the earlier age exist as the mere detached teeth
and spines of placoids, which, though they give full evidence of the
_existence_ of the fishes to which they belong, throw scarce any light
on their structure, it is from the ganoids of this second age that the
palaeontologist can with certainty know under what peculiarities of form,
and associated with what varieties of mechanism, vertebral life existed
in the earlier ages of the world. In my new-found deposit--to which I
soon added, however, within the limits of the parish, some six or eight
deposits more, all charged with the same ichthyic remains--I found I had
work enough before me for the patient study of years.

CHAPTER XXII.

"They lay aside their private cares,
To mend the Kirk and State affairs;
They'll talk o' patronage and priests,
Wi' kindling fury in their breasts;
Or tell what new taxation 's comin',
An' ferlie at the folk in _Lon'on_."--BURNS.

We had, as I have already stated, no Dissenters in the parish of
Cromarty. What were known as the Haldanes' people, had tried to effect a
lodgment among us in the town, but without success: in the course of
several years they failed to acquire more than six or eight members; and
these were not of the more solid people, but marked as an eccentric
class, fond of argument, and possessed by a rage for the novel and the
extreme. The leading teachers of the party were a retired English
merchant and an ex-blacksmith, who, quitting the forge in middle life,
had pursued the ordinary studies to no very great effect, and become a
preacher. And both were, I believe, good men, but by no means prudent
missionaries. They said very strong things against the Church of
Scotland, in a place where the Church of Scotland was much respected;
and it was observed, that while they did not do a great deal to convert
the irreligious to Christianity, they were exceedingly zealous in their
endeavours to make the religious Baptists. Much to my annoyance in my
younger days, they used to waylay Uncle Sandy on his return from the
Hill, on evenings when I had gone to get some lessons from him regarding
sand-worms, or razor-fish, or the sea-hare, and engage him in long
controversies about infant baptism and Church Establishments. The
matters which they discussed were greatly too high for me, nor was I by
any means an attentive listener; but I picked up enough to know that
Uncle Sandy, though a man of slow speech,