10 
work. But that he should have been able to produce the first 
Geological Map of England and Wales ever attempted, and that 
the chief contour-lines on this early map (published more than 7o- 
years ago) should continue (in the main) correct, is sufficient to 
prove with what energy and perseverance he must have laboured, 
and how keen must have been his powers of observation. 
Then, too, as regards his determination of the various strata by 
means of their fossils, this was a marvellous discovery, and needed 
great care and caution and yet quick and accurate observation to- 
recognize the same organisms in very different localities, and to- 
know them again at once, and the horizon to which they belonged. 
In the ‘Geological Magazine” for 1897, p. 439, Professor 
Judd drew attention to the date of William Smith’s MS., Maps, 
&c., preserved in the Museum of the Geological Society at 
Burlington House. These documents were presented by William 
Smith to the Geological Society on February 18th, 1831, when he 
received the first Wollaston Gold Medal at the hands of Professor 
Adam Sedgwick, the President. These documents were as follows : 
1. A table of the Order of Strata and their embedded Organic 
Remains, in the vicinity of Bath, examined and proved prior to: 
1799: 
2. A Map of the Country five miles round Bath, on the scale 
of one and a-half inches to the mile. ‘Coloured geologically in 
1799 by William Smith.” 
3. The first draft of a Geological Map of England and Wales, 
entitled “General Map of Strata found in England and Wales, by 
William Smith, Surveyor, 1801.” 
Doubtless other and still earlier documentary evidence in the 
form of manuscript sections and maps once existed, but it is 
highly probable that, by the year 1831, all such manuscripts, which 
could be regarded as important pieces of evidence, had been given 
away or lost by William Smith, with the exception of the three he 
then presented to the Society. These documents must therefore be 
regarded as of the very highest importance and of priceless value. 
