254 



LAST YEARS IN ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. 



resolved to sell tobacco at the store, he took no further part in 

 it. As he had been finding his professional duties quite uncon- 

 genial to him, he informed the chapel committee that he should 

 send in his resignation to the next annual meeting. 



His Natural History occupations were more than sufficient. 

 In April, he had sent off to Dr. Henry a work to which he had 

 given about thirteen weeks, averaging nine hours a day of close 

 application. He wrote : " As I had no one to consult in the 

 preparation of it, I have judged what was most wanted. It has 

 cost me enormous labour : and though not so popular, will be 

 far more useful than what you first proposed to me, which was 

 a report of my Smithsonian course of lectures. In those I 

 took certain salient points and popularly explained them. In 

 this I have made what might be called a ' Report of the Present 

 State of our Knowledge of Molluscan Animals/ It is not a 

 mere Review and Digest of books, though that would have 

 been very laborious, and useful to those who had not the 

 books, or time to work them up ; but it is at the same time 

 an elementary Guide to prepare beginners for the study of the 

 standard works : a Manual for the constant use of [naturalists] 

 who cannot be turning to a number of books for every little 

 thing : and an Anchor to moor classification to, so far as know- 

 ledge now goes." He had found it " more difficult to write 

 a good elementary book than to advance the science ; " and 

 felt that if he had been allowed thirteen years for the work, 

 instead of thirteen weeks, he could have done it much better. 

 He also drew up for the Smithsonian a Report on the Shells of 

 Puget Sound, collected by Dr. Kennerley, etc., on the United 

 States North- West Boundary Survey. In this he was assisted 

 in special departments by Professor G. Busk, F.R.S., and Dr. 

 T. Alcock. 



The Smithsonian Report for i860 (printed in 1861) contains 

 (pp. 151-283) "Lectures on Mollusca; or ' Shell-fish ? and 

 their Allies, prepared for the Smithsonian Institution by Philip 

 P. Carpenter, B.A., Ph.D." This must be the work of which 

 he had written : it is not in the form of " Lectures," but 



