LETTERS FROM JOHN BROWN TO S. P. WOODWARD. 131 
Stanway, March 27/A/42. 
I thank you for the communication just received, in answer to which 
I beg leave to observe that I made no mistake when I sent you the only 
specimen of Planorbis, which Mr. Sowerby states to be new. I merely 
submitted my Clacton shells to that gentleman to have specific names 
attached to them, and those of Planorbis which I sent to you were the 
* identical specimens which Mr. Sowerby named and sent back to me. 
Of that you may rest assured ; and if there is any mistake in naming the 
shell in question the responsibility rests not with me. My judgment, I 
confess, is not sufficient to detect and name new species ; but I must 
allow that there does appear to be some analogy between the Clacton 
and recent species. But will you not allow that Pla* (=-.planorbis) from the 
latter locality is more flat on one side than can be seen in any of the recent 
shells of Plas nitidu ? ? But I am not qualified to maintain the con¬ 
troversy. I shall, therefore, resign it to other hands. 
I anticipate the pleasure of seeing Mr. Morris’s work on the fossils 
of the various formations. Extensive discoveries have been made in this 
department of science since the period in which your highly respected 
father published his interesting work on the same subject. Mr. Morris 
has considerable advantages over former authors in this respect, and I 
have not the least doubt that he will do full justice to it. 
Stan way, April 26/A/42. 
Whatever fate awaits the Planorbis in question, all I can say is that 
they are the identical shells that were sent me by Mr. I. D. C. Sowerby as 
new, and which he named P. helicoides. 
As I shall not start for Norfolk for a few days to come, I should gladly 
perform any message or commission which you may charge me to do 
for you. I shall not fail to measure the humerus you speak of, and to 
do the message to Miss Gurney. And, in the meantime, have the goodness 
to send me the dimensions of the one in Koch’s Museum, and I will compare 
it with one of my own, as well as that of Miss Gurney. 
And, as you are so happy in making sketches of small shells, etc., I 
doubt not you will be equally so in the affair of the Mastodon ; therefore 
pray let me have one, and I will carry it to Norfolk with me, to show to 
Miss Gurney. 
Mr. S. Wood paid me a short visit one day during his sojourn at Walton, 
and he then mentioned the distortion of the fossil skeleton in Koch’s 
Museum. Probably the distortion is owing to the bones belonging to 
various animals being made to compose one skeleton ? 
Stanway, Septr. 1st, 1842. 
I should esteem it a favour your returning at your convenience the 
Planorbis which I forwarded to you some months ago, accompanied 
with Mr. Sowerby’s letter, having his authority for its specific name. 
It was the only shell which I had at the time, which makes it the 
more valuable, being that on which Mr. Sowerby made his remarks at 
the time. 
Stanway, Septr. 21 st, 1842. 
I should have been most happy if you could have called in passing 
or repassing, but, as it is, I think you had better keep the Planorbis till 
1 see you, which I will do the first opportunity, and we can then compare 
them with those of your own Cabinet. 
In your letter you say “ I am sure you will pardon me for insisting 
on this.” My reply is that I thank you for this investigation, and I 
should not have that high opinion of you that I now have “ if you -were to 
drop the matter through a false notion of courtesy, etc.” It was for 
