recognise that the discoverer of Pterichthys first called the attention of scientific men to the enormous wealth of the Old Red Sandstone in fish. If this is so, it will be difficult to refuse the addition that he determined the character of the formation. There are fish in the upper beds of the Silurian system, but the characteristic organisms are molluscan and crustacean; there are traces of reptile existence in the Old Red, but its characteristic organisms are fish. Unquestionably, the sudden rise of Miller into eminence and reputation as a geologist, was due, in some measure, to the exquisite clearness and picturesqueness of his style. From his boyhood he had made it one of his chief aims to perfect his literary workmanship. He had striven to attain skill in writing, as an enthusiastic painter strives to attain skill in the technical art of realising form and laying on colour. His descriptions of fossil organisms surprised and delighted scientific men, while the imaginative boldness and breadth with which he depicted the landscapes of the remote past fascinated general readers. After all, it maybe doubted whether the extreme elaboration and minuteness with which he described individual organisms, such as the Pterichthys, was not labour lost. A carefully executed wood-cut conveys a more correct and impressive idea of the creature than any words which could be devised. At all events, the descriptions of fossil organisms in the works of Hugh Miller are as exact and vivid as any in the English language.