XXVI. HUGH MILLEIL 



of excellent specimens which he received from Mr Robert 

 Dick, " an intelligent tradesman of Thurso, one of those 

 working men of Scotland, of active curiosity and well-de- 

 veloped intellect, that give character and standing to the 

 rest." Agassiz had inferred, from very imperfect fragments, 

 that the Asterolepis was a strongly-helmed fish of the Ccela- 

 canths, or hollow-spine family, — that it was probably a flat- 

 headed animal, — and that the discovery of a head or of a jaw 

 might prove that the genus Dendrodus did not differ from it 

 All these conjectures were completely confirmed by Mr Miller, 

 after a careful examination of the specimens of Mr Dick. 



Before proceeding to describe the structure of the gigantic 

 Asterolepis, Mr Miller devotes a long and elaborate chapter 

 to the subject of the cerebral development of the earlier ver- 

 tebrata, in order to ascertain in what manner their true brains 

 were lodged, and to discover the modification which the cra- 

 nium, as their protecting box, received in subsequent periods. 

 This inquiry, which he has conducted with great skill and 

 ability, is not only highly interesting in itself, but will be found 

 to have a direct bearing on the great question which it is his 

 object to discuss and decide. 



The facts and reasonings contained in this chapter will, 

 we doubt not, shake to its very base the bold theory of Pro- 

 fessor Oken, which has been so generally received abroad, and 

 which is beginning to find supporters even among the solid 

 thinkers of our own country. In the "Isis" of 1 8 1 8, Professor 

 Lorenz Oken has given the following account of the hypo- 

 thesis to which we allude : — " In August 1806," says he, " I 

 made a journey over the Hartz. I slid down through the 

 wood on the south side, and straight before me, at my 

 very feet, lay a most beautiful blanched skull of a hind. I 

 j)icked it up, turned it round, regarded it intensely ; — the 

 thing was done. * It is a vertebral column,' struck me 

 like a flood of lightning, ' to the marrow and bone ;' and 



