UC-NRLF 
 
 B M Ihfl 
 
pirn*: 
 
 
MEMOIRS 
 
 OF 
 
 WILLIAM SMITH, LL.D., 
 
 AUTHOR OF THE 
 
 MAP OF THE STRATA OF ENGLAND AND WALES,' 
 
 BY 
 
 HIS NEPHEW AND PUPIL, 
 
 JOHN [PHILLIPS, F.R.S., F.G.S., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF 
 DUBLIN, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE GEOLOGY OF YORKSHIRE." 
 
 Quae fecimus, ipsi ea nostra. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 1844, 
 
" Ce que les mineralogistes les plus distingues ont fait dans uue petite partie de 
 Allemagne, en un demi-siecle, un seul homme (M. William Smith, ingenieur des 
 mines) 1'a entrepris et effectue pour toute 1'Angleterre ; et son travail, aussi beau 
 par son resultat, qu'il est etonnant par son etendue, a fait conclure que V Anglcterre 
 est regulierement divisee en couches, que Vordre de leur superposition n'est jamais 
 interverti ; et que ce sont exactement des fossiles semblables gu'on trouve dans 
 toutes les parties de la meme couche et a des grandes distances. 
 
 " Tout en payant au travail de M. Smith le tribut d'admiration qui lui est du, il 
 me sera permis de desirer que des obsen r ations ulterieures en confirment 1'exacti- 
 tude, et deja, sur plusieurs points, les travaux des mineralogistes Anglais Tont 
 confinnee." D'Aubuisson, as cited by the Rev. W. D. Conybeare, Introduction 
 to Conybeare and Phillips's Outlines of the Geology of England and Wales, p. xlvi. 
 
 PRINTED BY RICHARD AND JOHN E. TAYLOR, 
 RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET. 
 
EARTH 
 SCIENCES 
 UBRAft 
 
 THESE 
 
 MEMOIRS OF WILLIAM SMITH 
 
 ARE GRATEFULLY DEDICATED 
 TO THE MEMORY OF 
 
 THE LATE REV. BENJAMIN RICHARDSON, 
 
 OF FARLEIGH CASTLE, IN SOMERSET, 
 
 THE LOVED ASSOCIATE OF HIS EARLY STUDIES ; 
 
 THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON, 
 
 THE JUDGES AND REWARDERS OF HIS MERIT; 
 
 SIR JOHN V. B. JOHN STONE, BART., 
 
 OF HACKNESS, IN YORKSHIRE, 
 
 THE FIRMEST FRIEND OF HIS DECLINING YEARS. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE following Memoirs are intended to illustrate the 
 life and character of the individual who has been 
 styled by competent authority the " Father of En- 
 glish Geology." They are drawn from authentic ma- 
 terials principally in the possession of the compiler, 
 who, after witnessing the workings of Mr. Smith's 
 mind and the changes of his fortune during the last 
 five-and-twenty years of his life, was called upon to 
 perform the duty of examining his voluminous un- 
 published papers. From these documents, all care- 
 fully dated, and the recollection of many graphic 
 stories in which Mr. Smith embodied his earlier 
 thoughts and struggles, the progress of his disco- 
 veries and some of the peculiarities of his private 
 history may be faithfully collected. No one in- 
 terested in the annals of science would desire that 
 such records of one of its eminent cultivators should 
 be lost ; but the writer an orphan, who benefited by 
 his goodness a pupil, who was trained up under his 
 
care feels it a privilege and a duty to endeavour to 
 save from neglect the memory of such a man. 
 
 Had Mr. Smith's published works been of such a 
 nature as to convey an adequate notion of the varied 
 operations of his mind, this attempt might have been 
 unnecessary, for the outlines of his scientific labours 
 have been already sketched in a few pages, but by 
 powerful hands. 
 
 The early progress of English Geology has been 
 admirably traced, in a wide and comprehensive view, 
 from a high point of knowledge, by Dr. Fitton*, who, 
 while determining by a just analysis the true and great 
 merits of William Smith, has happily restored to their 
 due honours the names of still earlier if less suc- 
 cessful inquirers. When Professor Sedgwick hailed 
 Mr. Smith as a " great original discoverer" and the 
 " Father of English Geology," and delivered to him 
 the first Wollaston medal, he doubled the value of 
 this award by an eloquent address from the chair of 
 the Geological Society, embodying additional facts 
 and interesting original documents!. Dr. BucklandJ 
 and other eminent writers have done similar honour 
 to his memory. But these notices of the Author of 
 the Map of the Strata of England and Wales were 
 for the most part published in his lifetime, while yet 
 there was hope that some further if not more worthy 
 specimens of his geological studies than had appeared 
 
 * Notes on the History of English Geology, Phil. Mag. and 
 Annals, 1832. Reprinted from the Edinburgh Review, Feb. 1818. 
 
 t Address to the Geological Society, Feb. 18, 1831, on an- 
 nouncing the first award of the Wollaston medal. 
 
 t Address to the Geological Society, 1840. 
 
Vll 
 
 might be given to the world ; while yet there were 
 feelings to be respected which forbad us to estimate 
 the merits of the friend who still walked among us, 
 as if they belonged to the province of history. 
 
 The events of Mr. Smith's life, and the progress of 
 his scientific discoveries, are faithful and not unin- 
 teresting exponents of the times in which he lived ; 
 it was to sagacity and habits of observation operating 
 on the circumstances in which he was placed, and 
 not to the accidental concurrence of extraordinary 
 phenomena with surpassing stretch of intellect, that 
 his discoveries are due. They are but the effect of 
 combining ideas which none had combined before, 
 but which certainly could not have remained disunited 
 many years later than the date of Mr. Smith's la- 
 bours. A just account of these labours is therefore 
 essential to the history of English Geology ; and the 
 present work, so far as it fulfils the condition of im- 
 partial justice, may be accepted as a contribution to 
 that history, which can be offered in no other name 
 than that of William Smith. 
 
 Another powerful motive for the present under- 
 taking was supplied by the perusal of the unpublished, 
 though not wholly unarranged, documents left by Mr. 
 Smith. In his later years he had leisure to survey the 
 laborious and painful course by which he had reached 
 the temple of Fame, and approached the haven of 
 repose ; and feeling that in the early and critical pe- 
 riods of his mental progress, as well as in his declining 
 years, he had been blessed beyond other men with 
 the sympathy and support of faithful friends, he re- 
 
Vlll 
 
 solved to place on record his grateful sense of these 
 favours. He was actively employed in this laudable 
 purpose during the principal portion of the last year 
 of his life, verifying from original documents, or re- 
 calling with the admirable exactness of a cultivated 
 memory, the dates, the places, the persons, belonging 
 to every remarkable scene in a varied life of seventy 
 years. 
 
 On a review of other and earlier MSS., it was found 
 that for most of the events which had been traced 
 from memory in these latest compositions, original 
 documentary evidence remained ; and that from the 
 same sources authentic proof could be brought of 
 the performance of many kind and even noble acts, 
 in favour of Mr. Smith and for the public good, by 
 persons whose names are dear to science and their 
 country. Records so honourable to those persons, 
 which had been treasured with such care by the sub- 
 ject of their regard, have not been omitted in this 
 summary of his life ; but the Editor has purposely 
 softened the darkest outlines of Mr. Smith's private 
 and personal fortunes, because, though to others they 
 seemed very melancholy, by himself they were only 
 regretted as impediments in his adventurous enter- 
 prise. 
 
 York, Jan. 1, 1844. 
 
LIST OF PLATES AND WOODCUTS. 
 
 Page 
 I. Frontispiece. Portrait of Dr. William Smith, from a 
 
 painting by M. Fourau. 
 
 II. Portrait of the Rev. Benjamin Richardson, from a sil- 
 houette in the possession of Mrs. Richardson 24 
 
 III. Portrait of Dr. James Anderson, from a sketch by Wil- 
 
 liam Smith, 1799 32 
 
 IV. Portrait of Francis Duke of Bedford, from a sketch by 
 
 William Smith 40 
 
 V. Portrait of the Rev. Joseph Townsend, from a sketch by 
 
 William Smith 48 
 
 VI. Section of the Nevvent Coal-field 58 
 
 VII. Sketch of Strata above the Great Oolite 59 
 
 VIII. Upper part of the Great Oolite 60 
 
 IX. Combe Grove Pit 60 
 
 X. Strata near Steeple Ashton 61 
 
 XL Strata on the Menai 62 
 
 XII. Section of Strata, North \Vilt9 85 
 
 XIII. The Levels of the Fen-lands 87 
 
 XIV. Section of Boziate Hill 94 
 
 XV. Section of Upper Coal Beds in Yorkshire 95 
 
 XVI. Section of Strata in Harpswell Hill 97 
 
 XVII. Sketch of a surface of Coniston Slate 99 
 
 XVIII. Section of Coal Strata in Durham . . . . 100 
 
MEMOIRS 
 
 OF 
 
 WILLIAM SMITH, LL.D, 
 
 1 HE ancestors of William Smith were a race of farmers 
 who owned small tracts of land, and had been settled in 
 Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire for many generations. 
 
 In 1730, "William Smith of Sarsden, yeoman, eldest son 
 and heir-apparent of William Smith the elder, yeoman, of 
 Churchill," married Lucy Raleigh *, a daughter of Henry 
 Raleigh, yeoman, of Foscott in Oxfordshire. She had many 
 sisters (twelve or more) and one brother, who was accident- 
 ally killed. Her husband received as a marriage-portion 
 the sum of 110, in consideration of which his father set- 
 tled on the bride, as a jointure, " one half-yard and half- 
 quarter of a yard land of arable, meadow and pasture land, 
 situate in Churchill fieldf." 
 
 * The signatures by Henry and Lucy Raleigh are both thus written, but 
 in the body of the deed the engrosser has written Rawleigh. From child- 
 hood William Smith was impressed by the belief that the Raleighs of Fos- 
 cott were an obscure or forgotten branch of the ill-traced descendants of 
 Sir Walter Raleigh. (See Appendix A.) 
 
 f* At this time and until 1787, a great part of the land in the parish of 
 Churchill was in " open field/' that is, uninclosed, but with the several 
 properties divided by well-recognised boundary lines, and known by the 
 descriptive term " Yard Lands." The labouring poor were often taken 
 into employment by the farmers in rotation, according to their " yard 
 lands." The land here described as five-eighths of a yard was at the en- 
 closure consolidated to nearly ten acres, and was sold in 1807 for 700. 
 
 B 
 
From these parents, who died in advanced age, sprung a 
 third William Smith, who died in 1805, unmarried, and John 
 Smith, who married Anne Smith of Longcompton in Glou- 
 cestershire, and died in 1777. The fruits of this marriage 
 were a fourth William, the subject of this memoir, with two 
 younger brothers and one sister. Anne Smith married again 
 and died in 1807. 
 
 William Smith was^born at Churchill, a village in Ox- 
 fordshire, on the 23rd of March, 1769, the year which gave 
 birth to Cuvier. Of his parents he always spoke with great 
 regard, but there is little in the recollections which he has 
 preserved of them to show in what degree they contributed 
 to form his remarkable character. His father he described 
 as " a very ingenious mechanic," and mentions as the cause 
 of his death a severe cold caught while engaged in the erec- 
 tion of some machinery. Deprived of this parent before he 
 was eight years old, it was fortunate for him that his mother 
 was a woman of ability, of gentle and charitable disposition, 
 and attentive to the education of her children. An express- 
 ive pencil-sketch and a characteristic description, both from 
 memory, record his devotion to his mother. 
 
 According to his own account, however, not only were 
 the means of his instruction at the village school * very li- 
 mited, but these were in some degree interfered with by his 
 own wandering and musing habits. The rural games f in 
 those " merrie daies " of England might sometimes attract 
 the wayward and comparatively unrestrained scholar from 
 his books ; but he was more frequently learning of another 
 mistress, and forming for after-life a habit of close and 
 curious contemplation of nature. 
 
 After his father's death and his mother's second marriage, 
 the person to whom he was principally to look up for pro- 
 tection was his father's eldest brother, to a portion of whose 
 property he was heir. From this kinsman, who was but 
 
 * Founded by one of the former owners of Churchill and Sarsden. 
 
 f One of the merrymakings of Oxfordshire took place at Whitsuntide, 
 under the denomination of " Whitsun-ale." The expenses of this festivity 
 vrere not trifling. In 1720 and 1/21 William Smith of Churchill was trea- 
 
little pleased with his nephew's love of collecting the " pun- 
 dibs*" and "poundstones," or "quoitstonesf," and had no 
 sympathy with his fancies of carving "sun-dials" on the soft 
 brown " oven-stone -J" of the neighbourhood, he with great 
 difficulty wrung, by repeated entreaty, money for the pur- 
 chase of a few books fit to instruct a boy in the rudiments 
 of geometry and surveying. But the practical farmer was 
 better satisfied when the youth manifested an intelligent in- 
 terest in the processes of draining and improving land ; and 
 {here is no doubt that young William profited in after-life 
 by the experience, if it may be so called, which he gathered 
 in his boyhood while accompanying his relative (" old Wil- 
 liam") over his lands at Over Norton. 
 
 Whatever he saw, was remembered for ever. To the 
 latest hours of life he retained a clear and complete recol- 
 lection of almost every event of his boyhood, and often in- 
 terested young and old by his vivid pictures of what he had 
 seen when a child. These notices would be swelled to an 
 unreasonable degree by introducing the pleasant stories of 
 
 surer for the " Whitsun-ale," and in that capacity presented a complete 
 account of the expenditure. s. d. 
 
 The whole receipt in 1721 was 58 19 
 
 The whole expenditure 54 5 11 
 
 In the disbursements we find, properly vouched, 
 
 For Ribbands 11 19 
 
 ... Malt 10 5 
 
 ... Cake 530 
 
 ... Excise 4 7 11 
 
 ... the Fool 1 
 
 ... the Fiddler 10 6 
 
 ...the Morris 060 
 
 ... the Lord 026 
 
 ... the Lady 026 
 
 The Lord and Lady gave the Fool 016 
 
 For Bells 1 6 
 
 The Lord's man, the Lady's man and five maids, received nothing. 
 * Terebratulse. 
 
 f A large Echinite (Clypeus sinuatus of Leske), not unfrequently em- 
 ployed as a " pound-weight" by the dairy women. 
 
 J Named from its frequent use in the construction of ovens. 
 
"the narrative old man;" but the following recollections, 
 written in his seventieth year, of events which had passed 
 fifty-six years before, are worth preserving as evidence of 
 this peculiar circumstantiality of memory. 
 
 "I was early a tall and strong-grown boy, and in my way 
 to London between twelve and thirteen years of age parti- 
 cularly noticed the great work of cutting down the chalk 
 hill at Henley-upon-Thames, and how the loaded carriages, 
 on an inclined plane, were made to bring up the empty ones. 
 
 " I was in London shortly after the riots of Lord George 
 Gordon ; and at the time when the news of Rodney's defeat 
 of the French fleet arrived. 
 
 "There was then a half-penny toll for foot-persons pass- 
 ing Blackfriars Bridge ; the Albion Mills (worked by steam 
 power) had just before been burnt down. 
 
 "Criminals were hanged at Tyburn, where there were cow- 
 houses with wood seats on top for persons to see the executions . 
 
 " From Manchester-square to the Edgeware-road and 
 Paddington, there were foot-paths entirely across open 
 fields. The buildings on that side of the square were un- 
 finished ; but, as more connected with what relates to the 
 earth, I saw how the ground was made in Manchester- 
 square, for a poor fellow in turning his cart-load of slush 
 had let his horse and cart slip down, so that he was up to 
 his middle in mud endeavouring to extricate his horse just 
 as I passed by. This was on the east side of the square." 
 
 In 1783, and from this time to 1787, the young man, 
 without instruction or sympathy, prosecuted irregularly, but 
 with ardour and success, the studies to which his mind 
 was awakened. He began to draw, attempted to colour, 
 became tolerably versed in the geometry and calculations 
 then thought sufficient for engineers and surveyors, and by 
 these acquirements, at the age of eighteen, so strongly re- 
 commended himself to Mr. Edward Webb of Stow-on-the- 
 Wold, who had been appointed to make a complete survey 
 of the parish of Churchill, for the purpose of enclosure, that 
 he became assistant to that most able and excellent man, 
 and was taken into his family. 
 
This was the critical moment ; from this event flowed all 
 the current of his useful life, and to the same origin may be 
 ascribed many of the peculiar habits and feelings, the con- 
 trasted lights and shades, which diversified the character of 
 William Smith. 
 
 Edward Webb was, like his pupil, self-taught, and very 
 slightly acquainted with languages and general literature, 
 but possessed of great ingenuity and skill in mechanics, 
 mensuration, logarithms, algebra, and fluxions. His prac- 
 tice, as a surveyor, included many things now conceded to 
 the engineer, such as the determination of the forces of 
 water, and planning machinery*. His instruments were 
 commonly invented, often made and divided by himself; 
 peculiar pentagraphs, theodolites, scales, and even com- 
 passes and field books, of new construction, enriched the 
 office at Stow, and stimulated to thought and exertion the 
 young men who were fortunate enough to be placed in itf. 
 
 " I admired," says the subject of this memoir, " the talent 
 of my master, his placid and ever unruffled temper, and his 
 willingness to let me get on, for I required no teaching." 
 
 Speedily entrusted with the management of all the ordi- 
 nary business of a surveyor, Mr. Smith traversed in con- 
 tinual activity the oolitic lands of Oxfordshire and Glou- 
 cestershire, the lias clays and red marls of Warwickshire ; 
 visited (1788) the Salperton tunnel on the Thames and 
 Severn Canal, and (1790) examined the soils and circum- 
 stances connected with a " boring for coal in the New 
 Forest, opposite the Shoe alehouse at Plaitford." (MS.) 
 All the varieties of soil in so many surveys in different 
 districts were particularly noticed, and compared with the 
 
 * Among the recollections of the office, Mr. Smith used to quote the 
 following lines regarding the inventor of the slide-rule and steam-boats : 
 " Jonathan Hull, with his paper skull, 
 
 He tried to make a machine ; 
 But he, like an ass, could not bring it to pass, 
 
 And now he 's ashamed to be seen." 
 The unfortunate boat was launched on the Warwickshire Avon. 
 
 f Mr. Richard C. Taylor, the eminent surveyor and geologist, now resi- 
 dent in the United States, was one of the pupils of Edward Webb. 
 
general aspect and character of the country, the agricul- 
 tural and commercial appropriations. The arrangement of 
 the lias limestone beds in Warwickshire, contrasted with 
 the neighbouring red marls at Inkborough, the boring for 
 coal in some of the dark lias clays on the road to Warwick, 
 the absence of arenaceous beds from the limestones of 
 Churchill, these were some of the points treasured in a 
 mind capable of combining them at a future time. 
 
 That time arrived in 1791, when Mr. Webb transferred 
 to his young friend the survey of an estate at Stowey in 
 Somersetshire. Mr. Smith walked by Burford, Cirencester, 
 Tetbury, Bath, Radstock, Old Down, Stoneaston, and 
 Temple Cloud, to Stowey. Here he was surprised to find, 
 as well as at High Littleton, the red marl, evidently similar 
 to that of Worcestershire, similarly posited in regard to 
 the lias and superincumbent rocks, and similarly employed 
 for marling the land. 
 
 In his own words we read, " Coal was worked at High 
 Littleton beneath the * red earth,' and I was desired to in- 
 vestigate the collieries and state the particulars to my em- 
 ployer. My subterraneous survey of these coal veins, with 
 sections which I drew of the strata sunk through in the 
 pits, confirmed my notions of some regularity in their forma- 
 tion ; but the colliers would not allow of any regularity in 
 the matter of the hills above the ' red earth,' which they 
 were in the habit of sinking through ; but on this subject I 
 began to think for myself." The minute survey which 
 Mr. Smith made of the High Littleton Collieries was con- 
 tinued at intervals through the years 1792 and 1793, and 
 among the papers remaining, which demonstrate a per- 
 fect acquaintance with the effect of the faults, on the out- 
 crops and depths of the coal, are an " Original Sketch and 
 Observations of my first Subterranean Survey of Mearn's 
 Colliery in the parish of High Littleton," and the following 
 curious memoranda, dated June 15, 1793 : 
 
 " Proposals toward making a model of the strata of earth, 
 &c. in a coal country. 
 
 " Make a model of the strata of earth and coal at High 
 
Littleton of the same materials of which they are composed, 
 reduced to scale and placed in the same order in which they 
 are found in sinking of pits ; make a section of it. 
 N.B. Red ground and other soft materials may be mixed 
 up with gum-water or some kind of glutinous substance, 
 
 " A model of the strata at High Littleton, Somerset, 
 made of the same materials of which each stratum is com- 
 posed, arranged in the same order as nature has placed 
 them, and divided into sections, that may be taken apart to 
 explain the method of mining for coal. 
 
 " The grays may be in pieces stuck together with gum, 
 which will represent the water found in the joints. 
 
 " The brooks above ground may be filled with gum, which 
 will be a good representation of water." 
 
 To this is added a comparison of scales most adapted for 
 the representation intended, showing clearly the intention 
 of the inventor, to make the model true and proportionate 
 in vertical and horizontal measure. 
 
 The ability and perseverance manifested by Mr. Smith 
 in his occupations near High Littleton, induced some of the 
 gentlemen resident in the neighbourhood (particularly Mr. 
 Mogg and Mr. Stephens of Camerton) to interest them- 
 selves in his professional success. 
 
 The occasion was favourable. At this era the services of 
 civil engineers were much in request, and the principal 
 duties entrusted to them were such as Mr. Smith was well 
 qualified to perform. At the present time the accomplish- 
 ments of an engineer are measured by a higher mathematical 
 standard than in the times of Smeaton and Whitworth, be- 
 cause the practical problems committed to them for solution 
 involve more varied dynamical and statical considerations 
 than the cutting of a canal, or even the development of the 
 powers of water and wind ; but at all times the most valu- 
 able basis of good engineering practice must be a habit of 
 accurate observation and a collectedness of mind, which 
 meets unexpected emergencies with prompt and adequate 
 combinations, appearing the result of intuitive sagacity 
 rather than of treasured experience. That in these quali- 
 
8 
 
 ties, and a certain inventiveness, put to frequent proof, few 
 ever surpassed Mr. Smith, will appear in the following pages. 
 
 At the period we are speaking of, projects for new canals, 
 accompanied by new schemes for conquering inequalities of 
 level, inclined planes, caissons, and locks of various kinds, 
 were actively canvassed, and Mr. Smith seized the occasion 
 to procure instruments, extend his reading, and otherwise 
 qualify himself as a competent candidate for the professional 
 honours which seemed within his reach. This was a tide in 
 his affairs, which, had he followed the middle current with- 
 out stopping to examine the banks, would have led him on 
 to fortune ; and even under this great disadvantage of being 
 subject to a strong deflecting force, his career was not un- 
 prosperous, and he joined with tolerable compactness the 
 decisions of an engineer to the inquiries of a geologist. 
 
 In 1793 we find him engaged in executing surveys and 
 complete systems of levelling for the line of a proposed 
 canal. In the course of the operations which he per- 
 formed in the summer and autumn, a speculation which 
 had come into his mind regarding a general law affecting 
 the strata of the district, was submitted to proof and con- 
 firmed. He had supposed that the strata lying above the 
 coal were not laid horizontally, but inclined ; that they were 
 all inclined in one direction, viz. to the eastward, so as to 
 successively terminate at the surface, and thus to " resemble, 
 on a large scale, the ordinary appearance of superposed slices 
 of bread and butter." This supposition was now proved 
 to be correct by the levelling processes executed in two 
 parallel valleys, for in each of the levelled lines the strata of 
 " red ground," " lias," and " freestone" (afterwards called 
 " oolite"), came down in an eastern direction and sunk be- 
 low the level, and yielded place to the next in succession. 
 
 But at the same time it was known to Mr. Smith that the 
 position of the strata of coal in Somersetshire was not gene- 
 rally conformed to that of the " red earth," " lias," and 
 other beds above ; the same thing was proved to him by an 
 inspection of the colliery at Pucklechurch in Gloucester- 
 shire ; he knew, besides, that the great faults which divide 
 
9 
 
 all the coal strata under ground were in general found not 
 to divide any of the superincumbent rocks which formed the 
 surface. 
 
 Geologists, who, at the present time, notwithstanding the 
 devoted attention which has been paid to the phenomena 
 of local displacement, find a clear conception of the causes 
 at least difficult of attainment, may imagine the perplexity 
 in the mind of a discoverer enlarged by the notion of general 
 laws, but limited in the proof of them to examples of local, and 
 these partly exceptional phsenomena. Mr. Smith felt this 
 perplexity severely, but not long. The Canal Bill on which 
 he was engaged received the sanction of Parliament in 1794, 
 and one of the first steps taken by the judicious committee 
 of management was to depute two members of their body 
 to accompany Mr. Smith, " their engineer," on a tour of in- 
 quiry and observation regarding the construction, manage- 
 ment, and trade of other navigations in England and Wales. 
 
 The tour extended altogether 900 miles, and occupied 
 between one and two months ; by one route the party 
 reached Newcastle, and by another returned through Shrop- 
 shire and Wales to Bath. Mr. Palmer and Mr. Perkins 
 were gentlemen well acquainted with coal-working, and they 
 willingly stayed to inspect every new invention applied to 
 canals and collieries ; but Mr. Smith's treasured object of 
 consideration on the road, that which occupied all his 
 thoughts in the interval of professional inquiries, was the 
 aspect and structure of the country passed through, in order 
 to determine if his preconceived generalizations of a settled 
 order of succession, continuity of range at the surface, and 
 general declination eastward, were true on a large scale. 
 
 It is needless now to say that his general views were justi- 
 fied ; he found the strata from the vicinity of Bath and 
 Bristol prolonged into the North of England, in the same 
 general order of succession with the same general eastward 
 dip. There is, however, one part of the conclusions adopted 
 on this rapid survey from a postchaise which merits par- 
 ticular attention. He passed through York on the high 
 road to Newcastle, and from that line, distant from five to 
 
10 
 
 fifteen miles from the hills of chalk and oolite on the east, 
 he was satisfied of their nature by their contours and rela- 
 tive position, and their ranges on the surface in relation to 
 the lias and " red ground" occasionally seen on the road. 
 This was in fact the only authority he could rely upon for 
 drawing, in 1800, the continuations of the chalk of Wilt- 
 shire and the oolite of Somersetshire through the eastern 
 parts of Yorkshire, but he drew them with a considerable 
 approximation to accuracy. The following notice of this 
 tour was written in June 1839, nearly in the same words he 
 had often used before in narrating it : 
 
 " After the passing of the Act of Parliament for the 
 canal in the summer of 1794, and some preliminary business, 
 it was determined at one of the meetings that, as canals 
 were not then known in those parts, and before the works 
 should be commenced, two of the committee, Dr. Perkins, 
 Samborn Palmer, Esq., and myself, should make a tour 
 throughout England and Wales to procure the best in- 
 formation we could on canals, and report the same to the 
 company of proprietors. 
 
 " This was joyous intelligence to me. I wished to travel ; 
 for I foresaw that the truth and practicability of my system 
 must be tested far and wide before its uses could be gene- 
 rally known and its worth duly appreciated. 
 
 " I thought, of course, no one could do this so well as 
 myself; and the result of my observations on this tour may 
 be considered as the first part of the interminable labour of 
 working out the truths of the science ; for it plainly ap- 
 peared that it was to become a system of experimental phi- 
 losophy, which would embrace the whole surface of the 
 globe. 
 
 " No journey purposely contrived could have better an- 
 swered my purpose. 
 
 " To sit forward in the chaise was a favour readily 
 granted; my eager eyes were never idle a moment; and 
 post-haste travelling only put me upon new resources. Ge- 
 neral views, under existing circumstances, were the best 
 thdt could have been taken, and the facility of knowing, by 
 
11 
 
 contours and other features, what might be the kind of 
 stratification in the hills, is a proof of early advancement in 
 the generalization of phaenomena. 
 
 " In the more confined views, where the roads commonly 
 climb to the summits, as in our start from Bath to Tetbury, 
 by Swanswick, the slow driving up the steep hills afforded 
 me distinct views of the nature of the rocks ; rushy pastures 
 on the slopes of the hills, the rivulets, and kind of trees, all 
 aided in defining the intermediate clays ; and while occasion- 
 ally walking to see bridges, locks, and other works on the 
 lines of canal, more particular observations could be made. 
 Much, however well observed but depending upon me- 
 mory, would of course be lost, for this was all foreign to 
 the purport of our journey ; and also another important in- 
 quiry on coal and collieries, for which we had each, by 
 agreement, provided an extra memorandum-book. 
 
 " My friends being both concerned in working coal, and 
 Mr. Palmer having it in his own estate, they were interested 
 in two objects ; but I had three, and the most important 
 one to me I pursued unknown to them ; though I was con- 
 tinually talking about the rocks and other strata, they 
 seemed not desirous of knowing the guiding principles or 
 objects of those remarks ; and it might have been from the 
 many hints perhaps mainly on this subject, which I made in 
 the course of the journey, that Mr. Palmer jocosely re- 
 commended me to write a book of hints. 
 
 " We had nothing official to notice until we arrived at the 
 Thames and Severn Canal at Thames head. The tunnel, 
 however, 4^ miles long, through Salperton Hill, and 90 or 
 95 yards beneath the surface, was a main object; and that 
 on the Worcester and Birmingham Canal at Kingsnorth, 
 then making, was another. The former was through the 
 summit edge of the stonebrash range of the Cotteswold Hills, 
 many years before well known to me ; and the latter through 
 the red marl and red sandstone, well known at High Little- 
 ton and other Somersetshire collieries to be an unconform- 
 able cover to the coal-measures. 
 
 " Saw the same red rock again at the tier of locks on the 
 
high side of Birmingham, and at various places on the road 
 to Derby. Saw the silk mills. Went to Derby and Ripley 
 Collieries., where I was surprised to see the long, straight- 
 grained pieces of coal piled up and sold in stacks four feet 
 square. 
 
 " Went to see Chatsworth, where I remember the varie- 
 gated columns of millstone grit, the bold hills of that 
 rock thereabout, and the limestone rocks and tufa of which 
 the inn was built at Matlock. 
 
 " In staying hereabout two days we met with Benjamin 
 Outram, the engineer of the Cromford Canal, who took us 
 into the tunnel at Butterley Park, then making : not a stone 
 of the great ironworks since established was then laid. 
 
 " Chesterfield, in the midst of a rich coal-field, was then 
 a poor place, and is so now. 
 
 " We found the small steam-engines much better applied 
 to raising coal in Yorkshire than in Somersetshire, where 
 not more than one (I believe), badly constructed, was then 
 in use. 
 
 " Flat ropes were in use, and at Hisley Wood or White- 
 lane Colliery, on Earl Fitzwilliam's estate, I stood on one 
 end of a cross-bar to which corves were suspended, and Mr. 
 Perkins on the other, and we were very smoothly let down 
 a little more than mid-depth of the pit to see Mr. Cur's, so 
 called, sliding-rods ; when, on being stationary and directed 
 to look up, we saw the ascending corves over our head 
 without knowing that they had passed us at the mid-depth 
 enlargement of the pit. 
 
 " On reversing the motion of the engine we were soon 
 again on the surface, and simply and easily as this seemed to 
 be effected, by grooves clown from top to bottom of the pit, 
 for opposite ends of the cross-bars to move in with an en- 
 larged place mid- way for their passing, my learned friend 
 could not understand the mechanism, though I was occupied 
 nearly the whole of a long stage in explaining it to him. 
 
 " The rocks of the Yorkshire coal-field, everywhere so 
 well developed, opened to my mind new views of the facility 
 of obtaining on the surface clear notions of the coal-measure 
 
13 
 
 stratification ; and at Banktop, near Barnsley, I found some 
 of the rocks of this series strongly developed. 
 
 " Leeds being near the extent of the coal-field, we found 
 that further north there were no canals, but determined on 
 seeing York Minster ; and thus, in crossing Tadcaster 
 Moor, I had a clear view of the magnesian limestone, which 
 is a rock unknown in the south. 
 
 " From the top of York Minster I could see that the 
 Wolds contained chalk by their contour. 
 
 " We here had time enough to indulge ourselves with a 
 good dinner and a pine-apple at the Black Swan, and re- 
 solved upon a run up to Newcastle, to see the celebrated col- 
 lieries there; and after the first stage from York, I recognized 
 in the Hambleton Hills the features of the Cotteswold Hills 
 viewed from the Vale of Gloucester ; saw near Thirsk the 
 red marl in the road, and found that along Learning-lane 
 we were travelling upon red sandstone. The yellow lime- 
 stone appeared again at Peirce Bridge, and at Ferry Hill 
 they were working coal under it. 
 
 " Here it presented a well-defined escarpment boundary 
 to the Durham coal-field, as it did to that of Yorkshire ; but 
 these northern coal-measures were observed to be much 
 more obscured by a thick cover of loose and mixed matter. 
 
 " We arrived at Newcastle on Saturday afternoon, time 
 enough to get to Heaton Colliery, but unfortunately too 
 late for me to go down in the pit ; but a very intelligent 
 overlooker kindly drew with his stick on the dust a plan of 
 the mode of working the coal, which to me was perfectly 
 intelligible. 
 
 "The railways to the staiths on Tyneside were then mostly 
 of wood, or wood plated with iron ; and such was the state 
 of machinery, that at Heaton Colliery the deep water was 
 raised by a steam-engine into a pool on the surface, and at 
 other times in the twenty-four hours from the pool, by much 
 larger pumps, to the top of two high water-wheels, which 
 raised the coal. 
 
 " We did not expect to see things so managed in the 
 North ; and I was surprised to see the fires they kept, and 
 
14 
 
 other contrivances for promoting ventilation, as in the 
 Somersetshire collieries there is no want of a good current 
 of pure air. 
 
 " I had observed that my friend Palmer's string of ques- 
 tions sometimes produced a shyness in obtaining answers, 
 and therefore I used to proceed upon the principle of give 
 and take ; and in thus offering my exchange of knowledge 
 of the mode of working coal in Somersetshire, 1000 yards 
 down the steep slope of 1 in 4, and perfectly dry and in 
 good air, 100 to 250 perpendicular yards beneath the bot- 
 tom of the pumps, I believe the honest manager of Heaton 
 Colliery thought I was telling him a travelling story. 
 
 " The mode of dividing their shafts and mother-gates by 
 brattices of wood-work seemed inconvenient and unphilo- 
 sophical, and we, rather dissatisfied, hastened back through 
 Ripon and Harrowgate, where the M.D. took a nauseous 
 draught of sulphur-water as we sat in the chaise. 
 
 " We had crossed the yellow limestone between Ripon 
 and Ripley." 
 
 Engaged for six years in setting out and superintending 
 the works on the Somersetshire Coal Canal, Mr. Smith 
 found but few opportunities of making known to scientific 
 persons the peculiar generalizations which had taken pos- 
 session of his mind. But in the execution of these wishes 
 he was putting them daily into practice, informing the con- 
 tractors what would be the nature of the ground to be cut 
 through, what parts of the canal would require unusual 
 care to be kept water-tight, what was the most advantageous 
 system of work. Another singular advantage attended this 
 engagement ; the notions which up to this time he had ob- 
 tained regarding the distribution of organic remains were 
 comparatively vague ; he found peculiar plants in the " clift" 
 above the coal, particular shells in the lias and oolites, but 
 none in the red ground, and had combined these simple 
 facts so far as to see that " each stratum had been succes- 
 sively the bed of the sea, and contained in it the mineralized 
 monuments of the races of organic beings then in existence." 
 But it was the necessity of a close and accurate knowledge 
 
15 
 
 of the different sorts of rock, sand, and clay, which were to 
 be cut through on the line of the canal, which led him to 
 examine minutely and scrupulously into the distribution of 
 the " extraneous fossils" which he had been in the habit of 
 collecting. The result was a proposition which he proved 
 to be locally true, and of practical value, " that each stratum 
 contained organized fossils peculiar to itself, and might, in 
 cases otherwise doubtful, be recognized and discriminated 
 from others like it, but in a different part of the series, by 
 examination of them." He now remarked also the contrast 
 between the rounded state and mixed condition of the fos- 
 sils which lay in gravel deposits, and the sharply preserved 
 specimens lying in natural associations in the strata; and 
 thus acquired a notion of the distinction between what were 
 afterwards named diluvial and stratified deposits. 
 
 The possessor of all these generalizations, now (1795) 
 twenty-six years of age, was still shrouded in the obscure 
 village of High Littleton, but in this year he removed to 
 Bath, and took up his abode in the central house of a short 
 range of buildings called the Cottage Crescent, which oc- 
 cupied a picturesque and elevated site south of that city. 
 " From this point," says he, " the eye roved anxiously over 
 the interesting expanse which extended before me to the 
 Sugar-loaf mountain in Monmouthshire, and embraced all 
 in the vicinities of Bath and Bristol ; then did a thousand 
 thoughts occur to me respecting the geology of that and 
 adjacent districts continually under my eye, which have 
 never been reduced to writing." He continued to direct all 
 the operations on the Somerset Coal Canal, and very copious 
 note-books attest the constancy and exactitude of his atten- 
 tion to that occupation. To this cause, indeed, may be 
 ascribed the extreme rarity of any essays or even memo- 
 randa from which the progress of his geological studies can 
 be gathered. 
 
 That in Jan. 1796, he had begun to commit his thoughts 
 to paper in a lucid arrangement for publication, the written 
 proofs remain; in 1797, he drew a larger general plan for 
 such a work ; but not till 1 799, after his engagement ceased 
 
with the Coal Canal Company, did he make public his inten- 
 tion to compose a general work on the Stratification of 
 Britain, or enter on the prosecution of an actual survey of 
 the geological structure of the whole of England and 
 Wales. 
 
 In the execution of the canal, Mr. Smith had found the 
 means of applying his newly-acquired knowledge to useful 
 practical problems, such as how to draw the line through a 
 country full of porous rocks, so as best to retain the limited 
 supplies of water which frequent mills left to the naviga- 
 tion where to place bridges on a good foundation how to 
 intercept and conduct the springs, and where to open quar- 
 ries of proper stone. We find him also engaged, as early 
 as 1796, in the short intervals which could be snatched 
 from the main business before him, in putting to practical 
 proof his theoretical views of the earth's structure, and the 
 properties of the mixed calcareous and argillaceous strata 
 in the hills near Bath, by a new and successful process of 
 land-draining. 
 
