In this field of research, in which the physical, as well as the intellectual, frame of the philosopher is made tributary to science, two of our countrymen—Sir Roderick Murchison and Sir Charles Lyell—have been among our most active laborers. From the study of their native glens, these distinguished travellers, like the Humboldts and the Von Buchs of the continent, have passed into foreign lands, exploring the north and the south of Europe, and extending their labors to the eastern ranges of the Ural and the Timan, and to the Apallachians and the Alleghanies in the far west. But while our two countrymen were interrogating the strata of other lands, many able and active laborers had been at work in their own. Among the eminent students of the structure of the earth, Mr. Hugh Miller holds a lofty place, not merely from the discovery of new and undescribed organisms in the Old Red Sandstone, but from the accuracy and beauty of his descriptions, the purity and elegance of his composition, and the high tone of philosophy and religion which distinguishes all his writings. Mr. Miller is one of the few individuals in the history of Scottish science who have raised themselves above the labors of an humble profession, by the force of their genius and the excellence of their character, to a comparatively high place in the social scale. Mr. Telford, like Mr. Miller, followed the profession of a stone-mason, before his industry and self-tuition qualified him for the higher functions of an architect and an engineer. And Mr. Watt and Mr. Rennie rose to wealth and fame without the aid of a university education. But, distinguished as these individuals were, none of them possessed those qualities of mind which Mr. Miller has exhibited in his writings; and, with the exception of Burns, the uneducated genius which has done honor to Scotland during the last century, has never displayed that mental refinement, and classical taste, and intellectual energy, which mark all the writings of our author. We wish that we could have gratified our readers with an authentic and even detailed narrative of the previous history of so remarkable a writer, and of the steps by which his knowledge was acquired, and the difficulties which he encountered in its pursuit; but though this is not, to any great extent, in our power, we shall at least be able, chiefly from Mr. Miller’s own writings, to follow him throughout his geological career.