Dr. Fitton's Notes on the History ofEtigHsk Geology. 443 



omitted to notice the gi-eater number of an extensive class of 

 writers, the older British Topographers ; who contributed to 

 the progress of the subject rather by supplying detached facts 

 and local information, than by connected views of the struc- 

 ture of the country: and hence, although their works may be 

 consulted with advantage by those who are employed in in- 

 vestigating local details, they do not claim particular notice, 

 where general principles are the chief objects of inquiry. 



There is one, however, among the topographic antiquaries, 

 who ought, perhaps, to have been mentioned at the very com- 

 mencement of this paper; and who deserves to be had in re- 

 membrance, as the Patriarch of English Geologists ; — though 

 his work remained unknown for more than two hundred years. 

 George Owen of Henllys in Pembrokeshire, Lord of Cemaes 

 or Kemes, was the author of a History of that county, the 

 manuscript of which bears the date of 1595, during the reign 

 of Elizabeth; — perhaps more than a century before any thought 

 of tracing the strata of England or of the globe, iiad been acted 

 upon, or even mentioned in this country : but the work re- 

 mained in manuscript till 1799, when it was pubhshed in the 

 Cambrian Register*. The author enters largely and with 

 great intelligence, into topographical and statistical detail ; 

 and in one of his chapters, treating of the ' natural helpes, 

 ' which is in the countrey to better the lande' — of which he 

 reckons ' lyme ' to be the ' chiefest,' — ' First,' he says, ' you 

 ' shall understand, that the lymestone is a vayne of stones 

 ' running his course, for the most part right east and west, 

 ' although sometimes the same is Ibund to approach to the 

 ' north and south. — Of this lymestone there is found of an- 

 ' cienl, two veynes, the one small and of no great account ; 

 ' and not of bredth above a butt length, or stones cast; and 

 ' therefore whosoever seeketh southward or northward over the 

 ' bredth misseth it.' — The course of this ' veyne' is then traced 

 to a considerable distance eastward, out of Pembrokeshire. 



* The other vayne of limestone, and chiefest of the two, is about 



* seven miles distant from the former, more southerly then it, 

 ' and soe or neare they continue together as shall be de- 



* clared ;' — and its course is in like manner traced towards the 

 east, to where ' it taketh water,' and passing under the sea, — 

 ' as reason and the course thereof leadeth us to think,' is again 



* ' A History of Pembrokeshire, from a manuscript of George Owen, 

 ' Esq. of Henllys, Lord of Kemes, &C. — now first ])ublished by his great- 

 ' grandson liiL-liard Fenton, Esij.' Cambrian Register for 179(>, vol. i. 

 p. 52. London, 1799. — An extract from this History, containing what re- 

 lates to Coal, h.-is been printed also in Fenton s Historical Tour through 

 Pembrokeshire, — Appendix, p. 54. 



3 L 2 



