the world of letters his name takes high rank, for
undoubtedly he was one of the ablest writers in our literature. Who
can have read without delight his manly, vigorous language, soaring
sometimes into the highest eloquence, anon plunging into the depths
of metaphysical argument, or grappling with the dry technicalities
of science, yet ever rolling along with the same easy, onward flow?
His style has all the charm of Goldsmith's sweetness, with the
infusion of a rich vigor that gives it an air of great originality.
He is one of the few writers who have successfully conjoined the
graces of literature with the formal details of science, and whose
works are perused for their literary excellences, independently
altogether of their scientific merit. His writings will ever be
regarded among the classics of the English language. For obvious
reasons we pass over his editorial labors. It is on the republic of
science that his death will fall most heavily. There can be little
doubt that he has done more to popularize his favorite department
than any other writer. Of all geological works, his enjoy, perhaps,
the widest circulation--not in this country, merely, but all over
the world, and especially in the United States. His reputation,
however, does not rest solely on his standing as an exponent of
science to the people; he was himself an original and accurate
observer. When the infant science of geology was battling for
existence against the opposing phalanx of united Christendom, Hugh
Miller, then a mere lad, was quietly working as a stone-mason in
the north of Scotland, and employing his leisure time among the
fossil fishes of the Old Red Sandstone, and the ammonites and the
belemnites of the Lias, that abound in the neighborhood of
Cromarty. As years rolled slowly away, he continued his
observations, and when at length, in 1841, the results were given
to the world in his well known "Old Red Sandstone," every one was
charmed with the novelty and beauty of the style, and his
reputation as a writer was at once established. Men of science,
however, though acknowledging the graphic and elegant diction of
his descriptions, had some doubts as to their truthfulness. Indeed,
by some geologists they were cast aside as fanciful, and other
restorations of the Old Red