HIS WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF SCIENCE. 307 



specimens Pterichfhys Milleri. Dr Buckland's enthu- 

 siasm knew no bounds. He ' had never been so much 

 astonished in his life by the powers of any man as he had 

 been by the geological descriptions of Mr Miller. That 

 wonderful man described these objects with a felicity 

 which made him ashamed of the comparative meagreness 

 and poverty of his own descriptions in the Bridgewater 

 Treatise, which had cost him hours and days of labour. 

 He would give his left hand to possess such powers of 

 description as this man.' It was, in Dr Buckland's 

 view, ' another proof of the value of the meeting of the 

 Association, that it had contributed to bring such a man 

 into notice.' 



There is something fine in this spectacle of the 

 magnates of science welcoming with glad acclaim a 

 brother who, coming at one stride from the quarry, 

 makes out his title to rank as one of them. Men of 

 letters were almost equally astonished at the performance 

 of the Cromarty stone-mason. The benefit which Miller 

 had derived from his long discipline in literary com- 

 position was now evident. Into the description of bare 

 and rigid organisms, he could throw a fascination 

 which charmed every lover of literary form. Here was 

 a self-educated man who had educated himself not to 

 mere copiousness of glittering words, but to the chastened 

 strength, the subtle modulation, the placid-beaming 

 clearness, of a classic. Every page spoke of ripe thought 

 and confirmed intellectual habits. 



The Old Red Sandstone, which, in the following 

 year, appeared in the form of a book, was the first 

 literary work executed by Miller in the maturity of his 

 power. It stands at the head of a series of unique and 

 remarkable books with which he permanently enriched 

 English literature ; books in which the results of face to 



