274 



without any assistance from them*. But I will go further, and affirm, 

 that had they all been known to him, they would take nothing 

 from the substantial merit of his discoveries. Fortunately placed in a 

 country where all our great secondary groups are brought near toge- 

 ther, he became acquainted in early life with many of their complex 

 relations. He saw particular species of fossils in particular groups of 

 strata, and in no others ; and giving generalization to phenomena, 

 which men of less original minds would have regarded as merely 

 local, he proved (so early as 1791) the continuity of certain groups 

 of strata, by their organic remains alone, where the mineral type was 

 wanting. He made large collections of fossils ; and the moment an 

 opportunity presented itself he arranged them all stratigraphically. 

 Having once succeeded in identifying groups of strata by means of their 

 fossils, he saw the whole importance of the inference — gave it its ut- 

 most extension — seized upon it as the master principle of our science 

 — by help of it disentangled the structure of a considerable part of 

 England — and never rested from his labours till the public was fairly 

 in possession of his principles. If these be not the advances of 

 an original mind, I do not know where we are to find them ; and I 

 affirm with confidence, after the facts already stated, that the Council 

 were justified in the terms of their award, and that Mr. William 

 Smith was " 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." 



* I am anxious to do no injustice to those who preceded Mr. Smith. No part of 

 Woodward's collection was arranged stratigraphically — Michell, who occupied 

 the Woodwardian Chair several years, was of course intimately acquainted with 

 every part of this collection: but I do not think he made any use of it as a means 

 of determining the order of superposition. There is, however, one passage in 

 his celebrated paper " On the Cause and Phenomena of Earthquakes" (Phil. 

 Trans, vol. li. p. 587), which I am bound to notice. It is as follows : " These 

 inequalities are sometimes so great, that the strata are bent for some small distance, 

 even the contrary way from the general inclination of them. This often makes 

 it difficult to trace the appearances I have been relating ; which, without a general 

 knowledge of the fossil bodies of a large tract of country, it is hardly possible to 

 do." I am almost certain, that by the term fossil, he did not intend organic re- 

 mains. In the works and catalogues of Dr. Woodward (with which of course 

 Michell was most familiar), and in the language of naturalists of the last 

 century, every mineral substance was designated under the general term Jvssil ,• 

 and organic remains were almost always distinguished by the name of extraneous 

 fossils, organic fossils, &c, &c. The memorandum, by which it is proved that 

 Michell had a knowledge of the true relations of several of our secondary groups, 

 was found by accident among the papers of Sir Joseph Banks, and published in 

 1810. It could not, therefore, have possibly been known to Mr. Smith during 

 the progress of his discoveries. (See Tilloch's Philosophical Magazine, vol. xxxvi. 

 p. 102.) 



Since the Anniversary, I have looked over the paper in which Lister recom- 

 mends the construction of mineral maps (Phil. Trans, vol. xiv. p. 730 : 1684). 

 It is clear that he had no correct notions on the nature of stratification ; and 

 his opinions on organic remains were, as is well known, most erroneous and un- 

 philosophical. All these questions are discussed at considerable length, and with 

 great ability and candour, in an article of the Edinburgh Review (vol. xxix. 

 p. 311, &c), now known to be from the pen of Dr. Fitton. To this article I par- 

 ticularly wish to refer the reader. 



