WILLIAM SMITH. 247 



different strata. The vicinity of Bath is rich in 

 fossils, and fine collections were formed there 

 previous to Mr. Smith's researches. It might be 

 after inspecting some of these treasures, whose full 

 value was so entirely unknown to their owners, that 

 the following reflections, which strikingly illustrate 

 the enlarged state of his own views at that period, 

 were penned : — 



"Dunkerton, Swan, Jan. 5, 1796. 



" Fossils have been long studied as great curi- 

 osities, collected with great pains, treasured with 

 great and at a great expense, and shown and 

 admired with as much pleasure as a child's hobby- 

 horse is shown and admired by himself and his 

 playfellows, because it is pretty ; and this has 

 been done by thousands who have never paid the 

 least regard to that ivonderfid order and regu- 

 larity with which nature has disposed of these 

 singidar prodtictions, and assigned to each class its 

 peculiar stratum.^' 



Gifted in a very uncommon degree with that 

 philosophical faith in the generality and harmony 

 of natural laws which is a characteristic of dis- 

 coveries in natural science, Mr. Smith was at the 

 same time remarkably disinclined to indulge in 

 himself, or even to tolerate in others, mere specu- 

 lations in geology. Whatever of this nature he 

 found in the circle of his reading, was severely 

 judged by a close collocation of the hypothesis 

 which had been advanced with the phenomena of 

 stratification which he had entirely established. 



