WILLIAM SMITH. 257 



prosecute, new and ingenious researches, especially 

 if they tended to practical and public good. He 

 knew accurately the country in which Mr. Smith 

 had principally worked, and was acquainted with 

 the views entertained on the subject of fossils, which 

 had been recorded in books, or were adopted by 

 the collectors, who were even then celebrated in 

 the vicinity of Bath. He had no knowledge of the 

 laws of stratification and the connection between 

 the forms of organic life and the order of super- 

 position of the strata ; while, on the other hand, 

 his new friend had very little knowledge of the 

 true nature of these organic forms, and their exact 

 relation to analogous living types. The result of 

 a meeting between two such reciprocally adjusted 

 minds was an electric combination ; the fossils 

 which the one possessed were marshalled in the 

 order of strata by the other, until they all found 

 their appropriate places, and the arrangement of 

 the cabinet became a true copy of nature. 



That such fossils had been found, in such rocks, 

 was immediately acknowledged by Mr. Richardson 

 to be true, though the connection had not before 

 presented itself to his mind ; but when Mr. Smith 

 added the assurance, that everywhere throughout 

 this district, and to considerable distances around, 

 it was a general law that the ^^ smne strata were 

 found ahvays in the same order of superposition 

 and contained the same peculiar fossils,^' his friend 

 was both astonished and incredulous. He immedi- 

 ately acceded to Mr. Smith's proposal for under- 



I. S 



