AvGustT 28, 1902] 
enjoyed the satisfaction afterwards of learning that Agassiz 
pronounced even the most bizarre amongst them to belong to 
that great division of the animal kingdom. He was guided by 
his own intuitive conception of what must have been the plan on 
which these ‘long-vanished types of organic structure had ‘been 
fashioned. Huxley, who twenty years afterwards had o-casion 
to subject the Old Red Sandsrone fishes to critical study, and 
who brought to the inquiry all the resources of modern bio- 
logy, has left on record the impression made on his mind by a 
minute revision of Hugh Miller’s work. ‘* The more I study the 
fishes of the ‘Old Red,’” he remarks, *‘ the more am I s'ruck 
with the patience and sagacity manifested in Hugh Miller’s 
researches, and by the natural insight which in his case seems 
to have supplied the place of special anatomical knowledge.” 
He refers to the *‘ excellent restoration of Osteolepis,” in which 
even some of the minute peculiarities had not escaped notice, 
and he declares that Hugh Miller had made known almost the 
whole organisation of Dipterus, and had thus anticipated the 
most important part of Prof. Pander’s labours in the same field, 
the distinguished Russian palzeontologist not having been aware 
that the work had already been done in Scotland. 
But it is not, in my opinion, by the extent or value of his 
original contributions to geology that the importance of Hugh 
Miller’s scientific labours and writings should bzmeasured. Other 
men, who have left no conspicuous mark on their time, have 
surpassed him in these respects. What we more especially owe 
to him is the awakening of a widespread interest in the methods 
and results of scientific inquiry. More than any other author 
of his day, he taught men to recognise that beneath the tech- 
nicalities and jargon that are too apt toconceal the meaning of 
the facts and inferences which they express, there lie the most 
vital truths in regard to the world in which we live. Ife clothed 
the dry bones of science with living flesh and blood. Hemade 
the aspects of pastages to stand out once more before us, as his 
vivid imagination conceived that they must once have been. He 
awakened an enthusiasm for geological questions such as had 
never before existed, and this wave of popular appreciation 
which he set in motion has never since ceased to pulsate through- 
out the English-speaking population of the world. His genial 
ardour and irresistible eloquence swept away the last remnants 
of the barrier of orthodox prejudice against geology in this 
country. The present generation can hardly realise the former 
strength of that bigotry, or appreciate the merit of the service 
rendered in the breaking of it down. The well-known satirical 
criticism of the poet Cowper expressed a prevalent feeling 
among the orthodox of his day, and this feeling was still far 
from extinct when Miller began to write. I can recall mani- 
festations of it even within my own experience. No one, how- 
ever, could doubt his absolute orthodoxy, and when the cause of 
the science was so vigorously espoused by him, the voices of the 
objectors were finally silenced. There was another class of 
cavillers who looked on geology as a mere collecting of minerals, 
a kind of laborious trifling concealed under a cover of uncouth 
technical terms. Their view was well expressed by Wordsworth 
when he singled out for contemptuous scorn the enthusiast 
‘*Who with pocket hammer smites the edge 
Of luckless rock or prominent stone, 
Detaching by the stroke 
A chip or splinter, to resolve his doubts, 
And, with that ready answer satisfied, 
The substance classes by some barbarous name 
And hurries on ; 
He thinks himself enriched, 
Wealthier, and doubtless wiser, than before.” 
But a champion had now arisen who, as far as might be, dis- 
carding technicalities, made even the dullest reader feel that the 
geologist is the historian of the earth, that he deals with a series 
of chronicles as real and as decipherable as those that record 
human events, and that they can be made, not only intelligible, 
but attractive, as the subjects of simple and eloquent prose. 
The absence of technical detail, which makes one of the 
charms of Hugh Miller’s books to the non-scientific reader, may 
be regarded as a defect by the strict and formal geologist. Like 
every other branch of science, geology rests on a basis of obser- 
vation, which frequently depends forits value upon the minute- 
ness and accuracy of its details. To collect these details is 
often a laborious task, which is seldom updertaken save by those 
to whose department of the science they specially belong. A 
paleontologist cannot be ‘expected to devote his time to the 
study of the microscopic characters of minerals and rocks. He 
leaves that research to the petrographer, who, on the other 
NO. 1713, VOL. 66] 
NATURE 
429 
hand, will not readily embark on an investigation of the minute 
anatomy of fossil plants or animals. This specialisation, which 
has always to some extent existed, necessarily becomes more 
pronounced as science advances. The days are far past. for 
Admirable Crichtons, and it is no longer possible for any one 
man to be equally versed in every branch of even a single 
department of natural knowledge. 
