LETTER TO AGASSIZ. 143 



as containing information subsequently published by 

 Miller in a more mature shape, it is unnecessary to print 

 here, the following is selected as a good illustrative 

 sample : 



' TO M. AGASSIZ. 



'Cromarty, May 31, 1838. 



1 HONOURED SIR, 



' I have just learned from my friend, Dr Mal- 

 colmson, that you have expressed a wish to see one of 

 the fossils of my little collection. I herewith send it you, 

 and a few others, which you may perhaps take some in- 

 terest in examining. 



' I fain wish I could describe well enough to give 

 you correct ideas of the locality in which they occur. 

 Imagine a lofty promontory somewhat resembling a 

 huge spear thrust horizontally into the sea, an immense 

 mass of granitic gneiss forming the head, and a long 

 rectilinear line of Old Re<J Sandstone the shaft. On the 

 south side are the waters of the Moray Frith, on the 

 north those of the Frith of Cromarty, the Portus Salutis 

 of the ancients. The clay-stone beds, which contain the 

 fossils, occupy an upper place in the sandstone shaft, 

 covering it saddle- wise from frith to frith. A bed of 

 yellowish stone about sixty feet in thickness lies over 

 them, except where they are laid bare by the sea, or 

 cut into by two deep ravines ; a bed of redder stone of 

 un ascertain able depth, but which may be measured 

 downwards for considerably more than one hundred 

 yards, lies beneath. The beds themselves average from 

 ten to thirty feet in thickness. They abound everywhere 

 in obscure vegetable impressions and fossil fish ; but in 

 some little spots these last are much better preserved 

 than in the general mass. All my more delicately- 

 marked fossils have been furnished by one little piece 



