148 THE BANK ACCOUNTANT. 



devote a few spare minutes to render these leagues useful 

 to me. I am, I trust, sufficiently acquainted with geology 

 rightly to value the decisions of its highest authority.' 



It is an illustration of the carefulness of Miller's 

 habits of study, that he not only rewrote, with minute 

 verbal emendations, one passage in the preceding letter, 

 but copied the second as well as the first version into 

 the book in which he preserved his letters. 



The fossils intended for the inspection of M. Agassiz 

 were forwarded, in the first instance, to Sir Roderick 

 Murchison. Miller wrote at the same time to the latter, 

 inviting him to read the unsealed letter to Agassiz, re- 

 peating his question as to whether the Old Red Sand- 

 stone was a marine or a fresh-water formation, and stating 

 his intention to draw up an account of the geology of 

 the Cromarty district ' for a widely-circulated periodical.' 

 He received the following reply : 



' London, June 23, 1838. 



' Though exceedingly occupied in the effort to bring 

 out my ponderous volumes with their copious illustra- 

 tions, I lost little time in opening your box and ex- 

 amining its treasures as they passed to M. Agassiz. I 

 invited my friend, Sir Philip de Grey Egerton, who franks 

 this letter, and is stronger in fossil-fishery than most of 

 us, to be present at the examination. The result of our 

 view is, that we have no hesitation in pronouncing your 

 small-scaled fish to belong to the genus Cheirolepis 

 Agass. y the most striking character of which is the dorsal 

 fin being placed far backwards, and immediately above 

 or opposite to the posterior portion of the anal fin. " The 

 fins of this genus," says M. Agassiz, " have no spinose 

 ray on their anterior edge. Small slender ' rayons/ very 