Hugh Miller’s researches among the Old Red Sandstone fishes 
showed him to be above all a naturalist and palzeontologist, 
capable of expending any needful amount of patient labour in 
working out the minutest details of organic structure. _ In other 
fields of geological inquiry, while he was far from undervaluing 
the importance of detail, he avoided the recapitulation of it in 
his writings. It interested him, indeed, only in so far as it 
enabled him to reach some broad conclusion or to fill in the 
canvas of some striking picture of bygone aspects of the earth’s 
surface. Hence he did not apply himself to the minute inves- 
tigation of problems of geological structure, and when he under- 
took any inquiry in that direction he was apt tostart rather from 
the palzontological than the physical side. Thus the work of 
his last years along the shores of the Firth of Forth, wherein 
he sought to accumulate proofs of the comparatively 
recent upheaval of the land, was mainly based on the 
position of shells with reference to their present habitat 
in the adjacent seas. As a youth enthusiastically geological, 
I was privileged to enjoy his friendship, sometimes accompany- 
ing him on an excursion, and always spending an evening with him 
after one of his autumn journeys that we might exchange the 
results of our several peregrinations. Only a week or two before 
his death, on the last of those memorable evenings, he had his 
trophy of shells spread on the table, which enabled him to prove 
that at no very distant date Scotland was cut in two by a sea- 
strait that connected the Firths of Forth and Clyde. He had 
found marine shells at Bucklyvie, on the flat ground. about mid- 
way between the two estuaries. Finding I was not quite clear 
as to the precise geographical position of his shell-bed, he burst 
out triumphantly with the lines placed by Scott at the head of 
the chapter in ‘‘ Rob Roy,” which tells of the journey of Bailie, 
Nicol Jarvie and Osbaldistone into the Highlands : 
“* Baronof Bucklyvie 
May the foul fiend drive ye, 
And a’ to pieces rive ye, 
For building sic a toun, 
Where there’s neither horse meat, nor man’s meat, nor a chair 
to sit doun.” 
I remember, too, that on that occasion I had brought with me 
the detailed map of Arthur’s Seat at Edinburgh, of which I had 
just completed the geological survey, and I explained to him in 
some detail what Ihad found to be thestructure of the hill. Having 
grasped the main succession of the rocks, he with characteristic 
rapidity passed from the particulars which I had given him to 
the events of which they were the record, and turning to his 
daughter, who was sitting near, he exclaimed to her, ‘* There, 
Harriet, is material for such an essay as has been prescribed to 
you at school.” Then in a few graphic sentences he drew a 
picture of what seemed to him to have been the history of the 
old volcano. 
. While various causes no doubt contributed in this country-to 
the remarkable and rapid increase in the general appreciation of 
the interest of geological investigation, I feel assured that one of 
the chief of them has been Hugh Miller’s imaginative grasp of 
the subjectand his eloquent advocacy. The personal experience 
of.a single individual can count for litue, in an estimate of this. 
kind ; but for what it may be worth, I gladly avail. myself of 
this opportunity tostate mine. It was Hugh Miller’s ‘‘ Old Red 
Sandstone” that first: reyealed to me the ancient history. that 
might be concealed in. the hills around me, and the meanings- 
that might be hidden in the commonest stones beneath my feet: 
I had been interested in such objects, as boys are apt to be who- 
spend much of their time in the open country.: But it was that 
book which set me on the path of intelligent inquiry.; And this 
experience must doubtless have been shared by many thousands 
of his readers who never ‘saw his living face and who never 
became geologists. 
I have alluded to the excellence of his literary style—a 
characteristic which, unfortunately, is only too rare among writers. 
in science. There can be little doubt. that. this. feature. of his 
work will constitute one of its claims to perpetual recognition. 
His early and wide acquaintance with our literature enabled him 
to intersperse through his pages many an apposite quotation and 
