216 DICK'S GEOLOGICAL FINDINGS. CHAP. xv. 



to the geologist at Thurso " as the true authority for 

 determining how nature had given the last finish to the 

 cranial buckler of the Asterolepis. ' Ay,' he exclaimed, 

 as he eagerly knelt down to examine the specimen, and 

 passed his fingers over the keystone-like plate, 'Ay, 

 this is a finish of the right kind! This will do!'"* 

 Dick also furnished Mr. Miller with a well-defined jaw 

 of the Asterolepis, and with a drawing of a section of its 

 tooth, which appeared among the illustrations of the 

 book. 



Dick found for Mr. Miller apropos of a conversation 

 which the latter had with Professor Owen a specimen 

 of the Diplopterus, which fully confirmed the professor's 

 views as to the prolongation of the brain of that fish. 

 In fact, there was scarcely a subject on which Hugh 

 Miller wanted further information, but Eobert Dick was 

 ready to supply it. It was a delight to him to labour 

 night and day for the benefit of his friend, and also for 

 the benefit of science. In one of his letters to Hugh 

 Miller he says "Your letter found me asleep, knee- 

 deep in fern howes. But now I am awake, and busy 

 night and day." 



Hugh Miller, on his part, was ready to acknowledge 

 the obligations which he owed to his friend. At a lecture 

 delivered by him before the Physical Society of 

 Edinburgh " On a Suite of Fossils, illustrative of the 

 relations of the Earlier Ganoids," he said, "There are 

 several rare and a few unique fossils on the latter, illus- 

 trative of various points in the structure of the first 

 Hugh Miller's Footprints of the Creator, pp. 73, 325. Ed. 1876, 



