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ROCK STARS
National Trust for Scotland. Miller was five years old when his
father, a ship captain, was lost at sea (Miller, 1840). He and his
young sisters were raised under austere conditions by his widowed
mother, her unmarried sister, and his uncles Sandy and James. His
education was not without troubles, involving obstinacy in the
face of authority and altercations with fellow students. Yet,
equipped with a keen intellect, young Hugh was an avid reader
and precocious with a willful, wild, and good-natured mischie-
vousness. His uncle Sandy guided his studies and instructed him
in reasoning and the nuances of the natural world around him, so
that even as a child he began to collect rocks and fossils and devel-
oped a habit of making careful, thorough observations. These
were the roots of a common man, not a gentleman scientist.
His mother remarried, and in 1820 at age 18, Miller appren-
ticed as a stonemason with his stepfather’s brother. It was in the
rocks of the Black Isle quarries, and between Cromarty and the
Sutors, twin buttresses that guard the south entrance to
Cromarty Firth, that Miller visited caves and collected fossil
fish and eurypterids from the Devonian Old Red Sandstone
and ammonites from Jurassic exposures near Eathie. He wrote
(Miller, 1840, p. 163), “Who, after even a few hours in such a
Bust of Hugh Miller in the Hall of Heroes, National Wallace school, could avoid becoming a geologist?” Miller worked
Monument, Stirling, Scotland. among stonemason crews building houses at Conon Bridge and
Gairloch in Wester Ross. In 1824–1826, he traveled to Niddrie
Hugh Miller (1802–1856): Woods, near Edinburgh, as a journeyman. Tragically, he was
afflicted with the “stonecutter’s malady,” silicosis, and weak-
Scottish Geologist, Popular ened lungs would plague him throughout his life. He recuperated
from acute symptoms at Cromarty and Inverness, threw off an
Writer, and National Hero earlier skepticism of faith, and continued studies of geology. To
make ends meet, he engraved headstones, wrote articles and
poetry for local newspapers, and produced a volume of Scottish
folklore (Miller, 1835). From humble beginnings, he never
Kevin Ray Evans, Dept. of Geography, Geology, and Planning, lacked ambition. He ventured into bookkeeping for a bank to
Missouri State University, Springfield, Missouri 65897, USA; offer the station in society that he felt his fiancé and her family
kevinevans@missouristate.edu could accept. In 1837, he married Lydia Mackenzie Falconer.
With the loss of an infant, and unhappy in his career, Hugh and
INTRODUCTION Lydia moved to Edinburgh to start anew.
It may not surprise you that one of eighteen busts in the
Hall of Heroes at the National Wallace Monument in Stirling, THE WITNESS AND GEOLOGIC WRITINGS
Scotland, is the likeness of a famous geologist, except it is In 1840, Hugh Miller became chief editor and writer for The
not James Hutton, Roderick Murchison, nor Charles Lyell— Witness, a newspaper that promoted separatist sectarian views,
it is a bust of Hugh Miller. As an American traveling through and it also provided an out-
Scotland, I discovered the profound reverence bestowed on the let for narratives of his
memory of Hugh Miller, a man who brought colorful observa- adventures. As a well-read,
tions, as well as interpretations, from his geologic explorations self-taught geologist, his
to the common man in newspaper serials and books. He was explorations of the Scottish
among the first popular and prolific science writers to promote Highlands and islands were
the nascent field of geology. He gave it credibility and soothed subjects of a series of arti-
tensions that developed between “anti-geology” biblical literal- cles that became books,
ists and scientists. He wrote, “Let me qualify myself to stand as like The Old Red
an interpreter between nature and the public; while I strive to Sandstone or, New Walks
narrate as pleasingly and describe as vividly as I can, let truth, in an Old Field (Miller,
not fiction be my walk ...” (Miller, 1840, p. 438). 1841) and several others
(Miller, 1849, 1857a,
EARLY LIFE 1857b). Miller became
Hugh Miller was born on the Old Red Sandstone of the Black a celebrity.
Isle in Cromarty, Scotland. The thatch-roofed, long, low, two-
story house of his birth and early childhood stands on Church Portrait of Hugh Miller by Robert Adamson and David Octavius Hill, ca. 1843–
1847, National Galleries of Scotland (https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art
Street. It currently houses the Hugh Miller Museum, designated a -and-artists/67146/hugh-miller-1802-1856-geologist-and-author-c>).

36 GSA Today | June 2019