lates,
spines, and occipital fragments of palaeozoic fishes rewarded the labors
of both. In an article on the scientific meeting at York, which appeared
in "Chambers' Journal" in the November of last year, the reading public
were introduced to a singularly meritorious naturalist, Mr. Charles
Peach,[9] a private in the mounted guard (preventive service),
stationed on the southern coast of Cornwall, who has made several
interesting discoveries on the outer confines of the animal kingdom,
that have added considerably to the list of our British zoophites and
echinodermata. The article, a finely-toned one, redolent of that
pleasing sympathy which Mr. Robert Chambers has ever evinced with
struggling merit, referred chiefly to Mr. Peach's labors as a
naturalist; but he is also well known in the geological field.

CHAPTER XII.

Ichthyolite Beds of Clune and Lethenbarn--Limestone
Quarry--Destruction of Urns and Sarcophagi in the
Lime-kiln--Nodules opened--Beautiful coloring of the
Remains--Patrick Duff's Description--New Genus of Morayshire
Ichthyolite described--Form and size of the Nodules or Stone
Coffins--Illustration from Mrs. Marshall's Cements--Forest of
Darnaway--The Hill of Berries--Sluie--Elgin--Outliers of the Weald
and the Oolite--Description of the Weald at Linksfield--Mr. Duff's
_Lepidotus minor_--Eccentric Types of Fish Scales--Visit to the
Sandstones of Scat-Craig--Fine suit of Fossils at Scat-Craig--True
graveyard Bones, not mere Impressions--Varieties of pattern--The
Diker's "Carved Flowers"--_Stagonolepis_, a new genus--Termination
of the Ramble.

My term of furlough was fast drawing to a close. It was now Wednesday
the 14th August, and on Monday the 19th it behooved me to be seated at
my desk in Edinburgh. I took boat, and crossed the Moray Frith from
Cromarty to Nairn, and then walked on, in a very hot sun, over
Shakspeare's Moor to Boghole, with the intention of examining the
ichthyolite beds of Clune and Lethenbarn, and afterwards striking across
the country to Forres, through the forest of Darnaway, where the forest
abuts on the Findhorn, at the picturesque village of Sluie. When I had
last crossed the moor, exactly ten years before, it was in a tremendous
storm of rain and wind; and the dark platform of heath and bog, with its
old ruinous castle standing sentry over it, seemed greatly more worthy
of the genius of the dramatist,