British Quarterly Review, American Edition, Vol. LIV: July and October, 1871Various
History
British Quarterly Review, American Edition, Vol. LIV: July and October, 1871
Various
English periodicals
favourable circumstances, the State Church principle will not work. If
two ride upon a horse, one must ride behind, and if Scottish
Presbyterians have yet to learn that the State, having established a
Church, will sooner or later thrust it into a position of subservience
and slavery, they may be pronounced unteachable upon that subject.
But it is was our intention to speak of Hugh Miller almost exclusively
as a man of science, and we have lingered too long upon other phases
of his history. His scientific talent was, we think, of a high order.
It consisted mainly in an admirable faculty of observation, keen,
clear, exact, comprehensive. He was habitually, and at all moments, an
observer. Mr. James Robertson, a gentleman who knew him intimately and
walked much with him in 1834, states, in some valuable recollections
of Miller, contributed to Mr. Bayne's biography, that he, Mr. R., soon
remarked how vividly alive he was to the appearances of nature,
darting now at a pebble in the bed of a brook, now, at a plant by the
wayside, never for one moment suspending his inquisition into the
scene of wonders spread around him. Such being his habit of
observation, two conditions only were required in order that he might
become famous as a man of science, first that the district in which he
pursued his researches had not been exhausted by previous explorers;
secondly, that he possessed a literary faculty adequate to the
communication of his knowledge. He was fortunate in both respects. The
Cromarty district afforded extraordinary opportunities of observation
in a department of the geological record until then but partially
known. The Old Red Sandstone system had only begun to attract the
attention of geologists. The Silurian system, below it, had been
successfully explored; the Carboniferous system, above it, had been
penetrated in all directions for its treasures of coal, and geologists
had large acquaintance with its organisms; but the Old Red Sandstone
had been comparatively overlooked. Miller found himself in the
neighbourhood of good sections of the formation, and studied them with
the utmost care and assiduity. His journeyings as a mason had made him
familiar with the rocky framework of the north of Scotland, into which
the Old Red Sandstone largely enters. He was able, therefore, on
claiming recognition as a man of science, to tender a highly important
contribution to the world's knowledge of one of the great geological
systems. His name is imperishably inscribed among the original workers
in the Old Red Sandstone, along with those of Sedgwick, Agassiz, and
Murchison. His specific contribution was connected with the ichthyic
organisms of the system, and no contribution could have been more
important. The Old Red Sandstone system is distinguished,
biologically, as that in which the vertebrate kingdom, in its lowest
or fish division, was first prominently developed; and the most
niggardly estimate of the achievement of Miller, as a geologist, must
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