SOURCE: Merrill, Lynn L. “Hugh Miller and Evocative Geology.” In The Romance of Victorian Natural History, pp. 236-54. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

In the following essay, Merrill maintains that Miller's The Old Red Sandstone appealed to Victorian readers because of its attention to the particulars of natural description.

Where can be seen an intenser delight than that of children picking up new flowers and watching new insects, or hoarding pebbles and shells? … Every botanist who has had children with him in the woods and the lanes must have noticed how eagerly they joined him in his pursuits, how keenly they searched out plants for him, how intently they watched while he examined them, how they overwhelmed him with questions. … Having gained due familiarity with the simpler properties of inorganic objects, the child should by the same process be led on to a like exhaustive examination of the...