 Under these circumstances, it was impossible for a plain, 
 simple-minded and enthusiastic man, to avoid explaining his 
 views to such intelligent persons as would listen to them ; 
 but Mr. Smith found few auditors who interested them- 
 selves in his speculations, any further than as they ap- 
 peared to have immediate practical results in agriculture 
 or mining. The very intelligent land-steward of the Mar- 
 quis of Bath, Mr. Thomas Davis, (author of the excel- 
 lent Report on Wiltshire, presented to the Board of Agri- 
 culture in 1794,) when informed of the constitution of the 
 Wiltshire hills and vales, and the relation they thus held to 
 neighbouring tracts, was chiefly moved by the obvious light 
 such discoveries shed on the agricultural appropriation of 
 soils, and remarked, " that is the only way to know the true 
 value of land." 
 
 Even such sympathy was highly prized by the modest 
 " Father of English Geology," who, in his latest years, 
 when geology had claimed in a high degree the public 
 favour, frequently recounted, among many instances of mor- 
 
17 
 
 tifying disregard which he had experienced, this apparently 
 slight and solitary sentence of encouragement. It is to be 
 regretted, that of that period in Mr. Smith's mental pro- 
 gress when the grand ideas of a new science were strug- 
 gling for distinctness and generality, so few written monu- 
 ments, and those not the earliest, remain. The essays of 
 this period which have been found indicate the existence of 
 more and earlier efforts, and, being all marked with the 
 place where and the date when they were written, possess 
 a peculiar interest and authenticity. The documents of this 
 nature, belonging to the years 1796, 1797, and 1798, which 
 will be referred to in the following pages, appear to have 
 been written in the short and detached intervals of leisure 
 left by almost constant business, not at home, but at various 
 points to which the daily occupation of a canal engineer 
 conducted him. It is perhaps by mere accident that any of 
 these papers remain ; for they have been all transcribed into 
 " a book" which was intended for publication, but is pro- 
 bably not in existence, nor has any index of its contents 
 been recovered. 
 
 The earliest connected remarks which have been found 
 bear the date of January 1796, and relate to organic re- 
 mains, and their distribution in the different strata. The 
 vicinity of Bath is rich in fossils, and fine collections were 
 formed there previous to Mr. Smith's researches : it might 
 be after inspecting some of these treasures, whose full value 
 was so entirely unknown to their owners, that the following 
 reflections, which strikingly illustrate the enlarged state of 
 his own views at that period, were penned. 
 
 " Dunkerton, Swan, Jan. 5, 1796. 
 
 " Fossils have been long studied as great curiosities, col- 
 lected with great pains, treasured with great care and at a 
 great expense, and shown and admired with as much pleasure 
 as a child's rattle or a hobby-horse is shown and admired by 
 himself and his playfellows, because it is pretty ; and this 
 has been done by thousands who have never paid the least 
 regard to that* wonderful order and regularity with which 
 
 * Underlined in the original. 
 
 C 
 
18 
 
 Nature has disposed of these singular productions, and as- 
 signed to each class its peculiar stratum." 
 
 Gifted in a very uncommon degree with that philosophical 
 faith in the generality and harmony of natural laws which is 
 a characteristic of discoverers in natural science, Mr. Smith 
 was at the same time remarkably disinclined to indulge in 
 himself, or even to tolerate in others, mere speculations in 
 geology. Whatever of this nature he found in the circle of 
 his reading was severely judged, by a close collocation of the 
 hypothesis which had been advanced with the phaenomena 
 of stratification which he had entirely established. These 
 judgments might be erroneous in cases which required the 
 knowledge of other data, not then collected, for a true and 
 general solution ; but the very unreasonableness of raising 
 the standard of his own discoveries in a limited region, for 
 condemning a speculation perhaps founded on other truths 
 occurring elsewhere, shows how firmly these discoveries, and 
 the inferences belonging to them, were established and for- 
 tified in his mind. The following passage, written in Ja- 
 nuary 1796, might have been acknowledged by the author 
 to contain his real opinions forty years later : 
 
 " Therefore every man of prudence and observation who 
 has paid the strictest attention to mineralogy, the structure 
 of the earth, and the changes it has undergone, will be very 
 cautious how he sets about to invent a system which nature 
 cannot conform to without having recourse to subterraneous 
 fires, volcanic eruptions, or uncommon convulsions, by 
 which every hill and dale must have been formed, and every 
 rock must have been rent to form those chasms, which, in 
 comparison to the strata they are found in, are no more 
 than sun-cracks in a clod of clay ; yet such has been the 
 language of ingenious men, who have set their theoretical 
 worlds a-going without either tooth or pinion of nature's 
 mechanism belonging to them." 
 
 In October and November of this year (1796), we find 
 him returning to the contemplation of organic remains ; dis- 
 cussing the circumstances which attend the sparry substance 
 occupying the place of the shell, which has been removed, 
 
19 
 
 in the lias, and the empty cavity, where the shell was, sur- 
 rounding a loose stony cast of the interior, in the freestone 
 (oolite). 
 
 That his mind was now actively employed in tracing out 
 the bearings of the extensive subject before him, will be 
 evident from the following extract, dated August 1797 : 
 
 11 Locality of Plants, Insects, Birds, $c., arises from the 
 nature of the strata. 
 
 " Where art has not diverted the order of things, and 
 nature is left to herself, a considerable locality may be ob- 
 served in many animals and vegetables, as well as mineral 
 productions, by which they are evidently attached to parti- 
 cular soils to such a degree that, if this subject were studied 
 with attention, it would form one of the principal external 
 characteristics of the strata underneath. Though it may 
 seem mysterious to some that birds, beasts, insects, &c., 
 which have the liberty of roving at pleasure, should feel 
 any particular attachment for this or that soil, yet the won- 
 der ceases when we consider how the chain of natural things 
 is linked together, and how these creatures are taught to 
 cull their food from insects that are lodged in, or seeds that 
 are produced from, particular plants that grow upon par- 
 ticular soils." 
 
 In the same year (November 3), we have a specimen of 
 the way in which Mr. Smith was proceeding to record the 
 localities of fossils. 
 
 " 1. Snakestone, 11 inches diameter. 
 
 " Found near the bottom of a rough bed of bastard free- 
 stone (inferior oolite), which lies upon a thick bed of sand 
 and sand burs. 
 
 "Remarks. The surface of this stone is covered with 
 marks which have some resemblance to the leaves of plants 
 [edges of the Septa], but on breaking any stone of this sort 
 these marks are found to represent natural divisions of the 
 fossil, which are so linked or dove -tailed one into another 
 in this curious manner as not to be separated without vio- 
 lence after the joints are considerably loosened. 
 
 c 2 
 
" 2. Part of a snakestone, about 4^ inches diameter. 
 
 " Found in the same bed about two miles distant from 
 the place where No. 1 was found. 
 
 " Remarks. The loose joint at the end of this stone will 
 fully explain what I have said about the leaves and joints of 
 No. 1. 
 
 " 3. Snakestone, about 3 inches diameter, of a bluish cast. 
 
 " Found in the blue lias limestone." 
 
 On this occasion we may remark the entire want of scien- 
 tific or technical terms in all the statements relating to or- 
 ganic remains and the arrangement of the strata. The 
 names which Mr. Smith uses for designating the objects are 
 merely the provincial terms of the country where he was 
 located ; the new ideas which were connected with them in 
 his mind, were the fruit of his own observation and reason- 
 ing, and acquired new forms of expression at a later time. 
 The localities of all the specimens in Mr. Smith's possession 
 were carefully written on the stones themselves. 
 
 A manuscript, dated December 2, 1796, Dunkerton, Swan 
 Inn, headed " Strata in general, and their position," and 
 evidently intended for publication, commences thus : 
 
 " The strata being found as regular on one side of a ri- 
 vulet, river, deep valley or channel as on the other, over an 
 extent of many miles, when proper allowance is made for the 
 inclination and for the variation of the surface, is it not rea- 
 sonable to suppose that the same strata may be found as 
 regular on one side of a sea or ocean as on opposite sides of 
 a deep valley upon land, and if so, and the continuation of 
 the strata is general, what is their general direction or drift ? 
 Is it in straight lines from pole to pole, or in curved lines 
 surrounding the globe regularly inclined to the east ?" 
 
 After hinting at a general cause for such an assumed re- 
 gularity, he adds, " But all theories are best built on prac- 
 tical rules, which will enable any one to make such obser- 
 vations for himself as must carry conviction along with them ; 
 for a work so novel as this must expect to find some who 
 will hardly believe what is plain to be seen ; for all men do 
 not see alike, nor can patiently trudge through the dirt to 
 
21 
 
 search for truth among the stubborn rocks where nature 
 has best displayed her Shall, therefore, describe a num- 
 ber of quarries, cliffs, &c., at a great distance, &c. See 
 Book ." 
 
 In what seems to be the continuation of this paper, we 
 see the predominant desire of the author to establish the 
 certainty and generality of the inclination of strata, which 
 he had proved on a limited scale near Bath. 
 
 "If the strata lay horizontal, every part of the sea-shores 
 would present the same beds at the water edge instead of 
 that wonderful variety which is found on the coast and 
 banks of every river and rivulet in the kingdom, especially 
 those that run in an east and west direction, or nearly so. 
 In such situations the young mineralogist may soon be con- 
 vinced of that wonderful regularity which nature has adopt- 
 ed, especially if the shores are rocky ; he will there find 
 that, independent of partial and local dips which appear in 
 different quarries of the same stone, the outlines or top 
 and bottom layers of each complete stratum or class of 
 stones or earth, considered as a mass, have a general ten- 
 dency toward the eastern horizon." 
 
 This MS., revised and altered in the first lines, now 
 stands, with several others written in 1797 and 1798, as part 
 of the introduction to a work which is thus sketched in 1797. 
 
 " Plan of the work. 
 
 " To be divided into two parts. 
 
 " The first of which should treat of the strata of the 
 earth in a general way. 
 
 " And the second enter into the particulars of each stra- 
 tum, with the fossils and minerals that have hitherto been 
 discovered, with their connexion and dependence one upon 
 another. Though it is impossible for the labours of any 
 one individual ever to accomplish a thousandth part of what 
 is proposed by this section, yet when a regular system is 
 established which has nature for its prototype, every one 
 will be enabled to contribute his mite, and carry it on from 
 time to time till after ages may get a tolerable description 
 of the habitable world," 
 
On the next page, dated Nov. 5, 1797, the details of 
 this plan are considered thus : 
 
 " Quere. The best method of explaining the order of 
 the strata, whether by plain coloured maps, or varied black 
 lines, or any variety of coloured lines. 
 
 " Sections of the strata in different directions will be ne- 
 cessary to show their various inclinations. 
 
 " In the general section each principal stratum should 
 be numbered with progressive numbers, beginning at the 
 eastern strata of the kingdom, or till that can be accurately 
 ascertained, at some stratum that forms a grand feature 
 therein, as for instance the chalk, which I would number 1 ; 
 and those lesser strata which are contained within it or ge- 
 nerally attached to it, or form any subdivisions therein, I 
 would call 1 a, I b, I c, &c. If any stratum should be 
 omitted, or a new one discovered, [it] may be brought into 
 these numbers by marking it 1 a a, &c. 
 
 " After the general section of a country or district should 
 follow a large section of each stratum, with its concomitant 
 small strata on the left-hand page, and on the right-hand 
 page* with drawings and descriptions of such peculiarities 
 as the principal stratum, or those connected with it, are found 
 to contain, whether the exuviae of marine animals, vegetable 
 impressions or fossil wood : coal and metals of every de- 
 scription. 
 
 " The same numbers may refer to an explanation of the 
 chemical properties of each substance, so far as discovered; 
 this may be placed at the end of the book, or make a sepa- 
 rate volume, where these properties may be more minutely 
 examined than can consistently be done in the body of the 
 work, which is intended to form a true representation of the 
 order of nature, with no more digressions from the main sub- 
 ject than are absolutely necessary to make it intelligible. 
 
 "All the plates should be bound at the end of each vo- 
 lume in a peculiar manner, with cuts or small plates of each 
 shell, &c. amidst the letter-press ; and where there is room 
 in the plate the shells may be dotted out from and drawn 
 * The direction as to the pages has been crossed by the pen at a later date. 
 
at the end of each stratum they are found in : these, as well 
 as the strata, to make them more striking, should be co- 
 loured*." 
 
 In February 1798, we find as part of the Introduction to 
 this contemplated work, an interesting notice of some of the 
 steps by which the author was conducted to his general 
 conclusions. 
 
 " It will be readily admitted by all classes of men, from 
 the most accurate observers of nature to the simplest pea- 
 sant, that there is some degree of regularity in the strata 
 from whence our building materials are generally collected. 
 Masons, miners and quarrymen can identify particular beds 
 of stone dug many miles apart ; indeed every cliff and quarry 
 presents a true section of a great many beds of stone, which 
 may be found of the same quality and in the same position 
 in all or most of the neighbouring cliffs and quarries. And 
 this regularity is nowhere more conspicuous than in the lias 
 quarries of Somersetshire, from whence these observations 
 first took their rise about seven years since. 
 
 " For the stratification of stone struck me, who had not 
 been accustomed to such appearances, as something very 
 uncommon, and till I had learned the technical terms of the 
 strata, and made a subterraneous journey or two, could not 
 conceive a clear idea of what seemed so familiar to the col- 
 liers ; but when these difficulties were surmounted, and an 
 intelligent bailiff accompanied [me], I was much pleased 
 with my peregrinations below, and soon learnt enough of 
 the order of the strata to describe on a plan the manner of 
 working the coal in the lands I was then surveying, 
 
 " Being engaged soon after to survey the lands and take 
 the levels of a canal that was proposed to be made from the 
 collieries to Bath, I observed a variation of the strata on the 
 same line of level, and soon found that the lias rock which 
 about three miles back was full 300 feet above this line was 
 now thirty feet below it, and became the bed of the river, 
 
 * These ideas were in great degree unexecuted till 1817. The method of 
 notation here suggested for the strata, might be revived with advantage 
 at the present day. 
 
24 
 
 and in that direction did not appear any more at the sur- 
 face. This induced me to note the inclination of the same 
 rock, which I knew was to be found at the head of two 
 other valleys lying each about a mile distant from, and in a 
 parallel direction to, the one just described, and accordingly 
 found it to dip the same to the south-east, and sink under 
 the rivers in a similar manner. 
 
 " From this I began to consider that other strata might 
 also have some general inclination as well as this (though 
 I had been frequently told by the colliers that there was no 
 regularity in the strata above ground), yet by tracing them 
 through the country some miles, I found the inclination of 
 every bed to be nearly the same as [that of] the lias ; and 
 notwithstanding the partial and local dips of many quarries 
 which varied from this rule, I was thoroughly satisfied by 
 these observations that everything had a general tendency 
 to the south-east, and thence concluded there could be 
 none of these beds to the north-west, the truth of which 
 conjecture was soon verified by a tour of observation through 
 the northern parts of this kingdom." [The journey here 
 alluded to was performed in 1794. See p. 11.] 
 
 Fairly engaged in compiling an account of his discoveries, 
 Mr. Smith naturally turned to inquire what had been done 
 previously in this department of knowledge in his own 
 country. His mind tending in a very strong degree to the 
 path of observing and accumulating facts which might cor- 
 rect and strengthen the general views which he already 
 possessed, he sought, in county histories and other probable 
 sources, information such as he needed. Plot's Oxford- 
 shire, Morton's Northamptonshire, and Woodward's Cata- 
 logue of Fossils, became his favourite study ; and probably 
 no other reader has drawn from those curious but neglected 
 works so many valuable geological data : Morton's drawings 
 of Ammonites gave him points of lias, Plot's Echinida 
 fixed localities of inferior oolite ; and thus by applying the 
 principle of " identifying the strata by their imbedded or- 
 ganic fossils," he was rapidly enlarging his coloured sketches 
 for a geological map of England and Wales. 
 
25 
 
 The most prevalent notion in the works which Mr. Smith 
 could then consult, regarding the forms and localities of or- 
 ganic remains, was the vague and irrational belief (founded 
 on a misconception of the meaning of Scripture, but handed 
 down even to these days as if to demonstrate the inde- 
 structibility of a popular error), that these relics of more 
 ancient systems of life were all buried in the solid strata of 
 the earth by the operation of the general deluge. This 
 notion appears never to have influenced for a moment the 
 mind of Mr. Smith, who in his MS. of this period (1797-98), 
 not only denies the unsatisfactory hypothesis, but places in 
 direct contrast with it his own views, that it is the gravelly 
 deposits scattered over the earth's surface, and containing 
 bones of quadrupeds and rolled and transported rock masses 
 holding fossils which had been previously imbedded and 
 petrified, which should be ascribed to diluvial action. 
 
 " I verily believe that those waters did not penetrate to 
 such a depth, nor disturb the strata so much as has been 
 imagined ; yet the effects of a deluge are very visible upon 
 the surface of the earth, and to a great depth beneath, 
 especially in low lands by the sides of large rivers, where 
 great quantities of gravel, sand, and mud, are generally col- 
 lected, in which the remains of trees and animals are fre- 
 quently found preserved entire. And these are the things 
 which may be reckoned among the most perfect proofs of a 
 deluge, but at the same time they must not be mistaken for 
 or confounded with fossils of a very different description 
 and of a different origin, such as the exuviae of marine ani- 
 mals and vegetable impressions, which are always found 
 regularly imbedded in the solid strata, and composed of the 
 same matter as the mass, whatever it may be ; whereas the 
 horns of the moose deer, and teeth of elephants, which are 
 found in loose gravel or mud, are real substances which con- 
 tain all the properties of horn or ivory, and none of those 
 which belong to the stone or clay which surrounds them. 
 
 "But gravel-stones always contain fragments of such shells, 
 or other marks, as are always found in the solid strata of which 
 they originally formed a part, till torn from their native beds 
 
26 
 
 by the impetuosity of the retreating waters, which is a de- 
 cided proof that such shells were formed prior to the deluge, 
 as their masses are all rounded off by attrition in water, while 
 those of the same sort which are still imbedded in the 
 strata, remain perfect and entire." 
 
 In March 1 798, Mr. Smith purchased a small but beau- 
 tiful estate in a deep valley within three miles of Bath, 
 almost overgrown with wild wood, hiding in its bosom a 
 sheet of water and a small mill. Through this retired pos- 
 session the canal was cut, without greatly injuring its re- 
 markable beauty; and under Mr. Smith's fond and tasteful 
 attention the scene was partly cleared, the pond expanded 
 to a lake, the cottage became a comfortable home, in which 
 he passed many happy and thoughtful hours. He did not, 
 however, at any time reside long in this favourite retreat, but 
 took up his station for about a year at the village of Mit- 
 ford, near Bath, and engaged in the last duties which he 
 performed as resident engineer to the Coal Canal. 
 
 Owing to a misunderstanding with the Company, this 
 occupation ceased in June 1799, and Mr. Smith felt and ac- 
 knowledged that a new sera in his life had arrived. He was 
 not only at liberty, but placed under the necessity to con- 
 sider the best means of making known his geological sy- 
 stem, and of founding upon it a professional practice, which 
 might provide the expense of travelling to verify and ex- 
 tend his knowledge, and fill up the outlines of a geological 
 map of England and Wales. 
 
 In these objects, which were ever closely associated in 
 his own mind, he was successful ; the most valuable portions 
 of his discoveries soon became public property, and he 
 quickly acquired extensive employment in the practical ap- 
 plications of these discoveries to mineral surveying and 
 draining of land on a large scale. The extensive diffu- 
 sion of his fame and opinions, which now began, was 
 owing to no actual and authorized publication, but to con- 
 tinual discussions and explorations with several active 
 friends, oral communications and exhibitions of maps at 
 agricultural meetings (then frequent), and circulation of 
 
27 
 
 MS. copies of tabular expositions of the series of strata at 
 that time determined. 
 
 His views at this epoch appear by the following notice : 
 
 " During my five years' close confinement to practical 
 engineering on the Coal Canal, my much-wished-for oppor- 
 tunity of collecting observations enough from the ranges of 
 the different strata to make an accurate delineation of the 
 stratification throughout England were suspended. 
 
 " I had seen enough by my tour of August 1794, to 
 satisfy myself of the practicability of doing it, and often 
 wasted much time in poring over maps, in contriving how 
 the ranging edges and planes of the different strata could 
 best be rendered intelligible : models were thought of, and 
 one small map was cut along the edges of some of the strata 
 with a view of defining their extent, and of showing how 
 one stratum was successively covered by another. 
 
 " I drew in colours, on a map of the vicinity of Bath, and 
 on Day and Masters' County Survey, all [that had been ob- 
 served] very accurately to a certain extent, which embraced 
 an interesting but intricate variety of strata in hills around 
 Bath ; and some small maps of England were spoiled by 
 speculating on the ranges of stratification without sufficient 
 data. The intricacies in their marginal edges were such 
 that I found, to mark point by point, as the facts were ascer- 
 tained, was the only way in which I could safely proceed. 
 
 " My experience in what I had done upon the Somerset- 
 shire map was sufficient to convince of this, and that to 
 make a map of the strata on a scale as large as Gary's 
 England (five miles to an inch) with sufficient accuracy, 
 much of it should first be drawn on a larger scale." 
 
 It was fortunate for Mr. Smith and for the progress of 
 his views, that he gained at this time the friendship of a 
 man singularly competent to estimate the truth and value of 
 these views, and both able and willing to advocate the merit 
 of their author. The Rev. Benjamin Richardson was at 
 this time living in Bath, and possessed a choice collection 
 of local fossils, mostly gathered by his own diligent hands. 
 Extensively versed in natural history, and generally well 
 
28 
 
 acquainted with the progress of science, he was perfectly 
 enthusiastic in following out, and liberal in enabling others 
 to prosecute, new and ingenious researches, especially if 
 they tended to practical and public good. He knew accu- 
 rately the country in which Mr. Smith had principally 
 worked, and was acquainted with the views entertained on 
 the subject of fossils, which had been recorded in books, or 
 were adopted by the collectors, who were even then cele- 
 brated in the vicinity of Bath. He had no knowledge of the 
 laws of stratification and the connexion between the forms 
 of organic life and the order of superposition of the strata ; 
 while, on the other hand, his new friend had very little 
 knowledge of the true nature of these organic forms, and 
 their exact relation to analogous living types. The result 
 of a meeting between two such reciprocally adjusted minds 
 was an electric combination ; the fossils which the one pos- 
 sessed were marshalled in the order of strata by the other, 
 until all found their appropriate places, and the arrange- 
 ment of the cabinet became a true copy of nature. 
 
 That such fossils had been found in such rocks was im- 
 mediately acknowledged by Mr. Richardson to be true, 
 though the connexion had not before presented itself to his 
 mind ; but when Mr. Smith added the assurance, that every- 
 where throughout this district, and to considerable distances 
 around, it was a general law that the " same strata were found 
 always in the same order of superposition and contained 
 the same peculiar fossils," his friend was both astonished 
 and incredulous. He immediately acceded to Mr. Smith's 
 proposal for undertaking some field examinations to deter- 
 mine the truth of these assertions, and having interested in 
 this object a new and learned associate, the Rev. Joseph 
 Townsend (author of Travels in Spain), they at once exe- 
 cuted the project. Among other places visited with this 
 view was the detached hill on which Dundry Church is 
 conspicuously elevated. From its form and position in re- 
 spect of the lias of Keynsham, Mr. Smith had inferred that 
 this hill was capped by the lowest of the Bath " freestones " 
 (inferior oolite); and, from his general views, expected to 
 
29 
 
 find in that rock the fossils which it contained near Bath, 
 on the westward rise, which he believed to affect all the 
 strata near Bath above the coal. It is needless now to say, 
 that examination confirmed both the inference of the cha- 
 racter of the rock and the conformity of its organic con- 
 tents. The effect of this and other illustrations of the 
 reality of Mr. Smith's speculations was decisive. In general 
 literature and especially in natural history, Mr. Smith 
 was immeasurably surpassed by his friends, but they ac- 
 knowledged that, from his labours in a different quarter, a 
 new light had begun to manifest itself in the previously 
 dark horizon of geology, and they set themselves earnestly 
 to make way for its auspicious influence. 
 
 One day, after dining together at the house of the Rev. 
 Joseph Townsend, it was proposed, by one of this trium- 
 virate, that a tabular view of the main features of the sub- 
 ject, as it had been expounded by Mr. Smith, and verified 
 and enriched by their joint labours, should be drawn up in 
 writing. Richardson held the pen and wrote down, from 
 Smith's dictation, the different strata according to their 
 order of succession in descending order, commencing with 
 the chalk, and numbered, in continuous series, down to the 
 coal, below which the strata were not sufficiently determined, 
 according to the scheme already noticed, p. 23. 
 
 To this description of the strata was added, in the proper 
 places, a list of the most remarkable fossils which had been 
 gathered in the several layers of rock. The names of these 
 fossils were principally supplied by Mr. Richardson, and 
 are such as were then, and for a long time afterwards, fami- 
 liarly employed in the many collections near Bath. Of the 
 document thus jointly arranged each person present took a 
 copy, under no stipulation as to the use which should be 
 made of it, and accordingly it was extensively distributed, 
 and remained for a long period the type and authority for 
 the descriptions and order of superposition of the strata 
 near Bath. The following is a copy of the original docu- 
 ment in Mr. Richardson's handwriting, presented to the 
 Geological Society in 1831 : 
 
fJlgl i l flT*' s 8a*i * 
 
 i-3 en O H ^'PH 
 
31 
 
 Mr. Richardson (in 1831) gave the following account of 
 these circumstances, in a letter to Professor Sedgwick : 
 " Farley Rectory, near Bath, 10th Feb. 1831. 
 
 " SIR, I am requested to present you the particulars of 
 my acquaintance with Mr. William Smith, well known by 
 the appropriate appellation of f Strata Smith.' 
 
 " At the annual meeting of the Bath Agricultural So- 
 ciety in 1799, Mr. Smith was introduced to my residence in 
 Bath, when, on viewing my collection of fossils, he told me 
 the beds to which they exclusively belonged, and pointed 
 out some peculiar to each. This, by attending him in the 
 fields, I soon found to be the fact, and also that they had a 
 general inclination to the south-east, following each other in 
 regular succession. 
 
 " With the open liberality peculiar to Mr. Smith, he 
 wished me to communicate this to the Rev. J. Townsend of 
 Pewsey (then in Bath), who was not less surprised at the 
 discovery. But we were soon much more astonished by 
 proofs of his own collecting, that whatever stratum was 
 found in any part of England, the same remains would be 
 found in it and no other. Mr Townsend, who had pursued 
 the subject forty or fifty years, and had travelled over the 
 greater part of civilized Europe, declared it perfectly un- 
 known to all his acquaintance, and he believed to all the 
 rest of the world. 
 
 " In consequence of Mr. Smith's desire to make so valu- 
 able a discovery universally known, I without reserve gave 
 a card of the English strata to Baron Rosencrantz, Dr. 
 Miiller of Christiania, and many others, in the year 1801. 
 
 " I am happy to hear the Geological Society proposes to 
 pay a deserved compliment to his merits, to which I most 
 gratefully bear a willing testimony. I am, Sir, &c., 
 
 " B. RICHARDSON." 
 
 For the purpose of giving the widest diffusion to the 
 valuable information, of which the " Tabular View" he had 
 composed was but the index, Mr. Richardson introduced 
 " Strata Smith" to Dr. James Anderson, who was then pub- 
 lishing his " Recreations in Agriculture." This eminent 
 
person immediately added his influence and persuasions to 
 the many other motives demanding an authentic publication 
 of views so novel, and bearing so many practical applica- 
 tions, and not only offered the pages of his work for the re- 
 ception of these views, but proposed a money payment pro- 
 portioned to their extent. In letters bearing date July 31 
 and Sept. 12, 1799, he claims the performance of Mr. Smith's 
 promise, but in vain. It appears from the draft of a letter 
 in reply to the last, dated Sept. 29, 1799, that Mr. Smith 
 had been deterred from literary composition by too keen a 
 sense of his inadequacy to that kind of labour, and had 
 been disappointed in not receiving some distinct advice on 
 that head from the learned doctor. 
 
 He could " with ease trace each stratum of this country, 
 from the chalk hills down to the coal," but he would have 
 had not " the smallest wish whatever to appear in print, if 
 it were not from a hope that some of the observations might 
 be of service to the public." 
 
 Nothing came of this well-meant proposal, and Mr* Smith 
 turned all his energies to the prosecution of his profession, 
 and the tracing out the courses of strata through districts as 
 remote from Bath as his means permitted him to reach. The 
 time was favourable. An extraordinary degree of wetness in 
 the year 1799 had produced, in the vicinity of Bath, an ex- 
 traordinary phenomenon. Vast mounds of earth displaced 
 by the augmented force of the springs and the direction of 
 water into new channels below the surface, were sliding 
 down the sides of the hills, and bearing to new situations 
 houses, trees, lawns, and fields. 
 
 To remedy such disasters and prevent their recurrence 
 was exactly what Smith had learned from geology, and had 
 reduced to practice on many occasions while cutting the 
 canal. Naturally, therefore, and as a matter of course, 
 operations of this kind were placed under his care in the 
 vicinity of Bath and Batheaston ; and his reputation for 
 success in draining on new principles rose daily, and carried 
 him into Gloucestershire, the Isle of Purbeck, Wiltshire, &c. 
 Elkington, a Warwickshire farmer, had the merit of ori- 
 
PafeSS 
 
 "'' -, 
 
 friwi .] /r/cM/A ny WiJjJ^-fn />//./ ///. /'!&9. 
 
ginating a system of draining applicable to a considerable 
 class of boggy and springy grounds, and for this he had 
 received a parliamentary grant of 1000/. to induce him to 
 discover his secret. This system had been tried, and often 
 with entire success ; when it failed, as happened at Prisley, 
 the bog selected for trial of the process by the Board 
 of Agriculture, it was because the principles were derived 
 from limited experience, not founded on any general law of 
 the earth's structure. Mr. Smith had found in his geology 
 a truer general theory of springs, a broader and more 
 manageable principle of draining, one which all the experi- 
 ence of his life confirmed and exemplified, and he easily 
 accomplished the drainage of Prisley Bog. Well, then, 
 might he hope for eminent success in this branch of his 
 profession ; and viewing it as merely one of many valuable 
 applications in agriculture and commerce to be derived from 
 the establishment of geology, it is not to be wondered at if 
 at this elastic period of life, he thought that, by following 
 out these discoveries through a toilsome and thriftless man- 
 hood, he should establish an honest claim for some public 
 provision when his work was done. As a specimen of the 
 fearful state in which the landslips, at this time very com- 
 mon, left particular houses, the following passages are ex- 
 tracted from Mr. Smith's Report to the owner of Combe- 
 grove, near Bath (Feb. 1800) : 
 
 " Having minutely surveyed the slips in the ground, and 
 the cracked and dangerous state of the buildings at Combe- 
 grove, and made a rough plan of the premises, showing the 
 situation of the respective buildings and the faces of the 
 different rocks, &c. which are affected by this accident, and 
 marked the apparent boundary thereof, so as to bring the 
 whole into one point of view much better than it can be seen 
 upon the ground, I am sorry to find that it is of much greater 
 extent than upon my first survey I had reason to expect, for 
 there is not a building of any sort that has not more or less 
 felt the effect of its fatal consequences. Therefore I am of 
 opinion, that the whole of this beautiful place, in a few 
 years, must inevitably fall a sacrifice to the irresistible 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 pressure of the rocks moving clown upon it, if some effectual 
 means are not speedily taken to prevent their further pro- 
 gress." By tunneling into the hill and intercepting the 
 springs, further damage was entirel^ stopped. 
 
 The great humidity of the seasons was followed by a 
 scarcity of corn, and the landed proprietors were strongly 
 aroused to the necessity of providing for the prosperity of 
 British agriculture and the food of the nation, by an im- 
 proved drainage of the land. So large a portion of the 
 most productive wheat soil of England rests on clay, that 
 generally wet years have been unfavourable to the crop 
 most valued by the farmer. Mr. Stephens of Camerton, 
 the chairman of the canal company, and Mr. T. Crook of 
 Tytherton, one of the best farmers of the Bath district, 
 set the example of encouraging Mr. Smith in his new occu- 
 pation ; and from this time forward, for several years, he was 
 almost daily occupied in various parts of the country, first 
 in draining land, and, as a second improvement, very often 
 in irrigating it when drained. 
 
 From the commencement to the termination of Mr. Smith's 
 engagement as engineer to the Somerset Coal Canal, the re- 
 muneration for his time and talents was uniformly one guinea 
 per diem, with allowance for extraordinary expenses. This 
 scale of repayment was continued for some time after the 
 change of his)employments produced almost constant travel- 
 ling ; but the numerous simultaneous demands upon his at- 
 tention, in the new and laborious life which he had entered 
 on, compelled him to raise these terms, from 1801 forward, 
 to two guineas per diem, besides the expenses of travelling. 
 At a later time these fees were again raised to three guineas 
 per diem. Any other than William Smith, equally moderate 
 in his personal expenses, and employed, like him, profes- 
 sionally for every day of many years, would at least have 
 escaped poverty ; but Mr. Smith, at no time in his life, 
 abounded in money. The principal cause was the libe- 
 ral, nay lavish, manner in which he expended his means 
 in endeavours to compass his favourite object of completing 
 the " Map of the Strata of England and Wales." For this 
 
35 
 
 end he walked, or rode, or posted, in directions quite out / 
 of the way of his business ; and having thus emptied his 
 pockets for what he deemed a public object, was forced to 
 make up by night-travelling the time he had lost, so as not 
 to fail in his professional engagements. Those who dedm 
 such a course imprudent, can scarcely be entitled to censure 
 the motives on which it was founded ; his personal loss was 
 the public gain ; his individual strength performed a national 
 work; and the sufferings to which this system ultimately 
 conducted, were borne with more than common fortitude. 
 
 At Mr. Crook's hospitable house, in 1800, the improve- 
 ments effected by Mr. Smith's processes of draining and 
 irrigation, were inspected by that prince of farmers, Thomas 
 William Coke of Norfolk, the late venerable Earl of Lei- 
 cester. This eminent man immediately invited Mr. Smith 
 to Holkham, employed him in a great variety of works, and 
 recommended him to others ; and not only valued his abilities 
 for agricultural improvements, but entered warmly into the 
 merit of his scientific discoveries, and conceived an interest 
 in his welfare, which was manifested near the close of his 
 useful and honoured life. 
 
 " My journey," says Mr. Smith, " from Bath to Holkham, 
 was performed on horseback, by the guidance of Gary's 
 one-sheet England. The same map was used in my return 
 across the Fens to Peterborough, where I recognized Corn- 
 brash ; and, lest I should not recollect the sites, extent, and 
 intricacies of this and the rocks in the series below it, so well 
 known in Somersetshire, I alighted from my horse from time 
 to time as I passed through Northamptonshire by Banbury 
 Lane, and sketched a section of all the ascents and descents 
 on the road, and marked the stone-quarries, outcrops of the 
 rocks, and other strata thereon, and could not refrain from 
 loading my pockets with identifying fossils." 
 
 In 1801, amidst incessant occupation and demands for his 
 presence in distant quarters, and even in Ireland, Mr, Smith 
 attempted in vain to commit to paper his fast-growing gene- 
 ralizations in what he regarded as a new science, To this 
 he was stimulated by that never-tiring and always judicious 
 
 D 2 
 
36 
 
 friend, the Rev. Benjamin Richardson, who, in May 1801, 
 alarmed him with the possibility of another publishing those 
 views which should only emanate from himself, and urged 
 the immediate issue of a prospectus and proposals in his 
 own name. This document, which was in consequence 
 drawn up and printed in haste, is now extremely scarce. 
 The title runs thus 
 
 Prospectus of a Work, 
 
 entitled 
 accurate Delineations 
 
 and 
 Descriptions 
 
 of the 
 
 Natural Order 
 of the various 
 
 Strata 
 
 that are found in different parts of 
 England and Wales, 
 
 with 
 Practical Observations 
 
 thereon. 
 
 The author evidently proposed to give in this work such 
 a review of his observations as might show the principal 
 facts ascertained regarding the nature and properties of the 
 strata, and demonstrate their practical applications. For this 
 purpose he prepared " A correct map of the strata, de- 
 scribing the general course and width of each stratum on 
 the surface, accompanied by a general section, showing their 
 proportion, dip and direction. The maps and sections, to 
 make them more striking and just representations of nature, 
 will be all given in the proper colours." The following 
 paragraph concludes his prospectus : 
 
 " To attempt a complete history of all the minutiae of 
 strata would be an endless labour ; for a long life devoted 
 to such a pursuit must be inadequate to the purpose, con- 
 sidering the immense variety which is found in this little 
 island. But should the present essay meet with that liberal 
 patronage from the public which the author has reason to 
 
37 
 
 expect, it is his intention, in a future work, to give a par- 
 ticular description of the numerous animal remains and 
 vegetable impressions found in each stratum, Avith an accu- 
 rate detail of every characteristic mark that has led him to 
 these discoveries." 
 
 " Mitford, near Bath, June 1, 1801." 
 
 This prospectus was extensively circulated ; and Debrett, 
 opposite Burlington-house, Piccadilly, being named as the 
 publisher, a small MS. map of England, uncoloured, was 
 placed in his hands for the engraver. The following letter 
 from his most valued friend, who was in truth his best 
 patron, will explain the then state of progress toward a 
 publication, and demonstrate the earnest and active co- 
 operation of the writer : 
 
 "Bath, July 15, 1801. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, As I may not for some time have the plea- 
 sure of seeing you again, I congratulate you on the success 
 of your subscription, which fills readily. And I would have 
 you take Debrett's opinion on the propriety of giving an 
 edition of the work in Latin for the benefit of all Europe, to 
 be circulated under the patronage of our foreign envoys, 
 &c. &c. This would give the system its due importance, 
 and prevent any pirated French edition, which the world 
 
 will be ready enough to catch at. 
 
 # # # * 
 
 " When I rode to the Black Dog, Standerwick, I found 
 the Croydon stone used in polishing wood, at the foot of 
 the sand just above the springs, which may furnish another 
 instance of turning your knowledge to daily use. 
 
 " I have left my observations on the strata of North Wilt- 
 shire with your brother, and shall be happy if any hints of 
 mine, taken from the Devonshire coast down the Bristol 
 Channel, can be of use to you ; for nothing can be more 
 grateful to my wishes than to reflect a single ray of light 
 back to the person from whom I received the illumination, 
 and whose friend and servant 
 
 " " I most sincerely subscribe, 
 
 " B. RICHARDSON." 
 
38 
 
 How much interest the announcement of this work ex- 
 cited may be exemplified by the following letter : 
 
 " Coole, near Gort, Ireland, September 14, 1801. 
 " Mr. SMITH, 
 
 " Sir, I have distributed your Prospectus amongst my 
 friends, and have the pleasure to request you will add to the 
 list of your subscribers the name of my father, Robert 
 Gregory, Esq., 56, Berners-street, London, and the Hon. 
 Richard Trench, M.P., Spring Garden Terrace, London. 
 
