and its Claim to rank xvit/i existing Species. 41 



was no existing volute which could be confounded with the 

 one from the crag, even if the widest limits were allowed for 

 specific variations. It is true that Sowerby, in the Mineral 

 Conchology, speaks of having seen drawings of recent shells 

 from the Fejee Islands resembling the Voluta Lamberti, and 

 names Mr. Hall and Mr. Jennings as parties possessing the 

 original specimens.* From enquiries that I have made, I 

 have not been able to learn that the late Mr. Sowerby ever 

 personally inspected the volutes to which he refers ; and, if 

 such rarities were really extant, it is not likely that concho- 

 logists would be unacquainted with the circumstance. 



On two occasions lately, when writing to M. Deshayes, I 

 have particularly requested him to inform me whether he 

 really is acquainted with any recent shell resembling Voluta 

 Lamberti, but as yet he has been silent upon the subject. 

 That a solitary crag species should inhabit a remote region, 

 when all the rest of the supposed living forms are still ex- 

 isting in our own seas, is a circumstance both interesting and 

 important, and the truth or incorrectness of which it would be 

 very desirable to establish. At the present time too, it is par- 

 ticularly to be wished that this point should be settled, as the 

 general correctness of M. Deshayes's identifications of fossil 

 with recent species has been so lately called in question by 

 Dr. Beck and other concholofrists. 



The paper by M. Deshayes on the European climate dur- 

 ing the tertiary periods will be perused with great interest, 

 both by the cultivators of geology and conchology ; but there 

 is one circumstance connected with the views which are there 

 brought forward certainly requiring explanation. In Mr. 

 Lyell's address to the fellows of the Geological Society, the 

 following passage occurs : — " Dr. Beck has lately seen 260 

 species of crag shells in Mr. Charlesworth's cabinet in Lon- 

 don, and informs me that although a large proportion of the 

 species approach very near to others which now live in our 

 northern seas, he regards them as almost all of distinct species, 

 and unknown as living. Both he and M. Deshayes have 

 declared the shells to be those of a northern climate^ and ac- 

 cording to Dr. Beck, the climate may even have resembled 

 that of our arctic regions." \ Mr, Lyell's address was deli- 

 vered in February, 1836 ; and, on the 26th of the May follow- 

 ing, we find M. Deshayes laying a paper before the French 

 Academy, in which he seems to have arrived at the most 

 opposite conclusions, for he sums up his observations with 



* Sowerby's Min. Con. tab. 129. 



f See London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine, third series, vol. 

 viii. p. 327. ; and Proceedings of the Geological Society. 



