correspondence with Priestley and with 

 Cavendish, he was ready to communicate 

 them to any enquirer who took an interest 

 in the subject. By a happy accident one 

 of these communications to a friend, was 

 committed by this friend to writing and 

 was published seventeen years after 

 Michell had passed away. In August 

 1 8 1 o there appeared, in the Philosophical 

 Magazine, a letter from John Farey, Sen., 

 a well-known geologist of the day, enclos- 

 ing certain notes made by John Smeaton, 

 the eminent engineer, and endorsed by 

 him as " Mr Michell's account of the 

 south of England strata." Farey states 

 that this account was probably made 

 verbally by Michell to his friend Smeaton, 

 very soon after November 1788, and was 

 taken down by Smeaton " on the cover 

 of a recent letter as being the only piece 

 of paper then at hand ; for Mr Smeaton 's 

 decease in 1792 shows that it must have 

 been prior to that time/' The document 

 was as follows : 



G. 65 



