FOOTPRINTS OF THE CREATOR OR THE ASTEROLEPIS OF STROMNESS BY HUGH MILLER AUTHOR OF "THE OLD RED SANDSTONE," ETC. ETC. WITH MEMOIR BY LOUIS AGASSIZ Fifteenth Edition. EDINBURGH MARVAR EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY M'FARLANE AND ERSKINE, (late Schenck & M'Farlane,) ST JAMES' SQUARE. HUGH MILLER, AUTHOR OF "OLD RED SANDSTONE" AND "FOOTPRINTS OF THE CREATOR." THE geological works of Hugh Miller have excited the greatest interest, not only among scientific men, but also among general readers. There is in them a freshness of conception, a power of argumentation, a depth of thought, a purity of feeling, rarely met with in works of that character, which are well calculated to call forth sympathy, and to increase the popularity of a science which has already done so much to expand our views of the Plan of Creation. The scientific illustrations published by Mr Miller are most happily combined with considerations of a higher order, rendering both equally acceptable to the thinking reader. But what is in a great degree peculiar to our author is the successful combination of Christian doctrines with pure scientific truths. On that account his works deserve peculiar attention. neralizations have nothing of the vagueness which too often characterize the writings of those authors who have attempted to make the results of science subservient to the cause of religion. Struck with the beauty of Mr Miller's works, it has His ge for some time nest been my wish to see them more exten. 66 from the author to publish an American edition of his Foot-prints of the Creator," for which he has most liberally furnished the publishers with the admirable woodcuts of the original. While preparing some additional chapters, and various notes illustrative of certain points alluded to incidentally in this work, it was deemed advisable to preface it with a short biographical notice of the author. I had already sketched such a paper, when I became acquainted with a full memoir of this remarkable man, containing most interesting details of his earlier life, written by that eminent historian of the "Martyrs of Science," the great natural philosopher of Scotland. It has occurred to me that, owing to the frequent references which I could not avoid to my own researches, I had better substitute this ample Biography for my short sketch, with such alterations and additions as the connection in which it is brought here would require. I therefore proceed to introduce our author with Sir David Brewster's own words : In our Of all the studies which relate to the material universe, there is none, perhaps, which appeals so powerfully to our senses, or which comes into such close and immediate contact with our wants and enjoyments, as that of Geology. hourly walks, whether on business or for pleasure, we tread with heedless step upon the apparently uninteresting objects which it embraces; but could we rightly interrogate the rounded pebble at our feet, it would read us an exciting chapter on the history of primeval times, and would tell us of the convulsions by which it was wrenched from its parent rock, and of the floods by which it was abraded and transported to its present humble locality. In our visit to the picturesque and the sublime in nature, we are brought into closer proximity to the more interesting phenomena of Geo HUGH MILLER. which flank our mountain glens, or which variegate our lowland valleys, and in the shapeless fragments at their base, which the lichen colours, and round which the ivy twines, we see the remnants of uplifted and shattered beds, which once reposed in peace at the bottom of the ocean. Nor does the rounded boulder, which would have defied the lapidary's wheel of the Giant Age, give forth a less oracular response from its grave of clay or from its lair of sand. Floated by ice from some Alpine summit, or hurried along in torrents of mud and floods of water, it may have traversed a quarter of the globe, amid the crash of falling forests, and the death shrieks of the noble animals which they sheltered. The mountain range, too, with its catacombs below, along which the earthquake transmits its terrific sounds, reminds us of the mighty power by which it was upheaved; while the lofty peak, with its cap of ice, or its nostrils of fire, places in our view the tremendous agencies which have been at work beneath us. But it is not merely amid the powers of external nature that the once hidden things of the earth are presented to our view. Our temples and our palaces are formed from the rocks of a primeval age,-bearing the very ripple-marks of a pre-Adamite ocean,-grooved by the passage of the once moving boulder, and embosoming the relics of ancient life, and the plants by which it was sustained. Our dwellings, too, are ornamented with the variegated limestones,-the indurated tombs of molluscous life, and our apartments heated with the carbon of primeval forests, and lighted with the gaseous element which it confines. The obelisk of granite, and the colossal bronze which transmit to future ages the deeds of the hero and the sage, are equally the production of the earth's prolific womb; and from the green bed |