48 West American Scientist. 



velop other powers and talents, and not to confine his whole 

 ambition to the one aim of being a skillful worker in stone. And 

 in this he gained a second point, which should not he overlooked 

 by those who are placed in similar circumstances. 



As he worked in the quarry, and saw the thick layers of sand- 

 stone lifted trom the beds beneath, he was surprised to find the 

 whole surface ridged and furrowed like a bank of sand that had 

 been left by the tide an hour before. But what had become of 

 the waves that had thus fretted this solid rock, or of what element 

 had they been composed ? With these strange questions ended 

 his first day of work as a quarryman, and for fifteen years he 

 united the labor of his hands with the activity uf his mind. 



As he studied thtr problems which the leaA es of the great stone 

 book brought to his notice, the solutions began to dawn upon his 

 mind. The strange ripple marks became the i)lain records of a. 

 time when the ledge on which he was working formed part of a 

 sandy beach on the margin of a vast ocean. The strange remains 

 which we e sometimes brought to light as the blocks of sandstone 

 were split asunder, were reconstructed by his intellectual power, 

 and made to stand forth as the relics of those armor-clad, wing- 

 finned fishes of the Devonian age. 



His studies and investigations began to tell, and it became an 

 honor to be associated with the learned stone-mason, who could 

 say so much and write so well on these puzzling problems of 

 geology. 



" The stone that is fit for the wall will not lie long in the street." 



His devout but determined religious nature, joined with his 

 skill and elegance in writing, caused hmi to be selected by the 

 Scotch Presbyterians, as their champion in their struggles against 

 an established Episcopal form of worship, and he was made editor 

 of the " Witness." their newspaper organ. This office he filled 

 with great credit for many years, but as time passed he yielded 

 to his old passion for science, and spent the last years of his life 

 as a discoverer, a lecturer, and author. Among his most cele- 

 brated works may be mentioned '■ Old Red Sandstone," '• Foot- 

 prints of the Creator." 'My Schools and Schoolmasters," and 

 " The Testimony of the Rocks." 



His style is pure, flowing and entertaining, and he invests with 

 a charm every subject which he touches. Not only could he do 

 battle for his religious convictions, and by his rugged Scotch 

 sense and vigorous style discuss so effectively the stern problems 

 of the day, but also, as has been said by another, even ' the fossil 

 remains seem in his glowing pages to live and flourish, to fiy, 

 swim, or gambol, or to shoot up in vegetative profusion and 

 splendor, as in the primal dawn of creation ! " 



By his vivid imagination we are carried far back into the past, 

 when a continuous ocean spread over the place now occupied by 



