WILLIAM SMITH. 24 1 



New Forest, opposite the Shoe alehouse at Plait- 

 ford. All the varieties of soil, in so many surveys 

 in different districts, were particularly noticed, and 

 compared with the general aspect and character 

 of the country, and the agricultural and com- 

 mercial appropriations. The arrangement of the 

 lias limestone beds in Warwickshire contrasted with 

 the neighbouring red marls at Inkborough, the 

 boring for coal in some dark lias clays on the road 

 to Warwick, the absence of arenaceous beds from 

 the limestones of Churchill — these were some of 

 the points treasured in a mind capable of combining 

 them at a future time. 



In 1793 we find him engaged in executing 

 surveys and complete systems of levelling, for the 

 line of a proposed canal. In the course of the 

 operations which he performed in the summer and 

 autumn, a speculation which had come into his 

 mind regarding a general law affecting the strata 

 of the district, was submitted to proof and con- 

 firmed. He had supposed that the strata lying 

 above the coal were not laid horizontally, but in- 

 clined ; that they were all inclined in one direction, 

 viz., the eastward, so as to successively terminate at 

 the surface, and thus to " resemble, on a large scale, 

 the ordinary appearance of superposed slices of 

 bread and butter." This supposition was now 

 proved to be correct by the levelling processes 

 executed in two parallel valleys, for in each of the 

 levelled lines the strata of " red ground," " lias," 

 and " freestone " (afterwards called " oolite "), came 

 I. R 



