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Miller corresponded with famous contemporaries Louis
Agassiz and Roderick Murchison, sharing fossil fish collections
with the former. Agassiz and others named genera and species
in his honor. He was a friend of geologist Dr. John Grant
Malcolmson of the Geological Society of London and amateur
fossil collectors Robert Dick, a baker from Thurso, and Patrick
Duff, town clerk of Elgin. Miller’s acumen is encapsulated in a
sculptured inscription at the Hugh Miller Museum, “Learn to
make a right use of your eyes.” As an example, he noted in
The Cruise of the Betsey (Miller, 1857b, p. 431),

I observed scattered over the beach, in the neighborhood of the lead
mine, considerable quantities of the hard chalk of England; and, judg-
ing there could be no deposits of the hard chalk in this neighborhood,
I addressed myself on my way back, to a kelp-burner engaged in wrap-
ping up his fire for the night with a thick covering of weed, to ascertain
how it had come there. “Ah, master,” he replied, “That chalk is all that
remains of a fine large English vessel, that was knocked to pieces here
a few years ago. She was ballasted with the chalk; and as it is a light
sort of stone, the surf has washed it ashore from that low reef in the
middle of the tideway where she struck and broke up.”

Like many of his contemporaries, Hugh Miller was a man of
faith, but one who did not struggle in reconciling evidence from
the natural world with the notions and culture of Christian-centric
Victorian Britain. He considered fossils in a pre-Darwinian view
as manifestations of earlier creations, and he accepted the idea of
deep time, but not without biblical-literalist detractors. Miller was
a man of conscience. He supported the rights of common folk and Coccosteus cuspidatus collected from the Old Red Sandstone by Miller,
was a central character in the Disruption of 1843, a historic rift in described and illustrated by Louis Agassiz, and published in Miller (1841).
the Church of Scotland that saw founding of the Free Church.
Many of his compatriots viewed this movement as a step toward
ecclesiastical democratization. Prevention, https://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/). It is
the 10th leading cause of death, and the third leading cause of
SUICIDE death among young people in the U.S. The rate of suicide, 14 in
The legacy of Hugh Miller is bittersweet. Despite his accom- 100,000, is rising. Suicide has touched many of our lives and
plishments and influence on geology and the church, around mid- families; it is preventable. If you or someone you know is at risk
night on the eve of 24 December 1856, at Shrub Mount his home of suicide, you can find help at the National Suicide Prevention
in Portobello, he committed suicide with a gunshot to his chest. Lifeline (https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org) or call +1-800-
In the suicide note, he expressed emotionally an unbearable burn- 273-8255, available 24 hours every day.
ing pain in his head with a mysterious reference, “I must have
walked.” He asked forgiveness and bade farewell to his family. REFERENCES CITED
In recollections of his last days, to his family, he spoke of his Campbell, I., and Holder, J., 2005, Hugh Miller’s last house and museum:
increasing cognitive dysfunction; to a close friend, he described The enigma of Shrub Mount, Portobello: Architectural Heritage, v. 16,
no. 1, p. 51–71, https://doi.org/10.3366/arch.2005.16.1.51.
hallucinations. Despite published accounts of a posthumous medi- Miller, H., 1835, Scenes and legends of the north of Scotland; or, the traditional
cal examination, we only can speculate on the full circumstances history of Cromarty: Edinburgh, Adam and Charles Black, 429 p.
surrounding his death. He wrote of dark times in his earlier stone- Miller, H., 1840, My schools and schoolmasters; or, the story of my
mason years; others mentioned his obsession with thwarting theft education: Edinburgh, Thomas Constable, 562 p.
from his collections at Shrub Mount (Swiderski, 1983; Campbell Miller, H., 1841, The Old Red Sandstone; or, new walks in an old field:
Edinburgh, John Johnstone, 275 p.
and Holder, 2005). Hugh Miller was buried in Grange Cemetery Miller, H., 1849, Footprints of the creator; or, the Asterolepis of Stromness:
in Edinburgh, but in Cromarty Cemetery, a statue of Hugh Miller London, Johnstone and Hunter, 313 p.
stands atop a 15-m column erected in commemoration of his life Miller, H., 1857a, The testimony of the rocks; or, geology in its bearing on two
and work. He was a favorite son of his community, a common theologies, natural and revealed: Edinburgh, Thomas Constable, 500 p.
man, and a hero of Scotland. Miller, H., 1857b, The Cruise of the Betsey or, a summer ramble among the
fossiliferous deposits of the Hebrides; with Rambles of a geologist or, ten
In honoring great geoscientists, we mustn’t ignore the difficult thousand miles over the fossiliferous deposits of Scotland: Edinburgh,
parts. While his writings expressed the depth of his passions and Thomas Constable, 486 p.
compassion, Hugh Miller had human frailties. Swiderski, R.M., 1983, Hugh Miller’s walk: Science, folklore, and suicide:
A lesson may be learned in acknowledging that even brilliant, Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal, v. 66, no. 2, p. 174–188.
self-made individuals are susceptible to mental illness and sui- USA Today Editorial Board, 2018, Suicide kills 47,000 men, women and
children a year. Society shrugs: USA Today, 28 Nov. 2018, https://www
cide. In 2017, ~47,000 people committed suicide in the United .usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/11/28/suicide-kills-45-000-annually
States (USA Today, 2018; American Foundation for Suicide -society-shrugs-editorials-debates/1661312002/ (last accessed 28 Nov. 2018).

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