Eminent Living Geologists — Prof. Phillips. 303 



In 1821 " he walked through the eastern parts of Yorkshire, and 

 rejoined Mr. Smith at Doncaster, and from this point accompanied 

 him in a walking excursion through the coal district of the West 

 Riding." In a similar way, with his uncle for his guide and in- 

 structor, Mr. Phillips very carefully surveyed other districts, es- 

 pecially Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire, and the Lake district. 

 In the "■ Memoirs of William Smith " (from which we quote) we find 

 many indications of the way in which Mr. Phillips acquired, under 

 his able teacher, his knowledge of geology and mineralogy ; a few 

 brief quotations will show this. "Innumerable rambles led us up 

 every glen and across every hill, now sketching waterfalls, anon 

 tracing the boundaries of rocks, or marking the direction of ' diluvial ' 

 detritus. . . . For twO' or three months we were incessant! 3' occupied 

 by investigations of the lead and copper mines actually working, or of 

 which ancient traces remained, in High Pike, Can-oek, and the Cald- 

 beck Fells^ . ► . In the examination which Mr. Smith made of this 

 interesting district, the writer was closely associated, and was stimu- 

 lated by the extraordinary variety of the minerals in the veins, and 

 in the syenitic and porphyritic rocks, to investigate their crystal- 

 line structures and chemical composition,, theoretically and experi- 

 mentally." 



In this happy dream of the future expansion of geology, the actual 

 professional wo'rk was too often forgotten by William Smith, and at 

 length he found himself compelled tO' give up his London residence, 

 and wander at "his own sweet will" among those rocks which had 

 been so fatal to his prosperity, though so favourable to his renown. 



In the spring of 1824 Mr. Smith accepted the invitation of the 

 Yorkshire Philosophical Society, then Mtely e&tablished, and went 

 to York to deliver a course of lectures on geology. John Phillips 

 was his companion. This was the crisis of his fate. Mr. Phillips 

 was entrusted with the task of arranging the fossils of the Society's 

 Museum, and in the following year he was appointed its keeper. In 

 1826 Mr. Phillips read a paper before this Society " On the Direc- 

 tion of the Diluvial Currents of Yorkshire," printed, in 1827, in the 

 " Pliilosophical Magazine ;" this was his first contribution to geo- 

 logical literature. In 1 829 the collections of the York Museum were 

 removed to a new building erected in the grounds of St. Mary's 

 Abbey. The gate-house of the monastery was rebuilt and fitted up 

 by the Keeper, and here John Phillips felt himself in thoroughly 

 congenial quarters, which he occupied until 1853. Yorkshire became 

 the field of his labours, and with great industry he thoroughly ex- 

 plored that beautiful county. There was scarcely a hill which he 

 did not climb, or a valley which he did not explore. He made more 

 than a thousand barometric observations to determine the physical 

 character of the county, and gave the world the result, in his " Illus- 

 trations of the Geology of Yorkshire," and subsequently in his 

 " Rivers, Mountains, and Sea-coasts of Yorkshire," in which he tells 

 us his aim was " to win from the hasty traveller an hour's delay 

 at a railway-station, a day's wanderings by the waterfalls, a week's 

 rambling over rocky hills, and to plead with the residents of York- 



