CHAPTER VIL 
Further Discoveries of the Ichthyolite Beds. — Found in one Local- 
ity under a Bed of Peat. — Discovered in another beneath an an- 
cient Burying-ground. — Ina third underlying the Lias Formation. 
—In a fourth overtopped by a still older Sandstone Deposit. — 
Difficulties in ascertaining the true Place of a newly-discovered 
Formation. — Caution against drawing too hasty Inferences from 
the mere circumstance of Neighborhood. — The Writer receives his 
first Assistance from without. — Geological Appendix of the Messrs. 
Anderson, of Inverness. — Further Assistance from the Researches 
of Agassiz. — Suggestions. — Dr. John Malcolmson. — His Exten- 
sive Discoveries in Moray. — He submits to Agassiz a Drawing of 
the Pterichthys: — Place of the Ichthyolites in the Scale at length 
determined. — Two distinct Platforms of Being in the Formation 
to which they belong. 
I commencep forming a small collection, and set myself 
carefully to examine the neighboring rocks for organisms of 
a similar character. The eye becomes practised in such re- 
searches, and my labors were soon repaid. Directly above 
the little bay, there is a cornfield, and beyond the field a wood 
of forest trees; and in this wood, in the bottom of a water- 
course, scooped out of the rock through a bed of peat, I 
found the stratified clay charged with scales. A few hun- 
dred yards farther to the west there is a deep, wooded ravine 
cut through a thick bed of red diluvial clay. The top of the 
bank directly above is occupied by the ruins of an ancient 
chapel, and a group of moss-grown tombstones; and in the 
gorge of this ravine, underlying the little field of graves by 
about sixty feet, I discovered a still more ancient place of 
sepulture — that of the ichthyolites. I explored every bank, 
jt (109) 
