WILLIAMSON: JOHN WILLIAMSON. 
303 
is this the only geological feature that makes this coast so interesting. 
The Speeton clay, in which the Cretaceous and Oolitic strata 
are blended in an apparently unbroken continuity, and from which 
such palseontological treasures were destined to be drawn, was as 
yet an unexplored mine. Hence the two young geologists entered 
into the possession of a palaeontplogical estate of rare value, and by 
their future labours they showed how well they were entitled to 
that possession. Their wanderings led them from Skinningrave, on 
the north, to Flambrough Head, on the south ; inland, the quarries 
in the Middle Oolites of Weaponess and Seamer, of Ayton and 
Malton, as well as those in the Kelloway Rocks of Hackness and 
Scarborough, contributed richly to their accumulating collections. 
While they were thus working, two literary events of very 
different degrees of importance occurred. One was the publication, 
in 1817, of Smith's " Strata identified." The other was the appear- 
ance, in 1822, of Young and Bird's Geological survey of the 
Yorkshire coast." In the former work, Yorkshire fossils were but 
incidentally noticed ; but the latter aimed at being a " full and 
accurate survey of the whole coast, from the Humber to the Tees." 
So long as its authors confined themselves to delineating the general 
range of the strata in the district which they surveyed, and to 
figuring the few fossils with which they were familiar, the publica- 
tion of this work constituted a step in advance of what had 
hitherto been published. At the same time, a more utterly unphilo- 
sophical publication has rarely appeared. Saturated from title-page 
to colophon with the most consistent acceptance of the Mosaic 
Cosmogony, the volume is replete with speculative nonsense. The 
accurate, though rough figures of the more common fossils, drawn 
by the accomplished artist, John Bird, constituted the most useful 
parts of the volume. 
But a very different contribution to our knowledge of the 
geology of the district was being quietly prepared. The late 
Professor Phillips, the nephew of William Smith, spent much of 
his time from 1817 to^l824 in assisting his uncle, to survey various 
parts of Eastern Yorkshire. Then becoming curator of the Museum 
of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, he discovered, in their 
