DEVONIC FISHES OF THE NEW YORK FORMATIONS 1 77 



Imagine our loss were the records of early humari history obliterated. 

 What would be our poverty had the grandeur of Rome been dissolved into 

 a mass of meaningless ruins, had the splendid story of Greece and Athens 

 been blotted out, had we remained unconscious that Marathon was ever 

 fought, or that such a one as Socrates had ever lived ; had we no line from 

 Homer, no thought from Plato, no inspired word from Palestine vibrating 

 through the ages ! 



Again let it be said that conceptions of this nature are not foreign to 

 the scope or peculiar province of paleontology. They are, in fact, inherent 

 in all science ; they are not mixed with it, but combined with it, and hence 

 do not properly form either its distillate or residuum. If there be any who 

 question how far these ideas are relevant to the study of fossil fishes, we 

 may be allowed to recommend all such to read the lives of Louis Agassiz 

 and Hugh Miller, especially the recent character study of the latter by Mt- 

 Mackenzie (1906). An answer is recorded there so plainly that he who 

 runs may read. Wherever the work of Miller is remembered and appreci- 

 ated, it is not for the value of his discoveries, nor for his contributions to 

 science, but for the native shrewdness, clearness, intensity and discernment 

 with which he drew philosophical conclusions from the study of nature. 

 And his impulse in this direction was first quickened and set in motion by 

 his discovery of fish-bearing nodules in the Old Red sandstone of the north 

 of Scotland. We can not forbear in this connection to quote the following 

 passage from an address delivered a few years ago by M. Albert Gaudry, 

 president of one of the sections of the French Academy : ' 



Quand on passe a Cromarty, dans le Nord de I'Ecosse, on aper9oit une 

 colonne erigee en I'honneur de I'ouvrier carrier Hugh Miller ; en cassant des 

 pierres, I'ouvrier de Cromarty admirait qu'on y trouvdt des creatures fossiles, 

 et il en tirait des pensees si hautes qu'il est devenu un des paleontologistes 

 celfebres de la Grande-Bretagne. Beaucoup de gens sont comme Miller : 

 c'est chose etonnante que I'ardeur avec laquelle, dans tous les pays du 

 monde, on brise les roches pour surprendre les secrets des temps passes : 

 b^ltis hier, les Musees de paleontologie sont aujourd'hui trop petits. 



"Discours a rAcad^mie des Sciences, tenu le 21 d^cembre, 1903. See also the 

 addresses contained in the memorial volume entitled The Centennary of Hugh Miller, printed 

 at Glasgow, 1902. 



