140 THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



of traveling to the north of England and so extended 

 the range of his observation, always exceptionally 

 alert. For six years he was engaged, as engineer, in 

 the construction of the Somerset Coal Canal, where 

 he enlarged and turned to practical account his 

 knowledge of strata. 



Collectors of fossils (as Lamarck afterwards called 

 organic remains) were surprised to find Smith able 

 to tell in what formation their different specimens 

 had been found, and still more when he enunciated 

 the view that " whatever strata were to be found 

 in any part of England the same remains would be 

 found in it and no other." Moreover, the same order 

 of superposition was constant among the strata, as 

 Werner, of whom Smith knew nothing, had indeed 

 taught. Smith was able to dictate a Tabular View 



o 



of British Strata from coal to chalk with the char- 

 acteristic fossils, establishing an order that was found 

 to obtain on the Continent of Europe as well as in 

 Britain. 



He constructed geological maps of Somerset and 

 fourteen other English counties, to which the atten- 

 tion of the Board of Agriculture was called. They 

 showed the surface outcrops of strata, and were in- 

 tended to be of assistance in mining, roadmaking, 

 canal construction, draining, and water supply. It 

 was at the time of William Smith's scientific dis- 

 coveries that the public interest in canal transporta- 

 tion was at its height in England, and his study of 

 the strata was a direct outcome of his professional 

 activity. He called himself a mineral surveyor, and 

 he traveled many thousand miles yearly in connec- 

 tion with his calling and his interest in the study of 



