10 
DAVIS : PRO. PHILLIPS. 
fossils, to his curiously ricli old library, and sympathy with all 
good knowledge I may justly attribute whatever may be thought 
to have beea my own success in following pursuits which he opened 
to my mind." 
From the rectory of Farleigh, John Phillips returned to his 
uncle Smith, whose house overlooked the Thames from Bucking- 
ham Street. William Smith at this time was in the exercise of a 
lucrative and honourable profession ; he had for many years been 
at work on his great " Map of the Strata of England and Wales," 
which wa.s published in 1815. " His home was full of maps, 
sections, models and collections of fossils ; and his hourly talk was 
of the laws of stratification, the succession of organic life, the 
practical value of geology ; its importance in agriculture, engineer- 
ing and commerce ; its connection with physical geography, the 
occupations of different people, and the distribution of different 
races. In this happy dream of the future expansion of geology, his 
actual professional work was forgotten, until at length he had 
thrown into the gulf of the strata all his little patrimony and all 
his little gains, and he gave up his Ijondon residence, and wandered 
at his own sweet will among those rocks which had been so fatal 
to his prosperity, though so favourable to his renown." In all the 
pursuits and cares of his uncle, John Philliiis had his share; they 
were never separated in act or thought, and so his mind came to 
be moulded on that of his uncle. 
In 1824, they accepted an invitation to give a course of 
lectures on geology at York, aud from that time Phillips was 
constantly engaged in Yorkshire to give lectures and arrange 
museums, and many valuable friendships were created in its 
several towns; thus " the great county, in which thirty thoughtful 
years were afterwards passed, became known to me as probably to 
no others. The generous Yorkshire people gave do stinted 
remuneration for my efforts to be useful ; and T employed freely 
all the funds which came to my hands in acquiring new and 
strengthening old knowledge, so as to be able to offer instruction in 
