removed without injuring what it overlies; but you will find them
in the smaller cast which accompanies the others, and which, as
shown by the thickness of the plate in the original, indicates
their size and form in a large individual, very characteristically
shown. So coral-like is their aspect, that if it was from such a
cast, not a fossil (which would, of course, exhibit the
peculiarities of the bone), that Lamarck founded his genus
Monticularia, I think his apology for the error might almost be
maintained as good. I am sorry I cannot venture on taking casts
from some of my other specimens; but they are exceedingly fragile,
and as they are still without duplicates I am afraid to hazard
them. Since publishing my little volume I have got several new
plates of Asterolepis,--a broad palatal plate, covered with
tubercles, considerably larger than those of the creature's
external surface,--a key-stone shaped plate, placed, when in situ,
in advance of the little plate between the eyes, which form the
head and face of the effigy in the centre of the buckler,--and a
side-plate, into which the condyloid processes of the lower jaw
were articulated, and which exhibited the processes on which these
hinged. There are besides some two or three plates more, whose
places I have still to find. The small cast, stained yellow, is
taken from an instructive specimen of the jaws of coccosteus, and
exhibits a peculiarity which I had long suspected and referred to
in the first edition of my volume on the Old Red Sandstone in
rather incautious language, but which a set of my specimens now
fully establishes. Each of the under jaws of the fish was furnished
with two groups of teeth: one group in the place where, in
quadrupeds, we usually find the molars; and another group in the
line of the symphyses. And how these both could have acted is a
problem which our anatomists here--many of whom have carefully
examined my specimen--seem unable, and in some degree, indeed,
afraid to solve.
I have written to the Messrs. Gould, Kendall & Lincoln to say that
the third edition of the "Footprints" differs from the first and
second only by the addition of a single note and an illustrative
diagram, both of which I have inclosed to them in my communication.
I anticipate much pleasure from the perusal of your work on Lake
Superior, when it comes to hand, which, as your publishers have
intrusted it to the care of a gentleman visiting this country,
will, I think, be soon. It is not often that a region so remote and
so little known as that which surrounds the great lake of America
is visited by a naturalist of the first class. From such a terra
incognita, at length unveiled to eyes so discerning, I anticipate
strange tidings.
I am, my dear sir, with respect and admiration, very truly yours,
HUGH MILLER.
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