190 



NATURE 



{jfan, 2, 1879 



the wonderful energy and enthusiasm of the man. He 

 ■would bake his daily supply of bread in the early hours 

 of the morning, have it ready for sale by his faithful 

 housekeeper, and start off himself long before even the 

 earliest riser in Thurso was out of bed. Often would he 

 leave home about midnight, taking advantage of moon- 

 light, and cross the county to reach some special ground 

 for observation by daybreak. Yet he would always get 

 home again in time for the preparation of next day's 

 baking. In this way he would walk sometimes sixty 

 miles or more in a single journey. 



Of course such a man could not escape criticism in a 

 small town where everybody knew everybody. And 

 Dick's per5onal appearance not less than his singular 

 occupations made him a "character" in Thurso. At 

 dusk a tall figure wich chimney-pot hat, swallow-tailed 

 coat, jean trousers and travel-stained boots, usually with 

 some bundle of stones, ferns, grass, or what-not, might be 

 seen marching with a swinging pace towards the bake- 

 house in Wilson's Lane, and the neighbours would watch 

 him as he passed, shrugging their shoulders, and won- 

 dering where the poor eccentric baker had been wandering 

 this time. There was no congenial society for him in the 

 place. Though naturally of a sunny hopeful temperament 

 the bitterness of his early life had in some measure 

 soured him ; or at least had made him shrink within 

 himself, avoiding the society of others, and finding his 

 companionship among the flowers, mosses and rocks out 

 of doors, and with his books at home. He was a diligent 

 reader, not merely of such books on his favourite pursuits 

 as he could afford to purchase, but of general literature? 

 and in particular of poetiy. He had considerable aptitude 

 in quotation and availed himself freely of the gift in his 

 letters. Ha taught himself drawing, also ; turning the 

 acquisition to account not only in the delineation of the 

 objects of natural history which he encountered, but in 

 such excursive subjects as Egyptian antiquities and clas- 

 sical figures, with charcoal outlines of which he would at 

 times adorn the walls of his bakehouse. His artistic 

 taste led him too to procure always the best edition of a 

 book and to put it into the best style of binding. 



Dick made Hugh Miller's acquaintance when that 

 eminent writer was at the height of his reputation. 

 There was much in the history and characters of the two 

 men to draw them together. The one had told the 

 whole world his story and had enlisted the sympathy of 

 every reader in the pursuits that had made him famous. 

 Dick on the other hand shrank from notoriety. He told 

 his friend all he knew, showed him all his collections 

 made him welcome to the use of everything, and took 

 him over the ground whence he had quarried many a 

 rare fossil. Such generous help could not but meet with 

 fitting public acknowledgment from its recipient. " He 

 has robbed himself to do me service," said Miller, who 

 fully and frankly stated the nature and extent of his 

 obligations ; and then for the first time the geological 

 world heard of the labours of the baker of Thurso. 

 Dick, sitting by his own oven-mouth and reading the 

 allusions to himself in Miller's paper, blushed to find 

 himself thus in print, and begged that he might not be 

 so often mentioned by name: ''Leave it to be under- 

 stood," he writes to Hugh Miller, "who found the old 

 bones ; and let them guess who can." 



Nevertheless, like many self-taught men, Dick with this 

 avoidance of publicity, united not a little vanity. He was 

 proud of his humble position, and contrasted it with that 

 of the " gentlemen-geologists," who could never do any 

 good work for fear of soiling their clothes. He was proud 

 of his prowess as a pedestrian, losing no opportunity of 

 telling his friends how many miles he had walked and 

 how many hours and minutes he had been on the tramp, 

 while the "gentlemen-geologists" would have been in 

 bed or lazily driving over the ground in gigs. He was 

 proud of his achievements in science, of his power of 

 seizing and sifting facts, of the collections which he had 

 made, of the opinions he had formed. He had indeed 

 much to justify this egotism, though few except the 

 very limited number admitted into his intimacy, knew 

 how much. Hence to ordinary acquaintances, or casual 

 visitors he seemed morose, sarcastic, almost con- 

 temptuous. But above these little idiosyncrasies stood 

 out bright and clear, his purity of character, his generous 

 unselfishness, his enthusiasm for nature and his stem 

 conscientious devotion to the daily drudgery of his busi- 

 ness. His life was on the one hand a struggle with 

 poverty, and on the other an exuberant communion with 

 the works of God. After fifty-six years of such a life 

 he died, leaving as the result of all his toil just enough of 

 money to defray his debts. 



It was well that such a story should be generally known. 

 Dr. Smiles deserves our best thanks for having rescued 

 it from oblivion and thrown it into the form of a 

 volume, made up largely of Dick's own letters. It was 

 fortunate that so many letters could be recovered, for 

 otherwise, as Dick never published anything, and his 

 friends were few, it would have been hardly possible to 

 gather details enough for his biography. 



The author has doubtless tried to do his best with the 

 materials at his command, and nobody but he can know 

 the difficulty of his task. But, in spite of the interest of 

 his subject, he cannot be congratulated on having fully 

 sustained in this new venture his well-earned reputa- 

 tion as a biographer. He appears to have taken up 

 the life at intervals sufficiently removed to allow 

 him to forget what he had already written, so that 

 he repeats the same idea, sometimes almost in the 

 same words. We are told three times, for instance, that 

 there is no land between Thurso and Labrador, and twice 

 within the space of three pages that Dick was a favourite 

 with the children of his employer. Dick's habit of Sun- 

 day walking is referred to in Chapter XII., and after the 

 lapse of more than a hundred pages it comes up again as 

 if it had never been spoken of before. His baking 

 operations, and how he carried them all on himself, are 

 not likely to be forgotten by any reader of the volume. 



More serious fault must be found with the inaccuracies 

 of the book. The author states (p. 98) that "distin- 

 guished geologists had asserted that no fossil remains 

 were to be found in the Scotch Highlands," and in sup- 

 port of this assertion he quotes a passage from Conybeare 

 and Phillips's " Geology of England and Wales." The 

 statement is meant to mark the importance of Dick's sup- 

 posed discovery of fossil fishes in the Old Red Sandstone 

 of Caithness. But a more unfortunate confusion could 

 hardly have been made. In the first place, Caithness is 

 not part of the Scotch Highlands. Geologically and 



