MISS ETHELDRED BENETT (1775-1845): HER CORRESPONDENCE 33 
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Sketches by Miss Benett of fossils in her collection that headed a list of her comments on some fossils sent her by Gideon Mantell 
(letter, 14 December 1817), but they are not referred to in her letter and only briefly acknowledged in Mantell’s reply of 31 January 
1818. In the centre, the fragment of an ammonite she named ‘Drepanites striatus’ figured in her Catalogue (1831, pl. 16, upper 
left). The original specimen (ANSP 66006) is now in the Invertebrate Paleontology Department, Academy of Natural Sciences, 
Philadelphia, identified as Hyphoplites pseudofalcatus (Semonov, 1899). See Spamer, Bogan and Torrens (1989), 145-9. 
Notes 
' Woodward, H.B., 1911: see p. 126 In History of Geology. 
2 
Watts & Co., London: vit+154 pp. 
Cleevely, R. J., 1998a and 1998b, ‘ >? The first female 
palaeontologist; & Picture Quiz reply.’ The Linnean, 
14 (2):4-9; 25-6. 
Mantell, G.A., 1822, see p. 177 In Fossils of the South 
Downs, where he named the Cretaceous sponge 
Ventriculites benettiae after her. 
* Mantell, G.A., 1846, [From a Correspondent] Obituary. 
5 
Miss Etheldred Benett. London Geological Fournal, 
1846:40. 
This quote of Cunnington’s was used by Miss Benett in 
the introduction to her catalogue (p.iii); James 
Sowerby published something very similar in his 
Mineral Conchology, Vol. 1, 1813:146, when referring 
to fossils from Chute Farm. Sarah Nash (1990) trying 
to locate the site, could only find a ‘Brims Down’ (p. 
163) and reported (p.165)that a site known as 
‘Picket’s Field’ exposed similar deposits. 
‘William Smith’s  stratigraphical principles’: 
stratigraphy is the term given to the study of the 
occurrence of the earth’s rock formations, the 
principles of which were first established by Smith in 
1815 with the publication of his geological map 
(Winchester, Simon , ‘The Map that changed the 
World’, Penguin Books). However, these ideas nad 
been formulated in part by several other workers. 
Smith’s ‘Law of Super-position’ recognised that in 
normal circumstances the youngest deposits will rest 
on the older and that the succession of rock 
formations will follow bed upon bed in chronological 
order. Inevitably earth movements will disturb the 
original sequence and can cause complications such 
as inversions through folding and other earth 
movement, or dislocations through faulting, both of 
which can be confused further by erosion. Smith’s 
7 
second principle was that layers of sediment can be 
recognised by means of the fossils they contain. This 
enables geologists to correlate certain formations, 
although occurring in different places and even of 
different lithologies, on the basis of identical fossils. 
For other references to Smith see: Joan Eyles, 
Dictionary of Scientific Biography, 12, 1975: 486-92. 
John Baker (fl. 1814-50) lived at Warminster and 
supplied the local Upper Greensand fossils to many 
19th century collectors including the Sowerby 
family. 
8 Miss Beminster (fl, 1820s) lived at Christchurch and 
9 
10 
1] 
Hordle, Hants.; she corresponded and collected for 
James Sowerby. 
Torrens, H.S., Benamy, E., Daeschler, E.B., Spamer, 
E.E. & Bogan, A.E., 2000, ‘Etheldred Benett of 
Wiltshire, England, the first lady geologist - Her 
fossil collection in the Academy of Natural Sciences 
of Philadelphia, and the rediscovery of “lost” 
specimens of Jurassic ‘Trigoniidae (Mollusca 
:Bivalvia) with their soft anatomy preserved.’ 
Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Science of 
Philadelphia, 150:59-123. 
The species have been re-determined by Dr. Mike 
Kerney (pers. comm.) as: Helix palustris = Lymnaea 
palustris (Miller); Helix planorbis = Planorbis 
planorbis (L.); Helix spirorbis = Anisus leucostoma 
(Millet); Helix vortex = Anisus vortex (L.); Helix alba 
= Gyraulus albus (Miller); Helix contorta = 
Bathyomphalus contortus (L.); Helix hispida = Trichia 
hispida (L.); Bulla fontanalis = Physa fontinalis (L.); 
Helix stagnalis = Lymnaea stagnalis (L.); Helix 
annularis = ? Cepaea nemoralis (L.) 
This was very probably William Buckland’s Reliquiae 
Diluvianae; or Observations on the organic remains 
contained in the caves, fissures, and diluvial gravel, 
published in 1823, that related fossil remains, 
particularly those he had discovered in the Kirkdale 
