1 843-44-] LETTER OF HUGH MILLER. 227 



Of all the fossils of these beds, the one with the tuberculated 

 covering seems least akin to anything that exists at present. I 

 have split up many hundred nodules containing remains of this 

 animal, for in the time of the Old Red Sandstone it must have 

 existed by myriads in this part of Scotland. The larger ones I 

 have invariably found broken and imperfect. The nodules in 

 which they occur are in general too small to contain more than 

 detached parts of them when large ; and besides, the coat of the 

 creature, consisting of hard plates separated apparently by sutures, 

 must have offered a very unequal degree of resistance to the super- 

 incumbent weight. And, however, though the plates themselves 

 are often as well defined and entire as the bits of a dissected map, 

 they are almost always found displaced and lying apart. It is only 

 the smaller fossils that I find perfect enough to furnish me with 

 anything like adequate ideas of the original shape of the animal ; 

 but in these, though the general outline be better preserved, the 

 plates are comparatively obscure. Thus the bits of the dissected 

 map still want a key, and I have not yet become skilful enough to 

 place them together without one. 



The form of the body of the creature seems to have somewhat 

 resembled that of a tortoise. . . . Pardon me, honored Sir, that I 

 use this minute in describing these differences to you who observe 

 better than any one else and can make a better use of what you 

 observe. I have not succeeded in convincing some of our northern 

 geologists that we have two varieties of small scaled fish in our 

 beds, and I am now appealing to you as our common judge, and 

 thus showing the ground of my appeal. Besides, as I cannot send 

 you my specimens by hundreds, I deem it best (though it may seem 

 presumptuous in one so unskilled) to communicate in this way the 

 result of my examinations of the whole. One single specimen 

 sometimes furnishes a characteristic tract regarding which perhaps 

 fifty illustrations of the same fossil may be silent. Among all my 

 specimens of the fish with the spines, only one shows me that the 

 animal was marked by a lateral line. ... I am afraid, however, 

 that when thus communicating the results of some of my petty 

 observations. I am but gaining for myself the reputation of being a 

 tedious fellow. 



