Miller, Hugh, one of the most noted characters among the English-speaking nations of our century, the champion of tlie I''rce Church of Scotland, and the de- fender of revelation from "scientists," falsely so called, was bom of ven.- humble parentage at Cromarty, in .Scotland, Oct. 10, 1805. He received his first education at the parish school, where he was distinguished for his fondness for poetry and poetical composition. At that early age he was an extensive reader, and jilaced under contribution the libraries of the parish. In this way he laid the foundation of an extended knowledge of litera- ture, which availed him in after-life. But the most im- portant part of his education consisted in the natural- history instruction he received from an uncle who had acquired a taste for the observation of natural phenom- ena. His poverty proved an obstacle to a collegiate education, and he was obliged to learn a trade in order to secure a livelihood. He determined fortunately, as his later history proved, to become a stone-mason. This occupation unexpectedly fostered the taste he had ac- quired for the study of natural history; and while hew- ing blocks of stone in the quarry, he was diligently studj'ing the traces they exhibited of their past history. It was in this way that he prepared himself to become the historian of the old red sandstone, among the rocks of which he principally worked. " It was the neces- sity- which made me a quarrier that taught me to be a geologist," he himself wrote in after-life. He labored j as a quarryman and stone-mason for about fifteen years, I constantly improving himself in his leisure hours by read- ing and study. Tlie publication of a volume of poems which he wrote during that time attracted the attention of some persons, who, by procuring him a situation in a bank of his native village, enabled him to devote more time to his studies. He now commenced contributing to several newspapers. The Church of Scotland was at that time a prey to internal dissensions, which ulti- mately led to a division. The Independents, who wished to throw off the yoke of the higher clergj-, received great support from the people; IMiller rendered them great service when the contest came to a close by the decision of the House of Lords in the Auchtcrarder case, in 1839, by his pamphlet, entitled A Letter from One of the Scottish People to the liif/ht Ilonorahk Lord Biviif/h- am and Vaux on the Opinions erprensed h// hl.^ Lordship in the Auchterarder Case. This remarkable Icttir drew towards him the attention of the evangelical iiarty, and he was selected as the most competent person to conduct the newly-started Witness news])ai)er. the iirinci])al met- ropolitan organ of the Free Church. This paper owed its success to his able contributions — political, ecclesias- tical, and geological. His articles on geology he con- tributed to the lirst congress of the British As.sociation, held at Clasgow in 1840. They were highly praised by Charles Lyell, Miircliison, Buckland, and Agassiz, and the name of Miller was by them associated with the wonderful fossil, the Pterichthys Milleri, which he had discovered in the red sandstone, and which had previously been thought to contain scarcely any fossils. Miller published these articles in book form, under the title The Old Red Sandstone, or Xeir ]\'alks in an Old Field (Kdinburgh, 1841, 8vo; often reprinted, both in England and America). In 1847 ai>pcared liis Fiist Impressions of Enr/land and its People (oil ed. 1853, 8 vo), the result of a tour made during the previous year. Some parts of this book, especially the account of the pilgrimages to St rat ford-on- Avon, and the Leasowes, and Olney, and other places, memorable for their liter- ary associations, are among the very finest pieces of descriptive English. A magic style characterized all his works, whether those of a more poiiular kind or his scientitic treatises, such as the Footprints of the Cre- ator (1849), a work suggested by the Vestigts of Crea-
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