288 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



49. 



White of 

 Selborne. 



Not long after Bay and Linnaeus had attempted the 

 artificial and logical classification of living beings, and 

 about the same time that Buffon in France infused into the 

 literature of his country a somewhat pretentious love of 

 nature, Gilbert White, in a simpler and more healthy style, 

 betook himself to describe the aspect that nature presented 

 when viewed from the quiet home of an English country 

 parson. He may be said to have represented that other 



of nature, "led an unusually full 

 life, occupied in promoting science 

 and arousing enthusiasm and awak- 

 ening intelligence in others. To 

 almost every department of biology 

 he rendered much service, especially 

 by connecting various branches to- 

 gether and illustrating one by the 

 other. Though his published works 

 have been few, his ideas have been 

 as the grain of mustard-seed in the 

 parable " (' Dictionary of National 

 Biography '). After holding various 

 badly paid offices in London and 

 elsewhere, he succeeded Robert 

 Jameson as Professor of Natural 

 History at Edinburgh (see ' Memoir 

 of E. Forbes,' by G. Wilson and A. 

 Geikie, 1861). 



Hugh Miller (1802-56), the self- 

 taught stonemason of Cromarty, 

 combined the soul of an artist with 

 that of a naturalist. His writings 

 occupy a place by themselves in 

 English Literature. "The principal 

 scene of his own investigations was 

 the Cromarty district, where he 

 ransacked every wrinkle of the hill- 

 side, and traced every stratum sawn 

 through by the watercourse, and 

 where on the beach at ebb, in in- 

 durated clay of bluish tint and 

 great tenacity, belonging to the old 

 Red Sandstone formation, he dis- 

 covered and dug out nodules which, 

 when laid open by a skilful blow of 

 the hammer, displayed organisms 

 that had never been seen by the 

 human eye." In September 1840 



there appeared in the ' Witness ' a 

 series of articles entitled " The Old 

 Red Sandstone." They formed the 

 nucleus of a book of this title which 

 established the reputation of Miller 

 as an original geologist, as a prac- 

 tical thinker and fascinating writer. 

 'My Schools and Schoolmasters' is a 

 masterpiece of the English language. 

 " In an age prodigal of genius, yet 

 abounding also in extravagance, 

 glare, and bombast, the self-edu- 

 cated stonemason wrote with the 

 calmness and moderation of Addi- 

 son." "The fossil remains seem 

 in his glowing pages to live and 

 flourish, to fly, swim, or gambol, or 

 to shoot up in vegetative profusion 

 and splendour, as in the primal 

 dawn of creation " (Carruthers, 

 quoted by Peter Bayne in 'The 

 Life and Letters of Hugh Miller,' 

 2 vols., 1871). 



David Robertson, the naturalist 

 of Cumbrae in the Firth of Clyde 

 (born in 1806), was a farm-labourer 

 till he was twenty - four, then 

 took to the study of medicine, 

 and had afterwards for many 

 years a china and hardware shop 

 in Jail Square, Glasgow. He 

 gained a sufficient independence to 

 be able to retire in 1860 to Great 

 Cumbrae, where he devoted the 

 rest of his life to a study of nature. 

 Especially in " the marine section, 

 by his own unaided efforts, he 

 opened up in a remarkable degree 

 the zoology of the Firth of Clyde. 



