266 DICK'S CORRESPONDENCE. CHAP. xvu. 



Robert Dick received numerous letters from men of 

 distinction, requesting specimens of the Holy Grass which 

 he had discovered on the banks of the river Thurso. 

 Professor Balfour wrote to him in 1854, requesting roots 

 of the plant for the Botanical Garden at Edinburgh. 

 Dr. Allman, then professor of Natural History at Edin- 

 burgh, and now president of the Linnean Society, 

 requested specimens of the fossil fish for the University 

 Museum. Letters flowed in from Perth, from Aberdeen, 

 from Glasgow, from various places in England and 

 Ireland, requesting specimens of the Holy Grass, of shells, 

 and of fossil remains. Among his correspondents 

 we find the names of the Rev. Mr. Brodie, of the 

 Vicarage, Rowington, near Warwick; Mr. Backhouse, of 

 York ; and Professor Babington, of Cambridge. Many 

 of these were made known to Dick through his friend 

 Charles Peach. 



The correspondence with Mr. Peach continues : " I 

 am sold," says Dick, " body and soul, to dried plants, not 

 fossil ones; no breaking of stones or anything else for me, 

 but the drudge of self-denying determination. . . . Who 

 was it that wished he was a tailor, for then he might 

 sometimes get a holiday? Ay, Mr. Peach, plants are 

 plants, and stones are stones indeed, to those who gape 

 and gasp to get a mouthful of fresh air. But man was 

 born to struggle and to endure." 



Unfortunately, Dick's health began to fail. He 

 complained of a rasping cough, and of rheumatism. 

 Though a strong-looking man, and in the prime of life 

 (for he was not yet fifty), he complains of pain daily 



