TESTIMONY OF THE ROCKS. 85 



nificent design had not come before the world in a more concise and con- 

 centrated form. 



Recollecting the delight with which, years ago, the stone mason of 

 Cromarty had introduced us to the marvellously beautiful and previously 

 all but unknown organisms of the old red sandstone formation, the power- 

 ful intellect, under the control of deep piety, with which the same hand had 

 " crumpled up" the audacious sciolist who anonymously ventured on the 

 " Vestiges of Creation," and further, the racy native eloquence with which, 

 in his beautiful autobiography, he had so modestly, yet so well schooled, 

 not only the class from which he sprang, but his fellow-countrymen of every 

 class, we must confess to the opinion that this great man, chiefly, perhaps, 

 owing to the form which his last work has been permitted to wear, has 

 done full justice to neither his subject nor himself. 



As already remarked, the last two lectures are more strictly scientific^ 

 and herein the student of Fossil Botany will find a rich treat. It is highly 

 interesting to observe how, in the lapse of comparatively few years, and 

 amidst the engrossing occupations, mercantile and literary, wherein their 

 lamented author was, of necessity, engaged, the few sparse and spare veget- 

 able organisms which he had noted, or figured, in his work on the Red 

 Sandstone had grown into the rich and beautiful Fossil Flora which is here 

 revealed. We cannot but again remark, that were the substance of these 

 last lectures embodied with, or supplemented to, that on " the Palseontolo- 

 gical History of Plants" in the first, and these followed in succession by 

 the sketch of Animal Palaeontology in the second, the lucidus ordo, so 

 necessary to the subject whose development is aimed at in the whole,, 

 would have been much better attained. 



As regards the professed design of the entire volume, or of the greater 

 portion of it, namely, the harmonizing of the two records, Mosaic and 

 Geological, we thankfully acknowledge the obligation under which both 

 true science and genuine religion are laid by the writer. Hugh Miller 

 meets most of the objections raised by half-informed scepticism to the 

 Divine revelation in the true and only way in which such ever ought to be 

 met. He here assumes what he has elsewhere so abundantly evidenced, 

 that both volumes, nature and revelation, are from the same Author ; but, 

 as any really deep and clear thinker perceives and admits, on entirely dif- 

 ferent subjects. Armed with these undeniable first principles, he meets and 

 successfully foils his opponents. A specimen of the manner in which 

 some of the questions thus introduced are handled will not be unprofitable 



K 



