42 Dr. Fitton's Notes on the History of English Geology. 



" also regular? — I was constantly told — there was " nothing re- 

 " gular above the red ground," which in their sinkings varied 

 ' much in thickness ; nor could they tell which way the coal 

 ' would pitch, until the red earth was sunk through. This did 

 ' not deter me from pursuing my own thoughts on the subject; 



* and in 1792 and 1793, the general declination of the superior 

 c strata to the east or south-east was verified, by a survey and 

 6 levels continued many miles through the adjoining country, 

 6 for a canal purposed to be made in the vicinity of Bath. 

 6 Ascertaining this fact by my spirit-level, in three parallel 

 4 vales some miles apart, — that the lias and freestone of the 

 6 Stone-brash Hills, which were previously well known to 

 ' me, had such a general declination, — I soon applied these 

 ' notions to all the extent of country before mentioned ; and 

 ' began to delineate on maps the courses of the strata; and 

 c constantly traced and retraced the order in which they would 

 ' be intersected in making the canal. 



" The superintendence and execution of the canal I had 

 ' before surveyed confirmed the notions previously formed of 

 ' the strata ; and the canal excavations, and the new quarries 

 ' opened, produced organized fossils, for the identification of 

 ' several strata, which could not have been otherwise distin- 



* guished. 



" These fossils were collected, written upon, and preserved 



* in the order of strata, as vouchers thereof; and in June 

 ' 1799, a written account of these discoveries, in a tabular 

 ' form, was given to three scientific gentlemen, the Rev. Ben- 

 ' jamin Richardson, the Rev. Joseph Townsend, and William 

 ' James, Esq., from some of whom manuscript copies were 

 ' multiplied and extensively circulated. 



" This paper, printed in the original form in the Memoir 

 ' which accompanies the map of the strata, shows also the dis- 

 ' covery of regularity in the courses of springs; which soon be- 

 ( came an important branch of my mineral surveying. Thus 



* knowing how to distinguish upon the surface the courses of 



* the impervious strata; — and that the water which falls from 

 ' the heavens is collected in the cavities of rocks and other po- 

 ' rous strata, on the subterrene surface of the impervious, and 

 6 thus forced to run out on the soil, I considered myself qua- 

 1 liried for the business of a drainer and general improver of 

 ' land ; and in the extensive prosecution of such works, many 

 ' of the very best local observations have been made." 



It appears, therefore, that Mr. Smith's researches began 

 among the Coal-tracts ; and no better school can be imagined 

 for instruction in the phaenomena and relations of strata. Not 

 that in many other portions of the series of secondary rocks, 



