MELVILL: MEMOIR OF THE LATE HUGH CUMING. 67 
collection contains, for example, the originals from which many 
hundred new species have been described in the scientific 
periodicals or systematic works published since its arrival in this 
country. 
** Any doubt that may arise through the incompleteness or 
obscurity of the description, or from the inaptitude of the 
student, may be decided at once hy reference to the original 
specimens, ‘These ‘types of the species’ become, therefore, 
an instrument of great importance to the progress of the science 
in the country in which they are preserved and made accessible. 
Delay in securing for the nation the Cumingian types of new 
species of shells may involve the necessity of crossing the 
Atlantic in order to compare and verify the descriptions and 
synonyms of Broderip, Sowerby, Gray, Reeve, and other eminent 
conchologists, ; . 
“The value of a shell, as of a jewel, depends much upon 
its rarity, and is to that extent artificial The Concha unica, 
which to-day commands the sum of twenty pounds, shall, next 
week, when a score of specimens have come into the market, 
fall in price to as many shillings. Still, the commonest exotic 
shell, if it be perfect and well coloured, and taken from a living 
mollusk, as is the case with the Cumingian collection, from 
which ‘dead’ shells have been strictly excluded, finds its 
market. 
“T am given to understand, by competent authorities, that 
the sum of £6,000 asked by Mr. Cuming in 1846 does not 
exceed two-thirds of the most moderate estimate of the present 
market value of his subsequently augmented collection. 
“That ten times that sum would not bring together such a 
series as Mr. Cuming has offered to the British Museum, I do 
firmly believe, from a knowledge of the peculiar tact in discover- 
ing and collecting, the hardy endurance of the attendant fatigue 
under deadly climes and influence, and the undaunted courage 
in encountering the adverse elements, and braving the opposition 
of the savage inhabitants of seldom-visited isles, which have con- 
