6 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL INVERTEBRATE ANIMALS. 



G-allery XI. already in Case 2, where are exhibited specimens from the 



^^2 3^^^^ Chalk, many forms have an unfamiliar appearance, and 

 indeed belong to types of life which no longer exist. A like 

 strangeness characterises the Jurassic fossils, but is still more 



Wall-eases noticeable among the older rocks : thus Case 4 contains some 

 of the curious plants from the Coal Measures, while in Case 5 

 are fragments of Old Eed Sandstone with the strange fishes 

 characteristic of that period. Closer inspection would show 

 that this change was gradual and continuous, and that each 

 of the successive beds of rock was characterised by fossils 

 dift'ering from those found in the beds above and below. 

 Sometimes the bed itself may change in mineralogical 

 character, while the fossils remain the same. Therefore, 

 when once a geologist knows the fossils characteristic of the 

 various strata he can. if set down in any part of the country, 

 readily determine on which bed in the geological series he is 

 standing, if only he can find a few fossils. 

 Between The credit, at least so far as British geology is concerned, 



^O^&^ll^^ of first recognising this important fact is due to William 

 Smith (Plate II), whose bust, a copy of that by Chaiitrey in 

 All Saints' Church, Northampton, is on the eastern wall of 

 the Gallery. The son of a small farmer and mechanic, Smith 

 was born at Churchill, Oxfordshire, in 1769, and at an early 

 age collected the fossils that occur in the rocks around his 

 home. When the boy was eight years old his father died, 

 leaving him to the care of an uncle who, noticing the 

 studious habits of his nephew, gave him some money to buy 

 books. By means of these he taught himself to such 

 purpose that at the age of eighteen he obtained employment 

 as a land surveyor in Oxfordshire and the neighbouring 

 counties and, in 1793, was appointed to survey the course 

 of the intended Somersetshire coal canal near Bath. Six 

 years' work on this canal, added to his previous knowledge, 

 enabled him to prove that the strata met with in this 

 district followed each other in a regular and orderly 

 succession, each bed being marked by its own characteristic 

 fossils, and having a general tendency to slope or dip to the 

 S.E. That this succession was no local phenomenon, and 

 that the same fossils were throughout characteristic of the 

 same beds, was subsequently proved by Smith in his 

 journeyings over the greater part of Britain. The surveys 

 made on these journeyings enabled him, in 1815, to publish 

 the large map exhibited on the right hand of the entrance 

 to this Gallery. This, the first geological map of England 



