164 THE OLD RED SANDSTONE. 
like nails that have been drawn out of a board by the car- 
penter at two several wrenches, and bent in opposite angles 
at each wrench ; some are bulky and squat, some long and 
slender; and in almost all the varieties, whether curved or 
straight, squat or slim, the base is elegantly striated like the 
flutings of the column. In the splendid specimen found in 
statement, had set himself to show that the scaly giant of the forma- 
tion could have been no sturgeon, the Doctor had the passage in 
which the naturalist established the fact transferred into a Fife news- 
paper, with, of course, the laudable intention of preventing the Fife 
public from falling into the absurd mistake of Professor Fleming. 
There seems to be something rather inexplicable in all this; but there 
can be little doubt Dr. Anderson could satisfactorily explain the 
whole matter without once referring to the oyster shells of Clashbennie. 
It is improbable that he could have wished or intended to injure the 
reputation of a gentleman to whose freely-imparted instructions he is 
indebted for much the greater portion of his geological skill — whose 
remarks, written and spoken, he has so extensively appropriated in 
his several papers and essays — and whose character is known far be- 
yond the limits of his country, for untiring research, philosophic dis- 
crimination, and all the qualities which constitute a naturalist of the 
highest order. Dr. Johnston, of Berwick, in his History of British 
Zovphytes, (a work of an eminently scientific character,) justly ‘as- 
cribes to the labors and writings ”’ of Professor Fleming ‘‘ no small 
share in diffusing that taste for Natural History which is now abroad.” 
And as an interesting corroboration of the fact, I may state, that Dr. 
Malcolmson, of Madras, lately found an elegant Italian translation of 
Fleming's Philosophy of Zotlogy, high in repute among the elite of 
Rome. Lest it should be supposed I do Dr. Anderson injustice in 
these remarks, I subjoin the grounds of them in the following extracts 
from professor Fleming’s paper in Cheek’s Journal, and from the paper 
in Jameson's New Edinburgh Journal, in which the Doctor purports to 
give a digest of the former, without once referring, however, to the 
periodical in which it is to be found : — 
“In the summer of 1827,” says Dr. Fleming, “I obtained from 