 " I find Mr. Evelyn in his ' Terra,' a philosophical dis- 
 course on earth, refers to a work of Dr. Lister, called ' A 
 Discourse upon a Map, discovering Sands and Clay, re- 
 duced to Tables, presented to the Royal Society.' 
 
 " Dr. Hunter in his notes says, ' Dr. Lister was of opinion 
 that, by examining the earth from the surface downwards, 
 as often as an opportunity offered, a pretty just theory 
 might be formed of its contents in general ; for it appeared 
 from his own observations, that upper natural soils infallibly 
 produce the same internal minerals and materials. He has 
 thrown out a hint to every naturalist for extending this 
 useful knowledge, by advising that a soil or mineral map 
 should be made, properly distinguished into countries, and 
 enriched with observations for general use, arising from re- 
 marks on the bounds and produce of every particular soil. 
 The Doctor thought that sand was once the exterior and 
 and general cover of the surface of the whole earth, and 
 that clay was another coat in the more depressed and hollow 
 parts.' Then follows the table of sands and clay. I hope 
 the above may be of use, and I trust you will excuse me for 
 troubling you with this long quotation from Hunter's Eve- 
 lyns Sylva, and believe me to be, Sir, 
 
 " Your obliged and obedient humble servant, 
 
 " RICHARD GREGORY." 
 
 " I shall be happy to see you in Berners-street whenever 
 you come to London, or should anything induce you to 
 come over to Ireland (as you mentioned to me at Woburn 
 Abbey that you had some intention to do so), I shall be 
 
39 
 
 happy to show you everything that may be the object of 
 your inquiry in this neighbourhood." 
 
 In the summer of 1801, Sir Joseph Banks favoured Mr. 
 Smith with an interview, and from this time till his death 
 remained a steady friend and liberal patron of his labours. 
 
 In the autumn of 1801, Mr. Smith was, by the kindness 
 of Mr. Coke, introduced to Francis Duke of Bedford, and 
 received from this enlightened friend of agriculture not only 
 considerable employment in draining and irrigation, but 
 special encouragement and assistance in prosecuting his 
 geological researches. After hearing an explanation of the 
 nature and object of those studies, he particularly commis- 
 sioned his land-steward, Mr. John Farey, to accompany 
 Mr. Smith on an exploration of the margin of the Chalk- 
 hills, south of Woburn, for the purpose of determining 
 there the true succession of the strata, and judging of their 
 most suitable agricultural appropriations, and suggesting 
 means of improvement. Mr. Bevan, of Leighton Beau-De- 
 sert, joined himself to this expedition, which was, by direc- 
 tion of the Duke, made at his expense. The following in- 
 cident occurred in this tour, which took place in the end of 
 January 1802: 
 
 " In this geological excursion, as we advanced near to 
 the foot of the Dunstable Chalk-hills, I ventured on a pre- 
 diction which in former times might have stamped me for a 
 wizard. I said, * If there be any broken ground about the 
 foot of these hills, we may find sharks' teeth ; ' when Farey, 
 presently pointing to the white bank of a new fence-ditch, 
 we left our horses, and soon found six exactly the same as I 
 had seen in 1799, collected by a curiosity-man and antiquary 
 of the name of Yockney, from the chalk-pits above War- 
 minster." 
 
 Some further particulars of this journey appear in the 
 following letter to Mr. Richardson : 
 
 " Woburn, 1st Feb. 1802. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, The frost and snow detained me much 
 longer in Staffordshire than I expected, therefore I shall not 
 reach home before the 10th or 12th. 
 
40 
 
 " 1 have fixed to meet my brother at Down Ampney next 
 Saturday, Sunday, and Monday ; thence by Lord Peter- 
 borough's, T. Crook's, &c., to Bath, to Longleat and Yeo- 
 vil, and perhaps down into Devonshire, but must be back 
 into Staffordshire by the end of the month. Now, you 
 know what I have got to do I will tell you what I have done. 
 I have collected a great deal from the North of England 
 and Scotland. Our Mendip limestone, with St. Cuthbert's 
 Beads, goes out to sea at Holy Island, where they are found 
 in great plenty, and are called by this name from the saint 
 of the island*. 
 
 " I have found fossils in red marl of Staffordshire, con- 
 nected some limestones t, and nearly connected some ranges 
 of the coals. 
 
 " The last week was spent in surveying distant properties 
 belonging to the Duke, and investigating the country for many 
 miles in different directions as far as Aylesbury, accom- 
 panied by the steward (Mr. Farey) and Mr. Bevan of Leigh- 
 ton, I understood by the Duke's desire, to examine the 
 practicability of my arrangement of strata ; and though it 
 is a part in which I am the most diffident, they both re- 
 turned complete converts. Our chief object was the search 
 for coral or other limestones which lie between the sand and 
 chalk hills, which are here situated much the same as in 
 North Wilts. We could not see the oolite, &c., though we 
 saw many marks of it in alluvial gravel. 
 
 " But the green sand and Crockerton clay, and several 
 others, were found in many places, the car stone and white 
 sand, &c. c. &c. But the Swindon stone, with all its fos- 
 sils, occupies the surface for many miles round Aylesbury, 
 Thame, &c. After spending four fine days very pleasantly 
 in these pursuits, we returned highly gratified and heavy- 
 laden with treasure (not of the East, for that is what every- 
 body knows I was never possessed of, but) such as you and 
 every admirer of nature will be proud to share. Having 
 
 * St. Cuthbert's beads are columnar joints of Crino'idea. 
 f This passage refers, I believe, to a local patch of limestone in red 
 marl at Arbury in Staffordshire, 
 

 J^W ,y oM'M<.</ 
 
 / / 
 
41 
 
 never examined the Swindon Quarries, I was rather at a loss 
 for some time, till I began to recollect the forms of the fos- 
 sils you have given me. I have no doubt but a little more 
 examination of North Wilts will enable me to arrange every 
 one of these thin strata in the proper order. The great 
 quantity of alluvial gravel which is found in this neighbour- 
 hood prevents their being seen on this side of the ridge 
 which divides the drainage of the Thame and Ouse ; but 
 this gravel furnished us with many very interesting proofs 
 of a chemical change of substances, which I have long sus- 
 pected to be occasioned by faults or heterogeneous mixtures 
 near the surface. I pointed this out to Mr. Bevan, who, 
 being a good chemist, satisfactorily explained the cause. 
 
 " We not only found decomposed flints and other stones in 
 alluvial gravel, but very luckily met with a place where two 
 known strata were brought together by a fault, which had 
 occasioned a complete decomposition of most of the shells 
 and stones which we had been looking for, and totally 
 changed their appearance ; but some of the fossils were suffi- 
 ciently perfect to recognize their family, comparing them 
 with those we had just before collected. I am now per- 
 fectly satisfied of what I have before thought, that the 
 faults in some instances have changed the properties as well 
 as position of the strata. 
 
 " I shall be very happy to relate the remainder of my 
 interesting excursion, and remain, dear Sir, 
 
 " Your much obliged and sincere friend, 
 
 " W. SMITH." 
 " Rev. B. Richardson, Lisbon Terrace, Bath." 
 
 On entering Woburn Abbey for the first time, Mr. Smith 
 was struck by the resemblance of the light-coloured stone 
 of which it is built (from the old quarries of Tattenhoe), to 
 the nearly contemporaneous firestone of Reigate, and began 
 to rub his pencil against its surface, to discover if it was 
 similarly gritty. 
 
 The Duke was so much interested in the general progress 
 of these geological pursuits, that, having satisfied himself of 
 their truth and value, he authorized the collecting of speci- 
 
42 
 
 mens of rocks and fossils from all parts of the kingdom, for 
 the purpose of arranging them in a room at Woburn in the 
 order of the stratification ; and proposed to institute chemi- 
 cal examinations of them. But the bright prospects which 
 seemed now opening were suddenly closed by the Duke's 
 lamented death. On the very day, 12th March 1802, which 
 had been appointed for Mr. Smith to have a second meet- 
 ing on this subject, the most generous, and apparently the 
 most judicious of Mr. Smith's noble friends, was buried. 
 
 The unexpected death of the Duke of Bedford was 
 mourned as a public loss ; on Mr. Smith it fell with the 
 weight of a private affliction. Admitted by this truly noble 
 person, " who valued men much more for their worth than 
 their titles," (MS.), to unrestrained and friendly intercourse, 
 he had been successful in convincing him of the real value 
 to that scientific agriculture which his Grace wished to ad- 
 vance, of a thorough and practical knowledge of the strata 
 on whose properties so much of the quality of the superja- 
 cent soil depends. He had been invited to explain fully the 
 scientific objects which he sought to accomplish, the pro- 
 gress which he had made, the means which he possessed, 
 and the assistance which he needed, for completing his 
 gigantic task. He spoke to a congenial spirit, one who, 
 
 " Though born in such a high degree/' 
 
 was an honest enthusiast like himself, and had already 
 thrown all the weight of his rank, intelligence and fortune 
 into the schemes of agricultural improvement, which then 
 radiated throughout the kingdom, from Woburn and Hoik- 
 ham. He had found powerful patronage at the very mo- 
 ment when it was most needed, at the time when the public 
 importance of his past labours was becoming manifest to 
 the world, and the fearful magnitude of the problem to 
 which he had devoted his energies began to strike even his 
 resolute heart with dismay. From this dread the Duke's 
 kindness had relieved him. " I considered," says he in a 
 MS. of this period, " my last interview with his Grace as 
 one of the most auspicious periods of my life. The plan 
 
43 
 
 which he had formed for making himself and others ac- 
 quainted with the nature of my pursuits was just such as I 
 wished to carry into effect. I had more to expect from his 
 Grace than from all other men in the kingdom." 
 
 The effect of the sudden reverse of all these hopes was 
 to delay, indefinitely, the publication of the work announced 
 by Debrett, until the misfortunes of that enterprising book- 
 seller put a stop to the project altogether. 
 
 The interest felt at Woburn in favour of Mr. Smith did 
 not, however, expire with Duke Francis. The project of 
 fitting up a geological collection at Woburn, under Mr. 
 Smith's direction, was not altogether abandoned by his 
 brother, who continued to Mr. Smith a high degree of 
 favour and assistance, and entered earnestly into plans for 
 bringing his labours advantageously before the public. 
 
 It was high time for Mr. Smith to bestir himself in this 
 respect. In 1802 he was living in Trim-street, Bath, or at 
 least rented a house for the reception of his fossils, and re- 
 ceived therein visits from Mr. Wm. Reynolds of Coalbrook 
 Dale, and other eminent persons. Amongst other recol- 
 lections of this interview with Mr. Reynolds (August 8), 
 Mr. Smith was accustomed to relate that Mr. Reynolds pro- 
 duced from his pocket a copy of the ' Table of Strata' 
 which had been drawn up in MS. in 1799, and already re- 
 ferred to ; and stated that, within his own knowledge, copies 
 of it had been sent to the East and West Indies. 
 
 There was now exhibited remarkable forbearance on 
 the part of the many eminent persons whose attention was 
 awakened to the examination of the geology of Britain. At 
 this moment, any map, however crude and incorrect, pro- 
 fessing to be a mineralogical map of a part of the British 
 Islands, would have been a source of lasting reputation to 
 its editor ; any account of the principal facts then ascer- 
 tained near Bath would have been welcomed with admira- 
 tion. Had Mr. Smith been exposed to this ungenerous 
 rivalry, he must have sunk under the grief and vexation of 
 being anticipated in his map by some inferior compilation, 
 and in his other labours by notices which, in consequence 
 
44* 
 
 of his wandering habits and laborious profession, it would 
 have been more easy for others than himself to draw up. 
 But nothing of this kind happened ; on the contrary, Mr. 
 Townsend generously presented to his friend a large se- 
 ries of his own characteristic drawings, from fossils in his 
 own collection and other cabinets, as a contribution to 
 his expected work. Mr. Richardson and Mr. Cunnington 
 sent him notes of observations on their journeys; and Mr. 
 Farey, who in this year quitted Woburn, never lost any 
 occasion to advocate the importance and priority of Wm. 
 Smith's discoveries^ and to urge their speedy publication. 
 After Debrett's engagement had failed, a new hope sprung 
 up in Mr. Smith's mind, when, besides the Duke of Bed- 
 ford and Mr. Coke, Sir Joseph Banks and Mr. Crawshay 
 added their powerful patronage of his labours. It was in 
 the latter part of 1803 that professional business at Merthyr 
 brought Mr. Smith and his pursuits to the knowledge of 
 " The Iron King." Accustomed to large views of appli- 
 cations of science, and to a course of action which might 
 
 be described 
 
 Fortiter in modo, fortiter in re, 
 
 this extraordinary man had no sooner made himself master 
 of the peculiarities of Mr. Smith's researches, than he at 
 once resolved to advance the publication of them, not only 
 by assistance in money, and engaging the good offices of 
 his friends, but by inducing an eminent individual to under- 
 take what Mr. Smith's perpetual occupation prevented him 
 from doing, viz. to arrange and prepare for the press his 
 too desultory but valuable papers, which were necessary for 
 explaining the " coloured map of the strata," now fre- 
 quently exhibited at the numerous agricultural meetings 
 which Mr. Smith attended. 
 
 In December 1803, Mr. Smith writes thus to Mr. Craw- 
 shay : " His Grace the Duke of Bedford, and many of 
 the members of the Bath Agricultural Meeting, did me 
 the honour of examining my arrangement of the fossils in 
 the strata. Several agreed with you that it ought to be 
 brought forward as a public thing." These marks of in- 
 
45 
 
 terest were not transient. The Duke's recommendation, in 
 1804, brought Mr. Smith into acquaintance with Mr. Arthur 
 Young, then secretary to the Board of Agriculture, and on 
 the 22nd of May of this year, he had the honour of ex- 
 plaining to the Board the progress he had made in the 
 maps of the strata, and in the principal applications of geo- 
 logical science to agriculture. He was in consequence re- 
 quested to draw up some specific proposal for bringing his 
 discoveries before the public, and to submit the same to an- 
 other meeting of that distinguished body. 
 
 In July 1804*, at the Woburn sheepshearing, Sir Joseph 
 Banks was present, and listened patiently to a full explana- 
 tion of the maps which Mr. Smith was exhibiting, and of 
 the various views of geology applied to practice, which was 
 the favourite theme of their author. He was at once con- 
 vinced that the subject was of " such importance, that the 
 public must have it," and that Mr. Smith's unaided means 
 would fail to produce either map or book. He therefore 
 drew up a paper expressing these convictions, to be circu- 
 lated among the members present, and presented to Mr. 
 Smith a cheque for 50/., as a moiety of his subscription. 
 Several other liberal contributions were paid or promised ; 
 but, strange as it may appear, the plan so auspiciously be 
 gun, was prosecuted no further, though Mr. Smith treasured 
 the memory of the munificent proposer, and gratefully dedi- 
 cated to him, ten years later, the large " Map of the Strata 
 of England and Wales," finished in 1814. 
 
 This neglect may be thought censurable ; it is, perhaps, 
 sufficiently explained by the unceasing professional exer- 
 tions and constant travelling, which left Mr. Smith little 
 time for more than passing notes of his geological observa- 
 tions, and rendered it an almost impossible task to arrange 
 detached thoughts into a regular publication. But there 
 are other extenuating circumstances. His papers were in 
 London, his fossils at Bath, and he was seldom at leisure to 
 
 * In July of this year Mr. Smith was preparing a map of the strata 
 specially for Sir J. Banks's inspection, and this was probably one of the 
 documents shown at Woburn. 
 
46 
 
 examine either. While absent from London in the summer 
 of 1804, a fire happened in Craven-street where his rooms 
 were, and his papers and maps were removed in hurry and 
 disorder. To inconveniences of this nature an end was put 
 by Mr. Smith taking possession of a large house in Bucking- 
 ham-street, Strand, where his collections and maps were 
 openly exhibited, and where he for some time employed an 
 artist in making drawings from his collection for the en- 
 graver. In 1805 the Rev. J. Townsend offered his valuable 
 assistance to throw into form the mass of materials now col- 
 lected by Mr. Smith (adding also his own excellent draw- 
 ings), so as to facilitate the publication of them. Of this 
 Mr. Smith informs Mr. Crawshay in the following letter : 
 
 "June 26, 1805. 
 
 " Dear Sir, I am happy to inform you that my fossils are 
 at last safely arrived in London, and completely unpacked 
 and arranged in the same order as they lay in the earth. 
 
 "If you or any of your friends are likely to be in town 
 soon, I shall be happy to be apprised of it, so that I may 
 have the satisfaction of explaining the subject to you or 
 them more fully than could possibly be done upon paper. 
 
 " I had the honour of showing my maps to the Duke of 
 Clarence, at the Woburn sheepshearing, and happened to 
 have my large map of Somersetshire with me, which I have 
 lately completed, as a specimen of what may be done upon 
 all the county maps in the kingdom. Sir John Sinclair 
 thought it a subject of great national importance, and that 
 the Board of Agriculture should be in possession of those 
 maps, and that I should be attached to the corps of engi- 
 neers (who are surveying the island), for the purpose of 
 connecting my survey of the strata with their large maps. 
 Sir John wished me to attend the next meeting of the Board 
 of Agriculture, and says he will do what he can for me. I 
 should be very glad if something of that sort could be done, 
 which would enable me to pursue the subject with some 
 better prospect of profiting by it than I have at present. 
 Everybody agrees that the mass of information which I 
 have collected is very great, and likely to be of public uti- 
 
47 
 
 lity ; but I find more difficulty in bringing it to market than 
 I expected. 
 
 "Mr. Townsend, who has very liberally furnished me 
 with the drawings of all the fossils, has informed me that it 
 will not cost less than three thousand pounds to bring out 
 the publication in two quarto volumes, which he says cannot 
 be sold for less than six guineas. 
 
 " The expense of such a publication is too great for my 
 circumstances, and the price of the work will probably pre- 
 clude many from becoming purchasers ; and there seems to 
 be a tardiness, amongst many of the great personages who 
 were expected to subscribe very liberally, that makes me 
 loth to engage with proper persons to engrave more of the 
 plates unless I could be sure of defraying the expense. 
 
 " I am convinced that every sensible man who shall in- 
 vestigate this subject, must know that a person in my situa- 
 tion has surmounted many difficulties in bringing it to its 
 present state of perfection, and the great loss of time and 
 train of expenses incurred in the course of fourteen years 
 of the best part of my life, which has been spent in this 
 pursuit, has so much injured my pecuniary circumstances, 
 as renders it very disheartening to proceed with a work 
 which still presents nothing but a train of expenses. 
 
 " And I have no doubt but you will agree with the rest 
 of my friends, that, if I begin to dispose of any part of it to 
 booksellers or engravers, I may fritter it away till the profit 
 of my labour will be reduced to nothing. Some of my 
 friends have advised me to get out the work in parts or 
 numbers, and I am much inclined to adopt that plan. I 
 have written a new Prospectus, which will shortly be printed, 
 in which I should be happy to have the liberty of making a 
 reference to your approbation of the work. 
 
 " I am, Sir, 
 " Your much obliged humble servant, 
 
 " WILLIAM SMITH." 
 " To Richard Crawshay, Esq., 
 Merthyr Tydvil, Glamorganshire." 
 
48 
 
 Mr. Crawshay's reply* follows : 
 
 " Merthyr Tydvil, Dec. 27, 1805. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, I have just laid my hand on your letter of 
 26th June, and am really glad to hear your fossils are all safe 
 and arranged to your liking in London. I have not visited 
 town this year, nor do I fix a time for doing so. 
 
 " I like Sir John Sinclair's idea of uniting you with the 
 corps of surveying engineers ; shall be very glad to hear it 
 has succeeded. I do not know what the difficulties are that 
 prevents your project being brought before the public, ex- 
 cept the 3000/. for' two quarto volumes, which, if well per- 
 formed, are invaluable. Supposing the subject explicitly 
 brought forward, as I expected it would from all the con- 
 versation I had with you, I supposed ere this, by subscrip- 
 tion, or by your and Mr. Townsend's united exertions, a 
 work would have been produced that would have promul- 
 gated a fund of rational amusement and national aggran- 
 dizement. 
 
 " Dr. T.'sf abilities may be inferior to Mr. Townsend's ; 
 but had you followed my recommendation, I really be- 
 lieve before now we should have had a work of great cele- 
 brity published, from which you would have had the satis- 
 faction of giving to the nation a new idea of raising an 
 additional source of revenue from the bowels of the earth. 
 I could dwell on the subject an hour more if my observa- 
 tions were likely to be attended with any advantage to you. 
 Send me your new Prospectus. If any reference to me will 
 serve you, you are welcome to do so, but I am too obscure 
 a person to have influence. 
 
 " I did not, at receipt of your letter, notice your wish 
 therein, or should have immediately replied ; and it is by 
 chance, from Dr. Hall asking me what you had done (or 
 
 * The original of this letter was presented to the Society of Arts in 
 1815, as a testimonial of the opinion entertained of Mr. Smith's labours 
 by one so competent to judge, on the occasion of the appropriation of a 
 reward from that Society for the publication of the first geological map of 
 England and Wales. 
 
 f The name of an eminent naturalist. 
 
49 
 
 left undone), that he had heard no more of you. He was, 
 I believe, with Lord Bute when I sent you to his Lordship. 
 I sincerely wish you well, and am your friend, R. C." 
 
 The project of uniting Mr. Smith to the corps of survey- 
 ing engineers alluded to in the above letters failed, pro- 
 bably because it was brought forward at too early a period* ; 
 and from this time ten years more of the most energetic 
 portion of Smith's life elapsed before the Map of the Strata 
 (already ten years old) was permitted to appear ; the enter- 
 prise of a private tradesman (Mr. Gary) accomplishing that 
 which had been in vain expected from princely patronage 
 and the sanction of national boards. 
 
 In the mean time, however, the spell which seemed to 
 bind Mr. Smith's energies, and prevent him from appearing 
 as an author, was broken, by the publication, in 1806, of a 
 Treatise on the Construction and Management of Water- 
 meadows. This work, undertaken at the suggestion of Mr. 
 Coke (to whom it is dedicated) and the Duke of Bedford, 
 describes in detail the new and valuable processes of irriga- 
 tion which the author was executing in all parts of the 
 kingdom, and specially calls attention to the great success of 
 the experiment on Prisley Bog. It has been long out of print. 
 
 The drainage of Prisley Bog (which Elkington had failed 
 to accomplish) was Mr. Smith's principal occupation during 
 his first visit to Woburn in 1801. It was an object of great 
 interest with Duke Francis to conquer this almost desperate 
 case, and improve the worthless surface of the bog ; and 
 his successor was gratified when Mr. Smith, after thoroughly 
 depriving the bog of stagnant water, converted it into valu- 
 able meadows, by conducting a running stream over the sur- 
 face. For this excellent work he received the medal of the 
 Society of Arts in 1805, and a full description of it is in- 
 serted in the ' Treatise on Irrigation' already mentioned. 
 
 These valuable processes of underground drainage and 
 
 * Thirty years later the scheme of constituting a geological branch of the 
 Great Ordnance Survey was revived with better success. This is now in full 
 operation under the direction of Sir H. T. De la Beche. 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 surface irrigation were performed (often on the same land 
 in succession) by Mr. Smith in many parts of the kingdom, 
 during several of the following years. Irrigation and drain- 
 ing were in fact directed by no other professional person to 
 any considerable extent, and Mr. Smith's practice extending 
 from Norfolk to Kent, and from Wales to Yorkshire, kept 
 him in continual excitement, and introduced him to the 
 familiar notice of many noble and distinguished persons, 
 who invariably were not only struck by his ability and prac- 
 tical skill, but captivated by his fearless enthusiasm in re- 
 commending and following out the study of the ' Stratifica- 
 tion.' His time was thus fully occupied in journeys (amount- 
 ing to 10,000 miles in a year) which enriched his knowledge 
 of the stratification, and in field labours which exemplified 
 the practical value of this knowledge. The details of these in- 
 numerable engagements, and others of greater magnitude, are 
 of no interest for the objects of this memoir, except in cases 
 which remarkably extended Mr. Smith's opportunities of ob- 
 servation, or produced results of much public importance. 
 
 One of these engagements commenced in 1801, by the 
 request of the proprietors of marsh lands in East Norfolk, 
 between Yarmouth and Happisburgh, which were not only 
 below the level of the rivers, and difficult to be drained, 
 but liable to be flooded by inundations from the German 
 Ocean, through BREACHES IN THE SAND HILLS, AMOUNT- 
 ING ALTOGETHER TO ONE MlLE IN LENGTH! In the face 
 
 of this dreadful enemy, it was proposed to drain sepa- 
 rately the marshes, by embankments to resist the in-rushing 
 sea, and by mills to reject the upland waters ; but Mr. Smith, 
 instead of undertaking such feeble projects for particular 
 districts, directly called attention to the necessity of first 
 stopping out the sea from the whole vast region of Marsh 
 land. (Report on Hickling Drainage, 1801.) His earnest 
 persuasions, repeated till Oct. 1804, finally prevailed. 
 
 The commissioners of sewers took up the matter, adopted 
 Mr. Smith's plans, and accomplished, almost in a single 
 summer (1805), the expulsion of the sea from seventy-four 
 parishes in Norfolk and sixteen in Suffolk, which, by an act 
 
51 
 
 of James L, 1610, entitled " The Norfolk and Suffolk Sea 
 Breach Act*," had been declared liable to contribution. 
 
 The district of country to which these remarks apply, re- 
 sembles almost exactly the portion of Yorkshire called 
 Holderness. It is a complicated area of rather elevated clay 
 lands (locally called 'hard' lands), ramifying or rising in de- 
 tached mounds within an expanded and tortuous surface of 
 'soft' marsh lands, below the level of high water, and com- 
 manding only a very limited fall to low water. These marshes, 
 naturally rich and improveable, capable of yielding excellent 
 grass land, in a county where natural pasture is valuable, 
 were undrained and unimproved; nor until the sea could be 
 effectually kept out was it to be supposed that any improve- 
 ments could be attempted. The sea coast offered a natural 
 barrier, which can be easily described. Where, as north of 
 Happisburgh, and for two miles to the south of it, the 
 ' hard ' land comes to the sea, its cliffs of diluvial mud are 
 slowly wasted and fall in ruins. This hard land retires from 
 the sea about a mile from Happisburgh lighthouse, and the 
 marsh lands succeed upon a long range of coast, scarcely in- 
 terrupted by the detached hill of Palling, to Winterton. 
 Along all this coast the sea might enter, and spread in broad 
 and winding sheets over 40,000 acres of land, but for a na- 
 tural barrier of sand-hills, thrown up into a narrow irregular 
 ridge by the action of the sea and the wind, and fixed by the 
 growth of the ' Marram,' or Arundo arenaria. The set of 
 tide along this coast is from the N.W., and this being the 
 line of the mud-cliffs and sand-hills, the whole of the sea- 
 barrier thus described is raked by the currents, and the ma- 
 terials of which it is composed are perpetually drifted to the 
 S.E., to augment the mass of sand-banks about Yarmouth 
 
 * The act recites, that " within six months now last past the sea hath 
 broken down and washed away the cliffs and higher grounds there, such 
 as they were, and laid them flat and level with the said inlands, and made 
 breaches so wide, that the sea hath broken in at every tide, and with every 
 sea-wind, into the very heart and body, as well of the said county of Nor- 
 folk as into some parts of the said county of Suffolk adjoining, which be 
 subject to the said overflows" "being grounds of themselves very rich/' 
 &c. &c. 
 
52 
 
 Haven. The wasting of the cliffs to the north supplies the 
 materials for the aggregation and renewal of the * sand- 
 hills,' also called * meal hills*,' or ' dunes,' or ' denes,' and 
 the whole coast is in motion. So long, however, as the 
 sand-hills maintain a continuous unbroken line, they offer 
 an effectual though variable barrier to the sea ; what they 
 have of this continuity and integrity is owing to the growth 
 of the valuable plant already named, for its roots spread 
 amongst and bind together the sand, and its 'bents' (stalks) 
 check the devastating action of the wind. Placed thus in un- 
 stable equilibrium,- the state of the sand-hills at any moment 
 expresses the balance of the integral effects of the sea-wind 
 and vegetation, and from time to time this balance is un- 
 favourable to the safety of the inland country ; for the wind 
 often conquers the marram, by heaping up sand more abun- 
 dantly where this plant grows the best ; inequalities are thus 
 occasioned; tempests succeed; the relatively depressed parts 
 of the sandy chain yield to the wind, receive the spray, 
 and admit unusually elevated waves of the sea. ' Gaps' or 
 'breaches' (fearful name!) are thus generated; the ocean, 
 swelled by north-west winds, rushes in ; the internal rivers 
 are choked by the simultaneous flooding of the Yare with 
 salt water ; the marshes are drowned, and years pass before 
 the soil recovers its natural state. The processes thus 
 sketched had gone on with various fluctuations and excited 
 frequent alarms, old breaches being filled by nature and 
 new ones opened, as the conflicting causes predominated. 
 In 1792 3 Mr. Faden measured nine gaps, amounting to 484 
 yards, opposite Horsey ; but in 1805 there were new ones 
 opened, and the whole, between Winterton and Happis- 
 burgh, measured nearly one mile ! 
 
 The way in which Mr. Smith set about the repairing of 
 these broken hills was eminently characteristic of his quali- 
 ties as an engineer. After considering a variety of plans 
 which had been proposed for stopping the breaches by 
 timber ! by stone ! by clay banks ! &c., he examined the 
 operation of the tides and storms on the coast, compared 
 * From the Welsh ' moel/ a round hill ? 
 
the levels of the high and low parts, and finally proposed to 
 make all the new artificial embankments as like as possible to 
 the natural embankments thrown up by the sea on the same 
 coast, to make them of the same materials, and to give them 
 such directions as might best shelter the new work by the 
 old. A plan so simple was almost rejected with ridicule, till, 
 by walking on the sea-shore and pointing out to his amazed 
 companions how ineffectual and short-lived was the resist- 
 ance offered by solid constructions to the rage of the sea, 
 and how permanent was the power of sloping banks of sand 
 and pebbles, in particular directions, to exclude the ocean 
 which had formed them, he convinced the most sceptical, 
 and compelled the most contemptuous to exclaim, " Oh, 
 that none of us should have thought of this before !" 
 
 The plan was indeed simple enough, and required almost 
 nothing but labour for successful accomplishment. Mr. 
 Smith chose slopes against the sea as moderate as any 
 part of the natural beach on that coast, viz. about twelve 
 yards horizontal for one yard elevation, the back or inland 
 slopes being steeper (four or five to one). By watching the 
 aggregation of sand and pebbles on the shore, he found 
 that, at particular seasons and by unusual storms, the bed of 
 the sea was disturbed, and the sand became covered by 
 pebbles or ' shingle' scattered with much uniformity. These 
 shingle-beds were effective in binding down the sand which 
 would otherwise have drifted with the wind, and he resolved 
 in this respect to imitate his great teacher Nature. Ac- 
 cordingly carts in great numbers were employed in removing 
 sand and making great mounds across the gaps, and then, 
 especially when the tides threw up * shingle/ the sandy bank 
 was sealed down with a bed of pebbles. On these unresist- 
 ing slopes the mightiest storms of the German Ocean now 
 break harmless, and a very slight annual charge is sufficient 
 to maintain the form and substance of the work. 
 
 It is needless to enlarge on the sagacity which thus in- 
 vented the simplest of all possible remedies for one of the 
 most dreadful of all evils. Nature's violence has here been 
 conquered by implicit obedience to her immutable laws ; the 
 
54 
 
 means of almost unlimited improvement of a vast breadth of 
 good land are in the hands of the owners ; a great boon has 
 been conferred on humanity, and a great example set of the 
 benefits which may be derived from a faithful observation of 
 nature. 
 
 After the sea breaches were effectually stopped, Mr. Smith 
 was able to suggest to the proprietors of the marsh lands 
 which had been thus benefited, effectual methods of drain- 
 ing (chiefly by mills throwing up the water into rivers) and 
 improving them. 
 
 In superintending the sea breach repairs and regulating 
 the assessments to pay for this work, and in the construction 
 of water-meadows for Mr. Coke and other persons, Mr. 
 Smith spent a portion of every year, from 1800 to 1809, in 
 Norfolk and Suffolk ; but other occupations were continually 
 requiring his presence in all parts of the kingdom, and gra- 
 tifying him with new views of the strata. 
 
 In Sept. 1802, we find him examining the ancient slaty rocks 
 of Wales in the vicinity of Dolymelynllwyn near Dolgelle, 
 on occasion of a visit to inspect Mr. Maddocks's successful 
 embankment across the Traethbychan at Tanyralt (Trema- 
 doc). He also ascended Snowdon with guides furnished by 
 Mr. T. Asheton Smith, examined the copper mine then at 
 work, and studied the slate quarries of Llanberis. Of this 
 journey he retained, in after years, the most vivid and pleasing 
 recollections, describing with enthusiasm the grandeur of 
 Cader Idris, and the magnificent view from the summit of 
 Snowdon at the rising of the sun. 
 
 In 1803, and for several years following, we find him en- 
 gaged as a mineral surveyor in Yorkshire, Lancashire, South 
 Wales, Somersetshire and Gloucestershire, establishing a 
 colliery at Torbock near Liverpool, directing a trial for coal 
 at Spofforth, and examining the geology of Witton Fell in 
 Yorkshire ; investigating the outcrops of coal in the vicinity 
 of Newent, the Forest of Dean, Nailsea, and Kidwelly ; 
 and constructing sea-banks at Laugharn. In 1809 he began 
 to execute the Ouse Navigation in Sussex; in 1810 he re- 
 stored the hot springs of Bath which had failed ; in 1811 he 
 
55 
 
 began to examine into the causes of leakage on the Kennet 
 and Avon Canalj and in his report on the best method of 
 obviating this mischief proposed a new set of operations to 
 supply the canal with water ; reported on trials for coal in 
 Buckinghamshire ; planned and surveyed improvements in 
 Kid welly Harbour ; in 1812 executed the Minsmere drain- 
 age in Suffolk. These and a hundred other professional 
 engagements, while they furnished the means and occasion 
 for that incessant travelling, without which no single man 
 could have accomplished so great a work as the ' Map of the 
 Strata of England and Wales,' left him no time to prepare 
 either maps or books for the press. 
 
 Careful inspection of the enormous load of maps and 
 papers relating to this period of Mr. Smith's history, has, 
 however, demonstrated that between 1799, when he first 
 contemplated a publication, to 1812, when this object was 
 fairly taken in hand, Mr. Smith was acting upon the Lin- 
 
 na?an maxim, 
 
 " Nulla dies sine linea," 
 
 for, at almost every point of rest in his undulating and rapid 
 career, he committed to paper and dated some note of the 
 day's observations of the direction, dip, and aspect of the 
 rocks he had passed over. The following is a specimen of 
 such observations at an early period of his inquiries : 
 
 " Feb. 6th, Cirencester to Bath, 1803. 
 
 " In crossing the Cotswold Hills from Cirencester to Bath, 
 we are above the upper rock to the thirteenth milestone, and 
 in part of this space, from Tetbury to Didmarton, the stuff 
 above it occupies the surface in many places, and produces 
 wheat and pasture-land, with plenty of water, slate and 
 wood, which give to the vicinity of Tetbury quite a different 
 appearance to many other parts of the Cotswold Hills. The 
 most perfect part of this upper stratum seems to be about 
 Doughton or I. P. Paul's, and a summit-surface then extends 
 towards Beverstone, which seems to be free from the com- 
 mon intersections even of dry valleys, and continues to Kings- 
 cote, and so on in one connected ridge of high ground till 
 it terminates in the bold promontory called Stinchcombe 
 Hill. This point, I believe, is composed of under rock and 
 
56 
 
 its accompanying sand ; but I am inclined to think that 
 the upper rock reaches as far as Kingscote, or perhaps to 
 the Gloucester road, which is some distance beyond it. The 
 clay and fuller's earth which lie between the two rocks evi- 
 dently produce the pasture-land which is about Nimpsfield ; 
 and this place is supplied with water from the springs which 
 these strata generally produce. All the streams which flow 
 from this ridge through the many deep vales in different di- 
 rections must have their source from the same stratum, and 
 I expect that this will be found to be the case with every 
 stream on the western side of the Cotswold Hills from 
 Minchin Hampton to Hawkesbury-Upton, where the two 
 rocks will be found to come very near together in the same 
 hill which constitutes the high ground from thence towards 
 Horton. The outlines of the two rocks then recede from 
 each other again and become much more distinct than I have 
 yet found them on any other part of the Cotswold Hills. 
 The upper rock between the thirteenth and fourteenth mile- 
 stone dips very considerably towards Badminton Park, and 
 has a very apparent outcrop in the dry freestone land near the 
 thirteenth milestone ; the fuller's earth and a bastard blue 
 clay, and the usual accompaniments of those strata*, then 
 plainly appear by the new plantations going down the hill, and 
 may be traced by the coldness of the surface and outline of 
 the upper rock, which, with two openings through it, runs 
 in a line very near to the Cross Hands and the turnpike road 
 very near Mr. C.'s park. It then returns toward Tormarton 
 (where it appears to have an opening through it), runs out 
 in a ridge at the south side of the park, has an opening 
 through it in the dip, which gives rise to a valley. Cold 
 Ashton, on the opposite side of this vale, plainly points out 
 
 * By the 'usual accompaniments' are probably meant the usual fossil 
 shells, especially Ostrea acuminata, here plentiful in the strata designated. 
 By ' upper' and ' under' rocks, the two oolites of Bath are designated. 
 The description here given of the ranges of these rocks is remarkably 
 exact, as I learn by Mr. Lonsdale's Map, and by the progress of the Ord- 
 nance Geological Survey in this district in 1843. The geologist who shall 
 be at the trouble to read this somewhat dry description of observations in 
 the field will require no further evidence to recognise in the author a ' great 
 original discoverer in English geology.' 
 
57 
 
 the line of its corresponding outcrop, which runs round the 
 point of the hill very near the cross ways on the road from 
 Marshfield to Bristol, then returns by the line of the cold wet 
 lands on the south side of the ridge between Cold Ashton 
 and Marshfield. Insulated parts of the upper rock very 
 evidently appear upon the east end of Huntrick's Hill, 
 Charmy Down and Little Salisbury, and to the left run out 
 in another broader part, which includes Toll Down, makes 
 another longer return toward Littleton, and leaves a narrow 
 opening between this line and its opposite outcrop, which 
 stretches from Littleton through Littleton Wood, and, cross- 
 ing the road by the turnpike, runs out a little way to the 
 right, and returns again to another vale between the part- 
 ing of the roads and Cold Ashton. The main line be- 
 fore described from Cold Ashton to Marshfield continues 
 in a connected line, which is deeply indented by the many 
 ramifications of the Catherine Stream until it joins the high 
 land at Culeron Down. The crop of this rock may then be 
 traced round by the high part of Mr. Wiltshire's land at 
 Culeron, &c. &c., until it joins the before-mentioned bank 
 on the north side of Cold Ashton, making one connected 
 line all round it, which renders this piece of the upper rock 
 as completely insulated as that on Lansdown or any other of 
 the smaller hills. If we now go back to the thirteenth mile- 
 stone and look over the face of the country again, it will be 
 readily perceived that the clayey strata of fuller's earth, &c., 
 before described as the source of streams on the western 
 side of the hills, have now become the source of streams which 
 run in a different direction. The sharp rise of the under 
 rock to the west, and the outline of the upper one to the 
 east, before described, form the first outlines of these little 
 hollows, many of which (though dry) may be properly called 
 the primitive source of brooks, rivulets and rivers." 
 
