Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 13.djvu/565

MILLER. 511 MILLER. fomia. He was a volunteer in Walker's Nica- ragua expedition of 1855. From 1855 until ISUO lie" lived among the Indians of the I'aeilie Coast. He studied law for a while, then edited a Demo- cratic pajK-r at Eugene City, Ore., which was sup- pressed by the authorities for disunion senti- ments. In 1803 he began to practice law and was a district judge in Oregon from 18GG to 1870. After visiting the Eastern States Miller went to England, where, in the following year, he pub- lished his Soiiys of the Sierras, which made him a temporary 'lion' in London society, although the same poems had fallen flat in the United States. He afterwards settled in New York, but he left that city in order to do journalistic work in Washington. D. C, and in Oakland, Cal. (1887). settling at last in Oakland. Among his works in verse are: Songs of the Sun- land (1873); Songs of Italy (1878); Songs of the .1/rjican Seas (1887); in prose: The Danites in the Sierras (a novel, 1881) ; .'/.9, or the Cold Seekers of the SieiTas (1884). Mil- ler's play. The Danites, taken from his novel, had considerable success, and his poetry has received some favorable notice, more on account of its genuinely romantic content and its brilliant if crude color, tlian on account of its artistic excel- lence. A collective edition of his verses appeared in 18(17. The name 'Joaquin' was taken from .Toatpiin Murietta. a Mexican bandit, of whom Miller wrote a defense. MILLER, Edward (17G0-1812). An Ameri- can physician, born in Dover, Del. He graduated at the medical department of the University of Pennsvlvania in 1784. and in 1797, associated with Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell and Dr. Elihu H. Smith, he founded the Medical Rejiository, the first American journal of medicine. He was pro- fessor of iiii'dieine in Xew York, and enjoyed a liigh reputation both in this country and abroad. His writings were published in New York in 1814. MILLER, Ferdinand vox (1813-87). A Ger- man liriinzcfounder. born at Fiirstenfeldbruck. He studied at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts, and learned his trade under his uncle, Stigl- mayer, and in Paris with Soyer. His reputation was won by his eastings from the designs of Schwanthaler, and especially by his large and monumental works. His best known work in America is the bronze door at the Capitol in Washington. Of his sons, Ferdinand (1842 — ) and Ludwig (1850 — ) were bronze-foundors, and Fritz I 1.S40 — ) was a professor in the Polj-tech- nie School at Munich. MILLER, Hrcn (1802-.56). A Scottish geolo- gist and man of letters, born in Cromarty. Octo- ber 10, 1802. He was descended from a family of sailors, and when he was only five years of age lost his father by a storm at sea. In conseqtienee he was brought up chiefly under the care of two uncles. He acquired a good knowledge of Eng- lish at the Cromarty Grammar School and read much. From his seventeenth to his thirty-second year he workcil as a common stonemason, and from 1834 to 1840 was an accountant in the Cro- marty branch of the Commercial Bank. In 1829 he published a volume entitled Poems Written in the Leisure Hours of a Jo}trnei/matt Mas/in. He also made researches in Scottish antiquities, con- tributed to -Tohn M. Wilson's Tales of the Borders (1834), and wrote Scenes and hegetids of the Vorth of Scotland (1835). But from his ap- prenticeship as a stonemason, his studies were mainly directed toward geological formations. In 1840 he went to Edinburgh as editor of the Witness, a newspaper started in the interests of the non-intrusion party in the Church of Scot- land, and in the course of the same year pub- lished in its colunuis a scries of geological ar- ticles, which were afterwards collected under the title of The Old Red Sandstone, or e«> Walhs ill an Old Field (1841). The.se articles contained a minute account of the author's dis- covery of fossils in a formation believed, until then, to be destitute of them, and were written in a style which was a harmonious combination of strength, beauty, and polish. His editorial labors during the heat of the disruption struggle were immense, and so seriously injured his health that for the larger part of 1845-40 he had to give up all literary activity. He then resumed his pen as editor of the Witness, which, from 1845, when he became, with Robert Fairby, its joint owner, ceased to represent the Free Church. After ten years of hard, earnest, fagging toil, his brain gave way, and in a fit of insanity he killed himself on the night of December 2, 1856. Miller's services to science were undoubtedly great. His observation was keen and exact, his speculations most valualile. He was the first to make geology known to the general reader. He was not less distinguished as a man than as a savant. His principal works, besides those already mentioned, are: First Impressions of England and Its Peo- ple (1846), containing many fine specimens of English descriptive prose; Footprints of the Creator, or the Asterolepis of Stromness (1847) designed as a reply to the Vestiges of the yatural History of Creation: My Schools and Schoolmas- ters, or the Story of My Education (1852) ; and Testimony of the RocLs (1857), an attempt to reconcile the geologv' of the Pentateuch with that of nature. Consult Bayne. Life and Letters of Hugh Miller (London and Boston, Mass., 1871). MILLER, James (1776-1851). An American soldier and politician, born in P^terboro, N. H. He was educated for the bar, but entered the army as major and took part in the frontier warfare, where he displayed great gallantry. In 1812 he was brevetted colonel for gallantry in the engagement at Brownstown. where he com- manded, and in 1814 took part in the Canadian invasion in command of the Twenty-first In- fantry. In the battles of Chippewa and Lundy's Lane he did material service, the latter contest being virtually decided by his gallant charge on a British battery. For these services a gold medal was presented to him by Congress and he was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general. From 1819 to 1825 he was Governor of Arkansas, then a Territory; and from that time until 1849 was Collector of the Port of Salem, Mass. MILLER, .JoHANN Martin (17.50-1814). A German poet, member of the 'Giittingcr Bund.' He was born at Ulni, studied theology at Giit- tingen and there made the acquaintance of Voss, the idyllist and translator of Homer, and of HJilty.'the lyri«t. He contributed to the Giit- tingen Ahnanach poems which liecamc very popu- lar, especially "Was frag' ich viel nach Geld und Gut." But he is better known for Siegu-nrt. eine Klostergeschichte (1776), a sentimental romance of the Wertherian type, largely autobiographic and verv didactic. His other fiction includes: