272 HUGH MILLER 



and its People appeared in 1846, and greatly in- 

 creased the reputation of its writer as an observant 

 traveller, an able critic, and an accomplished writer, 

 possessing a wide and sympathetic acquaintance with 

 English literature. The Footprints of the Creator, which 

 followed in 1847, was of a less popular character. 

 Its detailed account of the structure of some of the 

 fishes of the Old Red Sandstone is, however, of last- 

 ing value, though its controversy with the Vestiges of 

 Creation has now little more than an historical 

 interest. The Schools and Schoolmasters, after run- 

 ning as usual through the pages of the newspaper, 

 was issued as a separate volume in 1852, and was 

 everywhere hailed as one of the most delightful and 

 instructive of all his works. The Testimony of 

 the Rocks, with the final proofs of which he was 

 engaged on the last day of his life, was issued a few 

 months after he had been laid to rest beside his friend 

 Chalmers. Altogether of his collected writings, includ- 

 ing those that appeared in his lifetime, a series of 

 twelve volumes has been published, but many hundreds 

 of articles of less permanent interest, yet each marked 

 by the distinctive charm of its writer, remain buried 

 in the files of the Witness. 



If, from his writings alone, we judge of the extent 

 and value of the work achieved by Hugh Miller, we 

 can have little hesitation in believing that it is mainly 

 his contributions to the literature of science that will 

 hand his name down to future generations. Like so 

 many other men who have attained distinction in 

 the same field, he from the beginning to the end 

 made geology his recreation, in the midst of other 



