52-i HISTORY OF GEOLOGY. 



traordinary success; and were looked upon with great respect, ti .! the 

 study of organic fossils threw them into the shade. 



Smith, on the other hand, long pursued his own thoughts without 

 aid and without sympathy. About 1799 he became acquainted with 

 a few gentlemen (Dr. Anderson, Mr. Richardson, Mr. Townsend, and 

 Mr. Davies), who had already given some attention to organic fossils, 

 and who were astonished to find his knowledge so much more exact 

 and extensive than their own. From this time he conceived the inten- 

 tion of publishing his discoveries ; but the want of literary leisure and 

 habits long prevented him. His knowledge was orally communicated 

 without reserve to many persons ; and thus gradually and insensibly 

 became part of the public stock. When this diffusion of his views 

 had gone on for some time, his friends began to complain that the 

 author of them was deprived of his well-merited share of fame. His 

 delay in publication made it difficult to remedy this wrong ; for soon 

 after he published his Geological Map of England, another appeared, 

 founded upon separate observations ; and though, perhaps, not quite 

 independent of his, yet in many respects much more detailed and cor- 

 rect. Thus, though his general ideas obtained universal currency, he 

 did not assume his due prominence as a geologist In 1818, a gene- 

 rous attempt was made to direct a proper degree of public gratitude 

 to him, in an article in the Edinburgh Review, the production of Dr. 

 Fitton, a distinguished English geologist. And when the eminent 

 philosopher, Wollaston, had bequeathed to the Geological Society of 

 London a fund from which a gold medal was to be awarded to geo- 

 logical services, the first of such medals was, in 1831, "given to Mr. 

 William Smith, in consideration of his being a great original disco- 

 verer 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." 

 Cuvier's discoveries, on the other hand, both from the high philo- 

 sophic fame of their author, and from their intrinsic importance, 

 arrested at once the attention of scientific Europe ; and, notwithstand- 

 ing the undoubted priority of Smith's labors, for a long time were 

 looked upon as the starting-point of our knowledge of organic fossils. 

 And, in reality, although Cuvier's memoirs derived the greatest part 

 of their value from his zoological conclusions, they reflected back no 

 small portion of interest on the classifications of strata which were 

 involved in his inferences. And the views which he presented gave to 

 geology an attractive and striking character, and a connexion with 



