426 
by the appearance of the K line on a negative, obtained by 
Mr. Wright, which was given a very long exposure with the in- 
tention of deciding whether this line did, or did not, exist in the 
Nova spectrum. 
The writers suggest that it would now be an exceedingly in- 
teresting experiment to test the presence of the absorption lines 
of calcium, sodium and other elements, in the gaseous nebule, 
by giving exposures long enough to record their continuous 
spectra, 
THE CHANGES IN THE NEBULA SURROUNDING Nova 
PerseI.—Prof, Louis Bell, writing in the Astrophysical Journal 
(No. 1, vol. xvi.), discredits the ‘‘ simple reflection’’ explanation 
of the changes which have taken place so rapidly in the nebulous 
matter surrounding the Nova, for the following reasons :—(1) 
Reflected light would be more or less polarised, and Perrine 
reports the total absence of polarisation in the light received 
from this nebula. (2) Reflection does not satisfactorily explain 
the persistence of strongly illuminated nebulosity at small angular 
distances from the Nova. (3) At the enormous distances (210 
light days) from the Nova that some of the bright portions are 
situated, reflection would not account for the brightness of these 
arts. 
Prof. Bell supports the theory of Seeliger, which accounts for 
the apparent movements of the brightest portions of the nebula, 
by supposing that the various parts of this highly tenuous matter 
are successively lighted up by the effects of a travelling electro- 
magnetic wave-front, and shows that this theory agrees entirely 
with the observed phenomena. . 
HUGH MILLER: HIS WORK AND 
INFLUENCE. 
AMONG the picturesque figures that walked the streets of 
Edinburgh in the middle of last century, one that often 
caught the notice of the passer-by was that of a man of good 
height and broad shoulders, clad in a suit of rough tweed, with 
a shepherd’s plaid across his chest and a stout stick in his hand. 
His shock of sandy-coloured hair escaped from under a soft felt- 
hat; his blue eyes, either fixed on the ground or gazing 
dreamily ahead, seemed to take no heed of their surroundings. 
His rugged features wore an expression of earnest gravity, 
softening sometimes into a smile and often suffused with a look 
of wistful sadness, while the firmly compressed lips betokened 
strength and determination of character. The springy, elastic 
step with which he moved swiftly along the crowded pavement 
was that of the mountaineer rather than of the native of a 
populous city. A stranger would pause to look after him and 
to wonder what manner of man this could be. If sucha visitor 
ventured to question one of the passing townsmen, he would be 
told promptly and with no little pride, ‘‘ That is Hugh Miller.” 
No further description or explanation would be deemed neces- 
sary, for the name had not only grown to be a household word 
in Edinburgh and over the whole of Scotland, but had now 
become familiar wherever the English language was spoken, 
even to the furthest western wilds of Canada and the United 
States. 
A hundred years have passed since this notable man was born, 
and nearly half that interval has elapsed since he was laid in the 
grave. The hand of time, that resistlessly winnows the wheat 
from the chaff of human achievement, has been quietly shaping 
what will remain as the permanent sum of his work and influ- 
ence. The temporary and transitory events in his career have 
already, in large measure, receded into the background. The 
minor contests in which, from his official position, he was so 
often forced to engage are mostly forgotten ; the greater battles 
that he fought and won are remembered rather for their broad 
and brilliant results than for the crowded incidents that gave 
them such vivid interest at the time. His contemporaries who 
still survive him—every year a sadly diminishing number—can 
look back across the half century and mark how the active and 
strenuous nature whose memory they so fondly cherish, now 
** Orbs into the perfect star 
We saw not when we moved therein,” 
A juster estimate can doubtless be formed to-day of what we 
owe to him than was possible in his lifetime. That the debt is 
great admits of no dispute, and that it is acknowledged to be 
1 An address given at the centenary celebration of the birth of Hugh 
ele held in Cromarty on August 22, by Sir Archibald Geikie, D.C.L., 
‘.R.S. 
