CHAP. xiv. FORMATION OF CAITHNESS. 199 



" The historian says of the Eoman Emperor Hadrian 

 that, 'careless of the difference of seasons and of 

 climates, he marched on foot and bareheaded over the 

 snows of Caledonia and the sultry plains of Upper 

 Egypt.' Pshaw! There are thousands of Scotsmen, 

 even in these effeminate times, that would scorn to yield 

 a hairsbreadth to the Eoman Hadrian, even in the best 

 days that he ever saw." 



Dick enclosed in his letter to Hugh Miller, describ- 

 ing the above expedition, an extinct shell, Fusus Hey- 

 woodii, a fossil of the English Crag ; " though," he said, 

 " Captain Brown does not figure it in his quarto volume 

 of Recent Shells" In his next letter Dick says " I am 

 half in doubt whether you would not consider me 

 crazed in my last. Stultus ego. But these journeys 

 are quite exhilarating. To those who live by their 

 labour, ' every inch a man ' is a great deal. I am sorry 

 to hear that you are so weakly. You sit too much at 

 your desk." 



Dick goes on communicating his thoughts to Hugh 

 Miller about the formation of Caithness. " No deluge 

 of water," he said, " could, in my opinion, have ground 

 down granite rocks to the consistency of clay. Nothing 

 so likely to produce what we now see around us as a 

 shallow sea, alternately freezing and thawing, and 

 hampered with icebergs. What is to become of the 

 Mosaic deluge ? My ' supernatural ' is truth. ... I had 

 already fallen in with the notion of a westerly current 

 across Caithness. I have seen much to confirm that 

 view. Keay Bay, Strath Halladale, and Shebster Valley 



