232 The Founders of Geology LECT. 



was forced to make up, by night-travelling, the time he had 

 lost, so as not to fail in his professional engagements." 



Stimulated by the kindly urgency of his friend Kichard- 

 son, who alarmed him by pointing out that if he did not 

 publish his observations, some one else might anticipate 

 him, Smith was prevailed upon to draw up a prospectus of 

 a work in which he proposed to give a detailed account of 

 the various strata of England and Wales, with an accom- 

 panying map and sections. A publisher in London was 

 named, and the prospectus was extensively circulated ; but 

 it led to nothing. 



Eventually Smith established himself in London as the 

 best centre for his professional work, and in 1805 he took 

 a large house there, with room for the display of his 

 collections and maps, which were open to the inspection of 

 any one interested in such matters. Among his materials 

 he had completed a large county map of Somersetshire, as 

 a specimen of what might be done for the different counties 

 of England. This document seems to have been exhibited 

 at the Board of Agriculture, and a proposal was made 

 that he should be permanently attached to the corps of 

 engineers then engaged in surveying the island. But the 

 idea never went farther. Not until thirty years later was 

 it revived by De la Beche, and pressed with such per- 

 severance as to lead in the end to the establishment of the 

 present Geological Survey of Great Britain. 



From 1799, when Smith first contemplated the publica- 

 tion of his observations, every journey that he took was 

 as far as possible made subservient to the completion of his 

 map of England. At last, but not until the end of the 

 year 1812, he found a publisher enterprising enough to 



