6 
ON THE TRANSLATION OF MINERAL CONCHOLOGY. 
sii'ous of attempting another edition of a work which has all along been to 
me a source of vexation and sacrifice, whatever intellectual enjoyment it 
may have produced me. If, therefore, a cheap edition of my work be 
really seriously talked of, I should like to know the parties who are about 
to engage in it, as I should have some advice to give them to enable them 
more readily to attain the obj ect which I, at least, think they should have in 
view ; viz., the diffusion of a work regarded as useful, and not merely an 
attempt to injure me. As my work will be completely finished in a 
year, with the 1 5th livraison, which I hope to publish next Easter, I shall 
esteem myself fortunate to see the work translated, in whatever shape it 
may appear. 
Hoping that you will insert the contents of this letter entire and literally 
translated, I have the honour to inform you that I have sent copies to se- 
veral of my friends. 
Louis Agassiz. 
To the Editor of the 
Magazine of Natural History. 
[Observations in reply to tlie preceding letter.] * 
Our remarks upon M. Nicolet’s French edition of Sowerby’s work on the 
fossil shells of this country, have drawn forth a reply from Prof. Agassiz, 
which should have received a place in our last month’s number, had it 
not reached us too late for publication. We now insert his letter, with 
a translation of its contents, that every publicity in our power may be 
given to the vindication which he has put forward. Had the work under 
notice originated with none other name than those of the printer, pub- 
lisher, and artist, greatly as we might have regretted, for the interests of 
science, the non-existence of international protecting enactments, the 
matter would have appeared to us one of comparatively trivial importance, 
and instead of advancing anything in the shape of reproach or remon- 
strance, we should have deemed it the wiser course to have been altoge- 
ther silent. 
The name, however, of Louis Agassiz, as the Editor and avowed pro- 
jector of the reprint, and the plausible statement from a man of such high 
scientific reputation, that its cheapness, when compared with the price of 
the original work, must necessarily tend to further the progress of Geo- 
logy, made us determine, without a moment’s hesitation, on the course 
which we pursued. For though originating in such a quarter the scheme 
threatened to be tenfold more injurious in its operation, we felt that Agas- 
siz was bound by so many ties to this country, that he would probably 
consider himself amenable to the expression of censure, if publicly di- 
* Mag. Nat. Hist. Vol. iii. n. s. p. 359. 
