HISTORY OF THE FOSSIL REMAINS. 43 



at a meeting of Presbytery, in a discussion on ecclesiastical 

 matters, in the spring of 1836, a mason called me out and 

 showed me an entire fossil fish, plump and round in shape, 

 " which leaped into his hands," he said, at the opening of a slab 

 in Dura Den ; this specimen was the first that was figured of the 

 family of holoptychius, and is fully described in the Monograph 

 of Agassiz on the Old Red sandstone, as Iloloptychius Ander- 

 soni, the most abundant of all the fossil relics and species in 

 this celebrated locality. The Clashbennie quarry has been 

 worked for upwards of a century, during which period what 

 destruction of its varied treasures. As Isaak Walton might 

 say, we ourselves had a glorious nibble of the great Fish, when, 

 on the 19th March 1839, in company with Dr. Malcolmson, 1 

 visited the quarry, and found the workmen on a rich bed of 

 fossils and rudely smashing a large fin — cautioned them 

 against the rough operation — and promised a reward for the 

 chance-find on the flag-stone. Next day the splendid specimen 

 was in the hands of another. Now it fittingly reposes among 

 the trophies of the British Museum — but no fin, save sadly 

 mutilated. 



Many labourers were now in the field, and many provisional 

 names were bestowed on fossils that were afterwards to be 

 changed as their characters became better understood. The 

 rich deposits of the chalk in the south, and the pitchy-stained 

 flagstones of Caithness and the Orkneys in the north, were 

 eagerly explored, as each seemed the terminal points of organic 

 life at the two extremes of the geological scale. The tertiaries 

 had not as yet attracted the eloquent pen of Sir Charles L^'^ell 

 to record their remarkable divisional histories. The domains 

 of Siluria had no place in the system. The Old Red was just 

 settling into position, and casting about for a distinctive appel- 

 lation, under the hard, dry details of Hibbert, Sedgwick, and 

 Trail. And Hugh Miller, without chart or compass, was navi- 

 gating the creeks and bays of Cromarty, gathering and laying 

 up creatures of new and strange mould, or gazing with blank 



