360 Mr. Smith's Discoveries in Geology. [May, 



Mr. William Smith's claims (according to the opinions of his 

 friends) to merit and originality, in regard to the knowledge of 

 the British strata, may be briefly stated as follows, viz. 



1. Having, while employed in the under-ground surveys of 

 collieries, at and near High Littleton, in 1790, and two or three 

 following years, acquired a more intimate acquaintance with the 

 facts of the stratification beneath the surface, and drawn more 

 correct inferences therefrom, as to the necessary connexion of 

 the edges of these strata with the surface* than were then current, 

 or known to the several coal-agents, over-lookers, or working- 

 colliers in the vicinity, or than are even now known or current 

 among a very large proportion of the same class of practical 

 men throughout all the coal districts of Great Britain.f 



2. Having, while so engaged, accurately discriminated the 

 regular and undisturbed strata, with the roundish nodules they 

 frequently contain, and strata of sand, from the really worn and 

 heterogeneous alluvial ruins of strata, which are superficially and 

 very variously scattered on the tops and edges of the strata, but 

 are in no case found beneath regular strata ; and having practi- 

 cally established means of knowing the alluvia almost at firs^ 

 sight, at the time when almost all observers and writers on the 

 subject were confounding the alluvia with the strata. 



3. Having, in the year 1795, applied the aforesaid inferences 

 or deductions to practice, in actually making a map of the strata 

 in the vicinity of Bath and Bristol, and having then freely shown 

 and explained the same to great numbers of persons,^: particu- 

 larly to those assembled at several public meetings of the Batb 

 and West of England Society. 



4. Having, during the progress of making this first map of the 

 strata, and in beginning very soon after to extend this map to 

 other parts of England, discovered a notable difference between 

 certain English strata, as to the visible boldness with which the 

 edges of certain of them are presented on the surface compared 

 with others, some of them forming almost continued ranges of 

 hills, § where they basset; and low flat districts, or wide, easy 

 valleys being found, where several of the others come to the 

 surface : and having then fully adopted and practised this new 



* Philosophical Magazine for Jime, 1806, and June, 1811. Mr. Farey's Re- 

 port to the Board of Agriculture on Derbyshire, vol, i. p. 108, &c. 



+ Derbyshire Report, i. 163, note. 



$ The late Rev. Joseph Townsend was among these persons; and he so highly 

 valued what Mr. Smith had done, as to request and press Mr. Smith for materials 

 find permission to publish a general account of them, and a list of the shells and 

 strata (mentioned in the 8th and 1 1th articles), in some work which he then contem- 

 plated ; on which request a correspondence took place in May to July, 1801, 

 between the Rev. B. Richardson and Mr. Smith, wherein the former persuaded 

 Mr. Smith to publish them himself, and to cause a Latin edition to be prepared, 

 for more readily circulating the important novelties of Mr. S.'s discoveries, through- 

 out Europe. In 1812 Mr. Townsend published the first volume of his " Character 

 • of Moses," and in the preface handsomely acknowledges Mr. Smith's assistance m 

 tracing the strata, &c. 



<) Pail. Mag. vol. xxxv. p. 138 1 ditto io June, 1S11 . Derby Report, i. 112, 113. 



