440 Professor J. W. Judd—Wm. Smith's MS. 3Iaps. 



important principle in the construction of a number of geological 

 sections and maps. Conclusive documentary evidence of the truth 

 of this statement is fortunately in the possession of the Geological 

 Society. The way in w^hich these important documents were acquired 

 by the Society is well known to all geologists. When the Wollaston 

 Medal was founded, it was unanimously resolved by the Council of 

 the Geological Society (January 11, 1831) — 



" That the first Wollaston Medal be given to Mr. William Smith, 

 in consideration of his being a great original discoverer in English 

 Geology ; and especially for his having been the first, in this country, 

 to discover and to teach the identification of strata, and to determine 

 their succession by means of their imbedded fossils." 



To the Uicid historical statement in which the President of the 

 Society — Professor Adam Sedgwick — explained and justified this 

 award, William Smith replied in " a short and manly speech," 

 which he concluded by presenting to the Society " some documents 

 referred to in the President's address." These documents were as 

 follows : — 



1. A table of the Order of Strata, and their imbedded Organic 

 Eemains, in the vicinity of Bath ; examined and proved prior to 

 1799. 



2. A map of the country five miles round Bath, on the scale of 

 one and a half inches to the mile. "Coloured geologically in 1799, 

 by William Smith." 



3. The first draft of a geological map of England and Wales, 

 entitled " General Map of Strata found in England and Wales, 

 by William Smith, surveyor, 1801." 



The careful reader of the historical statements drawn up by 

 Fitton,' Sedgwick,^ and Phillips,^ will be satisfied that other and 

 still earlier documentary evidence, in the form of manuscript sections 

 and maps, once existed, and had been examined by those authors. 

 But it is highly probable that by the year 1831 all such manuscripts, 

 which could be regarded as important pieces of evidence, had been 

 given away or lost by William Smith, with the exception of the three 

 presented by him to the Geological Society. At all events, I fear 

 that the chance of the recovery of any such manuscripts of Williana 

 Smith, is now a remote one. Twenty-five years ago, the late Mr. 

 W. Stephen Mitchell set himself the task of hunting for relics of the 

 Father of English Geology in Bath and elsewhere. I was at the time 

 in frequent communication with Mr. Mitchell, who was able to take 

 counsel with John Phillips and other contemporaries of William 

 Smith, then living and able to direct him in his inquiries ; but 

 I gathered that these investigations were fruitless, and that though 



' The Edinburgh Eeview, February, 1818 ; the London and Edinburgh Philo- 

 sophical Magazine, vol. i, pp. 147-60, 268-75, 442-50; and vol. ii, pp. 37-57, 

 (1832-3). 



- Proceedings of the Geological Society (1831), pp. 270-80. 



^ Memoirs of William Smith, Author of "The Map of the Strata of England 

 and Wales," 1844. 



