48 Dr. Fitton's Nolcs on the History of English Geology. 



ia June 1801, for a work, to be entitled, ' Accurate Delinca- 

 6 tions and Descriptions of the natural order of the various 

 c Strata that are found in different parts of England, and Wales, 

 t with practical Observations thereon :' — and an agreement was 

 made for its publication with a London bookseller. The sub- 

 scription filled readily; and the author appears at this time 

 to have applied himself seriously to the task of publication ; 

 several different sketches of memoirs, and coloured maps 

 of various sizes, still existing, which bear the date of that year 

 (1801). One of these, a coloured copy of the Index to Carey's 

 England, which has been presented to the Geological Society, 

 is alone sufficient to prove the great extent to which the 

 order of the strata had been ascertained at that period : and 

 among other documents of this date in Mr. Smith's posses- 

 sion, are two copies of Carey's larger map, on a scale of fifteen 

 miles to an inch; — one of them, uncoloured, having the lines of 

 outcrop of some of the strata cut through, so that they can be 

 raised above the general level of the paper, the other coloured 

 geologically, and differing very little, even in the more com- 

 plex parts in the interior of the south of England, from the 

 more finished map, published several years afterwards. In 

 the North also, the line of the oolites in Yorkshire, derived 

 principally from notes taken during the author's excursion of 

 1 794-, deserves, in the opinion of a very competent judge, to be 

 contrasted with a less accurate colouring of that country, sub- 

 sequently published by Mr. Smith himself in 1821. 



One of the chief defects in all these maps is, that the tract 

 between the North and South Downs of Kent, Sussex, &c. is 

 erroneous: being coloured, in some copies, of the same hue 

 with the beds above the chalk; while in others, although the 

 outcrop of that stratum towards the Wealds is expressed, the 

 subjacent beds are not detailed. Nor do the colours, in any 

 of the maps now referred to, extend to Cornwall, the greater 

 part of Wales, or the north-western counties of England. 

 With these exceptions, the maps of this early date do not 

 suffer by comparison with any of the more recent publica- 

 tions; and the great difficulty of the oolitic tracts in the in- 

 terior seems to have been at that time completely overcome. 



Among Mr. Smith's remaining papers, are several frag- 

 ments intended for a Memoir to be connected with the map 

 and sections ; one especially, in his own writing, which 

 contains a " Plan " in detail *, with several pages of a preface 



* The paper here referred to is as follows : the date is 1801. 



1 Plan of the work : To be divided into Two Parts. — 

 " The First of which should treat of the structure of the earth, or general 



* disposition of the most remarkable known strata, collected from the best 



* authorities, and arranged according to the order discovered in England ; 



