Among the fossils discovered by our author, the _Pterichthys_ or winged
fish is doubtless the most remarkable. He had disinterred it so early as
1831, but it was only in 1838 that he “introduced it to the acquaintance
of geologists.” It was not till 1831 that Mr. Miller began to receive
assistance in his studies from without. In the appendix to Messrs.
Anderson of Inverness’s admirable _Guide to the Highlands and Islands of
Scotland_, which “he perused with intense interest,” he found the most
important information respecting the geology of the North of Scotland;
and during a correspondence with the accomplished authors of that work,
many of his views were developed, and his difficulties removed. In
1838, he communicated to Dr. Malcolmson of Madras, then in Paris, a
drawing and description of the _Pterichthys_. His letter was submitted
to Agassiz, and subsequently a restored drawing was communicated to the
Elgin Scientific Society. The great naturalist, as well as the members
of the provincial society, were surprised at the new form of life
which Mr. Miller had disclosed, and some of them, no doubt, regarded
it with a sceptical eye. “Not many months after, however, a true _bona
fide Pterichthys_ was turned up in one of the newly-discovered beds of
Nairnshire.” In his last visit to Scotland, Agassiz found six species of
the _Pterichthys_, three of which, and the wings of a fourth, were in Mr.
Miller’s collection.
This remarkable animal has less resemblance than any other fossil of
the Old Red Sandstone to anything that now exists. When first brought
to view by the single blow of a hammer, there appeared on a ground of
light-colored limestone the effigy of a creature, fashioned apparently
out of jet, with a body covered with plates, two powerful looking arms
articulated at the shoulders, a head as entirely lost in the trunk as
that of the ray, (or skate,) and a long angular tail, equal in length to
a third of the entire figure. Its general resemblance is to the letter
T,—the upper part of the vertical line being swelled out, and the lower
part ending in an angular point, the two horizontal portions being, in
the opinion of Agassiz, organs of locomotion. To this remarkable fossil
M. Agassiz has given the appropriate name of _Pterichthys Milleri_. An
account of it, accompanied with two fine specimens, was communicated
to the Geological Section of the British Association at Glasgow, in
September, 1840; and the most ample details, with accurate drawings,
were afterwards published, in 1841, in Mr. Miller’s first work, _The Old
Red Sandstone_, which was dedicated to Sir Roderick Murchison, who was
born on the Old Red Sandstone of the North, in the same district as Mr.
Miller, and whose great acquirements and distinguished labors are known
all over the world among scientific men. This admirable work has already
passed through three editions. From the originality and accuracy of its
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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