554 HISTORY OF GEOLOGY. 



Sect. 3. Application of Organic Remains as a 

 Geological Character. Smith. 



ROUELLE and Odoardi had perceived, as we have 

 seen, that fossils were grouped in bands : but from 

 this general observation to the execution of a sur- 

 vey of a large kingdom, founded upon this principle, 

 would have been a vast stride, even if the author of 

 it had been aware of the doctrines thus asserted by 

 these writers. In fact, however, William Smith 

 executed such a survey of England, with no other 

 guide or help than his own sagacity and perse- 

 verance. In his employments as a civil engineer, 

 he noticed the remarkable continuity and constant 

 order of the strata in the neighbourhood of Bath, as 

 discriminated by their fossils; and about the year 

 1793, he 16 drew up a Tabular View of the strata of 

 that district, which contained the germ of his sub- 

 sequent discoveries. Finding in the north of Eng- 

 land the same strata and associations of strata with 

 which he had become acquainted in the west, he 

 was led to name them and to represent them by 

 means of maps, according to their occurrence over 

 the whole face of England. These maps appeared 17 

 in 1815 ; and a work by the same author, entitled 

 The English Strata identified ~by Organic Remains, 

 came forth later. But the views on which this 

 identification of strata rests, belong to a consider- 

 ably earlier date; and had not only been acted 



16 Fitton, p. 148. 17 Brit. Assoc. 1832. Conybeare, p. 373. 



