TIMOTHY ABBOT CONRAD. 389 



gling was kept up for many years. Prof. Ball refers to this, as 

 we shall see further on, as " numerous controversies, which are 

 now ancient history." Conrad's own version should be given. 

 He claimed that the editions of his publications were largely 

 bought up and destroyed by a worker in the same field, and 

 this explains the rarity of some of his writings. In the preface 

 of the little volume above mentioned the author says : " While 

 residing in the mansion of my kind and hospitable friend, 

 Judge Tait, of Claiborne, Alabama, where I was employed in 

 collecting the organic remains of the vicinity, I occasionally 

 made excursions up and down the Alabama for the purpose of 

 procuring fresh-water shells. I have succeeded in obtaining 

 some species which I believe to be new, and hope to fix by 

 accurate delineations and descriptions." The result was the 

 little book, which is dedicated to the late Charles A. Poulson, 

 of Philadelphia, a prominent conchologist in his day, and one 

 of Conrad's financial backers in his several expeditions south 

 in search of both recent and fossil shells. In 1834, in the 

 Journal (old series) of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural 

 Sciences, Volume VII, Conrad published Observations on the 

 Tertiary and More Recent Formations of a Portion of the 

 United States, which appears to have been his first com- 

 munication to that body. In 1841 the Proceedings of the 

 Academy were commenced, and a new series of the Journal in 

 quarto. In the former, from Volume I to Volume XXXVI, 

 Conrad's contributions appear in every year, the articles vary- 

 ing from two to a dozen in number. In the first four volumes 

 of the new Journal he has eleven contributions, all of which 

 are profusely illustrated. In 1836 Conrad published Monog- 

 raphy of the Family Unionidse, or "Naiades of Lamarck 

 (fresh-water bivalve shells), of North America. Illustrated 

 by Figures drawn on Stone from Nature. Philadelphia : 

 J. Dobson, 1836. This work, like the Marine Conchology, 

 was never finished. It would seem as if the magnitude of the 

 work had not occurred to him at the time, or that he was 

 soon tired of any subject that he took up, but the real diffi- 

 culty was a want of financial support. There were never 

 enough subscribers to meet the expense of publication. At 

 this time, too, his health was very bad, and he seemed to lose 

 all interest in every undertaking. " A period of moping would 

 usually end in his writing some verses which nobody would 



