52 PURCHASES OF BOOKS. 



"How painfully, how slowly," he once said in a 

 letter to Hugh Miller, "man accumulates knowledge! 

 How easily, how quickly, it escapes and is gone ! 

 Blessings on the noble art of printing, under the shadow 

 of whose dominion, thoughts, words, and deeds, are 

 piled up like the proliferous corn of old in the store- 

 houses of Pharaoh ! " 



Dick was now buying his flour from a merchant in 

 Leith. He requests the merchant to send him books as 

 well as flour. The books were purchased, packed in 

 paper in the centre of the bags, and despatched to 

 Thurso, by way of Aberdeen, Wick, and the Pentland 

 Firth. We find him thus receiving the Gardener's 

 Dictionary, the Naturalist's Magazine, and the Flori- 

 graphia Britannica. He also directs the flour merchant 

 to buy him a microscope, and to send it him as soon as 

 possible. Hie correspondent says, "I have at length 

 bought for you the long-wished-for microscope. It is a 

 very powerful one. I hope you will find yourself 

 amply rewarded for your time and expense." The 

 microscope was despatched in July 1835, and it reached 

 Dick in safety. He found that, in the course of his 

 investigations into the minutiae of objects, he could not 

 do without the microscope. 



The flour merchant afterwards sent Dick numerous 

 volumes of the Naturalist's Library, and bought for him a 

 copy of Hogarth's Works, the large edition, with the 

 original plates restored. We find, from the bill of 

 lading accompanying the flour and the volume, that its 

 oinding cost Dick two guineas. Other books, relating 



