CHAP. xxi. WORKING AMONGST ICE. 361 



Red Sandstone!' Has some reporter erred? Or is 

 there an error in the classification of the rocks ? There's 

 the point. 



" Well, in vain did poor Hugh toil, and believe in 

 many creations. How sad to think that he ruined his 

 health for a shadow. And yet, three thousand years 

 ago, all was said to be Vanity. 



" I am anxious for a trial for a fossil fish to elucidate 

 the point called in question ; but I am not sheep enough 

 to strike a single blow in wind and rain. And yet I 

 am very anxious to get out at the rocks. I shall have 

 to carry a weighty hammer and wedges, and to work 

 hard besides." 



So soon as the storm abated, Dick resumed his 

 researches among the rocks. He went out with 

 " hammers and chisels and a'." He began on the 4th 

 of January 1864. It was hard frost. The rocky ledges 

 were covered with thick ice, while long ice-pillars hung 

 from every cliff. The sea was hushed and smooth, its 

 ripples quietly laving the shore. Dick worked for three 

 hours at the place where he had settled down, but he 

 got nothing important only three fish snouts, some half- 

 heads of fish, jugular plates, gill covers, and fish scales in 

 any quantity. All these he had known twenty years 

 before. 



Two days after he returned to the rocks. It was 

 still hard frost. He found nothing new, only fish jaws, 

 a half-head, and scales innumerable. He returned on 

 the 12th and 14th of January, changing his ground 

 from time to time ; but the results were the same. He 



