294 Geological Surveys in Great Britain, <&c. 



re- arranging them all in stratigraphical order : — " These came 

 from the blue lias, these from the overlying sand and freestone, 

 these from the fuller's earth, and these from the Bath building- 

 stones." A new and unexpected light was thrown upon the whole 

 subject, and thenceforth the Rev. Samuel Richardson became his 

 disciple and warmest advocate. But " Strata Smith" was too 

 obscure and unscientific to be at once received as an apostle by 

 the more distinguished geologists of the day. Could a country 

 land surveyor pretend to teach them something more than was 

 known to Werner and Hutton ? He might preach about strata 

 and their fossils through the length and breadth of England, but 

 the structure of the Earth was not to be unravelled in this un- 

 learned manner. Established geologists therefore pooh-poohed 

 him, and it took many a long year before his principles, working 

 their way, took effect on the geological mind. This long-delayed 

 result was chiefly due to the discrimination of the now venerable 

 Doctor Fitton ; and the first geologists of the day learned from a 

 busy land surveyor that superposition of strata is inseparably con- 

 nected with the succession of life in time. The grand vision in- 

 dulged in by the old physicist Hook was at length realized, and 

 it was indeed possible to " build up a terrestrial chronology from 

 rotten shells" embedded in the rocks. Now there could be no 

 mistake that the time had arrrived to do him honour, and through 

 Sedgwick, the President of the Geological Society, William Smith 

 was presented with the Wollaston medal, and hailed as " the 

 Father of English Geology ;" and his reputation still further 

 ripening, he was ultimately created LL.D. by the University of 

 Oxford. 



But during all this time he did not confine himself to the pro- 

 mulgation of his doctrines by words alone. By incessent journeys 

 to and fro, on foot and on horseback, in gigs, chaises, and on the 

 tops of stage coaches, he traversed the length and breadth of the 

 land, and, maturing his knowledge of its rocks, constructed the 

 first geological map of England. It was a work so masterly in 

 conception, and so correct in general outline, that in principal it 

 served as a basis not only for the production of later maps of the 

 British Islands, but for geological maps of all other parts of the 

 world, wherever they have been undertaken ; and thus the faintly 

 expressed hope of Lister (1683) was accomplished, that if such and 

 such soils and the underlying rocks were mapped, " something 

 more might be comprehended from the whole, and from every 



