1 5 o FAMOUS SCOTS 



work was done. One of these was the Old Red Sand- 

 stone, where he laid the foundations of his fame as an 

 observer and describer of Nature. His unwearied devotion 

 to the task of collecting the fishes of the Old Red Sand- 

 stone, and his patient industry in piecing their broken 

 fragments together, opened up a new chapter in the history 

 of Life on our globe. The other department was that 

 which embraces the story of the Ice Age. Miller was one 

 of the pioneers in the study of the Boulder-Clay. The last 

 years of his life were more especially devoted to that 

 interesting formation in which he found fossil shells in 

 many parts of Scotland where they had never been found 

 before. I well remember my last interview with him, only 

 a few evenings before his death. He had spent a short 

 holiday in the low ground about Bucklyvie between the 

 Forth and Clyde, and had collected a number of marine 

 shells, which led him to draw a graphic picture of what 

 must have been the condition of central Scotland during a 

 part of the glacial period. On the same occasion he 

 questioned me as usual about my own geological doings. 

 I had been surveying in detail the geological structure of 

 Arthur's Seat at Edinburgh, and showed him my maps. 

 He went over them with lively comments, and, when he 

 had done, turned round to his eldest daughter, then a girl 

 at school, and gave her in his own pictorial way a sketch 

 of the history of the volcano that had piled up the pictur- 

 esque hill on the eastern outskirts of the city. 



' I count it as one of the privileges of my life to have 

 known Hugh Miller, and as one of its chief losses that he 

 was so suddenly removed when I had hardly realised the 

 full value of his friendship and of his genial enthusiasm. 

 His writings formed my earliest geological text -books, and 



