W. Stephen Mitchell — Notice of John Farey. 25 



VII. BlOGKAPHICAL NOTICE OF JoHN FaBEY, GEOLOGIST. 



By W. Stephen Mitchell, LL.B., F.L.S., F.G.S. 



Sources of Information. — The short notice in the " Monthly- 

 Magazine" for Jan.-June, 1826, is, so far as I know, the only printed 

 source from which any account of his life can be obtained. The 

 notices in the "Annual Biography and Obituary," 1827, the "Annual 

 Eegister," 1826, and "Eose's Biographical Dictionary," are but re- 

 prints from this, with some omissions and verbal alterations. His 

 name does not, I believe, appear in any other biographical dictionary 

 or register. 



His Life. — He was born at Woburn, in Bedfordshire, in 1766, 

 where he received a common school education ; but showing studious 

 habits he was at sixteen sent to a school at Halifax, in Yorkshire. 

 Here the master was so pleased with him that "he gave him 

 gratuitous instruction in mathematics and philosophy." [Query, 

 What would the term ' philosophy' embrace ?] He also studied draw- 

 ing and surveying, and was recommended to the notice of the 

 celebrated Mr. Smeaton. He had the good fortune to become known 

 to the late Duke of Bedford, and in 1792 was appointed his steward, 

 and lived at Woburn till the Duke's death in 1802. He married 

 early, had a large family, and died at his house in Howland Street, 

 London, Jan. 6th, 1826. 



This is all we can learn from the Monthly Magazine. We are 

 not told what was the effect of his introduction to Smeaton, nor 

 what became of him after the death of the Duke. We know that 

 during portions of the years 1807-10 he was engaged on a survey 

 of " the agriculture and minerals of Derbyshire," and in his Eeport 

 to the Board of Agriculture, published in 1811 (vol. i.) and 1813 

 (vol. ii.), he is described on the title-page as "Mineral Surveyor, of 

 Upper Crown St., Westminster." 



What important works Mr. Farey vasj have executed as a Surveyor 

 I do not know. But Mr. Farcy's publications have an interest for 

 geologists from the fact that they contain the first printed reference 

 to the discoveries of Wm. Smith, the first published geological map 

 [that of the county of Derby], and the first printed list of the 

 sequence of strata based on palseontological data. The paper in 

 which he first refers to the discoveries of Smith is one in the Phil. 

 Mag., vol. XXV. (1806), pp. 44-49, "On the Stratification of England: 

 the intended Thames Archway," etc. Mr. Farey had met with Wm. 

 Smith in 1802, and had learned from him the results of his dis- 

 coveries. 



Mr. Smith, in a letter to Mr. Eichardson, of Bath, dated from 

 Woburn, Feb. 1, 1802, writes : " The last week was spent in sur- 

 veying distant properties belonging to the Duke, and investigating 



sediments were undergoing metamorphism. Mr. J. Arthur Phillips has made known 

 some highly valuable and suggestive facts, which seem to show that Cornish Killas 

 or slate rock is marked by a decrease of silica and alumina, and an increase of water 

 and magnesia (or lime in some cases), the more it assumes a metamorphic condition — 

 thus passing into a substance approaching to serpentine. (See Philosophical Magazine, 

 February, 1871.) 



