70 The Late Hugh Miller. 



(^From the Scottish Guardian.) 

 * * * * * * * " To Mr Miller, 



more than to any other geologist, undoubtedly belongs the ho- 

 nour of having demonstrated, what previous observers had begun 

 to suspect, that the Old Red Sandstone was entitled to rank as an 

 independent formation, by its distinctive fossils, many of which he 

 was the first to discover and describe. Mr Miller had projected 

 and had advanced far in the preparation of, a work on the general 

 geology of Scotland ; but it is with the Old Red Sandstone that 

 his name as a geologist will be permanently connected. The 

 work in which he traces the progi'ess of his observations, has 

 been probably perused more for its moral interest and its literary 

 excellences than even for its geogolical descriptions. It is such a 

 book as Oliver Goldsmith might have written, had he been a 

 naturalist, which he was not; but still when Goldsmith wrote on 

 natural history, he threw the natural historians into the shade by 

 his marvellous powers of description; and of all the writers of the 

 golden age of British literature, it has always appeared to us that 

 Mr Miller's style came nearest to the exquisite English of Golds- 

 mith. To Mr Miller's versatile talents, and the varied contribu- 

 tions of his pen to criticism, art, philosophy, and science, is ap- 

 plicable also more than to any other writer of the day, the pane- 

 gyric pronounced upon Goldsmith, that there was no branch of 

 knowledge which he did not touch, and which, touching, he did 

 not adorn. His most profound work, the "• Footprints of the Crea- 

 tor or the Asterolepis of Stromness," is a contribution to natural 

 theology of inestimable importance. It has been adopted as a 

 text book by some of the most eminent teachers of geology in 

 the Universities ; and it has done more to expose the atheistical 

 fallacies and sophistries of the " Vestiges of the Natural History of 

 Creation" than even the elaborate essays of Sedgwick and Brews- 

 ter." 



" But to other and abler pens must be assigned the task of esti- 

 mating the genius, the character, and the services to religion, 

 science, literature, and social progress of this marvellous man. 

 We must content ourselves with these brief and hasty recollec- 

 tions of his life and labours, in recording the unexpected and sor- 

 rowful intelligence of his death. Thousands here and in other 

 lands will join with us in the tribute of an honest tear to the me- 

 mory of a man of true heart and noble powers of intellect, devoted 

 to the loftiest purposes. Little did we think, when we met Mr^ 



