ORIGIN OF STRATIGRAPHICAL GEOLOGY. 6 1 



f'fine white sand], Roche Abbey and Brotherton 

 imes Strata oi Yorkshire. This table was 



given to Henry Cavendish, who preserved it. 



Mr. John Whitehurst in 1778 gave an account 

 of the Geological structure of Derbyshire; and 

 remarks: the strata follow each other in a regu- 

 lar succession, both as to thickness and quality, 

 insomuch that by knowing the incumbent stra- 

 tum, together with the arrangement thereof in 

 any particular part i)i the earth, we come to a 

 perfect knowledge of all the inferior beds, so far 

 'hey have been previously discovered in the 

 adjacent country. 



Smeaton in [786 expressed his belief that the 



Lias extends from Watchet in Somersetshire to 



tow in Leicestershire, probably with few 



iks in continuity, and through the vale of 



Belvoir into Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, 

 beyond Grantham and Long Bennington. 



There is no reason to believe that William 

 th had heard of any of these observations. 



He was born 23rd March 1769, at Churchhill in 



, Oxfordshire, upon the Oolites. He became a 

 land surveyor and engineer; and at the age of 



twenty-one had found out for himself the succes- 

 sion of such rocks as he had seen, and had begun 

 to compare the appearances at one locality with 

 those observed at a distance. His work was dis- 

 tinguished from that of all predecessors by his 

 method of untiring persistence in observing facts 

 of stratification ; activity in comparing, extending 

 and establishing the conclusions to which those 

 observations led; and care in recording upon his 

 map nothing but what he had seen and proved. 

 This work caused him to be known through the 

 country as Strata Smith ; recognised among geol- 