 Whenever opportunity offered, he possessed himself of 
 records of borings, natural and artificial sections, drew them 
 to a constant scale of eight yards to the inch, and coloured 
 them. From a mass of these sections, a few are selected. 
 The following account, drawn up in 1805, of the strata in 
 the now almost forgotten coal-field at Newent, may perhaps 
 
58 
 
 be consulted with advantage, if, as there may be reason to 
 advise, the gentry of that neighbourhood should resolve to 
 make an experiment to reach at a greater depth the coals 
 which were anciently worked near the surface. 
 
 BOWSDEN COALWORK 1 MlLE S.W. OF NfiWENT. 
 
 1. Gravel 
 
 
 Fathoms. Yds. Feet. In. 
 . .2100 
 
 
 
 
 2. Marl 
 
 
 . .1000 
 
 
 
 
 3. Red and White Rock . . . . 
 
 
 . .3100 
 
 4. Duns, '&c i 1. n 
 
 
 j..> 8000 
 
 
 
 
 5. Duns, &c. 
 
 . ( 
 
 . .4016 
 
 II. Coal. 
 
 Strata 
 Coals . 
 
 _ 3 ft. 4 
 
 19 1 6 9 ft. 4 coals. 
 1104 
 
 Total 
 
 20 
 
 1 10 
 
59 
 
 The manner in which Mr. Smith combined his measures 
 of the strata near Bath, may be understood from the follow- 
 ing sections, dating about 1800. 
 
 SKETCH OF STRATA ABOVE THE GREAT OOLITE. 
 
 Feet. 
 
 S3 
 
 
60 
 
 UPPER PART OF THE GREAT OOLITE. 
 
 Coral rag 
 
 - 
 
 Two hard beds\ -irgffffi 
 of loose oolite J " 
 
 The oblique stratification represented in these sections is 
 of frequent occurrence near Bath, and in Gloucestershire. 
 
 COMBE GROVE PIT. 
 
 l. Bastard freestone * 
 
 O V. 2. Shelly limestone 
 
 3. Sand and burs 
 
 4. Dark marl 
 
 5. Bastard fuller's earth 
 
 6. Dull black and selenite 
 
 7. Light blue 
 
 8. Fuller's earth , 
 
 f Hard grey stone 
 9 * \Tender stuff 
 
 10. Black marl 
 sunk into. 
 
 Feet. Inches, 
 
 ...... 6 
 
 
 
 1 9 
 6 
 
 Total 47 
 
 Profile sections were sketched on most of the roads which 
 Mr. Smith passed over, such as that given on the next 
 page, date 1805. 
 
61 
 
 t! S! 
 
 
 
 l\C 
 
62 
 
 Natural cliffs were always copied. 
 The faults in the New Red marls at 
 Aust Passage, the cliffs of * red rhab,' 
 as he considered them, at Minehead, 
 the ' red rhab ' of St. Ishmael and 
 Laugharn, the bent limestones on the 
 Menai, are examples. 
 
 While thus collecting from all sources 
 a body of authentic information, Mr. 
 Smith was still more active in endea- 
 vours to impress upon others the im- 
 portance of the great truths which 
 these facts tended to confirm. In this 
 he might be often thought tedious, but 
 never presuming, even when he ad- 
 dressed to his hearers arguments touch- 
 ing their personal interests; and re- 
 marks thus hazarded were sometimes 
 fruitful of great results. By mere ac- 
 cident he learned from Mr. P., then 
 resident at Tenby, the neglected state 
 of a large tract of ground belonging 
 to that gentleman in the south-west of 
 Ireland, on which there had never been 
 a plough ; and after in vain suggest- 
 ing attempts at agricultural improve- 
 ments, as well worthy of his attention, 
 and likely to gratify as well as benefit 
 him, he finally inquired if no subterra- 
 nean treasures had ever been sus- 
 pected on the estate. He was care- 
 lessly answered, that at some unknown 
 time previous, metallic ore had been 
 found, but that nothing of value was 
 now expected. Mr. Smith paused, and 
 advised the good-natured owner of this 
 neglected property to look well to a 
 matter of so much importance. The 
 
63 
 
 consequence was, the establishment of the now famous and 
 very profitable Alighies Copper Mine. 
 
 While engaged in the superintendence of the Ouse navi- 
 gation (1809), Mr. Smith was very frequently at Tilgate and 
 Cuckfield, and obtained from quarries at this last place 
 several bones of gigantic dimensions, which, with the rest 
 of his collection, were transferred in 1815 to the British 
 Museum. 
 
 The following notice on the geology of Sussex is worth 
 preserving : 
 
 " Scarborough, June 30, 1839. 
 
 " I became engineer to the Ouse navigation (the works 
 on which had been abandoned about fourteen years before), 
 and under my management it was extended from the vicinity 
 of Sheffield Place up to the Balcombe Road. Here I found 
 in the names of ' Hammer-ditch,' ' Furnace-pond,' Cinder- 
 hills,' &c., the traces of iron-works anciently carried on to 
 a great extent in Sussex : indeed, an elderly gentleman who 
 was one of the commissioners on this business had been 
 one of the Sussex ironmasters. 
 
 " In searching for stone to build the locks and bridges, 
 and by various geological excursions, I became acquainted 
 with the strata, and collected many of the Sussex fossils, 
 some of which were left unnoticed in my Stratigraphical 
 System, from scarcely knowing what stratum they belonged 
 to, and which I think is still dubious in much of the interior 
 of the Wealds. 
 
 " I was, however, sufficiently well acquainted with the 
 stratification to draw its great outlines on the large county 
 map for my friend Mr. Isaac Watt. This, prior to the 
 Ordnance Survey, was considered to be one of the best 
 county maps in England, patronized by, or made at the ex- 
 pense of, the Duke of Richmond. 
 
 " There being about this time a projected canal through 
 the northern side of the Wealden district surveyed by Mr. 
 Rennie, I took the levels for a line to connect this with 
 the Ouse navigation up the Balcombe Valley, by a tunnel 
 through the forest ridge, and spent some time unprofitably 
 

 in preparing a plan of it, which was deposited with the 
 Clerk of the Peace at Lewes." 
 
 In 1810 the Bath hot-springs had failed, and Mr. Smith 
 was hastily sent for to restore the water to the Baths and 
 the Pump-room. This alarming circumstance, already nearly 
 forgotten at Bath, put in exercise Mr. Smith's peculiar abili- 
 ties and patience. Not without much opposition, he was 
 allowed to open the hot-bath spring to its bottom, and thus 
 to detect the lateral escape for the water. The spring had 
 in no sense failed, but its waters flowed away in new chan- 
 nels. The men, in. the excavation thus opened, found the 
 heat oppressive; wax candles were employed for illumination, 
 and the gushing water raised the thermometer of Fahren- 
 heit to 119. In the channel of the spring was found a bone 
 of some ruminant coated with crystallized sulphuret of iron, 
 and a rolled flint of the kind commonly seen in the Wiltshire 
 chalk hills, and, like them, full of spongoid organization. 
 The operation was perfectly successful, and the cure com- 
 plete, the baths filling in less time than formerly. 
 
 The failure of these springs was by many persons attri- 
 buted to the sinking of a pit at Batheaston, which at this 
 time was in progress. The pit was sunk as a trial for coal, 
 after several years' discussion ; and it happened that, at 
 the same time that the Bath Corporation required Mr. Smith 
 to restore their springs, he was consulted by the projectors 
 of the ' Batheaston Colliery' as to the best means of over- 
 coming a mighty influx of water into the pit. It was said, 
 probably with truth, that the water which entered Bath- 
 easton pit at the bottom was of elevated temperature ; 
 and many persons connecting in imagination these opposite 
 events, which occurred at the same time, loudly expressed 
 their conviction that the Batheaston pit robbed the wells at 
 Bath, and ought to be filled up. A coal-pit at Batheaston 
 would have been a poor equivalent for the loss of the great 
 attraction to Bath ; and though the fears of a total failure of 
 the hot water might be groundless, still no one could pro- 
 nounce that the springs of such a nature, and rising evi- 
 dently from a great depth, perhaps on the line of a fault not 
 
65 
 
 discoverable at the surface, might not be affected by a pit 
 sunk three miles off. Perhaps these views really influenced 
 the fate of that once favoured coal experiment. Mr. Smith 
 found the means of plugging the bore-hole at the bottom of 
 the pit through ninety yards of water, and actually drained 
 it; but the undertaking was abandoned, and only a feeble 
 weeping of water now marks the place where this interesting 
 enterprise was begun. 
 
 The following remarks were written in 1832. 
 
 "Hackness, Nov. 8, 1832. 
 
 "But now to reminiscences in the vale of Bath. The 
 Bath Avon in its way to Bristol crosses two distinct and con- 
 siderably distant exposures of the coal-measures, and two 
 of the lias and two of the red ground, so that Tiverton 
 Mills and Keynsham Bridge are both upon lias ; therefore, 
 admitting the river to be an inclined plane with about forty 
 feet fall, the stratification in the bottom of the valley is evi- 
 dently in a greatly distorted state. 
 
 "Portions of each of these strata are considerably higher 
 on each side. The lias at Weston is higher, lower toward 
 the Crescent fields, and by declination south and eastward, 
 Bath Bridge is said to stand upon beds of that rock. 
 
 " The hot-springs in the city rise to the surface through 
 blue marl or lias-clay, their issue not more than fifteen or 
 twenty feet above the river. The discharge of hot water 
 at all the springs is said to be five hogsheads per minute. 
 
 "Batheaston Pit, ninety yards deep in this clay and stone, 
 may be forty or sixty feet higher. 
 
 " The water from the lias rock in the pit ascended to the 
 surface, and, with what was let up by boring the red rock 
 beneath, stopped a steam-engine of eighty or ninety horse 
 power. 
 
 "From these known circumstances at Batheaston, we may 
 infer that the Bath hot-springs have a deep source, and 
 rise as through a natural bore-hole in the blue marl to the 
 surface. Both these great discharges are on the same side 
 of the Avon, and both, of course, receive their supplies of 
 water from strata which, at a high angle of elevation, rise to 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 a considerable altitude in the hills north thereof. The coal 
 measures do not appear in these hills ; but beyond Lansdown 
 Hill, and only four miles north of Bath, coal has been 
 wrought at Wick, near the mountain limestone, which lime- 
 stone appears in scars still higher east thereof. In the deep 
 bottom, by Hamswell House, west or north-west of Bath- 
 easton pit, but much higher, there is an outburst of the 
 conglomerate portion of the red marl rock called millstone, 
 so that conductors for water in abundance towards Bath 
 and Batheaston are not wanting; arid hence, if the coal- 
 measures should thereabout be unconformably covered, it is 
 possible, by a singular combination of circumstances, that 
 the Bath waters may be a compound from the lias, red rock, 
 coal-measures and mountain limestone." 
 
 The diffusion of correct geological principles has nearly 
 removed from the chronicle of passing events the records of 
 trials for coal in districts of Great Britain where nature, in- 
 terpreted by science, forbids the discovery of that inestima- 
 ble treasure. In the early part of Mr. Smith's career such 
 experiments were common ; on one occasion he paid twenty- 
 four shillings for a parcel of micaceous sandstone, taken from 
 the old red formations of Herefordshire, and put in the mail- 
 bag, as specimens of the matter sunk through in a trial for 
 coal ! In the vicinity of Wincanton, at a time when he was 
 professionally employed in that country, there was in pro- 
 gress a ridiculous project of this kind at Bruham ; and, in 
 spite of remonstrances from Mr. Smith and his intelligent 
 friends, the speculators proceeded at a ruinous expense 
 through the clunch (now called Oxford) clay, Kelloway's 
 Rock, with " the small lobate oyster" (gryphcea dilatata), 
 till they entered rocks of the oolitic series. At Bagley 
 Wood, near Oxford, within sight of the university halls, 
 which then resounded with the fame of the attractive and 
 useful lectures of Buckland, an absurd experiment for coal 
 was begun in the Kimmeridge clay, and ended in a deplo- 
 rable sacrifice of fortune. 
 
 In 1811 Mr. Smith was called in to inspect and report 
 upon a singular series of such trials on the estate of Sir 
 
67 
 
 John Aubrey, at Brill, and had the melancholy satisfaction 
 of proving, by general geological truths and by special exa- 
 mination of the facts disclosed by the boring-rod, that the 
 trials ought never to have been commenced. Strange that, 
 while so many persons of easy faith should be persuaded by 
 idle conjectures and deceitful analogies to follow the guidance 
 of " a practical man," and search for coal where it is not, 
 others are so firmly incredulous that they deride all the po- 
 sitive facts and reasonable arguments advanced by " men of 
 science," which prove the probability of obtaining coal in a 
 variety of situations yet untried, and determine the best lo- 
 calities for the experiment ! 
 
 There is another subject of importance, which baffles not 
 only the " practical man," whose rules of conduct are merely 
 local, and only useful in cases strictly parallel and known to 
 be so, but even the scientific engineer of more enlarged 
 views, the course of subterranean drainage, and its effect 
 in producing land-slips, leaks, blow-holes, and breaches in 
 canals. Canals which cross the oolitic ranges of hills are par- 
 ticularly liable to these evils, from the regular alternation of 
 thick open-jointed rocks with impervious clays, and the com- 
 plicated sinuosities and denudations of the strata ; for the 
 consequence of these circumstances is the pouring out of in- 
 numerable springs in ranges along the hill-sides, where the 
 strata are regularly inclined, and in confused groups where 
 they are " faulted" or " slipped." The action of the springs 
 themselves contributes to generate such slips, and to con- 
 tinue for a long time the unquiet state of the ground when 
 once it has been put in motion, so that insecurity is almost 
 perpetuated. Moreover, the canals which cross such a 
 country are cut alternately through open-jointed and even 
 cavernous rocks, and closely water-tight clays. In the latter 
 strata the excavation itself is usually almost water-tight, but 
 in the long passage (which sometimes amounts to several miles 
 in length) across the limestone rocks, all the skill of the en- 
 gineer, supported by even lavish expenditure, often fails to 
 prevent the water from running away as fast as it enters. Such 
 canals, if they happen to have their " summit level" (as the 
 
 F 2 
 
68 
 
 Thames and Severn Canal at Salperton Tunnel), in these 
 rocks, are like the buckets of the Danaids, and with the water 
 goes the profit. In vain the Thames, raised from its source 
 by a mighty engine, is poured into such a thirsty canal, the 
 flood passes into the gaping rocks below, in spite of renewed 
 puddling and continual repairs. But this country presents still 
 another difficulty, in consequence of the very frequent cases 
 of slight derangements, small faults and slides, of portions 
 of rock, clay and sand, at the edges of the hills. These 
 displacements confuse the natural direction of the springs, 
 and enable them to destroy the resisting power of the arti- 
 ficially " puddled " canal. The springs thus circumstanced, 
 often short in their course and temporary in their flow, fill 
 or leave empty the subterranean chasms in the ground that 
 has moved, wash away sandy parts, press upwards against 
 the canal base, or laterally against its sides, weaken insensibly 
 its defence of artificially compacted clay, cause a " leak " 
 or a " breach," and let through with violence a portion or 
 even all the body of the water contained in that level of 
 the canal. 
 
 Inconveniences and losses from these causes on the Somer- 
 set Coal Canal, which Mr. Smith planned and executed across 
 the oolitic ranges, were in a great degree prevented by the 
 application of the general geological views which he pos- 
 sessed, and which more than supplied the want of that ex- 
 perience which no one possessed ; but the same causes pro- 
 duced disastrous effects on the Kennet and Avon Canal, to 
 which the Coal Canal is joined between Bradford and Bath. 
 In 1811, the evils thus occasioned had grown to be of serious 
 magnitude, and Mr. Smith was ordered to report on the sub- 
 ject of the springs in this portion of the canal with a view 
 to an efficient remedy. The Rev. Mr. Townsend, a member 
 of the committee of management, took great interest in the 
 investigation, and communicated to his old friend a remark- 
 ably clear summary of the evils, and some valuable sugges- 
 tions for overcoming them. 
 
 In his Reports on this subject (1812 to 1814) Mr. Smith 
 traces the natural circumstances above referred to, which, by 
 
69 
 
 their unfortunate combination, foiled the skill of the ablest 
 engineer of his day (Rennie), and rendered the masterly 
 works which he planned subject to grave accidents, from 
 which, in any other country, their admirable execution would 
 have entirely preserved them. By help of a geological map 
 of the line of the canal, he points out the circumstances 
 which rendered the " leaks and blows fatally common in cer 7 
 tain parts of the canal," and notices the minor "but not-to-be- 
 neglected influence of plants (like Equisetum palustre) and 
 small burrowing animals, which, by penetrating the banks or 
 bed, often originate leaks. Where the canal crosses the 
 loamy sand below the inferior oolite, the canal is in danger ; 
 for, in the first place, that sand is very apt to become cavern- 
 ous by the passing of water through it (as through the " fox 
 earth" of Dorsetshire), and thereby endanger the puddling ; 
 and next, when employed in the banks (or left without 
 puddling on the bed), it is apt to be the favourite habitat of 
 Eguiselum palustre, whose deep roots penetrate and render 
 it unsolid, and the resort of small animals, which perforate 
 to the water. Where the canal crosses the jointed rocks, 
 these give passage to water at one time and to air at another, 
 whenever they are the channels of merely temporary streams, 
 fed by rain, and ceasing with drought. What can be more 
 destructive to the puddles of a canal than to have them 
 washed in the winter by currents of water and dried in the 
 summer by currents of air ? If the canal from any cause 
 becomes short of water, its banks, on their internal surface, 
 are liable to crack, and thus the evil is augmented ; and 
 though great streams should be poured into a canal subject 
 to leaks on its bed or sides, this excessive supply may even 
 augment the evil by increasing the waste and friction through 
 such leaks. 
 
 The general remedy for all this is the entire interception 
 of all the springs which rise from a level above the canal 
 and pass below it through natural fissures and cavities. This 
 is a process requiring great skill and extensive experience ; 
 some of the springs which it is most important to intercept 
 come not to the surface at all in the ground above the canal, 
 
70 
 
 but flowing naturally below the surface through shaken or 
 faulty ground, or along masses of displaced rock which extend 
 in long ribs from the brows down into the vale, emerge or at- 
 tempt to emerge in the banks of the canal ; these no ordinary 
 surface-draining will reach, and none but a draining engineer, 
 well-versed in the knowledge of strata, can successfully cope 
 with such mysterious enemies. But Mr. Smith, confident 
 in his great experience, not only proposed, by a general 
 system of subterranean excavation, to intercept all these 
 springs, and destroy their power to injure the canal, but fur- 
 ther, to regulate and equalize their discharge, so as to render 
 them a positive benefit. This he would have accomplished 
 by penning up the water in particular natural areas or 
 pounds which really exist in that and other countries be- 
 tween lines of " fault," or certain ridges of clay (" horses") 
 which interrupt the continuity of the rock and divide the 
 subterranean water-fields into limited districts, separately 
 manageable for the advantage of man by the skilful adapta- 
 tion of science. Such a noble project was then and is now 
 little adapted to meet the views of ordinary and uninstructed 
 men, but it has been exemplified on a small scale by ar- 
 rangements designed by Mr. Smith for supplying Kirkby 
 Lonsdale and Scarborough with water, and is really a simple 
 and easy deduction from geological data *. Its importance 
 will become evident at a future time ; but to embody a va- 
 luable theoretical truth in wise and economical application 
 belongs only to minds of a high order, and for these (in the 
 present state of public opinion regarding the value of sci- 
 ence) the quiet fields of philosophical research are more 
 attractive than the struggle for practical results, against op- 
 position and prejudice, in the toilsome arena of daily life. 
 
 We are now arrived at a critical period of Mr. Smith's 
 career, the recommencement of his efforts for producing a 
 part of the great work on which he had for twenty years 
 been occupied. " The end of 1812 brought me a proposal 
 from Mr. Cary to publish my Map of the Strata. Terms 
 
 * See an account of the arrangements at Scarborough, drawn up by 
 Mr. Smith, in Phil. Mag. 1827. 
 
71 
 
 were soon settled, and the work commenced with the begin- 
 ning of January 1813." (MS.) 
 
 On looking back through several years of his professional 
 toil, it might almost appear as if, while devoting the profits 
 of that toil, and selling his small patrimony to eke out his 
 earnings, in order that he might be enabled to visit and 
 examine the most remote parts of the island, Mr. Smith was 
 forgetful of his own reputation and his promises to the public, 
 and intent only on gratifying at all risks an indomitable and 
 feverish desire to observe and know the structure of his 
 country. This supposition would, however, embrace only 
 half the truth : it is true that Mr. Smith was discouraged 
 by several events, such as the ill success of the far-advanced 
 scheme of publication with Debrett ; the loss of the Duke 
 of Bedford ; the unsuccessful, or at least inconclusive ap- 
 peal to the Board of Agriculture ; and the death of Mr. 
 Crawshay. But yet he was constantly endeavouring to 
 burst the gloom which straitened means and wearisome 
 business spread over his prospects : he employed an artist 
 to draw, and another to engrave select examples of his 
 fossils, and coloured several copies of maps and sections in 
 hopes of some favourable occasion to bring them forth. 
 Meantime circumstances of great importance and signifi- 
 cance had happened. In 1807, the Geological Society of 
 London was formed, and several of his earliest friends were 
 admitted honorary members thereof, while he was almost 
 unnoticed, except by visits from Mr. Greenough, the Presi- 
 dent, Sir James Hall, and a few other members, to examine 
 his collections in Buckingham-street (March, 1808). Mr. 
 Sowerby began (1808) to prepare drawings for his work 
 on the Mineral Conchology of Great Britain ; Mr. Farey, 
 having gained the patronage of the Board of Agriculture, 
 proposed and executed a Mineralogical Survey of Derby- 
 shire (1811) ; and in 1812 appeared Mr. Townsend's * Cha- 
 racter of Moses.' 
 
 Notwithstanding these exciting motives to activity, Mr. 
 Smith's own pecuniary means were really so feeble, even 
 aided as they had been by the constant liberality and en- 
 
72 
 
 couragement of Sir Joseph Banks and a few other friends 
 of science, that the preparation of a great arid costly Map 
 of England and Wales was entirely beyond his power, and 
 his spirit must have sunk in unequal conflict with accumu- 
 lating difficulties but for the courage and resolution of Mr. 
 Gary. The maps of this eminent engraver had for a long 
 time enjoyed the highest reputation, and it was upon the 
 large map of England which he had published that Mr. 
 Smith had collected and arranged the fruits of twenty years' 
 inquiry, marking only the exact points, or drawing only the 
 limited lines which were really ascertained. On these maps, 
 full of names and designations of political geography, 
 colouring of the lines of strata was impracticable ; and Mr. 
 Gary undertook the drawing and engraving of a new and 
 very elegant large map*, which, instead of political divi- 
 sions, should be richly marked by names of natural districts, 
 and by a full delineation of the innumerable small streams, 
 whose distribution is an important feature of physical geo- 
 graphy. Both in respect of these names and the terms to 
 be employed in distinguishing the groups of strata coloured 
 in his map, Mr. Smith was a good deal embarrassed, as the 
 following notice shows : 
 
 "Scarborough, May 17, 1839. 
 
 " For several years after the foundation of the earth's 
 history was securely laid, we had no words for the science, 
 -no language in which we could convey our ideas ; its present 
 comprehensive name of Geology remained unnoticed in dic- 
 tionaries and unuttered in England, and usage had scarcely 
 settled whether the word strata should not have an s ap- 
 pended ; but how numerous are now the words from the 
 dead languages which geology has revived and brought into 
 common use all over the world! 
 
 " Much doubt remained for a long time whether the 
 science, like chemistry, should not have a language of its 
 own ; and I, so very incompetent to the task, thought 
 much about a new nomenclature, and have been at different 
 times strongly urged to it by deep-learned men ; but having 
 
 * In fifteen large sheets, altogether 8 ft. 6 in. high and ft. 2 in. wide. 
 
73 
 
 dictated, off-hand, in the plain language of the country, a 
 tabular view of the science to my two first pupils, the Rev. 
 Benjamin Richardson and the Rev. Joseph Townsend, that 
 crude manuscript, without any revision whatever, was faith- 
 fully transcribed from one to another, and soon despatched 
 to remote parts of the world. 
 
 "The new cultivators of the science found, as I had done, 
 the necessity of accommodating their language to those in 
 the country from whom they had to collect the facts ; and 
 so, in transmitting by the press the knowledge acquired, 
 some old Saxon and British words have been brought into 
 use ; the further advantage of the science in explaining the 
 many descriptive names of places, and the circumstantial 
 history of Britain, is yet to be developed. I had long been 
 doing much in this way, when circumstances (about 1813) 
 gave me the advantage of great aid from my learned and 
 good friend Henry Jermyn, Esq., of Sibton Abbey, who 
 was then compiling a history of Suffolk. 
 
 " We fortunately became coadjutors in draining the great 
 level of Minsmere Marshes, he being one of the Commis- 
 sioners and I the engineer. 
 
 " The writing on my great map being then required by the 
 engraver, I told him my views of introducing, as far as pos- 
 sible, only the most descriptive names, which, to him, was a 
 new view of their derivation, and we presently went to work 
 in his library ; I having a copy of Gary's Map spread out 
 on the carpet, while he turned to his valuable collection of 
 the works of old authors ; and thus did we proceed in mark- 
 ing the names to be introduced on the map, and at the same 
 time each of us marking the corresponding name in his own 
 copy of Gary's ' Index Villaris.' 
 
 " In those gleams of new light thrown on the dark pages 
 of our history, we had many pleasant discussions ; for, in 
 Wales, I had picked up the meaning of many British names 
 of places ; and the jocular barrister would sometimes laugh 
 most heartily at some of my explanations." 
 
 While Mr. Gary was engraving the map, business in sur- 
 veying some of the collieries of the Forest of Dean, in com- 
 
74 
 
 pleting the drainage of a large tract of marshes at Minsmere 
 near Dunwich, in Suffolk, and in draining and improving 
 some property of Mr. Arbuthnot in Northamptonshire, and 
 other engagements in Kent, Wiltshire, and Somersetshire, 
 contributed to the completion of his great work. Of these 
 professional labours it is only necessary to notice the bold 
 and remarkable plan of drainage by which the Minsmere 
 Marshes were enabled effectually to discharge their super- 
 abundant water into the open sea through a gravelly beach. 
 This was accomplished (in 1814) by bringing to one point 
 close to the beach -the great discharging drains, and uniting 
 their currents in a hexagonal channel or well, from which a 
 large cast-iron pipe was laid right through and deeply buried 
 in the pebbles and sand, which were the natural barrier 
 against the sea. This pipe was of course stopped by the 
 sea rising at every tide, and often buried at its mouth by the 
 accumulated load of "shingle" and sand thrown up by the 
 waves. But on the turn of the tide, the pent-up inland wa- 
 ter gradually made its appearance by the opening of a pair 
 of doors in the upper part of the tube ; then a second, and 
 afterwards a third pair of valves was opened by the force of 
 the water, which soon left the marsh ditches and swept away 
 the accumulated pebbles from the aperture of the tube. In 
 process of time such a tube may be expected to become in 
 parts converted to plumbago, but the iron removed as oxide 
 may cement the surrounding pebbles into a mass more du- 
 rable than the original tube. 
 
 According to a custom which it is pleasing to record, the 
 observations he made at Wold Farm in Northamptonshire 
 were communicated to his much-loved friend at Farley in 
 the following letter, which also preserves some other in- 
 teresting particulars of their confidential intercourse : 
 
 " London, Feb. 11, 1813. 
 
 " DEAR RICHARDSON, I have lately been into Northamp- 
 tonshire on business for the gentleman who franks this. The 
 estate is near Thrapston, on the crop of the cornbrash, and 
 a part of the strata above and below it. There are some 
 novelties in the appearance, which leads me to suspect the 
 
. 75 
 
 accuracy of our knowledge of the cornbrash. They had a 
 rock opened for building- stone about six feet thick, covered 
 with blue and yellowish tenacious clays containing many 
 fossils, but this did not satisfy me ; and about twenty feet 
 higher I found another rock, by sinking and boring, which 
 contains an immense quantity of water. This I traced for a 
 quarter of a mile, considerably covered with clay, and in 
 other parts so completely covered with alluvial matter (from 
 the chalk hills) as not to be found for some miles. 
 
 " The rock which I discovered is clearly the upper part 
 of the cornbrash in small thinnish stones, hard and grayish 
 within, and rough on the surface. The most remarkable 
 fossils were the large-ribbed oyster (Ostrea marshii], some- 
 what like our hogs-ear oysters at Combe. 
 
 " I have the satisfaction to inform you that the large plates 
 of my Map of Strata are nearly finished. Sowerby is en- 
 graving some of my fossils, and I have had a much better 
 offer from a bookseller to publish the first quarto volume 
 than I expected. 
 
 " As the season for a revisal of the locality of indigenous 
 plants is just approaching, I hope you will not forget to 
 make a complete list of them on each stratum. This, with 
 your able assistance, would form a most interesting chapter, 
 and would serve to draw the attention of many to the sub- 
 ject of strata who probably might otherwise never think 
 of it. Hoping Mrs. R. and friends are well, I remain, 
 
 " Yours truly, WM. SMITH." 
 
 " Rev. B. Richardson, Farley." 
 
 In 1814 some portions of the Map were completely co- 
 loured, particularly four sheets of the vicinity of Bath, per- 
 haps the most varied and beautiful sheets that have ever 
 appeared in geological colours ; and Mr. Smith was allowed 
 an opportunity of explaining them, or rather of delivering a 
 lecture upon them, before the President (Lord Hardwicke) 
 and other members of the Board of Agriculture, at the time 
 that the allied sovereigns were entering London* How the 
 auditors kept their places under this excitement is not 
 known, but one of them, Benjamin Hall, Esq., M.P. for 
 
76 
 
 Glamorganshire, son-in-law of Mr. Crawshay, then deceased, 
 a gentleman who took much interest in the proceedings of 
 the Royal Institution, requested a second and private inter- 
 view. He then reminded Mr. Smith of the strong friendly 
 interest which had always been felt in the progress of his 
 researches by Mr. Crawshay, who had subscribed 100 to- 
 ward the publication of them, and had paid half of this 
 sum ; he expressed his own desire to complete Mr. Craw- 
 shay's wishes, and to accompany the payment by an addi- 
 tional subscription on his own part. Sir Joseph Banks, 
 Mr. Coke, the Duke of Bedford, Lord Hardwicke, and some 
 other eminent individuals, also contributed to soften the dire 
 aspect of utter poverty which now in the very crisis of scien- 
 tific success began to frown upon the author of the 'Map 
 of the Strata/ 
 
 In prosecuting engagements of a professional nature in 
 1814, Mr. Smith was much in Cheshire, surveying coal- 
 mines, &c.; in the vicinity of Lynn (inspecting sea-banks); 
 in Suffolk, Kent, the Forest of Dean and Somersetshire ; 
 but the greater part of the year was occupied in the hard 
 work of completing the ' Map of the Strata.' 
 
 It was very trying work for the publisher as well as the 
 author. The basis of the Map, as already explained, was 
 in many respects peculiar ; the colouring of it was more so. 
 Instead of the flat colouring ending in narrow defined edges 
 usually employed for maps, Mr. Smith introduced a peculiar 
 style of full tints for the edges of the strata, softened into 
 the paler tint employed for the remainder of the area which 
 they occupied on the surface. This new style of colouring 
 gave a picturesque effect to the map, but required more 
 than usual skill and patience to be correctly executed, and 
 occasioned great trouble in examining the copies. The co- 
 louring of the map was thus rendered more expensive than 
 had been anticipated, and notwithstanding Mr. Gary paid 
 liberally for the labour, it was not always at first properly 
 performed. 
 
 At length the difficulties inseparable from such a task 
 were so far overcome, and this enormous labour was so far 
 
77 
 
 completed, that a coloured map of the strata of England 
 and Wales was submitted to the consideration of the So- 
 ciety of Arts, supported by various testimonials of its gene- 
 ral accuracy and value, in April and May, 1815*. The re- 
 sult was the award of the premium of 50, which had been 
 in vain offered for very many years for a work of this de- 
 scription a reward which Mr. Smith might have claimed 
 long ago, had not an honest desire to produce his work 
 complete withheld the attempt. The Map was published 
 on the 1st of August, 1815, dedicated to Sir Joseph Banks, 
 and from that hour the fame of its author as a great original 
 discoverer in English geology was secured. Would that 
 this epoch of his revived and enlarged reputation had also 
 been the dawn of more prosperous fortunes, or that, satis- 
 fied with the degree in which he had accomplished his 
 gigantic task, he had left to others the completion of his 
 work, and devoted himself for a time to even the humblest 
 of those professional labours by which he had been at least 
 supported through oppressive difficulties, and by which he 
 must have already grown comparatively rich but for the in- 
 cessant drain of money in following up discoveries which no 
 living man could reasonably hope to complete ! If this be 
 censured as the scholium of a feebler mind and less fervid 
 temperament than that which led Mr. Smith through his 
 mighty enterprise, some allowance may be made for the 
 feeling of the writer, who in this year, at too early an age, 
 began to enter the shadow of those calamities in which his 
 revered relative was plunged. 
 
 Science, indeed, is a mistress whose golden smiles are 
 not often lavished on poor and enthusiastic suitors. Even 
 in these days, when the Pension List has been opened to 
 literature and science, the rewards are not measured by age, 
 
 * " May 14, 1815. Began at nine in the morning with an artist to co- 
 lour for me the first printed copy of the 'Map of the Strata' on canvas. 
 May 22, 1815. Finished colouring theirs* 'Map of the Strata* on can- 
 vas. May 23, 1815. Attended a meeting of the Board of Agriculture 
 with the first finished copy on canvas of my ' Map of the Strata/ " MS. 
 Diary. 
 
78 
 
 genius or poverty ; the march of knowledge amongst the 
 community is encouraged by the grants to individuals, but 
 leaders and veterans in the ranks of knowledge can scarcely 
 be thought rewarded by quarterly grants of 12 10s. and 
 25 for the short term of their natural lives. In 1815 the 
 name of " scientific pensions " was not coined, but there 
 were not wanting persons of station, knowledge and huma- 
 nity, who, esteeming Mr. Smith and admiring his solitary 
 and ceaseless industry, exerted themselves to save him from 
 the sad fate which seemed to await him. 
 
 The time for a strenuous exertion was indeed come. 
 Geology had kept him poor by consuming all his profes- 
 sional gains; the neglect of his employers too often left 
 these unpaid : in such a condition one unfortunate step was 
 ruin, and that step was made. On the property which he 
 had purchased near Bath, and which he had greatly im- 
 proved, he was tempted to lay a railway for bringing the 
 freestone of Combe down to the Coal Canal, to open new 
 quarries of this stone, and to establish new machinery for 
 cutting and shaping it for buildings. The project, which 
 looked well at first, failed utterly by the unexpected defi- 
 ciency of the stone, on whose good quality the whole success 
 depended. The abandonment of this cherished scheme was 
 followed by the compulsory sale of the still more cherished 
 property, a load of debt remained to be discharged, and the 
 miserable effects fell heavily on others besides himself. 
 
 Such things are common in the lives of men, but they are 
 not often encountered by so resolved and patient a spirit as 
 that of Mr. Smith. One who saw the struggle may boldly 
 say this, because there can be no other motive for mention- 
 ing private and personal griefs but to show forth the charac- 
 ter of the mind which could firmly bear and overcome them. 
 As a means of reducing his difficulties he proposed to sell 
 that geological collection which had been so much prized, 
 and through the assistance of some friends a communication 
 was opened with the Treasury. Two gentlemen being de- 
 puted to examine the collection, reported favourably, and 
 their Lordships were pleased to authorise the purchase, in 
 
79 
 
 order that the specimens might be fitted up in the British 
 Museum. There was also some defined notion of engaging 
 Mr. Smith's services at the Museum to take charge of and 
 explain the geological principles which this collection was 
 intended to illustrate ; but this project came to nothing. 
 The sum of money granted for the purchase was 500 
 (January 1816). By a later order the further sum of 100 
 was allowed for an additional series obtained from North 
 Wilts, Essex, and other localities, to complete the series 
 (February 1818); and 100 was granted to compensate for 
 trouble of arrangement, making catalogues, &c. The whole 
 sum was 700 ; the number of species supposed to be 693, 
 and of specimens 2657. The authorities at the Museum 
 assigned first one and then another apartment to the col- 
 lection, and it was arranged according to the peculiar views 
 of the framer ; but the Museum then possessed no depart- 
 ment of "palaeontology" or " geology," and there was a dif- 
 ficulty in making these specimens, which were arranged on 
 sloping shelves, to represent the strata, a part of the series 
 of objects open to the public. The present state of this 
 "the first stratigraphical collection" ever made, is unknown. 
 In 1817, a portion of the descriptive catalogue of the col- 
 lection sent to the British Museum was published under the 
 title of "Stratigraphical System of Organised Fossils" in 
 which the fossils collected from the British strata, as far 
 down as the " marlstone," are mentioned, with careful no- 
 tices of the localities. Curious coloured tables are added, 
 the first of the kind ever published, showing the geological 
 distribution of particular groups. In this year also was is- 
 sued the first number of another work, entitled "Strata 
 Identified by Organised Fossils" consisting of numerous 
 figures of fossils engraved by Sowerby, and printed on 
 paper to correspond in some degree with the natural hue 
 of the strata. This remarkable work reached its fourth 
 number (only seven were proposed). The publication of it 
 was undertaken by Mr. Sowerby, in consequence of an ar- 
 rangement by which William Lowndes, Esq., of the Tax- 
 office, a very strenuous and judicious friend of Mr. Smith, 
 
80 
 
 advanced 50 to pay for the cost of the first number. The 
 expense of this work left to the author very little chance of 
 profit. Mr. Sowerby estimated the cost of each number 
 at 50; the gross sale price, supposing the whole (250 
 copies) to be sold, would yield 93 15*., from which the 
 expenses of publication, bookseller's charges, &c., were to 
 be deducted. 
 
