224 HEAD PL A TE OF AN ASTEROLEPIS. CHAP, xv, 



Lady Sinclair had caused a small runnel of water to be 

 diverted in order to form a mimic cascade, a good piece 

 of the rock laid bare of the soil ; and the surface of that 

 rock was grooved and polished similar to the other." 



This unmitigated hard work injured Dick's health. 

 He did not sustain himself properly. On his long 

 journeys of forty or fifty miles he had only a little 

 biscuit to eat. He drank from the nearest spring. 

 There were not only no public-houses along the districts 

 which he travelled through ; but no houses of any kind. 

 There were only moors, and mosses, and mires. 



On the 28th of January 1850, he sent Hugh Miller 

 the head plate of an Asterolepis. He found the heavy 

 stone in which it lay concealed, five long miles from 

 Thurso. He hammered and chiselled, and took out the 

 stone himself ; but he could not carry it away. He hid 

 it until he could get some help. He hired a man, and the 

 two went out in the dark with a wheelbarrow to bring 

 it home. It was a very heavy stone. They carried it 

 " up the brae at the shore," and placed it carefully in 

 the wheelbarrow. The two trundled it home, turn and 

 turn about, until they reached Dick's house in Wilson 

 Lane, late at night. In a future letter to Hugh Miller 

 he says : " Truly the labour of digging it out has nearly 

 finished me. I worked too hard, caught cold after- 

 wards, and I am no better yet." 



On Miller's asking him to go out and further 

 observe the groovings on the hill-sides, he says : " The 

 thing shall be attended to. But, Mr. Miller, I have not 

 been to the hills this winter, not since October. Not 



