282 Prof. Sedgwick's Reply to some Statements 



been underlined in my private copy of the volume from which 

 it is taken. 



** Most of the carboniferous fossils that we have represented in the 

 plates joined to this monograph belong to the collections of the Geo- 

 logical Society of London, the Museum of Practical Geology, under 

 the direction of Sir Henry de la Beclie, the Museum of Bristol, and 

 the rich cabinet of our esteemed friend J. S. Bowerbank, Esq. We 

 much regret not having been able to obtain the same liberal aid from 

 the Museum of the University of Cambridge, and to have been there- 

 fore obliged to omit representing in this work a certain number of 

 species, that we have not seen in any of the numerous collections so 

 generously placed at our disposal by the great majority of the English 

 geologists. But the omission that we here allude to is now of less 

 importance than it appeared to us, when our application to the Cam- 

 bridge Museum was rejected, for, since that time, a young palaeonto- 

 logist belonging to that scientific establishment. Professor M'Coy, 

 has published very good figures of almost all the corals that we were 

 desirous of obtaining communication of from the above-mentioned 

 museum. His recent work will enable us, at least, to complete our 

 Catalogue of the Corals found in the Carboniferous formation of Great 

 Britain ; and having gone to Cambridge in order to see the fossils 

 described by that gentleman, we have easily recognized those species 

 which we had already met with elsewhere, and can without hesitation 

 refer most of the others to generical divisions here adopted." (British 

 Fossil Corals, Part 3. pp. 150, 151, 1852.) 



To this passage another is affixed, in the form of a note, 

 which is copied (as above stated) in Professor McCoy's letter. 

 The two passages cannot be considered apart : and what arc the 

 conclusions which any reader of common sense would naturally 

 draw from them ? That MM. Edwards and Haime had per- 

 sonally made an application for the loan of certain Palaeozoic 

 fossils in the Cambridge Museum which had been rejected ; that 

 this rejection was in disadvantageous contrast with the liberal 

 conduct of all other public bodies to which they had applied ; 

 that their loss, on account of this rejection, was the less, because 

 Professor M'Coy had (since) published and figured (First Cam- 

 bridge Fasciculus, May 1851) nearly all the species of which 

 they were anxious to have the loan ; that the Professor had made 

 an unfair use of their First Part of British Fossil Corals [i. e. 

 Tertiary and Cretaceous Corals, &c. published in 1850) ; and 

 that to cover his plagiarism he had misdated a portion of his 

 own labours, and virtually stated what was not true. I think 

 that any attentive reader must inevitably have drawn all these 

 inferences from the passage above quoted and the note affixed 

 to it. 



Professor M'Coy may safely be left to fight his own battles ; 

 for I know that he has truth and reason on his side ; and so far 



