GEOLOGY IN SERVICE OF MAN WATTS 273 



ject and were in the habit of reproaching one another with neglect 

 of neighboring branches, but even this made for progress by stimulat- 

 ing competition and discussion. 



In spite, however, of all that had gone before in tlie fields both 

 of fact-collecting and of speculation, it will be admitted tliat no 

 single man made so great an individual advance, or placed it upon 

 such an enduring foundation, or did so much on whicli the future 

 of his science was to depend, as William Smith. And it is note- 

 worthy that the spur to his discoveries was not so much his theoreti- 

 cal views or even his scientific zeal, as a plain and practical issue — 

 the finding of a short cut to speedy and accurate land valuation. 



The discovery by the " father of English geology " that fossils 

 are the "medals of creation" and that strata are each characterized 

 by special suites of organisms was certainly one of the greatest 

 ever made in the history of geology, and upon it have been founded, 

 directl}^ or indirocth', almost all the latter advances in the science. 

 But for the fuller utilization of his discoveries there were needed 

 the artistic faculty and a wide knowledge of places and people, 

 both of W'hich he fortunately possessed. Thus he was able to intro- 

 duce handy, crisp, easily remembered and pleasantly sounding local 

 terms to characterize his " formations," and to represent the out- 

 crop of strata on maps which were not merely topographical but, 

 for the first time, were tectonic also. So well did he discharge this 

 latter function that, a comparison of his general map of England 

 with the latest production of the Geological Survey on a scale at 

 all comparable Avith it fills one Avith astonishment at the amount of 

 work accomplished by him single handed, and with admiration for 

 his accuracy. 



It is strange that, in the amateur and official work which followed 

 during much of the nineteenth century, so little interest was taken 

 in the industrial application of geological knowdedge Avhich, in 

 Smith's hands, had been so productive. The science had, as has been 

 said, the " landed manner," and the dignity of its application to arts 

 and industries was little appreciated. A former director of the 

 Geological Survey of Great Britain, Sir AndreAv Kamsay, quoted 

 with approval the saying of one of his colleagues, " it is but the 

 overflowings of science that enter into and animate industry," And 

 thus, though the scientific side of geology stood to gain much other- 

 wise unattainable information from contact with its economic ap- 

 plication, this source of knoAvledge Avas not fully utilized, and an 

 air of mutual suspicion — not Avholly unjustified — grew up between 

 "theoretical" geologists and those Avho applied geology to mining 

 and other economic problems. Fortunately this feeling is passing 

 aAvay; the two sides have found that each is indispensable to the 