 Now also began the publication, by Mr. Gary, of a large 
 series of geological sections and county maps, coloured upon 
 the same system as the great Map of England and Wales, 
 and carrying out to greater minuteness the delineation of the 
 boundaries and areas of strata. This series extended to 
 twenty-one English counties, including in four sheets a large 
 and valuable map of Yorkshire. 
 
 The practical applications of new discoveries in science 
 sometimes extend faster and further than the knowledge of 
 the general principles on which they depend. A correct and 
 generalized knowledge of the nature, succession, and posi- 
 tion of strata, in any given region, is a necessary antecedent 
 to correct general practice in draining land and in obtaining 
 supplies of water in new situations, but special cases occur 
 in which drainage can be accomplished and water obtained 
 by the help of experience and analogy. This has been fully 
 shown by the common process of sinking Artesian wells, 
 which are successfully repeated in many districts where an 
 accidental or random experiment had succeeded before. 
 But to direct the attempt for such wells in new situations re- 
 quires the aid of science, as distinguished from experience. 
 
 A. remarkable exemplification of these views occurred in 
 18 16, in the vale between Swindon and Wotton Basset, on 
 the line of the Wilts and Berks Canal. The Canal Com- 
 pany had been much inconvenienced by the scarcity of water 
 to feed their own summit level and supply the down lockage 
 of the North Wilts Canal, and being much restricted in the 
 use of the natural streams, they commenced, without geo- 
 logical advice, a well, or pit, to obtain water from below the 
 surface. The pit reached the depth of about 40 yards, 
 and a boring had been continued about 40 yards deeper, 
 
81 
 
 without success ; Mr. Smith was then appealed to for ad- 
 vice in respect of further proceedings. The investigation 
 which now followed is both instructive and monitory. Part 
 of it may be given in Mr. Smith's own words, as a specimen 
 of his reports on business. 
 
 "Swindon, April 13, 1816- 
 
 " In order to form a correct opinion of the success of the 
 experiment for water now going on by the side of the 
 Wilts and Berks Canal, I have particularly examined the 
 nature of the earth sunk and bored through, and endea- 
 voured by local observations to ascertain the extent of the 
 stratum now penetrating, and the nature of the rock be- 
 neath, which is expected to produce the supply of water 
 required. 
 
 " The stratum in which the pit has been sunk to the 
 depth of 46 yards, and bored into near 50 yards deeper, 
 is chiefly a tenacious clay, containing at certain depths 
 layers of the Septarium or Ludus Helmontii, very similar 
 to those from which Parker's Roman cement is made. 
 
 " These stony nodules the sinkers have called rock, but 
 no regular rock has yet been found, nor is there any hope 
 of finding any until the whole stratum of clay is penetrated. 
 The depth of such a perforation can only be judged of by 
 similar experiments for coal and water in various places 
 along the course of this extensive stratum. Here the depth 
 was, of course, expected to be great, from the known depth 
 of several deep wells in the neighbourhood, all of which 
 produced water which ascended to their tops ; and the 
 deepest and nearest to this experiment having done so and 
 continued to overflow ever since it was sunk, afforded data 
 sufficient for such a proceeding. Besides the water found 
 at Mr. King's of Mannington Farm, I find that water has 
 been obtained at another farm of his, and at Costar and 
 Whitefield, along the course of the same clay-ridge which 
 extends to Wotton Basset ; and that at three of these wells, 
 like that of Mr. Edwards's well (at Even Swindon), the water 
 is of a mineral quality. All of them, I am informed, have a 
 copious supply of water, and stand full to the surface, or 
 
nearly so, which proves the original source or head of the 
 water to be on high ground. This my extensive and long- 
 continued observations on the strata led me to expect; and 
 the order of the strata is that which I have always thought 
 it to be, a thick stratum of clay overlying the coral rag and 
 upper oolite rocks, which crop out or appear on the surface 
 at Wotton Basset. 
 
 " To apply this general knowledge of the strata to the situ- 
 ation in question, I have particularly examined the outcrops 
 and extent of surface occupied by that stratum of limestone, 
 as much of the success of the present experiment must de- 
 pend upon the extent and cavities for water in the stratum 
 which underlies the clay. 
 
 " The surface of this rock about Wotton Basset is very 
 narrow and mterlayered with clay, but between Lidyard and 
 Purton much more extensive and absorbent, terminating 
 about the latter place on the borders of the river Roy, in long 
 narrow ridges sloping to the east, with a partial declination 
 toward the south or south-west, which has a tendency (with 
 the other outliers of the rock) to form a basin or trough, 
 whose deepest part is near the present boring-hole, and 
 consequently the greatest quantity of water which the rock 
 will produce may be there expected. Thus far is the 
 theory of finding water at that situation correct, but there 
 may be some practical objections to the quantity it will pro- 
 duce : 
 
 " 1st. The top part of the rock is covered, and frequently 
 interlayered with clay. 
 
 " 2nd. The whole rock is not above 20 or 30 feet thick., 
 " 3rd. It has but few open joints, and those not very 
 large. 
 
 " Consequently the faults in the declination of these strata 
 to the east or south-east may frequently interrupt the gene- 
 ral descent of water to one point in the deep, and occasion 
 considerable partial discharges of the water absorbed, as I 
 found in the little valley below Purton. 
 
 " Yet this copious discharge from one or two hundred 
 acres of land serves rather to prove how much the re- 
 
83 
 
 mainder of the rock, which has no visible discharge, may 
 be expected to produce. 
 
 " Water will most probably soon be found, which may be 
 expected to rise to the surface, but with such a head upon 
 it, the discharge will be slow unless it be assisted by ma- 
 chinery, and the natural apertures at the bottom of the pit 
 enlarged by some tunnelling into the rock ; all of which is 
 very practicable. Should there be any variation in the quan- 
 tity of water, it is generally, under such circumstances, most 
 abundant in summer. " WM. SMITH." 
 
 These predictions were verified. The clay was passed, 
 the coral rag and oolite were entered, and in the upper part, 
 consisting of a few feet of compact rock interlaminated with 
 thin clays, only a moderate addition of water was experi- 
 enced. The workmen proceeded to sink the pit to this rock 
 and to bore deeper, and, as Mr. Smith foretold, the quantity 
 of water augmented continually, till the well altogether 
 reached 87 yards in depth, the lowest 5 yards being bored 
 through rock. The supply was found to be considerable ; 
 the uprushing water filled 15 or 18 feet of the well with 
 sand brought from below the limestone rock, and the assist- 
 ance of a steam-engine was required to prosecute the still 
 incomplete experiment. The water rose in the well, in De- 
 cember 1817, through a bore-hole of 3 inches only, 23 yards 
 1 foot in 26 hours, notwithstanding the most active efforts 
 of the horses employed, and the ultimate success of the ex- 
 periment appeared probable. The geological investigation 
 had fully proved the continuity of the oolitic rock, and as- 
 certained that it was sufficiently expanded on the surface 
 to gather a good supply of water from rain. The access of 
 the water treasured in its subterranean area to the base of 
 the well seemed to be free, and Mr. Smith believed that 
 only one thing remained to be done, viz. to drive headings 
 or water-levels below the rock, so as to command the streams 
 flowing in the fissures through a sufficient breadth of ground. 
 The following was his plan. 
 
 " The first sudden rise of water into the well through 
 
84 
 
 such a small aperture, and the subsequent rush of water 
 through the sand above referred to, shows that the water 
 comes freely to this hole ; but to obtain a supply sufficient 
 for the regular work of a 50-horse power engine will re- 
 quire headings driven in the level course of the stratum 
 which produces the water, unless the natural working of 
 the water through the sand, with an enlarged aperture, 
 should of itself make a sufficient aperture. Headings may 
 be driven in this loose sand, under such a rock roof, to any 
 extent and at a moderate price. Such subterraneous cavi- 
 ties or headings, if made capacious enough to hold from 
 10 to 20 locks full,' would serve as regulators between the 
 flowing of the spring and the inequalities of consumption." 
 
 To what extent this was performed does not appear in 
 the documents which Mr. Smith has preserved. In 1820, 
 however, the supply of water was found to be very limited, 
 and the experiment was abandoned. The section on page 
 85 correctly represents the principal facts of this curi- 
 ous case, which maybe thus summed up: 1. The well 
 was sunk and bored about 80 yards in clay, without water, 
 except a small chalybeate spring at 14 yards. 2. Mr. Smith 
 was then consulted, and upon general principles declared 
 that no great quantity of water would be found till a jointed 
 rock was pierced. 3. That rock he declared would be 
 found by continuing the experiment, and would yield water. 
 4. This was found correct, but either from an insufficient 
 subterranean extension of the works, and from the compara- 
 tive thinness of the oolitic rock (only 21 feet in this well), or 
 from some other peculiarity of the ground, the supply failed. 
 It arose perhaps from the circumstance that only a narrow 
 breadth of the rock, inclosed between small faults, conveyed 
 its watery stores to this pit and was soon exhausted ; it is 
 certain, from the height to which the water rose, that it was 
 pressed upon by a column whose effective weight reached 
 nearly to the surface ; and if the headings alluded to by 
 Mr. Smith had been boldly driven right and left, as in a 
 colliery, it is probable that a large and constant stream 
 might have been found and the experiment have been finally 
 
CO 
 
 5 
 
 H 
 tf 
 O 
 fc 
 
 CO 
 
86 
 
 successful. This reasoning was employed by Mr. Smith in 
 1811 and 1812, to explain the numerous separate springs 
 on the line of the Kennet and Avon Canal, which issued 
 from each of the two oolitic rocks in the hills near Bath, 
 and occasioned so much loss and inconvenience to the Canal 
 Company and the trade of the country. In experiments 
 for water on the principle of Artesian wells, if the supply 
 required is large, it will be necessary to avoid alike a hasty 
 commencement without sufficient local examination, and a 
 hasty abandonment without a complete trial of all the means 
 of success. \ 
 
 In 1817, Mr. Smith's professional engagements carried 
 him into Norfolk and Suffolk, where he surveyed and pre- 
 pared plans for an intended line of river and canal naviga- 
 tion down the valley of the Waveney from Diss to Bungay, 
 visited Yarmouth, and from an elevated point there sur- 
 veyed, with Captain Manby, a mighty sheet of flood waters 
 spreading over the marshes on the Yare, the Thurn and 
 the Waveriey. He saw it with regret, and remarked -that 
 though twelve years had passed since the sea-breaches were 
 closed and the'proprietors, delivered from the dread of the 
 outer water, had only to contend with the upland streams 
 and the swelling of the rivers, the improvement of the 
 drainage seemed to have been little prosecuted. Perhaps 
 had he remained in Norfolk this would not have been the 
 case, for the confidence reposed in his skill and resources 
 was unbounded, and he was gratified by the assurance that 
 " by the introduction of water-meadows and expulsion of the 
 sea he had immortalized his name in Norfolk." Mr. Smith 
 had been consulted at various times concerning the drainage 
 of certain tracts of marsh-land near Lynn, which were be- 
 low the level of high-water in the sea and in the rivers. 
 This neighbourhood was the theatre of a mighty work^ 
 the celebrated and long-delayed Eaubrink Cut, by which 
 the great river of " the fens," the Ouse, was to be forced 
 to desert its sinuous bed and encounter the sea in a straight 
 artificial channel. This grand experiment for assisting the 
 difficult drainage of the wide region of the fens was the 
 
87 
 
 subject of much controversy among profes- 
 sional men 5 for it was argued that if the new 
 cut would permit the drainage water of the 
 uplands to pass more rapidly to the sea at 
 Lynn Deeps, along its straighter and steeper 
 channel, it would also admit the tide more 
 easily and permit it to flow further and higher 
 up the river, and thus increase the difficulty 
 of the drainage of the lands far up the coun- 
 try, though it might facilitate the discharge of 
 water from the lands nearer the outlet*. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact that the level of the 
 marshes embanked at successive times from 
 the sea rises continually ; the outer marsh- 
 lands being higher than the inner fens, and the 
 unembanked foreshores higher than either. 
 Such at least was the case in 1817, when Mr. 
 Smith inspected a sea-bank of Lord William 
 Bentinck's, then in much danger from the 
 powerful tides of Lynn Deeps. Nor is this at 
 all a solitary case. It is in fact one of most 
 frequent, even ordinary occurrence, on other 
 parts of the British shores, and may be wit- 
 nessed along most of our great tide rivers: for 
 example, the Severn, about Fretherne. It is 
 however more remarkable in the great fen 
 country, on account of the distinct succession 
 of at least three levels, as in the annexed sec- 
 tional sketch, where the innermost lands (fen- 
 lands with interspersed lakes) (1) are the lowest 
 and of least value, the next district toward the 
 sea (called " marsh land ") (2) a few feet higher, 
 and of very great value (3 per acre), and the 
 margin of the sea-coast or foreshore, (3) highest 
 of all, growing daily in breadth and height, 
 and tempting the proprietor to. dare the ha- 
 
 * This was apparently Mr. Smith's opinion. 
 
88 
 
 zardous encounter with the sea. In this country the means 
 of embankment are silt dug from the marshes, grassed over 
 or protected by timber, jetties and other constructions ; but 
 this process was too unlike the work of Nature to please 
 the inquirer who had stopped the dreaded sea-breaches with 
 sand and pebbles. 
 
 From the eastern coast he was called into Yorkshire to 
 consider of a plan for a new canal between the river Aire at 
 Knottingley and the river Dun at Doncaster, with a branch 
 down the river Went. On this matter he was employed at 
 frequent intervals till 1819, when the bill was brought into 
 Parliament, and defeated by the strenuous opposition of the 
 Aire and Calder Navigation Company. In the course of 
 these surveys he became perfectly acquainted with the series 
 of limestones and gypseous clays and sandstones of the mag- 
 nesian limestone and rothe-todte-liegende, and made several 
 visits to the West Riding coal tract. The oolitic moorlands 
 and lias coast of Whitby and Scarborough were included in 
 some journeys of this period (1817); and a very interesting 
 excursion was made in the early part of 1819 to the ancient 
 mines of Swaledale (' Auld Gang Mines'), where the agents 
 vied with each other in contributing exact sections of the 
 limestone series and plans of the veins and faults, and con- 
 ducted him through several of the remarkable works. The 
 geological results of all these journeys in Yorkshire were 
 coloured on the large County Survey of Jeffreys, which had 
 been employed for the same purpose in 1803 and subsequent 
 years, while examining the country about Spofforth, Mid- 
 dleham, and Peirse Bridge, and were after other expeditions 
 in 1820 and 1821, published on the four-sheet map of Gary. 
 A variety of engagements of like nature led Mr. Smith in 
 many directions from London, and enabled him to com- 
 plete from time to time those valuable county maps and sec- 
 tions already mentioned. The Forest of Dean was fre- 
 quently visited in 1817, 18 18 and 1819, and there was hardly 
 a colliery in that singular and picturesque property of the 
 Crown which he had not examined in detail and illustrated 
 by original plans and sections, One of these plans was of 
 
89 
 
 much interest, for it exhibited across a part of the forest a 
 tract of "dead ground," crossing in a winding course one of 
 the coal-beds. This dead ground, called the " Great Horse," 
 is entirely unconnected with faults, and is in fact merely a 
 subterranean tract in which coal would, according to all the 
 usual laws, be found of the usual thickness, but in which, 
 from some peculiarity of the original deposit, no coal occurs. 
 If the coal-bed be thought to have been formed from a peat 
 bog, this " horse " may be regarded as an ancient ivater- 
 channel in such a bog: and perhaps that is a conjecture 
 very near to the truth. 
 
 In the early part of 1818, a considerable part of Mon- 
 mouthshire was the subject of special geological surveys, 
 which enabled Mr. Smith to draw a section from the centre 
 of the Forest of Dean across the limestone and old red sand- 
 stone by Monmouth and Ragland to the same strata near 
 Pontypool, Risca, and Mynnyddysllwyn, in the midst of 
 the coal-basin of South Wales. Mr. Smith was perfectly 
 aware of the great analogy, and perhaps even identity of 
 the series of coal-beds in the Forest of Dean with those 
 of Glamorganshire, the ironstone courses being wholly de- 
 ficient ; he was fully in possession, by means of accurate 
 surveys about Monmouth and near Laugharn, of the de- 
 tailed sections of the old red sandstone ; but he was only 
 very slightly acquainted with the nature of the Silurian di- 
 strict near Usk, which on his map is indicated by patches of 
 limestone in the midst of the " red rhab." 
 
 To the gratification which, as an engineer, Mr. Smith had 
 often experienced where his art enabled him to direct and 
 to triumph over the turbulent powers of nature, was now 
 added the sweeter and nobler reward due to a man of science. 
 In this year (1818) his claims as a great discoverer in En- 
 glish geology were fairly and fully advocated by one whom 
 honest inquiry had satisfied of their truth, and filled with a 
 generous desire to redeem from neglect, not " Strata Smith " 
 alone, but many earlier and meritorious names which were 
 fast disappearing from the roll of English fame. Dr. Fit- 
 ton's ' Notes on the progress of English Geology ' (which 
 
<JO 
 
 first appeared in the Edinburgh Review in 1818) are too well 
 known and valued by the geological world to require com- 
 mendation here ; but it is necessary to Mr. Smith's personal 
 history to remark, that it was the favourable light in which 
 Dr. Fitton's unsolicited kindness placed Mr. Smith's name 
 and labours, which maintained and augmented public in- 
 terest in his long and solitary labours, stimulated the mem- 
 bers of the Geological Society of London to an impartial 
 estimate of the claims of one who was not their associate, 
 and procured for him in 1831 the award of the first Wol- 
 laston Medal, and in 1832 the grant of a pension from the 
 Crown of one hundred pounds a-year. To the well-timed 
 and generous effort of Dr. Fitton Mr. Smith owed, and 
 was glad to acknowledge it, much of the comfort and con- 
 sideration which relieved the otherwise heavy gloom of his 
 declining years, 
 
 In the winter of 1818-19, Mr. Smith revisited, after an 
 absence of ten years, his native village, re-examined the un- 
 forgotten localities where in childhood his " pundibs " and 
 " poundstones " were gathered, and collected " marlstone " 
 fossils from an excavation at Churchill Mill, nearly at the 
 same points where he had noticed them in 1787. In one 
 whose life had been one long wandering, and who had 
 earned for himself an immortal name, this return to the 
 haunts of his childhood and the simplicity of village occu- 
 pations, must have excited many interesting reflections. 
 He had sold his patrimony, and what had been the modest 
 dwelling of his ancestors for 200 years, a house such as 
 many were in that village, literally 
 
 " Congestum caespite culmen ;" 
 
 he had disbursed in travelling for what he deemed a public 
 object all that he had received, and become answerable for 
 all that he had earned ; while one of his two brothers, 
 quietly prosecuting trade in his native village, had grown a 
 rich and prosperous man. Many changes had come over 
 that village. One of the largest and most honoured elms 
 had fallen; the great common field was but a name; it could 
 
91 
 
 no longer be said, as previous to the inclosure, in 1787, 
 might have been at least poetically said, that 
 
 " Every rood of ground maintain'd its man ;" 
 
 the yeomanry had sold their " yard lands," and been trans- 
 formed into tenantry renting the broad acres of the squire. 
 
 " Times were alter'd ;" 
 
 there was no longer a treasurer for the " Whitsim-ale," 
 but the " wake " was still a scene of merriment, to which, 
 among other idlers, the gypsies still gathered from " the 
 Forest " of Whichwood ; and Mr. Smith yet found among 
 the old inhabitants some who could remember the digging 
 of Sarsden pond, with its " golden" stones (iron pyrites), 
 and the ornamental planting of Daylesford by " Governor 
 Hastings," and laugh with him over the marvellous tales of 
 " horses having run their feet off" in dragging the " fly 
 coaches " on the 'Oxford road at a pace inconceivable to the 
 slow Saxons of the " Cotteswolde Hilles." 
 
 In the autumn of 1819 Mr. Smith gave up his house in 
 London, after fifteen years' occupation, and was compelled 
 to submit to the sale of his furniture, collections and books, 
 preserving in fact only his papers, maps, sections and other 
 drawings, through the kindness of a most faithful friend. 
 While this happened he was in Yorkshire busily engaged, 
 apparently oblivious, perhaps sternly regardless, of what 
 seemed to others an insupportable misfortune. He deemed 
 it an inevitable corollary to his irretrievable losses in the 
 unlucky speculation already mentioned near Bath, and 
 armed himself with what seemed more than fortitude to 
 meet it. 
 
 One more used to monetary arrangements would have 
 foreseen and averted this occurrence ; but on the abstract 
 geologist the blow fell with stunning effect. He surren- 
 dered with deep regret his interest in the much-loved and 
 really valuable little property near Bath, quitted London, 
 and consented to have no home. From this time for seven 
 years he became a wanderer in the North of England, rarely 
 
92 
 
 visiting London except when drawn thither by the pro- 
 fessional engagements which still, even in his loneliest retire- 
 ments, were pressed upon him, and yielded him an irregular, 
 contracted and fluctuating income. 
 
 In the winter of 1819-20, Mr. Smith, having perhaps 
 more than usual leisure, undertook to walk from Lincoln- 
 shire into Oxfordshire. On this, as on almost every journey 
 for the last three years, the compiler of this memoir was his 
 glad companion, " haud passibus aequis," and, according to 
 an established custom on all such tours, he was employed 
 in sketching parts of the road, and noticing on maps the 
 geological features of the country. The object proposed 
 was to pass along a particular line through the counties of 
 Rutland, Northampton, Bedford and Oxford, but the ulti- 
 mate destination was Swindon in Wiltshire. Leaving the 
 great road at Colsterworth, with some reflections on the 
 birthplace of Newton*, we crossed in a day's easy walk the 
 little county of Rutland, its hills of oolite and sand, its 
 slopes of upper lias, and its valleys often showing marl- 
 stone, and reached the obscure village of Gretton, on the 
 edge of Rockingham Forest. Whatever may now be the 
 accommodations at this village, they were very wretched in 
 1819 (December), but the odd stories of supernatural beings 
 and incredible frights which were narrated by the villagers 
 assembled at the little inn, greatly amused Mr. Smith, and 
 reminded him of exactly parallel tales which circulated 
 round Whichwood Forest in his boyhood. 
 
 The next morning we walked to Kettering, noticing on 
 
 * " Sir Isaac Newton was a promoter of geological investigation ; but 
 he, like others of the day, looked to things at a distance rather than at 
 home. It was not an object for a telescope. Newton's own fields, or at 
 least those he must have often walked over, are literally strewed with fos- 
 sils in a manner which I never saw in any other soil, lying thereon like 
 new-sown seeds of oats, and so numerous are they (where I observed 
 them), that in the moist state of that tenacious soil the great philosopher 
 may have scraped them (unobserved) from his shoes by hundreds. It was 
 this which, on my receiving the Wollaston prize, induced me to say that 
 ' had Newton condescended to look on the ground he must have been a 
 geologist.' "MS. dated May 20, 1839- 
 
93 
 
 the road the peculiar characters of the Northamptonshire 
 oolite. In this walk Mr. Smith had somehow sprained or 
 overfatigued himself, and he chose to proceed to Welling- 
 borough in a chaise. From this point, situated on sand of 
 the oolitic series, we resumed our geological proceedings on 
 foot, and passing by Irchester, Woolaston and Boziate, 
 traversed in the next hills the oolite, the forest marble, the 
 cornbrash, and an outlier of Kelloway's rock. The road 
 up Boziate Hill was mantled with fossiliferous stone, some 
 of which obtained from the hill-top was believed to be Kello- 
 way's rock, and was found to contain Ammonites sublcevis 
 and other fossils. A fine specimen of this ammonite was 
 here laid by a particular tree on the road side, as it was 
 large and inconvenient for the pocket, according to a custom 
 often observed by Mr. Smith, whose memory for localities 
 was so exact, that he has often, after many years, gone direct 
 to some hoard of this nature to recover his fossils. This 
 road, however, over Boziate Hill, he was not to travel 
 again. 
 
 From Olney to Buckingham the route was performed in 
 chaise. The stone dug here in clay attracted much atten- 
 tion, and Mr. Smith doubted whether to rank it as forest 
 marble or cornbrash. We now crossed the oolitic country 
 to Aynhoe, celebrated for its fossils, on foot ; next day con- 
 tinued the walk to Deddington, Chapelhouse and Churchill, 
 and after a few days walked to Burford, and then travelled 
 in the ordinary way to Swindon, Oxford and London. In 
 passing through Oxford, Mr. Smith, for the first time in his 
 life, had the pleasure of seeing Professor Buckland, at the 
 house of Mr. Bliss, the bookseller, with whom he walked 
 over Shotover Hill, on his way toward London. 
 
 This little tour is thus briefly narrated, because it appears 
 in all respects a fair example of the usual way in which Mr. 
 Smith explored the country, walking when the object he had 
 in view required this mode of examination, travelling as fast 
 as possible in all other cases, but always recording in note- 
 books or on maps the observations he made. The subjoined 
 section is taken from one of the note-books : 
 
1. Brown sandstone of Wellingborough 
 
 2. Oolite and clays. 
 
 3. Forest marble. 
 
 4. Clay. 
 
 6. Cornbrash. * 
 
 6. Clay. 
 
 7. Kelloway's rock 
 
 Early in 1820 Mr. Smith was employed in Leicestershire, 
 but the greater part of the year was passed in Yorkshire, 
 about Ferrybridge, Whitby, and Scarborough. While stay- 
 ing at the romantic and delightful town just named (in hopes 
 to soothe the mental aberration of his wife, which became 
 very manifest in this year), he imbibed for it a partiality 
 which augmented with further knowledge. Mr. Dunn, one 
 of the most affectionate and highly esteemed of his friends, 
 remembers that even at this period it was in contempla- 
 tion to found a museum at Scarborough, and that Mr. Smith 
 attended a private meeting of a few inhabitants for the pur- 
 pose, but the project was not urged into effect till after some 
 years had elapsed, when the same individuals undertook the 
 task of establishing the Scarborough Philosophical Society 
 with better omens and stronger assurances of support. 
 
 Early in 1821 the writer walked through the eastern parts 
 of Yorkshire and rejoined Mr. Smith at Doncaster, and 
 from this point accompanied him in a walking excursion 
 through the coal district of the West Riding, passing by 
 Bamborough, Houghton, Cudworth, Shafton, Wakefield, 
 Ardsley, Horbury, Thornhill (the Rectory of the Rev. John 
 Michell, the celebrated Woodwardian professor), Flock- 
 ton, Bretton, Haigh Bridge, Silkstone, Stainborough Inn, 
 Wentworth Castle, Tankersley Park, Wentworth Park, 
 
95 
 
 Rawmarsh and Conisborough. In this excursion particular 
 attention was given to determine the true general order of 
 the coal beds, ironstone courses, and characteristic rocks, 
 and the result is seen in a comprehensive section on the 
 Yorkshire map, to which nothing similar had ever been at- 
 tempted in this country, perhaps in Europe. From the 
 notes and sketches made on this journey, the first page is 
 taken to show the kind of information which it was pro- 
 posed to gather, besides the lines of outcrop of the strata 
 marked on the map. 
 
 " 4th April, 1821. Walked westward by Barlby and 
 Warmsworth to Sprotbrough Ferry, and thence by Cadeby 
 over the verge of the magnesian limestone there. Cadeby 
 is so very ill supplied with water, that those who hold the 
 pump-handle must frequently wait some time till the niggard 
 stream furnishes its scanty supply. There is, however, a 
 pool in the place, and some springs appear above the edge 
 
 fl/KfLC f^/VOS TO * 
 
 _SOFTftOOF 
 
 FIRECLAY' 
 
 of the hill which, as at Micklebring, is kept by the purple 
 sandstone. Several yew-trees mark its course. Before we 
 arrive at the mill on the Dearn, some clay ground and dark 
 shades in the soil indicate the outcrop of the uppermost 
 workable vein of coal. Melton Hall, to the right on the 
 edge of the limestone, is very conspicuous. We now ascend 
 a bold bank, and at the junction of the Barmborough and 
 Melton road, wind round a sudden swell of limestone and 
 sandstone, whose outcropping beds form around the face a 
 series of natural entrenchments clothed with wood. Beyond 
 
 '. 18-inch 
 . coal. 
 ' '24-inch 
 . coal. 
 
96 
 
 this hill the ridge recedes from our road and leaves a broad 
 vacancy, wherein we descry a coal-pit. To our left is 
 Barmborough Grange, standing on detached sandstone. 
 
 " The boring marked b, now prosecuting with the hope 
 of piercing the two coals found at Goldthorpe and Thurns- 
 coe. The upper, at Goldthorpe, 70 yards deep, thin and 
 not desirable; the lower 105 yards deep, 5 feet thick*. 
 Solid sinkings, soft floor, but immediately beneath hard 
 sinkings repeated." 
 
 To assist Mr. Smith's researches the author made a va- 
 riety of other journeys from Doncaster, as to Roche Abbey, 
 Gringley-on-the-Hill, and Gainsborough. At length the 
 materials for completing the geological map of Yorkshire 
 were deemed sufficient, and this remarkable work was pub- 
 lished in the summer of 1821, in four sheets. 
 
 The desire to finish others of these interesting county 
 maps, led Mr. Smith to devote the whole of the remainder of 
 1821 to long and laborious wanderings, in which the writer 
 was associated, on a peculiar plan. Two lines of operation 
 were drawn through the country which required to be sur- 
 veyed for the purpose of completing such maps, or rather 
 such parts of the maps as had been inevitably left imperfect. 
 On one of these Mr. Smith moved with the due deliberation 
 of a commander-in-chief ; the other was traversed by his 
 more active subaltern, who found the means often to cross 
 from his own parallel to report progress at head-quarters. 
 This mode of " strata hunting" was not necessarily ex- 
 pensive ; it was besides extremely agreeable and effective, 
 and was faithfully executed in peregrinations which lasted 
 six months, and permitted one of the parties to walk over 
 
 * On this map, for the first time, an attempt, by no means unsuccessful, 
 was made to divide and colour the great coal district into groups of rocks 
 and shales ; the course of the " Pontefract Rock," " lower new red sand- 
 stone," or " rothe liegende" was traced out, and the magnesian limestone 
 divided into its component members. The first copies of this map have 
 one grand error in the north-eastern moorlands, which are represented to 
 consist of oolitic strata not lower than the " Clunch (Oxford) clay," 
 whereas the great subjacent shale is lias. This, however, Mr. Smith 
 quickly discovered and rectified. 
 
97 
 
 000 miles of ground, and preserve memoranda of almost 
 every mile along that line. 
 
 The first " fytte" of this tour led from Doncaster through 
 Lincolnshire, by Gainsborough and Harpswell Hill to Spittle, 
 Market Raisin and Lincoln. A good section of strata had 
 lately been exposed in the road cutting up Harpswell Hill, 
 and as this has perhaps not been elsewhere recorded, it is 
 here subjoined, as an example of the ordinary structure of 
 the edge of the oolitic ranges of Lincolnshire : 
 
 Harpswell. 
 
 I. White limestone (oolite), 30 feet. 
 Jc. Whitish clay and sand, 12 feet. 
 i. White sand, 3 feet. 
 h. Sandy, with iron balls, 10 feet. 
 g. White micaceous sand, 3 feet. 
 /. Brown sands, 4 feet. 
 
 e. Clay parting. 
 
 d. Brown sandstones and shells, 
 
 30 feet. 
 
 c. Blue clays, 20 feet exposed. 
 6. Marlstone series, 
 a. Lias clays. 
 
 During a short sojourn at Lincoln the country round the 
 towering cathedral was carefully explored, and the rich quar- 
 ries of Canwick were rifled of their fossil contents. 
 
 One of the pedestrians next passed along the ancient 
 road, here called the " Ramper," to Sleaford, Grantham 
 and Stamford, correcting the outlines of oolite cornbrash and 
 Oxford clay ; and, after a very circuitous course to the east, 
 returning to Wandsford, and in the midst of Rockingham 
 Forest, visiting Weldon, a place famous for its stone quarries 
 in the days of Morton, author of the old ' History of North- 
 amptonshire'. The section of Rockingham Hill was found 
 comparable to that of the Lincolnshire " ClifFe," and simi- 
 larly beneath it in the valleys of Rutland, the marlstone was 
 seen rich with fossils exactly as in the vicinity of Grantham. 
 From the marlstone edge of Tilton-on-the-hill the route 
 proceeded across the lias ground to Leicester. Charnwood 
 
98 
 
 Forest was then crossed, and the contorted limestone hills 
 and coal basins on its border surveyed, the journey ceasing 
 for a few weeks at Nottingham, to allow of recording on 
 maps the information collected. 
 
 After examining the circumstances of the neighbouring 
 lias and new red sandstone, the coal-beds about Radford, 
 and the termination of the granular (crystalline) magnesian 
 limestone about Bilborough, we set forth by two lines 
 through Derbyshire, and Yorkshire, and Lancashire, to a 
 new point of union at Kendal, the grand object being to 
 trace the outlines of the strata round and through the Lake 
 district. The eastern line of survey passed across the coal- 
 field of Nottingham and Derby, by the Butterley iron-works 
 to the limestone hill of Critch, thence by the dale of Mat- 
 lock and the cliffs of Hathersage and Bamford Edge to Penis- 
 ton, which was found almost naturally paved with the York- 
 shire flagstone in situ. Almond sbury (Cambodunum ?), El- 
 land Edge, the romantic vale of Todmorden, Burnley, Colne, 
 Skipton, all most interesting localities, were eclipsed by the 
 bolder scenes round Settle, Giggleswick, Ingleton, Kirkby 
 Lonsdale, and Kendal. The other line passed further west, 
 and turned north through Preston and Lancaster. From 
 Kendal, one shorter line of operation was followed straight 
 by Grasmere and Thirlmeer to Keswick ; another shot off 
 to the east by Sedbergh and the Crooks of Lune, and re- 
 turned by Orton, Shap Fells, and Longsleddale to Bow- 
 ness, then encircled the Lake district on the south and 
 west, by Newby Bridge, Ulverston, Dalton, Broughton, 
 Ravenglass and Ennerdale, and turned by Btittermere and 
 Newlands to Keswick. 
 
 Keswick was a centre of active exertion, and here the 
 assistance of an excellent geologist and very clever man, 
 Mr. Jonathan Otley, was found to be extremely serviceable, 
 and Mr. Smith was happy to find that his views, gathered 
 from observations specially directed to the point, entirely 
 concurred with those Mr. Otley had already formed and 
 published. The maps of Cumberland, Westmoreland and 
 Lancashire were now prepared, and a more convenient map, 
 
99 
 
 indeed a better one than any of them (Gary's Sheet Map of 
 the Lakes), was coloured (Sept. 1821), in conformity with 
 views since universally adopted. 
 
 Mr. Smith's attentive eyes embraced every curious object 
 in nature or art, and found perpetual occupation for the pen 
 or pencil of his willing assistant. Perhaps the accompany- 
 ing sketch of a piece of slate from Coniston Fells, dressed 
 for roofing at Keswick, may be curious enough to deserve 
 to be remembered. It is seldom that the effect of a slight 
 displacement of the bands of stratification (s s 1 s") is seen so 
 clearly, and the two spar veins (v) which cross in straight 
 lines both the beds and the fault, add to the instructive cha- 
 
 racter of the specimen. The curved lines are edges, more 
 than usually flexuous and symmetrical, of a scaly structure 
 lying obliquely to the plane of cleavage. 
 
 Before the end of September our pleasant residence at 
 Keswick was exchanged for another ramble to Aldstone 
 Moor. But in order to reach this not distant point, Mr. 
 Smith passed along the side of Bassenthwaite Lake, and 
 turned by Cockermouth, Wigton, and Hesket Newmarket 
 to Penrith, while the writer returned to Grasmere, Coniston 
 
 H 2 
 
100 
 
 Water; Bowness and Kendal, and thence took the road by 
 Sedbergh, Kirby Stephen, Appleby, and Hartside Fell to 
 Aldstone Moor. Here we gleaned from experienced persons 
 the history of the mines and levels, and examined with care, 
 and recollections of Swaledale, the admirable natural sec- 
 tions and contours of the hills which margin the South Tyne 
 and the Nent. In the barren region which surrounds this 
 capital of the " lead-mining " district, we saw no corn but 
 oats, and very few gardens either beautiful or well-stocked, 
 yet the market was largely supplied with fruit and vegetables 
 brought from the fertile vale of Eden. The miners were 
 liberal and eager purchasers of the fruit ; and though their 
 country, to use the expression of a resident, " grew nought 
 but grass and lead," the subterranean wealth amply com- 
 pensated for the absence of surface crops. 
 
 On leaving Aldstone Moor, Durham was appointed to be 
 the rendezvous, and Mr. Smith crossed the high summit of 
 drainage between the South Tyne and the vale of Derwent, 
 and thence passed by a circuitous route to Durham, exa- 
 
 Coal. 
 
 mining the country with care. The writer was deputed to 
 survey lines stretching northward by Brampton to Gils- 
 land Wells ; eastward along the basaltic cliffs and the 
 Roman wall to the North Tyne ; and thence northward by 
 the ancient Roman road to the foot of Carter Fell, and the 
 skirts of the Cheviot beyond Wooler. The return was 
 made by Belford, Alnwick, Morpeth, Newcastle, Corbridge 
 and Ebchester to Durham. Here we loitered awhile. As 
 a general result of the examinations now made in the county 
 of Durham the foregoing sketch was made. 
 
lOi 
 
 The expedition now turned southward by two lines 
 through the mountain limestone and millstone grit tracts of 
 Durham and Yorkshire, one passing by Barnard Castle, 
 Reeth and Ripon, the other by Masham, Ripley and Harro- 
 gate, to Leeds. Here a friendly welcome awaited Mr. 
 Smith ; he was introduced to the most active members of 
 the Philosophical Society then newly formed, and received 
 particular attention from Mr. E. Baines, the late Mr. At- 
 kinson, and Mr. E. S. George. He delivered a lecture or 
 general explanation of his views on the Geology of York- 
 shire before the Society, and took much pains to complete his 
 knowledge of the stratification of the vicinity. A map com- 
 bining these results was at that time carefully drawn by the 
 author of this memoir. After a short visit on business to 
 the lead mines of Swaledale, the journey and the year termi- 
 nated with a walk from Leeds to Nottingham, where Mr. 
 Smith resumed his old quarters, intending to repose for the 
 winter. But during a short visit to London, an accidental 
 meeting with Colonel Braddyll produced a professional jour- 
 ney to and general mineral survey of some estates of that gen- 
 tleman in Lancashire, Cumberland and Durham. On this oc- 
 casion the limestone country round Conishead Priory was 
 investigated with reference to the probability of finding 
 copper ore ; and some experiments for this purpose were 
 then in progress. These trials originated in the fact, that 
 in different but not far-removed situations, many lumps of 
 copper ore were discovered in narrow crevices in the lime- 
 stone, and some in the " pindle" or " diluvial" gravel, which 
 covered the limestone in many places. In a gutter cut 
 across the supposed course of the vein (east and west), "a 
 surprising phenomenon" was noticed, " the surface of the 
 limestone rock far above the sea being polished by the at- 
 trition of the gravel resting on it, the direction of the wear- 
 ing being parallel, or nearly so, to the line of slope of the 
 hill." This was regarded at the time as an effect of " dilu- 
 vial" action. It may perhaps be referred by modern specu- 
 lations to the movement of a glacier. 
 
