274 Geological Society. 



Somerset Coal Canal) j and ascertained that the several beds, found 

 in the high escarpments around Bath, were brought down by an 

 eastern dip, in regular succession, to the level of his lines of section. 

 During these two years Mr. Smith was in the constant habit of ma- 

 king collections of fossils, with strict indications of their localities ; and 

 in completing the details of his transverse sections, he found, where 

 the beds themselves were obscure, that he could by organic remains 

 alone determine the true order of succession. During this period he 

 also extended his surveys through the Cotteswold Hills, and became 

 acquainted with the general facts of the range of the oolitic escarp- 

 ment towards the North of England. 



In the year 1794- he crossed the whole series of formations, and 

 marked their escarpments between Bath and London ; and afterwards 

 extended his surveys to the Durham and Northumberland coal- 

 field: while on his way, partly by actual sections and partly by the 

 help of external contours, with which his eye was now familiar, he 

 ascertained the range of the chalk to Flamborough Head, and of 

 the oolitic series, through a regular succession of escarpments, to 

 the Hambleton Hills and the cliffs of Yorkshire. Combining the 

 facts discovered in this excursion with the distribution of the for- 

 mations in the south-western parts of England, he began to record 

 his observations by colouring geological maps. Several documents 

 of this kind are now unfortunately lost : but I have been informed 

 by Mr. Phillips (Curator of the museum of the Yorkshire Philo- 

 sophical Society), that he possesses a valuable geological map, co- 

 loured by Mr. Smith in the year 1800, connecting the structure of 

 the North of England, which at that time he had not again visited, 

 with the structure of the South-western districts ; and delineating 

 the whole oolitic series through England, in some places very cor- 

 rectly, and in all with a general approach to accuracy. 



Mr. Smith in 1795 became for the first time a housekeeper; and 

 no sooner had he apartments of his own, than he turned them to 

 account by arranging his large collection of organic fossils (the 

 accumulations of several years) stratigraphically. I am certain, 

 Gentlemen, that this stratigraphical collection, preceded by many 

 years any other similar collection formed in this country : and with- 

 out pretending to any exact knowledge of the history of Continental 

 geology, I greatly doubt whether a stratigraphical collection of or- 

 ganic fossils, derived from a long series of formations, and specially 

 intended to assist in identifying their subordinate strata and deter- 

 mining their relations, was ever made before the year 1795 in any 

 part of Europe. 



Local collections of organic remains were undoubtedly made in 

 this country long before the time of Mr. Smith, and in the works of 

 our older writers we may sometimes find the glimmerings of his dis- 

 coveries. Woodward formed a magnificent collection of organic re- 

 mains ; and he separated from the rest a series of fossils of the Hamp- 

 shire coast, and was aware that many of the species were the same 

 as those of the London clay : but this fact, and many others of like 

 kind, were with him but sterile truths j and being led astray by his 

 theory, he knew nothing either of the real structure of the earth, 



or 



