118 HAMMERING TILL MOONLIGHT. CHAP. x. 



They crop out between two dissimilar beds, and many 

 warty and other bones are to be found here." .... 



Dick then proceeds onwards to Dunnet sands and 

 Dunnet cliffs, which have already been described. 

 During the same evening on which he begins the above 

 description, he proceeds to geologise on the west shore 

 of Thurso. He says : " Shouldering an old poker, a four- 

 pound hammer, and with two chisels in my pockets, I 

 set out for the burn of Scrabster. After a great deal of 

 hammering, I found no end of young Coccosteus. I might 

 have filled a barrel with them, but they were all broken. 

 What hammering! what sweating! Coat off: got my 

 hands cut to bleeding. Found a very hard bituminous 

 bed. It rings like a piece of metal. What pokering ! 

 Got three or four fish, not much worth. Don't think 

 them new. Found a plant. Found scales of Holopty- 

 chius. Wrought on till the moon shone clear in the 

 water of the burn. Returned home at twenty minutes 

 past ten." 



The correspondence between Robert Dick and Hugh 

 Miller proceeds. Dick tells his correspondent of all his 

 findings of fossils. Everything he collects is immediately 

 sent to the Witness office at Edinburgh. Dick had many 

 wanderings for the purpose of finding the richest fossil 

 districts near Thurso before Hugh Miller's visit. Hav- 

 ing described the sea-shore to the east of Thurso; he 

 next proceeded to describe the sea-shore to the west of 

 Thurso. He begins his letter of the 4th of May 1845 

 by quoting the stanza from Byron's Childe Harold, 

 beginning 



