Strictures upon the commencement of a Publication entitled “ Con - 
chologie Mineralogique de la Grande Bretagne, par James Sow- 
er by. — Traduction Francaise revue, corrigee, augmentee, par L* 
Agassiz.” With a Reply by Prof. Agassiz, and a Letter from Mr. 
J. D. C. Sowerby. 
{From the MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HIS TORY, New Series, 
1839, j?. 254.)* 
Some numbers of a work have, within the last few days, come under 
our notice, the publication of which we see with no small share of sur- 
prise, mingled with a feeling not far short of indignation. The covers 
bear the following indication of their contents. — •“ Conchologie Minera- 
logique de la Grande Bretagne, par James Sowerby. — Traduction Fran- 
caise revue, corrigee, augmentee, par L. Agassiz.” A French version 
of the text of Mr. Sowerby’s Fossil Conchology, with coloured imita- 
tions of the accompanying figures, and this published at one fourth the 
cost of the original work, is about the last thing we should have looked 
for from the hands of Louis Agassiz. The illustrations, for the most 
part, are but sorry imitations, though sufficiently characteristic to serve 
for the identification of the species, and thus check at least the foreign 
demand for a work, upon which so many years of toil have been expended. 
As a set-off against this undue appropriation of the labours „of another, — 
this inroad upon the property of a fellow-labourer in the field of science, 
we are told that “ l’utilite d’une edition Francaise du Mineral Concho- 
logy, mise a la portee de toutes les bourses devant etre incontestable aux 
yeux de tous ceux qui favorisent les progres de la Geologie.” 
Now if some noble patroniser of science in this country, acting un- 
der a belief that an English translation of the ‘Poissons Fossiles,’ 
with a fac-simile of the numerous illustrations, if published at ten shil- 
lings each part, instead of thirty, would be very acceptable to all those 
who are favourable to the progress of Geology, either by the aid of a 
government grant, or from his own private resources, were to carry this 
* Prof. Agassiz having sent out with the last livraison of his ‘ Poissons 
Fossiles’ copies of his answer to the Remarks in the Magazine of Natu- 
ral History, the Editor has in consequence struck off copies of the entire 
discussion for distribution. — E d. Mag. Nat. Hist. 
