Mr. Swainson's, may not mislead. 



TIIEL1D'.)N'TA, a genus of pulmoniferous gastropods, 

 which Mr. Swainson apparently places among the Liirri- 

 nitifp, or Land Volutes, as he terms them : but we do not 

 find it in the 'Natural Arrangement' at the end of his 

 vol. on Miil'trri/n^!/, unlc.'-s Tin liilninii-t, which appears 

 there for the third time, following Putiodon at the end of 

 the subfamily Lin-i-rniinp. be a misprint for it. 



THELLUSSON, PETEK. He was the son of Isaac de 

 Thellusson, ambassador from Geneva to the court of Louis 

 XV. He fixed his residence in London about the middle 

 of the eighteenth century, and accumulated an immense 

 fortune as a merchant. He died on the 21st of July, 1797. 

 His name has been rendered remarkable by the extraordi- 

 nary nature of his will. The capricious and extensive use 

 of the power of di^posim: of his property, which the law, 

 as then existing, placed in his hands, led to the restraints 

 subsequently imposed upon testamentary dispositions. 



The property which was the subject of his will consisted 

 of a landed estate of about 4000/. a year, and of personal 

 property to the amount of about G00,000/. This property 

 lie devised and bequeathed to trustees upon trust for accu- 

 mulation and investment in the purchase of lands during 

 the lives of his sons, grandsons, and the issue of sons and 

 Isons living, or in rejitre m mere, at the time of his 

 death, and the lives of the survivors and survivor of them : 

 and after that period, to be conveyed to the lineal descend- 

 ants of his sons in tail male. 



It had been long understood to be the rule of law that 

 the absolute ownership of property might be suspended, 

 and consequently the property rendered inalienable, during 

 in being at the time of the creation of the trust, 

 that is. where the trust is created by will, at the time of 

 the death of the testator. This period was afterwards 

 extended so as to allow for the cases of infancy, and 

 of a child in ri-iitre sa mere ; but it was for some 

 time questioned whether a term of twenty-one years 

 might in all cases be added to the period of suspen- 

 P. C.. No. |r -" : 



sion, though it has since been determined that it 

 may. [SETTLEMENT.] Restraint on the accumulation of 

 income was unknown to the common law, except in so far 

 as the rule against perpetuities necessarily prevented ac- 

 cumulation from being carried beyond its'limits ; and Mr. 

 Thellusson's will, by confining the restriction to existing 

 lives, escaped the question which then existed as to the 

 allowance of an absolute term of twenty-one years in ad- 

 dition to a life or lives in being at the time of the crea- 

 tion of the trust. 



This will, which, in the events that happened, had 

 the effect of postponing the usufructuary enjoyment of the 

 bulk of the estate till the expiration of nine lives in being at 

 the time of the testator's death, was, after many hard strug- 

 gles, occasioned rather by the immense value of the pro- 

 perty implicated (which it was computed would have 

 amounted, with the expected accumulations, to upwards 

 of 18,000,000/.), than by any new difficulty in the prin- 

 ciple, finally established by the decision of the House of 

 Lords on the 25th of June, 1805. ('fltellusson v. Woodford, 

 11 Ves., 112.) 



The case of Thellusson v. Woodford gave rise to the 

 act of the 40 Geo. III., c. 98, ' for restraining all trusts 

 and directions in deeds or wills whereby the profits or pro- 

 duce of real or personal estates shall be accumulated and 

 the beneficial enjoyment thereof postponed beyond the 

 term therein limited." By the provisions of this act no 

 person can settle or dispose of property by deed, will, or 

 otherwise, so as to accumulate the income thereof, either 

 wholly or partially, ' for any longer term than the life or 

 lives of any such grantor or grantors, settlor or settlors, or 

 the term of twenty-one years from the death of any such 

 grantor, settlor, devisor, or testator, or during the minority 

 or respective minorities of any person or persons who shall 

 be living or in centre xn mere, at the time of the death of 

 such grantor, devisor, or testator, or during the minority or 

 respective minorities only of any person or persons, who, 

 under the uses or trusts of the deed, surrender, will, or 

 other assurances directing such accumulations, would for 

 the time being, if of full age, be entitled to the rents, 

 issues, and profits, or the interest, dividends, and annual 

 produce so directed to be accumulated. And in every case 

 where accumulation shall be directed otherwise than as 

 aforesaid, such direction shall be null and void, and the 

 rents, issues, profits, and produce of such property so 

 directed to be accumulated shall, so long as the same shall 

 be directed to be accumulated contrary to the provisions 

 of this act, go to and be received by such person or per- 

 sons as would have been entitled thereto, if such accumu- 

 lation had not been directed.' Sect. 2 provides, ' that 

 nothing in this act contained shall extend to any provision 

 for payment of debts of any grantor, settlor, or devisor, or 

 other person or persons, or to any provision for raising por- 

 tions for any child or children of any person taking any in- 

 terest under any such conveyance, settlement, or devise, or 

 to any direction touching the produce of timber or wood 

 upon any lands or tenements; but that all such provisions 

 shall be made and given as if this act had not passed.' 

 Sect. 3 provides that the act shall not extend to dispositions 

 of heritable property in Scotland. 



It has been sometimes thought that periods specified in 

 the act might be taken accumulatively, and that accumula- 

 tion might be directed for them all successively. The lan- 

 guage of the statute however is disjunctive, and therefore 

 seems to give the option of selecting one only of the de- 

 signated periods. (9 Ves. ,130.) And it has been determined 

 :hat the clause respecting the minority of persons entitled 

 under the limitation in the instrument does not authorize 



trust for accumulation extending over the minority of 

 an unborn person to whom at majority the accumulated 

 fund with the principal from which it arose is given. 

 (4 Madd., 275.) 



It is now settled upon this statute that a trust for accu- 

 mulation reaching beyond the allowed period is good for 

 the period allowed by law. (12 Ves., 295 ; 4 Kuss., 403.) 



THELPHU'SA. [TIIKLPHIISIANS.] 



THELPHU'SIANS, M. Milne Edwards's name for a 

 ,ribe of brachyurous crustaceans belonging to his family 

 of Catometopes, having, as he observes, considerable an- 

 alogy with the Cancerians, and evidently forming the 

 Kissiige between them and the Gecarcinians, or Land 

 Jrabs. [GECAUCINUS.] The general form, in fact, he 

 emarks, of many of the Thelpluisians differs but little 



VOL. XXIV.-2 R 



