Map, 1815. 



142 Guide to the Invertelrata. 



GALLEEY means of their fossil remains. There had been other and earlier 

 ^^- collections of fossils, but to William Smith is due the credit of 

 being the first to show that each bed of chalk or sandstone, 

 limestone or clay, is marked by its own special organisms, and 

 that these can be relied upon as characteristic of such stratum, 

 whenever it is met with, over very wide areas of country. 



The fossils contained in this cabinet were gathered together by 

 "William Smith in his journeys over all parts of England during 

 thirty years, whilst occupied in hi-s busin-ess as a land surveyor 

 and engineer, a«id were used to illustrate his works, *' Strata 

 identified by Organized Fossils," with coloured plates (quarto, 

 1816; four parts only published), and " Stratigraphical System 

 of Organized Fossils " (quarto, 1817). 



A coloured copy of his large Map, the first Geological Map of 

 William England and "Wales, with a part of Scotland, commenced in 1812 

 Smith's and published in 1815 — size 8 feet 9 inches by 6 feet 2 inches, 

 engraved by John Gary — is exhibited on the right-hand side of 

 this gallery, near the entrance. A reduced copy of this map 

 and several sections across England, published by Smith in 1819, 

 are also placed upon the wall near his bust. 



William Smith was born at Churchill, a village of Oxford- 

 shire, in 1769; he was the son of a small farmer and mechanic, 

 but his father died when he was only eight years old, leaving 

 him to the care of his uacle, who acted as his guardian. 

 William's uncle did not approve of the boy's habit of collecting 

 Btones {'' ^undiih^^^ = Terehratulce, and " quoit-stones " = C/y^^ws 

 simiatus) ; but seeing that his nephew was studious, he gave him 

 a little money to buy books. By means of these he taught himself 

 the rudiments of geometry and land-surveying, and at the age of 

 eighteen he obtained employment as a land-surveyor in Oxford- 

 shire, Gloucestershire, and other parts, and had already begun 

 carefully and systematically to collect fossils and to observe the 

 structure of the rocks. In 1793 he was appointed to survey the 

 course of the intended Somersetshire Coal-Canal, near Bath. For 

 six years he was the resident engineer of the canal, and, applying 

 his previously acquired knowledge, he was enabled to prove that 

 the strata from the New Bed Marl (Trias) upwards followed each 

 other in a regular and orderly succession, each bed being marked 

 by its own characteristic fossils, and having a general tendency or 

 " dip " to the south-east. 



