100 HUGH MILLER. 



The articles were collected and published in the form of 

 a book in the following year. Dick purchased a copy, 

 and read it with great interest. 



He immediately set to work to investigate the geology 

 of Caithness. He again wandered over it from one end 

 of the county to the other. But his best findings were 

 near Thurso. Along the coast there, he had already 

 found fish bones, fish heads, fish snouts, fish scales, 

 sufficient to freight a large ship. But he had never 

 yet found an entire specimen. At last he succeeded ; 

 and then began his correspondence with Hugh Miller. 



He did not know Hugh Miller ; so that he addressed 

 him through an intermediate friend, Mr. Alexander 

 Sinclair. The letter is dated the 10th of March 1845. 

 Dick intimated that he was about to send off from 

 Thurso to Leith, by the " Union " steamer, a number of 

 fossil bones fpr Mr. Miller. He said, " If Mr. M. has 

 seen anything similar to the piece No. 1, with the tri- 

 angular knob, all my dreams of astonishing the geological 

 world by something new are in a measure at an end ; 

 for 'tis not alone the size of the pieces that I value, but 

 their singularity. 



" An acquaintance here has suggested that the piece 

 I have attempted to delineate was the plate that covered 

 the lower half of the Coccosteus ; but in this I find it 

 hard to agree, for I have two lower halves of Coccosteus 

 tilted over on their backs, and they are not at all like 

 this strange piece. The lower half of these pieces has 

 no triangular knob at the upper end in the centre of the 

 plate. Nor will it do, in my opinion, to say that per* 



