10 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL INVERTEBEATE ANIMALS. 



Gallery XI. The next three Table-cases contain the greater part of the 

 '^i^'^ii^^f9^ collection which formed the basis of the " Mineral ('onchology 

 ' ^' ^ ' of Great Britain," a work by James Sowerby (1757-1822) 

 and his son, James de Carle Sowerby, of which successive 

 parts, issued between June, 1812, and January, 1846, 

 amounted to seven volumes in 8vo., illustrated with 648 

 plates, engraved by the authors and, in some of the later 

 parts by G. B. Sowerby and by J. W. Salter, afterwards 

 Palaeontologist to the Geological Survey. The collection 

 comprises about 5000 fossils, from all parts of England and 

 from every geological formation, many of them named and 

 described for the first time in the " Mineral Conchology," 

 and therefore the type-specimens of the species to which 

 they are referred. Many of the green discs indicating 

 figured specimens were actually fixed by James Sowerby. 

 The ammonites of this collection, being inconveniently large 

 for exhibition in these Table-cases, have been removed to the 

 general collection of Cephalopoda in Gallery VII. The 

 collection was purchased by the Trustees of the Museum from 

 Mr. J. de Carle Sowerby in 1861. 



The two collections which follow owe their inception to a 

 society known as The London Clay Club, founded in 1838 

 by a few London geologists — namely, J. S. Bowerbank, 

 Searles V. Wood, John Morris, Alfred S. White, Nathaniel 

 Wetherell, J. de Carle Sowerby, and F. E. Edwards. Originally 

 intending to illustrate the British Eocene Mollusca, they 

 eventually in 1847 founded the Palseontographical Society for 

 the purpose of monographing all the fossils of the British Isles. 

 Table-eases Here is exhibited the collection of Eocene Mollusca, begun 

 3-9. by Frederick E. Edwards (1799-1875) about 1835, and 

 continually increased until a few years before his death. 

 It was purchased by the nation in 1873. Starting with the 

 fossils of the London Clay, Edwards extended his researches 

 to the Eocene strata of Sussex, Hampshire, and the Isle of 

 Wight, where he was assisted by Mr. Henry Keeping. This 

 collection served as the basis of six memoirs contributed to 

 the monographs of the Pal?eontographical Society, 1848-56, 

 and of various other papers published by him. The Eocene 

 bivalves in the collection were described by Searles V. Wood 

 in the volumes of the Palseontographical Society for 1859, 

 1862, 1870, 1877. About 500 species were thus described 

 and figured, but the collection also contains many new 

 and undescribed forms to which manuscript names were 

 applied by Edwards. A catalogue of the collection, by 