 The argillaceous marls of the old red formation were 
 
102 
 
 examined in a neighbouring estate ; the slaty rocks, lime- 
 stone and red iron ore about Dent Hill, Cleator, and Egre- 
 mont ; Whitehaven and the neighbourhood of Hesket New- 
 market were visited ; but the interest which Mr. Smith felt 
 in these inquiries was altogether inferior to that with which 
 he scrutinized the geological position of Colonel Braddyll's 
 property in Durham, including the village of Haswell. 
 
 Here seven hundred acres of poor land, situated on the 
 magnesian limestone, were held in slight esteem by the 
 agents, and the absent proprietor had been advised that no 
 mineral wealth existed below the surface. Mr. Smith at 
 once saw, by a survey of the neighbouring coal district, that 
 the limestone was an " unconformable" cover to the coal 
 strata ; these he traced in their courses, estimated the thick- 
 ness of the limestone, and inferred that the best seams or 
 veins of coal would be found at an attainable depth at Has- 
 well. He spoke to the neighbouring proprietors, and learned 
 with surprise that few of them believed their properties to 
 have any other than surface value. When they were re- 
 minded that coal had been found long ago under the same 
 limestone at Ferry Hill, and bade to look at the Hetton 
 Colliery near them and judge for themselves, they replied, 
 that there was no reason to expect any coal about Haswell, 
 at any rate none better than had been found at Ferry Hill ; 
 that the most eminent coal viewers of Newcastle had con- 
 sidered the matter, and decided that if coal did exist under 
 these estates it must be of bad quality, unfit to send to 
 London, and unworthy of the cost of sinking a deep pit. 
 To all this Mr. Smith could only oppose general but sound 
 geological truth ; and though it convinced Colonel Braddyll 
 of the great value of his property, and had its influence 
 upon other landowners near, the ancient Newcastle preju- 
 .dice of " no coal under the magnesian limestone," like the 
 Somersetshire and Lancashire prejudice of "no coal under 
 red earth," was not easily abandoned by the ''practical" 
 men who had encouraged 'the delusion. Colonel Braddyll, 
 however, once convinced by sound arguments of the just- 
 ness of Mr. Smith's views, never relaxed in his efforts to 
 
103 
 
 give them effect ; and after some years of difficulty suc- 
 ceeded in establishing the magnificent works called the 
 South Hetton Colliery, which rival the mightiest establish- 
 ments of the Lambtons, Vanes and Russells. 
 
 This great enterprise might never have been undertaken, 
 this most profitable establishment might never have been 
 formed, but for the resolute honesty which enforced Mr. 
 Smith to press upon the owner of the estate the importance 
 of believing a scientific truth in opposition to a rooted error 
 of opinion in the district, and to the sentiments of persons 
 who might think themselves privileged to advise ; yet the 
 execution of the grand scheme, for which Mr. Smith had 
 strenuously contended, was entrusted to others. The satis- 
 faction of having done his duty under difficult circumstances, 
 and shown a convincing example of the value of his geolo- 
 gical discoveries when applied to practical problems, was, 
 however, a great reward. He had, indeed, indulged the 
 expectation of benefiting in another manner by the success 
 of the undertaking which he so fearlessly recommended. 
 
 Kirkby Lonsdale was the next centre of Mr. Smith's ope- 
 rations, and here he had the great happiness (such he 
 always deemed it) of meeting (for the first time) Professor 
 Sedgwick, who had crossed over the hills from Teesdale. 
 The stone-masons in the romantic little town were keen ob- 
 servers of Mr. Smith's singular habits of handling the stones 
 and trying their hardness against his teeth, and guessing by 
 the hammer, which was not concealed by the Professor, that 
 he was " one of the same trade," immediately pointed the way 
 to his brother geologist. They walked together a short dis- 
 tance on the road toward Kendal, where (at Kestwick) Mr. 
 Smith had recently found organic remains (Orbicula, Or- 
 thoceras, &c.) in the quarries of what was then called 
 " grauwacke," and the Professor then continued his eques- 
 trian journey to Low Furness*. 
 
 The situation of Kirkby Lonsdale is most agreeable and 
 
 * A few days previously the writer had the good fortune to meet the 
 same celebrated Professor in a characteristic locality, within sight of the 
 High Force in Teesdale, and under characteristic circumstances ; for he 
 
104 
 
 interesting for the geologist ; within a moderate walk a great 
 series of rocks may be seen between the new red conglome- 
 rate and the upper slates. The strata are manifested in a 
 variety of dislocated positions vertical, highly inclined, 
 horizontal, and contorted ; fossils are abundant in the lime- 
 stone rocks, and the botanist may contemplate the distribu- 
 tion of plants from the level of the sea to the summit of 
 Ingleborough or Hougill Fells, on soils belonging to five 
 distinct geological formations. Dry paths in several direc- 
 tions conduct to points which command the noblest views of 
 rock, river, vale and mountain scenery, many of them sur- 
 passing in grandeur the well-known scene which expands 
 beyond the terrace of the churchyard. 
 
 In this sweet retirement Mr. Smith long and willingly 
 lingered, feeding all the best qualities of his mind by calm 
 meditations, not unmixed with the poetic impressions which 
 seem perpetually to haunt the romantic banks of the Lune. 
 Frequent walks made all the neighbourhood familiar to us 
 for a circle of fifteen miles, and gave the opportunity of 
 completing the maps of Westmoreland and Lancashire, and 
 making a great improvement on the map of Yorkshire, by 
 introducing the slate rocks (Silurian) which in so remarkable 
 a manner support the cone of Ingleborough, and the broader 
 summit of Graygarth. 
 
 Mr. Smith took great pains to understand fully the coal- 
 basin of Burton in Lonsdale, and the mixed series of grits, 
 shales, coal and limestone, which overlies the great limestone 
 of Farlton Knot and Hutton Roof. Fossils were collected 
 in great numbers from the upper beds of the slate series at 
 Beckfoot in situ, and gathered from bouldered masses of the 
 same rocks on Kirkby Moor, and the limestone lands near 
 Hutton Roof. Innumerable rambles led us up every glen 
 and across every hill, now sketching waterfalls, anon tracing 
 the boundaries of rocks, or marking the direction of " di- 
 luvial" detritus. Once or twice the radius of our orbit was 
 
 was riding, as usual, with saddle-bags for his specimens, and a miner's 
 boy en croupe, who had promised to guide him to a place where the limestone 
 was turned into lump-sugar. 
 
105 
 
 lengthened by professional occupation, to include Durham, 
 returning through Hellgill, and over Wild Boar Fell; to Gar- 
 stang and the Vale of the Hodder ; to Coniston and Low 
 Furness ; but we always returned with augmented delight 
 to the quiet anchorage by the Lune. Here several of the 
 latest county maps were finished, and a great variety of data 
 collected, which have been found serviceable in after years. 
 Many papers on geology and the economical applications of 
 it, which Mr. Smith always desired to recommend and bring 
 into daily use, were written at Kirkby Lonsdale. 
 
 A visit to Hesket Newmarket in the winter of 1822-23, 
 interrupted this thoughtful, perhaps indolent repose ; and 
 for two or three months we were incessantly occupied by 
 investigations of the lead and copper mines actually working, 
 or of which ancient traces remained, in High Pike, Carrock, 
 and the Caldbeck Fells. These mines, situated in a low 
 part of the series of Cumbrian slates, and in the vicinity of 
 the sienites of Carrock Fell, were established on veins in 
 many respects similar to those of Cornwall, the matrix being 
 generally quartz, the copper ores and lead ores sulphuretted 
 in the deep parts of the mine, but oxidized and combined 
 with mineral acids near the surface, where in places the 
 back of the veins resembled the "gossan" so often described 
 in Cornwall. Arseniuretted iron pyrites, wolfram, apatite, 
 chrysocolla, arseniates, phosphates, carbonates of lead, and 
 various other minerals, render this mining field one of the 
 most curious in the North of England, and the general re- 
 semblance of it to the greater and richer districts of Corn- 
 wall is increased by the character of some felspatho-porphy- 
 ritic (elvan) dykes which traverse the hills. 
 
 A pretty series of solitary crystals of sulphuret of iron, 
 remarkably perfect, was collected from the interior of amor- 
 phous masses of the double sulphuret of iron and copper, 
 which constituted the " ore" of one of these mines, and 
 this reminded us of a curious fact observed at Holm Bank, 
 near Conishead Priory, where, in the cupriferous joints of 
 the limestone, crystals having the characteristic forms of 
 
106 
 
 iron pyrites, were found imbedded in and adjoining to car- 
 bonates of copper, themselves being brown oxide of iron. 
 In the smelting-house at Driggeth (under Carrock Fell) the 
 process of reducing the argento-cupriferous lead ore had 
 been so imperfectly performed, that a large weight (some 
 tons) of mixed and sulphuretted metals (called " speltre" by 
 the workmen) was taken off the top of the melted lead, by 
 its adhering to the cold iron bar which was employed to stir 
 the fused metal*. These mines of Caldbeck Fells had for- 
 merly been worked by Germans, and many of their old levels 
 had been injudiciously abandoned by their successors. 
 
 In the examinations which Mr. Smith made of this inter- 
 esting district, the writer was closely associated, and was 
 stimulated by the extraordinary variety of the minerals in 
 the veins and in the sienitic and porphyritie rocks, to inves- 
 tigate their crystalline structures and chemical composition 
 theoretically and experimentally. On returning to Kirkby 
 Lonsdale (Jan. 1823) this subject became a favourite and 
 engrossing object of attention, and a small smelting-furnace 
 (if such a title can be permitted to an apparatus consisting 
 of only a few crucibles, and a water-bellows worked by hand) 
 was kept in frequent use in a garden, surrounded by walls 
 which were covered by fossils, rocks and minerals. Thus 
 pleasantly passed days, months, almost years, in seclusion 
 so entire, that only by indirect means and long after the date 
 of the application, did Mr. Smith hear of an urgent official 
 demand for his services as a mineral surveyor in Russia. He 
 would probably have accepted the proposal had it reached 
 him in time, but another and probably fitter destiny was 
 reserved for him by Providence. Among the residents of 
 Kirkby Lonsdale interested in the unusual processes of the 
 wayward geologist, may be named Mr. Edward Wilson, who 
 benevolently wished to benefit his native town by a better 
 
 * The galena was rather rich in silver, but somewhat difficult to free 
 from copper, a very minute dose of which was found to harden the lead 
 remarkably. It lay in the quartzose vein in a series of oblique (not ver- 
 tical) discontinuous masses, as in Cornwall. 
 
107 
 
 supply of water, obtained from springs in the neighbouring 
 limestone rock. In this matter Mr. Smith assisted with his 
 advice. 
 
 On one occasion, early in 1824, a relative of Mr. Wilson, 
 Dr. Matthew Allen of York, visited Kirkby Lonsdale, was 
 introduced to Mr. Smith, and on his return home mentioned 
 the circumstance to some members of the Yorkshire Philo- 
 sophical Society, then lately formed by gentlemen who had 
 fortunately obtained a valuable series of organic remains 
 from Kirkdale Cave. The consequence was an application; 
 from the President of the Society (the Rev. Wm. Vernon 
 Harcourt) to Mr. Smith, to deliver a course of lectures on 
 geology in York, and Mr. Smith, who though he had never 
 lectured, had for half his life been talking on geology, im- 
 mediately accepted the proposal. New maps were coloured, 
 new sections drawn, and even the distant cabinet of Mr. 
 Richardson at Farley was laid under contribution to supply 
 illustrations for these discourses. On his arrival in York, 
 Mr. Smith was warmly greeted by the zealous President and 
 first Secretaries (Dr. Goldie and Mr. Copsie) of the Society ; 
 the lecture-room, fitted up for the occasion, was crowded ; 
 and the course was successfully conducted. The nature and 
 order of the subjects discussed in these eight lectures may 
 be in some degree judged of from the subjoined syllabus ; 
 but it must not be supposed that the formula was rigidly 
 adhered to : 
 
 "Syllabus of Lectures on Geology, by William Smith, 
 
 Mineral Surveyor. 
 
 " LECTURE I. 
 
 " INTRODUCTORY. Geology a Science of great extent and 
 universal interest; not a science of hard names, but of 
 beautifully according facts. The great facilities for ac- 
 quiring it afforded in our own country. Inducements to 
 the study of Geology. A view of its application to the pur- 
 poses of human convenience. Explanation of first prin- 
 ciples of the Science, as developed in the original investiga- 
 tion around Bath. Enumeration and description of the 
 
108 
 
 Strata, illustrated by Sections and Maps ; and the distinc- 
 tion explained between the alluvial and stratified matter. 
 
 " LECTURE II. 
 
 " Connection of British Strata with those of adjacent 
 countries. 
 
 " EXTERIOR FORM OF LAND, as influenced by the termina- 
 tions of the Strata in the Sea. Bays, Estuaries, Capes, 
 Cliffs, Low Shores, mutability of the Coast. 
 
 " INTERIOR OF THE ISLAND. Principal ranges of high and 
 low ground, contours of Hills, and characteristic forms of 
 Mountains and Valleys, illustrated by drawings. 
 
 " LECTURE III. 
 
 "PRINCIPLES OF NATURAL DRAINAGE. 1. Summits of 
 Drainage ;. Theory of Springs; 3. Courses of Streams, 
 illustrated by reference to particular streams ; 4. Charac- 
 ters of the Streams and Valleys in the respective Strata. 
 Lakes. Interior Marshes. 
 
 " Sites of Population. Origin of Towns, Villages, Castles, 
 Abbeys, Seats, and Parks, as influenced by advantages 
 arising from properties of the Strata. Picturesque Scenery. 
 Varieties of Soil, and their agricultural appropriations. 
 
 " Locality of Plants and Free Animals, in the sea and on 
 the land. 
 
 " LECTURE IV. 
 
 " STRATA IDENTIFIED by their imbedded ORGANIZED FOS- 
 SILS, and other remarkable bodies. Use and application of 
 the organized Fossils, in distinguishing one Stratum from 
 another, exemplified by specimens and drawings, and re- 
 ference to localities. State of the preservation of Fossils, 
 their relative antiquity, and resemblance to recent Shells, 
 Corallines, &c. 
 
 " LECTURE V. 
 
 " VARIATIONS FROM THE GENERAL REGULARITY OF STRATA. 
 Isolated masses, attenuation and discontinuity of Strata ; 
 remarkable elevations and depressions ; unconformity of 
 course and declination, and apparent dislocations of Strata. 
 
109 
 
 Dykes arid Mineral Veins. Illustrated by sections and 
 drawings. 
 
 " LECTURE VI. 
 
 " GEOLOGY OF YORKSHIRE. Exemplifications of the great 
 principles of the Science, around the coast and through the 
 interior of the county. Enumeration and description of the 
 Yorkshire Strata, with their included organized Fossils and 
 other peculiarities. Instances of elevations and depressions, 
 and other unconformities of the Strata, illustrated by Maps, 
 Sections, and Drawings. 
 
 " LECTURE VII. 
 
 " On the PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES of Geology, and its be- 
 neficial application to Agriculture, Mining, Coalworking, and 
 Commerce in Yorkshire. Valuable products of Yorkshire : 
 Building Stone, Paving Stone, Slates, Marbles, Bricks, Pot- 
 tery, Casting Sand, Grindstones, &c. Sites of Population 
 and Manufacture. Discovery and working of Coal and 
 Minerals. 
 
 " LECTURE VIII. 
 
 " Review of the subject, with reflections on the FORMATION 
 OF THE STRATA. Proved to have been deposited from water 
 liable to occasional agitation. Change of climate considered. 
 Consolidation of Strata. Effects of the Deluge, in de- 
 taching fragments from the rocks, rounding them by attri- 
 tion in water, and scattering them over other Strata at great 
 distances. Bones of Land Animals found in this gravel, 
 and in Limestone Caves. Account of the Caves of Kirk- 
 dale, of Oreston, &c. Antediluvian inhabitants of the 
 earth . Conclusion." 
 
 A certain abstractedness of mind, generated by long and 
 solitary meditation, a habit of following out his own thoughts 
 into new trains of research, even while engaged in explaining 
 the simplest facts, continually broke the symmetry of Mr. 
 Smith's lectures. Slight matters, things curious in them- 
 selves but not clearly or commonly associated with the gene- 
 ral purpose of the lecture, swelled into excrescences, and 
 
110 
 
 stopped the growth of parts which were more important in 
 themselves, or necessary to connect the observations into an 
 intelligible and satisfactory system. But there was a charm 
 thrown over these discourses by the novelty and appropriate- 
 ness of the diagrams and modellings which exemplified the 
 arrangement of rocks, the total absence of all technical tri- 
 fling from the explanations, and the simplicity and earnest- 
 ness of the man. 
 
 Mr. Smith made an excursion from York to the celebrated 
 cave at Kirkdale, in company with the late Mr. Wm. Sal- 
 mond, one of its most diligent explorers, and in the summer 
 (1824) delivered a course of lectures on geology in the Town 
 Hall at Scarborough, assisted by the writer. Always charmed 
 with the bold and varied line of rocky coast, and interested 
 by the geological peculiarities of the north-eastern part of 
 Yorkshire, he gladly seized this occasion of renewing his 
 residence at Scarborough, and his intercourse with several 
 friends. At this time the well-known naturalist, Mr. Wm. 
 Bean, who had long possessed a magnificent collection of the 
 Testacea and other recent productions of the Scarborough 
 coast, had begun to gather that large and exquisite series of 
 organic remains which now enriches his beautiful museum. 
 Mr. John Williamson was in full activity, and had already 
 laid the foundation of the collection afterwards transferred 
 to the museum of the Scarborough Philosophical Society. 
 The rich hoard of Speeton fossils was almost untouched, 
 almost unexamined since the days of Lister, the plants of 
 Gristhorpe were unknown, but a spirit of geological research 
 began to spread among the residents and visitors of Scar- 
 borough that promised the happiest fruits. 
 , In this pleasant excitement no man had a truer delight 
 than Mr. Smith. He loved to wander beneath the cliffs, 
 noting the minutest variations in the stratification, detecting 
 the slightest marks of dislocation, watching the peculiarities 
 of the sea's action on materials of unlike qualities, and in- 
 ferring the causes which had anciently modified the outline 
 of the land, and covered the low cliffs of the oolitic series 
 with fragments of the lias from Whitby, of the coal and lime- 
 
Ill 
 
 stone from Teesdale or Swaledale, and of the granite and 
 sienite from Shap Fells and Carrock Pike. In numerous 
 papers dedicated to the local geology of Scarborough his 
 reflections on these subjects are recorded ; and his exertions 
 in examining one curious case of dislocation on the north 
 side of the Castle Hill, brought on a rheumatic, or rather a 
 paralytic affection of the muscles of the lower extremities, 
 which bound him a prisoner in bed in the early part of 
 1825. 
 
 Previous to this accident he had taken part in a course of 
 lectures to the Literary and Philosophical Society of Hull ; 
 after it had occurred, and before its effects were removed, 
 while yet he was incapable of walking, and was actually lifted 
 into the carriage which took him away, he accepted and ex- 
 ecuted a similar engagement, proposed by the Literary and 
 Philosophical Society of Sheffield. It was a singular spec- 
 tacle, to witness the delivery of lectures which required con- 
 tinual reference to large maps and numerous diagrams, by a 
 man who could not stand, but was forced to read his address 
 from a chair, to an audience of several hundred persons in 
 a room not very well adapted for the voice. But it was far 
 more extraordinary to witness during all the severity of the 
 disorder, the unpretending patience and fortitude of the 
 sufferer, who, had he then permitted his mind to dwell too 
 curiously on the state of his health and the state of his fi- 
 nances, might have added the bitter foretaste of want and 
 privation to the actual difficulty of the moment. Such re- 
 flections and such anticipations might sadden the hearts of 
 those who surrounded him, but Mr. Smith would have 
 thought it unworthy of his resolved mind and firm trust in 
 Providence, to have abated one jot of his accustomed cheer- 
 fulness, shortened one of the innumerable playful stories 
 which were always springing to his lips from the rich trea- 
 sure-house of his memory, or turned his meditations from 
 his favourite subjects. 
 
 At Sheffield, while slowly recovering the use of his limbs, 
 he busied himself in arranging a body of information which 
 he had gathered concerning the neighbouring coal districts; 
 
112 
 
 and on removing soon afterwards to his old* quarters at Don- 
 caster, he worked much on the large Old Survey of York- 
 shire, thinking to complete the colouring of it. By degrees 
 he recovered entirely from his painful disorder, and from 
 this year (1825) to 1839, nothing of the kind ever affected 
 him again. 
 
 One of many agreeable incidents which diversified the 
 repose of Mr. Smith's life at Scarborough, was a visit of 
 Mr. Murchison to this part of the coast in 1826. The 
 methods followed by this indefatigable geologist in his ex- 
 tensive explorations, were such as to harmonize in several 
 respects with the strictness of survey and exactitude of ob- 
 servation which were always held by Mr. Smith to be essen- 
 tial to a good field geologist. 
 
 In a trip by boat from Scarborough to Whitby, Mr. Smith 
 was happy to point out to Mr. Murchison the principal 
 results of his comparison of the oolitic and lias strata of 
 Yorkshire with those of the South of England, and soon 
 after received with great satisfaction the memoir on the 
 oolitic coalfield of Brora, which illustrates in a remarkable 
 manner the importance of such investigations. 
 
 Thus pleasantly passed two years in contemplating some 
 of the most interesting scenes in Britain, and in meditating 
 on the geological causes to which their singular beauty and 
 variety could be referred. Some professional engagements 
 at Scarborough and in other parts of Yorkshire occasionally 
 drew Mr. Smith's attention, and he was especially interested 
 in arranging a plan for a better supply of water to Scarbo- 
 rough. The deficiency of water in the summer season, when 
 Scarborough is full of visitors, was extreme ; the structure 
 of the promontory on which the town and castle stand is 
 such as to yield only a very inconsiderable quantity of water 
 on the spot; and the distant springs, which, by reason of 
 their higher level, might be available for the supply of the 
 town, are in general beyond the control of the corporation. 
 
 One small spring on Falsgrave Moor was at the disposal 
 of the engineer, and it was in the economizing of this scanty 
 rill that Mr. Smith exercised his ingenuity. He applied this 
 
113 
 
 ingenuity at each end of the watercourse. In the hill he 
 excavated a subterranean reservoir, which might preserve 
 from surface waste the water at its origin, and in the town 
 he constructed a large closed reservoir, to meet the irregu- 
 lar demand of a varying population. These plans were suc- 
 cessful, the little spring became a great blessing ; the town 
 is benefited ; but it has grown in size, and now requires a 
 further effort to obtain further supplies from another source. 
 Among the many eminent persons who at different periods 
 of Mr. Smith's life took a lively interest in his welfare, it is 
 the pleasing duty of his biographer to mark with grateful 
 distinction one whose friendly regard he gained about this 
 period, and retained during the remainder of his life, Sir 
 John V. B. Johnstone, Bart., of Hackness. On succeeding 
 to his estates, this enlightened gentleman was desirous of 
 converting to practical effect on his farms some of the geo- 
 logical and botanical truths which he knew to have been 
 established in the museum and the laboratory ; he found in 
 Mr. Smith the union of practical and theoretical knowledge 
 which was necessary for his object, and a desire to exemplify 
 that knowledge in agricultural improvements which exactly 
 coincided with his own wishes. From 1828 to 1834 Mr. 
 Smith acted as his land-steward, resided at Hackness, occu- 
 pied himself in the usual concerns of a large landed estate, 
 and thus passed (in the judgment of the writer) six of the 
 calmest and happiest years of his declining life. The worthy 
 proprietor of Hackness had hoped that the retirement which 
 seemed so well suited to Mr. Smith's age and taste, would 
 have been memorable for the production of the results of a 
 life of scientific toil, and spared neither friendly entreaty, 
 nor pecuniary aid, nor personal exertion, to bring this fa- 
 vorite design to effect. Mr. Smith meditated and wrote, 
 but did not arrange his papers, and excepting a beautiful 
 geological map of the Hackness estate, executed in great 
 detail and with extreme exactitude, nothing of importance 
 came from his hands to the public. He was now advanced 
 to the age of sixty years : forty of these years had been 
 passed in almost solitary research and intense meditation : 
 
114 
 
 the publications which he had accomplished had been pro- 
 duced under circumstances of great difficulty and discou- 
 ragement, and had yielded him no adequate return. Per- 
 haps, under these conditions, it was too much to expect of a 
 man, whose happiness lay in the solitary world of his own 
 thoughts, that he should now correct the one error of his 
 life, and forgo, at the call of duty, the habit of procrastina- 
 tion, which had resisted the ambition of scientific fame, and 
 the pressure of actual distress. 
 
 But these years were fruitful of events interesting to 
 the friends of William Smith. In Feb. 1831, the Council of 
 the Geological Society of London honoured him by award- 
 ing to him the first Wollaston medal ; and the terms witli 
 which the gift was accompanied render this act on the 
 part of the Society and the President extremely memorable. 
 Dr. Wollaston's services to physical science were well known 
 and duly honoured in his life-time ; geology has felt, and 
 will long feel the benefit of his dying bequest. He invested 
 one thousand pounds in the three per cent. Reduced Bank 
 Annuities, in the joint names of himself and the Geological 
 Society, and directed that after his decease, " the Society 
 should apply the dividends in promoting researches concern- 
 ing the mineral structure of the earth, or in rewarding those 
 by whom such researches should hereafter be made; or in 
 such manner as should appear to the Council of the said 
 Society for the time being, conducive to the interests of the 
 Society in particular, or the science of geology in general." 
 He afterwards enjoined the Society " not to hoard the divi- 
 dends parsimoniously, but to expend them liberally, and, as 
 far as might be, annually, in furthering the objects of the 
 trust." The first year's income from this fund was appro- 
 priated to the acquisition of a die for a medal bearing the 
 head of Dr. Wollaston, and this having been undertaken by 
 Mr. Wyon, the Society was prepared in 1831 to fulfil the 
 trust with which they were charged. The Council accord- 
 ingly passed unanimously the following resolutions, Jan. 11, 
 1831 :-- 
 
 1. " That a medal of fine gold, bearing the impress of the 
 
115 
 
 head of Dr. Wollaston, and not exceeding the value of ten 
 guineas, be procured with the least possible delay. 
 
 2. t( That the first Wollaston medal be given to Mr. 
 William Smith, in consideration of his being a great original 
 discoverer in English geology ; and especially for his having 
 been the first, in this country, to discover and to teach the 
 identification of strata, and to determine their succession by 
 means of their imbedded fossils*." 
 
 The announcement of this award was made by a congenial 
 spirit. The chair of the Geological Society was then filled 
 by one of its most honoured members, an original thinker 
 and faithful observer, well qualified to appreciate the origi- 
 nality of Mr. Smith's discoveries, and well acquainted by 
 actual research with their extent and their value. In his 
 address on this occasion, Professor Sedgwick, speaking in 
 the name of the Geological Society, sketched a brief but 
 satisfactory history of Mr. Smith's career, demonstrated the 
 entire justice of the award of the Council of the Geolo- 
 gical Society, and added his personal testimony in favour of 
 Mr. Smith's claims in terms of no ordinary value. 
 
 " I for one can speak with gratitude of the practical les- 
 sons I have received from Mr. Smith : it was by tracking his 
 footsteps, with his maps in my hand, through Wiltshire and 
 the neighbouring counties, where he had trodden nearly 
 thirty years before, that I first learned the subdivisions of 
 our oolitic series, and apprehended the meaning of those 
 arbitrary and somewhat uncouth terms, which we derive 
 from him as our master, which have long become engrafted 
 into the conventional language of English geologists, and 
 through their influence have been, in part, also adopted by 
 the naturalists of the Continent. 
 
 " After such a statement, gentlemen, I have a right to 
 speak boldly, and to demand your approbation of the Coun- 
 cil's award. 1 could almost dare to wish that stern lover of 
 truth, to whose bounty we owe the ' Donation Fund,' that 
 
 * In the medal presented to Mr. Smith is a very slight imperfection, 
 arising from a minute want of finish in the die,which has been since removed. 
 That imperfection may be valued as authenticating the "first" medal. 
 
116 
 
 dark eye, before the glance of which all false pretensions 
 withered, were once more amongst us. And if it be denied 
 us to hope that a spirit like that of Wollaston should often 
 be embodied on the earth, I would appeal to those intelli- 
 gent men who form the strength and ornament of this So- 
 ciety, whether there was any place for doubt or hesitation ? 
 whether we were not compelled, by every motive which the 
 judgment can approve and the heart can sanction, to per- 
 form this act of filial duty, before we thought of the claims 
 of any other man, and to place our first honour on the brow 
 of the father of English geology ? 
 
 " If, in the pride o'f our present strength, we were disposed 
 to forget our origin, our very speech would bewray us : for 
 we use the language which he taught us in the infancy of 
 our science. If we, by our united efforts, are chiseling the 
 ornaments and slowly raising up the pinnacles of one of the 
 temples of nature, it was he who gave the plan, and laid the 
 foundations, and erected a portion of the solid walls by the 
 unassisted labour of his hands. 
 
 " The men who have led the way in useful discoveries 
 have ever held the first place of honour in the estimation of 
 all who in aftertimes have understood their works or trodden 
 in their steps. It is upon this abiding principle that we have 
 acted ; and in awarding our first prize to Mr. Smith, we 
 believe that we have done honour to our own body, and are 
 sanctioned by the highest feelings which bind societies 
 together. 
 
 " I think it a high privilege to fill this chair on an occasion 
 when we are met, not coldly to deliberate on the balance of 
 conflicting claims, in which, after all, we might go wrong, 
 and give the prize to one man by injustice to another; but 
 to perform a sacred duty, where there is no room for doubt 
 or error, and to perform an act of public gratitude, in which 
 the judgment and the feelings are united*." 
 
 On this occasion Mr. Smith presented to the Society the 
 original Table of Stratification drawn up in 1799, referred 
 
 * Address to the Geological Society, at the Anniversary Meeting, Feb. 18, 
 1831, by the President, the Rev. Adam Sedgwick, M.A., F.R.S., &c. 
 
117 
 
 to in this work (page 30), and a circle-map of the vicinity 
 of Bath, which had been geologically coloured about the 
 same period. 
 
 The British Association, founded at York in 1831, held its 
 second meeting at Oxford in June 1832; and on this occasion 
 the Wollaston Medal, awarded in the previous year, was 
 put in Mr. Smith's possession ; and he was further gratified 
 by the announcement that a pension of 100, solicited by 
 the united voice of English geologists, had been assigned 
 him by the Government of His Majesty William the Fourth. 
 Thus a second time in the progress of this memoir have we 
 found the British Government yielding to the honest influ- 
 ence of lovers of science, and the friendly interference of men 
 who adorned their official stations, and marking with favour 
 the cultivation of a branch of the knowledge of nature, which 
 is far from being, even now, appreciated by the country 
 at large. Those who freely censure constitutional govern- 
 ments for the tardiness and feebleness of their patronage of 
 science, should number among the causes of this seeming 
 indifference, the want, among the friends and cultivators 
 of knowledge, of the union of effort and the singleness of 
 object which have been found effective in guarding the in- 
 terests of other portions of the community. Such union it 
 was one of the great purposes of the British Association to 
 accomplish and perpetuate ; and the resolute support which 
 it has received from the cultivators of natural knowledge in 
 the British Isles, and the attention which has been on seve- 
 ral occasions vouchsafed to it by the Government, appear to 
 prove that there is no particular difficulty in harmonizing 
 the efforts of scientific men, nor any unreasonable obstacle 
 to a just consideration of their labours in the channels of 
 official life. 
 
 A further gratifying proof that the attention of the Go- 
 vernment was awakened to the interests of science was given 
 to the members of the British Association at their meeting 
 in Cambridge in 1833, when Dr. Dalton's name, long enno- 
 bled by the admiration of Europe, was placed on the Pen- 
 sion List for 300. 
 
118 
 
 To Mr. Smith the periodical return of these meetings was 
 like the revival of spring to the vegetable world. Except 
 at their summons, he rarely quitted his hermitage at Hack- 
 ness, and for many years his presence in the Sections of the 
 Association was hailed with delight by those who, occupy- 
 ing the highest place in public opinion, were proud to call 
 him the " Father of Geology," though to some of the views 
 which they advocated he was disposed to show anything 
 but parental affection. But he rarely took part in discus- 
 sions at these meetings, and indeed seldom spoke, except 
 to mention some striking fact, because his mind had been 
 little trained to intellectual gymnastics, and an infirmity of 
 age the only failing which age brought upon him deaf- 
 ness, began to rob him of half the wit and eloquence which 
 he most admired and most longed to hear from the lips of 
 Professor Sedgwick. 
 
 In 1834, on occasion of attending the Edinburgh meet- 
 ing of the Association, he was a visitor to Sir Charles Mon- 
 teith, and made himself well acquainted with the singular 
 features of the geology of Closeburn and the Valley of the 
 Nith. Among other specimens which he brought from 
 Nithsdale is a remarkable mass of Silurian sandstone, very 
 rich in corals and shells, such as are well known in Shrop- 
 shire and South Wales. The locality is marked on it, but 
 not in the precise manner which was Mr. Smith's wont in 
 earlier days. He also explored some parts of the Highland 
 district of Scotland, and made other excursions from Hack- 
 ness, which in this year he quitted to resume his residence 
 at Scarborough. 
 
 The following notice on this subject must not be omitted: 
 
 " Scarborough, June 28, 1839- 
 
 " After living at Hackness near six years I grew weary of 
 nothing but farming concerns, and told my good friend Sir 
 John Johnstone I wished to leave it, and that as the last 
 five or six years of a man's life were seldom good for much, 
 I wished to have them to myself (provided I lived so long), 
 to complete and arrange my papers without the interruption 
 of any business, to which he readily acceded, and kindly 
 
119 
 
 allowed me twenty pounds a year for occasional advice and 
 visits." 
 
 The prediction, if it may be so called, which this sentence 
 contains was verified ; Mr. Smith did live five years after 
 quitting Hackness, and he employed himself with industry 
 on his papers, less however to arrange than to augment 
 their already voluminous mass. At Hackness, however, he 
 had not been so wholly engrossed by {( farming concerns" 
 as he perhaps imagined, for a great number of papers on 
 various subjects, which imply the exercise of a mind much 
 at ease in respect of occupation, and capable of dwelling on 
 such reflections as retirement and leisure produce, are dated 
 " Hackness." 
 
 From this time, unfettered by any but temporary engage- 
 ments, which left him the free disposal of abundant leisure, 
 Mr. Smith remained principally at Scarborough, and de- 
 voted his mind to a review of the circumstances of his life 
 and the arrangement of his observations and opinions. In 
 a locality which he loved, a retirement which he chose, and 
 under the agreeable stimulus of assured respect and wi- 
 dening reputation, his hours passed almost unheeded by. 
 Buried in the seclusion of his study full of his own maps 
 and manuscripts, or wandering beneath the cliffs whose 
 geological structure he was the first to comprehend, his 
 mind was strung anew, and it might have been expected 
 that the thousands of facts which his memory retained 
 should have been methodized into laws of phaenomena, and 
 the characteristic and unusual inferences which he expressed, 
 on the theory and economical applications of geology, have 
 acquired a systematic and permanent form. Such were his 
 own expectations, and it was owing rather to a discursive 
 habit of mind, an excessive activity of observation which 
 seized upon and gave temporary importance to every no- 
 velty, than to any want of industry or indecision of judg- 
 ment, that these apparently well-founded hopes were not 
 fulfilled. Papers which required arrangement and conden- 
 sation were augmented, and connected with new trains of 
 research ; and, as if the ordinary forms of expression were 
 
120 
 
 inadequate to match the vividness of his ideas connected with 
 the structure of the earth, his thoughts on stratification and 
 organic remains were often clothed in humourous if not al- 
 ways harmonious verse. Those to whom this play of fancy 
 was revealed easily abandoned the belief that Mr. Smith's 
 geological principles would ever become fully known through 
 his own exertions ; and as no inducement could persuade 
 him to intrust to others the task which he felt it was his 
 duty to accomplish, the case became from year to year more 
 desperate, as the observations lost more and more of their 
 freshness, and the generalizations of their novelty. Mr. 
 Smith mixed too little with younger geologists to make the 
 discovery, that on the road which he opened were racers 
 swifter than himself; and few of his friends could undertake 
 the painful task of proving to him the unpleasant truth, that 
 the piles of manuscript, in which he fondly hoped that both 
 fame and fortune were secured, were rapidly losing their 
 value as contributions to science and articles of trade. 
 
 The monotony of his life was often relieved by visits of a 
 few weeks' duration to London, where he enjoyed to some 
 extent intercourse with the active members of the Geologi- 
 cal Society, and attended with interest a few scientific lec- 
 tures. Increasing deafness, however, deprived him of a full 
 share of these enjoyments, and his life in London, whither 
 he always carried large packages of manuscript, was little 
 different in its objects and results from that which has been 
 described at Scarborough. 
 
 Mr. Smith was received at the Dublin meeting of the 
 British Association in 1835 with marked kindness by Dr. 
 Lloyd, the good Provost, and many of the eminent Fellows 
 of Trinity College ; and this noble establishment conferred 
 on him an honour which was entirely unexpected, the de- 
 gree of LL.D. Dr. Smith, as we must now call him, was, in 
 his sixty-seventh year, sufficiently alive to feelings more 
 common in youth to be highly gratified with his new title 
 of honour, and his friends, both amused and pleased with 
 this natural and grateful exultation, strove by every means 
 to augment his enjoyment. The Rev. J. Maclean, Dean of 
 
121 
 
 the College, showed him the kindest and most persevering 
 attention, conducted him to many interesting scenes, and 
 made his journey through the North of Ireland one of con- 
 tinual delight. Captain Portlock, who then directed the 
 operations of the Geological Survey in Ireland, and was sta- 
 tioned at Belfast, took particular pleasure in aiding the in- 
 quiries of the veteran geologist, whose mind, still active and 
 benevolent, was turned at this time to questions which no 
 one could so well handle, questions of drainage and agri- 
 cultural improvement, of much importance to Ireland. Per- 
 haps some of the speculations in which he indulged might 
 have been turned to valuable practice but for the death of 
 one of the kindest of all the friends of his later life, Mr. 
 Maclean, an event much and generally deplored. 
 
