5IO 



NATURE 



\ April 30, 1874 



JOHN PHILLIPS 

 Born December 25, 1800: Died April 24, 1874 



THE daily press has already spread the sad tidings 

 from Oxford that Prof. Phillip met with an acci- 

 dent which suddenly cut short his life while in good 

 health and such full vigour that we still expected work 

 from him. A few days ago he was here amongst us in 

 London, bearing himself with form as erect and step as 

 elastic as if the last ten years had but further mellowed 

 though in no way lessened his energy. Now we learn 

 that a stumble over a door-mat. on leaving a friend's 

 rooms in All Souls, followed by a heavy fall, has deprived 

 Oxford of one of her brightest ornaments, and men of 

 science of a genial friend. 



Another bond is broken which linked together by a 

 living presence the geologists of to-day with those who 

 watched the infancy of the science which, in place of wild 

 phantasies of the imagination as to the origin of our 

 planet, substituted a patient and careful investigation of 

 its structure, as far as observation was possible. From 

 the time when William Smith in 1792-3 surveyed the 

 ground between High Littleton and Bath for the Somer- 

 setshire Coal Canal, and proved an unvarying sequence 

 in the strata of England, and their identification by their 

 fossil contents, every " cosmogomy " and " theory of the 

 earth" was doomed. Fact henceforth took the place of 

 fancy. 



Among the earliest of those trained in the new school 

 was young John Phillips. Born at Marden, in Wiltshire, 

 on Christmas-day (N.S.) 1800, he lost his father when he 

 was but seven years old, and his mother dying soon after, 

 his training fell into the hands of his mother's brother, 

 the renowned William Smith, " Father of English 

 Geology." 



We have never heard that there was anything to be 

 recorded of his father beyond that he was the youngest 

 son in a Welsh family, settled for many generations on 

 their own property at Blaen-y-ddol, in Caermarthenshire, 

 who was destined for the Church, but became an officer 

 of the Excise, and that he married the sister of William 

 Smith. Mr. F. Galton, a few weeks ago, read a paper 

 at the Royal Institution, in which he gave statistics about 

 eminent scientific men, showing the number of cases in 

 which the greatness was due to the father, and the num- 

 ber of cases in which it was due to the mother. Whether 

 Prof. Phillips was included we do not know, but he 

 most certainly was an instance in which the influence of 

 the mother preponderated. The mould of the features 

 were distinctly those of the Smith family, and the like- 

 ness between Prof Phillips and the busts and picturesof 

 William .Smith has often been remarked. His habit 

 of thought was so much due to the direct training of 

 his uncle that we cannot trace how much of it was 

 hereditary. No particular school could have much in- 

 fluenced him, for he passed through four schools before 

 he was ten, and then for a short time went to the excel- 

 ent old school at Holt Spa, in Wiltshire. It is said that 

 Latin, French, and Mathematics were his favourite 

 studies, and the enjoyment of Latin authors seems to 

 have grown on him, for in the writings of no other geo- 

 logist will be found so many quotations from the Latin 

 classics. The Rev. Benjamin Richardson, Rector of 

 Farley Hungerford, near Bath, was one of his earliest 

 instructors m natural history. Very little, indeed, is 

 known of Mr. Richardson ; he had the reputation of 

 being in his time the best naturalist in the west of Eng- 

 land, and the obituary notices at the time of his death 

 mention that he was a member of Christ Church, Oxford. 

 pne fact about him which has an_ historical interest 

 is certain, and that is that it was his hand which, 

 from the dictation of William Smith, " first reduced to 

 writing at the house of the Rev. Joseph Townsend, 

 Pultenay Street, Bath, 1 799 " the table of " the order of j 



the strata and their imbedded organic remains in the 

 vicinity of Bath." The original document is in the keep- 

 ing of the Geological Society, and is regarded as a memo- 

 rial of the first step towards the examination of strata on 

 a definite plan, the first step in the science of geology as 

 contrasted with cosmogony. During the year that young 

 Phillips spent at the pleasant rectory of Farley, he heard 

 continually of the importance attached to the discoveries 

 of his uncle and of the results which, in the estimation of 

 Richardson and Townsend, were to flow from it. Under 

 Mr. Richardson's direction he spent a large portion of his 

 time in searching for fossils through the valleys around 

 Farley, and in making drawings of the fossils he 

 found and of the recent forms that were most nearly 

 allied to them in Mr. Richardson's extensive collections. 

 Prof Phillips always spoke with pleasure of his recol- 

 lections of Mr. Richardson, and attributed to him 

 both his early taste for natural history and the ready use 

 of his pencil, which so often not only reproduced 

 faithfully a geological section but artistically included the 

 foliage and background recording the pleasant accom- 

 paniments of the work which principally engaged his 

 attention. Mr. Richardson though a kind was not a 

 flattering guide to the young man, for a frequent remark 

 on being shown the drawing of a fossil was, "Very good 

 John, now put that in the fire and try and do even better." 

 At the end of the happy year at Farley, young 

 Phillips went to live with his uncle in London, to share 

 with him his labour, his hopes, and his disappointments. 

 William Smith had then just removed to Bucking- 

 ham Street, after the fire in Craven Street, which 

 had so disarranged his work. Here, however, he re- 

 arranged his collection of fossils, the first collection in 

 which fo.';sils were placed in their stratigraphical sequence. 

 Made first at Cottage Crescent, Bath, removed to Trim 

 Street, then to Craven Street, and Buckingham Street, 

 this historical collection finally found a resting-place in 

 the British Museum. Each separate stratum recognised 

 by Smith had one or more shelves sloping to represent 

 the dip as he knew them in the typical ground of the 

 Dunkerton Valley, near Bath, where he first studied them. 

 This was the collection from which young Phillips first 

 derived his ideas of a geological museum for teaching 

 purposes, and which he saw so often referred to by his 

 uncle in explaining to his many visitors his new ideas, 

 when urging upon them the national importance of his 

 iscoveiy as regarded agriculture and mining. William 

 Smith was then working at his map of England, and to this 

 his best energies were given and all his money devoted. In 

 the " Memoirs" of his uncle, published in 1844, Prof 

 Phillips has described all the delays and trials that at- 

 tended the production of this, the first geological map of 

 England ever produced. The indomitable courage shown 

 by Mr. Smith m the face of every discouragement could 

 not fail to impress young Phillips with the importance of 

 his uncle's work, and to win respect for him. How he 

 was attached to him, and how he valued his teaching, is 

 apparent in many places in his writings. In the preface 

 to the " Memoirs" he speaks of himself as " an orphan 

 who benefited by his goodness, a pupil who was trained 

 up under his care." The map was issued in 181 5, and 

 Mr. Smith's professional engagements rapidly increased, 

 requiring him to visit all parts of the county. He con- 

 ceived the plan of producing county geological maps on a 

 scale considerably larger than that of the map of England, 

 and on almost every journey his nephew was his glad 

 companion, '' haud passibus ."cquis ;" and according to an 

 established custom on all such tours, was employed in 

 sketching parts of the road and recording on maps the 

 geological features of the country. In 1S21, the map of 

 Yorkshire, in four sheets, was published, which were pre- 

 pared and coloured by his own hands. Throughout the 

 " Memoirs " we have indications of the way in which he 

 worked under his uncle's direction. Here is one which 



