224 The Founders of Geology LECT. 



the Jurassic, rocks for all the rest of Europe was the work 

 of William Smith usually known as the " Father of Eng- 

 lish geology." No more interesting chapter in scientific 

 annals can be found than that which traces the progress 

 of this remarkable man, who, amidst endless obstacles and 

 hindrances, clung to the idea which had early taken shape 

 in his mind, and who lived to see that idea universally 

 accepted as the guiding principle in the investigation of 

 the geological structure, not of England only, but of Europe 

 and of the globe. 



William Smith (1769-1839) came of a race of yeomen 

 farmers who for many generations had owned small tracts of 

 land in Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. 1 He was born at 

 Churchill, in the former county, on 23rd March 1*769, the 

 same year that gave birth to Cuvier. Before he was eight 

 years old he lost his father. After his mother married for 

 the second time, he seems to have been largely dependent 

 upon an uncle for education and assistance. The instruc- 

 tion obtainable at the village school was of the most 

 limited kind. With difficulty the lad procured means to 

 purchase a few books from which he might learn the 

 rudiments of geometry and surveying. Already he had 

 taken to the observing and collecting of stones, particu- 

 larly of the well-preserved fossils whereof the Jurassic 

 rocks of his neighbourhood were full. He came to be 

 interested in questions of drainage and other pursuits con- 

 nected with the surface of the land, and in spite of want 

 of encouragement, made such progress with his studies 

 that at the age of eighteen he was taken as assistant to a 



1 The biographical details are derived from the Memoirs of William 

 Smith, LL.D., by his nephew and pupil, John Phillips, 1844. 



