256 LOVERS' QUARRELS. CHAP. xvr. 



self as usual, and at last he came to the same conclusion 

 that 1 had done. I have just found a note in reply to 

 one of mine. After saying that he is ready to be my 

 pupil in seaweeds, zoophytes, and in every other depart- 

 ment of natural history, he adds, and ' even in fossil 

 wood ' * a jocular allusion to our discussion on this 

 point." 



Mr. Peach, in a recent letter, referring to the many 

 happy hours and tough battles fought in Dick's bake- 

 house, says that old Annie, the housekeeper, would 

 sometimes interfere, and say, " Eh, maister, ye're awfu' 

 hard wi' Mr. Peach ; he'll never come back again after 

 sic rough usage." But Peach came back as before. The 

 lovers' quarrels soon healed, and they were more affec- 

 tionate than ever. " I had the advantage," says Mr. 

 Peach, " in having read all that Hugh Miller had done, 

 and also many of Dick's letters on the same subject. 

 Besides, I had had lots of experience in Devonian and 

 Old Eed rocks in more places than Scotland. I had also 

 a mode of my own for collecting. I got all the weathered 

 and detached portions of fishes and plants, studied them, 

 and fitted them into more perfect specimens. But Dick 

 did much good service. He was fortunately in time to 



* Hugh Miller, in his Testimony of the Rocks, refers to this fossil 

 wood as a " curious nondescript vegetable creation." He adds : " I 

 have not hitherto succeeded in finding for myself specimens of this 

 organism, which has been named provisionally by Dr. Fleming Stroma 

 ^biCKea ; but it seems not improbable that certain (supposed) fragments 

 of wood, detected by Mr. Charles Peach in the Caithness flagstones, 

 but which do not exhibit the woody structure, may have belong*^ 

 to it" 



