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Barkley, 
 
Thanks for your comment and the information that Streissler concedes  
Cournot's priority.  Having now skimmed Streissler's paper, I see he is  
quite clear on this; Cournot was first, Rau second in 1841.  His  
comment that Cournot posits the demand curve without explanation,  
whereas Rau derives is interesting and seems fair.  Streissler also  
quotes from Marshall's letter to J.B. Clark (1900) saying he fancied  
he'd read Cournot in 1868, but he was sure he read Cournot before von  
Thunen. In the same letter, Marshall writes "...I saw Rau's work before  
I saw Jenkin's paper in the Recess studies published in 1870; but even  
before that I had learnt from Cournot and von Thunen."  In a later letter  
to L.C. Colson  Marshall writes "As I have said in my original Preface,  
I owed much to the mental discipline afforded by Cournot; but the one  
book that really guided me was written by...vonThunen."  [See J.K.  
Whitaker, Early Economic Writings of Alfred Marshall, Vol.I,  
p.38;Vol. II, p.240 and Guillbaud's ninth edition of Marshall, Vol.2 ,  
pp. 7-8.]   
 
So your statement that   "Marshall may well have also read Cournot..."  
considerably understates the case.   
 
Mike Lynch 
 
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