With no chart or landmark to guide him into this new domain of nature, he continued for years quietly to collect and compare. The first imperfect knowledge which he was able to acquire regarding the few modern representatives of the creatures disinterred by him at Cromarty was derived in 1836 from a perusal of the well-known memoir by Hibbert on the limestone of Burdiehouse. Next year, however, he made the acquaintance of Dr. Malcolmson, who eventually carried some of his specimens to London and the Continent, and was the means of bringing him into correspondence with Murchison and Agassiz. Hugh Miller was thus at last placed in direct communication with the world of science and into relation with the men who were most thoroughly versed in the subjects that had so long engrossed his thoughts, and most capable of helping him to clear away the difficulties that beset his progress. Meanwhile an important change had taken place in his condition of life. During the year 1834, after having worked for fifteen years in his calling of stone-mason, he was offered the accountantship of the Commercial Bank agency to be opened at Cromarty. This offer, which came to him unasked and unexpected, was a gratifying mark of the esteem and confidence with which his character was regarded. He accepted it, not without some diffidence as to his competence for the duties required. It would, however, retain him in his native town, enable him to marry the accomplished girl to whom he had for years been attached, and afford him opportunity to prosecute the researches in the Old Red Sandstone of which he had now come to realise the importance. It likewise provided him with leisure to prepare contributions to different periodicals, which, though of no great consequence to his reputation, were of service in adding to an income narrow enough for the support of a wife and family. These writings had this further advantage, that they gave him a readier command of the pen, and accustomed him to deal with lighter as well as graver subjects of discussion, thus furnishing a useful training for what was ultimately to be the main business of his later life.