AN INDEX TO THE MUSEUM BOLTENIANUM 

 By WILLIAM HEALEY DALL 



The Museum Boltenianum is a publication which, until recent 

 years, has been little known. It represents the arrangement of his 

 cabinet of shells by J. F. Bolten, of Hamburg, a lifelong student 

 of conchology who was dissatisfied with the crude method of 

 Linnaeus. He died without publishing his system which was 

 issued at Hamburg in 1798, at the expense of the family, with 

 supplementary references by a friend of conchological tastes, 

 Llerr Peter Friedrich Roeding, and with a Latin introductory by 

 the Abbe Lichtenstein. 



It was the hope of the family that the publication would not 

 only perpetuate the father's researches, but might lead to the pur- 

 chase of the collection as a whole by some museum or individual. 

 That it was brought to the attention of scientific men of the time 

 is evident from the fact that Lamarck adopted several of Bolten's 

 generic names a year or two later, though without giving their 

 author credit for them. 



Some twenty years passed and no sale in block having been 

 made, the family decided to dispose of the collection by auction 

 in separate lots. A new edition of the catalogue was issued with 

 four lithographic plates of rare species, supplemented by a cata- 

 logue of minerals and one of objects of art, the whole to be sold 

 by Johannes Noodt, auctioneer, who supplied a " Vorwort " and 

 reprinted Lichtenstein's Latin preface but omitted the preface 

 by Roeding. This publication formed an octavo of four unpaged 

 leaves, 156 pages, and four plates. It was issued in January, 1819. 

 The original issue was a i6mo of viii and 199 pages without 

 plates, and is stated on the title-page to be " Pars secunda " ; the 

 " Pars prima " having contained probably the two catalogues of 

 minerals and art objects which follow the shells in the edition of 

 1819. 



The publication and wider distribution of the sale catalogue 

 again attracted the attention of conchologists to the Boltenian 

 system, but the Lamarckian classification had by this time been 



