DISCOVERIES OF WILLIAM SMITH. ^ 



Smith. A century later, the perception of the same truth, in several 

 instances near Bath, and the demonstration of its applicability to the 

 whole Secondary series of the strata of England, enabled Mr. William 

 Smith, by his own unaided efforts, to establish the geology of England 

 on a basis from which it can never be shaken. He made an accurate 

 classification of the stratified rocks in the order of their relative anti- 

 quity, accompanied by catalogues of their organic contents, and a map 

 of their ranges and distribution on the surface of the island in confor- 

 mity with the order of succession of the rocks in the interior. 



To study the laws of nature according to the principles developed 

 by Mr. Smith, to ascertain by the order of succession of deposits and 

 by organic remains, what were the contemporaneous effects of the 

 natural agents employed in the formation of the earth's structure in 

 all parts of the world, is the first great problem of modem geology. 

 By the aid of zoological and botanical researches we determine the 

 relative antiquity of every species of fossil plant and animal, and 

 assign the relative period during which its existence was continued. 

 The fossils called Orthoceratites, Producta,Tiilol>ita,, and many Crinoidea, 

 belong to the older and lower rocks ; certain species of Echini, Ammo- 

 nites, Belemnites, and other shells, mark the Oolitic strata ; while others 

 belong to the Chalk ; and a different series of plants, corals, shells, and 

 remains of vertebrate animals lie above the chalk, to those found below. 

 Such inferences, drawn from observations in Europe, have been found 

 constant in America ; and this powerful instrument of research thus 

 placed in the hands of the observer, having been wielded with the 

 caution requisite in questions of analogy, the principles disclosed by 

 Mr. Smith's researches near Bath and elsewhere, and illustrated by 

 Cuvier's philosophical description of the environs of Paris, are found 

 to be universally applicable ; for the distant slopes of the Himalaya 

 and Andes, and the shores of Australia and Greenland, are united in 

 the mind of the geologist who contemplates the evidences of their 

 coeval stratification. 



Hypotheses. We here close our short account of the growth of 

 geology into a science. The paths of observation, along which alone 

 the foundations of the science are to be sought, were hard and difficult; 

 those hypotheses which they displaced were easy and inviting. The 

 globular figure of our planet, the inequalities of its surface, and the 

 occurrence of marine shells in mountains far from the sea, have been 

 thought sufficient data for rashness and speculation to construct de- 

 tailed theories of the earth, to determine the constitution and condition 

 of its centre, and to describe, as if men had actually beheld them, the 

 successive revolutions which the world had undergone. 



These hypotheses were most numerous and discordant during the 

 period when positive geology had made the least progress ; with the 

 advancement of knowledge they diminished in number and improved 

 in consistency ; and at the present moment, though every theory has 

 lost its power of fettering the mind, there is a tacit but almost uni- 

 versal agreement in those fundamental principles of structure, and 

 circumstances of origin of phenomena, by which alone every passing 



