TO THE BENEVOLENT READER 

 (Translation of Latin preface of 1798) 



Beside innumerable other treasures of natural history which 

 Boltenius, Doctor of Medicine and Poliator Primarius, a man of 

 very wide experience and learning — deserving lasting honor 

 especially from men of letters and from the state, especially that 

 of Hamburg — had collected during 40 years, he left an immense 

 collection of shells — for the most part very rare, beautiful and in 

 excellent preservation. 



Intending to publish, his heir directed me to supply a brief 

 Latin preface to the systematic catalogue of this collection which 

 had been prepared with the greatest accuracy and care by its late 

 possessor ; and revised and enlarged by the addition of synonymy 

 by Peter Friedrich Roeding, a man devoted to natural history 

 and especially to conchology. 



Because of many favors received at the hands of the honored 

 family of Boltenius, I did not wish to decline this request although 

 I cannot make any claim to be a conchologist. 



At first sight, perhaps those who are both judges and friends 

 of conchology will be disturbed at the great number of new and 

 unheard of names, especially generic names, met in the catalogue. 



They must, therefore, be informed from what source arose this 

 unique nomenclature destitute of current authority. 



The celebrated Boltenius had indeed worked out a new and 

 peculiar natural system of conchology quite different from all 

 other systems of previous writers, and this system thus carefully 

 worked out he had brought into real scientific form, prepared and 

 constructed according to the special rules of conchological knowl- 

 edge, so that, once this method of his of studying the history of 

 shells was published, he bid fair to become an authority on this 

 subject like a dictator or a second Linnaeus. 



There were together with the specimens several sheets of out- 

 lines drawn under the personal direction of the late Boltenius 

 by an experienced and learned Dominican, Doctor Schultze, a keen 

 investigator of nature and truth. But the complete work was 



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