Old Red Sandstone, or New Walks in an Old Field

by Hugh Miller

Excerpt from The Old Red Or New Walks in an Old FieldIN the autumn of last year, I sat down to write a few geo logical sketches for a newspaper; the accumulated facts of twenty years crowded upon me as I wrote, and the few sketches have expanded into a volume. Permit me, honored Sir, to dedicate this volume to you. Its imperfections are doubtless many, for it has been produced under many disadvan tages but it is not the men best qualified to decide regarding it whose criticisms I fear most; and I am especially desirous to bring it under your notice, as of all geologists the most thor oughly acquainted with those ancient formations which it pro fesses partially to describe. I am, besides, desirous it should be known, and this, I trust, from other motives than those of vanity, that, when prosecuting my humble researches in Oh scurity and solitude, the present President of the Geological Society did not deem it beneath him to evince an interest in the results to which they led, and to encourage and assist the inquirer with his advice. Accept, honored Sir, my sincere thanks for your kindness.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Genres: Science, History, Geology

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1841

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Hugh Miller was a self-taught Scottish geologist and writer and folklorist.

Among his geological works are The Old Red Sandstone (1841), The Testimony of the Rocks (1856), and Sketch-book of Popular Geology. Of these books, perhaps The Old Red Sandstone was the best-known. The Old Red Sandstone is still a term used to collectively describe sedimentary rocks deposited as a result of the Caledonian orogeny in the late Silurian, Devonian and earliest part of the Carboniferous period.

Miller held that the Earth was of great age, and that it had been inhabited by many species which had come into being and gone extinct, and that these species were homologous.

For most of 1856, Miller suffered severe headaches and mental distress, and the most probable diagnosis is of psychotic depression. Victorian medicine did not help. He feared that he might harm his wife or children because of persecutory delusions.

Miller committed suicide, shooting himself in the chest with a revolver in his house on Tower Street, Portobello, on the night he had finished checking printers' proofs for his book on Scottish fossil plants and vertebrates, The Testimony of the Rocks. Before his death, he wrote a poem called Strange but True.

A shocked Western world mourned him, and his funeral procession was among the largest in the memory of Edinburgh residents.

He is buried in the Grange Cemetery in Edinburgh.

Miller's death was very tragic, and his life brief, but he left a heritage of new discoveries of several Silurian sea scorpions (the eurypterid genus Hughmilleria was named in his honour), and many Devonian fishes, including several placoderms (the arthrodire Millerosteus also honoured him), described in his popular books. Though he had no academic credentials, he is today considered one of Scotland's premier palaeontologists.

There is a bust of Hugh Miller in the Hall of Heroes at the Wallace Monument in Stirling. His home in Cromarty is open as a geological museum, with specimens collected in the immediate area; a week-end event at the site in 2008 was part of celebrations marking the bicentenary of the Geological Society of London.

The Hugh Miller Trail starts at a small car park on a minor road just past Eathie Mains, about 3 miles (4.8 km) south of Cromarty, and leads about 1 mile (1.6 km) down a steep slope through woodland to the foreshore at Eathie Haven on the Moray Firth, where Miller began collecting fossils. It was here that he found his first fossil ammonite, in Jurassic rocks. The haven was originally a salmon fishing station, and a former fishermen's bothy, open to the public, has a display board about the geology of the area and Miller's fossil discoveries.

The BP-operated Miller oilfield in the North Sea was named after Hugh Miller.