258 RESULTS OF PEACH'S DISCOVERIES. CHAP. xvi. 



The discovery remained without solution for some 

 years, the principal geologists still doubting its reality. 

 But about five years after, Sir Eoderick Murchison again 

 visited the spot, and the discovery was confirmed. 

 Professor Judd, of the Eoyal School of Mines, Jermyn 

 Street, London, said in the Geological Society's Quarterly 

 Journal that " Charles Peach's discovery in 1854 of 

 Silurian fossils at Durness, Sutherland, has already 

 borne the most important fruit ; and, in the hands of 

 Murchison, Eamsay, Geikie, Harkness, and Jamieson, has 

 afforded the necessary clue for determining the age of the 

 great primary masses of the Highlands of Scotland." 



We have thus described the origin of the friendship 

 between Charles Peach and Eobert Dick. It strength- 

 ened as it grew. Charles Peach shared all Dick's 

 enthusiasm, and bore a warm and constant friendship 

 for the solitary student. They communicated to each 

 other, as all true labourers in science do, the results of 

 their respective discoveries. They kept up a regular 

 correspondence, and many of their communications with 

 each other will be found referred to in the following pages. 



to his friend Professor Sedgwick : " Yon have no doubt heard of the 

 discoveries of fossils in the Durness limestone of Sutherland by Peach. 

 He has corresponded with me on the point, and has sent me some of 

 the fossils. I have had them polished. The forms, rude and ill-pre- 

 served as they are, look more like Clymenise and Goniatites than any- 

 thing else, with corals ; and, if so, the calcareous masses which I saw 

 from Assynt to Durness, interstratified in the quartz rock, are high in 

 the Devonian. I would like to hear what you say to this tclairvisse- 

 ment I I see great difficulty in understanding it." Professor Geikie'* 

 Life of Sir Eoderick I. Murchison, vol. ii. p. 195. 



