305 



CHAPTER I. 



THE OLD RED SANDSTONE LETTER TO A CHILD FIRST IM- 

 PRESSIONS OF ENGLAND AND ITS PEOPLE. 



AMID the stormful enthusiasm of a great popular 

 conflict, Hugh Miller had not forgotten the serener 

 if not more lofty devotion which had inspired him as a 

 servant of science. ' Of Bacon/ he once wrote, ' I never 

 tired ; ' and often, probably, when the excitement and 

 sword-clashing of polemical battle filled the air around 

 him, would that vessel rise before the eye of his imagina- 

 tion which Bacon saw, speeding on, age after age, across 

 calm ocean spaces in search of light, horizon after hori- 

 zon opening before her, constellation after constellation 

 kindling in her skies. And now, when he had been for 

 the better part of a year editor of the Witness, he 

 ventured to yield to the prompting of his heart, and to 

 recur to those geological studies which had been his 

 delight in the quiet days of Cromarty. 



On the 9th of September, 1840, there appeared in 

 the Witness the first of a series of articles under the 

 title, The Old Eed Sandstone. There were seven in all, 

 each occupying two or three columns. The last was 

 published in the Witness of October 17th, 1840. The 

 moment was propitious. Hugh Miller could state in 



VOL. ii. 20 



