SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



235 



the scientific world might be made acquainted 

 with the results of original research ; so we 

 find Smith taking his ideas before the local 

 agricultural societies, where " Strata Smith," 

 as he was nick-named, became a bore and a 

 nuisance. 



However, his ideas gradually became known and 

 his conclusions accepted, and when, later, he went 

 northwards into Yorkshire, he became acquainted 

 with many a man who was destined to occupy 

 a distinguished place in the galaxy of scientific 

 worthies. Foremost among these may be mentioned 

 John Phillips and the Williamson family. Prof. 

 J. Phillips was a nephew of W. Smith, and had 

 been busy collecting and describing the fossils of 

 the mountain limestone district of Yorkshire, and 

 published in two volumes (1829-1836) a most 

 valuable work on " Illustrations of the Geology of 

 Yorkshire," the types for which were afterwards 

 bought for the British Museum, and brought 

 up to Belle Sauvage. Burglars, however, carried 

 them away as a prize, and we can imagine their 

 disgust when, opening the box at the first con- 

 venient spot — on London Bridge — they discovered 

 that their treasure-trove was but "stones," and, 

 alas ! they threw them over, and the priceless 

 specimens were gone for ever. 



It was Phillips who suggested the now familiar 

 terms — Palaeozoic, Mesozoic, and Cainozoic ; while 

 among his co-workers in Yorkshire were the 

 Williamsons, father and son. The latter, W. C. 

 WilHamson, whose death but a year or two back 

 we had to deplore, was, when Smith first made the 

 acquaintance of the family, still a boy, but later, 

 in 1835, he carried the principle of the identifica- 

 tion of beds by their fossil contents a step farther 

 by the recognition of district "zones," character- 

 ized by an assemblage of forms of ammonites, etc., 

 having but short vertical range. Later he took up 

 the study of palaeo-botany, which had already 

 been worked at in France by Adolphe Brong- 

 niart, by Count Sternberg in Germany, and by 

 Lindley and others in this country, and by his 

 researches on the "coal-balls" of the coal 

 measures brought out the brilliant results on which 

 our knowledge of the magnificent cryptogamic 

 flora of the Carboniferous period is so largely 

 based. 



About this time (1838) a little society was founded 

 by a few London geologists, which was destined later 

 to develop into the Palaeontographical Society, 

 which has ever since undertaken the publication of 

 all important monographs on this subject in this 

 country. The original society, known as the 

 " London Clay Club," consisted of Dr. Bowerbank, 

 Searles V. Wood, Professor John Morris, Alfred 

 White, Nathaniel T. Wetherell, James de Carle 

 Sowerby and Frederick E. Edwards, and was 

 originally formed to illustrate the Eocene Mollusca. 



Excavations at Highgate Archway and elsewhere 

 had brought to light a large number of fossils, and 

 already James Sowerby and his son, James de Carle 

 Sowerby, had written and illustrated a great work, 

 which was appearing in parts (1812-45), "The 

 Mineral Conchology of Great Britain," consisting of 

 six volumes, illustrated with 64S plates, representing 

 with skill and fidelity the forms described, which 

 were drawn from every geological formation and 

 from every part of England. The work was carried 

 on in great detail by the members of the Clay 

 Club, and later the Palaeontographical Society, 

 the first volume, issued in 1847, being "The Crag 

 Mollusca," by Searles V. Wood, the magnifi- 

 cent collection for which, occupying thirty years 

 in its formation, is now deposited in the Natural 

 History Museum, together with the Edwards 

 collection of Eocene Mollusca, which represents 

 the most complete collection ever attempted 

 by any geologist, and which still remains 

 unrivalled. 



Our task is now completed. We have attempted 

 to trace out, necessarily in a sketchy manner, the 

 line of development of a branch of knowledge 

 which, though in a strictly scientific sense, is 

 such a new one that Cuvier and Lamarck may 

 justly be called its founders and the present 

 century its range in time, yet can be traced in 

 an incipient form far back into the dim regions 

 of antiquity. 



The names we have mentioned are but a few 

 among the long list of worthies whose works form 

 landmarks by which the history may be traced ; 

 did space permit their ranks might be swelled by 

 many whose claims to our attention are scarcely 

 less important. Nor is it our intention in the 

 present article to carry on the thread of our history 

 up to the present time. We might point out the 

 effects of the immortal genius of Charles Darwin 

 (whose work has revolutionized the v.'hole of modern 

 thought, and not least the study of fossils), following 

 in the wake of the great school of uniformitarianism, 

 founded by Hutton, Lyell, Playfair and others. 

 These have shown how wild were the dreamy 

 speculations of the catastrophists, with their 

 innumerable convulsions, cataclysms, inundations 

 and special creations. 



The development of the great idea of evolution 

 in organic life has given a meaning to the succes- 

 sion of ever-differentiating types disclosed by the 

 patient labours of Smith, Murchison, Sedgwick 

 and others. Not only is the present the key to unlock 

 the past, in the language of uniformitarianism, but 

 the past has become a key by which alone we can 

 understand many of the problems which confront 

 us v.ith respect to the existing forms. If we are 

 to understand truly the full meaning and relation- 

 ships of the existing animals and plants, we must 

 know those of the past, now perhaps extinct, to 