 Dr. Smith was called to attend the meeting of the Asso- 
 ciation in 1836 by a special invitation from the inhabitants 
 of Bristol, who defrayed the cost of his journey. On this 
 occasion he renewed his old friendship with Mrs. Richardson, 
 and Mr. Wm. Pyle Taunton and his lady, the daughter of the 
 Rev. Joseph Townsend, and was enabled to repeat his exa- 
 mination of points which he had not seen for thirty years. 
 At this time he occupied some days in a rather minute and 
 careful survey of part of the coal district of Kingswood, 
 and coloured the result of his observations on the sheets of 
 the Ordnance Survey. 
 
 Amongst a few professional engagements which occupied 
 Dr. Smith's attention in 1837 and 1838, it may be sufficient 
 to mention one, the most remarkable of all, in which, by 
 direction of the Government, he was associated with Mr. 
 Barry and Mr. (now Sir Henry) De la Beche. Before pro- 
 ceeding to the execution of Mr. Barry's magnificent design 
 for the pew houses of Parliament, and making choice of the 
 stone to be employed in the building, it appeared desirable 
 that all the principal quarries of the kingdom should be 
 examined, and the qualities of the stone most celebrated 
 in decorative architecture studied in edifices, examined in 
 the laboratory, and subjected to mechanical experiment. 
 From such an investigation might be expected not only a 
 
122 
 
 good selection, on sure grounds, of a proper stone for the 
 Parliament-houses, but general rules founded in practice 
 and theory, and applicable to a variety of architectural and 
 engineering operations. These expectations were fulfilled. 
 
 Leaving Newcastle in 1838 (at the close of the meeting of 
 the British Association), the party traversed rapidly a great 
 part of England and Wales in the months of August, Sep- 
 tember and October, and collected a mass of information re- 
 garding the situation of quarries, the cost and " workability " 
 of the stones most in reputation among builders, and the 
 evidence of their durability in edifices of authenticated an- 
 tiquity. Specimens of these various sorts of stone were sub- 
 jected to chemical analysis, and to experiments on specific 
 gravity, power of cohesion, and hygrometric properties, by 
 Professors Daniell and Wheatstone, and the result of the 
 whole inquiry was published in a detailed Report to the 
 Commissioners of Her Majesty's Woods, Forests, Land 
 Revenues, Works and Buildings, dated 16th March 1839. 
 This valuable document consists principally of tabulated 
 observations and experiments relating to above 100 quarries 
 in Scotland, England and Wales, and is prefaced by re- 
 marks on the nature and result of the inquiry, which deserve 
 the attention of scientific and practical men. The stone 
 selected was the firm, yellow, granular magnesian limestone 
 of Bolsover Moor in Derbyshire ; and examples of this and 
 many other sorts of stone, of various degrees of excellence 
 and suited to various uses, may be seen in the Museum of 
 Economic Geology, Craig's-court,Charing-cross, established, 
 under the direction of Sir H. T. De la Beche, by the Com- 
 missioners of Woods and Forests. 
 
 This was an investigation to which Dr. Smith willingly 
 gave all the earnest attention which it merited, and his 
 previous knowledge of nearly all the building-stones and 
 quarries in the kingdom was found highly beneficial to the 
 Commission. Five days after the signing of the Report 
 (in London) he attained his seventieth year, in excellent 
 health and spirits, which appeared to promise years of 
 thought, if not of activity. Except a few days employed in 
 
123 
 
 re-examining with Mr. Barry the quarries near Worksop, 
 which had been selected by the Commission, he remained 
 principally in the vicinity of Scarborough (" walking over 
 farms at Silpho and Broxa, and other parts of the Hackness 
 estate") till July. In the early days of this month he was 
 occupied in arrangements intended to secure a quiet posses- 
 sion of his pleasant house at Scarborough for some years 
 more, and on the fifth he left it, never to return. Perhaps 
 it was incautious in a man of his age and habits to venture 
 an outside passage by the mail to London, but there is no evi- 
 dence that he suffered by it. On the 10th he attended the 
 English Agricultural Society in Cavendish-square ; on the 
 1 1th he was engaged with Mr. Philip Pusey, the great mover 
 of that association ; the 16th saw him in Oxford, where he 
 dined at Queen's College with 2500 persons; and the 18th 
 brought him to the hospitality of Nuneham. Here, assisted 
 in his desire to examine parts of the neighbouring country 
 by the friendly regard which for twenty years had been 
 manifested towards him by the Archbishop of York and 
 many members of his family, Dr. Smith passed several plea- 
 sant days, visiting Watlington,Garsington, Milton, Marcham 
 and Stanford, with an enthusiastic anxiety to complete in 
 age the investigations among the oolites and chalk hills 
 which he had commenced in youth. Afterwards he revisited 
 for a few days his native place and rural friends, and re- 
 turned to London on the 9th of August. 
 
 The meeting of the British Association was this year 
 (1839) appointed to be held at Birmingham on the 26th of 
 August, and Dr. Smith received from Mr. Joseph Hodg- 
 son (one of the secretaries of the meeting) a special and 
 very cordial invitation to be present. He stopped on his 
 journey to Birmingham at the house of his highly valued 
 friends, Mr. George Baker, and Miss Baker of Northamp- 
 ton. Here the kindest welcome awaited him ; and in addi- 
 tion to the pleasure of contemplating the beautiful series 
 of Northamptonshire fossils which Mr. and Miss Baker had 
 collected, he was gratified by several excursions into the 
 neighbouring country, which had always been interesting 
 
124 
 
 to him since in earlier days he had opened the curious 
 volume of Morton's ' Northamptonshire.' While thus tra- 
 cing the boundaries of the minor divisions of the oolitic 
 rocks which he had been the first to distinguish, a slight 
 cold by which he was affected seemed, to the eyes of 
 his friends, to deserve more attention than he bestowed 
 on it ; diarrhoea gradually supervened, and medical assist- 
 ance became immediately advisable. Dr. Smith had for 
 many years been successful in guarding his own usually 
 robust health, and he was slow and reluctant to admit of 
 advice better suited to the disorder which now attacked 
 him, and which on a former occasion had so prostrated his 
 strength that he recovered with difficulty under the treatment 
 of his friend Mr. Dunn. He began to feel the attack serious, 
 and to perceive the alarm in the faces of his friends, be- 
 fore Dr. Robertson of Northampton was called to his aid. 
 The author, then earnestly expecting his revered relative at 
 the meeting of the British Association in Birmingham, re- 
 ceived information of his illness on the evening of the 26th 
 of August, and in the morning of the 27th attended his 
 bedside. 
 
 It was difficult to believe, that under that calm, thought- 
 ful, and pleased expression of countenance, those animated 
 descriptions of the country which he had visited a few days 
 previously, those plans of further and strenuous exertion, 
 which asked years of active life for completion, lurked pain 
 and fatal disease. If there had been some trace of delirium, 
 this had disappeared, and it seemed as if the remedies ap- 
 plied were producing beneficial effects, but this hope failed ; 
 the uncomplaining sufferer sunk continually in each succeed- 
 ing hour, till his eyes lost their bright and kindly light, and 
 the ever- varying features became fixed in serene and awful 
 tranquillity (Aug. 28, 10 P.M.). 
 
 Dr. Smith was buried at Northampton, at the west end of 
 the beautiful antique church of All Saints, in which, at the 
 
suggestion of Dr. Buckland, a tablet will be placed to his 
 memory, by a subscription among geologists. 
 
 Several portraits of Dr. Smith exist, as the following ac- 
 count testifies : 
 
 " Portraits. 
 
 " Scarborough, June 29, 1839. 
 
 " My portrait was first taken in 1805 by Solomon Wil- 
 liams, who painted the ' Trial of Sidney/ He was then about 
 painting the group of attendants at the Holkham sheep- 
 shearing. Some of the most eminent persons sat to him at 
 my house in Buckingham-street. The Duke of Norfolk 
 (then Bernard Howard), Lord Somerville, Sir Joseph Banks, 
 Thomas Crook, and some others, forming a group on the 
 left-hand side of the picture, were completed, and I, bare- 
 headed, was introduced behind Sir Joseph Banks ; but this 
 picture was never finished. He also painted another of me 
 in oil, somewhat larger, which I have, but that in the group 
 before mentioned was thought to be a better likeness. 
 
 " My friends at Scarborough wishing me to have my like- 
 ness well taken, gave me a letter of introduction to the cele- 
 brated self-taught artist of Lestingham in Yorkshire [Jack- 
 son], and when I went to London [1832] I sat to him, for 
 which he would take no remuneration; and on leaving it in 
 his hands to be engraved, I asked him what he thought of 
 it, when he said he believed it to be as good a likeness as 
 ever he drew in his life. He was, however, shortly after 
 taken ill, and died, so that this (only pencil stippling) was 
 sold at his sale, with a few other little things, for five 
 guineas. 
 
 " In the summer of 1838, a tall, well-grown, fine-looking 
 young gentleman from France, for a very short time became 
 an inmate at my lodgings, 6 Lancaster-place, Waterloo- 
 bridge, and had not been there more than three or four 
 days before he said he * should like to take my portrait it 
 would make a good picture if I would permit.' I told him 
 
I could not afford to pay for it. ' Oh,' says he, ' artists are 
 never paid.' Consent being given, he said, ' Tomorrow 
 me at 8, you at 10;' and accordingly in the morning at 10 
 I found in my room he had prepared the canvas, put on his 
 painter's silk gown of all colours, adjusted the lights, placed 
 me in one chair and himself in another, set to work, without 
 any easel, and by 4 o'clock in the afternoon, with about 
 half an hour's re-touching the next morning, he produced a 
 fine oil painting. 
 
 " I never saw a man stick so closely to his task or handle 
 his tools so dextrously. There was no time lost in idle 
 conversation, for he could speak but few words of English, 
 and I none of French. 
 
 " It was thus, by the skill and generosity of my much- 
 esteemed young friend M. Fourau, I became possessed of a 
 fine oil painting. He requested me to write on the back of 
 it Portrait of Dr. William Smith, painted in London, which 
 T did in a strong hand." 
 
 The engraved portrait in this volume is copied from the 
 picture of M. Fourau. 
 
 Dr. Smith's person was formed on large proportions, cor- 
 responding to the sturdy strength of his intellect ; his health 
 was generally good ; he enjoyed a sound mind in a sound 
 body. When about forty years of age he suffered by ague, 
 caught in the marshes of Laugharn, and at subsequent 
 times by diarrhoea, probably through exposure to cold, 
 which he always faced without a great-coat, or the defence 
 of hand-shoes, as he contemptuously termed gloves. To 
 slight attacks of lumbago he was rather subject, and from 
 about the fiftieth to the sixtieth year he was troubled by a 
 gravel complaint ; this was relieved by copious draughts of 
 vegetable bitters (camomile tea), and by this treatment and 
 extreme moderation in diet, followed by abstinence for a 
 time from all fermented liquors, entirely cured, so that in 
 the latter years of his life he was apparently and really free 
 from illness. Descended from a healthy race, amongst whom 
 tooth-ache was unknown and longevity was frequent uncles 
 
127 
 
 and great-grandfathers having seen their 98th year tempe- 
 rate in diet, moderate in exercise, and vigorous in mind, his 
 whole life was a continuous stream of thought and action. 
 He can hardly be said or supposed to have lost by neglect a 
 single hour, though, by permitting his mind to wander from 
 its appointed line of research into innumerable by-paths, he 
 sometimes forgot or postponed, and therefore failed in his 
 main object. 
 
 A remarkable quality in the character of Smith was firm- 
 ness, which, according to the difficulties, disappointments 
 and sorrows of his life, took the aspect of fortitude, patience, 
 and resignation ; but in the prosecution of scientific or pro- 
 fessional labour, rose to cheerful courage and persevering 
 resolution. The exercise of this high quality gained him 
 in early life professional independence and scientific fame, 
 and in later years preserved to him, amidst poverty and 
 domestic affliction, a calm elastic mind, the envy of younger 
 men. 
 
 The " Map of the Strata of England and Wales " is a 
 monument of labour and judgment : if to this we add 
 twenty-one geological maps of counties and many detailed 
 sections, a great variety of reports in engineering and mineral 
 surveying, and innumerable detached essays on geological 
 and economical subjects, we shall grant to the author and 
 writer the praise of unremitting industry. More abundant 
 fruits of this industry would have been given to the world 
 had he been more regularly trained, especially in literary 
 pursuits ; for thus the excessive aptitude of his mind for 
 original and discursive research might have been directed 
 in more methodical channels to more systematic and com- 
 plete results. 
 
 The life of a professional man, and especially that of an 
 engineer, is seldom favourable for the acquirement of the 
 valuable habit of restricted and regular study : Smith's 
 career was in all respects such as to render the exercise of 
 this habit impracticable ; his papers have been mostly written 
 at short intervals of rest, while travelling, and are thus only 
 fragments which the author alone could have arranged into 
 
128 
 
 an edifice links of a broken chain which can never be re- 
 united. 
 
 Voluminous as these papers are, they do not contain a 
 vast variety of matters which had passed under Smith's 
 observation. His memory retained whatever his eyes had 
 seen ; and it has often occurred to friends who listened to 
 his precise and complete narrations of past events, to regret 
 that no practised amanuensis was at hand to preserve much 
 that ought not to have been lost. There are living geolo- 
 gists who may be warned by these remarks how to provide 
 against the mischiefs of indolence or indisposition, and by 
 the humble aid of swift writing, to save for future times those 
 precious thoughts which else will exist only in the fading 
 recollections of admiring friends. 
 
 Had Smith been asked what he thought the most pre- 
 vailing quality of his mind, he would doubtless have replied, 
 " a habit of observation." 
 
 " Scarborough, November 16, 1838. 
 
 " By these reminiscences I see how the habit of observa- 
 tion crept on me, gained a settlement in my mind, became a 
 constant associate of my life, and started up in activity at 
 the first thoughts of a journey ; so that I generally went off 
 well prepared with maps, and sometimes with contemplations 
 on its objects, or on those on the road, reduced to writing, 
 before it commenced. 
 
 " My mind was therefore like the canvas of a painter, 
 well prepared for the first and best impressions." 
 
 This habit, founded on a natural quickness of the senses, 
 was nourished in boyhood and cultivated through life. The 
 eye was in him more than in other men the avenue of know- 
 ledge to the mind, and was educated with proportionate care. 
 Often, when desirous of remembering a certain name, he 
 would write it distinctly, saying, that if he forgot the sound 
 he should remember the picture. This memory for form 
 made him an easy and accurate sketcher, and, with a good 
 taste for colour, gave him great enjoyment in paintings and 
 sculptures. [See the portraits of the Duke of Bedford, 
 
Rev. J. Townsend, and Dr. Anderson, in the former parts 
 of this volume.] 
 
 He exhibited on many occasions a considerable facility 
 in mechanical inventions. When the bore-hole in the pit 
 sunk at Batheaston had reached the lias, so much water 
 sprung up as to fill the pit, and overpower the engine. 
 What was to be done ? Smith instantly met the case by 
 a very simple arrangement. He caused a long piece of wood 
 to be planed with eight sides tapering to a point ; at the 
 large end he screwed on a heavy iron top, and to an eye in 
 this was fastened a rope of sufficient length and strength. 
 The machine (if it may be so called) was let down to the pit 
 bottom, and moved about in the water till the point of the 
 rod entered the bore-hole ; it was then permitted to drop 
 into it ; the iron head was unscrewed, lifted, and again per- 
 mitted to fall as a hammer on the rod, which by three or 
 four blows became fixed in the hole. Thus the spring was 
 stopped, so that the engine, being set to work again, easily 
 emptied the pit. 
 
 While engaged at Norwich in preparing for the press his 
 work on Irrigation (1806), Smith's attention was drawn to 
 the processes of the typographer (Mr. R. Bacon), and he 
 conceived the idea of continuous printing, by causing an 
 inking apparatus to revolve against a revolving frame of 
 type ; he drew diagrams and executed models of the requi- 
 site surfaces, the type-frame having four plane faces, and 
 the inking frame four faces curved so as to meet them 
 exactly. Mr. Bacon afterwards applied to Mr. B. Donkin 
 to arrange a printing apparatus on this general idea, but 
 under the hands of that eminent engineer it took quite a 
 different form. 
 
 The colouring of the great Map of the Strata was on a 
 new and peculiar plan, the terminal edges of the rocks being 
 deeply tinted, and the other parts of their visible surface 
 merely washed ; the constructing and colouring of the sec- 
 tions were equally unlike what were adopted previously ; 
 the very shelves on which his primitive collection was ar- 
 ranged bore the same impress of original and independent 
 
130 
 
 thought. These were in wood what the sections were on 
 paper, the boards being made all to slope in one direction, 
 so as to imitate the prevalent inclination of the rocks ; and 
 their terminal edges rising to greater or less heights above 
 the floor, according as the rocks which they represented 
 formed hills or valleys on the earth's surface. This arrange- 
 ment has been partially copied in the beautiful Rotunda at 
 Scarborough, in the plan and execution of which on many 
 points Smith's advice was followed. 
 
 A man whose life was passed in reducing to order the 
 rugged aspect of the earth, might claim to be excused for 
 any slight want of refinement in manner ; but Dr. Smith's 
 natural goodness of heart and variety of knowledge ren- 
 dered his society agreeable to most persons, and highly at- 
 tractive to those who valued him or the science he had 
 unfolded. In his intercourse with such friends, the * mains 
 pudor' and the * superbia quaesita meritis,' which seem to 
 haunt men of genius, were driven away by an unrestrained 
 flow of pleasant narration, or an earnest pleading for what 
 was deemed true, and sacred because true. On such oc- 
 casions, the resolution with which he held to an opinion 
 once formed on one good, or on several plausible reasons, 
 might deviate into prejudice, if the arguments brought to 
 oppose him were not of such a nature as he deemed fitting 
 for the case. He would yield always to a plain and clear 
 statement of fact, but seldom to a demonstration involving 
 or founded on the progress of collateral science. Geology 
 was with him ' the science,' with its own classes of observa- 
 tions, arguments and conclusions. Such light as zoology, 
 botany, chemistry, or mechanics could throw on the an- 
 cient phsenomena of nature was admitted slowly and cau- 
 tiously, unless independently sustained by direct observa- 
 tions on the strata ; and as for their verification he would 
 seldom trust others than himself, his views of geological 
 theory were sometimes difficult and embarrassed. 
 
 A favourite topic of conversation with Dr. Smith was the 
 history of his own geological researches, coupled with 
 notices of his professional labours, and doubtless there are 
 
131 
 
 many persons now living who have heard from his lips a 
 more full and circumstantial account of several events of his 
 life than it was necessary or indeed practicable to record in 
 these pages. They will also remember innumerable plea- 
 sant anecdotes and characteristic traits of many eminent 
 individuals with whom he had been associated. It is diffi- 
 cult to resist the temptation of reporting these amusing no- 
 tices of events which happened half a century since, but a 
 very small selection must suffice. 
 
 One of his earliest and most esteemed friends, Mr. Thomas 
 Davies, steward for the Marquis of Bath at Longleat, who 
 was the means of introducing him to Mr. Richardson, was 
 remarkable for pithy sayings, in good Wiltshire idiom. Du- 
 ring the palmy days of the Bath Agricultural Society (about 
 1800), he one day observed to a farmer at Longleat that he 
 had not seen him at the last agricultural meeting. " Why 
 noa, zur," replied Hodge; "I have been thinking, zur, these 
 agricultural meetings don't do much good." " I tell ye 
 what, my friend," said the steward, " they have done some 
 good if they have set you o' thinking, for that 's what you 
 never did in your life before." 
 
 On occasion of a visit to Mr. Crawshay at Merthyr Tydvil 
 (1803), he had an opportunity of hearing the sentiments of 
 a brother ironmaster on the subject of teaching the art of 
 writing to poor children, then debated in the midst of the 
 furnaces. " No, no," exclaimed this really intelligent and 
 benevolent, if prejudiced man, " they'll all be hanged for 
 forgery; put 'em into a three-foot vein," a thickness of coal 
 esteemed to be suitable for " training up a child in the way 
 he should go ! " 
 
 Being consulted by a landowner on the dry Mendip Hills, 
 as to the best means of procuring supplies of water for his 
 farm, Smith found that he had been anticipated in deliver- 
 ing an opinion on this very difficult subject by a miner, who 
 proposed to solve the problem by divination, that is to say, 
 by the divining or jowsing (chowsing ?) rod. Unwilling 
 that his worthy employer should be at the mercy of this 
 superstition, he filled his pockets with some small stones not 
 
132 
 
 commonly found on the Mendips, and proceeded to witness 
 the trial of the " forked stick." Accordingly the miner 
 exercised, in presence of the owner and the geologist, the 
 "mystery" of the rod, and wherever the point of the twig 
 turned downward, declared that water was to be found by 
 digging. At these points Smith quietly dropped the stones, 
 and when several places had been thus pitched upon, asked 
 the miner if he could rediscover the points indicated. Un- 
 aware of the stratagem, the man readily agreed to repeat 
 the trials on the way home. In his progress he unluckily 
 passed the spots where the stones lay and stopped at several 
 other localities, to which the faithless rod directed atten- 
 tion ; on which Smith remarked, that as the water had in so 
 short a time changed its situation at all the points, it would 
 be imprudent to spend money in following it. 
 
 On reviewing the course of William Smith's life and 
 labours, we have been forcibly struck with the adaptation 
 of his character to his position, and impressed with the dif- 
 ficulty of judging of a man's mental powers by his practical 
 deeds, of a man's real enjoyment of life by the merely ex- 
 ternal circumstances which surround him. Who that heard 
 the hearty laugh of the " narrative old man" would suppose 
 that he had lost " house and land," spent more than the 
 hard earnings of his daily life, and endured of what is called 
 affliction more than commonly falls to the lot of man ? Who 
 that knew what he had endured, could believe that, in the 
 heaviest hour, he had never yielded to depression, never 
 ceased to command his mind and turn its unfailing energy to 
 the subjects he willed to contemplate ? Any one, aware of 
 the disadvantages from which he rose into renown, might 
 suppose his great discoveries to have been the sudden result 
 of accident, rather than the growth of exact observation and 
 careful reflection. Yet in all these cases the first impressions 
 would be utterly in error. Perhaps a greater error than all 
 would be the supposition that, under more flourishing worldly 
 circumstances, the labours of this remarkable man would have 
 
133 
 
 been greatly more important. He did not think so himself. 
 They who argue thus are perhaps not right in their general 
 view of human nature, and certainly they are wrong in the 
 estimate they form of the character of Smith. Hearts which 
 brave the attacks of adversity, yield to the solicitation of 
 prosperity. There was in the luxurious musing which he ? - 
 indulged somewhat of indolence, and it required often the 
 pressure of business and the lack of money to rouse him to 
 needful exertion. Except by the peculiar profession which 
 he created for himself, the peculiar work which he set him- 
 self to do, the gathering of materials for his great Map, 
 could not have been accomplished by an individual. 
 
 It has been conjectured that the progress of English 
 geology would have been accelerated had the infant Geolo- 
 gical Society of 1808 taken up Smith's principles, and 
 adopted his map as a basis of operations. It is very im- 
 probable that he would have agreed to share with any man, 
 or any body of men, the labour and the honour of the work, 
 on which he felt himself entitled to write, "Alone I did it." 
 Whether he was right in the opinion he formed of the value 
 and independence of his researches, and of his own power 
 to follow them out, is not now to be questioned ; it may be, 
 however, worth while, before closing this record, to attempt 
 to mark with precision the place in the scale of geological 
 discovery which has been awarded to William Smith by the 
 unanimous vote of contemporary geologists *. 
 
 Very many facts are known by experience before the 
 laws which unite these facts into system are embodied into 
 science. The stratification of many rocks ; the alternation 
 of rocks of different nature ; the peculiar positions of me- 
 tallic veins ; these and many other circumstances, which are 
 now known in the shape of general laws of phenomena, must 
 have been known in the mines and collieries and quarries 
 of Europe from an early period of the middle ages. The 
 quality and distribution of soils ; the characteristic features 
 of ranges of hills ; the peculiarities of the origin and course 
 
 * To the geologists of England this subject is familiar through the ad- 
 mirable essay of Dr. Fitton, already alluded to. 
 
of many rivers ; these and other facts observable on the 
 surface of the earthy which are now seen to depend on the 
 peculiar qualities and positions of rocks below the surface, 
 were formerly known as insulated facts, and, in some in- 
 stances, may have suggested to such men as Packe, and 
 Lister, and Evelyn, views of the earth's structure more 
 conformable to modern philosophy than appear in their 
 writings. 
 
 The naturalists of Italy, represented by Scilla, had begun 
 to reason correctly on several points of the history of organic 
 remains before our Woodward mixed truth and error in his 
 4 Natural History of the Earth,' and threw into unprofitable 
 discussions about the Deluge, the talent which had been 
 awakened in England to contemplate facts which are the 
 foundation of the highest geological laws. 
 
 The glimpses of general truth which those early writers 
 obtained constitute a considerable body of knowledge, and 
 are far more worthy of a place in the history of English 
 geology than the sounding speculations of Burnet, and 
 Whiston, and even Whitehurst, great as are the merits in 
 other respects of that remarkable author. 
 
 That the earth is stratified in parts near the surface was 
 generally known to the writers on geology in the sixteenth 
 century, and is indeed one of the leading phenomena which 
 their hypotheses were framed to explain. That the strata, 
 considered as definitely extended masses, were arranged 
 one upon another in a certain settled order or series, no- 
 where appears as a law, even for a limited district, previous 
 to the remarkable paper by John Strachey in the Phil. 
 Trans., which gives the succession of strata in the coal 
 district of Somersetshire (1719 and 1725). For here (1719) 
 we have the coal series covered, and covered unconforma- 
 bly, by the red marl, lias and oolite; and (in 1725) the limits 
 of the coal-field, between Mendip Hills on the south, Cots- 
 wold on the north-east, and Marlborough Downs or Salis- 
 bury Plain. In a section he represents, in their true order, 
 chalk, oolites, lias, red marls and coal, and the metalliferous 
 rocks. But there are glimpses of such a law in earlier wri- 
 
135 
 
 ters. Thus Woodward, in one of several false assertions 
 (to which his inconsiderate anxiety in support of a favourite 
 doctrine led him), speaks of chalk as an upper stratum, and 
 accounts for this circumstance by reason of its lightness as 
 compared with other rocks. He even accounts for the oc- 
 currence of Echinodermata, &c. in the chalk, while differ- 
 ent exuviae lie in other rocks, by the same rule of specific 
 gravity, the lightest rocks having the lightest shells. This 
 reasoning was ridiculous, but the passage is curious, as 
 showing a certain amount of knowledge on a point which 
 had been the least investigated. 
 
 Strachey's important memoirs embrace only a limited, 
 though very interesting district, and are connected with 
 a childish hypothesis. A paper by the Rev. John Holloway 
 (Philosophical Transactions, 1723,) describes the course of 
 the clay vales on the Cam, Ouse, Nen, and Isis, the 
 ridge of sand-hills of Woburn, and the chalk of Gog-Ma- 
 gog and the Chiltern Hills, as parallel masses of strata, 
 " confirming what Woodward had said of the regular dis- 
 position of the earth into like strata, or layers of matter 
 common through vast tracts ;" and hence makes a question 
 whether the fuller's earth, which is found near Woburn, 
 only in the ridge of sand-hills, " may not probably be found 
 in other parts of the same ridge of sand-hills among other 
 like matter?" These memoirs following Lister's proposal 
 for a ' Map of Soils,' (1684), and succeeded by Woodward's 
 ' Natural History of Fossils,' seem to open a great portion 
 of the subject of modern geology, and appear remarkably 
 fitted to excite and assist inquiry in England. Yet, until 
 the appearance of an * Essay on the Cause and Phsenomena 
 of Earthquakes,' by the Rev. John Michell (Philosophical 
 Transactions, 1760), there was nothing published of import- 
 ance in the advancement of geology. The subject which 
 Michell undertook to investigate, compelled him to look at 
 the construction of the earth on a large scale, and to pass 
 beyond the limits of Britain for illustrations. Accordingly 
 we find him stating some classes of data, such as the gene- 
 ral facts of stratification, the position of the strata, their 
 
136 
 
 horizontality under plains and acclinal rise toward moun- 
 tain ridges, for the purpose of establishing a general con- 
 clusion, which is thus expressed : 
 
 " From this formation of the earth it will follow, that we 
 ought to meet with the same kinds of earths, stones and 
 minerals, appearing at the surface, in long narrow slips, and 
 lying parallel to the greatest rise of any long ridges of 
 mountains; and so, in fact, we find them." He gives as il- 
 lustrations the regions of the Andes and the Sierra in South 
 America, and the mountain ranges of North America, and 
 then adds, " In Great Britain we have another instance to 
 the same purpose, where the direction of the ridge varies 
 about a point from due north and south, lying nearly from 
 north by east to south by west. At considerable distances 
 from large ridges of mountains the strata for the most part 
 assume a situation nearly level, and in the mountainous 
 countries are generally formed out of the lower strata ; so 
 the more level countries are generally formed out of the 
 upper strata of the earth." 
 
 The author of these just and admirable generalizations 
 became, in 1762, Woodwardian Professor at Cambridge, 
 and held that appointment till about 1770. He then ac- 
 cepted the rectory of Thornhill, near Dewsbury in York- 
 shire, and in his journeys to and from Cambridge crossed 
 the rocks between the "coal strata of Yorkshire" and the 
 " chalk." By these journeys he became sufficiently ac- 
 quainted with the series of secondary formations in England 
 to assist with his knowledge both Smeaton and Cavendish. 
 Smeaton wrote on the back of a letter bearing the London 
 post-mark of November 21, 1788, the following words : 
 
 "Mr. MichelVs Account of the South of England Strata. 
 
 Yards of thickness. 
 
 Chalk -.14 . 120 
 
 Golt >. *<,,: . 50 
 
 Sand of Bedfordshire 10 to 20 
 
 Northamptonshire lime, and Portland 
 lime, lying in several strata .... 100 
 
137 
 
 Yards of thickness. 
 Lyas strata . . . .... . . . 78 to 100 
 
 Sand of Newark about 30 
 
 Red clay of Tuxford, and several . . 100 
 Sherwood Forest pebbles and gravel . 50 unequal. 
 
 Very fine white sand uncertain 
 
 Roche Abbey and Brother ton limes . . 100 
 
 Coal strata of Yorkshire 
 
 This section is a correct exponent of the series of strata 
 really observable between Yorkshire and the country around 
 Cambridge, except in regard to the (alluvial) "sand of New- 
 ark " and the " very fine white sand," which seems to be a 
 mistake, perhaps of position, as sand which might be so 
 described lies above the coal and below the Roche lime. 
 It is also tolerably complete, except in the oolites, which 
 were never analysed till Smith began his career of discovery. 
 
 The information which Michell possessed must have pro- 
 duced a great influence on the progress of positive geo- 
 logy had he retained the Woodwardian Professorship. Per- 
 haps however, in this case, he might never have had the 
 opportunity to gather the knowledge which he so freely 
 distributed. That the public interest in such matters was 
 very slight, is evident from the facts that Smeaton's Memo- 
 randum remained among his unpublished papers till 1810, 
 when accident revealed it to Mr. Farey ; that Whitehurst 
 (publishing in 1777) quotes Michell's paper on earthquakes, 
 but never alludes to his or any other scale of stratification ; 
 and that no British or foreign writer, not even a Wood- 
 wardian professor in the eighteenth century, published, 
 employed, or in any manner alluded to, any such list ! 
 
 Whitehurst, though inferior to Michell in philosophical 
 power, and not possessed of the same firm and appropriate 
 idea of the earth's structure, has the merit of announcing 
 more distinctly than any previous writer the law of the set- 
 tled order of succession among the strata, which must ere 
 this have been rather generally allowed. " The arrange- 
 ment of the strata," he tells us, " in general is such, that 
 they invariably follow each other, as it were, in alphabetical 
 
138 
 
 order, or as a series of numbers, whatever may be their dif- 
 ferent denominations The strata," he observes, "follow 
 
 each other in a regular succession, both as to thickness and 
 quality, insomuch that, by knowing the incumbent stratum, 
 together with the arrangement thereof in any particular part 
 of the earth, we come to a perfect knowledge of all the in- 
 ferior beds, so far as they have been previously discovered 
 in the adjacent country." 
 
 Whitehurst distinguishes between stratified and unstrati- 
 fied rocks, and notices the effects of faults, but his work is 
 clouded in a formal cosmogony. 
 
 Smeaton, interested about water-cements, and finding the 
 lias of Somerset to furnish lime of the required quality, took 
 some pains to ascertain the places where such lias occurred. 
 He did not actually trace its course, but makes this state- 
 ment : 
 
 " In travelling from Glamorganshire through Monmouth- 
 shire, Gloucestershire and Warwickshire into Leicester- 
 shire, I found such frequent instances of ordinary walls and 
 cottages built with stone that appeared to me to be blue 
 lias, the mortar also being of the same hue, that I have not 
 a doubt but that the curious naturalist, in making this ex- 
 pressly an object of search, would be able to trace it from 
 Aberthaw and Watchet quite to Barrow, though probably 
 with several breaks, as is usual in the arrangement of strata 
 in the earth. From Leicestershire it appears to pass by 
 the Vale of Belvoir into Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, 
 for a species of this kind of stone is used in some of the 
 buildings about Newark ; and the Great North Road is re- 
 paired with the blue lias stone for a considerable length in 
 the post stage between Newark and Grantham; at Long 
 Bennington (a village of Lincolnshire through which the 
 road passes on that stage) there is a limekiln for burning it. 
 I have not yet seen it further north than this, nor anywhere 
 north of the Trent." (Book iii. chap. iv. page 115.) 
 
 In a similar spirit, he conjectures that the water-setting 
 lime of Petersfield may be found in all the range of chalk 
 
139 
 
 hills from Lewes to Peter sfi eld, and probably thence into 
 Surrey to Guildford and Dorking. (Page 116.) 
 
 In what degree at this time (probably about 1786) Smea- 
 ton had been aided by communications from Michell does 
 not appear. Michell is quoted by him, in page 117, as 
 giving him information on another subject. In speaking of 
 the Bath freestones, he does not connect them with those 
 of Northamptonshire, nor does he employ any of the terms 
 which a person possessed of Michell's views would have 
 naturally chosen. It is probable that Michell's list was un- 
 known to Smeaton till 1788, or perhaps later, and that he 
 left the chapter on water-cements unaltered after 1787, 
 which date is mentioned in it, though the publication did 
 not take place till 1791. This is the more probable, as he 
 quotes Mr. Cavendish and Dr. Blagden for information that 
 the blue lias exists at Lyme Regis (p. 116). From this mere 
 hint, who would have conjectured that about this time Blag- 
 den and Cavendish made extensive journeys in the south 
 and west of England with the express purpose of determining 
 the succession of the strata, and tracing their courses through 
 the English counties ? This fact, so important to the history 
 of geology, I have learned by inspection of the unpublished 
 Cavendish MSS.> which some time since were placed by their 
 noble proprietor in the hands of the Rev. W. V. Harcourt. 
 The tour w r as evidently well planned ; it was rather a tour 
 of inspection and verification than of original investigation ; 
 the strata are spoken of familiarly, as things found where 
 they might be expected, rather than as unknown objects of 
 discovery. It is clear that the tour was consequent on, and 
 planned with reference to, previous information ; and the 
 correspondence in the same collection proves satisfactorily 
 the informant to have been John Michell ! To this distin- 
 guished ornament of British science (whose name is omitted 
 in most of our biographies \], we thus trace (1760) not only 
 some of the grandest views in early geological science, but, 
 in later life (before 1788), of the first approximate scale of 
 the secondary strata of England That he never published 
 this scale, may be accounted for by his advancing age and 
 
140 
 
 the freedom of his MS. communications to Cavendish and 
 Smeaton, who might reasonably have been expected to work 
 out his ideas, and secure for him the honour of originating 
 them. But Smeaton died in 1792, Michell in 1793. Cavendish 
 had discovered the composition of water, and was, besides 
 his engagements in other branches of science, too fastidious 
 a judge of his own performances to be induced to publish 
 the results of a hasty journey. He died in 1810, two years 
 after the formation of the Geological Society of London ; 
 but who ever heard from one who could have connected 
 the fame of Michell. and Sedgwick, and filled the most re- 
 markable void in the history of English geology, a single 
 word respecting his own or Blagden's inquiries ? 
 
 We have now cleared the way to William Smith, who was 
 born about the time when Michell quitted Cambridge, arid 
 acquired the first clear and consistent view of the series of 
 stratification near Bath, just about the time when Smeaton 
 published his chapter on water-cements. In a great degree 
 self-educated, forced to struggle into notice in a laborious 
 profession, unacquainted even with the names of Michell 
 and Cavendish, the phaenomena which had caught the notice 
 of Strachey in Somersetshire fixed the attention of the 
 young man. But instead of supposing with Strachey, strata 
 curved from the centre to the circumference of the earth, or 
 looking with Michell at the Andes and the Sierra, or with 
 Whitehurst expanding into propositions the limited expe- 
 rience of the miners of Derbyshire, he concentrates his at- 
 tention on the general regularity of the strata near Bath 
 (1790-91), broken only by the single case of unconformity 
 between the red ground and the coal. He indulges no 
 speculations of horizontal strata in plains and inclined strata 
 in mountains, but seeing and proving as a local fact that the 
 strata of Somerset have a general inclination to the east 
 or south-east, turns all the energy of his mind to determine 
 if a similar law applies in other districts, dwells for this 
 purpose on every memory of his earliest years (1787-8-9), 
 seizes every occasion of travelling which limited means per- 
 mit, accepts with joy the opportunity of a long journey 
 
141 
 
 through England and Wales (1794), takes eager notes of 
 every hill and every quarry, and returns satisfied that the 
 surface of our island is formed on the edges of strata 
 which are continuous for great areas, which succeed one 
 another in a certain order, preserve approximately the same 
 thickness and quality, produce similar soils, have similar 
 uses, and affect in like manner the drainage, the eleva- 
 tion, the physical geography, and the whole aspect of the 
 country. Once master of these ideas, he took them as the 
 guiding-star, the one object of his life ; illustrated them by 
 models, maps and collections ; deduced from them new me- 
 thods of drainage, new principles of mineral surveying, new 
 practices in engineering; and at length, after minute and 
 repeated examinations, not only completed a Table of Stra- 
 tification, and coloured maps, and arranged collections, such 
 as never were conceived before, but arrived at further and 
 more magnificent discoveries, of which scarcely the least in- 
 dication can now, by the most scrutinizing search, be found 
 in the records of earlier inquiry. 
 
