REVIEWS. 



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him to adopt a life of labour. We doubt that out of Scotland a second 

 Hugh Miller could be found ; and, we feel assured, the history of such "a 

 mind cannot fail to exercise an influence for good on all who read it. The 

 husband of one of our author's maternal aunts was a mason ; and with him 

 he agreed to serve a period of three years as apprentice. Soon after he 

 became acquainted with the " Easie Lias," a deposit rich in organism, 

 which are thus described : — 



" These Liasic beds, with their separating bands, are a sort of boarded books ; 

 for as a series of volumes reclining against a granite pedestal in the geologic 

 library of nature, I used to find pleasure in regarding them. The limestone bands, 

 elaborately marbled with lignite, ichthyolite, and shell, form the stiff boarding ; the 

 pasteboard-like laminae between — tens and hundreds of thousands in number in 

 even the slimmer volumes — compose the closely -written leaves. I say closely 

 written, for never yet did signs or characters lie closer on page or scroll than do 

 the organisms of the Lias on the surface of these leaf-like lamina?. I can scarce 

 hope to communicate to the reader, after the lapse of so many years, an adequate 

 idea of the feeling of wonder which the marvels of this deposit excited in my mind, 

 wholly new as they were to me at the time. Even the fairy lore of, my first-formed 

 library — that of the birchen-box — had impressed me less. The general tone of the 

 colouring of these written leaves, though dimmed by the action of untold centuries, 

 is still very striking. The ground is invariably of a deep, neutral gray, verging on 

 black ; while the flattened organisms, which present about the same degree of 

 relief as one sees in the figures of an embossed card, contrast with it in tints that 

 vary from opaque to silvery white, and from pale yellow to an umbry or chestnut 

 brown. Groupes of ammonites appear as if drawn in white chalk ; clusters of a 

 minute undescribed bivalve are still plated with thin films of the silvery nacre ; the 

 mytiliceas usually bear a warm tint of yellowish brown, and must have been bril- 

 liant shells in their day ; gryphites and oysters are always of a dark gray, and 

 plagiostomas ordinarily of a blueish or neutral tint. On some of the leaves curious 

 pieces of incident seem recorded. We see fleets of minute terebratulas, that ap- 

 pear to have been covered up by some sudden deposit from above when riding at 

 their anchors ; and whole argosies of ammonites, that seem to have been wrecked 

 at once by some untoward accident, and sent crushed and dead to the bottom. 

 Assemblages of bright black plates, that shine like pieces of Japan work, with 

 numerous parallelogramical scales bristling with nail-like points, indicate where 

 some armed fish of the old ganoid order lay down and died ; and groups of belem- 

 nites, that lie like heaps of boarding pikes thrown carelessly on a vessel's deck on 

 the surrender of the crew, tell where sculls of cuttle- fishes of the ancient type had 

 ceased to trouble the waters. I need scarce add, that these spear-like belemnites 

 formed the supposed thunderbolts of the deposit. Lying athwart, some of the 

 pages thus strangely inscribed, we occasionally find, like the dark hawthorn leaf in 

 Bewick's well-known vignette, slim-shaped leaves coloured in deep umber ; and 

 branches of extinct pines, and fragments of strangely- fashioned ferns, form their 

 more ordinary garnishing. Page after page, for tens and hundreds of feet together, 

 repeats the same wonderful story. The great Alexandrian Library, with its tomes of 

 ancient literature, the accumulation of long ages, was but a meagre collection — not 

 less puny in bulk than recent in date — compared with this marvellous library of the 

 Scotch Lias." 



We sincerely regret that we cannot transfer to our pages more of Mr. 

 Miller's history — how the working mason became accountant ata bank — 

 married — became editor of the " Witness" newspaper, which his zeal and 

 energy quickly raised to a high standing. Every page of his narrative 

 abounds in description, valuable to the naturalist, proceeding, as they do, 



