3i6 
PROFESSOR OWEN 
CH. X. 
the novelties were far from being exhausted 
when Mr. Cuming, having undertaken a third 
exploring voj^age, returned in 1840 from Manilla, 
stored with the conchological riches of the Indian 
Ocean, which have subsequently kept the pens of 
competent describers of new genera and species 
actively at work, and will so supply them for 
years to come. 1 hus the Cumingian Collection 
has directly advanced the science of conchology 
in an unexampled degree, and possesses the same 
peculiar claims upon the Government, or custo- 
dians of the national collection here which 
Linnaeus’s Herbarium did upon the Swedish 
State. Mr. Cuming’s collection contains, for 
example, the originals from which many hundred 
new species of shells have been described in the 
scientific periodicals or systematic works jDub- 
lished since its arrival in this country. 
‘ Any doubt that may arise through the in- 
completeness or obscurity of the description, or 
from the inaptitude of the student, may be decided 
at once by reference to the original specimens. 
These “ types of the species ” become, therefore, 
an instrument of great importance to the progress 
of the science in the country in which they are 
preserved and made accessible. . . . Delay in 
securing for the nation the Cumingian types of 
new species of shells may involve the necessity 
of crossing the Atlantic in order to compare 
and verify the descriptions and synonyms of 
