147. Unnamed Fossil Plant, 492 148. Pentagon, illustrative of Fern allies, 493 149. Imbricated Stem, 494 150. Fossil Plant (_Helmsdale_), 495 151. Dicotyledonous Leaf of the Oolite, 496 152. Fern, 497 MEMORIALS OF HUGH MILLER. Unknown he came. He went a Mystery-- A mighty vessel foundered in the calm, Her freight half-given to the world. To die He longed, nor feared to meet the great "I AM." Fret not. God's mystery is solved to him. He quarried Truth all rough-hewn from the earth, And chiselled it into a perfect gem-- A rounded Absolute. Twain at a birth-- Science with a celestial halo crowned, And Heavenly Truth--God's Works by His Word illumed-- These twain he viewed in holiest concord bound. Reason outsoared itself. His mind consumed By its volcanic fire, and frantic driven, He dreamed himself in hell and woke in heaven. EDINBURGH, December, 1856. MEMORIALS OF THE DEATH AND CHARACTER OF HUGH MILLER, WITH AN ACCOUNT OF HIS FUNERAL OBSEQUIES. Near the end of last autumn the American publishers of Hugh Miller's works received from him, through his Edinburgh publishers, the offer of a new work from his pen. The offer was accepted and a contract was at once closed. Soon the advance sheets began to come; and as successive portions were received and perused, it became more and more evident that the work was destined not only to extend his fame, but to establish for him new and special claims to the admiration and gratitude of mankind. In the midst of these anticipations, and ere more than half the sheets had been received, the publishers and the public here were startled by the news that Mr. Miller had come to a violent death. The paragraph conveying the intelligence was such as to leave the mind in a state of painful suspense. But the next steamer from Europe brought full details of the lamentable event. It appeared that in a momentary fit of mental aberration he had died by his own hand, on the night of December 23d, 1856. The cause was over much brain-work. He had been long and incessantly engaged in preparing the present work for the press, when, just as he had given the last touches to the eloquent, the immortal record, reason abandoned her throne, and in the brief interregnum, that great light of science was quenched forever. The event caused universal lamentation throughout the British Isles. It was treated as a public calamity. The British press, from the _London Times_ to the remotest provincial newspaper, gave expression to the general sorrow in strains of unwonted eloquence; and in so doing recounted his great services to the cause of science, and paid homage to his genius.