 Accustomed to view the surfaces of the several strata which 
 are met with near Bath uncovered in large breadths at once, 
 Mr. Smith saw with the distinctness of certainty, that " each 
 stratum had been in succession the bed of the sea ;" finding 
 in several of these strata abundance of the exuviae of marine? 
 animals, he concluded that these animals had lived and died 
 during the period of time which elapsed between the forma- 
 tion of the stratum below and the stratum above, at or near 
 the places where now they are imbedded; and observing 
 that in the successively-deposited strata the organic remains 
 were of different forms and structures Gryphites in the 
 lias, Trigoniae in the inferior oolite, hooked oysters in the 
 fuller's earth, and finding these facts repeated in other 
 districts, he inferred that each of the separate periods occu- 
 pied in the formation of the strata was accompanied by a 
 peculiar series of the forms of organic life, that these forms 
 characterized those periods, and that the different strata 
 could be identified in distant localities and otherwise doubt- 
 ful cases by peculiar imbedded organic remains. 
 
142 
 
 Of this important series of inferences, which is now the 
 accepted basisof the natural history of the earth, the record 
 of its chronology, hardly the least trace or foreshadowing 
 appears in the writings of earlier explorers. A single pass- 
 age in Lister, who recognised multitudes of a small belem- 
 nite in the Wolds of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, " at sem- 
 per in terra rubra ferruginea," only makes us regret"that so 
 curious an observation should have been clouded with doubt 
 or disbelief of the animal origin of these fossils, a state of 
 mind which effectually prevented the progress toward the 
 acquisition of a great truth which he seemed well fitted to 
 make. 
 
 Woodward's strange assertion (1696), that the matter of 
 the earth fell from suspension in a liquid, so that the strata 
 are laid one upon another in the order of their specific gra- 
 vity, led him necessarily to maintain the further error, that 
 the shells which lay in these strata had the same specific gra- 
 vity; the heavier shells (as " Conchce> Pectinesand Cochlea") 
 lying in the heavier and lower strata of sandstone, the lighter 
 shells (as Echini) lying in the lighter and upper strata of 
 chalk; and organic bodies still lighter (" as shells of lobsters 
 and crabs, bones and teeth of fishes "-!) would subside last of 
 all, and lie at or near the surface. This opinion, though it 
 1 e in fact a mass of errors, shows, what indeed cannot be 
 imagined to have happened otherwise, that an observer who 
 was singularly exact in noticing the localities of his fossils, 
 was led to perceive, though very dimly, that their distribu- 
 tion in the earth was subject to some law, but he met with 
 no success in his attempt to conjecture what the law might be. 
 
 Whitehurst notices in the Derbyshire hills the distinct- 
 ness-of the shelly contents of the limestones from the vege- 
 table remains of the coal series, but the view with which 
 this very obvious circumstance is associated, shows that he 
 had no right apprehension of any general law of the distribu- 
 tion of fossils. Some foreign writers, in particular Scilla and 
 Rouelle, appear to have made very just comparisons of the 
 natural associations of fossil shells, corals, &c. in the earth, 
 with the groups of similar objects as they are found in the 
 
143 
 
 sea, and thus to have produced new proofs of the organic 
 origin of these fossil bodies ; but they give no sign of any 
 knowledge of the limitation of particular tribes of organic 
 remains to particular strata, of the successive existence of 
 different groups of organisation, on successive beds of the 
 antient sea. Mr. Smith's claim to this happy and fertile 
 induction is clear and unquestionable : the process by which 
 he arrived at it is perfectly known ; the proof of its truth and 
 value grows brighter from day to day, as the philosophy of 
 geology advances ; and it is gratifying to remember that the 
 wreath which he won was placed on his brow by men who 
 had gained honour in following his footsteps, and were nei- 
 ther slow nor reluctant to acknowledge the obligation. 
 
 Possessed of this clue, Mr. Smith walked securely through 
 the labyrinth of the strata, classing them in one district and 
 rediscovering them in another, till the Map of the Island 
 grew in his hands to be fit for publication, at a time (1800) 
 when, in the mass of English society, the strata were un- 
 known and geology had no name. By the same guide he 
 was conducted to a clear separation of the superficial de- 
 posits of gravel, sand, clay and peat often enclosing the 
 remains of quadrupeds and rolled specimens of shells which 
 had been drifted from other situations, and always indica- 
 ting surface-agencies in their accumulation from the sand- 
 stones, limestones and shales of older date, due to marine 
 action, and enclosing marine exuviae in the place and under 
 the circumstances of their original deposition. 
 
 Tfius originated (previous to 1796) that distinction of 
 diluvial and stratified deposits which in after years afforded 
 to Buckland the theme of a splendid theoretical effort ; a 
 distinction which still retains its importance, and still gives 
 occasion for new speculations as the circle of facts widens, 
 and the phenomena of diurnal nature are more carefully 
 compared with the primaeval monuments of the globe. 
 
 In the study of the stratified, diluvial and alluvial de- 
 posits, with their characteristic organic remains, and in the 
 practical applications of these subjects to agriculture and 
 mining, Mr. Smith exhausted all the resources of his mind : 
 
144 
 
 he was very little acquainted with some other important 
 parts of geological research. The granitic and other ig- 
 neous rocks he rarely sought opportunities to examine; the 
 general history of the ancient effects of subterranean heat, and 
 the modern phaenomena of volcanoes and earthquakes, inter- 
 ested him rather as a spectator than as a student : in geo- 
 logical dynamics he seized many leading generalizations in 
 the configuration of the terraqueous surface which seemed 
 to depend on the operation of the atmosphere, rivers, and the 
 sea, but left almost untouched the questions of ancient climate, 
 the changes of ocean-level, the elevation of land, the mecha- 
 nical laws of fracture, and the chemical laws of venigerous 
 fissures. In the promotion of these and other high branches 
 of geological research, other names, both of earlier and later 
 date, must stand on tablets separate from that of William 
 Smith. Even in his own well-laboured field, younger culti- 
 vators are rearing richer crops with better hopes of a pro- 
 pitious harvest: were he alive who first reclaimed the 
 waste, no voice would be louder in their praise, no heart 
 throb with higher delight at every fresh triumph of their 
 toil. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 PAGE 1. In this opinion Mr. Smith was probably mistaken ; but 
 he had collected some information to elucidate the point, which the 
 Editor has not found either leisure or opportunity to complete, by 
 searching the parish records of Idbury in Gloucestershire, and the 
 registers of wills at Oxford. It is besides of little consequence to 
 the history of " Strata Smith" from what gens he remotely sprung ; 
 his immediate ancestors and all his connexions were in humble life ; 
 on the oolitic soils which they had cultivated for ages he was born 
 and bred ; on these he planted, in advance of all other men, the 
 standard of geological discovery ; to the study of these his last 
 days of active mind were given ; and in these, according to a natu- 
 ral, if fanciful wish, his last remains are laid to rest. 
 
 Page 15. The old farm-house in which Mr. Smith lived, while 
 examining the strata of the coal-fields about High Littleton, was 
 called Rugborne. Into his own diet there, milk entered largely, but 
 the honest and hospitable farmer preferred the rich cider of that 
 fertile vale ; and Mr. Smith, when a sexagenarian, used to laugh 
 with boyish glee at the statement of one of the farmer's men, that 
 " he allowed his master four hogsheads of cider a-year for his own 
 drinking." The quantity of "drink" really consumed by farm la- 
 bourers in some parts of Somersetshire and Herefordshire during 
 harvest is almost incredible. 
 
 Page 17. The Swan Inn still exists at Dunkerton, and is a con- 
 venient station for any one who wishes to explore the geological 
 structure of one of the two valleys in which Mr. Smith measured 
 the eastward declination of the oolitic strata. Its doors are now 
 thronged by innumerable coal carts ; the interior was then the resort 
 of the engineers, contractors and " navigators " engaged on the Coal 
 Canal. 
 
 L 2 
 
146 
 
 Page 30. Soon after the publication of the great " Map of the 
 Strata of England and Wales," Mr. Smith found the means to re- 
 present with additional exactness the subdivisions of the oolites, and 
 drew up a geological table somewhat more extended than that which 
 served as an Index to his Map. Thus has he given three tables 
 which deserve more than a passing glance of comparison, because 
 the causes of their difference and the sources of the successive im- 
 provements are perfectly known to the Editor, partly by Mr. Smith's 
 communications, and partly by tracing with his maps in the hand 
 the lines of country where his observations were made. 
 
 The following is a Comparative View of the Names and Succession 
 of the Strata given in these Tables, 
 
 Table drawn up in 1/99. 
 
 Table accompanying the Map, 
 drawn up in 1812. 
 
 Improved Table drawn up in 
 1815 and 1816, after the first 
 copies of the Map had been 
 issued. 
 
 
 
 
 1. Chalk 
 
 Clay or Brick-earth 
 
 Sand or light Loam 
 Chalk 
 
 2. Sand. 
 3. Crag. 
 4. Sand. 
 
 2. Sand 
 
 Green Sand 
 
 
 
 Blue Marl 
 
 7 Brick-earth 
 
 3. Clay. 
 
 Purbeck Stone, Kentish Rag [" 
 and Limestone of the vales I 
 of Pickering and Aylesbury ] 
 Iron Sand and Carstone . . 1 
 
 . . Dark blue Shale . . 
 
 8. Sand. 
 9. Portland Rock. 
 10. Sand. 
 11. Oaktree Clay. 
 12. Coral Rag and Pisolite. 
 13. Sand. 
 14. Clunch Clay and Shale. 
 
 4. Sand and Stone 
 
 Cornbrash 
 
 15. Kelloway's Stone. 
 16. Cornbrash. 
 
 5 Clay 
 
 
 
 6. Forest Marble 
 
 . . Forest Marble Rock 
 
 18. Forest Marble. 
 
 
 Great Oolite Rock 
 
 19- Clay over Upper Oolite. 
 20 Upper Oolite 
 
 8. Blue Clay 
 9. Yellow Clay 
 10. Fuller's Earth 
 11. Bastard ditto and Sun- 
 
 } 
 
 21. Fuller's Earth and Rock. 
 
 12. Freestone 
 13. Sand 
 
 . . Under Oolite 
 
 22. Under Oolite. 
 23. Sand. 
 
 14. Marl Blue 
 
 . . Blue Marl 
 
 24. Marlstone. 
 25. Blue Marl. 
 
 1 5 Blue Lias 
 
 
 26 Blue Lias. 
 
 16. White Lias 
 
 1 White Lias 
 
 27. White Lias. ' 
 
 17. Marlstone, Indigo anc 
 
 XL 
 
 
 Black Marls 
 
 / i 
 
 ! Red Marl and Gypsum ...... 
 
 28. Red Marl. 
 
 19. Millstone 
 
 . . j Magnesian Limestone 
 
 29. Redland Limestone. 
 
 
 i Soft Sandstone 
 
 
 20. Pennant Street 
 21. Grays 
 
 11 
 > Coal Districts 
 
 30. Coal Measures. 
 
 22. Cliff 
 23 Coal .... 
 
 
 
 
 Derbyshire Limestone 
 Red and Dunstone 
 Killas or Slate 
 
 31. Mountain Limestone. 
 32. Red Rhab and Dunstone. 
 33. Killas. 
 
 
 Granite, Sienitc and Gneiss j 
 
 34. Granite, Sienite and 
 Gneiss. 
 
147 
 
 In these tables we see typified unequal degrees of knowledge, dif- 
 ferent estimates of the value of groups, but the same independent 
 mind wielding its own resources uninfluenced by the progress of opi- 
 nion in other men. The first table represents, with almost entire 
 exactness, the natural section on the road from Warminster to Bath. 
 It contains no tertiary strata : of the existence of such farther to 
 the east Mr. Smith was perfectly aware, but in accordance with his 
 scheme of notation mentioned on page 22, the chalk, as forming " a 
 grand feature " and perfectly known, is marked No. 1. On the road 
 in question the greensand No. 2 is perfectly seen ; but Mr. Smith's 
 section notices no strata between this and the clunch or Oxford 
 clay. I had always supposed this omission of all mention of Kim- 
 meridge clay and coralline oolite to be a mark of the incomplete- 
 ness of his knowledge at the time, but the supposition only proved 
 my own ignorance. Lately, on a careful inspection of the ground, 
 Sir H. De la Beche and myself have found that Mr. Smith was per- 
 fectly right in leaving without notice these beds, for they are entirely 
 absent on that line of section, being covered up by the over exten- 
 sion of the greensand so ,as to touch the Oxford clay. 
 
 Soon after the table was drawn up, Mr. Smith discovered the 
 coralline oolite (which he then called coral rag or superior oolite) in 
 the park at Longleat, and noticed the superjacent blue or oaktree 
 clay (now called Kimmeridge clay), a fact which Sir H. De la 
 Beche and myself have lately recognised with pleasure and ad- 
 vantage. 
 
 Below the clay No. 3 should have been found some distinct men- 
 tion of the corribrash, which it is almost inconceivable that Mr. 
 Smith could have overlooked ; it is probably included as a member 
 of the series No. 4. From this point to the coal formation the 
 section is remarkably good and complete. The term marlstone was 
 afterwards transferred to some ochraceous beds beneath the sand 
 No. 13. No strata are named below the coal, evidently because 
 they were not accurately known. 
 
 In Feb. 1802, he began to acquire correct general views of the 
 upper oolitic groups, with their associated clays and sands (see 
 p. 41), which were not well exhibited in the " unconformable " 
 country south-east of Bath ; yet he was not perfectly satisfied about 
 them in 1812, when the principle of the colouring of his map was 
 arranged ; and hence arose two evils, an indecisive delineation of 
 the areas of these rocks, and an incomplete enumeration of their 
 constituent groups in the memoir accompanying the map. In that 
 
148 
 
 memoir the tertiary strata are in three groups ; the Colt finds a 
 place, but the Portland and Oxford oolites, and their accompani- 
 ments, were confused in groups very unsatisfactory to Mr. Smith. 
 This confusion he perfectly cleared away almost immediately after 
 the preparation of the first copies of his Map, by a careful examina- 
 tion of the Vale of North Wilts, and a comparison of the sections 
 of Swindon with those of the Vale of Aylesbury, Vale of Wardour, 
 and Isles of Portland and Purbeck. The oolitic groups of Bath 
 are mentioned in the memoir only in general terms, corresponding 
 to the colours employed on the map. The strata below the coal are 
 added upon the same restricted principle. 
 
 The third table exhibits the series of strata in England and 
 Wales, nearly as we accept them at the present day. In this table 
 the analysis. of the successive marine groups, from the chalk to the 
 lias inclusive, is so remarkably judicious, and the formation of the 
 groups so nearly perfect, that it is become the standard by which 
 all our best maps and sections are measured ; and, if inscribed on 
 the tomb of " Strata Smith," would as appropriately mark a great 
 conquest in natural science as the long array of figures on the 
 monumental stone declares the triumph of the mathematician. 
 
 Page 77. The following is a general list of the publications on 
 the Geology of England and Wales, by William Smith : 
 
 " A Geological Map of England and Wales, with part of Scot- 
 land ; exhibiting the Collieries, Mines, and Canals, the Marshes and 
 Fen Lands originally overflowed by the Sea, and the varieties 
 of Soil, according to the variations of the Substrata; illustrated 
 by the most descriptive Names of Places, and of Local Districts ; 
 showing also the Rivers, Sites of Parks, and principal Seats of the 
 Nobility and Gentry, and the opposite Coast of France." By Wil- 
 liam Smith, Mineral Surveyor. The Map is engraved on a scale of 
 five miles to an inch, and consists of fifteen large sheets. Com- 
 menced in 1812, published 1815. Size, 8 feet 9 inches high, by 
 6 feet 2 inches wide. 
 
 In sheets, with Memoir, 51. 5s. 
 
 On canvas and rollers, 7/. ; varnished, SI. 
 
 In case for travelling, 71. ; on spring rollers, 10/. 
 
 " A Reduction of Smith's large Geological Map of England and 
 Wales, exhibiting a general View of the Stratification of the Coun- 
 
149 
 
 try ; intended as an Elementary Map for those commencing the 
 Study of Geology." 1819. 
 
 Price, in sheet, neatly coloured and shaded, 14s. 
 Mounted in case for Travelling, or on rollers, 18s. 
 
 " A New Geological Atlas of England and Wales, on which are 
 delineated, by Colours, the Courses and Width of the Strata which 
 occasion the varieties of soil ; calculated to elucidate the Agricul- 
 ture of each County, and to show the Situation of the best Mate- 
 rials for Building, Making of Roads, the Constructing of Canals, 
 and pointing out those Places where Coal and other valuable Mate- 
 rials are likely to be found." By William Smith, Author of the 
 Geological Map of England and Wales. 
 
 Part I. contains Norfolk, Kent, Wilts and Sussex. Price II. Is. 
 1819. 
 
 Part II. contains Gloucester, Berks, Surrey and Suffolk. Price 
 II. Is. 1819. 
 
 Part III. contains Oxford, Buckingham, Bedford and Essex. 
 Price I/. Is. 1820. 
 
 Part IV. containing a Map of the County of York, on four sheets. 
 Price II. Is. 1821. 
 
 Part V. containing Leicester, Nottingham, Huntingdon and Rut- 
 land. Price II. Is. 1822. 
 
 Part VI. containing Northumberland, Cumberland, Durham and 
 Westmoreland. Price ll. Is. 1824. 
 
 *** These Maps may be had separate, price 5s. &d. each. Other Parts to com- 
 plete this Work were left by Mr. Smith in a state of forwardness. 
 
 " A Geological Table of British Organized Fossils, which identify 
 the Courses and Continuity of the Strata." By William Smith. 
 Coloured, price }s.6d. 1815. 
 
 " A Geological Section from London to Snowdon ; showing the 
 Varieties of the Strata, and the correct Altitude of the Hills." By 
 William Smith. Coloured, one sheet, price 7s. 1819. 
 
 " Geological View and Section of Norfolk, and through Suffolk 
 to Ely." By William Smith. Coloured, one sheet, price 5s. 1819. 
 
 " Geological View and Section of the Strata through Hampshire 
 and Wiltshire to Bath." By William Smith. Coloured, price 5s. 
 1819. 
 
 " Geological View and Section in Essex and Hertfordshire, and 
 of the Country between London and Cambridgeshire." By William 
 Smith. Coloured, price 5s. 1819. 
 
150 
 
 " Geological View and Section of the Country from London to 
 Brighton, through Lewes." By William Smith. Coloured, price 5*. 
 1819. 
 
 " Geological View and Section through Dorsetshire and Somer- 
 setshire to Taunton, on the road through Yeovil to Wimborn Min- 
 ster/' &c. By William Smith. Coloured, price 5s. 1819. 
 
 " Strata identified by Organized Fossils." Coloured Plates, 4?to. 
 Seven parts proposed, four published, 7s. 6d. each ; commenced 
 1816. 
 
 " A Stratigraphical System of Organized Fossils ;" compiled from 
 the original Geological Collection deposited in the British Museum, 
 with coloured Tables of t the Geological Distribution of the Groups 
 of Echinodermata. By William Smith. 4to. 1817. 15*. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Printed by Richard and John E. Taylor, Red Lion-court, Fleet-street. 
 
ALBEMARLE STREET, 
 
 JANUARY, 1844. 
 
 MR. MURRAY'S NEW PUBLICATIONS, 
 
 IN PREPARATION OR JUST PUBLISHED. 
 
 Jttcmoir 
 
 OF 
 
 THE LIFE AND WORKS OF WILLIAM TAYLOR, 
 
 OF NORWICH, AUTHOR OF "TnK ENGLISH SYNONYMS;" 
 
 INCLUDING HfS 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE WITH ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ. 
 
 BY J. W. ROBBERDS, ESQ. 
 2 vols 8vo. Ready. 
 
 "When I discovered the nature and extent of Taylor's correspondence with the late Robert Southey, 
 I felt that the history of two such minds, narrated by themselves, without gloss or varnish, in their 
 freshest, best, and most vigorous season, must be much too interesting and instructive to be withheld 
 from the world. Mr. Southey's ready assent to the publication of these letters, his kindness in furnishing 
 me with that portion of them which was in his possession, and the interest with which it will be 
 seen that he regarded the subject, created additional claims upon my attention and perseverance ; 
 and I must ever regret, both that the decline of his health deprived me of the valuable assistance 
 which he had offered, and that he was taken from us before he could see this memorial of one whose 
 worth and talents he so highly and justly appreciated." From the Editor's Preface. 
 
 A FOURTH VOLUME OF 
 
 THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 FROM THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 
 BY; LORD MAHON. 
 
 8vo. In preparation. 
 
 This volume will carry on the narrative from the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) to the Peace of 
 Paris (1763) ; thus comprising the Seven Years' War in Germany, the Conquest of Canada, and the 
 Foundation of the British Empire in India. 
 
Jtflr. JWurrag's Nefo ^ttbltcattons. 
 
 LIFE OF THE LATE LORD HILL, 
 
 COMMANDER OF THE FORCES. 
 
 FROM AUTHENTIC DOCUMENTS SUPPLIED BY HIS FAMILY AND FRIENDS. 
 
 BY REV. EDWIN SIDNEY, 
 
 Author of the "LIVES OF REV. ROWLAND HILL" and " SIR RICHARD HILL." 
 
 8vo. 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF NATURAL HISTORY AND 
 LOCAL SCENERY; 
 
 WITH SCENES AND TALES OF COUNTRY LIFE. 
 BY EDWARD JESSE, Es<*. 
 
 Post 8vo. 
 
 ON THE ANATOMY AND PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION 
 AS CONNECTED WITH THE FINE ARTS. 
 
 BY THE LATE SIR CHARLES BELL, K.H. 
 
 A new Edition, Enlarged, and Illustrated by Numerous Engravings and Woodcuts. Imperial 8vo. 
 
 This Work was recomposed by the Author on his return from a visit to Italy, whither he went to 
 verify the principles of criticism in art by the study of the great masters of painting and sculpture. 
 
 LIFE AND VOYAGES OF SIR FRANCIS DRAKE. 
 
 COMPILED FROM THE OLD CHRONICLES, AND FROM VARIOUS LETTERS AND DOCUMENTS 
 IN THE STATE PAPER-OFFICE, BRITISH MUSEUM, AND ARCHIVES OF MADRID, 
 
 NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED. 
 
 BY JOHN BARROW. ESQ. 
 8vo. 14*. Just Published. 
 
 " In a literary point of view, Mr. Barrow's work has great merit. With an official connection to 
 ensure ample means of information, and a decided literary taste, the author has presented us with a 
 Memoir which we hail as a welcome addition to our biographical literature." Morning Chronicle. 
 
 CATHOLIC SAFEGUARDS 
 
 AGAINST THE ERRORS, CORRUPTIONS, AND NOVELTIES OF THE 
 CHURCH OF ROME. 
 
 SELECTED FROM THE WORKS OF EMINENT DIVINES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 BY JAMES BROGDEN, M.A. 
 
 3 vols. 8vo. 
 
 a Statement 
 
 OF THE 
 
 GRIEVANCES OF THE CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS 
 CONDITION OF THE WALDENSES IN 1843. 
 
 8vo, Is. 6tf. (ready}. 
 
. ^lurrag's Ntfo publications. 
 
 NORTH AMERICAN GEOLOGY, 
 
 WITH A JOURNAL OF A TOUR IN 1841-2. 
 
 BY C. LYELL, ESQ., V.P.G.S., &c. 
 
 Author of " PRINCIPLES OF GEOLOGY," "ELEMENTS OF. GEOLOGY." 
 With Illustrations. 8vo. 
 
 MODERN EGYPT AND THEBES. 
 
 BY SIR GARDNER WILKINSON. 
 
 Uniform with WILKINSON'S ANCI::NT EGYPTIANS, with Woodcuts, Plans, and Map. 2 vols. 8vo, 
 
 This work contains not only a complete Description of the Present State of Egypt, and its Ancient 
 Monuments ; of the Journey Overland through Egypt to the lied Sea and India ; the Peninsula of 
 Mount Sinai; the Oases, &c. ; but includes Minute Instructions for Travellers about to Visit Egypt 
 or India ; the Preparations Necessary before Setting-out ; the Journey thither from England via 
 Malta ; with Chronological Tables of the Pharaohs, Ptolemies, and Modern Kings ; a Vocabulary 
 of Arabic Terms, &c. ; and an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphics. 
 
 AN ILLUMINATED & ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF 
 Cje ISooft of (Common ^raj^t* 
 
 CAREFULLY ANNOTATED. 
 
 The Illuminations) Initials, Borders, Vignettes, $c. } designed by 
 
 OWEN JONES, ARCHITECT. 
 
 8V, 
 
 RESULTS OF READING. 
 
 BY T. STAMFORD CALDWELL, ESQ. 
 
 8vo. Ready, 
 
 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND THE URAL MOUNTAINS, 
 
 GEOLOGICALLY ILLUSTRATED. 
 BY R. I. MURCHISON, ESQ., M. ED. DE VERNEUIL, & COUNT A. VON KEYSERLING. 
 
 With Geological Map, Tables, Plates, &c. 4to. 
 
 FRESCO DECORATIONS AND STUCCOES OF 
 Cfje <|)urcf)es3 antr palaces in Italg, 
 
 IHJRING THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES. 
 
 Taken from the principal Works of the greatest Painters, never before engraved, and containing 
 Store of Examples, Patterns, &c., fitted for the use and adoption of Architects, 
 Decorators, Manufacturers, and Dilettanti in Building. 
 
 WITH ENGLISH DESCRIPTIONS, BY LOUIS GRUNER. 
 
 With Forty-five Plates, Folio. 
 
. Jtturrap's tfefo ^Publication*. 
 
 LETTERS FROM CANADA & THE UNITED STATES, 
 
 WRITTEN DURING A JOURNEY IN NORTH AMERICA. 
 
 BY JOHN ROBERT GODLEY, ESQ. 
 8vo, 
 
 MEMOIRS OF WILLIAM SMITH, LL.D., 
 
 AUTHOR OF THE MAP OF THE STRATA OF ENGLAND AND WALES. 
 
 BY JOHN PHILLIPS, F.R.S., 
 
 Author Of "ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE GEOLOGY OF YORKSHIRE." 
 
 8vo. 
 
 GR,E(LE GRAMMATICS RUDIMENTA IN USUM 
 SCHOLARUM. 
 
 PAHS POSTERIOR SIVE SYNTAXIS. 12mo. Just ready. 
 
 FIGURES AND DESCRIPTIONS OF BRITISH 
 BELEMNITES, 
 
 WITH ESSAYS ON THEIR GEOLOGICAL DISTRIBUTION. 
 
 BY JOHN PHILLIPS, F.R.S., Author of " ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE GEOLOGY or 
 
 YORKSHIRE." 
 
 Four Parts. Part I. with 12 Plates. 8vo. 5s, 
 
 FARMING FOR LADIES; 
 
 OR, 
 
 INSTRUCTIONS FOR REARING ALL SORTS OF DOMESTIC POULTRY : 
 
 With the best Mode of Managing the DAIRY and PIGGERY, and useful Hints on the 
 Rural Economy of Small Families. 
 
 By the Author of " BRITISH HUSBANDRY." Fcap. 8vo. 
 
 MY KNITTING-BOOK. 
 
 BY MISS LAMBERT, Authoress of the " HANDBOOK OF NEEDLEWORK." 
 Second Edition, Fcap. 8vo. Is. 6d. Ready. 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY OF SHELLS; 
 
 WRITTEN IN AN EASY AND FAMILIAR MANNER FOR THE AMUSEMENT AND 
 INSTRUCTION OF YOUNG PERSONS. 
 
 BY MRS. LOUDON. 
 
 With Woodcuts. 16mo. 
 
. J&urrag's Nefo 
 
 PUSS IN BOOTS, 
 
 IN TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE GERMAN ARTIST OTTO SPECKTER, 
 
 Drawn on Stone by LEWIS HAGHE, 
 
 Expressly designed for a, Christmas Present, and suited for Grown Children as well as 
 
 Little Children. 
 
 Small 4to, 7s. Gd. (Ready.) 
 
 HANDBOOK FOR TRAVELLERS IN SPAIN, 
 ANDALUSIA, GRANADA, &c. 
 
 GIVING DETAILED AND PRECISE INFORMATION RESPECTING 
 
 STEAMERS, PASSPORTS, MONEY, GUIDES, SERVANTS, WITH DIRECTIONS 
 FOR TRAVELLERS AND HINTS FOR TOURS, &c. 
 
 With Maps. PostSvo. 
 
 THIS volume will contain a detailed account of the different modes of travelling, 
 both by land and water, in the Peninsula, and the precautions necessary to be taken 
 to ensure comfort and security. 
 
 THE PROVINCES will be described one after another, giving the principle lines of 
 high-roads, cross communications, and quality of accommodation, and the best seasons 
 of the year for the visit of each route suggested. Plans of tours, general and limited, 
 will be drawn up. The peculiarities of every district and town will be noticed ; and a 
 short insight given into the local antiquities, arts, scenery, and manners. The objects 
 really worth seeing will be named, and those sites which possess historical or natural 
 interest pointed out. The sportsman and angler will find the best shooting and fishing 
 quarters enumerated. The object of the work, the fruit of many years' wandering in 
 every portion of the Peninsula, will be to furnish, in a small compass, useful and enter- 
 taining information for the traveller, both abroad, in Spain, and at home, by the fireside. 
 
 PARISH SERMONS 
 
 ON THE LESSONS, GOSPEL, OR EPISTLE, FOR EVERY SUNDAY IN THE 
 YEAR, AND FOR WEEK-DAY FESTIVALS. 
 
 BY THE LATE BISHOP HEBER. 
 
 Fifth Edition. 2 vols. PostSvo. 
 
 PSALMS AND HYMNS FOR PUBLIC WORSHIP. 
 
 SELECTED, ARRANGED, AND ADAPTED TO THE VARIOUS SOLEMNITIES 
 OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 BY THE REV. W. B. HOLLAND, Perpetual Curate of Walmer. 24mo. 1*. 
 
 Clergymen wishing to introduce this Selection to their own Congregations, will be 
 allowed a discount on applying to the Publisher. 
 
 AN ESSAY 
 
 ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH, AND ON THE 
 SOURCES OF TAXATION. 
 
 PART I. RENT. 
 
 BY THE RKV. R. JONES, A.M., of Caius College, Cambridge. 
 New Edition. Post 8vo. 
 
NEW WORKS AND NEW EDITIONS, 
 
 Adapted for literary Presents, Prizes, &c. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 
 
 BARROW'S LIFE OF SIR FRANCIS DRAKE. 145. 
 
 SIR DAVID WILKIE'S LIFE AND JOURNALS. 42s. 
 
 FRANCIS HORNER'S MEMOIRS AND CORRESPONDENCE. 28s. 
 
 SIR SAMUEL ROMILLY'S LIFE. 12*. 
 
 ARAGO'S LIFE OF JAMES WATT. 8s. 6d. 
 
 LADY SALE'S JOURNAL IN AFFGHANISTAN. 12*. 
 
 LIEUTENANT EYRE'S PRISON NARRATIVE. 12*. 
 
 LETTERS FROM MADRAS, OR SOCIETY IN INDIA. 9*. Qd. 
 
 ELPHINSTONE'S HISTORY OF INDIA. 30s. 
 
 WILKINSON'S MODERN EGYPT AND THEBES. 42s. 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. ,6 6s. 
 
 STEPHENS' TRAVELS IN YUCATAN. 42s. 
 
 - IN CENTRAL AMERICA, &c. 36s. 
 FELLOWS' JOURNAL IN ASIA MINOR. 28s. 
 
 - SECOND EXCURSION IN ASIA~MINOR. 42s. 
 
 ACCOUNT OF THE XANTHIAN MARBLES. 5s. 
 
 LADY GROSVENOR'S YACHT VOYAGE. 28s. 
 SIR A. BURNES' RESIDENCE IN CABOOL. 18s. 
 ROBINSON'S RESEARCHES IN THE HOLY LAND. 45s. 
 GRANT'S ACCOUNT OF THE NESTORIAN CHRISTIANS. 6s. 
 LABORDE'S ARABIA PETRJEA, MOUNT SINAI, &c. 18s. 
 KINNEAR'S CAIRO, PETRA, AND DAMASCUS. 9s. 6d. 
 WORDSWORTH'S TOUR IN ATHENS AND ATTICA. 12s. 
 HOOD'S NEW SOUTH WALES, SYDNEY, AND THE BUSH. 14s. 
 DIEFFENBACH'S TRAVELS IN NEW ZEALAND. 24s. 
 BORROWS BIBLE IN SPAIN. 27*. 
 
 GYPSIES OF SPAIN. 18s. 
 
 LETTERS FROM THE SHORES OF THE BALTIC. 20s. 
 
 CAPT. LOCH'S CLOSING CAMPAIGN IN CHINA. 8s. 6d. 
 
 PARIS'S LETTERS FROM THE PYRENEES. 10s. 6d. 
 
 NIMROD ON THE CHASE, THE TURF, AND THE ROAD. 9s. 6rf. 
 
 PENN'S MAXIMS AND HINTS FOR ANGLERS. 7s. 6d. 
 
 SCROPE'S DAYS AND NIGHTS OF SALMON FISHING. 42s. 
 
 ART OF DEER STALKING. 42s. 
 
Nffo OTlorfcs ^ublts&efc bg Jtflr. Jfflurrag, 
 
 LOCKHART'S ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS. 42.?. 
 
 HALLAM'S LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 65. 6d. 
 
 _ LITERARY HISTORY OF EUROPE. 365. 
 
 _ MIDDLE AGES OF EUROPE. 245. 
 
 _ HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 24s. 
 
 RANKE'S POPES OF ROME, BY MRS. AUSTIN. 36s. 
 
 BREWSTER'S LIVES OF GALILEO, TYCHO BRAKE, & KEPLER. 7*. 
 
 LIFE OF CRABBE THE POET. 7s. 6d. 
 
 MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 20s. 
 
 MILMAN'S HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 36s. 
 
 _ EDITION OF GIBBON'S ROME. 5 8s. 
 
 _ POETICAL WORKS. 18s. 
 
 _ LIFE OF EDWARD GIBBON. 9s. 
 
 LORD MAHON'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 36s. 
 
 __ LIFE OF BELISARIUS. 10s. 
 
 _ SPAIN UNDER CHARLES II. 7s. Gd. 
 
 BROGDEN'S LITURGY AND RITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 27s. 
 
 SOUTHEY'S BOOK OF THE CHURCH. 12s. 
 
 BISHOP HEBER'S PARISH SERMONS. 16s. 
 
 __ POETICAL WORKS. 7s. 6d. 
 
 SEWELL'S EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 7s. 6d. 
 
 KUGLER'S HISTORY OF PAINTING IN ITALY. 12s. 
 
 LORD BYRON'S POETICAL WORKS. 15s. 
 
 __ _ CHILDE HAROLD ILLUSTRATED. 42s. 
 
 CAMPBELL'S BEAUTIES OF THE BRITISH POETS. 20s. 
 
 ABERCROMBIE ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS. 8s. M. 
 
 __ MORAL FEELINGS. 5s. 
 
 FARADAY'S CHEMICAL MANIPULATION. 18s. 
 
 SOMERVILLE ON THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES. 10s. 6d. 
 
 LYELL'S ELEMENTS OF GEOLOGY. 18s. 
 
 _ PRINCIPLES OF GEOLOGY. 24s. 
 
 MULLER'S HISTORY OF THE DORIANS. 26s. 
 
 AUSTIN'S FRAGMENTS FROM GERMAN WRITERS. 10s. 
 
 COLERIDGE'S GREEK CLASSIC POETS. 6s. 6d. 
 
 LAMBERT'S HANDBOOK OF NEEDLEWORK. 10s. Gd. 
 
 HASE'S ACCOUNT OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS. 5s. 
 
 JAMESON'S GUIDE TO THE GALLERIES OF ART. 18s. 
 
 JOURNAL OF A NATURALIST. 9s. 6d. 
 JESSE'S GLEANINGS IN NATURAL HISTORY. 6s. 6d. 
 LOUDON'S GARDENING FOR LADIES. 6s. 
 __ MODERN BOTANY FOR LADIES. 8s. 
 
CHEAP LITERATURE FOR ALL CLASSES: 
 
 AND WELL SUITED FOR PAROCHIAL AND LENDING LIBRARIES. 
 
 MR. MURRAY'S 
 
 HOME AND 'COLONIAL LIBRARY. 
 
 Designed to furnish all classes of Readers in Great Britain and her Colonies with the 
 highest Literature of the day, consisting partly of original Works, partly of new 
 Editions of popular Publications, at the lowest possible price. It is called for in con- 
 sequence of the Acts which have recently passed the British Parliament for the pro- 
 tection of the rights of British authors and publishers, by the rigid and entire exclusion 
 of foreign pirated editions. In order, therefore, that the highly intelligent and educated 
 population of our Colonies may not suffer from the withdrawal of their accustomed 
 supply of books, and with a view to obviate the complaint that a check might in con- 
 sequence be raised to their intellectual advancement, Mr. Murray has determined to 
 publish a series of attractive and useful works, by approved authors, at a rate which 
 shall place them within reach of the means not only of the Colonists, but also of a large 
 portion of the less wealthy classes at home, who will thus benefit by the widening of 
 the market for our literature : and the " Colonial Library " will consequently be so 
 conducted that it may claim to be considered as a " Library for the Empire." 
 
 Already Published. 
 
 NOS. 1 AND 2, 
 
 BORROWS BIBLE IN SPAIN. 
 
 Price 2s. &d. each, or bound in cloth, 6s. 
 Nos. 3 TO 6, 
 
 BISHOP HEBER'S JOURNAL IN INDIA. 
 
 Price 2s. 6d. each. ( To be Completed in 2 Voh.) 
 
 *** "Bishop Heber's Journal forms a" monument of talent, sufficient, singly and alone, to 
 establish its author in a very high rank of English literature. It is one of the most delightful 
 books in the language." Quarterly Review 
 
 To be followed by 
 
 LIFE OF LORD OLIVE. 
 
 LIFE OF CRABBE, THE POET. 
 
 MANUFACTURING DISTRICTS OF ENGLAND: 
 
 THEIR CANALS, RAILROADS, MINES, MILLS, AND WORKS, &c. 
 
 LIFE OF WILLIAM PITT. 
 
 And other Attractive Works, at intervals of One Month. 
 
 LONDON : BRADBURY A.VD KVANS, PRINTKRS, WHITKFRtARS. 
 
RETURN EARTH SCIENCES LIBRARY 
 
 TO * 230 McCone Hall 642-2997 
 
 LOAN PERIOD 1 
 1 MONTH 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 
 Books needed for class reserve are subject to immediate recall 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 FORM NO. DD8 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 
 BERKELEY, CA 94720 
 
M 
 
 VCL.CT LIDI-fAHItb