316 PROFESSOR OWEN ch. x. 



the novelties were far from being exhausted 

 when Mr. Cuming, having undertaken a third 

 exploring voyage, returned in 1840 from Manilla, 

 stored with the conchological riches of the Indian 

 Ocean, which have subsequently kept the pens of 

 competent describers of new genera and species 

 actively at work, and will so supply them for 

 years to come. Thus the Cumingian Collection 

 has directly advanced the science of conchology 

 in an unexampled degree, and possesses the same 

 peculiar claims upon the Government, or custo- 

 dians of the national collection here which 

 Linnseus's Herbarium did upon the Swedish 

 State. Mr. Cuming's collection contains, for 

 example, the originals from which many hundred 

 new species of shells have been described in the 

 scientific periodicals or systematic works pub- 

 lished since its arrival in this country. 



' Any doubt that may arise through the in- 

 completeness or obscurity of the description, or 

 from the inaptitude of the student, may be decided 

 at once by 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 



