According To The System Laid Down By Lamarck, With The Late Improvements By De Blainville.

Exemplified and Arranged For the Use of Students.

Illustrated By 36 Plates Containing More Than 200 Types, Drawn From The Natural Shell.


In this Manual of Conchology we have endeavoured to give a free translation of Lamarck’s system, as simplified by De Blainville; and, in order to facilitate as much as possible the study of this beautiful and interesting science, we have divested it of numerous technicalities, and divided it into four classes: Annelides, Cirrhipedes, Conchifera, and Mollusca.

To each class we have assigned its various families, to each family its genera, and to each genus its living species; thereby making it plain and within the reach of the meanest capacity. A type of almost every genus is given, excepting only those shells which, from their similarity to other genera, may easily be classed.

It was deemed advisable, as this is intended for an easy introduction to the science, to omit many divisions and subdivisions, viwhich would only serve to perplex and render the attainment more difficult.

As the Naiades, or shells of this country, are given in several valuable scientific works lately published, we have only slightly touched them in the place they are intended to occupy.