OR, THE ASTEROLEPIS OF STROMNESS. BY HUGH MILLER, AUTHOR OF "THE OLD RED SANDSTONE," ETC. "When I asked him [Sir Isaac] how this earth could have been re- (Mr Conduit's Notes of a Conversation with Sir Isaac Newton.) SECOND THOUSAND. LONDON: JOHNSTONE AND HUNTER, 26, PATERNOSTER ROW; AND 15, PRINCES STREET, EDINBURGH, - MDCCCXLIX. ΤΟ SIR PHILIP DE MALPAS GREY EGERTON, BART. M. P., F. R. S. & G.S. To you, Sir, as our highest British authority on fossil fishes, I take the liberty of dedicating this little volume. In tracing the history of Creation, as illustrated in that ichthyic division of the vertebrata which is at once the most ancient and the most extensively preserved, I have introduced a considerable amount of fact and observation, for the general integrity of which my appeal must lie, not to the writings of my friends the geologists, but to the strangely significant record inscribed in the rocks, which it is their highest merit justly to interpret and faithfully to transcribe. The ingenious and popular author whose views on Creation I attempt controverting, virtually carries his appeal from science to the want of it. I would fain adopt an opposite course: And my use, on this occasion, of your name, may serve to evince the desire which I entertain that the collation of my transcripts of hitherto uncopied portions of the geologic history with the history itself, should be in the hands of men qualified, by original vigour of faculty and the patient research of years, either to detect the erroneous or to certify the true. Further, I feel peculiar pleasure in availing myself of the opportunity furnished |