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INTRODUCTION. 



F the various ftudies to which men dedicate the leifure afforded them by civil 

 fociety, fuch undoubtedly pofTefs the beft claim to public approbation as have a 

 tendency to be moft beneficial to the community. The moralift whofe reafonings improve 

 the heart of the fpeculative, and the mechanic whofe inventions affift the hand of the 

 induftrious, certainly merit the firft place in the efteem of their fellow-citizens. 

 We mould not however too haftily fubject either to cenfure or ridicule thofe purfuits 

 which appear to conduce only to the amufement of the individual without advantage to 

 the public; even thefe may be productive of negative good to fociety, fince they 

 employ at leaft innocently that effential activity of the mind, which might otherwife 

 be vicioufly exerted. 



The ftudy of Conchology admits of a more direct defence, could any be fuppofed 

 necefiary to thofe for whom the prefent work is intended ; the pleafure refulting from 

 this purfuit is not only innocent but rational, if it be not beneath the dignity of human 

 reafon to admire what the divine wifdom has thought proper to adorn. In the various 

 figures of Shells the hand of the fupreme Artift has difplayed every gradation of beauty 

 which can exift in permanent form. From the moft rude and mifhapen oyfter, fcarcely 

 to be diftinguifhed from its native rock, the fcale regularly afcends till it arrives at 

 perfection in the fuperior fymmetry of the Spiral S?iail, whofe convolutions 

 commencing in a point, and winding with the eafy flow of the moft beautifully 

 undulating wreath, infenfibly dilate themfelves as they proceed, till the whole afTumes 

 the elegant taper of the cone*. 



* Vide the Frontifpiece, reprefenting the (hell which the Greeks are reported to have preferved in one of 

 their temples confecrated to Venus, as the beft emblem of the goddefs : and indeed if we confider that the 

 convolutions from their origin to their termination are diftinctly fluted, fo as wonderfully to increafe the effect 

 of the fpiral in which they wind, and that the furface of each particular convolution is gently rounded, fo as to 

 give to the line which bounds the figure of the whole a waved appearance, perhaps not regularly conical, yet 

 producing fomething ftill more excellent than the cone ; we fhall then find united in this admirable fhell all 

 thofe lines and figures which mathematicians have agreed to pronounce the moft beautiful, and altogether 

 deferving of that eminent diftinction given it above all other fhells. 



The 



