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Transcriber’s Note
The punctuation and spelling from the original text have been faithfully preserved. Only obvioustypographical errors have been corrected.
THE
OR,
A SUMMER RAMBLE AMONG THE FOSSILIFEROUS
DEPOSITS OF THE HEBRIDES.
WITH
RAMBLES OF A GEOLOGIST;
OR,
TEN THOUSAND MILES OVER THE FOSSILIFEROUS
DEPOSITS OF SCOTLAND.
BY
HUGH MILLER, LL. D.,
AUTHOR OF "THE OLD RED SANDSTONE," "FOOTPRINTS OF THE CREATOR,""MY SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS," "THE TESTIMONYOF THE ROCKS," ETC.
BOSTON:
GOULD AND LINCOLN,
59 WASHINGTON STREET.
NEW YORK: SHELDON AND COMPANY.
CINCINNATI: GEO. S. BLANCHARD.
1862.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by
GOULD AND LINCOLN,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
AUTHORIZED EDITION.
By a special arrangement with the late Hugh Miller, Gould and Lincolnbecame the authorized American publishers of his works. By a similararrangement made with the family since his decease, they will alsopublish his Posthumous Works, of which the present volume is the first.
ELECTROTYPED BY W. F. DRAPER, ANDOVER, MASS.
PRINTED BY GEO. C. RAND & AVERY, BOSTON.
Naturalists of every class know too well how Hugh Miller died—thevictim of an overworked brain; and how that bright and vigorous spiritwas abruptly quenched forever.
During the month of May (1857) Mrs. Miller came to Malvern, afterrecovering from the first shock of bereavement, in search of health andrepose, and evidently hoping to do justice, on her recovery, to theliterary remains of her husband. Unhappily the excitement and anxietynaturally attaching to a revision of her husband's works proved overmuch for one suffering under such recent trial, and from an affection ofthe brain and spine which ensued; and, in consequence, Mrs. Miller hasbeen forbidden, for the present, to engage in any work of mental labor.
Under these circumstances, and at Mrs. Miller's request, I haveundertaken the editing of "The Cruise of the Betsey, or a Summer Rambleamong the Fossiliferous Deposits of the Hebrides," as well as "TheRambles of a Geologist," hitherto unpublished, save as a series ofarticles in the "Witness" newspaper. The style and arguments of HughMiller are so peculiarly his own, that I have not presumed to alter thetext, and have merely corrected some statements incidental to thecondition of geological knowledge at the time this work was penned. "TheCruise of the Betsey" was written for that well-known paper the"Witness" during the period when a disputation productive of much bitterfeeling waged between the Free and Established Churches of Scotland; butas the Disruption and its history possesses little interest to a largeclass of the readers of this work, who will rejoice to follow th