Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/571

 HUGH MILLER 553 social peculiarities of different parts of Scot- land. But his greatest progress was in geol- ogy. Starting with hardly more than an em- pirical knowledge of the mineral characters of rocks, he soon detected the wonders of the fossil world in quarries remarkably rich in organisms. Wherever he went, from the shores of the Moray frith to those of the frith of Forth, the hammer was in his pocket, and his eye was searching for fossil specimens. Com- bining what he saw with what he read, he became, while yet hardly aware of it, not only a self-taught geologist, but a geologist capable of teaching others. To this period belong his discoveries in the old red sandstone, which only required to be known to insure him distinction in the scientific world. In 1825, work failing in the north, he sailed for the south of Scotland, and went from Leith to the capital. There he was occupied for two years, till his health began to fail, and he learned that few Edinburgh stonecutters pass their 40th year, and not one in 50 reaches his 45th. He therefore returned to Cromarty, accustomed to contemplate with rather pensive than sad feel- ings an early death, and soon after became seri- ously interested in the personal bearing of reli- gious concerns. Until this time he describes himself as wavering between two extremes, now a believer and anon a skeptic, the belief being instinctive, the skepticism arising from some intellectual process. The result of his thoughts and conversations was that he found rest in the fundamental principles of Scottish evangelicism. His attainments soon made him a local celebrity; geologists in other towns corresponded with him; Cromarty ladies be- gan to walk up to where he was at work to have the pleasure of conversing with him, one of whom was the young lady who afterward became his wife; and he was elected town councillor. He published a volume of " Poems written in the Leisure Hours of a Journeyman Mason " (1829) ; contributed a series of letters to the " Inverness Courier " on the herring fishery, which were collected in a volume ; dis- covered deposits of ichthyic remains belong- ing to the second age of vertebrate existence, sufficient to prove not only the existence but the structure and varieties of fishes at that early period ; and at length exchanged manual labor for the office of accountant in a branch bank opened at Cromarty. During the first two years of his accountantship his marriage took place, his " Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland" was published, and he became a frequent contributor to periodicals. The non-intrusion controversy was then at its height in the Scottish church, and immediately after the adverse decision of the house of lords in the Auchterarder case he published his celebrated " Letter to Lord Brougham," which, as Mr. Gladstone affirmed, showed a mastery of pure, elegant, and masculine English that even an Oxford scholar might have envied. The leaders of the Free church were then look- ing for a man to edit their contemplated organ, and at once selected Mr. Miller, who in 1840 removed to Edinburgh as editor of the " Witness." As a Scottish journalist he held a high and almost unique place. His leading articles were essays remarkable for their de- liberate thought, elevated moral tone, strong Presbyterian feeling, and fine literary finish, and exerted a powerful influence on the forma- tion of public opinion. His genius for descrip- tion, literary culture, and relish for peculiar social characteristics appear also in his account of a vacation tour, entitled "First Impres- sions of England and its People." But his greatest eminence was achieved in the depart- ment of practical and speculative geology. He went to Edinburgh with the results of many years of scientific observation and reflection with a collection, of belemnites, fossil fishes,, and other objects of natural history, and with a collection of thoughts and speculations about them, which in his own judgment formed his most valuable capital. During the first year of his editorship he published in the "Wit- ness " a series of papers, afterward known collectively under the title of " The Old Eed Sandstone, or New Walks in an Old Field," in which he detailed the story of his researches and revealed his discoveries of fossils in a for- mation which had till that time been deemed almost destitute of them. These were immedi- ately recognized by savants as important addi- tions to geological science. At the meeting of the British association in 1840 his labors were the principal theme ; the fossils which he had picked up in boyhood in his native district were promoted to their due rank as pterichthys Milleri ; and Murchison and Buckland spoke of his descriptive talent as casting plain geolo- gists like themselves into the shade, and ma- king them ashamed of their meagre style. His severe tasks endangered his health and com- pelled him to forego all literary labor during the greater part of 1845 and 1846 ; but he re- turned from his seclusion only to be more intimately associated with Dr. Chalmers in the counsels of the Free church. The appearance and popularity of the " Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," embodying the develop- ment theory, and aiming to transfer the work of creation from the realm of miracle to that of natural law, caused him to prepare a reply, entitled "The Footprints of the Creator, or the Asterolepis of Stromness," an able and strongly fortified exposition of the opposite view, which had a very wide circulation in England and America. One of his most in- teresting works is "My Schools and School- masters, or the Story of my Education," a full review of his life until the time of his settle- ment in Edinburgh. He published in 1848 the " Geology of the Bass Rock," lectured on geological subjects in Edinburgh and London, read papers before the British association, and had just completed at the time of his death his " Testimony of the Rocks," in which he dis-