THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



23 



had not prevented its reaching him till it was too 

 late. While engaged in Yorkshire in completing 

 a county map of its geology, and in the professional 

 pursuits which yielded him a scanty and precarious 

 subsistence, he became acquainted with Sir R. 

 Murchison, whom he accompanied on an examina- 

 tion of the oolites of the Yorkshire coast. It 

 was at a later period that he became acquainted 

 with Dr. Buckland, to whom he was introduced in 

 the shop of Mr, Bliss, the bookseller, of Oxford. 

 His introduction to Professor Sedgwick was at a 

 later period, when the latter was exploring the 

 rocks of the English lake district. The quarry- 

 men, who had noticed Smith's curious habit of 

 testing the hardness of stones with his teeth, 

 concluding that he and the Cambridge pro- 

 fessor must be of the " same trade," made them 

 acquainted with one another. Through the instru- 

 mentality of this influential geologist, due justice 

 was done in a few years to Smith's claims as an 

 original discoverer. In 1831 the Council of the 

 Geological vSociety awarded to him the first medal, 

 struck with part of the proceeds of a fund be- 

 queathed to them by Dr. Wollaston for the purpose 

 of awarding original discoverers. In announcing 

 to Smith the award. Professor Sedgwick, then Pre- 

 sident of the Geological Society, declared that they 

 were compelled, by every motive which the judg- 

 ment could approve and the heart could sanction, 

 to perform an act of filial duty before they thought 

 of the claims of any other man, and to place their 

 first honour on the brow of the Father of English 

 Geology. "If," he added, "in the pride of our 

 present strength we were to forget our origin, our 

 very speech would betray us, for we speak the 

 language which he taught us in the infancy of our 

 science. If we, by our united efforts, are slowly 

 raising the pinnacles and chiselling the ornaments 

 of one of the great temples of Nature, it was he who 

 gave the plan and laid the foundations and erected 

 a portion of the solid walls by the unassisted 

 labour of his hands." 



The medal was not then struck, but it was pre- 

 sented to Smith in the following year, at the meeting 

 of the British Association, at Oxford. At the same 

 time Smith was gratified by the further announce- 

 ment that a pension of £100 a-year had been as- 

 signed to him by the Government, at the urgent 

 request of the whole body of geologists, supported 

 by the inflvience of the present Lord Carlisle. 



One of Smith's most zealous patrons was Sir 

 John V. B. Johnstone, of Hackness, who, on suc- 

 ceeding to his property, appointed him manager of 

 the Hackness estates. He had hoped the com- 

 parative leisure which this occupation afforded 

 would have been employed by Smith in writing 

 the results of a long life of observation ; but in 



this he, as well as the rest of Smith's friends, was 

 disappointed. Writing for the press, as we have 

 said, was not Smith's talent, though a most volu- 

 minous writer of notes. These, Professor Phillips 

 considers to have been the happiest years of his life. 

 He wrote much and meditated more, but arranged 

 nothing for publication. He produced, however, a 

 geological map of the Hackness estate, beautifully 

 executed, in great detail. The time will come, 

 though it has not yet arrived, when such a map, or 

 rather maps, showing the variations of soil, whether 

 derived from the superficial deposits or the sub- 

 strata, as well as the mineral variations of the 

 latter, will be deemed a necessary appendage to 

 every estate. After hving at Hackness six years, 

 growing weary, as he says, of farming pursuits, he 

 resigned his situation, and was allowed by Sir John 

 Johnstone £20 a-year for occasional advice and 

 visits. 



During these latter years of his life Smith was a 

 constant attendant at the meetings of the British 

 Association. At its Dublin meeting, in 1835, the 

 University of Trinity College conferred on him. an 

 honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, of which he 

 was not a litttle proud. 



It was on his way to the meeting of the Associa- 

 tion at Birmingham, in 1839, that he died, after a 

 few days' illness, at the house of his friend, Mr. 

 George Baker, at Northampton. He had spent 

 several days on a visit to that gentleman, to ex- 

 amine his fine collection of Northamptonshire fos- 

 sils, making some geological excursions among the 

 oolitic rocks of the neighbourhood. A slight 

 attack of diarrhoea, which he neglected with the 

 usual aversion to medicine, of one who through 

 his life had enjoyed robust health, took an unfa- 

 vourable turn, and terminated fatally on the 28th 

 of August. 



Born on the ooHtes, on the observation of which 

 his fame v/as laid, he had often expressed a wish to 

 be buried on them ; and on the oolites he was 

 buried, in the beautiful antique church of All 

 Saints, Northampton : and there, by a subscrip- 

 tion among geologists entered into at the instance 

 by Dr. Buckland, a tablet has been erected to his 

 memory. 



Smith's three capital discoveries were, that the 

 strata have regular order of succession, and are 

 distinguishable from one another by their organic 

 contents; and that these regular marine deposits 

 are distinct from the superficial accumulations, to 

 which he gave the name of " dilvuvium." It appears 

 that the first of these discoveries was known to a 

 certain extent to Smeaton, the founder of civil 

 engineering ; Mitchel, Woodwardian professor 

 at Cambridge ; and Cavendish, the discoverer of 

 the composition of water. Their discoveries, how- 



