A Yorkshire Rector of the Eighteenth Century. ii 



Noah's Flood. He even held that they had settled down in 

 the diluvial waters according to their relative weight, the 

 heaviest sinking among the lowest sediments, while the lightest 

 remained at the top. 



Obviously, one of the first steps towards the elucidation 

 of the matter was to ascertain beyond all question whether, 

 in the portion of the globe accessible to human observation, 

 the materials are tumultuously heaped together as Diluvialists 

 supposed, or have been arranged in some kind of recognisable 

 order. As far back as the early decades of the eighteenth 

 century, John Strachey had shown that in the south-west of 

 England a succession of distinct strata could be traced from the 

 Coal up to the Chalk, and he enumerated them in condensed 

 form, but in their proper sequence. His observations, however, 

 were disregarded by theorists like Woodward. It was needful 

 that some careful student of nature should verify and extend 

 the work done by Strachey.* 



Michell's residence in the southern half of England afforded 

 him excellent opportunities of investigating this subject. His 

 excursions from Cambridge and his subsequent journeys 

 between Thornhill and London brought the grouping of the 

 stratified rocks of the region vividly before him, and led him 

 early in life to study their succession. Travelling in those 

 days was more leisurely than now. As he went to and fro 

 across the shires, whether on horseback or by carriage, or in 

 such stage-coaches as then plied on the roads between the 

 Midlands and London, he would often spend two or three days 

 on the way. There is evidence that he kept his eyes open to 

 descry any new pit, quarry or other opening that might have 

 been laid bare since his previous visit. We know, too, that 

 when he halted at an inn for the night he would collect all the 

 fresh information which such removals of the surface soil might 

 reveal. It must be remembered, also, that as the rectory of 

 Thornhill stands on the great Yorkshire Coalfield, the progress 

 of the mining industry around him would continuously bring 

 geological questions to his notice. 



It is accordingly interesting to find that while still resident 

 at Cambridge, Michell, as the result of his own personal ob- 

 servations, had arrived at a singularly broad and accurate con- 

 ception of an important part of the earth's crust. f He found 

 the earth to be ' not composed of heaps of matter casually 

 thrown together, but of regular and uniform strata.' He 

 remarked that ' these strata, though they frequently do not 

 exceed a few feet, or perhaps a few inches in thickness, yet often 



* Phil. Trans. XXX. (1719), P- 968. 



t These observations are contained in the earlier part of his paper 

 on Earthquakes pubhshed in the Philosophical Transactioyis, Vol. LI., 

 1760. 



1918 Jan. 1. 



