LETTERS FROM JOHN BROWN TO S. P. WOODWARD. 131
Stanway, March 27th/42,
I thank you for the communication just received, in answer to which
I beg leave to observe that I made 110 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 Plas (=planorbis) from the
latter locality is more flat on one side than can be seen in any of the recent
shells of Plas nitidus? 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.
Stanway, April 26th/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. 21st, 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
I 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