NO. 1713, VOL. 66] 
NATURE 
[Aucust 28, 1902 
due could hardly be more fittingly shown than by the wide- 
spread desire which has brought us here to-day from so many 
distant places in order to raise in the town of his birth, which 
he made a place of pilgrimage to many a lover of English 
literature, a visible memorial of him in an institution of which 
he would himself have heartily approved. 
In order adequately to realise the nature and extent of the 
work achieved by Hugh Miller during his too brief career, we 
should clearly picture to ourselves the peculiar conditions in 
which he grew up. Happily he has himself, in one of the most 
charming pieces of autobiography in the language, told the story 
of his youth and early manhood. Descended from both a High- 
land and a Lowland ancestry, he combined in his nature the 
vivid imagination and poetic impulse of the Celt with the more 
staid and logical temperament of the Teuton. He was born 
amidst an English-speaking community, but at a distance of 
only a few miles from the fringe of the mountainous region 
within which men use the Gaelic tongue. He knew some sur- 
vivors of Culloden, and had heard his own grandfather tell how, 
when a stripling, he watched, from the hills above Cromarty, 
the smoke wreaths of the battle as they drifted along the ridge 
on the further side of the Moray Firth. From infancy he was 
personally familiar with the people of the hills and their tra- 
ditions, as well as with the ways of the hardy fisher-folk and 
farmers of the plains. The hereditary predispositions of his 
mind were in this way fostered by contact with the two races 
from which they sprang. 
Happy in the possession of this racial blending, he was still 
more fortunate in the place of his birth. He used to remark 
with satisfaction that both Sir Roderick Murchison and he had 
been born on the Old Red Sandstone of the Black Isle; but 
while the career of the author of the ‘‘ Silurian System” owed 
practically nothing to his birthplace, which he left while still an 
infant, Miller’s life from beginning to end bore the impress of 
the surroundings amid jwhich he was born and educated. It 
would hardly be possible to choose in this country a place of 
which the varied features are more admirably fitted to stimulate 
the observing faculties, to foster a love of nature, and to appeal 
to the poetic imagination than the winding shores, the scarped 
cliffs, the tangled woods, the wild boulder-strewn moors and 
distant sweep of blue mountains around Cromarty. And how 
often and lovingly are these scenes portrayed by him under 
every varying phase of weather and season! They had stamped 
themselves into his very soul and had become an integral part 
of his being. 
_ ‘<The@punding cataract 
Haunted him like a passion ; the tall rock, 
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, 
Their colours and their forms were then to him 
An appetite, a feeling, and a love.” 
But while Nature was his first and best teacher, he has told 
us in grateful words how much he owed: to two uncles—hard- 
working, sagacious and observant men, by whom his young 
eyes were trained to discriminate flower and tree, bird and 
insect, together with the teeming organisms of the shore, and 
whose high moral worth he, even as a boy, could appreciate. 
Having learnt to read while still of tender years, he developed 
an insatiable thirst for books. What he acquired in this way for 
himself seems to have been at least as useful as the training 
gained during the rather desultory years spent by him at the 
town grammar-school. He was an intelligent but wayward 
boy, as much ahead of his schoolmates in general information 
as in all madcap adventures among the crags and woods. When 
the time arrived at which he had to choose his calling in life, he 
selected an occupation that would still enable him to spend his 
days in the open air and gratify his overmastering propensity 
for natural history pursuits. Much to the chagrin of his family 
he determined to be a stone-mason, and at the age of seventeen 
was apprenticed to that trade. For some fifteen years he con- 
tinued to work in quarries and in the erection of buildings in 
various districts of the north country, and even extended his 
experience for a short time into Midlothian. Deeply interesting 
and instructive is the record he has left of these years of 
mechanical toil. But amidst all the hardships and temptations 
of the life, the purity and strength of his character bore him 
nobly through. His keen love of nature and his intense enjoy- 
ment of books were a never-failing solace. He continued to 
gain access to, and even by degrees to possess, a considerable 
body of the best literature in our language, reading some of 
his favourite authors over twice in a year. He thus laid up a 
