30 Adjudication of the Wollaston Medal. 



to believe, not only that " English science was in a degraded and 

 declining condition," but that " the few rewards which genius 

 can command, are not judiciously conferred." 



The late Dr. Wollaston left the Geological society £1000, and 

 directed the interest to be applied in " promoting researches con- 

 cerning the mineral structure of the earth, or in rewarding those 

 by whom such researches might hereafter be made ; or in such 

 manner as should appear to the council of the said society for 

 the time being, conducive to the interest of the society in par- 

 ticular, or the science of geology in general." He also enjoined 

 the society " not to hoard the dividends parsimoniously, but to 

 expend them liberally, and, as far as might be, annually, in fur- 

 thering the objects of the trust." 



On the 18th of February, 1831, the first award of this valuable 

 and most honourable medal, was made to Mr. W. Smith, " in 

 consideration of his being a great original discoverer in English 

 geology ; and especially for his having been the first in this country ^ 

 to discover and to teach the identification of strata, and to determine 

 their succession, by means of their embedded fossils.^* 



William Smith, a mineral surveyor by profession, drew up his 

 tabular view of the strata exhibited in the district of Bath, in 

 1790. Upon this he subsequently raised the great geological 

 truth of the regular succession of the formations. In 1815 his 

 geological map of England appeared. This astonishing perform- 

 ance of an unassisted individual drew praises from all Europe. 

 D'Aubuisson said of him, " That which the most distinguished 

 mineralogists have effected for a small portion of Germany, in 

 half a century, William Smith has undertaken and done for all 

 England." What Newton did for our knowledge of the universe, 

 by announcing the law of gravity, William Smith has done for 

 our knowledge of the systematic structure of the crust of the 

 earth, by making us acquainted vdth the unerring language of 

 embedded fossils. To one mind only, belongs the glory of opening 

 the eyes of mankind, to each of these great truths. That glory 

 is indivisible in its nature. No human being, whilst time and 

 civilization shall endure, can, from the nature of the case, ever 

 dispute Mr. Smith's claims to this distinction. 



We put it to the candour of Dr. Brewster himself, a distin- 

 guished benefactor to science, whether, upon the first distribution 

 of WoUaston's honour, it was not justly and nobly done by the 



