THE OLD RED SANDSTONE. 89 
court, was asked why he took so much pains with a piece des- 
tined, perhaps, never to come under the eye of a connoisseur. 
* T cannot help it,” he replied; “I do the best I can, unable, 
through a tyrant feeling, that will not brook offence, to do 
any thing less.” It would be perhaps over bold to attribute 
any such overmastering feeling to the Creator; yet certain it 
is, that among his creatures well nigh all approximations 
towards perfection, in the province in which it expatiates, 
owe their origin to it, and that Deity in all his works is his 
own rule. 
The Osteolepis was cased, I have said, from head to tail, in 
complete armor. The head had its plaited mail, the body its 
scaly mail, the fins their mail of parallel and jointed bars ; 
the entire suit glittered with enamel; and every plate, bar, 
and scale was dotted with microscopic points. Every ray 
had its double or treble punctulated row, every scale or plate 
its punctulated group; the markings lie as thickly in propor- 
tion to the fields they cover, as the circular perforations in a 
lace veil; and the effect, viewed through the glass, is one of 
lightness and beauty. In the Cheirolepis an entirely different 
style obtains. ‘The enamelled scales and plates glitter with 
minute ridges, that show like thorns in a December morning 
varnished with ice. Every ray of the fins presents its serrated 
edge, every occipital plate and bone its sculptured promi- 
nences, every scale its bunch of prickle-like ridges. A more 
rustic style characterized the Glyptolepis. ‘The enamel of 
the scales and plates is less bright ; the sculpturings are exe- 
cuted on a larger scale, and more rudely finished. The 
relieved ridges, waved enough to give them a pendulous 
appearance, drop adown the head and body. The rays of 
the fins, of great length, present also a pendulous appear- 
ance. The bones and scales seem disproportionately large. 
